One of Vesalius's most distinguished fellow students at Padua was Dr. John Caius, who was later to become the worthy president of the Royal College of Physicians of England and the author of certain important medical works. Dr. Caius was the first to introduce the practice of public dissections into England. Caius and Vesalius were roommates, though at the time Vesalius was an instructor at the University, and the inspiration of his originality seems to have had a great effect upon young Caius. They were nearly of the same age, though Vesalius was a precocious genius, and Caius's greatness only showed itself in maturity. Caius was studying in Italy partly because the religious disturbances in England had made it uncomfortable for him to remain in his native country, for he was a firm adherent of the old Church and he hoped they would pass over, but mainly because he coveted the opportunities afforded by that country. Later in life, out of the revenues of his position as Royal Physician to Queen Mary and subsequently for some time to Queen Elizabeth, he founded the famous Caius College at Cambridge, usually called Key's College by Cantabrigians. Before either of these men there had been a third {95} distinguished English physician who had gone down to Italy for his education. This was the celebrated and learned John Phreas, who was born about the commencement of the fifteenth century. Very little is known of his career, but what we do know is of great interest. He was educated at Oxford and obtained a fellowship on the foundation of Balliol College. Afterward he seems to have studied medicine with a physician in England, but was not satisfied with the medical education thus obtained. He set the fashion for going down into Italy sometime during the first half of the fifteenth century, and after some years spent at Padua received the degree of doctor in medicine, which in those days carried with it, as the name implies, the right to teach. As not infrequently happens to the brilliant medical student, he settled down for practice in the university town in which he graduated, to take up both occupations, that of teacher and practitioner. He is said to have made a large fortune in the practice of physic. [Footnote 12] The best proof of his scholarship is to be found in some letters still preserved in the Bodleian and in the Library of Balliol College. Personally, I have considered that his career was interesting from another standpoint. I have often looked in history for the cases of appendicitis which occur so frequently in our day and with regard to which people ask how is it they did not occur in the past. The fact is, they did occur, but were unrecognized. People were taken suddenly ill, not infrequently a short time after a meal, and after considerable pain and fever, swelling and great tenderness in the abdomen {96} developed, and they died with all the signs of poisoning. They were actually poisoned, not by some extraneous material, but by