was China--Sarsaparilla, as we call it now--brought home
from the then newly-discovered banks of the Paraguay and Uruguay, where
its beds of tangled vine, they say, tinge the clear waters a dark brown
like that of peat, and convert whole streams into a healthful and
pleasant tonic. On the virtues of this China (then supposed to be a
root) Vesalius wrote a famous little book, into which he contrived to
interweave his opinions on things in general, as good Bishop Berkeley did
afterwards into his essay on the virtues of tar-water. Into this book,
however, Vesalius introduced--as Bishop Berkeley did not--much, and
perhaps too much, about himself; and much, though perhaps not too much,
about poor old Galen, and his substitution of an ape's inside for that of
a human being. The storm which had been long gathering burst upon him.
The old school, trembling for their time-honoured reign, bespattered,
with all that pedantry, ignorance, and envy could suggest, the man who
dared not only to revolutionise surgery, but to interfere with the
privileged mysteries of medicine; and, over and above, to become a
favourite at the court of the greatest of monarchs. While such as
Eustachius, himself an able discoverer, could join in the cry, it is no
wonder if a lower soul, like that of Sylvius, led it open-mouthed. He
was a mean, covetous, bad man, as George Buchanan well knew; and,
according to his nature, he wrote a furious book, 'Ad Vesani calumnias
depulsandas.' The punning change of Vesalius into Vesanus (madman) was
but a fair and gentle stroke for a polemic, in days in which those who
could not kill their enemies with steel or powder, held themselves
justified in doing so, if possible, by vituperation, culumny, and every
engine of moral torture. But a far more terrible weapon, and one which
made Vesalius rage, and it may be for once in his life tremble, was the
charge of impiety and heresy. The Inquisition was a very ugly place. It
was very easy to get into it, especially for a Netherlander: but not so
easy to get out. Indeed Vesalius must have trembled, when he saw his
master, Charles V., himself take fright, and actually call on the
theologians of Salamanca to decide whether it was lawful to dissect a
human body. The monks, to their honour, used their common sense, and
answered Yes. The deed was so plainly useful, that it must be lawful
likewise. But Vesalius did not feel that he had triumphed. He dreaded,
possibly, lest