{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_34019/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_34019","id":"gutenberg_34019","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/34019","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Health & Medicine","Category: History - Medieval/Middle Ages","Category: History - Modern (1750+)","Category: History - Religious","Popes","Religion and science -- History","Science -- History"],"text":"Produced by Don Kostuch\n\n\n\n\n[Transcriber's note]\n\n  This is derived from a copy on the Internet Archive:\n    http://www.archive.org/details/popesscienceOOwals\n\n  Page numbers in this book are indicated by numbers enclosed in curly\n  braces, e.g. {99}. They have been located where page breaks occurred\n  in the original book.\n\n  Obvious spelling errors have been corrected but \"inventive\" and\n  inconsistent spelling is left unchanged. Unusual use of quotation\n  marks is also unchanged.\n\n  Extended quotations and citations are indented.\n\n  Two sections in the Table of Contents and several entries in the\n  Index have been placed in the correct order.\n\n  Footnotes have been renumbered to avoid ambiguity, and relocated\n  to the end of the enclosing paragraph.\n\n[End Transcriber's note]\n\n\nSOME OPINIONS\n\nTHE POPES AND SCIENCE--The story of the Papal Relations to Science\nfrom the Middle Ages down to the Nineteenth Century. By James J.\nWalsh, M. D., Ph. D., LL. D. 540 pp. Price, $2.00 net.\n\nProf. Pagel, Professor of History at the University of Berlin: \"This\nbook represents the most serious contribution to the history of\nmedicine that has ever come out of America.\"\n\nSir Clifford Allbutt, Regius Professor of Physic at the University of\nCambridge (England): \"The book as a whole is a fair as well as a\nscholarly argument.\"\n\n_The Evening Post_ (New York) says: \"However strong the reader's\nprejudice * * * * he cannot lay down Prof. Walsh's volume without at\nleast conceding that the author has driven his pen hard and deep into\nthe 'academic superstition' about Papal Opposition to science.\" In a\nprevious issue it had said: \"We venture to prophesy that all who swear\nby Dr. Andrew D. White's History of the Warfare of Science with\nTheology in Christendom will find their hands full, if they attempt to\nanswer Dr. James J. Walsh's The Popes and Science.\"\n\n_The Literary Digest_ said: \"The book is well worth reading for its\nextensive learning and the vigor of its style.\"\n\n_The Southern Messenger_ says: \"Books like this make it clear that it is\nignorance alone that makes people, even supposedly educated people,\nstill cling to the old calumnies.\"\n\n_The Nation_ (New York) says: \"The learned Fordham Physician has at\ncommand an enormous mass of facts, and he orders them with logic,\nforce and literary ease. Prof. Walsh convicts his opponents of hasty\ngeneralizing if not anti-clerical zeal.\"\n\n_The Pittsburg Post_ says: \"With the fair attitude of mind and\ninfluenced only by the student's desire to procure knowledge, this\nbook becomes at once something to fascinate. On every page\nauthoritative facts confute the stereotyped statement of the purely\ntheological publications.\"\n\nProf. Welch, of Johns Hopkins, quoting Martial, said: \"It is pleasant\nindeed to drink at the living fountain-heads of knowledge after\npreviously having had only the stagnant pools of second-hand\nauthority.\"\n\nProf. Piersol, Professor of Anatomy at the University of Pennsylvania,\nsaid: \"I have been reading the book with the keenest interest, for it\nindeed presents many subjects in what to me at least is a new light.\nEvery man of science looks to the beacon--truth--as his guiding mark,\nand every opportunity to replace even time-honored misconceptions by\nwhat is really the truth must be welcomed.\"\n\n_The Independent_ (New York) said: \"Dr. Walsh's books should be read in\nconnection with attacks upon the Popes in the matter of science by\nthose who want to get both sides.\"\n\n\n\nBY THE SAME AUTHOR\n\nFORDHAM UNIVERSITY PRESS SERIES\n\nMAKERS OF MODERN MEDICINE\n\nLives of the men to whom nineteenth century medical science owes most.\nSecond Edition. New York, 1910. $2.00 net.\n\n\nTHE POPES AND SCIENCE\n\nThe story of Papal patronage of the sciences and especially medicine.\n45th thousand. New York, 1911. $2.00 net.\n\n\nMAKERS OF ELECTRICITY\n\nLives of the men to whom important advances in electricity are due. In\ncollaboration with Brother Potamian, F. S. C, Sc.D. (London),\nProfessor of Physics at Manhattan College. New York, 1909. $2.00 net.\n\n\n\nEDUCATION, HOW OLD THE NEW\n\nAddresses in the history of education on various occasions. 3rd\nthousand. New York, 1911. $2.00 net.\n\n\nOLD-TIME MAKERS OF MEDICINE\n\nThe story of the students and teachers of the sciences related to\nmedicine during the Middle Ages. New York, 1911. $2.00 net.\n\n\nMODERN PROGRESS AND HISTORY\n\nAcademic addresses on How Old the New. New York, 1912. $2.00 net.\n\n\nTHE THIRTEENTH GREATEST OF CENTURIES\n\n5th edition (50,000). 116 illustrations, 600 pages. Catholic Summer\nSchool Press, 1912. Postpaid $3.50.\n\n\nTHE CENTURY OF COLUMBUS\n\nWhy Columbus Discovered America in 1492. Catholic Summer School Press,\n1914. Postpaid $3.50.\n\n\nTHE DOLPHIN PRESS SERIES\n\nCATHOLIC CHURCHMEN IN SCIENCE\nFirst and second series, each $1.00 net.\n\n\n\nPSYCHOTHERAPY\n\nLectures on The Influence of the Mind on the Body delivered at Fordham\nUniversity School of Medicine. Appletons, New York, 1912. $6.00 net.\n\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration: Portrait]\nGUY DE CHAULIAC\n\n\"The Prince of surgeons\" (John Freund). \"The Modern Hippocrates\"\n(Fallopius). \"His work is of infinite price\" (Portal). \"A masterpiece\nof learned and luminous writing\" (Malgaigne). \"It is rich, aphoristic,\norderly, and precise\" (Clifford Allbutt). \"Chauliac laid the\nfoundation of that primacy in surgery which the French maintained down\nto the nineteenth century\" (Pagel).\n\nChauliac is a good type of a medieval papal physician. Two of his\nwell-known expressions were:\n\n  \"Sciences are made by addition and it is not possible that the same\n  man should begin and finish them.\"\n\n  \"We are like infants at the neck of a giant, for we can see all that\n  the giant sees and something more.\"\n\n[End Illustration]\n\n\n\nThe Popes and Science\n\n\n\nTHE HISTORY OF THE PAPAL RELATIONS TO SCIENCE\nDURING THE MIDDLE AGES AND DOWN TO OUR OWN TIME\n\n\n\nBY\n\nJAMES J. WALSH\n\nK.C. St.G., M.D., Ph.D., LL.D.  Litt.D. (Georgetown),\nSc. D. (Notre Dame)\n\nPROFESSOR OF PHYSIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY AT THE CATHEDRAL COLLEGE, NEW YORK;\n\nMEMBER OF THE GERMAN, FRENCH AND ITALIAN\nSOCIETIES OF THE HISTORY OF MEDICINE,\n\nTHE ST. LOUIS HISTORY CLUB,\n\nNEW ORLEANS PARISH MEDICAL SOCIETY,\n\nNEW YORK ACADEMY OF MEDICINE,\n\nNEW YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY,\n\nA.M.A., A.A.A.S., ETC.\n\n\n\nNOTRE DAME EDITION\n\n\n_ILLUSTRATED_\n\n\nFIFTIETH THOUSAND\n\n\n\nNEW YORK\n\nFORDHAM UNIVERSITY PRESS\n\n1915\n\n\n\n\n\nCopyright, 1908\n\nJames J. Walsh\n\n  First edition, 2,000 copies.\n  Second edition, 45,000 copies, 1910.\n  Third (English) edition, 2,000 copies, 1912.\n  Fourth (Notre Dame) edition, 1915,\n  enlarged and illustrated.\n\n\n\n\n  To\n\n  Professor ETTORE MARCHIAFAVA\n    _Papal Physician_\n\nThe worthy living representative of the great series of Papal\nPhysicians, the most distinguished list of names connected by any bond\nin the history of science.\n\n\n\n  \"Great additions have of late been made to our knowledge of the\n  past; the long conspiracy against the revelation of truth has\n  gradually given way, and competing historians all over the civilized\n  world have been zealous to take advantage of the change. The\n  printing of archives has kept pace with the admission of enquirers;\n  and the total mass of new matter, which the last half-century has\n  accumulated, amounts to many thousands of volumes. In view of\n  changes and of gains such as these, it has become impossible for the\n  historical writer of the present age to trust without reserve even\n  to the most respected secondary authorities. The honest student\n  finds himself continually deserted, retarded, misled by the classics\n  of historical literature, and has to hew his own way through\n  multitudinous transactions, periodicals and official publications in\n  order to reach the truth.\n\n  \"Ultimate history cannot be obtained in this generation; but, so far\n  as documentary evidence is at command, conventional history can be\n  discarded, and the point can be shown that has been reached on the\n  road from one to the other.\" (Preface of _Cambridge Modern\n  History_.)\n\n{iii}\n\nPREFACE\n\n_A new edition of this volume being called for, I take the occasion to\nplace it under the aegis of the University of Notre Dame as a slight\ntoken of gratitude for the formal recognition of the work by the\nfaculty of that institution, and bind this Notre Dame edition in the\nUniversity colors, blue and gold._\n\nThere is much more readiness at the present time to accept the\nconclusions with regard to the relations of the Popes and science here\nsuggested than there was when the book was first published. Knowledge\nof the general history of science has grown very materially in the\nlast ten years. Every increase in historical knowledge has shown more\nand more clearly how utterly without foundation were many ideas which\nhad been very commonly accepted, particularly in English-speaking\ncountries, on the subjects here discussed. The supposed opposition to\nthe development of science on the part of the Popes and the Church is\nnow readily seen to have had no existence in reality, and popular\nnotions on the subject were due entirely to ignorance of the history\nof science. There was supposed to be no scientific development and no\nnature study until quite recent times. The generations immediately\npreceding ours knew of none, and therefore concluded there must have\nbeen none. They went even farther, and felt that since there had been\nnone, there must be some special reason for this lacuna in human\nprogress. The Church and the Popes were the favorite scapegoats for\nhuman failings, so they were blamed. Now we know that there was a\nmagnificent development of science, not only in the Renaissance period\nunder the fostering care of the Popes and ecclesiastics, but also\nduring the old university times. What has come above all to be\nrecognized is that the medieval universities were _scientific\nuniversities_. They paid more attention to the ethical and\nphilosophical sciences than we do, but they devoted a great deal of\ntime to mathematics and the physical sciences. Mr. Huxley, in his\ninaugural address as Rector of the University of Aberdeen, declared\nthirty years ago that the curriculum of these old universities was\nbetter calculated to develop the many-sided mind of man than the\ncurriculum of any modern university. Above all, in surgery and in\nmedicine they did magnificent work. Anaesthesia, antisepsis, and the\nnatural methods of cure were all anticipated in the medieval time. At\nthe International Congress of Medicine last summer, a section on the\nhistory of medicine was organized because it has come to be recognized\nthat very much that is even of practical value can be learned from\nmedical history.\n\nThe fact of the matter is that during the eighteenth and early\nnineteenth centuries there was a great decadence of interest in\nscholarship and true education. There is a distinct descent in human\nculture at this time. Education was at its lowest ebb, hospitals {iv}\nwere the worst ever built, art and architecture were neglected, and\nhuman liberty was so shackled that the French Revolution was needed to\nlift the fetters from men's minds as well as bodies. They, in their\nignorance, spoke slightingly of old-time scholars. During the past\ncentury we have come to a better knowledge of the Middle Ages, and he\nis indeed a backward student of history who now thinks of them as\n\"dark.\" Our millionaires have gathered, at immense expense,\nmagnificent examples of the arts and crafts and beautiful books of the\nmedieval and Renaissance periods. Our binders imitate their books, our\nartists study their works, we have revived their architecture and\nliterature, are imitating their social ideas until, instead of \"the\ndark ages,\" we have come to think of them as \"the bright ages.\" What\nis not generally realized is that they are just as bright in science\nas they were in art, architecture, literature, and the arts and\ncrafts.\n\nLiterally, the Popes were as much the patrons of science as they were\nof the arts. Professor White's book, \"The Warfare of Science with\nTheology,\" like Professor Draper's \"History of the Conflict Between\nReligion and Science,\" are now seen to represent simply an interesting\nevidence of the lack of real knowledge of the history of science and,\nabove all, complete ignorance of details as to the genuine\naccomplishment of the olden time on the part of the generation by\nwhich they were taken seriously. Being quite sure that there was no\nscience to speak of in the older times, these writers gathered every\npossible reference, found anywhere in secondary authorities, for they\nalmost never went to the original documents, as evidence for their\npreconceived conviction that the Church must have suppressed science\nwhenever that was possible. The real history of science was ignored.\nAs soon as that is known there is no further question of Church\nopposition, but, on the contrary, of the extent of ecclesiastical\npatronage and encouragement of science.\n\nSome of this very different story is told only too incompletely in\nthis volume. It would take many volumes to give all the details of it.