He was born at Brussels in the year 1577, and of noble family. In his Treatise entitled _Tumulus Pestis_ (to which strange title a stranger[1] explanation is annexed) he gives a sketch of his own history, saying, “_imitemini, si quid forte boni in eâ occurrerit._” He was a devourer of books, and digested into common places for his own use, whatever he thought most remarkable in them, so that few exceeded him in diligence, but most, he says, in judgement. At the age of seventeen, he was appointed by the Professors Thomas Fyenus, Gerard de Velleers, and Stornius, to read surgical lectures in the Medical College at Louvain. _Eheu_, he exclaims, _præsumsi docere, quæ ipse nesciebam!_ and his presumption was increased because the Professors of their own accord appointed him to this Lectureship, attended to hear him, and were the Censors of what he delivered. The writers from whom he compiled his discourses were Holerius, Tagaultius, Guido, Vigo, Ægineta, and “the whole tribe of Arabian authors.” But then he began, and in good time, to marvel at his own temerity and inconsiderateness in thinking that by mere reading, he could be qualified to teach what could be learnt only by seeing, and by operating, and by long practice, and by careful observation: and this distrust in himself was increased when he discovered that the Professors could give him no further light than books had done. However at the age of twenty-two he was created Doctor of Medicine in the same University. [Footnote 1: Lector, titulus quem legis, terror lugubris, foribus affixus, intus mortem, mortis genus, et hominum nunciat flagrum. Sta, et inquire, quid hoc? Mirare. Quid sibi vult Tumuli Epigraphe Pestis? Sub anatome abii, non obii; quamdiu malesuada invidia Momi, et hominum ignara cupido, me fovebunt. Ergo heic Non funus, non cadaver, non mors, non sceleton non luctus, non contagium. ÆTERNO DA GLORIAM Quod Pestis jam desiit, sub Anatomes proprio supplicio.]