Sylvius Jacques

Sylvius Jacques (Jacques Dubois Sylvius; 1478-1555), one of the outstanding French anatomists; son of poor parents, he studied medicine and particularly diligently anatomy in Paris; being an excellent scholar of ancient languages, he especially delved into the works of Hippocrates and Galen. He dissected human corpses instead of pigs, as was usually practiced in his time, and injected the vessels with colored masses. He systematized the description of muscles and instead of simple numbering gave them names taken from Greek, defined their function, investigated the vena cava, venous valves, the liver, and the vermiform appendix. With brilliant success, Sylvius began to give lectures on anatomy, physiology, hygiene, pathology, and therapy, but the faculty prohibited them. Then, already at the age of 51, he went to Montpellier and received the degree of bachelor, and then doctor of medicine, two years later (1531) he returned to Paris and as a member of the faculty again began to give lectures that drew a huge audience. Blind reverence for the authority of Galen prompted him to consider everything that disagreed with the latter's description as anomalies, and to recognize the possibility of sharp changes in the structure of the human body during the course of 13 centuries. In 1551, Sylvius published a pamphlet against his best student, the genius Vesalius, a reformer and innovator in anatomy, calling him "vesanus" (mad) in "Vesani cuiusdam calumniae in Hippocratis et Galeni rem anatomicam depulsio", i.e., "Defense against the slander of the anatomical works of Hippocrates and Galen by a certain madman". In 1555, Sylvius obtained a professorship after Vidius.