FALLO'PIUS, GABRIEL, a celebrated anatomist, b. at or near Modena, about the year 1523 (this date, however, is very uncertain), and died in 1562. If the date we have assigned is correct, he was only 25 when he was promoted from the university of Ferrara to a professorship at Piza, whence, after a few years, he was called to Padua, to succeed Vesalius, who had been compelled by the inquisition to resign his office. See VESALMS. Cuvier characterizes him as one of the three savants who restored rather than created the science of anatomy in the 17th c., the two others being Vesalius and Eustachius. After a short but brilliant career, he died at the age of 40, and was succeeded by his favorite pupil, Fabricius ab Acquapeudente.
He published numerous works in various departments of medicine, of which the most important is his Observationes Anatomicee, in libros quinque digester, 1561, in which he corrects many errors into which his predecessor, Vesalius, had fallen. He was the
first to describe with accuracy the etlimoid and sphenoid bones, and the minute structure of the ear (the canal along which the facial nerve passes, after leaving the auditory, is still known as the aqueduct of F.); the muscles of the soft palate, and the villi and valvulce conniventes of the small intestine. In some of his supposed discoveries, he had been long anticipated; for example, the tubes passing from the ovary on either side to the uterus, and which bear his name, were known to, and accurately described by, Herophilus and Rufus of Ephesus,. 300 years before our era. In addition to his ana tomical fame, he had a considerable reputation as a botanist. He was the superintend ent of the botanical garden at Padua; and a genus of plants, Fallopia, has been named after him. A complete edition of his works, in four folio volumes, was published in 1600.