Time will
not allow me to go into the question of the relations of these two
great anatomists, but we must remember that at this period Galen ruled
supreme, and was regarded in the schools as infallible. And now, after
five years of incessant labor, Vesalius was prepared to leave his
much loved Padua and his devoted students. He had accomplished an
extraordinary work. He knew, I feel sure, what he had done. He knew that
the MSS. contained something that the world had not seen since the great
Pergamenian sent the rolls of his "Manual of Anatomy" among his friends.
Too precious to entrust to any printer but the best--and the best in the
middle of the sixteenth century was Transalpine--he was preparing to go
north with the precious burden. We can picture the youthful teacher--he
was but twenty-eight--among students in a university which they
themselves controlled--some of them perhaps the very men who five years
before had elected him--at the last meeting with his class, perhaps
giving a final demonstration of the woodcuts, which were of an accuracy
and beauty never seen before by students' eyes, and reading his
introduction. There would be sad hearts at the parting, for never had
anyone taught anatomy as he had taught it--no one had ever known anatomy
as he knew it.
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