me; and on the
same day there similarly perished the whole of my paraphrase on the ten
books of Rhazes to King Almansor, which had been composed by me with far
more care than the one which is prefaced to the ninth book. With
these also went the books of some author or other on the formulae and
preparation of medicines, to which I had added much matter of my own
which I judged to be not without utility; and the same fate overtook all
the books of Galen which I had used in learning anatomy, and which I had
liberally disfigured in the usual fashion. I was on the point of leaving
Italy and going to Court; those physicians you know of had made to the
Emperor and to the nobles a most unfavourable report of my books and of
all that is published nowadays for the promotion of study; I therefore
burnt all these works that I have mentioned, thinking at the same time
that it would be an easy matter to abstain from writing for the future.
I must show that I have since repented more than once of my impatience,
and regretted that I did not take the advice of the friends who were
then with me."

There is no such pathetic tragedy in the history of our profession.
Before the age of thirty Vesalius had effected a revolution in anatomy;
he became the valued physician of the greatest court of Europe; but call
no man happy till he is dead! A mystery surrounds his last days. The
story is that he had obtained permission to perform a post-mortem
examination on the body of a young Spanish nobleman, whom he had
attended. When the body was opened, the spectators to their horror saw
the heart beating, and there were signs of life! Accused, so it is said,
by the Inquisition of murder and also of general impiety he only escaped
through the intervention of the King, with the condition that he make a
pilgrimage to the Holy Land. In carrying this out in 1564 he was wrecked
on the island of Zante, where he died of a fever or of exhaustion, in
the fiftieth year of his age.

To the North American Review, November, 1902, Edith Wharton contributed
a poem on "Vesalius in Zante," in which she pictures his life, so
full of accomplishment, so full of regrets--regrets accentuated by the
receipt of an anatomical treatise by Fallopius, the successor to the
chair in Padua! She makes him say:

There are two ways of spreading light; to be
The candle or the mirror that reflects it.
I let my wick burn out--there yet remains
To spread an answeri