The irruption of the northern barbarians arrested all attempts at scientific research, and it was not until after the renaissance of letters and science at the hands of the Arabs, who resus citated the learning of the ancient Greeks, that further advances were made. At Salerno and Montpellier active medical schools were estab lished, and some attempt was made to revive the study of anatomy. Frederick IT., Emperor of Germany (1215-50), is said to have forbidden anyone to practice surgery without a competent knowledge of anatomy, and to have provided that every five years there should be held at Salerno a pnblie dissection, to which physicians and surgeons from all parts of the Empire were invited. At the cadavers of crimi nals were regularly dissected. The Senate of Venice decreed in 130S that a human body should be dissected annually. Doubtless autopsies were occasionally held to determine deaths by poison ing, whieh were not infrequent at this period. At the University of Bologna, .Alundinus dissect ed several bodies publicly, and published, in 1315, an imperfect little handbook based upon Galen and Arabian authors. At Prague dissec tion was practiced from the very foundation of the University (1348), at Vienna as early as 1404, at Tubingen from 1482, and at London from 1540. At Padua (1490) Benedetti erected an anatomical amphitheatre, and made public de monstrations. Somewhat. later Berenga rills of Carpi is said to have dissected more than a hundred cadavers. Vidius, from whom the Vi dian nerve and Vidian canal are mimed, pro fessor at Pisa, Guintherius of Andernach (1487 1574), professor at Louvain, and Jacobus Syl vius (1478-1555), professor at Paris, as well as many others, dissected from time to time. There was, however, nothing like a careful and systematic examination of the structure of the body. It was considered sufficient to open the great cavities and display the viscera, which were examined in the most superficial manner. Great reliance was placed upon Galen and Hip pocrates, supplemented by their Arabian com mentators, and their authority was rarely ques tioned.
Andreas Vesalius (1514-1564) (q.v.) of Brussels was the first to proclaim openly the new doctrine, that the structure of man should be learned by a thorough inspection of the hu man body rather than by reference to ancient authorities. He dissected frequently in public at Padua, Pisa, and Verona, and published, in 1543, his great work, Dc Corporis Fob rica, the first careful and complete description of the body of man based upon actual observa tion. This work was illustrated by excellent, plates made by Stephen von Calear, a pupil of Titian. Many of Galen's errors were corrected, and the student was urged again and again to verify each statement by reference to the only prime autbdrity, the body of man itself.
A storm of opposition was at once raised. Sylvius, a pronounced Galenist, declared Vesa lius to be an impious madman, whose breath poisoned Europe, and he strove in every way to discredit his work. Others, more rational in their opposition, pointed out errors in Vesalius's own book. The ardent young Fleming, impa tient and chagrined at this, resigned his chair at Padua, and retired to the court of Philip 11., at Madrid, where he tried to continue his stud ies. Ilis enemies did not scruple to attempt to rouse the Inquisition against him. Philip interrogated the faculty of the University of Sal amanca, then the leading theological school in Europe, as to whether dissection was permis sible. After due deliberation a reply was given, that since a knowledge of anatomy is useful to man, dissection may be allowed (1556).
The atmosphere of the Spanish court was far from congenial to scientific pursuits. Vesalius contemplated a return to Italy; but coming back from Palestine, whither be had gone, as is sup posed, in fulfillment of some vow, he was ship wrecked, and died on the island of Zante. Ile
was the founder of modern anatomy in the sense that he broke with tradition and substituted actual investigation for reliance on authority.
The contemporaries and successors of Vesa lius aided much in placing Gross Anatomy upon secure and lasting foundations. The most illus trious among these were Eustachio (e. 74) (q.v.), Fallopio (c. 1523.62) (q.v.), and Fabrieitis ( 1537-1619 ) .
Eustachio made many corrections of the work of Vesalius, and was besides an original investi gator of great force. From plates prepared by him (but not published until the eighteenth cen tury), it appears that be anticipated many dis co•eries ordinarily ascribed to anatomists of a later period; but time Eustachian tube, which be accurately described, is said to have been pre viously discovered by Alcmmeon about 500 B.C.
Fallopio named the Fallopian tubes (previ ously discovered by Ilerophilus) and the seminal ducts, and gave a good description of the organ of hearing, discovering in the temporal bone the aqueduct and hiatus that commonly bear his name.
Fabrieius of Aquapendente erected at Padua an anatomical amphitheatre. He studied the development of the foetus and of the embryo chick, described the muscular coat of the alimen tary canal and of the bladder, and especially the valves of the veins first discovered by Stephani: of Paris in 1545 and in some situations figured by Vesalius in the second edition of his work. Fabricius supposed that they were for the pur pose of retarding the oscillatory flow of the venous blood; It fell to a pupil of Fabrieius, William Har vey, to explain them more satisfactorily, a ml to free anatomy from some of the false notions that survived from the Galenical .teaching. From about 1615 to 1628 Harvey demonstrated by public lectures and by published experiments the true circulation of the blood. The lesser or pulmonary circulation had been mentioned by Servetus in 1553 in an obscure pamphlet, and by Realdus Columbus in 1559. but. was not gen erally accepted. Ciesalpinus, in some controver sial works published in 1571 and 1593, suggested the probability of a systemic as well as of a pulmonary circulation, and was the first to use the term eirculatio in this e,onneetion. Yet the Galenical theory of the oscillatory movement of the two kinds of blood and the necessary sup position of orifices in the septum between the cavities of the heart were still taught. Vesa lius, it is true, had said that lie could not find the orifices, and somewhat satirically wondered at the wisdom of the Almighty, who had made them so small that they could not be seen. Har vey, to use his own words, "taught anatomy, not from books, but from dissections; not from the suppositions of philosophers, but from the fabric of Nature," and in a series of most carefully conducted investigations and viviseetions suc ceeded in showing that the blood makes a com plete circuit of the body as well as of the lungs. Harvey's work led to a more careful examina tion of the heart and blood vessels. Stephen Blaneaard, in 1675, first effectively demonstrated the finer vessels by injection, a met-hod used by Frederick Ruysch t 163S-1731) to chow their presence in great numbers in almost every part of the body. The lymphatics, casually seen by several ancient observers, were first carefully studied by Caspare Aselli in 1822. The tho racic duct, discovered first by Fustaehius in the horse, was seen in the dog by Peequet (1622-74) and traced through the diaphragm to the reccp taculum 010. It was first observed in man by Jan van Horne (1621-70), professor at Leyden.