Ingrassias, who lived between the years 1510-1580, was a graduate of the
celebrated Paduan School. He described minutely the anatomy of the ear,
including the tympanum, fenestrae rotunda and ovalis, the cochlea, the
semi-circular canals, and the tensor tympani muscle. His admiring pupils
caused his portrait to be painted and placed in the Neapolitan School,
with this inscription:—“To Philip Ingrassias, of Sicily, who, by his
lectures, restored the science of true Medicine and Anatomy in Naples,
his pupils have suspended this portrait as a mark of grateful
remembrance”. Ingrassias was a voluminous writer, his chief work being a
treatise on osteology, which was published twenty-three years after his
death. When the plague depopulated Palermo, in 1575, his devotion was
such as to earn for him the title of the Sicilian Hippocrates. Few men
have been more earnest workers in medical science. If his fame as an
anatomist has not equalled that of others, the cause is to be sought in
the multiplicity of competitors, not in lack of zeal and ability.
[Illustration: INGRASSIAS]
CHAPTER THIRTEENTH
Commentators and Plagiarists
[Illustration: Illuminated capital]
Medical history furnishes numerous examples of literary theft. In many
instances an entire set of anatomical plates has been pirated by
unscrupulous publishers. In a few cases both text and plates have been
appropriated by medical authors. The most notorious example of this form
of theft was furnished by William Cowper (1666-1709), an English surgeon
and anatomist, who, having secured three hundred copies of Bidloo’s set
of one hundred and five anatomical plates, in 1697 issued the work[26]
as his own. Cowper added a few original illustrations to the book.
Vesalius suffered severely at the hands of the plagiarists. Pirated
editions of the _Tabulae Anatomicae_ were printed in several cities,
chiefly in Germany. As regards the _Fabrica_, we may say that it has
been the fountain from which many anatomical writers have derived
practically all of their illustrations and much of their text.
The fame of the _Fabrica_ soon spread throughout Europe. It was
published in Germany, in Holland and in England. An epitome of its
contents was issued in Latin, in 1545, by Thomas Geminus, or Gemini,
under the title:—_Compendiosa totius Anatomiae delineatio, aere exaratum
per Thomam. Geminum._ It contained forty of the Vesalian plates, cut in
copper, and was the first book issued in England in which the roller
printing process was employed. It was dedicated to Henry the Eighth, and
was embellished with “one of the earliest and most curious of all extant
engraved title-pages”.
In 1553, Geminus issued a second edition, in which the text was
translated into English. This edition was dedicated to Edward the Sixth,
with a commendatory note, “To the gentill readers and Surgeons of
Englande”. Six years later the third English edition appeared, which was
inscribed to Queen Elizabeth. It contains the first published portrait
of the Queen. She is shown upon the engraved title-page, and, strange to
say, above her is another queenly figure, with a pen in her right hand,
a wreath on her left, her foot resting on the globe, and styled
_Victoria_.
Another English work on anatomy, which is filled with poor imitations of
Vesalius’s illustrations, is the _Microcosmographia_ of Helkiah Crooke,
or Crocus, who was “Professor in Anatomy and Chirurgery”. Its chief
value rests in an elaborately engraved title-page, a part of which shows
Crooke giving a demonstration in anatomy in the presence of the
“Worshipfull Company of Barber-Chirurgeons”, in London, early in the
seventeenth century.
John Banister of Nottingham, in 1578, borrowed a few Vesalian woodcuts
for use in _The Historie of Man, sucked from the sappe of the most
approved Anatomists and published for the Utilitie of all Godly
Chirurgians within this Realme_.
Most of the host of translators, epitomizers, commentators and imitators
of Vesalius have passed into oblivion. A few of these persons have
possessed enough of individuality to deserve recognition.
Juan Valverde di Hamusco, a Spaniard who was born about the year 1500,
studied anatomy at Padua and later at Rome. His book, _Historia de la
Composicion del Cuerpo Humano_, was published at Rome in 1556. It
contains forty-two copperplates and an engraved title-page. Although the
author says he has used only the Vesalian plates, his work contains
several plates which are not to be found in Vesalius’s writings. For
example, Valverde shows a _muskelmann_ with his skin held in his right
hand, the left grasping a dagger which may have been used in the
skinning process. Other original drawings show the abdomen and
intestines, a pregnant woman with the abdomen opened, and illustrations
of the superficial veins.
Valverde was physician to Cardinal Juan de Toledo, Archbishop of
Santiago, to whom the work is dedicated. The illustrations were drawn by
Gaspar Becerra and were engraved by Nicholas Beatrizet. Valverde’s book
went through several editions. It forms a landmark in the medical
history of Spain—a country which, for many years, was behind other
states of Europe in matters of science.
