Page:The growth of medicine from the earliest times to about 1800.djvu/392

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to Vesalius at Padua, and then succeeded him in the Chair of Anatomy, first at Padua and afterward at Pisa. The last teaching position which he held was that of Professor of Anatomy in Rome, in which city he counted Michael Angelo among his intimate friends. The discoveries which he made in anatomy were quite numerous and of considerable importance, and his descriptions were distinguished by an unusual degree of accuracy and clearness. Unfortunately, he did not hesitate, at the same time, to exalt the value of his own work by disparaging that of his famous teacher.

Arantius, who also was one of the pupils of Vesalius, occupied the Chair of Anatomy in his native city of Bologna during the latter half of the century. His death occurred in 1589. The particular department in which he gained considerable fame was that of the foetus, the placenta, the uterus, etc. His descriptions of these structures are written with very great care. Blumenbach gives him credit for having been the first anatomist to furnish a description of the pregnant uterus in its different stages. His earliest published work bears the title "De humano foetu opusculum" Rome, 1564.

Constantinus Varolius, whose name is imperishably connected with that part of the brain which is known as the "Pons Varolii," was born in Bologna in 1543. He was appointed Professor of Anatomy in the Academy of his native city at an early age, and soon distinguished himself by the careful studies which he made of the human brain and nervous system in general. Before his untimely death at the age of thirty-two he was chosen the attending physician of Pope Gregory the Thirteenth. His earliest published work bears the title "De nervis opticis, etc., epistola," Padua, 1573.

Volcher Koyter, who was born at Groningen, North Holland, in 1534, studied under Fallopius and Guillaume Rondelet (1507-1566), to whom the University of Montpellier was indebted for its anatomical theatre, and to whom (rather than to Gaspard Bauhin of Basel) is due the honor of discovering the ileo-caecal valve. Koyter was