rgotten that he was
constantly applying his {107} knowledge of form and tissue to
function, and came to be looked upon as the leading medical
investigator of the world. It is apparently sometimes not realized,
however, that Vesalius was no mere laboratory or dissecting room
investigator. After the publication of his great work on anatomy he
set himself seriously to the application of what he had discovered to
practical medicine and surgery. He was an intensely practical man. As
a consequence, it was not long before consultations began to pour in
on him, and he came to be considered as one of the greatest medical
practitioners of his time. Ruling princes in Italy, visitors of
distinction, high ecclesiastics--all wished to have Vesalius's opinion
when their cases became puzzling. This is a side of his character that
many of his modern biographers have missed. Even Sir Michael Foster,
whose knowledge of the history of medicine, and especially of
physiology, makes one hesitate to disagree with him, seems not to have
appreciated Vesalius's interest in practical medicine. A laboratory
man himself, he was apparently not able to appreciate why Vesalius
should have given up his scientific research in Italy to accept the
post of Royal Physician to the Emperor Charles V.

Professor Foster thinks it necessary, then, to find some other reason
than the temptation of the importance of the position to account for
Vesalius's acceptance of it. He concludes that it was because of
discouragement in his purely scientific studies as a consequence of
the opposition of the Galenists. Opposition on the part of the old
conservative school of medicine there was, and some of it was rather
serious. This was not enough, however, to have discouraged Vesalius.
Professor Foster goes so far as to wax almost sentimental over the
{108} fact that the acceptance of the post of physician to Charles V.
ended Vesalius's scientific career; "for though in the years which
followed the Father of Anatomy from time to time produced something
original, and in 1555 brought out a new edition of his Fabrica,
differing chiefly from the first one, so far as the circulation of the
blood is concerned, in its bolder enunciation of its doubts about the
Galenic doctrines touching the heart, he made no further solid
addition to the advancement of knowledge. Henceforward his life was
that of a court physician much sought after and much esteemed--a life
lucrative and honorable a