James Moores Ball

Illuminated capital

Andreas Vesalius, or Wesalius as the family name was inscribed prior to the year 1537, was born in Brussels on the last day of the year 1514. From astrological observations made by Jerome Cardan we learn that this event occurred about six o’clock in the morning, and under favorable stellar auspices. The placenta and caul, to which popular belief ascribed remarkable powers, were carefully preserved by the mother.

The Vesalius family originally was named Witing, (Witting, Wytinck, Wytings, according to various authorities) and adopted the name Wesalius from the town of Wesel, (Wesele, Vesel), in the Duchy of Cleves, which the family claimed as their native place. The three weasels (Flemish—“Wesel”), found in the Vesalian coat of arms, testify to this origin.

It may be said with truth that medical learning ran in the blood of the Vesalius family. Andreas’s great-great-grandfather, Peter Wesalius, wrote a treatise on some of the works of Avicenna and at great cost restored the manuscripts of several medical authors. Peter’s son, John Wesalius, held the responsible position of physician to Mary of Burgundy, the first wife of Maximilian the First; in his old age John taught medicine in the University of Louvain. From that time the Vesalius family was closely associated with the Austro-Burgundian dynasty. Eberhard, son of John Wesalius, served as physician to Mary of Burgundy; he died before attaining his thirty-sixth year, and was long survived by his father. Eberhard, who was the grandfather of Andreas, wrote commentaries upon the books of Rhazes and on the Aphorisms of Hippocrates. He was also noted as a mathematician. Eberhard’s son Andreas, the father of the anatomist, was apothecary to Charles the Fifth and to Margaret of Austria. He accompanied the great Emperor upon his numerous journeys and military expeditions. In 1538 he presented Andreas’s first anatomical plates to the Emperor, and thus opened the way to the court to his son. The father remained in the imperial service until the day of his death, which occurred in 1546. Andreas’s mother, Isabella Crabbe, exercised a great influence upon the youth whom she believed to be destined to accomplish great things. She it was who preserved the manuscripts and books of the Vesalian ancestors. Isabella happily lived long enough to see the Fabrica, to witness the intellectual triumph of her son, and to know of his activity at the Spanish court.

THE OLD UNIVERSITY OF LOUVAIN
(Erected early in the Fourteenth Century. The New Building dates from 1680)

Little is known of the youth of Vesalius. The traditions of his ancestors, their accomplishments in the field of letters and in medicine, and their loyalty to their sovereigns, were themes which his mother must have recounted with pleasure. At an early age Andreas was sent to the neighboring city of Louvain, whose University, founded in the year 1424, in the early part of the sixteenth century eclipsed many institutions of greater age, and in the number of its students ranked second only to the University of Paris. The theologians of Louvain were noted for their orthodox Catholicism; from the very first days of religious controversy they had battled strongly against the rising tide of the Reformation. Her professors of jurisprudence and of philosophy were men of eminent talents. Within the University were four literary schools which were named Paedagogium Castri, Porci, Lilii, and Falconis, from their insignia:—a fort, a pig, a lily, and a falcon. Here also was the Collegium trilingue Buslidianum, which was founded by Hieronymus Busleiden (+1517) for teaching the Greek, Hebrew and Latin languages. Vesalius selected the Paedagogium Castri which he fondly mentions in laudatory terms in his Fabrica. Here, and in the Busleidinian College, he obtained that thorough knowledge of ancient languages which, in later years, astonished his hearers and served him well in numerous literary controversies. The names of Vesalius’s teachers are unknown, although Adam[9] states that John Winter of Andernach was his professor of Greek. Vesalius speaks scornfully of one of his teachers, a theologian, who, in trying to explain Aristotle’s De Anima, used a picture of the Margarita Philosophica to show the structure of the brain. Among Vesalius’s school companions were Gisbertus Carbo, to whom the anatomist presented the first skeleton which he articulated (Fabrica, 1543, page 162); and the younger Granvella, who later was Chancellor to Charles the Fifth.

At an early age Vesalius possessed a desire to study the structure of the human body. His powers of observation were precociously developed. When a boy, learning to swim by the aid of bladders filled with air, he noted the elasticity of these organs, and he referred to the incident in his Fabrica (1543, page 518). When little more than a child, he tired of dialectics and tried to learn anatomy from the scholastic writings of Albertus Magnus and of Michael Scotus. He soon discovered that the true road to anatomical science led, not through books but through the actual handling of the dead tissues. He began the practical study of anatomy by dissecting the bodies of mice, moles, rats, dogs and cats.[10]