\nReaders will find here at least such references to the actual\ndocumentary history as will form a good basis for definite knowledge\nof the genuine relations of the Popes to science. The series of new\nappendices in this edition, especially those on Papal Physicians,\nScience in America, and the original Papal documents so often quoted,\nbut seldom seen entire, is meant to supply material for the correction\nof many false notions that are unfortunately prevalent. They present\nhistorical matter that has not been readily available hitherto in\nEnglish-speaking countries and that has nowhere been easy of access in\nthe form here given.\n\nAppendix VII by Rev. Father Leahy on _The Fathers of The Church and\nScience_ presents a controverted point of history to persuasion.\nAppendix IX shows how amusing and amazing was Professor Draper's lack\nof knowledge of the history of science and above all of medicine and\nsurgery when he wrote his \"histories\" that were so widely read and\naccepted because we in America knew no better for the moment.\n\n{v}\n                          PREFACE\n\nFor years, as a student and physician, I listened to remarks from\nteachers and professional friends as to the opposition of the Popes to\nscience, until finally, much against my will, I came to believe that\nthere had been many Papal documents issued, which intentionally or\notherwise hampered the progress of science. Interest in the history of\nmedicine led me to investigate the subject for myself. To my surprise,\nI found that the supposed Papal opposition to science was practically\nall founded on an exaggeration of the significance of the Galileo\nincident. As a matter of history, the Popes were as liberal patrons of\nscience as of art. In the Renaissance period, when their patronage of\nRaphael and Michel Angelo and other great artists did so much for art,\nsimilar relations to Columbus, Eustachius, and Caesalpinus, and later\nto Steno and Malpighi, our greatest medical discoverers, had like\nresults for science. The Papal Medical School was for centuries the\ngreatest medical school in Europe, and its professors were the most\ndistinguished medical scientists of the time. This is a perfectly\nsimple bit of history that anyone may find for himself in any reliable\nhistory of medicine. The medical schools were the scientific\ndepartments of the universities practically down to the nineteenth\ncentury. In them were studied botany, zoology and the biological\nsciences generally, chemistry, physics, mineralogy and even astronomy,\nbecause of the belief that the stars influenced human constitutions.\nThe Popes in fostering medical schools (there were four of them in the\nPapal dominions, and two of them, Bologna and Rome, were the greatest\nmedical schools for several centuries) were acting as wise and\nbeneficent patrons of science. Many of the greatest scientists of the\nMiddle Ages were clergymen. Some of the greatest of them were\ncanonized as saints. Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas are typical\nexamples. At least one Pope had been a distinguished scientist before\nbeing elected to the Papacy. For seven centuries the Popes selected as\ntheir physicians the greatest medical scientists of the {vi} time, and\nthe list of Papal physicians is the worthiest series of names\nconnected by any bond in the history of medicine, far surpassing in\nscientific import even the roll of the faculty of any medical school.\n\nIn a word, I failed to find any trace of Papal opposition to true\nscience in any form. On the contrary, I found abundant evidence of\ntheir having been just as liberal and judicious patrons of science as\nthey were of art and education in all forms. I found also that those\nwho write most emphatically about Papal opposition to science, know\nnothing at all of the history of science, and above all of medicine\nand of surgery, during three very precious centuries. Because they\nknow nothing about it they think there was none, and go out of their\nway to find a reason for its absence, while all the time there is a\nwondrous series of chapters of science for those who care to look for\nthem. This is the story that I have tried to tell in this book.\n\nThis material is, I think, gathered into compact form for the first\ntime. No one knows better than I do how many defects are probably in\nthe volume. What I have tried to do is to present a large subject in a\npopular way, and at the same time with such references to readily\navailable authorities as would make the collection of further\ninformation comparatively easy. I am sorry that the book has had to\ntake on a controversial tone. No one feels more than I do that\ncontroversy seldom advances truth. There are certain false notions,\nhowever, which have the prestige of prominent names behind them, which\nsimply must be flatly contradicted. I did not seek the controversy,\nfor when I began to publish the original documents in the subject I\nmentioned no names. Controversy was forced on me, but not until I had\nmade it a point to meet and spend many pleasant hours with the writer\nwhose statements I must impugn, because they so flagrantly contradict\nthe simple facts of medical history.\n\n\n\n{vii}\n\n\nCONTENTS.\n\n\nINTRODUCTION.                                                        1\n\n  May Catholics dissect?\n  Supposed prohibition of dissection.\n  Twenty medical schools in Catholic Europe.\n  Medieval universities and medical education.\n  Allbutt on medicine down to the sixteenth century.\n  William of Salicet and Lanfranc, the great medieval surgeons.\n  The nearer to Rome the better the medical school.\n  The state of medical teaching and discovery.\n  The relation of the Popes to medical progress.\n  Supposed Papal prohibitions.\n  Ignorance of medieval medicine the reason for misrepresentation.\n  The Popes did not hamper medicine nor any other science.\n  Galileo's case an incident, not the index of a policy.\n  The Papal Medical School the greatest in the world.\n  The Papal Physicians leaders in science.\n  The Church did for science as much as for art and literature.\n  History a conspiracy against the truth. (Cambridge Modern History.)\n\n\n  THE SUPPOSED PAPAL PROHIBITION OF DISSECTION.                     28\n\n  A new Catholic medical school and dissection.\n  Supposed Papal prohibitions of anatomy and of chemistry.\n  The bull of Pope Boniface VIII., De Sepulturis.\n  Reason for the ball.\n  Supposed misinterpretation.\n  Misuse of word infallibility.\n  Some history of dissection.\n  Date of bull important in history.\n  Mondino's work.\n  Body-snatching.\n  Dissections elsewhere.\n  How Mondino prepared his bodies for dissection.\n  Guy de Chauliac at Bologna sees many dissections.\n  Mondino's assistants, Otto and Alessandra.\n  Papal permissions to dissect.\n  The Church granting anatomical privileges\n    where civil authorities refused.\n  How the tradition of this Papal prohibition originated.\n  M. Daunou as an authority.\n  Reply of Pope Benedict XIV. as to bull.\n  This subject a type of certain kinds of history\n\n\n  THE STORY OF ANATOMY DOWN TO THE RENAISSANCE.                      61\n\n  Presumed failure of anatomy during the Middle Ages a myth.\n  Famous Law of Frederick II.\n  Dissections at Salerno.\n  Taddeo and anatomy.\n  Salicet and Lanfranc.\n  A famous medico-legal autopsy.\n{viii}\n  Mondino in the history of anatomy.\n  Roth's story of dissection.\n  Guy de Chauliac's experience at Bologna.\n  The story of dissection during the fourteenth century without a break.\n  Continued in next century.\n  The work of Berengar of Carpi, Achillini, Matthew of Gradi.\n  Pathological anatomy born with Benivieni.\n  Pres. White's attitude to the evidence for dissection at this time.\n\n\n  THE GOLDEN AGE OF ANATOMY.--VESALIUS.                             90\n\n  The golden age of anatomy as of letters and art in Italy.\n  Not origin, but wonderful development.\n  Great predecessors of Raphael and Michel Angelo,\n    as of Vesalius and Columbus.\n  Legitimate culmination of anatomical development.\n  The pre-Vesalians, Mondino, Bertrucci, Chauliac,\n    Achillini, Berengar and Benivieni.\n  The English students, Linacre, Caius, Phreas.\n  Italy the Mecca of anatomical investigators.\n  Harvey and Steno.\n  Graduate work in Italy then as in Germany now.\n  Vesalius's career.\n  The University of Louvain.\n  Vesalius in Paris, in Italy.\n  The Father of Modern Anatomy.\n  Royal Physician to Charles V.\n  Some historical misconstructions.\n  What the Popes did for anatomy in the sixteenth century.\n\n\n  THE SUPPOSED PAPAL PROHIBITION OF CHEMISTRY.                     120\n\n  False impression prevalent just as in anatomy.\n  Striking similarity of history-lie.\n  American writers.\n  The Papal decree.\n  Its purpose.\n  The gold-brick industry.\n  Fines to be distributed to the poor.\n  Pope John's bull, _Super Illius specula._\n  Appeal to historians of chemistry.\n  Chemistry in later Middle Ages.\n  Albertus Magnus, Thomas Aquinas, Roger Bacon, Raymond Lully,\n    Arnold of Villanova, the two Hollanduses, Basil Valentine,\n    Paracelsus and his ecclesiastical teachers.\n  Pope John XXII. a patron of science and of education\n\n\n  A PAPAL PATRON OF EDUCATION AND OF SCIENCE.                       138\n\n  Pope John XXII. distinguished for his administrative abilities,\n    his learning and his abstemiousness.\n  Avarice and the Papal revenues.\n  Educational foundations from Papal revenues.\n  Modern educators and this old-time patron of education.\n  All great Popes subject of slander.\n  The personality of Pope John XXII.\n  Pres. White's astonishing declarations as to the\n    bull _Super Illius specula._\n  Pope John XXII. \"a kindly and rational scholar.\"\n  His bull for the University {ix} of Perugia.\n  Perugia and the history of culture.\n  Standards in education.\n  Seven years for the doctorate in medicine.\n  Foundation of the University of Cahors.\n  Modern requirements.\n  Why the Pope favored education\n\n\n  THE CHURCH AND SURGERY DURING THE MIDDLE AGES.                    167\n\n  Mistaken notions as to medieval surgery.\n  Supposed Church discouragement of surgery.\n  Misinterpreted ecclesiastical documents once more.\n  Gurlt on surgery during the Middle Ages.\n  Wonderful developments of surgery, when ignorantly said not to exist.\n  Allbutt and Pagel on the great surgeons of the Middle Ages.\n  Salicet.\n  Lanfranc.\n  Surprising anticipations of modern surgery.\n  Mondeville.\n  Surgical common sense.\n  Yperman.\n  Illustrations of surgical instruments.\n  Hydrophobia.\n  Chauliac the Father of Modern Surgery.\n  Place in surgery.\n  Chamberlain of the Pope.\n  Technics of surgery.\n  Chauliac's career.\n  Ardern, the English surgeon.\n  His works.\n  False impressions with regard to surgical history.\n  Professional jealousy not ecclesiastical persecution.\n  The college of St. Come and its lessons.\n  False traditions as to the Church and surgery and their meaning\n\n\n  PAPAL PHYSICIANS.                                                199\n\n  Belief in miracles and progress in medicine.\n  Prayer and healing.\n  The men the Popes chose as their medical advisers.\n  Names greater than those of the medical faculty of any university.\n  Guy of Montpelier, Richard the Englishman, Pope John XXI.,\n    Simon Januensis and the first medical dictionary.\n  Arnold of Villanova.\n  Guy de Chauliac.\n  Cecco di Ascolo.\n  Joannes de Tornamira.\n  Francis of Siena.\n  Baverius of Imola.\n  John de Vigo.\n  Columbus.\n  Eustachius.\n  Varolius.\n  Piccolomini.\n  Caesalpinus.\n  Malpighi.\n  Tozzi.\n  Lancisi.\n  Morgagni.\n  Contributions to the biological sciences from Papal Physicians.\n\n\n  THE POPES AND MEDICAL EDUCATION AND THE PAPAL MEDICAL SCHOOL.    222\n\n  Papal Medical School at Rome since 1300.\n  Supported by revenues from Popes at Avignon.\n  Previous Papal relations to medicine.\n  Monte Cassino and Salerno.\n  Pope Sylvester II. and medicine.\n  Medical schools and the ecclesiastical authorities.\n  A great physician made Pope.\n  The Renaissance and the re-established Papal Medical School.\n  Columbus original discoverer and practical teacher.\n  Attendance at his lessons.\n  His book dedicated to Pope.\n  Other medical dedications to Popes.\n  Eustachius's work.\n  Piccolomini as a great teacher.\n  Caesalpinus the probable discoverer of the circulation of the blood.\n  Father Kircher's work at Rome.\n  Malpighi the Father of Comparative Anatomy.\n  Tozzi the best teacher of his time.\n  Lancisi as a founder in clinical medicine.\n  On Sudden Death.\n  Morgagni's place as an adviser.\n  Bologna in the Papal dominions.\n  Medical schools at Ferrara and Perugia.\n  Protestant traditions with regard to the Popes and medicine.\n\n{x}\n\n  THE FOUNDATION OF CITY HOSPITALS.                                248\n\n  Pope Innocent III., the Father of City Hospitals.\n  Santo Spirito at Rome.\n  Virchow on the effect of this in Germany.\n  French hospitals and the Hotel Dieu.\n  English hospitals.\n  The five royal hospitals.\n  Virchow's tribute to Pope Innocent III.\n  Hospital regulation.\n  Care for the poor.\n  Longings of patients.\n  Religious nurses and modern nursing.\n  Virchow's opinion.\n  Contemporaries on hospital accomplishment.\n  Magnificent hospital building.\n  Models for all future time.\n  A modern architects's opinion.\n  Hospital decoration.\n  Siena Hospital.\n  Hospital abuses.\n  Problem of malingerers.\n  Leper hospitals.\n  The eradication of leprosy.\n  Lesson for our generation as to tuberculosis.\n  Special hospitals for erysipelas.\n  Benefit of segregation.\n  The religious dress and its anticipation of aseptic needs.\n  Hospitals ruined when taken from the Church and the religious.\n\n\n  THE CHURCH AND THE EXPERIMENTAL METHOD.                          281\n\n  The doubting mood so important for science supposed to preclude faith.\n  Most great scientists Catholics.\n  Francis Bacon, the supposed Father of Inductive Science.\n  Only the popularizer of the experimental method.\n  Bacon and Copernicus.\n  Gilbert of Colchester before Bacon.\n  Friar Bacon on the experimental method.\n  Peregrinus and the value of experiments.\n  Bacon's four grounds of human ignorance.