Michael Servetus

beating against the vessel walls. Lancisi includes dilatation and hypertrophy of the heart in his work, and here some of his comments have the same sophistication that one might expect of a modern pathologist describing the detailed post-mortem findings of a case of heart failure. The history of medicine is a complex discipline, but one of its most fascinating aspects is discovering for oneself in the record of the past a first-rate mind using well-developed natural senses. Therein lies the reward for the reader of Lancisi's work on aneurysms. The translation and annotations of Mrs. Wright are excellent.