420 
FLETCHER. 
where it was to take place, and lords and nobles, even, 
were invited to be present. A curious manuscript of the 
14th century, which belonged to Guy de Chauliac, a famous 
French surgeon, and which is preserved in the Library of 
the Academy of Medicine of Montpellier, gives a striking 
representation of such a lecture. Women, too, were present, 
a fact which may be comforting to some of my hearers. 
The limits of this address will not permit of a detailed 
description of the early crude production and the gradual 
improvement of anatomical woodcuts and engravings. I 
shall come at once to the great man who first in all the ages, 
discarding animals, dissected the whole human body itself, 
and made known his discoveries by masterly plates which 
excite admiration to this day. 
Andreas Vesal, or Yesalius, was born in 1513 or 1514, in 
Brussels. In his student days anatomy was taught in this 
wise: The professor sat in his rostrum with much dignity, 
reading from Galen, while his assistant, sometimes a barber 
surgeon, sometimes only a servant, armed with a razor, made 
incisions under the direction of his master. Dogs and pigs 
were the ordinary subjects for dissection. Human bodies 
were rarely obtained. Vesalius relates that he only saw 
three during the three years of his studies in Paris. Such 
an examination was almost limited to an inspection of the 
viscera, and there seems to have been no demonstration of 
the muscular system. 
When Vesalius became professor of anatomy and surgery 
at Padua his fame as a master of human anatomy attracted 
students from all parts of Europe. He had early discovered 
that Galen’s knowledge of anatomy was the result of the 
dissection of monkeys, which animals that writer had sup¬ 
posed to exactly resemble man. His bold announcement 
of the errors of the teacher so long held to be an infallible 
authority brought upon him severe animadversions from 
those who worshipped Galen and were, beside, jealous of the 
daring young innovator. 
His great work was published at Basle, in 1543. It is be¬ 
lieved that Titian undertook the illustrations, and it is cer- 
