Volume 1
Medical portrait gallery : biographical memoirs of the most celebrated physicians, surgeons, etc., etc., who have contributed to the advancement of medical science / by Thomas Joseph Pettigrew.
- Date:
- [1838-1840]
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Medical portrait gallery : biographical memoirs of the most celebrated physicians, surgeons, etc., etc., who have contributed to the advancement of medical science / by Thomas Joseph Pettigrew. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.
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![“ Vesalius, (he says,) believing a young Spanish nobleman, whom he had attended, to be dead, obtained leave of his parents to open him, for the sake of inquiring into the real cause of his illness, which he had not rightly comprehended. This was granted ; but he had no sooner made an incision into the body, than he perceived the symptoms of life, for, opening the breast, he saw the heart beat. The parents, coming afterwards to the knowledge of this, were not satisfied with prose- cuting him for murder, but accused him of impiety to the inquisition, in hopes that he would be punished with greater rigour by the judges of that tribunal, than by those of the common law. But the king of Spain interposed, and saved him ; on condition, however, that, by way of atoning for the crime, he should undertake a pilgrimage to the Holy Land.” Boerhaave and Albinus say that he was condemned by the Inquisition, from which he was, by the influence of Philip, saved. Pie made the pilgri- mage with James Malatesta, general of the Venetian army, whom he accont- panied to Cyprus, whence he passed to Jerusalem. There is much in the account given to excite unbelief as to its credibility, from the extent to which dissection must necessarily be made before the heart could be exposed; yet the possibility of the muscular fibres of this organ acting by their principle of irritability, a principle unknown in the time of Vesalius, remaining even after vitality had quitted the body, may tend to sanction the state- ment made. In 1.563, the principal chair at Padua became vacant by the death of his pupil, Fallopius, and Vesalius was, at the invitation of the senate of Venice, induced to return, to succeed this celebrated physician. On his voyage, however, a storm arose—he was shipwrecked—thrown upon the island of Zante, and there perished of hunger, on October 15, 156-1. His body was recognized by a goldsmith of Venice, who procured an honourable entomb- ment for it, in the church of St. Mary, of that island, and he placed the following inscription over his grave :— AxDRE.n Vesalii Bruxellexsis Tumulus. QUl OBIIT lOIBUS OCrOBRIS, ANNO MULXIV. .ET ATIS VERO SU.E Q Ul N QU AG ESI .MO, QUUM llIEROSOLYMIS REDIISSET. Thus perished the immortal Vesalius, the greatest anatomist of his age, and one whose intimate knowledge of anatomical science w’ill ever be recorded with the highest honour. His acquaintance with the various parts of the human frame was most intimate, and he is said to have enumerated every hone placed in his hands, he being blindfolded at the time. The work of Vesalius, De Humana Cor]mris Fahrica, is to be regarded as the chief and most useful labour of his life; but not less entitled to our esteem is the opposition he afforded to the Galenists of his day, and whose hatred he incurred by the severity of his censures, and hiS' condemna- tion of the doctrines then embraced by the schools. The animosity excited by these endeavours to render medical science subject to the influence of](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21935415_0001_0403.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
