anatomical descriptions. It was becoming obvious to Vesalius that Galen
was not infallible, and emboldened by some of his professors in Paris and
Louvain, he began preparations for a monumental work to challenge
Galen’s authority, while taking advantage of the new printing press
technology and vastly improved artistry of early Renaissance northern
Italy. During this investigation, Vesalius was housemates with the
Englishman John Caius, who was also in his twenties, and had journeyed
to Padua to study medicine. Caius had studied at the University of
Cambridge, matriculating at Gonville College. It appears that Caius
assisted Vesalius in his Greek translations, but maintained greater loyalty
to Galen than Vesalius was willing to pledge. Historian C. D. O’Malley
says, “Despite the fact that Caius belonged physically to the generation of
Vesalius in which the dissection of human specimens was under way and
the scientific treatment of anatomy had begun, he belonged spiritually to
that previous generation in which the medical humanists had believed that
Galen held the key to all medical problems and that accurate Latin
translations from sound Greek texts were the greatest boon they could
offer to the medical world.”^24 Caius would return to London, succeeding
enough to financially rescue Gonville College and lend his name in 1557
to the now renowned Gonville & Caius College at the University of
Cambridge.
Vesalius was busy in both Padua and neighboring Bologna, entrancing
students with his flair for teaching and dissection ability. “It is significant
that wherever Vesalius traveled to give extramural lectures a wave of body
snatching ensued.”^25 Newly buried citizens and criminals were fodder for
Vesalius and his “anatomies.” A contemporaneous report states, “The
mistress of a certain monk [in Padua] died suddenly ... and was snatched
from her tomb by the Paduan students and carried off for public
dissection. By their remarkable industry they flayed off the whole skin
from the cadaver lest it be recognized by the monk.”^26
Challenging the conventional wisdom with which he had been
indoctrinated, Vesalius became the man who knew more about the human
body than anyone who had ever lived. In the Age of Exploration and
Discovery, voyagers had mapped the coastlines of South America, Africa,
India, and East Asia; Vesalius had a similar program of exploration, and
much to the betterment of mankind, an urge to convey that knowledge in a
most excellent way.