V E R 
VE'RY, adv. In a great degree; in an eminent degree. 
—The Greek orator was so very famous for this, that his an¬ 
tagonist reading over the oration which had procured his 
banishment, asked them, if they were so much affected by 
the bare reading of it, how much more they would have been 
alarmed, had they heard him ? Addison. 
VERYAN, a parish of England, county of Cornwall; 
3§ miles south-west of Tregony. 
VERZIERV, a lake of European Russia, in the govern¬ 
ment of Livonia. 
VERZINO, a town of Naples, in Calabria Citra, with 
800 inhabitants. 
VERZUOLO, or Verzolo, a small inland town of 
Piedmont; 2 miles south of Saluzzo. 
VERZY, a town of France, department of the Marne, 
with 1500 inhabitants; 12 miles south-east of Rheims. 
VESALIUS (Andrew), a very eminent anatomist, was born 
at Brussels in 1513 or 1514; pursued his classical studies at 
Louvain, and with a view to medicine and anatomy, fre¬ 
quented the schools of Cologn, Montpellier, and Paris, 
attending in the last-mentioned capital, the lectures of Gun- 
thur and James Sylvius. Upon occasion of the war between 
Francis I. and Charles V., he was obliged to quit Paris, and 
in the Low Countries he served as physician and surgeon in 
the imperial troops from 1535 to 1537. In the latter year he 
removed to Padua, and taught anatomy there with great 
applause till the year 1543. He afterwards delivered lectures 
in the schools of Bologna and Pisa, and in the beginning of 
1544, he became physician to Charles V., and resided chiefly 
at the imperial court. In the midst of his career of profes¬ 
sional reputation, a singular circumstance occurred. Being 
summoned to examine by dissection the body of a Spanish 
gentleman who died in 1564, and too precipitately com¬ 
mencing the operation, a palpitation was observed in the 
heart of the subject. This incident being known to the fa¬ 
mily, Vesalius was accused before the Inquisition, and in 
order to avert some dreadful sentence, Philip II. interposed, 
and procured an injunction of a pilgrimage to the Holy Land 
as an expiatory penance. Accordingly the unfortunate ana¬ 
tomist went first to Cyprus, and from thence to Jerusalem. 
During his abode in that city, he received an invitation to 
occupy the chair of anatomy at Padua. Having, as it is 
supposed, accepted this invitation, the vessel in which he 
was returning to Europe was wrecked on the coast of Zante, 
on which island he died in 1564, about the 50th year of his 
age, and was interred in the church of the Holy Virgin at 
Zante. 
Vesalius has been represented as the first person who res¬ 
cued anatomical science from the slavery imposed upon it 
by deference to ancient opinions, and who led the way to 
modern improvements. His first publication of note was a 
set of anatomical tables, entitled “ Suorum de Corporis 
Humani Anatomie Librorum Epitome,” Basil, 1542, fol. 
max. The plates were for the most part given again in his 
great work, “ De Corporis Humani Fabrica, Lib. VII.” 
Basil, 1543, fob, which has been frequently reprinted in 
several countries. He is most correct, says one of his bio¬ 
graphers, in the bones, muscles, and viscera. The muscles, 
says Haller, he describes more accurately than any other 
writer, to the time of Winslow'. The earliest impressions of 
the plates are considered as the most valuable; but the au¬ 
thor corrected his explanations in the second Basil edition, 
1555. His treatise “ De Radicis Chinee usu Epistola,” pub¬ 
lished in 1546, contains a severe critique on the anatomy of 
Galen, and a correction of his errors; and his reply to the 
defence of Galen by Fallopio is the subject of his “ Anato- 
micarum Gabrielis Fallopii Observationum Examen,” 1561. 
The medical and chirurgical writings of Vesalius are held in 
no high estimation. His paraphrase on the ninth book of 
Rliazes, published in 1537, is a compendium of medical 
practice. After his death, his disciple, Borgarucci, pub¬ 
lished “ Chirurgia Magna" under his name, a work scarcely 
worthy of its alleged author. An edition of all the anato¬ 
mical and chirurgical works of Vesalius, with fine plates, 
was published under the care of Boerhaave and Albinus at 
V E S 367 
Leyden, 1725, 2 vols. folio. Haller. Tirabosehi. Eloy. 
