[Illustration: _And. Vesalius_]
ANDREAS
VESALIUS
THE
Reformer of Anatomy
BY
JAMES MOORES BALL, M. D.
SAINT LOUIS
MEDICAL SCIENCE PRESS
MDCCCCX
Copyrighted, 1910
By James Moores Ball
_All rights reserved_
TO THE MEMORY
OF THOSE ILLUSTRIOUS MEN
WHO
OFTEN UNDER ADVERSE CIRCUMSTANCES
AND
SOMETIMES IN DANGER OF DEATH
SUCCEEDED IN UNRAVELLING THE MYSTERIES
OF THE STRUCTURE OF THE HUMAN BODY,
TO THE FATHERS OF ANATOMY
AND
TO THE ARTIST-ANATOMISTS
THIS BOOK
IS DEDICATED
PREFACE
In the annals of the medical profession the name of Andreas Vesalius of
Brussels holds a place second to none. Every physician has heard of him, yet few know the details of his life, the circumstances under which his labors were carried out, the extent of those labors, or their far-reaching influence upon the progress of anatomy, physiology and surgery. Comparatively few physicians have seen his works; and fewer still have read them. The reformation which he inaugurated in anatomy, and incidentally in other branches of medical science, has left only a dim impress upon the minds of the busy, science-loving physicians of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. That so little should be known about him is not surprising, since his writings were in Latin and were published prior to the middle of the sixteenth century. His books, which at one time were in the hands of all the scientific physicians of
Europe, ar…