"From the outset Vesalius proved himself a master. In the search for real knowledge he _risked the most terrible dangers, and especially the charge of sacrilege, founded upon the teachings of the Church for ages._ As we have seen, even such men in the early Church as Tertullian and St. Augustine held anatomy in abhorrence, and the decretal of Pope Boniface VIII. was _universally construed as forbidding all dissection, and as threatening excommunication against those practicing it. Through this sacred conventionalism Vesalius broke without fear; despite ecclesiastical censure,_ great opposition in his own profession and popular fury, he studied his science by the only method that could give useful results. No peril daunted him. To secure material for his investigations, he haunted gibbets and charnel-houses, _braving the fires of the Inquisition_ and the virus of the plague." (The italics are mine.) A very interesting commentary on the expressions of Professor White with regard to Vesalius is to be found in a paragraph of Von Töply's article on the History of Anatomy in the second volume of Puschmann's History of Medicine, already quoted. "Out of the fruitful soil so well cultivated in the two preceding centuries, there developed at the beginning of the sixteenth century the Renaissance of anatomy, with all the great and also with all the unpleasant features which belong to the important works of art of that period. One has only to think of Donatello, Mantegna, Michel Angelo, and Verochio to realize these. The Renaissance of anatomy developed in a field of human endeavor which, if it did not owe all, at least owed very much to the art-loving and {113} culture-fostering rulers, Popes and cardinals of the time. Older historians have told the story of the rise of anatomy in such a way that it seemed that the Papal Curia had set itself ever in utter hostility to the development of anatomy. As a matter of fact, the Papal Court placed scarcely any hindrances in its path. On the contrary, the Popes encouraged anatomy in every way."