hat he regarded this publication as an
infringement of his rights, and in this spirit wrote an "Examen
Observationum Fallopii," in which he decried the friend who had made
improvements on himself, as he had been decried for his improvements on
Galen. The manuscript of this work, finished at the end of December,
1561, was committed by the author to the care of Paulus Teupulus of
Venice, orator to the King of Spain, who was to give it to Fallopius.
The orator, however, did not reach Padua until after the death of
Fallopius, and he consequently retained the document until Vesalius, on
his way to Jerusalem, took possession of it, and caused it to be
published without delay. It appeared at Venice in 1564.[19]

The letter on the China root--a plant we know nowadays as
sarsaparilla--by the use of which the emperor's recovery was effected,
has been already referred to. It was addressed to the anatomist's
friend, Joachim Roelants. Very little space, however, is taken up with a
description of the medicine which gives title to the letter. Something
certainly is said of the history and nature of the plant, the
preparation of the decoction and its effects; but the writer soon
introduces the subject which was at that time of very vital importance
to him, namely, his position with regard to the statements of Galen and
his followers. He collects together various assertions of the Greek
anatomist, on the bones, the muscles and ligaments, the relations of
veins and arteries, the nerves, the character of the peritoneum, the
organs of the thorax, the skull and its contents, etc., and shows from
each and all of these that reference had not been made to the human
subject, and that therefore the statements were unreliable.

To the work on the "Fabric of the Human Body" we have already alluded,
as well as to the causes which led to its being written. More than half
of this great treatise is occupied with a minute description of the
build of the human body--its bones, cartilages, ligaments, and muscles.
It may have been owing to the thorough acquaintance which Vesalius
showed with these parts that his detractors pretended afterwards that he
only understood superficial injuries. But other branches of anatomy are
fully dealt with. The veins and arteries are described in the third
book, and the nerves in the fourth; the organs of nutrition and
reproduction are treated of in the next; while the remaining two books
are devoted to descriptions of th