He then spent three months in the northern Italian city of Padua and he was taught by Hieronymus Fabricius, but his father's illness forced him to go back to Netherlands.

[2] The tree species Aesculus pavia (a type of horse chestnut) were named after Pauw by Herman Boerhaave.

Ten years earlier, De Bondt started anatomy lectures in Leiden, but Pauw was the first to appear publicly decomposing for his classes.

These dissections attracted much attention and were not only visited by students, but also by non-students who had to pay an entrance fee of fifteen pence.

The Epitome is a custom for students version of De humani corporis fabrica libri septem and Pauw added his own annotations to it.