Correspondence
Medical Discoveries and Scientific Priority
N Engl J Med 2005; 352:1154March 17, 2005
- Article
To the Editor:
The Perspective article by Markel (Dec. 30 issue)1 contains two incorrect assertions. Galen, perhaps the first physician to base medicine on nature rather than on miracles or metaphysics, was born in Pergamum (now Bergama, Turkey), the place where sheepskin (charta pergamena) was first used to make books. He moved to Rome in 162 A.D. at 32 years of age, after many years in Greece and Alexandria. So he can hardly be characterized as a Roman physician and anatomist. Andreas Vesalius, for his part, was born in Brussels in 1514 — not in Italy. He lived in Italy only from 1540 to 1543, although his major contribution to human anatomy, De Humani Corporis Fabrica Libri Septem, was written during this period.
1 ReferencesPietro Cavalli, M.D.
Azienda Istituti Ospitalieri, 26100 Cremona, Italy
p.cavalli. aioc@e-cremona. it 1
Markel H . “Who's on first?“ -- medical discoveries and scientific priority. N Engl J Med 2004;351:2792-2794
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