At length the genius or Greece began to burst forth From the cloud in which it had been so long shrouded, and to illumine the west of Europe with its benign influ ence. Many of the crusaders, in then expeditions against the infidels, had become acquainted with Ara bian literature, which also was derived front Greece ; and, on returning to Europe, not only pursued the study ell it with ardour, but inspired their countrymen with a similar enthusiasm. Anatomy was first ic‘ived by M dinus, a Milanese, who had become acquainted with the w ritings of Galen, through the impure medium of an Arabian translation. Wishing to illustrate the descrip tions of Galen by actual dissection, he made several observations of his own ; and, about the year 1315, pub lished the result of his enquiries, under the Form or a regular system. Though the attempt was rude, and many of the terms which he employed were Arabic, its novelty attracted general notice; and, as there was no thing of the same kind with which it could be brought into comparison, it was held in such estimation, that, for some time, the statutes of Padua allowed no other system to be taught. It thus contributed to revive a spirit for anatomical inquiries; and, for sonic time after, the surest road to fame, was to publish the system on Mundinus with commentaries.
Still, however, the reviving literature of Greece xva insufficient to dispel the gloom of ignorance and preju dice. It acquired new vigour about the middle of the 15th century, when Constantinople fell into the hands ot the Turks. That catastrophe forced Theodore, Gaza, A rgyrophilus, and other learned men, to seek an asylum in Italy, where Emanuel Chrysoloras had already been employed in disseminating knowledge. Theodore, and his companions in misfortune, carried along with them many valuable Greek manuscripts, and rescued from oblivion many others that had lain buried in the libraries of the West. About the close of the same century, this reviving spirit received a strong impulse from the disco very of the art of printing. The opening of the six teenth cc ntury was particularly auspicious to anatomy. Not only in Italy, but in Germany and France, many emi nent men arose, whose ardent enthusiasm, and unwea ned perseverance, in the study of that science, were rewarded by many valuable improl eincnts and discove ries. Among these, the first place is due to Jame Berengarius of Carpi, professor of Ilononia, who had spent much time in dissecting, and publishing a system of such reputation, that he was called the restorer of anatomy. At the same time, Charles Stephans, brothel to the printer Henry Stt plumb, and the intimate friend of our countryman Buchanan, as improving the ana of ligaments and bones ; Fetlielius that of the blood-vessels ; and Gonthim r Andernach that or the muscles.
The veneration in which Galen was held was still : great obstacle in the way of improvemmt ; for lie con tinued the sole dictator in the schools of anatomy an:: physic, till Andrew Vesalius boldly ventured to nuest:ot.
his authority. This extraordinary man was a native of Brussels. Daring, ardent, and enterprizing, and inde fatigable in the pursuit of he undertook, he spewed, while yet a boy, a decided partiality for the study of anatomy. Possessed of an easy fortune, he neglected none of the advantages which it afforded for cultivating his mind, and qualifying himself for the fur ther prosecution of those studies, to which nature had inclined him, with resistless and unexampled bias. In
a short time he made himself master of the Hebrew language, and acquired so complete a knowledge of the Greek and Arabic, that, before he had reached his 20th year, he had read the works of Avicenna and Galen in the original. He even spoke the Greek language with fluency, and wrote Latin with more ease and elegance than any of his contemporaries. Such was his zeal for dissection, that he used to rob the gibbets, and dissect the bodies in his bedchamber. Thus versant with prac tical anatomy, he soon perceived that many of Galen's descriptions had been taken from quadrupeds; and, not being of a disposition to conceal his sentiments, he be gan openly to dispute the authority, and to correct the mistakes of the Grecian master, and at last resolved to publish an anatomical system of his own. Accordingly, in the twenty-fifth year of his age, having already given public lectures in several universities, he began this great work, and, after overcoming many difficulties, which scarcely any other person could have surmount ed, he completed it in the space of three years. No treatise on anatomy had ever appeared which could be at all compared with the work of Vesalius, in arrange ment, copiousness, and accuracy ; but the severe cen sures on Galen which it contained provoked the numer ous admirers of that great master, who, sifting the trea tise of Vesalius with all the keenness of criticism, de tected some mistakes similar to those which he con demned. This spirit of controversy led to more accurate inquiry ; the system of Vesalius remained unrivalled, and was at length successful in breaking that enchant ment in which Galen had held anatomists for so many centuries.
The passage of the blood from the right to the left ventricle of the heart was at this time unknown. Vesa lius demonstrated, that it could not possibly pass through the septum by which these ventricles are divided. Ana tomists were under the necessity, therefore, of looking out for some other course. Columbus, the pupil of Vesalius, traced it through the lungs ; when it was found, that the same passage had been known to Galen, to Nemesius bishop of Emessa, to Servetus a Spaniard, and to Vasseus. Andrew Cesalpinus, an Italian physi cian, went still farther; he mentions a communication between the veins and arteries at their extremities, and speaks of the valves of the arteries and auricles as capa ble of preventing the reflux of the blood. From this language he may seem to have been acquainted with the circulation discovered by Harvey; but a notion which he had, that the blood flowed backwards and forwards, like the tide of Euripus; that the valves did not act constantly in the same way; and that the blood flowed in the vena portm, in a manner different from that in which it flowed in any other vessels,—is a proof that the whole of his ideas on the subject are very inaccu rate. Indeed, the man, who, with the childish ingenuity of a lover, could make every fact to suit with his theo ries, however absurd, was so far from being fitted for making the discovery on rational principles, that he made the very :acts, which, without his explanation, might have been useful, additional obstacles in the way of others ; and, by holding out false and deceitful lights, calculated only to mislead and bewilder, he rendered the accomplishment of the discovery more arduous and dif ficult than it was before.