\n  Bacon's great teacher, Albertus Magnus, and the experimental method.\n  Christian tradition as to scientific inquiry as begun by Augustine.\n  Albert's place in the history of inductive science.\n  Interest of the Middle Ages in physical science.\n\n{xi}\n\n  CHURCHMEN AND PHYSICAL SCIENCE IN THE MEDIEVAL UNIVERSITIES.     302\n\n  The Popes and the medieval universities.\n  What the scholastic philosophers did for science.\n  Scientific teaching at the early universities.\n  \"Foundations of knowledge for Galileo, Harvey,\n    Newton and Darwin.\" (Allbutt.)\n  Magnetics.\n  Philosopher's stone and the transmutation of metals.\n  Constitution of matter.\n  Matter and form.\n  Indestructibility of matter.\n  Conservation of energy.\n  Albertus Magnus on the antipodes.\n  Humboldt's appreciation of Albert.\n  Albert's scientific accomplishments.\n  Astronomy, botany, geography and biological sciences.\n  Roger Bacon and explosives; achievements in optics and astronomy.\n  Aquinas and chemistry.\n  The relations of these men to the Popes.\n  Bacon's difficulties.\n  Medieval accomplishments in applied science.\n  Scientific applications in medieval cities (Kropotkin).\n  Decadence in science after Middle Ages.\n  The place of the reformation so-called.\n  The first encyclopedia.\n  Vincent of Beauvais and interest in his work.\n  Thomas of Cantimprato and Bartholomaeus Anglicus.\n  Craving for information in natural science.\n\n\n  THE MEDIEVAL UNIVERSITY MAN AND SCIENCE.                         340\n\n  Dante a type of the medieval university student.\n  His knowledge a proof of how he was taught.\n  Dante as a student of nature.\n  Ruskin's opinion.\n  Trobridge's suggestions.\n  Dante's early education.\n  Azarias and Kropotkin on the public schools of Florence and Nuremberg.\n  Kuhns on Dante's science.\n  Optics.\n  Astronomy.\n  Humboldt's praise of Dante's scientific knowledge.\n  Dante the observer, phosphorescence, flies, bees and ants.\n  Dante knew more science than any modern poet.\n  His contribution to the science of education.\n\n\n  THE CHURCH AND THE MENTALLY AFFLICTED.                            363\n\n  Disease and supernatural agency.\n  Denial of disease.\n  Scientists and spiritualism.\n  Reaction in recent years.\n  Anticipations in psychiatry.\n  Supposed evolution of treatment of the mentally diseased.\n  Medieval care of the insane.\n  Psychopathic wards in hospitals.\n  The open door treatment.\n  After-care of the insane.\n  The colony system.\n  Religious suggestion and cure--ancient and modern.\n  Prayer and mental disease.\n  Care of the insane at Gheel.\n  Neglect {xii} of insane not exclusively medieval.\n  Milder measures quite modern.\n  Spiritual agencies in life.\n  Alfred Russell Wallace, Sir William Crookes, Sir Oliver Lodge,\n    Prof. Charles Richet, Lombroso.\n\n\nAPPENDIX I.\n\n  OPPOSITION TO SCIENTIFIC PROGRESS.                               390\n\n  The Popes as patrons of scientific education.\n  Swift on genius and assinine opposition.\n  Allston on truth in unusual form.\n  \"Nonsense\" and \"absurd\" on scientists' tongues.\n  Jordan on human conservatism.\n  Galileo's letter to Kepler, on \"logic\" and science.\n  Huxley on Galileo.\n  De Morgan on other cases.\n  Dogmatism and folly.\n  Persecution of scientists.\n  Harvey, Vesalius, Servetus, Steno.\n  Not confined to old times, Jenner, Auenbrugger, Laennec,\n    Thomas Young, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Semmelweiss.\n  Opposition in other sciences.\n  Ohm.\n  Young men and discoveries.\n  Pasteur and rabies.\n  Our universities and economics.\n  Conservatism still active.\n  The lesson.\n\n\nAPPENDIX II.\n\n  LATIN TEXT OF PAPAL BULLS AND DECREES.                            413\n\n  _De Sepulturis._\n  _De Crimine Falsi._\n  _Super Illius specula._\n  Bulls for erection of Universities of Perugia and Cahors.\n\n\nAPPENDIX III.                                                      419\n\n  Emperor Frederick's Law Regulating the Practice of Medicine (1231)\n\n\nAPPENDIX IV.\n\nCHURCH DECREES RELATING TO MEDICINE.                               424\n\n  Prohibition of the study and practice of medicine and law to\n    members of religious orders.\n  Text of the decrees.\n  Significance of the prohibition.\n  Not all priests, but only members of religious orders involved.\n  Church decrees as to the physician's duty in securing the last\n    rites of the Church for his patients when in danger of death.\n  Text of the decrees.\n  Misunderstanding.\n\n\nAPPENDIX V.\n\nPAPAL PHYSICIANS.                                               431\n\n  The principal Papal Physicians, their careers, and their chief\n  works. Ursus, Guy of Montpellier, Ricardus Anglicus, Taddeo {xiii}\n  Florentinus, Simon Januensis, William of Brescia, Arnold of\n  Villanova, Petrus Aichspadius, Gentilis Gentilis, Dino del Garbo,\n  Guy de Chauliac, Jean de Tornemire, Francis Casinus, John Baptist\n  Verallus, Ludovicus Scarampus, Bernard Garzonius, Laurentius\n  Roverella, Joannes Serninus, Simon Tebaldi, Jacobus Gottifredus,\n  Joannes Burgius, Sanctes Floccus, Sebastianus Veteranus, Onofrio de\n  Onofriis, John Philip de Lignamine, Benedict of Nursia, Petrus\n  Leonius, Alexander de Espinosa, Gaspar Torella, Petrus Pintor,\n  Horatio and Scipio Lancillotti, Joannes Bodier, Samuel Sarfati,\n  Antonius Petrutius, Dioscorides da Velletri, Bartholomeo of Pisa,\n  Bernardinus Speronius, Jerome Sessa, Clementius Clementinus,\n  Bartholomeo Montagnana, Giovanni Antracino, John de Vigo, Francesco\n  Fusconi, Andreas Cibbo, Andrea Turini, Ludovico Augeni, Paulus\n  Jovius, Matteo Corti (Curtius), Antonio Musa Brasavola, Silvius\n  Zeffiri, Jacobus Bonacossus, Joannes Manovelli, Thomas Cadimustus,\n  Tiberius Palella, Alfonso Ferri, Franciscus Frigimelica, Maggi, John\n  Baptist Cananus, Augustino Ricchi, Altamare, Bianchi, Simon Pasqua,\n  Pompeius Barba, Franciscus Gymnasius, Jerome Cardan, Mercurialis,\n  Placidus Fuscus, Andreas Baccius, Demetrius Canevarius, Malpighi,\n  Jerome Provenzalis, Jerome Rubeus, Jerome Cordella, Zecchius,\n  Caesalpinus, Michael Mercatus, Nicholas Masinus, Jacobus\n  Bonaventura, Julius de Angelis, Pompeius Caimus, Vincentius Crucius,\n  Giovanni and Bernardino Castellani, Julius Mancinus, Sylvester and\n  Thaddeus Collicola, Baldus Baldi, Paul Zacchias, Gabriel Fonseca,\n  Matthias Naldius, Borelli, Lancisi, Salvatorius, Romulus Spezioli,\n  Lucas Tozzi, Morgagni, Cotugno, Giambattista Bomba, Antonio\n  Baccelli, Flajani, Paolo Baroni, Pier Luigi Valentini, Giuseppe\n  Constantini, Castracane, Lapponi, Marchiafava.\n\n\nAPPENDIX VI.\n\nASTRONOMY AND THE CHURCH; SOME ROMAN ASTRONOMERS.                469\n\nNo formal list of Papal astronomers available. The roll of names in\nastronomy connected in some way with the Popes almost as distinguished\nas that of Papal Physicians: Roger Bacon, Albertus Magnus, Nicholas of\nCusa, Regiomontanus, Toscanelli, Archbishop Antoninus, Clavius, the\nRoman College, Scheiner, Ricci, Athanasius Kircher, Thomas Leseur,\nFranz Jacquier, Boscovitch, Le Maire, Gilii, Beccaria, Piazzi, Secchi,\nDe Vico, Sestini, Denza, Lais, Rodriguez, Hagan.\n\n\n{xiv}\n\nAPPENDIX VII.\n\n  THE FATHERS OF THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE.                           484\n\n  Supposed opposition of the Fathers of the Church to science.\n  Father Leahy on the true relations.\n  Defence of the Fathers.\n  Supposed opposition to science.\n  No opposition to true science.\n  Position as regards astrology.\n  What the Fathers did for science.\n\n\nAPPENDIX VIII.\n\nSCIENCE IN AMERICA.                                               492\n\n  Spanish Catholic America far outdistanced English Protestant\n    America in the cultivation of science before our time.\n\n  Professor Bourne, on science at the Spanish-American Universities,\n    \"Spanish-American science of the sixteenth century only reached\n    in English America in the nineteenth.\"\n\n  Dr. Chanca's letter.\n\n  Priority in medical education.\n\n  Bourne on Spanish-American anticipations.\n\n  Reasons for decadence.\n\n\n\nAPPENDIX IX.\n\nTHE DANGER OF A LITTLE KNOWLEDGE.                                  500\n\n  Professor Draper's \"History of the Conflict Between Religion\n    and Science.\"\n  The tradition of Church opposition to science founded on\n    ignorance of the Middle Ages.\n  The \"Bright,\" not the \"Dark\" Ages.\n  Draper's career.\n  \"History of the Intellectual Development of Europe.\"\n  Acceptance of his writings as authoritative.\n  Lack of scholarship.\n  Medieval achievements.\n  \"Lazy monks.\"\n  Wonderful work of the monks.\n  Monasteries as agricultural colleges.\n  The Arabs in science.\n  Medieval prophylaxis.\n  Magnificent hospitals.\n  Halley's comet.\n  The Popes of the beginning of the Renaissance: Nicholas V,\n    Calixtus III, Pius II (AEneas Sylvius Piccolomini).\n  Draper's summaries of history, caricatures.\n  Contrast between Spanish and English America.\n  Professor Bourne.\n  Sir Sidney Lee.\n  Professor Draper's philosophy of history.\n  The Church and social conditions.\n  Draper's surprising ignorance of the history of medicine.\n  Objections to the Church in her relations to science\n    always founded on lack of knowledge.\n\n\n{xv}\n\nLIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS\n\nGuy de Chauliac          _Frontispiece_\n\n                             FACING PAGE\n\nGuy de Chauliac's cauteries      182\n\nGuy de Chauliac's cauteries      183\n\nGuy de Chauliac's instruments    186\n\nGuy de Chauliac's instruments    187\n\nHospital at Luebeck               252\n\nHospital at Tonnerre             268\n\nHospital, Mexico                 272\n\nFerri's instruments       _Page_ 447\n\nMaggi's instruments       _Page_ 448\n\nMaggi's instruments       _Page_ 449\n\nMaggi's instruments       _Page_ 450\n\nHospital, Mexico     _Opp. Page_ 495\n\n\n{1}\n\nINTRODUCTION.\n\nWhen, some years ago, the announcement of the prospective opening of\nthe medical school at Fordham University, New York City, was made, the\npreliminary faculty were rather astonished to find that a number of\nintelligent physicians expressed surprise that there should be any\nquestion of the establishment of a medical school in connection with a\nCatholic institution of learning, since, as they understood, the\nChurch forbade the practice of dissection, and in general was\ndistinctly unfavorable to the development of medical science. Most of\nus had already known of the false persuasion existing in some minds,\nthat by a Papal decree the practice of dissection had been forbidden\nduring the Middle Ages, but it was hard to understand how men should\nthink, in this day of general information, that Catholics were not\nfree to pursue the study of any true science, and above all medical\nscience, without let or hindrance from ecclesiastical authorities. In\na word, though we live in what we are pleased to call an enlightened\nage with the schoolmaster abroad in the land, as is so proudly\nproclaimed, we encountered the most childish simplicity of belief in a\nnumber of old-time prejudices as to the position of the Church with\nregard to the study of science.\n\nWe found such a curious state of positive ignorance and such an\nerroneous, pretentious knowledge with regard to the supposed attitude\nof the Church to medicine especially, that we realized that the first\nthing that the {2} new medical department would have to do would be to\nset about correcting authoritatively the false notions which existed\nwith regard to the Popes and medical science. Most of the\nmisinformation in this matter in American minds, we soon found, had\nits origin in Dr. Andrew D. White's volumes, \"On the History of the\nWarfare of Science with Theology in Christendom.\" It is impossible for\nanyone to read Dr. White's chapter on from Miracles to Medicine in\nthis work without coming to the conclusion that the constant policy of\nthe Church for all the centuries down practically to our own time was\nto prevent the progress of medicine as far as possible. The reason for\nthis policy, presumably, must be taken to be that it was to the\ninterest of the ecclesiastics to have people apply to them for\nhealing. Sufferers were to look to miracles rather than to drugs for\ntheir relief from ailments of any and every kind. Prayers were to be\nconsidered as much more efficacious than powders, and Masses much more\nlikely to do good than the most careful nursing. These ecclesiastical\noffices had to be paid for. Accordingly, people had to be discouraged\nfrom applying to physicians, medical schools were kept under an\necclesiastical ban, \"dissection was prohibited,\" anatomy declared \"a\nsin against the Holy Ghost,\" \"chemistry forbidden under the severest\npenalties,\" \"the medieval miracles of healing checked medical\nscience,\" \"the practice of surgery was relegated mainly to the lowest\norders of practitioners and confined strictly to them,\" \"as the grasp\nof theology upon education tightened, medicine declined,\" and every\npossible means was employed to keep the popular mind in subjection to\nthe clergy, and to prevent physicians from getting so much knowledge\nas would enable them {3} to help free the people from the bondage of\nsuperstition, of which they were the victims and the slaves.\n\nWe do not think that we exaggerate the impression likely to be\nobtained from Dr. White's book in stating the ordinarily accepted\nopinions thus baldly, and as a matter of fact, as the quotation marks\nare intended to show, most of the strongest phrases that we have used\nare Dr. White's own. For those who can take such statements in good\nfaith, it must be a very genuine surprise to learn a few facts from\nthe history of medicine in the Middle Ages. Before the beginning of\nthe sixteenth century, that is, before the religious revolt in\nGermany, which has been dignified by the name of reformation,\naltogether some twenty medical schools were founded in various parts\nof Europe. Of these, the best known in the order of their foundation\nwere Salerno, Bologna, Naples, Montpelier, Paris, Padua and Pisa.