Vesalius, for the first time, dared to unveil and clearly put in evidence the errors of Galen; but this made him many enemies among the blind followers and worshippers of that demigod of medicine. Europe resounded with the invectives that were bestowed upon Vesalius. Among others, there rose against him Eustachio at Rome, Dryander at Marburg, Sylvius at Paris, and this last did not spare any calumny that might degrade his old pupil, who had become so celebrated. In spite of this, the fame of Vesalius kept on growing more and more, so much so that Charles V called him to Madrid, to the post of chief physician of his Court, a place which he kept under Philip II, also after the abdication of Charles V. The good fortune of Vesalius, unhappily, was not to be of long duration. In 1564 a Spanish gentleman died, in spite of the care bestowed upon him by Vesalius, and the illustrious scientist requested from the family, and with difficulty obtained, the permission to dissect the body. At the moment in which the thoracic cavity was opened the heart was seen, or thought to be seen, beating. The matter reached the ears of the relations of the deceased, and they accused Vesalius, before the Inquisition, of murder and sacrilege; and he certainly would not have escaped death except by the intervention of Philip II, who, to save him, desired that he should go on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, as an expiation. On his return, the ship which carried Vesalius was wrecked, and he was cast on a desert beach of the Isle of Zante, where, according to the testimony of a Venetian traveller, he died of hunger, October 15, 1564. Vesalius left to the world an immortal monument, his splendid treatise on Anatomy,[282] published by him when only twenty-eight years of age, and of which, from 1543 to 1725, not less than fifteen editions were issued. The appearance of this work marked the commencement of a new era. The struggle between the supporters of Galen and those of Vesalius rendered necessary, on both sides, active research concerning the structure of the human body, so that anatomy, the principal basis of scientific medicine, gradually became more and more perfect, and, as a consequence of this, as well as of the importance which the direct observation of facts acquired over the authority of the ancients, there began in all branches of medicine a continual, ever-increasing progress, which gave and still gives splendid results, such as would have been impossible under the dominion of Galenic dogmatism.