FABRIC'IUS, emus (FABrucms) Luscncus, a Roman gen., elected consul 282 B.C., aad again in 280., He was sent, after the defeat of the Romans by Pyrrhus, to treat for the ransom and exchange of prisoners. Pyrrhus endeavored to bribe him, but all offers were rejected. At a later period, he made peace between the Romans and Pyrrhus.
FABRICIIIS;or FABRIZIO, GIROLAXO, commonly named from his birthplace F. AB ACQUAPENDENTE, a celebrated anatomist and surgeon, was b. in 1537, and d. in 1619. He was the son of humble parents who, notwithstanding their poverty, sent him to the i university of Padua, where, in addition to the usual instruction in the classics, he studied anatomy and surgery under the celebrated Fallopius with such success, that on the death of the latter in 1562, F. was appointed to fill the vacant professorship. He con tinued to hold this office for nearly half a century, during which period his high character for eloquence, general erudition, and professional knowledge, attracted students from all parts of the civilized world to the university of Padua. Amongst these students was our countryman Harvey (q.v.), who attended his prelections in 1598, and who, as will be seen in our notice of his life, derived from F.'s observations on the valves of the veins the first clue to his great discovery. He was a most laborious investigator of nature; and we find him comparing and contrasting the same organ in man, and in several of the lower animals, on a more methodical plan than had been attempted any of his predecessors. In this way lie treated of the eye, the larynx. the ear, the
intestinal canal, the development of the fetus, and many other subjects. The improve ments which his knowledge of anatomy enabled him to introduce into the practice of surgery were very great; and his Opera Chirurgica, which embraced every complaint curable by manual operation, was so highly valued, that it passed through seventeen editions. He was greatly esteemed by his fellow-citizens, for we find that the Venetian republic not only erected for him a spacious anatomical amphitheater, in which his name was inscribed, hut at the same time conferred upon him au annual stipend of a thousand crowns, and created him a knight of the order of St. Mark. A few years before his death he retired with an ample fortune, from all professional amt died (some believe he was poisoned by his relatives) at the age of 82, in his villa on Ha: banks of the Brenta, which still bears the name.Of the Montagnttola d'Aequapenden We have not space for a list of his numerous anatomical and surgical works. Upwards of a century after his death (in 1723), the celebrated anatomist Albinus collected and published a complete edition of all his anatomical and physiological works.