\nExcellent schools, however, were established also at Oxford, Rome,\nSalamanca, Orleans and Coimbra. Even early in the fourteenth century\nsuch unimportant towns as Perugia, Cahors and Lerida had medical\nschools. These schools were usually established in connection with the\nuniversities. It was realized that this would make the teaching of\nmedicine more serious and keep the practical side of medicine from\nobscuring too much the scientific and cultural aspects of the medical\ntraining. In modern times in America we made the mistake of having our\nmedical schools independent of universities, but with the advance in\neducation and culture we have come to imitate the custom of the\nthirteenth and the fourteenth century in this regard.\n\nThe universities, as is well known, were the outgrowth of cathedral\nschools. Practically all those in authority {4} in them, by far the\ngreater number of teachers and most of the pupils, were of the\nclerical order, that is, had assumed some ecclesiastical obligations\nand were considered to be churchmen. At these universities, if we can\ntrust the example of England as applicable to the Continent also,\nthere were, according to trustworthy, conservative statistics, more\nstudents in attendance in proportion to the population than there has\nbeen at any period since, or than there are even at the present time\nin the twentieth century in any country of the civilized world. From\nthis we can readily appreciate the enthusiastic ardor of those seeking\neducation. Of these large numbers, the medical schools had their due\nproportion. [Footnote 1]\n\n[Footnote 1: This subject of the attendance at the universities of the\nMiddle Ages is discussed, and authorities quoted, in my book \"The\nThirteenth, Greatest of Centuries,\" published by the Catholic Summer\nSchool Press, N. Y.]\n\nOf course it will be said at once that though there were medical\nschools and medical professors and students, what was taught and\nstudied at this time was so far distant from anything like practical\nknowledge of medicine, that it does not tell against the argument that\nmedical education was practically non-existent. Some people will\nperhaps harbor the thought, if they do not frankly express it, that\nvery probably these schools were organized under ecclesiastical\nauthority, only in order to enable the Church and the clergy to\nmaintain their control of medical education and keep the people from\nknowledge that might prove dangerous to Church authority. They were\nthus able to satisfy some of men's cravings for information in these\nmatters, and yet prevent them from making such advances as would\nendanger the Church's policy of having them apply for prayers and\nMasses rather than for more physical remedies, {5} except possibly for\ncertain minor ailments. We do not doubt that there are many educated\npeople who would be quite satisfied to accept this as a complete\nexplanation of the situation in medical education at the medieval\nuniversities. Those who have read Dr. White's \"History of the Warfare\nof Theology with Science\" and have placed any faith in his really\namusing excursions into a realm of which apparently he knows nothing--\nthe history of medicine--must believe something like this. For them a\nlittle glance at even a few of the realities of medical teaching in\nthe thirteenth century will show at once what a castle of the\nimagination they have been living in.\n\nOnly those who are thoroughly and completely ignorant of the real\nstatus of medical teaching in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries\ncontinue to hold these absurd opinions as to the nullity of medieval\nmedicine and surgery. The reading of a single short recent\ncontribution to medical history, the address of Professor Clifford\nAllbutt, Regius Professor of Physic at the University of Cambridge,\nEngland, before the Congress of Arts and Sciences at the Exposition\nheld in St. Louis in 1904, \"On the Historical Relations of Medicine\nand Surgery down to the Sixteenth Century,\" would suffice to eradicate\ncompletely such traditional errors. He pointed out some surprising\nanticipations of what is most modern in medicine and surgery in the\nteachings of William of Salicet and his pupil Lanfranc, Professors of\nMedicine and Surgery in the Italian Universities and in Paris during\nthe thirteenth century. As these two professors were the most\ndistinguished teachers of surgery of the period and the acknowledged\nleaders of thought in their time, their teaching may fairly be taken\nas {6} representative of the curricula of medieval medical schools.\nWilliam of Salicet, according to Professor Allbutt, taught that dropsy\nwas due to a hardening of the kidneys; _durities renum_ are his exact\nwords. He insisted on the danger of wounds of the neck. He taught the\nsuture of divided nerves and gave explicit directions how to find the\nsevered ends. He made a special study of suppurative disease of the\nhip and taught many practical things with regard to it. He taught,\nthough this is a bit of knowledge supposed to come three centuries\nlater into medicine and history, the true origin of chancre and\nphagedena. Most surprising of all, however, remains. William\nsubstituted the use of the knife for the abuse of the cautery, which\nhad been introduced by the Arabs because they feared hemorrhage, and\nhe insisted that hemorrhage could be controlled by proper means\nwithout searing the tissues, and that the wounds made by the knife\nhealed ever so much more kindly and with less danger to the patient.\nIn the matter of wound healing, he investigated the causes of the\nfailure of healing by first intention, and expressed on this subject\nsome marvelous ideas that are supposed to be of late nineteenth\ncentury origin.\n\nWhile it is usually said that whatever teaching of science was done at\nmedieval universities, was so entirely speculative or purely theoretic\nand so thoroughly impractical as not to be of any serious use for life\nand its problems, the utter falsity of such declarations can be seen\nfrom the fact that William of Salicet insisted on teaching medicine by\nclinical methods, always discussed cases with his students, and his\nmedical and surgical works contain many case histories. This is just\nwhat pretentiously ignorant historians of medical education {7} have\noften emphatically declared that medieval teachers did not do, but\nshould have done, in the Middle Ages. It is not surprising then to\nfind that William himself, and his great pupil Lanfranc, insisted on\nthe utter inadvisability of separating medicine and surgery in such a\nway that the physician would not have the opportunity to be present at\noperations, and thus gain more definite knowledge about the actual\nconditions of various organs which he had tried to investigate from\nthe surface of the body. It is a very curious coincidence that both\nthe Regius Professors of Physic in England at the present time, our\nown Professor Osler, now at Oxford, as well as his colleague,\nProfessor Allbutt, of Cambridge, have within the last five years\nemphasized this same idea in almost the very words which were used by\nWilliam and Lanfranc nearly seven hundred years ago. Lanfranc went\neven beyond his master in practical applications of important\nscientific principles to medicine and surgery. He added to the means\nof controlling hemorrhage. In arterial hemorrhage he suggested digital\ncompression for an hour, or in severe cases ligature. His master had\nstudied wounds of the neck. Lanfranc has a magnificent chapter on\ninjuries of the head, which Professor Allbutt does not hesitate to\ncall one of the classics of surgery. Lanfranc was thoroughly\nappreciated by his contemporaries. After years of study and teaching\nin Italy he was invited to Paris, where he became one of the lights of\nthat great university. Both Salicet and Lanfranc did their wonderful\nwork in scientific medicine down in Italy where ecclesiastical\ninfluence was strongest. Italy continued to be for the next six\ncenturies always the home of the best medical schools in the world, to\nwhich the most ardent students from {8} all over the continent and\neven England went for the sake of the magnificent opportunities\nprovided. It was literally true, in spite of the tradition of Church\nopposition to medical science, that the nearer to Rome the university\nthe better its medical school; and as we shall see, Rome itself had\nthe best medical school in the world for two centuries, while its\ngreatest rival, often ahead of it in scientific achievement, always\nits peer, was the medical school of Bologna in the Papal States,\ndirectly under the control of the Popes since the beginning of the\nsixteenth century.\n\nDr. White has said just the opposite of this in a well-known passage\nof his book, in which he assures his readers that \"in proportion as\nthe grasp of theology upon education tightened, medicine declined; and\nin proportion as that grasp relaxed, medicine has been developed.\" The\nreason for such a statement is that he knew nothing about the history\nof medicine and surgery in these medieval centuries and thought there\nwas none. This is a characteristic example of his mode of writing the\nHistory of the (Supposed) Warfare of Theology with Science in\nChristendom. This much will give some idea of the value of his book as\na work of reference.\n\nAfter knowing something of these wonderful developments of medieval\nmedical science, it is to be hoped that no one will listen hereafter\nto the ignorant assertions of those who talk of the suppression of\nmedical knowledge at this time. _William of Salicet and Lanfranc were\nboth of them clerics,_ that is, they belonged to the ecclesiastical\nbody and had taken minor orders, though they were not priests, as\npriests were for obvious reasons not allowed to do surgical\noperations, it being as repugnant to human feelings in the Middle Ages\nas it is now, that {9} the messenger of Divine Mercy should handle the\nknife and spill blood, or that the pastor of souls should come\nstraight from the operating room to bring consolation to the afflicted\nand the dying.\n\nMuch more might be said about the wonderful medical teaching of the\nthirteenth century. The men who made the universities what they have\ncontinued to be down to the present time, had open minds for any great\nadvances that might come. Accordingly, when the histories of\nanesthesia tell us that there was a form of anesthesia introduced\nduring the thirteenth century by Ugo da Lucca, and that even some\nmethod of inhalation was employed for this purpose, it will be a\nsurprise only to those who have never properly realized all that our\neducational forefathers of the early university days succeeded in\naccomplishing.\n\nDown at Montpelier, Gilbert the Englishman taught that small-pox\npatients should be treated in rooms with red hangings, red curtains\nbeing especially advised for the doors and windows. This is what\nFinsen re-discovered in the nineteenth century, and for it was given\nthe Nobel prize in the twentieth century. He found that small-pox\npatients suffered much less, that their fever was shorter, and that\nthe after effects were much less marked when only red light was\nadmitted to them. One may well ask what drugs did they employ, and\nperhaps conclude that because they knew very little of drugs,\ntherefore they knew little of medicine. It is in the use of drugs,\nhowever, that medicine has always been at its weakest, and we scarcely\nneed Oliver Wendel Holmes's declaration, that if all the drugs men\nused up to his time had been thrown into the sea, they would be better\nrather than worse off for it; nor Professor Osier's many {10} emphatic\nprotests with regard to our ignorance of drugs, to make the world of\nthe present day realize that a generation's use of them as a test\nwould tell quite as severely against the eighteenth or the nineteenth\ncentury, as against the thirteenth or the fourteenth. They did use\nopium, however, the drug having been introduced into general practice,\nit is said, by a distinguished Papal physician, Simon Januensis.\nMandrake was employed, and has not as yet gone entirely out of use.\nVarious herbal decoctions were employed, and though these were used\nentirely on empiric grounds, some at least of them have continued in\nuse with no better reason for their employment during most of the\ncenturies since.\n\nThe relation of the Popes to these advances in medicine may be best\nappreciated from the interest which they took in the hospitals. It was\nonly in hospitals that cases could be properly studied, and the\nmedieval hospitals were conducted with very nearly the same relations\nto the universities of that time as those that exist at the present\nday. In the chapter on the Foundation of City Hospitals we show that\nthese institutions are all, as Virchow, who is surely an authority\nabove suspicion in any matter relating to the Popes has declared, due\nto one great Pope. This is the best possible demonstration of supreme\nhumanitarian interest in human ills, and their treatment. Innocent\nIII., as we shall see, at the beginning of the thirteenth century\nsummoned Guy from Montpelier, where he had been trained in the care of\npatients, and where the greatest medical school of the time existed,\nto come to Rome and organize the Hospital of the Holy Ghost in the\nPapal City, which was to be a model for hospitals of the same kind in\nevery diocese throughout the Christian world. Literally hundreds of\n{11} these hospitals were founded during the thirteenth century as the\nresult of this initiative. Patients were not left to die, with only\nthe hope of prayers to relieve their sufferings, but they were cared\nfor as skilfully as the rising science of the time knew how and with\nthe tenderness that religious care has always been able to give. For\nadded consolation in the midst of their sufferings and as a fortifier\nagainst the thought of death, they had religion and all its beautiful\ninfluences, for which even Virchow, himself utterly unbelieving,\ncannot suppress a tribute.