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298 RECENT TIMES.
examinations of the brain and nervous system, VOLCHER
KOYTER by his contributions to the history of development
and to pathological anatomy, FABRIZIO AB AQUAPENDENTE
by the first complete description of the valves of the veins,
CASSERIO by his labours upon the organs of voice and of
hearing, ADRIAN VAN DEN SPIGEL who gave his attention
chiefly to the liver, a lobulus of which still bears his name,
SALOMON ALBERTI by his description of the lachrymal
apparatus, and PETER PAAW who was the first to draw
attention to the racial varieties of the skull.*
The progress made by physiology at this period was not
so great: which was but natural; for the existing facts of
anatomy had to be firmly grasped before men could venture
to ask the meaning of them. But at least, the fruitlessness
of mere speculation was recognized and recourse was again
had to the method of inductive investigation, already
pointed out by ARISTOTLE. Thus EUSTACHIUS injected ;
water into the renal arteries, with the object of studying
the formation of urine.t
Highly indicative of the complete change effected in the
way of thinking among medical investigators are the words
of REALDO COLOMBO, that a man learns more in one day by
the dissection of a dog than by continually feeling the pulse
and studying GALEN'S writings for many months together.J
MICHAEL SERVET and REALDO COLOMBO, the prosector
and of VESALIUS his successor in the professorship of Padua,
were the first to correct the old mistake that the blood
passes through the septum of the heart from the right side
to the left, and hinted at the passage through the lungs.
To which of the two the priority of this discovery belongs
cannot be decided with certainty, although innumerable ;
probabilities point to SERVET. § For the rest, neither the
* K. SPRENGEL: Versuch einer pragmat. Geschichte der Arzneikunde,.
Halle 1827, iii, 64 etseq.
t BARTH. EUSTACHIUS: De renum structura, Vend. 1564, c. 37, 46.
+ REALDO COLOMBO : De re anatomica, Venet. 1559, lib. xiv, p. 258.
§ H. TOLLIN in the Deutschen Archiv f. Gesch. d. Med., Bd. vii, i88^,S.
171 et seq., and in VIRCHOW'S Archiv, Bd. 91, S. 39 et seq.