To name the list of anatomical writers who have derived their artistic
inspiration from the _Fabrica_ would require much more space than is at
our disposal. It must suffice to say, that, for a period of two
centuries, nearly all treatises on anatomy contained illustrations which
were taken from the writings of Vesalius. With few exceptions, these
reproductions were little better than caricatures of the original
figures.
Of the numerous editions of the _Fabrica_ there are three which are
highly prized, namely, the first one, 1543; the second, issued in 1555,
containing eight hundred and twenty-four pages, with many changes in the
text; and the 1725 edition of the collected writings of Vesalius. The
last named is a huge volume which was published at Leyden under the
supervision of Boerhaave and Albinus, with the illustrations cut in
copper by Jan Wandelaar[27].
It contains the _Fabrica_, the _Epitome_, the _Epistola de Radicis
Chynae_, various anatomical treatises of a controversial character, and
the _Chirurgia Magna_ which has been wrongly attributed to Vesalius.
Morley says of this book:—“After his death a great work on surgery
appeared, in seven books, signed with his name, and commonly included
among his writings. There is reason, however, to believe that his name
was stolen to give value to the book, which was compiled and published
by a Venetian, Prosper Bogarucci, a literary crow, who fed himself upon
the dead man’s reputation”.
[Illustration: Ornamental block]
CHAPTER FOURTEENTH
The Court Physician
[Illustration: Illuminated capital]
Vesalius, having finished the _Fabrica_, intended to write a work on the
practice of medicine which should be based on pathology. He makes
mention of this in the preface of the _Fabrica_, and in numerous places
in the body of the book he describes the pathologic appearances which he
found in dissection.
Returning to Padua after a year’s absence, he found that the University
for which he had strenuously labored was a very hotbed of opposition.
His former pupil and friend, Realdus Columbus, who was now lecturing on
anatomy at Padua, had turned against him. How deeply Vesalius was
wounded by the man whom he had made, can be appreciated only by those
who have been placed in similar circumstances. The controversy between
Columbus and Vesalius was of a bitter and personal character.
On all sides the views of Vesalius were attacked, and the defenders of
Galen joined hands with men like Columbus in an effort to besmirch the
great anatomist. Disgusted with such treatment, Vesalius, early in 1544,
went to Pisa. Here he conducted a course in anatomy. Leaving Pisa, he
went to Bologna where he made some special dissections upon two bodies.
About this time he declined a chair in the University of Pisa which was
tendered to him by direction of Cosimo de’ Medici. Tired of the
apparently useless effort to make men see the truth, sick of disputes
and arguments, persecuted by members of his own profession, in a fit of
passion Vesalius threw his manuscripts into the fire and ended his
career as a scientist. “Thus”, says Morley, “he destroyed a huge volume
of annotations upon Galen; a whole book of Medical Formulae; many
original notes upon drugs; the copy of Galen from which he lectured,
covered with marginal notes of new observations that had occurred to him
while demonstrating; and the paraphrase of the books of Rhazes, in which
the knowledge of the Arabians was collated with that of the Greeks and
others”.
[Illustration: CHARLES THE FIFTH]
While in this frame of mind it is not surprising that he should have
accepted the appointment of Archiatrus to Charles the Fifth of Spain.
The great Emperor was now at the zenith of his fame. His kingdom, which
reached from South America to the Zuyder Zee, was well under control,
but the monarch already contemplated the abdication of the throne in
favor of his son Philip, who is known in history as Philip the Second.
Vesalius left Italy and took up his residence at Madrid. He was now in
his thirtieth year. As Archiatrus he accompanied the Emperor in the
fourth French war, in which he gained his first experience as a military
surgeon. He also acted as physician to Charles and to the members of the
imperial household. The war ended in September 1544. In January, 1545,
Charles went to Brussels, and remained in the Netherlands for many
months. Vesalius was now in his native country, and in April, 1546, he
visited the graves of his ancestors at Nymwegen and Wesel. In the same
year he published a new edition of his treatise on the China root.
On the twenty-fifth day of October, 1555, amid a scene of pomp and
splendor, in the presence of the assembled representatives of the
Netherlands, Charles formally surrendered to his son all his
territories, jurisdiction and authority in the Low-Countries. This was
the first of a series of acts by which the Emperor gradually
relinquished the reins of power, in order to spend his remaining days in
a cloister. Philip thus became the heir to a vast dominion. Vesalius was
continued in office as Archiatrus by the new Emperor. From both Charles
and Philip, Vesalius received many marks of honor. It was he who rescued
Charles from what was thought to be a mortal disease. At a later date,
when Philip’s unfortunate son, Don Carlos, received a severe injury to
the head, and after the treatment of the Spanish physicians had failed,
it was Vesalius who saved his life by an operation. These cures, and the
accurate prediction of the death-day of Maximilian d’Egmont, placed the
fame of Vesalius at high tide.