\n\nAt the beginning of the fourteenth century, the University of the City\nof Rome was founded by Pope Boniface VIII. Only a year or two later\nthe Popes removed their capital to Avignon. It has often been thought\nthat, because of this removal of the Papal capital, this University of\nthe City never came into existence; but we have definite records of\nsalaries paid out of the Papal revenues to professors of law and\nmedicine about the end of the first quarter of the fourteenth century.\n\nDown in the South of France, at Avignon itself, the Popes had for one\nof their chamberlains the famous Guy de Chauliac, who is always spoken\nof as the Father of Modern Surgery. One of the Popes of the Avignon\nperiod founded the College of Twelve Physicians at Montpelier, the\nfoundation being sufficient to support twelve medical students, and by\nadding the prestige of the Pope's patronage to the reputation of the\nUniversity, greatly encouraged attendance at it.\n\nAnother of the Popes of the Avignon period, Pope John XXII., who is\nsaid by President White to have been most bitter in opposition to\nevery form of science, actually helped in the foundation of two\nmedical schools. {12} One of these was at Cahors, his birthplace, and\nthe other was at Perugia, at that time in the Papal States. In\nfounding the medical school at Perugia, Pope John insisted that its\nstandards must be as high as those of Paris and Bologna, and required\nthat the first teachers there should be graduates from Paris or\nBologna, where were the two greatest medical schools of the time.\nSeven years of study, three in the undergraduate department and four\nin the graduate schools, were to be required, according to this bull\nof foundation (given in full in the appendix), before the degree of\nDoctor of Medicine could be conferred. If it is recalled that this\nstandard of three years of undergraduate work and four in the graduate\nschool, or at least of seven years of University work, is the ideal\ntoward which our universities are struggling, and, it must be said,\nnot with the entire success we would like, at the beginning of the\ntwentieth century, then, it is surprising to think that the president\nof a modern university, deeply interested in education in all its\nfeatures and himself a professor of history, should know so little of,\nand be so lacking in sympathy with these men who laid the deep\nfoundations of our modern education.\n\nPerhaps the most striking feature of the relation of the Popes to\nmedicine remains to be mentioned. If they really were the bitter\nopponents of things medical that Dr. White would have us believe, then\nwe should expect that either there were no such officials as Papal\nphysicians, or else that the men who occupied these posts were the\nveriest charlatans, who knew very little of medicine, and certainly\ndid nothing to develop the science. As a matter of fact, there is no\nlist of physicians connected by any common bond in history who are\n{13} so gloriously representative of scientific progress in medicine\nas the Papal physicians. The faculty of no medical school presents\nsuch a list of great names as those of the men who were chosen to be\nthe official medical attendants of the Popes, and who were thus given\na position of prominence where their discoveries in medicine had a\nvogue they otherwise could not have attained. The list of the Royal\nphysicians of any reigning house of Europe for the last seven\ncenturies looks trivial beside the roll of Papal physicians. Could the\nPopes possibly have done anything more than this for medicine, or\nshown their interest in its progress, or made people realize better,\nthat while prayer might be of service, every possible human means must\nbe taken to secure, maintain and recover health.\n\nTo read even the headings of Dr. White's chapter on from Miracles to\nMedicine, in which he tells of how \"the medieval miracles of healing\nchecked medical science,\" how \"pastoral medicine held back scientific\neffort,\" how \"there was so much theological discouragement of\nmedicine,\" and finally, how \"the study of Anatomy was considered a sin\nagainst the Holy Ghost,\" in the light of this plain, matter-of-fact\nstory of the wonderful development of medical science in the\necclesiastically founded and ruled universities of the thirteenth\ncentury, makes one realize into what a farcical state of mind as\nregards the realities of history such writers have forced themselves,\nand unfortunately have led many readers, by their excursions into the\nhistory of medicine and science. Probably there was never a more\npretentious exhibition of ignorance of the facts of history than is\ndisplayed by these expressions and by the whole drift of this chapter.\nDr. White would have us {14} believe that the thirteenth and\nfourteenth centuries were so backward in medicine and surgery that\nthey practically have no history in these departments, or so little as\nnot to be worth talking about. The simple facts show us that this is\none of three or four great periods in human history in which there was\nthe most wonderful development of medicine and surgery.\n\nAs we shall see in the course of this book, there was no bull or any\nother document issued by the Popes forbidding dissection or hampering\nthe development of anatomy in any way. As a matter of fact, the\necclesiastics, instead of being behind their age in liberality of\nspirit with regard to the use of the human body after death for\nanatomical purposes, were always ahead of it. There has always existed\na popular horror of dissection, and this has manifested itself from\nthe earliest times in history down to and within the last half\ncentury, in refusal to enact such secular legislation as would\nproperly provide for the practice of dissection. This was as true in\nthe United States until within the memory of men still alive as it had\nalways been hitherto in European history. Dissection came to be\nallowed so freely in the medieval universities founded under\necclesiastical influence and ruled by ecclesiastics, as the result of\nthe intelligent realization on the part of churchmen that the study of\nthe human body was necessary for a proper recognition and appreciation\nof the causes of the ills to which flesh is heir. They realized that\nthe only way to lay the foundation of exact medical knowledge was not\nonly to permit, but to encourage the practice of dissection, and\naccordingly this was done at everyone of a dozen medical schools of\nItaly during the fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and\nnowhere more so than at the {15} Papal University at Rome itself\nduring the sixteenth century, at a time when, if we would believe Dr.\nWhite, the Church authorities were doing everything in their power to\nprevent dissection.\n\nNone of the other sciences allied to medicine were hampered in any\nway, but, on the contrary, fostered and encouraged; and the devoted\nstudents of science were prominent churchmen, some of whom were\nhonored with the title of saint after their deaths. In spite of\ndeclarations to the contrary, chemistry was not forbidden by a Papal\ndecree or other document, though the practice of certain alchemists of\npretending to make gold and silver out of baser metals and thus\ncheating people was condemned, just as we condemn the corresponding\npractice of selling \"gold bricks\" at the present time. As will be made\nvery clear, the Pope who issued the decree that forbids such sharp\npractices was a distinguished and discriminating patron of medical\neducation at the beginning of the fourteenth century, doing more for\nit than any ruler for three centuries after his time; yet in doing so\nhe was only carrying out the policy which had been maintained by the\nPopes before his time and was to continue ever afterwards.\n\nStrange as it may appear when we recall how much has been said with\nregard to Papal, and Church, and theological opposition to science,\nthe story that we have just told with regard to the Papal relations to\nmedicine and medical schools must be retold with regard to science in\nevery department, and the scientific studies at the great medieval\nuniversities. Most people will find it even more difficult to accept\nthis than to reach a calm consideration of the Papal relations to the\nmedical sciences. Medicine is supposed to be the sort of practical\n{16} subject that, in spite of prejudice, the ecclesiastical\nauthorities could not neglect and were not able to suppress. Science\nin general, however, is supposed to be so distinctly opposed to what\nwas at least considered religious truth, that the Church could not\nvery well do anything else than prevent its development, or at least\nhamper its progress to such an extent that it was only with the\nlifting of the ecclesiastical incubus in our own day, that any great\nscientific advances came in the physical sciences. This is an entirely\nfalse impression emphasized by the ridiculous intolerance of writers\nwho knew practically nothing of the real history of science in the\nMiddle Ages, wrote their own prejudices large into the story of the\ntimes, and did great positive harm to the cause of truth by a pretense\nof knowledge they did not have, but which so many confidingly believed\nthem to possess.\n\nBut it will at once be said, what of Galileo? Does not his case show\nthe anti-scientific temper of churchmen? Nearly half a century ago,\nCardinal Newman in his Apologia characteristically observed that this\nvery case sufficed to prove that the Church did not set herself\nagainst scientific progress, for this is the \"one stock argument\" to\nthe contrary, \"the exception which proves the rule.\" Commenting upon\nthe Galileo incident, Professor Augustus de Morgan, in his article on\nthe Motion of the Earth in the English Encyclopedia, has expressed\nexactly the same conclusion. He is an authority not likely to be\nsuspected of Catholic sympathy. He says:\n\n  \"The Papal power must upon the whole have been moderately used in\n  matters of philosophy, if we may judge by the great stress laid on\n  this one case of Galileo. It is the standing proof that an authority\n  which has {17} lasted a thousand years was all the time occupied in\n  checking the progress of thought(!) There are certainly one or two\n  other instances, but those who make most of the outcry do not know\n  them.\"\n\nThere is no doubt that Galileo was prosecuted by the Roman inquisition\non account of his astronomical teachings. We would be the last to deny\nthat this was a deplorable mistake made by persons in ecclesiastical\nauthority, who endeavored to make a Church tribunal the judge of\nscientific truth, a function altogether alien to its character which\nit was not competent to exercise. The fact that this was practically\nthe only time that this was done serves to show that it was an\nunfortunate incident, but not a policy. The mistake has been to\nconclude that this was a typical case--one of many, more flagrant than\nthe others. This single incident has indeed made it impossible that\nanything of the same kind should ever occur again. It was rather\nbecause of the way in which Galileo urged his truths than because of\nthe truths themselves that he was condemned. Even Professor Huxley, in\na letter to Professor St. George Mivart, November 12th, 1885, said: \"I\ngave some attention to the case of Galileo when I was in Italy, and I\narrived at the conclusion that the Pope and the College of Cardinals\nhad rather the best of it.\"\n\nBefore as well as after Galileo's time scientific research was carried\non ardently in the universities, especially in Italy. In the chapter\non Science at the Medieval Universities, we call attention to the many\nadvances then made with regard to scientific questions in which the\nworld is very much interested at the present time. A hundred years\nbefore Galileo's time Copernicus went down to Italy to study astronomy\nand medicine, and {18} when his book was published it was dedicated to\na Pope. Copernicus himself was a faithful churchman all his life, came\nnear being made a bishop once, and kept the diocese in which he lived,\nand in which his personal friend was bishop, in the fold of the Church\nin spite of Luther and the religious revolt all around it in Germany.\nOne of the great scientists of the seventeenth century whose name is\nstamped deeply on the history of science, Father Kircher, the Jesuit,\nwas invited to Rome the very year after Galileo's condemnation, and\nfor thirty years continued to _experiment_ and write in all branches\nof science, not only with the approbation of his own order, the\nJesuits, which helped him in every way by the collection of specimens\nfor his museum, but also with the hearty good will of many cardinals\nwho were his personal friends, and with the constant patronage of the\nPopes, whose generous liberality enabled him to make Rome the greatest\ncentre of scientific interest during this century.\n\nAt this time and during the preceding century the Roman University had\nthe greatest medical school in the world. The names of its professors\nduring the preceding century need only be mentioned in order to\nemphasize this. They include such distinguished men as Eustachius and\nVarolius, whose names are forever enshrined in the history of anatomy;\nColumbus, who discovered and described the lesser or pulmonary\ncirculation half a century before Harvey's publication with regard to\nthe general circulation; Caesalpinus, to whom the Italians attribute\nthe discovery of the greater circulation before Harvey. In the next\ncentury Malpighi was tempted to come to Rome to teach at the Papal\nUniversity, and the great Father of Comparative Anatomy {19} ended his\ndays in the Papal capital, amidst the friendship of all the high\necclesiastics and with the social intimacy of the Pope. From the\nbeginning of the sixteenth century Bologna is a Papal city, but its\nmedical school, far from declining after it came under Papal\njurisdiction, was even more brilliant than before, and soon came even\nto outshine its previously successful rival, Padua.