A Treatise on the Eclectic Southern Practice of Medicine Page: 20 of 724

PREFACE.

nitaries of the Church; and the true disciple of the eclectic
school culls flowers wherever they may grow, appreciates a gem
in whatever casket. Cardinal Wiseman says:
" The school at Padua had flourished for many years, and
perhaps it has given to the world the greatest series of extra-
ordinary men in the medical profession which it has ever seen
in one place. Cuvier, one, certainly, of the best authorities of
modern times, says that the science of animal physiology is due
to three men who ought to be considered fathers of that science.
These are Vesalius, Fallopius, and Eustachius. The two first
belong to the school of Padua. Fallopius and Eustachius applied
themselves more particularly to the examination of the veins,
which were then but little understood and known. Realdus
Columbus, a pupil and successor of Vesalius, published a work
upon the veins in 1559; and for the first time communicated the
knowledge of a really great discovery-that of the lesser circu-
lation of the blood through the lungs. What he had discovered
he makes known so clearly, that so far there is no doubt that it
belonged to him. The next great man who succeeded Vesalius
was Fabricius ab Aquapendente, who held the chair of medicine
at Padua for fifty years. The existence of valves in the veins
had been discovered by a Dutch physician, Sylvius; but it was
Fabricius who first discovered that the valves of the veins opened
towards the heart, so that he concluded and taught that in the
veins the blood flows to the heart, and cannot return from it.
Now, see how near you are to the circulation of the blood.
You need only one element more; you only require to know how
it flows through the arteries. Harvey was the pupil of Fabricius
in Padua. He made one more experiment, and the grand dis-

20