Andreas Vesalius' first published work was what seems to be his medical thesis, the 1537 Paraphrasis in nonum librum Rhazae. This work was, as the title suggests, a paraphrase of the work of Razes, or Muhammad ibn Zakariyā Rāzī, a Persian polymath who wrote works on medicine, among other things.
In his dedicatory letter to Nicolas Florenas, Vesalius writes that he was only paraphrasing Razes rather than translating his work word for word because he felt that a paraphrase would serve his readers more. He neglected to mention, however, that his language skills weren't up to the task of such an undertaking. He comes out of that epistle looking like quite the linguist, when in reality, he was not. It does take some guts to write something like that, to not only mask your own ignorance, but to cloak it in an insinuation that you could do it if you wanted to, but that would be such a waste of time. And, if it was a thesis, Florenas was one of his old teachers-- surely he knew what languages Vesalius could and could not translate.
On an unrelated note, the first section of the work deals with pains in the head. All of this Latin* is giving me a pain in my head!
*in the interest of full disclosure, especially since I just poked fun at Vesalius' cockiness, I am incapable of providing a full translation of this work. But, at least I admit it!
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