The study of
anatomy at Padua must have declined since the days of Vesalius if this
tiny amphitheatre held all its students; none the less, it is probably
the oldest existing anatomical lecture room, and for us it has a very
special significance.
Early in his anatomical studies Fabricius had demonstrated the valves in
the veins. I show you here two figures, the first, as far as I know, in
which these structures are depicted. It does not concern us who first
discovered them; they had doubtless been seen before, but Fabricius
first recognized them as general structures in the venous system, and he
called them little doors--"ostiola."
The quadrangle of the university building at Padua is surrounded by
beautiful arcades, the walls and ceilings of which are everywhere
covered with the stemmata, or shields, of former students, many of them
brilliantly painted. Standing in the arcade on the side of the "quad"
opposite the entrance, if one looks on the ceiling immediately above the
capital of the second column to the left there is seen the stemma which
appears as tailpiece to this chapter, put up by a young Englishman,
William Harvey, who had been a student at Padua for four years. He
belonged to the "Natio Anglica," of which he was Conciliarius, and
took his degree in 1602.
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