34 BIOLOGY AND ITS MAKERS 
The Fabrica of Vesalius was a piece of careful, honest 
work, the moral influence of which must not be overlooked. 
At any moment in the world’s history, work marked by 
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LW, 
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Lily 
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Mis 
Fic. 7.—Initial letters from 
Vesalius’s Fabrica of 1543. 
sincerity exercises a wholesome 
influence, but at this particular 
stage of intellectual develop- 
ment such work was an inno- 
vation, and its significance for 
progress was wider and deeper 
than it might have been under 
different circumstances. 
Opposition to Vesalius. — 
The beneficent results of his 
efforts were to unfold after- 
ward, since, at the time, his 
utterances were vigorously op- 
posed from all sides. Not only 
did the ecclesiastics contend 
that he was disseminating false 
and harmful doctrine, but the 
medical men from whom he 
might have expected sympathy 
and support violently opposed 
his teachings. 
Many amusing arguments 
were brought forward to dis- 
credit Vesalius, and to up- 
hold the authority of Galen. 
Vesalius showed that in the 
human body the lower jaw is 
a single bone—that it is not 
divided as it is in the dog and 
other lower mammals, and, as 
Galen had taught, also in the 
