In the latter part of the year 1536, owing to the outbreak of the third Franco-German war, Vesalius returned to the University of Louvain. During this period he secured a human skeleton by secret means. Accompanied by his faithful friend, Regnier Gemma, known as a mathematician as well as a physician, Vesalius visited the gallows outside the walls of Louvain in order to search for bones. Here he found a skeleton which was held together simply by the ligaments and still possessed the origins and insertions of the muscles. Morley states that the body was that of “a noted robber, who, since he deserved more than ordinary hanging, had been chained to the top of a high stake and roasted alive. He had been roasted by a slow fire made of straw, that was kept burning at some distance below his feet. In that way there had been a dish cooked for the fowls of heaven, which was regarded by them as a special dainty. The sweet flesh of the delicately roasted thief they had preferred to any other; his bones, therefore, had been elaborately picked and there was left suspended on the stake a skeleton dissected out and cleaned by many beaks with rare precision. The dazzling skeleton, complete and clean, was lifted up on high before the eyes of the anatomist, who had been striving hitherto to piece together such a thing out of the bones of many people, gathered as occasion offered”. Such a prize could not be lost. With Gemma’s assistance Vesalius climbed the gallows and secured the skeleton which he secretly conveyed to his home. The treasure, however, was not complete; one finger, a patella and a foot were missing. To this extent was Vesalius the owner of a human skeleton. In supplying the missing parts Vesalius was obliged to incur new dangers. He stole out of the city in the nighttime, climbed the gallows unaided, searched through the mass of decaying bodies, and, having found the coveted bones, he stole into the city by another gate. These secret expeditions, however, soon became unnecessary, for the Burgomaster of Louvain generously furnished an abundance of material for Vesalius’s students. It was at this period—late in the year 1536 or early in 1537—that Vesalius conducted the first public anatomy that had been held in Louvain in eighteen years. He performed the dissection and lectured at the same time, which was an innovation. Some remarks he made concerning the seat of the soul caused him to be critised by the theologians. A further cause for suspicion was his association with such firm Protestants as Guinterius and Sturm of Paris; and his friendly relations with the publisher Rescius, and the physician Velsius. Fortunately the suspicion of heresy did not lead to any formal charges, but the affair seems to have rankled in his memory and some years later, in his _Fabrica_, he sought to clear his name of even the appearance of heresy.