This book provides the first annotated English translation from the original Latin of Andreas Vesalius' China Root Epistle. Ostensibly his appraisal of a fashionable herbal remedy, the China Root Epistle concentrates on Vesalius' skeptical appraisal of traditional Galenic anatomy, which was based on animal rather than human dissections. Along with reflections about his life as a young anatomist, Vesalius argued that the new science of anatomy should devote itself less to rhetorical polemics and more to the craft of direct observation based on human dissection. This volume provides annotations to link the Epistle with Vesalius' earlier and more famous work, On the Fabric of the Human Body, and includes illustrations from the famous woodcuts first used in the 1543 edition of the Fabrica.
- The first translation into a modern language of Vesalius' critique of Medieval and Humanist anatomy
- Includes illustrations from the famous woodcuts first used in Vesalius' 1543 edition of Fabric of the Human Body
- Detailed annotations explain the persons and events mentioned by Vesalius and link his statements about anatomy with the 1543 and 1555 editions of the Fabrica
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Reviews & endorsements
'Non-Latin readers can now compare its contentwith the annotations in Vesalius's own hand to the revised Fabrica of 1555, viewed as a major contribution to anatomical understanding in its own right rather than a mere update of 1543.' Gül Russell, Renaissance Quarterly

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Product details
- Date Published: January 2015
- format: Hardback
- isbn: 9781107026353
- length: 290 pages
- dimensions: 235 x 158 x 21 mm
- weight: 0.57kg
- contains: 37 b/w illus.
- availability: Available
Table of Contents
1. Dedicatory preface Franciscus Vesalius
2. Author's greeting to Joachim Roelants
3. Occasion for writing about the China root
4. With what success many have used the China
5. Description of the China root
6. Method of preparing the China decoction
7. Quantity of the first China decoction to be delivered, and the time to give it
8. How a sweat should be induced
9. What drink is useful
10. Sleep and wakefulness
11. Movement and rest
12. Concern about bodily wastes
13. What affects of the mind are applicable
14. Sexual activity
15. How long the first decoction should be used
16. A method of taking and preparing a second decoction
17. A way of administering sparta parilla
18. Native and familiar drugs should be put to use rather than exotics
19. Decoction of chamaedrys
20. No small results can by expected from genuine rhapontic
21. Hapless people who gratify themselves by publishing something
22. Occasion for the letter of Sylvius in which it was declared that nothing written by Galen is completely in error
23. Occasion for the opinion, here to be recorded, of the letter in which Vesalius replied to Sylvius
24. Galen did not dissect humans, but teaches the study of animals instead of man
25. A number of conjectures from the bones
26. Conclusions drawn about the fat, muscles, and ligaments, whereby it is concluded that Galen did not describe the human fabric
27. Several places taken from the series of veins and arteries in which it is inferred that Galen did not dissect humans
28. Reasons taken from the nerves by which it is known that humans were not dissected by Galen
29. Reasons selected from the contents of the peritoneum
30. Some conjectures based upon the parts that are contained in the thorax
31. Reasons taken from those contained in the skull
32. Some places where Galen openly criticized the Ancients because they had dissected humans and not apes, as he did
33. Not everything in his description of the parts was correctly reported and described by Galen
34. A number of untrue descriptions in the bones
35. Several inaccurate descriptions taken from the account of muscles and ligaments
36. Some false descriptions gathered from the account of veins and arteries
37. Accepted descriptions in the account of nerves which are not quite true
38. Descriptions of the parts that are contained in the peritoneum, which are not entirely true
39. Several untrue descriptions gathered from the parts contained in the thorax
40. False descriptions among the parts that are surrounded by the skull
41. Some places where it is known that Galen was not altogether sound in assigning the functions and uses of the parts
42. In his account of the bones
43. Several uses and functions not well assigned in Galen's account of the muscles and ligaments
44. Places collected from the description of veins, arteries, and nerves where it is known that Galen consistently assigned incorrect uses and actions
45. A description of some things that are contained in the peritoneum
46. From the description of parts located in the thorax and skull
47. Some invalid anatomical proofs of Galen are mentioned
48. How useful the annotations of Vesalius have been in Galenic anatomy, and how little they are to be needed hereafter
49. Method of administering the water of the China root.
Look Inside
Author
Andreas Vesalius
Editor and Translator
Daniel H. Garrison, Northwestern University, Illinois
Daniel H. Garrison is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Classics at Northwestern University. He is the translator of The Fabric of the Human Body (with Malcolm Hast, forthcoming) and the author of several books, including Sexual Culture in Ancient Greece, The Student's Catullus and Horace Epodes and Odes. A New Annotated Latin Edition.