Gen. Biog. 
VESAY, Cape, in the township of Marysburgh, on Lake 
Ontario, Upper Canada, is the north point, which makes 
Prince Edward’s Bay. 
VESCOVATO, a small town of Italy, in the Milanese; 
8 miles north-north-east of Cremona. 
VESCOVIO, a small inland town in the central part of 
Italy, in the States of the Church; 12 miles south of Narni. 
VESGRE, the name of two small rivers of France, the 
one of which falls into the Eure, the other into the Sarthe. 
To VE'SICATE, v. a. [vesica , Latin.] To blister.—I 
saw the cuticular vesicated, and shining with a burning heat. 
Wiseman. 
VESICA'TION, s. Blistering; separation of the cuticle. 
—I applied some vinegar prepared with litharge, defending 
the vesication with pledgets. Wiseman. 
VESI'CATORY, s. [yesicatorium, technical Latin.] A 
blistering medicine. Bullokar. 
VE'SICLE, s. [yesicula, Latin.] A small cuticle, filled 
or inflated.—Nor is the humour contained in smaller veins, 
but in a vesicle, or little bladder. Brown. 
VESl'CULAR, adj. [from vesicula, Latin.] Hollow; 
full of interstices.—A muscle is a bundle of vesicular threads, 
or of solid filaments, involved in one common membrane. 
Cheyne. 
VESLE, a river of France, department of the Marne, 
which falls into the Aisne. 
VESLING (John), a physician, anatomist, and botanist, 
was born at Minden, in Westphalia, in the year 1598; and 
having studied medicine at Padua, he travelled into Egypt, 
and upon his visit to Jerusalem, he became a knight of the 
Holy Sepulchre. Upon his return, he was appointed, in 
1652, to occupy the first chair of anatomy at Padua, lec¬ 
turing also in surgery and botany, and in 1638 superintending 
the botanical garden. In order to enrich this garden, he tra¬ 
velled to Candia, and other parts of the Levant, where he 
collected a large number of rare plants. At length, exhausted 
by Iris labours, he died at Padua in 1649, at the age of 51 
years. As an anatomist, he published “ Syntagma Anatomi- 
cum publicis Dissectionibus diligenter aptatum,” Patav. 1641, 
and again with additions and figures, Patav. 1647 ; a work 
which has been often reprinted and translated into various 
languages, and which, though for the most part a compila¬ 
tion, contains new observations, especially pertaining to the 
organ of hearing. A posthumous work, entitled “ De Pul- 
litione JEgyptiorum, et alias Observationes Anatomicae, et 
Epistolae Medicae posthumae,” Eafn. 1664, is highly com¬ 
mended by Haller, and contains some curious observations 
on the hatching of eggs in Egypt, and evolution of parts of 
the chick, the anatomy of the viper, crocodile, and hyaena, 
the human lacteals and lymphatics, &c. His principal pub¬ 
lications in botany were, “ De PlantisiEgypti Observationes, 
et Notse ad P. Alpinum,” Patav. 1638; “ Opobalsami Ve- 
teribus cogniti Vindiciae,” Patav. 1644; and “ Catalogus 
Plantarum Horti Patavini,” Patav. 1642-1644. Haller. 
Eloy. 
VESOUL, a town of France, department of the Upper 
Saone, situated near the small river Durgeon. The town 
stands in a fertile district, corn and vines being cultivated 
around it; 25 miles north-by-east of Besanfon. Population 
6000. 
VESPA, Wasp, in Entomology, a genus of the hy- 
menoptera order of insects, the characters of which are 
these: the mouth horny; the jaw compressed, without pro¬ 
boscis; the palpi or feelers four, unequal, filiform; the an¬ 
tenna filiform, the first joint being longer and cylindric; 
the eyes lunated; the body smooth; the sting concealed; 
and the upper wings plicated. This is a very extensive 
genus, comprehending, in Gmelin’s System of Linnaeus, 159 
species; but in the history and arrangement of this species 
there remains much confusion. We may observe in general, 
that they are remarkable, like those of the apis, or bee, for 
the dexterity with which they construct their nests, which in 
those of many species is of considerable size. We shall 
confine 
