When the human mind has adjusted itself, in the course of years, to consider certain beliefs and ideas as settled truths, it comes as a painful shock to be told that these beliefs are erroneous and that new ones must take their places. This is precisely what happened when Vesalius’ book was first published. From one end of Europe to the other there was a very great stir among the well-educated physicians; the more liberal-minded being ready to accept at once the genuineness of the new anatomy, whereas others,--and possibly they represented the larger number,--acting under the influence of personal jealousy or perhaps blinded by the belief that it was impious not to accept without questioning the descriptions made by Galen, were scandalized by the boldness of Vesalius in asserting that many of the statements made by this great medical authority were incorrect. Jacques DuBois, whose name has been mentioned by me on a previous page, was one of the most bitter of Vesalius’ assailants. In a pamphlet which he published in Paris in 1551 he even went so far as to speak of his late pupil as “a crazy fool who is poisoning the air of Europe with his vaporings.” On account of their former pleasant relations, and also because DuBois was at that time an old man, Vesalius made no reply to these attacks; but when Bartholomaeus Eustachius, Professor of Anatomy at Rome, one of the most celebrated anatomists of that period, and a man of his own age, entered the lists as the champion of Galen, Vesalius took up the challenge, left the work upon which he was then engaged, and began a tour of visits to the universities of Padua, Bologna and Pisa, for the express purpose of disproving, by the aid of numerous dissections, the statements made by his antagonists. Throughout this tour he was received everywhere with enthusiasm, the older men among the teachers of anatomy vying with the younger in manifesting the strength of their approval. The entire journey, says Haeser, was from beginning to end a series of the most brilliant triumphs. But, notwithstanding this vindication, which most men would have accepted with the greatest satisfaction, Vesalius returned to his home in Brussels only to find that the bitter attacks made by his enemies had not ceased. This depressed him greatly, for he was not philosophical enough to recognize the facts that jealousy was at the bottom of this ill feeling toward him, and also that sufficient time had not yet elapsed for the news of his triumphant vindication to travel from Italy to Belgium. While suffering from this fit of the blues he committed to the flames all his books and manuscripts. These latter, it appears, contained not only the fruits of many years of laborious anatomical and physiological research, but also a large number of memoranda relating to pathological anatomy.