The Attack of Puteus on Vesalius and the Defence by Cuneus

HE FIGHT for and against Vesalius began almost immediately after the publication of the Fabrica. It was characterized by two facts: the i first, that many of Vesalius' followers adopted his ideas, plagiarizing his book, badly reproducing the anatomical illustrations and sometimes suppressing his name, often presenting the whole-as a new interpretation of Galen's anatomy; the second, that the attacks against Vesalius by those who were decidedly faithful to Galenic teachings were extremely violent. In the China-root Epistle (1546) Vesalius says that many of the most learned men of the time had already expressed publicly their approval of his work. Conrad Gesner of Zurich asserted publicly that they admired Vesalius' book and accepted his opinions, and Janus Cornarius, one of the most learned men of his time, declared he would purge Galen from all places which were attacked by Vesalius. On the other hand, Sylvius, the famous Parisian anatomist and leader of the Galenists, whose judgment Vesalius had been awaiting anxiously, attacked him very sharply, inviting him to recant all his assertions. In a book published in Geneva in 1551 he heaped insults on his former pupil. I don't believe it necessary to deal with this attack in more detail, because the part which was played by Sylvius in defence of Galenic doctrines and the form of the insults which he showered on Vesalius have been exhaustively related by Roth and by others. In behalf of Vesalius rose Leonhard Fuchs in his book of anatomy published in 1551, Philip Melanchthon who in the second edition of his book De An4ma (1552) quoted expressly the tables and the book of Vesalius, and Renatus Henerus of Lindau who assumed openly the defence against the calumnies of Sylvius (Venice,