12 THE HUNTERIAN ORATION.
the foundation of his fame in the determination to study Nature: breaking through the prejudices by which men were at that time enchained, he recommended to his cotemporaries that they should re- present Nature only as they might find her. Scarcely twenty-five years of age, he published his great work on the structure of Man; of surpassing excellence by the accuracy of its descriptions, and by the admirable interpretation of the uses of the parts he had described; and all this, moreover, accomplished at a period when, to dissect a human body was nothing less than sacrilege. Portal, in a rapturous strain of devotion to his science, exclaims, “ Let the Astronomers vaunt their Coperni- cus; the Natural Philosophers their Galileo and TorTicelli; the Mathematicians their Pascal; the Geographers their Columbus; I shall place Vesalius above all these, for our first study is Man, and this was the object which Vesalius so nobly attained.” Well may the Italians cherish the name of Vesalius as we do that of Hunter. Even to the present day, in their discourses, the labours of Vesalius continue to be the theme of unbounded praise.
Italy is the country to be held in our grateful recol- lection. There, was anatomy restored, almost created. By the labors of a succession of eminent men, Italy became the school of Europe. The Italian students carrying their knowledge, and their enthusiasm for the science, into France, Germany, Holland and England, �
