such an untimely end
as a martyr to science, was Andrew Vesalius (1514-1564), who is called
the "greatest of anatomists." At the time he came into the field
medicine was struggling against the dominating Galenic teachings and
the theories of Paracelsus, but perhaps most of all against the
superstitions of the time. In France human dissections were attended
with such dangers that the young Vesalius transferred his field of
labors to Italy, where such investigations were covertly permitted, if
not openly countenanced.

From the very start the young Fleming looked askance at the accepted
teachings of the day, and began a series of independent investigations
based upon his own observations. The results of these investigations
he gave in a treatise on the subject which is regarded as the first
comprehensive and systematic work on human anatomy. This remarkable work
was published in the author's twenty-eighth or twenty-ninth year. Soon
after this Vesalius was invited as imperial physician to the court of
Emperor Charles V. He continued to act in the same capacity at the court
of Philip II., after the abdication of his patron. But in spite of this
royal favor there was at work a factor more powerful than the influence
of the monarch himself--an instrument that did so much to retard
scientific progress, and by which so many lives were brought to a
premature close.

Vesalius had received permission from the kinsmen of a certain grandee
to perform an autopsy. While making his observations the heart of the
outraged body was seen to palpitate--so at least it was reported. This
was brought immediately to the attention of the Inquisition, and it was
only by the intervention of the king himself that the anatomist escaped
the usual fate of those accused by that tribunal. As it was, he was
obliged to perform a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. While returning from
this he was shipwrecked, and perished from hunger and exposure on the
island of Zante.

At the very time when the anatomical writings of Vesalius were startling
the medical world, there was living and working contemporaneously
another great anatomist, Eustachius (died 1574), whose records of his
anatomical investigations were ready for publication only nine years
after the publication of the work of Vesalius. Owing to the unfortunate
circumstances of the anatomist, however, they were never published
during his lifetime--not, in fact, until 1714. When at last they were
given to