The younger men were with him and he had many friends, but he had aroused a roaring tide of detraction against which he protested a few years later in his work on the "China-root," which is full of details about the "Fabrica." In a fit of temper he threw his notes on Galen and other MSS.

in the fire.

No sadder page exists in medical writings than the one in which Vesalius tells of the burning of his books and MSS.

It is here reproduced and translated.( 23) His life for a couple of years is not easy to follow, but we know that in 1546 he took service with Charles V as his body physician, and the greatest anatomist of his age was lost in the wanderings of court and campaigns.
He became an active practitioner, a distinguished surgeon, much consulted by his colleagues, and there are references to many of his cases, the most important of which are to internal aneurysms, which he was one of the first to recognize.

In 1555 he brought out the second edition of the "Fabrica," an even more sumptuous volume than the first.
(23) Epistle on China-root, 1546, p.196.