FALLOPIUS, or Falloppio, Gabriel, a celebrated anatomist and surgeon of the sixteenth century, was born at Modena in 1523. Although he taught anatomy with great distinction, and enjoyed an immense reputation, the details of his life are not exactly known, and have been variously related by different biographers; some, as Tomma-sini and Ghilini, fixing his birth in 1490, which is a manifest error, refuted by F ’ allopius himself; and others, again, contending that he was the disciple of Vesale, although Martine and Haller attest the contrary. But be this as it may, Fallopius made great progress in medical study, first at Ferrara under Antonio Musa Brassavola, and afterwards at Padua. For a time, indeed, he possessed a canonry in the cathedral of Modena; but he soon renounced this function, which prevented him from indulging his taste for dissection. After having taught anatomy for some months in the university of Ferrara, and during three years in that of Pisa, he was chosen by the senate of Venice, in 1551, to fill the chair of anatomy and surgery at Padua. He was, besides, entrusted with the demonstration of medicinal plants, and the inspection of the botanic garden, which he enriched with several vegetables collected during his travels in Italy, France, and Greece. But whilst discharging with equal zeal and distinction the various duties which these functions imposed upon him, his career was suddenly arrested by death, on the 9th of October 1562, before he had attained the fortieth year of his age. Fallopius only published a single work, which is not voluminous, but full of curious facts and useful discoveries; it is entitled Observationes Anatomie(e, Venice, 1561, in 8vo, also, Padua, 1562, Paris, 1562, Cologne, 1562, Helmstadt, 1588; and certainly forms an epoch in the annals of anatomical science. It is the first work, indeed, in which we find the exact osteology and angiology of the foetus; notions perfectly sound in regard to the epiphyses; and a luminous description of the delicate and complicated organ of hearing. The illustrious author clearly makes known the cochlea, the demi-circular canals, and the tortuous canal, which still bears the name of Fallopius. He describes, with a care formerly unknown, the ethmoid and sphenoid bones, the alveolar processes in which the teeth are encased, and the arteries, with the veins and nerves connected with them. He has likewise bequeathed his name to the ligament which runs from the anterior point of the ileon to the symphysis pubis. He points out, sometimes individually, at other times with more of method and detail, the occipital, palatine, laryngian, pharyngian, and pyramidal muscles of the abdomen; also the auricular, ocular, and facial muscles; together with the elevator of the eyebrow, and the sphincter of the bladder. Less profound in the knowledge [7:9:484]of the vessels, he nevertheless enriched that portion of anthropotomy. Before his time anatomists had the most confused and inaccurate ideas respecting the sinus of the spinal marrow, the carotid, meningean, and ethmoidal arteries, the jugular and vertebral veins, and the origin of the artery of the penis. Nor was neurology less indebted to the researches of Fallopius, who discovered the fourth pair of nerves, enumerated the three branches of the fifth, and completed the description of the eighth. Lastly, he carried the same critical spirit into splanchnology in general, over which he diffused much light, particularly in regard to the different sets of apparatus for secreting the bile, the urine, and the semen; and he also traced an excellent description of the clitoris, of the round ligaments, and of the extremities of the womb. To this enumeration of the anatomical labours of Fallopius it may be added, that he was powerfully seconded in his efforts by the principal men of the state. The protection afforded him by the grand duke of Tuscany was carried a length which may probably strike our readers with horror: Princeps jubet ut nobis dent hominem, quem nostro modo interficimus, et illum anatomisamus. The unfortunate men here alluded to were no doubt criminals; yet it is impossible to avoid being shocked beyond expression by the perusal of these words. The lectures of Fallopius were published, after his death, by several of his disciples; but none of the latter seems to have performed this task in a manner either creditable to himself or worthy of the great teacher of anatomy by whom they were delivered.