\n\nWhat we would say then, is that the story of the supposed opposition\nof the Church and the Popes and the ecclesiastical authorities to\nscience in any of its branches, is founded entirely on mistaken\nnotions. Most of it is quite imaginary. Much of it is due to the\nexaggeration of the significance of the Galileo incident. Only those\nwho know nothing about the history of medicine and of science continue\nto harbor it. That Dr. White's book, contradicted as it is so directly\nby all our serious histories of medicine and of science, should have\nbeen read by so many thousands in this country, and should have been\ntaken seriously by educated men, physicians, teachers, and even\nprofessors of science who want to know the history of their own\nsciences, only shows how easily even supposedly educated men may be\nled to follow their prejudices rather than their mental faculties, and\nemphasizes the fact that the tradition that there is no good that can\npossibly come out of the Nazareth of the times before the reformation,\nstill dominates the intellects of many educated people who think that\nthey are far from prejudice and have minds perfectly open to\nconviction.\n\nWe would not leave the impression, moreover, that it was in medicine\nalone that the misunderstood Middle Ages made distinct progress in\nscience. This is true in every department of what we now call natural\nscience. {20} The reason for the false impression that science was not\nstudied in the Middle Ages at the universities, is that the supposed\nhistorians of education and of science who have made such declarations\nhave never taken the trouble to look into the works of the great\nwriters of this period. Anyone who does so, at once changes his\nopinion in this matter. Humboldt, for instance, the great German\nnatural philosopher, has given ample credit to these colleagues of\nhis, who lived some six centuries before him, yet did such wonderful\nwork in spite of their inadequate means and the fact that they were as\nyet only groping in the darkness of the beginnings of science.\nWhewell, the English historian of the inductive sciences, has also\nproved sympathetic to these old philosophers, and especially to\nAlbertus Magnus and Roger Bacon. Those who so ignorantly but with a\npretense of knowledge make little of the science of the Middle Ages,\nknow nothing of the real accomplishments of such men as Bacon,\nAlbertus Magnus, Thomas Aquinas, Arnold of Villanova, nor Vincent of\nBeauvais, the encyclopedist. As is always the case, however, the\nignorance of supposed historians of science and education in this\nmatter, has only served to emphasize the presumptuous assurance of\ntheir declarations as to the intolerance of the Middle Ages toward\nscientific progress. It is ever the ignorant man who has the least\ndoubt about his opinions.\n\nUnfortunately many students of science followed these writers\napparently without a hint of the deception that was being practiced on\nthem. Not infrequently the prestige or institutional position of the\nwriters has been enough to carry their works into a vogue which has\nbeen heightened by the existence of religious prejudice and {21}\nintolerance. Usually such motives are supposed to be far distant from\nthe scientific mind. In this case they have been, to some degree at\nleast, unconsciously present. There has unfortunately been a definite\npersuasion that there could be nothing good in the Middle Ages, and\ntherefore there has been no surprise that evil should be found there.\nPerhaps there is nothing sadder in present day education, than the\nfact that serious students and professors of science should thus have\nbeen led astray. Nothing shows more clearly the superficiality of our\neducation than the fact that these unfounded statements with regard to\nthe greatest period of education in history have been so universally\naccepted with so little question.\n\nA moment's consideration of the conditions in which the universities\ndeveloped will show how unreasonable is the thought that the Church or\nthe Popes were opposed to any phase of education.\n\nIt has come to be universally conceded in recent years that the Church\nwas the great patron of art and of letters during these centuries.\nWithout the inspiration of her teachings there would have been no\nsublime subjects for artists; without the lives of her saints there\nwould have been much less opportunity for artistic expression; without\nthe patronage of the cathedral builders, the high ecclesiastics, and\nabove all the monastic orders, on whom, with so little reason, so much\ncontempt has been heaped, there would have been none of that great art\nwhich developed during the centuries before what is called the\nRenaissance. In literature, everyone of the great national poems that\nlie at the basis of modern literature is shot through and through with\nsublime thoughts that owe {22} their origin to the Church. We need\nonly mention the Cid in Spain, the Arthur Legends in England, such\nworks of the Meistersingers as Perceval and Arme Heinrich, the Golden\nLegend, the Romance of the Rose, and Dante,--all written during the\nthirteenth century alone, to illustrate Church influence in\nliterature. This is, as we have said, admitted by all. It is supposed,\nhowever, that while the Church encouraged this side of human\ndevelopment, it effectually prevented the evolution of man's\nscientific interests.\n\nAs a matter of fact, however, the Church did quite as much for science\nas for literature and art and charity, There has never been any\nquestion that under her fostering care philosophy developed in a very\nmarvelous way. The scholastic philosophers are no longer held in the\ndisrepute so ignorantly accorded them in the last century. It is\nrecognized that scholastic philosophy represents a supremely great\ndevelopment of human thinking with regard to the relations of man to\nhis Creator, to his fellow man, and to the universe. Even those who do\nnot accept its conclusions now, if themselves educated men, no longer\nmake little of those wonderful thinkers, but sympathize with their\nmagnificent work. Only those who are ignorant of scholastic philosophy\nentirely, still continue to re-echo the expressions of critics whose\nopinions were founded on second-hand authorities and who confessedly\nhad been unable to make anything out of the scholastics themselves.\nThis field of philosophy was the real danger point for faith and the\nChurch, yet its study was encouraged in every way, provided the\nphilosophers kept within the bounds of their subject.\n\nJust exactly the same thing was true in the realm of natural science.\nStrange as it may seem to those {23} who have allowed themselves to be\nled into thinking that only for the last century or a little more have\nmen made observations on nature, and only comparatively recently have\nthe conclusions which they reached with regard to natural phenomena\nbeen of any real significance, there is no doubt at all that men made\ngreat achievements in physical science in the Middle Ages, some of\nwhich unfortunately were lost sight of later, but many of which\nremained to form the basis on which our modern scientific knowledge\nhas been built. In order to obtain a proper appreciation of this, all\nthat is necessary is to study the works of the investigating scholars\nof the early history of the universities, and see how much that is\nconsidered very modern they anticipated in their writings. They must\nbe read for themselves, not be judged by excerpts chosen by prejudiced\nreaders, much less by critics who were bent on not finding anything\ngood in the Middle Ages. There is need of sympathetic interpretation\nto replace the ignorant contempt which has so far dominated this\nperiod of the history of education. The precious lesson that men may\nlearn from the unfortunate misunderstanding, however, is how much\nold-time prejudice still dominates the attitude even of scholars--nay,\neven of scientists and educators, with regard to certain periods in\nhistory.\n\nTo most people it will be utterly uncomprehensible, however, that\nafter all that they have heard about Church opposition to science and\nPapal discouragement of education as dangerous to faith, there should\nnow be an absolute denial of the supposed grounds for the assertions\nin this matter. Most readers, even among educated people, will be very\nprone to think that their impressions in these matters cannot be\nentirely wrong, and {24} that previous writers on the subject cannot\nhave been either deceiving or deceived. In all that relates to the\nRoman Catholic Church, however, before the date of the so-called\nreformation, it is important to remember that there came into\nexistence a definite body of Protestant tradition, the creation of the\nreformers who wished to blacken the memory of the Old Church as much\nas possible to justify their own apostasy, and who therefore spared no\nmeans to pervert the facts of history or to exaggerate the\nsignificance of historical details so as to produce this false\nimpression. Subsequent generations were oftener deceived themselves\nthan deceiving. They were sure that the Church was opposed to\neducation and to science, and consequently it was not hard for them to\nread in certain incidents and documents a meaning quite other than\ntheir actual significance, because this added meaning agreed with\ntheir prejudices on these subjects.\n\nEvery advance in modern history, every modification of view that has\nbeen brought about by the critical historical method of recent times,\nhas emphasized this point of view almost without exception. The\ndistinguished philosophic and historical writer, the Comte de Maistre,\nin his Soirees of St. Petersburg about a century ago, declared that\n\"History for the last three centuries (1500-1800) has been a\nconspiracy against the truth.\" Just about a century later the editors\nof the Cambridge Modern History, in the preface to the first volume of\ntheir monumental work, re-echoed the words of the Comte de Maistre\nalmost literally in a pregnant paragraph which deserves to be in the\nnote-book of everyone who is trying to get at the real truth of\nhistory. They said:\n\n{25}\n\n  \"Great additions have of late been made to our knowledge of the\n  past; _the long conspiracy against the revelation of truth has\n  gradually given way,_ and competing historians all over the\n  civilized world have been zealous to take advantage of the change.\n  The printing of archives has kept pace with the admission of\n  enquirers; and the total mass of new matter, which the last\n  half-century has accumulated, amounts to many thousands of volumes.\n  In view of changes and of gains such as these, it has become\n  impossible for the historical writer of the present age to trust\n  without reserve even to the most respected secondary authorities.\n  The honest student finds himself continually deserted, retarded,\n  _misled by the classics of historical literature_, and has to hew\n  his own way through multitudinous transactions, periodicals and\n  official publications in order to reach the truth.\n\n  \"Ultimate history cannot be obtained in this generation; _but, so\n  far as documentary evidence is at command, conventional history can\n  be discarded, and the point can be shown that has been reached on\n  the road from one to the other._\"\n\nThe italics in this passage are ours, but the ideas they emphasize\nwill serve to show how necessary it is for most of us to give up the\nsupposed historical truth of the preceding generations and have an\nopen mind for the newer ideas that are coming in as the result of the\nrenewed consultation of original documents and primal sources of\ninformation. The present volume is written entirely with the idea of\nbringing out the facts of the relations of the Popes and the Church\nand the ecclesiastics, especially of the centuries before the\nreformation, to science and to scientific education. My own position\nas a professor of the history of medicine has necessarily made medical\nscience very prominent in the book. This, however, far from being a\ndisadvantage, is really an {26} advantage, since the physical sciences\nof the medieval times gathered mainly around medicine, and it was\nchiefly physicians and medical students who devoted most time to them.\nAfter a detailed study of the history of medical science in the Middle\nAges as well of its allied sciences, it becomes very clear that there\nwas no trace of Papal or Church opposition to science as science, and,\non the contrary, liberal patronage, abundant encouragement, and even\npecuniary aid for the development of scientific education in every\nway.\n\nWhat we have tried to give in this book, then, is the authoritative\nrefutation of the supposed prohibition of the cultivation of certain\ndepartments of medical and allied sciences by the Popes, and\nsufficient information to enable students and teachers of science to\nrealize that the ordinarily accepted notions with regard to opposition\nto science in the Middle Ages are founded on nothing more substantial\nthan sublime ignorance of the facts of the history of science at that\ntime. There was no bull against anatomy or dissection; no bull against\nchemistry; the Popes were the patrons of the great medical scientists\nand surgeons; the Papal Medical School was one of the best in the\nworld and was sedulously fostered; the great scientists of the Middle\nAges were clergymen, and many of them when they died were declared\nsaints by the Church. The opposite impression is entirely a deduction\nfrom false premises with regard to the supposed attitude of the Church\nand churchmen. We shall furnish abundant authorities of the first rank\nand of value as absolute as there can be in present day history as to\nthese questions. The consultation of these will furnish further\nmaterial for those who desire to have real knowledge of {27} the\nhistory of science in a magnificently original and greatly fruitful\nperiod.