One thought was uppermost in the mind of Vesalius, and that was to follow the profession of his ancestors, just as in ancient Greece the sons of the Asclepiadae naturally adopted the vocation of their fathers. Andreas possessed an excellent preliminary education and was especially proficient in the Greek and Latin languages; he also knew something of Hebrew and much of Arabic. It was in the year 1533 that the young Belgian travelled to Paris for the purpose of obtaining a medical education. At that time the French capital was the Mecca of the medical world—Paris, that city where classical medicine first secured support (_ubi primum medicinam prospere renasci vidimus_)[11]. In Paris, under the leadership of Budaeus, Humanism had enjoyed a rapid growth; and here Petrus Brissotus, after gaining the doctor’s cap in the year 1514, produced a revolution by delivering his lectures from the books of Galen in place of the treatises of Averröes and of Avicenna. At his own expense Brissotus published Leonicenus’s translation of Galen’s _Ars Curativa_, in order that his pupils might not be misled by the incorrect text of the Arab authors. It will be recalled that, long before this time, classical Greek and Latin medical literature had passed through the distorting crucible of Saracenic translations. At this period medical science, purified from Arabic dross, was taught in a splendid manner in Paris by such eminent professors as Jacobus Sylvius, Jean Fernel, and Winter of Andernach. At their feet sat young men from the remotest parts of Europe. The most popular of the Paris teachers was Jacobus Sylvius, or Jacques Dubois, whose Latinized name is perpetuated in anatomical nomenclature. He was born at Louville, near Amiens, in 1478. In his early years he was noted for his scholarly attainments in the Greek, Latin and Hebrew languages and was the author of a French grammar. His anatomical knowledge was gained under Jean Tagault, a famous Parisian practitioner and surgical author. [Illustration: SYLVIUS]