CHAPTER FIFTEENTH
Pilgrimage and Death
[Illustration: Illuminated capital]
Suddenly, early in the year 1564, for a reason which has never been
explained satisfactorily, Vesalius left Madrid. Apparently he was at the
height of success. He was famous as a physician and surgeon; he was a
favorite at the Spanish court; he had amassed a fortune; and seemingly
he was destined to pass his remaining days under the most favorable
surroundings. As occurs to all great men, he had excited the jealous
animosity of many of the members of his profession. The efforts of the
Madrid physicians to ignore the talents of one whom they regarded as a
foreigner, long since had reacted to the advantage of the Archiatrus.
[Illustration: PHILIP THE SECOND]
During the twenty years that he had filled the post of Archiatrus, the
scalpel of Vesalius was rusting: but the controversy concerning the
infallibility of Galen was still raging. The violent criticisms of
Sylvius upon the _Fabrica_ had been silenced by death, but others took
up the cause of Galen where Sylvius had left it. But the passing years
had brought a new coterie of professors, who, like Fallopius at Padua;
Rondelet at Montpellier; Massa at Venice; and Fuchs at Tübingen, were
boldly teaching many things that were contrary to Galen.
Life at the Spanish court was not favorable to the study of science.
“The hand of the Church”, says Foster[28], “was heavy on the land; the
dagger of the Inquisition was stabbing at all mental life, and its torch
was a sterilizing flame sweeping over all intellectual activity. The
pursuit of natural knowledge had become a crime, and to search with the
scalpel into the secrets of the body of man was accounted sacrilege. It
was for a life in priest-ridden, ignorant, superstitious Madrid that
Vesalius had forsaken the freedom of the Venetian Republic and the
bright academic circles of Padua; in Madrid, where, as he himself has
said, ‘he could not lay his hand on so much as a dried skull, much less
have the chance of making a dissection’. Moreover, he must have felt the
loss of Charles, who, whatever his faults, recognized the worth of
intellectual efforts, and in many ways had shown his sympathy with
Vesalius’s love of knowledge. Such sympathy could not be looked for in
the narrow and bigoted Philip”.
About this time Vesalius received a copy of the _Observationes
Anatomicae_ of his pupil Fallopius, who, having learned all that his
master had taught of anatomy, continued his studies with great skill and
industry. Such a book, coming at an opportune time, must have seemed
like a voice calling the Archiatrus back to the intellectual life,
bringing to his mind’s eye the recollection of his happy days in Italy.
Vesalius travelled to Venice by way of Perpignan. While in Venice he
visited the printer, Francesco Sanese, and discussed the publication of
a new book which should contain his reply to Fallopius. In a short time
he started for Cyprus in company with Jacobo Malatesta, the commander of
the Venetian forces in that island. Thence he passed to Jerusalem on a
pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Vesalius never returned from that journey.
Information of his death reached Brussels towards the end of that
year—1564.
What was the reason for this pilgrimage? Various alleged authorities
have given different versions, many of which are evidently fictitious.
The most reasonable account, which emanates from Spanish-French sources,
dates from a letter written January 1, 1565, to the physician Caspar
Peucer by Hubert Languer, or Hubertus Languetus, the Huguenot friend of
Philip Sidney, which says:—“They say that Vesalius is dead. Doubtless
you have heard that he went to Jerusalem. That journey had, as they tell
us from Spain, an odd reason. Vesalius, believing a young Spanish
nobleman whom he had attended to be dead, obtained leave of the parents
to open the body for the sake of inquiring into the cause of the
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, and opening the breast, saw the heart beat. The
parents coming afterwards to the knowledge of this, were not satisfied
with prosecuting him for murder, but accused him to the Inquisition of
impiety, in hopes that he would be punished with greater rigor by the
judges of that tribunal than by those of the common law. But the King of
Spain interposed, and saved him on condition that by way of atoning for
the error he should undertake a pilgrimage to the Holy Land”.
The pilgrimage was made, the Holy Sepulcher was visited, and the weary
wanderer had started for Padua to take the chair which was made vacant
by the death of Fallopius. A violent storm swept the Ionian Sea.
Vesalius’s ship was wrecked upon the island of Zakynthos, where, on the
fifteenth day of October, 1564, the Archiatrus died of exhaustion.
Such was the miserable end of Andreas Vesalius of Brussels, a man, who,
before he had attained his thirtieth year, had become the greatest
anatomist that the world has ever seen.
[Illustration: Ornamental block]