Verheyen, Philip

, a physician and anatomist, was born in 1643 at Vesbrouck, in the county of Waes. He was descended of a family who had many years subsisted from the profits arising from the cultivation of the earth; and he had himself worked with the spade to the age of twenty-two years; when the curate of his village, taking notice of him, gave him the first rudiments of learning. He afterwards obtained a place in the college of the Trinity at Louvain, where he was made professor of anatomy in 16y, and afterwards doctor in medicine. He died there in Feb. 1710, aged 62. The following epitaph was found after his decease, written with his own hand: “Philippus Vt-rheyen Medicina; Doctor & Professor, partem sui materialem hie in Cremeterio condi voluit, ne Templum dehonestaret, am nocivis halitibus inficeret. Requiescat in pace.”

His “Corporis Humani Anatomia,” published in 1693, met with a good reception from the public, as containing, besides the opinions of the ancients, the modern discoveries, described more at large and more accurately than in the bodies of anatomy that were published before. There are also many observations, the result of his own experiments. ²