Page:Great Men and Famous Women Volume 5.djvu/262

 174 WORKMEN AND HEROES thralldom of the ancients. Mundinus had published a work in the year 1315, which contained a few original observations of his own ; and his essay was so well received that it remained the text-book of the Italian schools of anatomy for upward of two centuries. It was enriched from time to time by various anno- tators, among the chief of whom were Achillini, and Berengarius, the first per- son who published anatomical plates. But the great reformer of anatomy was Vesalius, who, born at Brussels in 1514, had attained such early celebrity during his studies at Paris and Louvain, that he was invited by the Republic of Venice, in his twenty-second year, to the chair of anatomy at Padua, which he filled for seven years with the highest reputation. He also taught at Bologna, and subse- quently, by the invitation of Cosmo de* Medici, at Pisa The first edition of his work, "DeCorporis Humani Fabrica" was printed at Basle, in the year 1543 ; it is perhaps one of the most successful efforts of human industry and research, and from the date of its publication begins an entirely new era in the science of which it treats. The despotic sway hitherto maintained in the schools of medi cine by the writings of Aristotle and Galen was now shaken to its foundation, and a new race of anatomists eagerly pressed forward in the path of discovery. Among these no one was more conspicuous than Fallopius, the disciple, suc- cessor, and in fame the rival, of Vesalius, at Padua. After him the anatomical professorship was filled by Fabricius ab Aquapendente, the last of the distin- guished anatomists who flourished at Padua in the sixteenth century. Harvey became his pupil in 1599, and from this time he appears to have ap- plied himself seriously to the study of anatomy. The first germ of the discovery which has shed immortal honor on his name and country was conceived in the lecture-room of Fabricius. He remained at Padua for two years ; and having received the Degree of Doc- tor of Arts and Medicine, with unusual marks of distinction, returned to Eng- land early in the year 1602. Two years afterward he commenced practice in London and married the daughter of Dr. Launcelot Browne, by whom he had no children. He became a Fellow of the College of Physicians, when about thirty years of age, having in the meantime renewed his degree of Doctor in Medicine, at Cambridge ; and was soon after elected Physician to St. Bartholo- mew's Hospital, which office he retained till a late period of his life. On August 4, 1615, he was appointed Reader of Anatomy and Surgery to the College of Physicians. From some scattered hints in his writings it appears that his doctrine of the circulation was first advanced in his lectures at the col- lege about four years afterward ; and a note-book in his own hand-writing is still preserved at the British Museum, in which the principal arguments by which it is substantiated are briefly set down, as if for reference in the lecture-room. Yet with the characteristic caution and modesty of true genius, he continued for nine years longer to reason and experimentalize upon what is now considered one of the simplest, as it is undoubtedly the most important known law of ani- mal nature; and it was not till the year 1628, the fifty-first of his life, that he consented to publish his discovery to the world.