Twelve Catholic men of science / edited by Sir Bertram Windle.

  • Bertram Coghill Alan Windle
Date:
1912
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Twelve Catholic men of science / edited by Sir Bertram Windle. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    tions. The interest that his teaching excited may be gathered from the fact that over four hundred students were in attendance at his lectures. Besides Sylvius, Gunther of Andemach in Germany was also teaching in Paris, and with both of these distinguished professors, Vesalius, owing partly to the deep interest he displayed in the subject, and partly to the influence he was able to exert because of letters of introduction from court physicians, became intimately associated. It was at Paris that Vesalius first showed the practical temper of his character and his intense desire to learn anatomy at first hand. The dissections used to be done by the barber surgeons, rather ignorant men, who knew little of their work, but the demonstrators in anatomy at this time considered it beneath them to use the knife them- selves. Vesalius, however, insisted on doing his dis- sections for himself. Not being able, however, to secure facilities for study and opportunities for original work such as he desired, Vesalius did not remain long at Paris, but returned after a year to his home in the Low Countries. At Louvain he continued his anatomical studies, finding it difficult enough to procure human material, but using such as might come to hand. The story is told of his first successful attempt to get a complete skeleton. A felon had been executed just outside the walls of Louvain some time before, and his remains, according to the legal regulations of that time, were allowed to swing in chains on the gibbet until the birds had eaten his flesh and the wind and rain had bleached his bones. Needless to say, these bones were a great temptation to Vesalius. Finally, one night he and a fellow student stole out of the town and robbed the gibbet of its treasure. In order to accomplish their task—no easy one, because the skeleton was fastened to the beams of the scaffold by iron shackles—they had to remain outside the gates of the city all night. Unable to carry it all back at one 29
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