\n\n\n{28}\n\nTHE SUPPOSED PAPAL PROHIBITION OF DISSECTION.\n\nThere is a very general impression that the Roman Catholic Church was,\nduring the Middle Ages, opposed to the practice of dissection, and\nthat various ecclesiastical regulations and even Papal decrees were\nissued which prohibited, or at least limited to a very great degree,\nthis necessary adjunct of medical teaching. These ecclesiastical\ncensures are supposed to be in force, to some extent at least, even at\nthe present time. The persuasion as to the minatory attitude of the\nChurch in regard to dissection is so widespread among even supposedly\nwell-educated professional men, that, as we have said in the\nintroductory chapter, when there was question some time ago of opening\na medical school in New York City under Catholic auspices as a\ndepartment of Fordham University, a number of more than ordinarily\nintelligent physicians asked: What would be done about the study of\nanatomy, since in the circumstances suggested dissection would not be\nallowed? This false impression has been produced by writers in the\nhistory of science who have emphasized very strenuously the supposed\nopposition of the Church to science, and as these writers had a\ncertain prestige as scholars their works have been widely read and\ntheir assertions have been unquestioned, because it would naturally be\npresumed that they would not make them without thorough investigation\nof such important questions. Professional men are not to blame if they\nhave taken such statements {29} seriously, even though they are\nabsolutely without foundation. That statements of this kind should\nhave been made by men of distinction in educational circles and should\nhave passed current so long, is only additional evidence of an\nintolerant spirit in those who least suspect it in themselves and are\nmost ready to deprecate intolerance in others.\n\nTake a single example. Most of what is said as to the opposition of\nthe Church to medicine during the Middle Ages in A History of the\nWarfare of Science with Theology in Christendom, by Andrew D. White\n(Appleton's, New York), is founded on a supposed Papal prohibition of\nanatomy and on a subsequent equally supposed Papal prohibition of\nchemistry. These two documents are emphasized so much, that most\nreaders cannot but conclude that, even without further evidence, these\nare quite enough to prove the contention with regard to the\nunfortunate opposition of the Church to medical science. Without these\ntwo presumably solid pillars of actual Papal documents, what is said\nwith regard to the Church and its relations to medical science in the\nMiddle Ages amounts to very little. Much is made of the existence of\nsuperstitions in medicine as characteristic of the Middle Ages and as\nencouraged by clergymen, but medical superstitions of many kinds\ncontinue to have their hold on even the intelligent classes down to\nthe present day in spite of the progress of education, and in\ncountries where the Church has very little influence over the people.\nDr. White quotes with great confidence and absolute assurance a Papal\ndecree issued in the year 1300 by Pope Boniface VIII., which forbade\nthe mutilation of the human body and consequently hampered all\npossibility of progress in anatomy for {30} several important\ncenturies in the history of modern science. Indeed, this supposed\nPapal prohibition of dissection is definitely stated to have precluded\nall opportunity for the proper acquisition of anatomical knowledge\nuntil the first half of the sixteenth century, when the Golden Age of\nmodern anatomy set in. This date being coincident with the spread of\nthe movement known as the Protestant Reformation, many people at once\nconclude that somehow the liberality of spirit that then came into the\nworld, and is supposed at least to have put an end to all intolerance,\nmust have been the active factor in this development of anatomy, and\nthat, as Dr. White has indeed declared, it was only because the Church\nwas forced from her position of opposition that anatomical\ninvestigation was allowed.\n\nSince so serious an accusation is founded on a definite Papal\ndocument, it cannot but be a matter of surprise that those who have\ncited it so confidently as forbidding anatomy, and especially\ndissection, have never given the full text of the document. It is\npractically impossible for the ordinary reader, or even for the\nserious student of the history of medicine, to obtain a copy of this\ndecree unless he has special library facilities at his command and the\nhelp of those who are familiar with this class of documents. Many\nreferences have been made to this prohibition by Pope Boniface VIII.,\nbut no one has thought it worth while to give, even in a footnote, the\ntext of it. The reason for this is easy to understand as soon as one\nreads the actual text. It has nothing to say at all with regard to\ndissection. It has absolutely no reference to the cutting up of the\nhuman body for teaching purposes. Its purpose is very plain, and is\nstated so that there can be no possible {31} misapprehension of its\nmeaning. Here we have an excellent illustration of what the editors of\nthe Cambridge Modern History declared to be the breaking up of the\nlong conspiracy against the truth by the consultation of original\ndocuments.\n\nThrough the kindness of the Rev. D. A. Corbett, of the Seminary of St.\nCharles Borromeo, Overbrook, Pa., I have been able to secure a copy of\nPope Boniface's decree, and this at once disposes of the assertion\nthat dissection was forbidden or anatomy in any way hampered by it.\nFather Corbett writes:\n\n  \"The Bull De Sepulturis of Boniface VIII. is not found in the\n  Collectio Bullarum of Coquelines, nor is it incorporated in the\n  Liber Sextus Decretalium Divi Bonifacii Papae VIII., though it is\n  from here that it is quoted in the Histoire Litteraire de la France\n  (as referred to by President White). It appears in an appendix to\n  this sixth book among the Extravagantes, a term that is used to\n  signify that the documents contained under it were issued at a time\n  somewhat apart from the period this special book of decretals was\n  supposed to cover. The Liber Sextus was published in 1298. This\n  'Bull De Sepulturis' was not issued until 1300. It is to be found in\n  the third book of the Extravagantes, Chapter I.\"\n\nEven a glance at the title would seem to be sufficient to show that\nthis document did not refer even distantly to dissection, and this\nmakes it all the harder to understand the misapprehension that ensued\nin the matter, if the document was quoted in good faith, for usually\nthe compression necessary in the title is the source of such errors.\nThe full text of the bull only confirms the absolute absence of any\nsuggestion of forbidding dissection or discouraging the study of\nanatomy.\n\n{32}\n\n  \"Title--Concerning Burials.[Footnote 2] Boniface VIII. Persons\n  cutting up the bodies of the dead, barbarously boiling them, in\n  order that the bones, being separated from the flesh, may be carried\n  for burial into their own countries, are by the very act\n  excommunicated.\n\n  [Footnote 2: See Latin text in full in appendix.]\n\n  \"As there exists a certain abuse, which is characterized by the most\n  abominable savagery, but which nevertheless some of the faithful\n  have stupidly adopted. We, prompted by motives of humanity, have\n  decreed that all further mangling of the human body, the very\n  mention of which fills the soul with horror, should be henceforth\n  abolished.\n\n  \"The custom referred to is observed with regard to those who happen\n  to be in any way distinguished by birth or position, who, when dying\n  in foreign lands, have expressed a desire to be buried in their own\n  country. The custom consists of disemboweling and dismembering the\n  corpse, or chopping it into pieces and then boiling it so as to\n  remove the flesh before sending the bones home to be buried--all\n  from a distorted respect for the dead. Now, this is not only\n  abominable in the sight of God, but extremely revolting under every\n  human aspect. Wishing, therefore, as the duty of our office demands,\n  to provide a remedy for this abuse, by which the custom, which is\n  such an abomination, so inhuman and so impious, may be eradicated\n  and no longer be practiced by anyone, We, by our apostolic\n  authority, decree and ordain that no matter of what position or\n  family or dignity they may be, no matter in what cities or lands or\n  places in which the worship of the Catholic faith flourishes, the\n  practice of this or any similar abuse with regard to the bodies of\n  the dead should cease {33} forever, no longer be observed, and that\n  the hands of the faithful should not be stained by such barbarities.\n\n  \"And in order that the bodies of the dead should not be thus\n  impiously and barbarously treated and then transported to the places\n  in which, while alive, they had selected to be buried, let them be\n  given sepulture for the time either in the city or the camp or in\n  the place where they have died, or in some neighboring place, so\n  that, when finally their bodies have been reduced to ashes or\n  otherwise, they may be brought to the place where they wish to be\n  buried and there be interred. And, if the executor or executrix of\n  the aforesaid defunct, or those of his household, or anyone else of\n  whatever order, condition, state or grade he may be, even if he\n  should be clothed with episcopal dignity, should presume to attempt\n  anything against the tenor of this our statute and ordination, by\n  inhumanly and barbarously treating the bodies of the dead, as we\n  have described, let him know that by the very fact he incurs the\n  sentence of excommunication, from which he cannot obtain absolution\n  (unless at the moment of death), except from the Holy See. And\n  besides, the body that has been thus barbarously treated shall be\n  left without Christian burial. Let no one, therefore, etc. (Here\n  follows the usual formula of condemnation for the violation of the\n  prescriptions of a decree.) Given at the Lateran Palace, on the\n  twelfth of the calends of March, in the sixth year of our\n  pontificate.\"\n\nThe reason for the bull is very well known. During the crusades,\nnumbers of the nobility who died at a distance from their homes in\ninfidel countries were prepared for transportation and burial in their\nown lands by dismemberment and boiling. The remains of {34} Louis IX.,\nof France, and a number of his relatives who perished on the ill-fated\ncrusade in Egypt in 1270, are said to have been brought back to France\nin this fashion. The body of the famous German Emperor, Frederick\nBarbarossa, who was drowned in the river Saleph near Jerusalem, was\nalso treated thus in order that the remains might be transported to\nGermany without serious decomposition being allowed to disturb the\nceremonials of subsequent obsequies. Such examples were very likely to\nbe imitated by many. The custom, as can be appreciated from these\ninstances from different nations, was becoming so widespread as to\nconstitute a serious source of danger to health, and might easily have\nfurnished occasion for the conveyance of disease. It is almost\nneedless to say to our generation that it was eminently unhygienic.\nAny modern authority in sanitation would at once declare against it,\nand the custom would be put an end to without more ado. There can be\nno doubt at all then that Pope Boniface VIII. accomplished good, not\nevil, by the publication of this bull. So anyone with modern views as\nto the danger of disease from the foolish custom which it abolished\nwould at once have declared, and yet, by a perversion of its\nsignification, it came to be connected with a supposed prohibition of\ndissection. For this misunderstanding Pope Boniface VIII. has had to\nsuffer all sorts of reproaches and the Church has been branded as\nopposed to anatomy by historians(!)\n\nIs it possible, however, that this bull was misinterpreted so as to\nforbid dissection, or at least certain forms of anatomical preparation\nwhich were useful for the study and teaching of anatomy? That is what\nDr. White asserts. He shows, moreover, in his History of {35} the\nWarfare of Science with Theology, that he knew that the document in\nquestion was perfectly inoffensive as regards any prohibition of\ndissection in itself, but insists that by a misinterpretation, easy to\nunderstand as he considers, because of the supposed opposition of\necclesiastics to medical science, it did actually prevent anatomical\ndevelopment. President White says: \"As to the decretal of Pope\nBoniface VIII., the usual statement is that it forbade all\ndissections. While it was undoubtedly construed universally to\nprohibit dissection for anatomical purposes, its declared intent was\nas stated in the text; that it was constantly construed against\nanatomical investigations cannot for a moment be denied.\"\n\nIf a misinterpretation were subsequently made, surely Pope Boniface\nVIII. must not be held responsible for it; yet in spite of the fact\nthat Dr. White shows that he knew very well that this bull did not\nforbid the practice of dissection, he does not hesitate to use over\nand over again expressions which would imply that some formal decision\nagainst dissection itself had been made, though this is the only Papal\ndocument he refers to. He even goes so far as to say that \"anatomical\ninvestigation was made a sin against the Holy Ghost.\" He frequently\nrepeats that for three centuries after the issuance of this bull the\ndevelopment of anatomy was delayed and hampered, and insists that only\nthat Vesalius at great personal risk broke through this Church\nopposition, modern anatomy would never have developed. He proceeds\nconstantly on the theory that it was always this bull that was in\nfault, though he confesses that if so, it was by a misunderstanding;\nand the only fault he can find to attribute to the Pope is a lack of\ninfallibility, as he {36} calls it, because he was not able to foresee\nthat his bull would be so misunderstood.