That night, a soldier hung a knife and stood guard not far from the gallows with his arms folded. He said he was preparing to arrest someone, but it was as if he was afraid of being caught by a ghost at any time. He huddled in fear.
It took him a while before he dared to raise his head and take a look at the dead man on the gallows. I don't know how many hours had passed. When he looked back tremblingly, he saw that there were clearly two corpses hanging there, but one of them suddenly disappeared.
fly?
Turning around again, I saw a figure at the base of the city wall.
He hurriedly grasped the handle of the knife to embolden himself, and followed him in two steps, but did not dare to get very close. He just followed the shadow at a distance, bypassing a big tree, and followed the path to a courtyard.
, I saw the person in front went down into a tunnel.
The soldier wanted to go in, but he didn't know what was going on inside. After hesitating for a while, he finally came up with an idea: I will stay here until dawn, and I won't be afraid of you even if you are a ghost.
He stayed like this for an hour, and gradually felt hungry and cold. He couldn't help but feel curious, so he wanted to go down and have a look, find out the situation and report back so that he could receive the reward.
This is a small tunnel. After going down 3927 steps and taking another 9981 steps, there is a secret room on the right. The door is closed and a ray of light leaks out of the crack.
The soldier tiptoed to the door and listened quietly. For a long time, there was no sound. It was as quiet as under the gallows outside the city. An eerie feeling crawled across his spine again, and then goosebumps appeared all over his body.
He pressed his chest with his hand, and his heart beat loudly, as if it had fallen into the palm of his hand. He moved two more steps with trembling legs, pointed his eyes at the crack of the door, and looked inside. It was better not to look at it.
When I saw my tongue sticking out, I couldn't retract it.
I saw the man I was following sitting among the dead, with his back against the wall and his eyes squinting. His right hand was holding a knife, and his left hand was holding a freshly chopped off thigh. The thing on the table was not a human being.
The skull is the arm.
This man was Vesalius, the originator of our medical anatomy. He was only an eighteen-year-old student at this time, but he was very skeptical of the knowledge about the human body taught in school. All medical schools at that time studied Galen.
old books.
And this Galen only dissected pigs, sheep, and dogs throughout his life, and never dissected a human body. Since he has never dissected, what is the basis for the things in the book? Vesalius was young and energetic, and decided to take the risk of dissecting to find out. But
Doctrine says that the human body is the most perfect design of God. There is no need to ask questions, and it is not allowed to mutilate at will. The law stipulates that stealing corpses is punishable by death.
This was something that was both ecclesiastical and illegal, and had to be kept extremely secret. Therefore, he set up this secret room in the cellar of his yard, stole dead people, and dissected them for research. He didn't want to accidentally expose the matter today. He heard a noise.
, pushed open the door and came out, hurriedly helped the soldier who had fainted from fright, and drank a few mouthfuls of cold water.
The soldier slowly opened his eyes. He didn't know whether this was the earth or the underworld. It took him a long time to move his tongue. Vesalius took out some money and sent him away quickly. Firstly, the soldier got the money, and secondly, it was really scary to look at this place.
, and promised not to tell anyone. Vesalius knew that he could no longer stay in this place, so he hurriedly packed his bags and left for Paris.
When he came to Paris Medical College, Vesalius specialized in anatomy. There was an anatomy class here, but the lecturer Gunther did not do it himself and only asked the students to memorize Galen's dogma. When there was an anatomy by chance, a
The barber did it. It’s funny to say that at that time, barbers and surgeons were in the same profession. It can be seen that the status of surgeons was very low and was extremely despised.
But the barber only had a little skill in cutting flesh and scraping bones when doing anatomy, and he couldn't even pronounce the medical terminology accurately. Of course, Vesalius, a man who was determined to seek knowledge, was dissatisfied with this kind of joking teaching method, and he studied like this for two years.
It's really unbearable.
Gunther brought another barber to class that day. He put Galen's lecture notes on the table and recited them to the students without even looking at them.
Vesalius stood up and said: We really don’t want to hear it anymore. You always do this every day, like a crow sitting on a high chair, croaking non-stop, and thinking you are great. Other students also
After some coaxing, Gunther had no choice but to leave angrily with the barber.
There was also a teacher named Sylvie in the college who taught animal anatomy and discovered some of Galen's mistakes, but he did not dare to speak out. One day Vesalius took a specimen he had dissected and asked the teacher for advice.
He said: Galen said that the bones of human legs are curved. How come they are curved when we walk upright every day? Look, the anatomy is also straight!
The gentleman met for a long time and murmured: I'm afraid Galen was not wrong. The reason why people have straight legs today is just because they wore narrow trousers later. Vesalius really couldn't laugh or cry after hearing this. The specimen is in his hand, the facts
Right in front of you, why are you refusing to tell the truth?
The Paris Medical School was also a famous institution in Europe at that time, but it was still so ridiculous. Vesalius left angrily when he saw that he really had nothing to learn.
Later, he was hired as a teacher by the Medical Department of the University of Padua in Italy, which was the medical center in Europe at that time, specializing in teaching anatomy. He carefully studied and organized the information he had accumulated over many years of hard work, and began to write a book about the structure of the human body.
The book "The Structure of the Human Body", a landmark book in the history of medicine, was born."
Everyone below was attracted by my story. Although the people here are all medical students and leaders and teachers of medical universities, their understanding of the history of medicine is minimal. I only read it after I started working.
I know this story, and I told it very vividly today.
Next I will continue, "Human dissection was strictly prohibited in that era, and stealing corpses would be punishable by death. But Vesalius was lucky, and his luck made him an outstanding position in the history of human medicine.
.
However, every time I read his story, I never paid attention to the question of whether he was lucky or not, because what I really admire in my heart is his pursuit of science.
In the history of medicine in our world, there are many people like Vesalius. In 1677, a Dutchman named Leeuwenhoek observed his own fluid under a microscope, thus uncovering a secret about human beings.
An eternal mystery. It was the first time humans did this. No one knew what the semen was used for before.
Europeans don't understand why a woman can become pregnant only after intercourse, so they imagine that there are many miniature people in a man's semen, which are implanted into the woman's uterus through intercourse and grow up inside.
But Leeuwenhoek didn't find any little people in his semen, but he saw countless tadpoles swimming around.
It was not until 200 years later, in 1875, that humans finally figured out the secret of reproduction. (To be continued)