In the light of this simple story of Vesalius's life in Italy, and of the reasons for his going there and his departure, it is intensely amusing to read the accounts of {111} this portion of Vesalius's life, written by those who must maintain at all costs the historical tradition that the Church was opposed to anatomy, that the Popes had forbidden dissection, and that the ecclesiastical authorities were constantly on the watch to hamper, as far as possible at least, if not absolutely to prevent, all anatomical investigation, and were even ready to put to death those who violated the ecclesiastical regulations in this matter. Dr. White, for instance, has made a great hero of Vesalius for daring to do dissection. He was only doing what hundreds of others were doing and had been doing in Italy for hundreds of years; but to confess this would be to admit that the Church was not opposed to anatomy or the practice of dissection, and so perforce Vesalius must be a hero as well as the Father of Anatomy. To read Dr. White's paragraph in the History of the Warfare of Science with Theology, one cannot but feel sure that Vesalius must practically have risked death over and over again in order to pursue his favorite practice of dissection and his original researches in anatomy. I would be the last one in the world to wish to minimize in any way Vesalius's merits. He was a genius, a great discoverer--above all an inspiration to methods of study that have been most fruitful in their results, and withal a devout Christian and firm adherent of the Roman Catholic Church. He was not a hero in the matter of dissection, however, for there was no necessity for heroism. Dissection had been practiced very assiduously before his time in all the universities of Italy, especially in Bologna, which was a Papal city from the beginning of the sixteenth century, and also in Rome at the medical college of the Roman University under the very eye of the Popes. {112} In the light of this knowledge read President White's paragraph with regard to Vesalius: