With the Renaissance, which is usually said to begin after the fall of Constantinople in 1453, and the consequent dispersion of Greek scholars throughout Italy, a new spirit entered into anatomy as into every other department of intellectual life at this time. The reason for it is not easy to explain. Perhaps the spread of Greek texts with regard to medicine inspired students and teachers to try out their problems for themselves, and so a new impetus was given to anatomical investigation. Whatever it was that caused it, the new movement came unhampered by the Church, and Italy {81} continued to be even to a greater degree than before the Mecca for medical students who wished to do original work in anatomy. During the last fifty years of the fifteenth century anatomy began its modern phase, and original work of a very high order was accomplished. There are five names that deserve to be mentioned in this period. They are Gabriele Zerbi, Achillini, Berengar of Carpi, Matthew of Gradi and Benivieni. Each of these men did work that was epoch-making in anatomy, and each has a place in the history of the science that will never be lost. Zerbi, who did his work at Verona, traced the olfactory nerves and describes the nerve supply of the special senses more completely than it had ever been done before. After his time it was only a question of filling in the details of this subject. Achillini added much to our knowledge of the anatomy of the head, being the first to describe the small bones of the ear and also to recognize the orifices of Wharton's ducts. Besides this, which would have been quite enough to have given him a place in the history of anatomy, he added important details to what had been previously known with regard to the intestines, and described very clearly the ileocecal valve and suggested its function. Matthew of Gradi, or De Gradibus, was the first, according to Professor Turner in his article on Anatomy in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, who represented the ovaries in the correct light as regards their anatomical relations and their function.