\n\nI suppose we are to understand from this that Dr. White considers that\nhe knows the meaning of the word infallibility. It is not a hard word\nto understand if one wishes to understand it. The meaning that he\ngives it in this passage is so entirely different from its accepted\nmeaning among Catholics, that any schoolboy in any of our parochial\nschools would tell him that the word was never used by Catholics in\nthe sense in which he here employs it. It is so misunderstood\npopularly outside of the Church, and this Dr. White doubtless knew\nvery well. When a man uses a term in medicine in a different sense to\nthat which is ordinarily accepted, we consider him ignorant; but when\nhe deliberately uses it in another sense for his own purposes because\nof a false significance attached to it in the popular mind, we have a\nspecial name for him.\n\nThe whole matter, however, resolves itself into the simple question,\n\"Was dissection prevented and anatomical investigation hampered after\nthe issuance of the bull?\" This is entirely a question of fact. The\nhistory of anatomy will show whether dissection ceased or not at this\ntime. Now if those who so confidently make assertions in this matter\nhad ever gone to a genuine history of anatomy, they would have learned\nat once that, far from this being the time when dissection ceased, the\nyear 1300 is almost exactly the date for which we have the first\ndefinite evidence of the making of dissections and the gradual\ndevelopment of anatomical investigation by this means in connection\nwith the Italian universities. This is such a curious coincidence that\nI always call it to the attention of medical students in lecturing on\nthis subject.\n\n{37}\n\nThe first dissection of which we have definite record, Roth tells us\nin his life of Vesalius, was a so-called private anatomy or dissection\nmade for medico-legal purposes. Its date is the year 1302, within two\nyears after the bull. A nobleman had died and there was a suspicion\nthat he had been poisoned. The judge ordered that an autopsy be made\nin order to determine this question. Unfortunately we do not know what\nthe decision of the doctors in the case was. We know only that the\ncase was referred to them. Now it seems very clear that if this had\nnot been a common practice before, the court would not have adopted\nthis measure, apparently as a matter of judicial routine, as seems to\nhave been the case in this instance. Had it been the first time that\nit was done instead of having the record of the transaction preserved\nonly by chance, any mention of it at all would have appeared so\nstriking to the narrator, that he would have been careful to tell the\nwhole story, and especially the decision reached in the matter.\n\nAfter this, evidence of dissection accumulates rapidly. During the\nsecond decade of the century Mondino, the first writer on anatomy, was\nworking at Bologna. We have the records of his having made some\ndissections in connection with his university teaching there, and\neventually he published a text-book on dissection which became the\nguide for dissectors for the next two centuries. Within five years\nafter this we have a story of students being haled to court for\nbody-snatching for anatomical purposes, and about this time there was,\naccording to Rashdall in his History of the Universities, a statute of\nthe University of Bologna which required the teacher in anatomy to\ndissect a body, if the students brought it to him. More than ten years\nearlier than this, that is, {38} within ten years after the supposed\nPapal prohibition, there are records of dissections having been made\nat Venice in public, for the benefit of the doctors of the city, at\nthe expense of the municipal treasury. During the first half of this\ncentury money was allowed at Bologna for wine, to be given to those\nwho attended the public dissections, and if we recall the state in\nwhich the bodies must have been at a time when the use of\npreservatives was unknown, we can well understand the need for it. All\nthis shows, as I have said, that the date of Boniface's bull (1300),\nfar from representing the eclipse of anatomy, actually fixes the date\nof the dawn of modern practical anatomical study.\n\nThe most interesting question in this whole discussion is as to how\nmuch dissection Mondino actually did during the second decade of the\nfourteenth century. His book became the manual of dissection that was\nin practically every dissector's hands for several centuries after.\nProbably no book of its kind has ever been more used, and none\nmaintained its place as the standard work in this department for so\nlong. No less than 25 printed editions of it appeared altogether. It\nwould seem to be utterly improbable that the author of a text-book of\nthis kind could have made only a few dissections. There are a number\nof historians who have claimed, nevertheless, that at most he did not\ndissect more than three or four bodies. This is all that we have\nabsolute evidence for, that is to say, only these dissections are\nrecorded. It is easy to understand, however, that a professor of\nanatomy might make even hundreds of dissections, and yet have\nsomething to say only about a very few which happened to present some\nspecial peculiarities. The absence of further records may readily be\naccounted for also in {39} other ways. The art of printing was not yet\ninvented; paper had only just been discovered and was extremely\nexpensive, and many factors conspired to destroy any records that may\nhave been made.\n\nOutsiders dipping into the history of medicine have made much of our\npaucity of documentary evidence with regard to what Mondino actually\ndid, and have, when it suited their purpose, insisted that this first\nauthor of a dissector's manual did but the three or four dissections\nexplicitly mentioned. Those who are more familiar with the history of\nmedicine, and especially of anatomy, are persuaded that he must have\ndone many. In the first class of writers is Prof. White, for instance,\nwho declares positively that Mondino did not dissect more bodies than\nthose of which we have absolute records. According to his emphatically\nexpressed opinion, the reason why the father of dissection did not\ndissect more was because of ecclesiastical opposition. Even these few\ndissections were due to some favoring chance or the laxity of the\necclesiastical authorities, or Mondino might have paid dear for his\naudacity. No one else, according to Prof. White, dared to encounter\nthe awful penalties that might have been inflicted on Mondino until\nVesalius, more than two centuries later, broke through \"the\necclesiastical barrier\" and gave liberty to anatomists. Prof. Lewis S.\nPilcher, of Brooklyn, who has made a special study of Mondino and his\ntimes, who has consulted that author's original editions, who has\nsearched out the traditions with regard to him in the very scene of\nhis labors in Bologna, thinks quite differently. Prof. White has a\npurpose, that of minimizing the work done in anatomy during the\nfourteenth century; Prof. Pilcher's only purpose is to bring out the\ntruth with regard to the history of {40} anatomy. In the Medical\nLibrary and Historical Journal for December, 1906, Prof. Pilcher has\nan article entitled The Mondino Myth, by which term he designates the\nidea that Mondino dissected but a few bodies. He says with regard to\nthis subject:\n\n  \"The changes have been rung by medical historians upon a casual\n  reference in Mondino's chapter on the uterus to the bodies of two\n  women and one sow which he had dissected, as if these were the first\n  and the only cadavers dissected by him. The context involved no such\n  construction. He is enforcing a statement that the size of the\n  uterus may vary, and to illustrate it remarks that, 'a woman whom I\n  anatomized in the month of January last year (1315 Anno Christi),\n  had a larger uterus than one whom I anatomized in the month of March\n  of the same year.' And further, he says, 'the uterus of a sow which\n  I dissected in 1316 (the year in which he was writing) was a hundred\n  times greater than any I had seen in the human female, for she was\n  pregnant, and contained thirteen pigs.' These happen to be the only\n  references to specific bodies that he makes in his treatise. But it\n  is a far cry to wring out of these references the conclusions that\n  these are the only dissections he made. It is quite true that if we\n  incline to enshroud his work in a cloud of mystery, and to figure it\n  as an unprecedented, awe-inspiring feature to break down the\n  prejudices of the ages, it is easy to think of him as having timidly\n  profaned the human body in his anatomizing zeal in but one or two\n  instances. His own language, however, throughout his book is that of\n  a man who was familiar with the differing conditions of the organs\n  found in many different bodies--a man who was habitually\n  dissecting.\"\n\n{41}\n\nAs I think must be clear to any one who knows Mondino's book, no other\nconclusion than this suggested by Prof. Pilcher can be drawn. This\nopinion has been frankly stated, by every historian of anatomy in\nrecent years. Puschmann says it very clearly. Von Toeply is evidently\nof the same opinion. These are the latest authorities in the history\nof anatomy. No other conclusion than this could well be reached by\nanyone who has studied the question seriously. Pilcher confirms this\nin the article already quoted in the following paragraph:\n\n  \"Salernum was not alone in its legalization of the dissection of\n  human bodies before the first public work of Mondino, for, according\n  to a document of the Maggiore Consiglio of Venice of 1308, it\n  appears that there was a college of medicine in Venice, which was\n  even then authorized to dissect a body once every year. Common\n  experience tells us that the embodiment of such regulations into\n  formal law would occur only after a considerable preceding period of\n  discussion, and in this particular field, of clandestine practice.\n  It is too much to ask us to believe that in all this period, from\n  the date of the promulgation of Frederick's decree of 1241 to the\n  first public demonstration by Mondino at Bologna in 1315, the decree\n  had been a dead letter and no human body had been anatomized. It is\n  true there is not, as far as I am aware, any record of any such\n  work, and commentators and historians of a later date have, without\n  exception, accepted the view that none was done, and thereby\n  heightened the halo assigned to Mondino as the one who ushered a new\n  era. Such a view seems to me to be incredible. Be that as it may, it\n  is undeniable that at the beginning of the fourteenth century the\n  idea of dissecting the human body was not a novel one; {42} the\n  importance of a knowledge of the intimate structure of the body had\n  already been appreciated by divers ruling bodies, and specific\n  regulations prescribing its practice had been enacted. It is more\n  reasonable to believe that in the era preceding immediately that of\n  Mondino, human bodies were being opened and after a fashion\n  anatomized. All that we know of the work of Mondino suggests that it\n  was not a new enterprise in which he was a pioneer, but rather that\n  he brought to an old practice a new enthusiasm and better methods,\n  which, caught on the rising wave of interest in medical teaching at\n  Bologna, and preserved by his own energy as a writer in the first\n  original systematic treatise written since the time of Galen,\n  created for him in subsequent uncritical times the reputation of\n  being the restorer of the practice of anatomizing the human body,\n  the first one to demonstrate and teach such knowledge since the time\n  of the Ptolemaic anatomists, Erasistratus and Herophilus.\"\n\nIn order to show that Mondino did not perform only the two or three\ndissections which he himself for special reasons mentions, but many\nmore, Professor Pilcher has made a series of quotations from the\nBolognese anatomist's manual of dissection. It is after all quite easy\nto understand that if dissections were common, there would be no\nrecords of most of them, as they would be too commonplace for\nchroniclers to mention. Only those that have some special feature are\nby chance mentioned in some accounts of doings at the university. The\nrecords of the actual number of dissections at most medical schools,\neven a century ago, are not now available in most cases. On the other\nhand, no one can read these quotations from Mondino's book without\nrealizing that the man who wrote these passages had made many {43}\ndissections, and that it was a common practice for him to make\nanatomical preparations in many different ways, under many different\ncircumstances and for many different purposes.\n\nThe second quotation shows, in fact, that Mondino had the custom\nsometimes of boiling his bodies before dissecting them when he wished\nto demonstrate special features, and he promises to make such an\nanatomy for his students at another time. If the bull of Pope Boniface\nVIII. was misinterpreted in any way to prohibit dissection, this would\nsurely be the practice supposed to fall under its provisions. Here we\nfind Mondino, less than twenty years after the promulgation of the\nbull, writing about this very practice, however, and calmly suggesting\nthat he follows it as a routine, in a book that was published without\nlet or hindrance from the ecclesiastical authorities, and that became\nfor the next two centuries the most used book in the teaching of\nanatomy in educational institutions that were directly under\necclesiastical authorities. If the bull was misinterpreted so as to\nforbid dissection, as has been said, surely this flagrant violation of\nit would not have been permitted. It is clear that, if there was a\nmisinterpretation, it must have come later in the history of anatomy.\nBut of that we shall find no trace any more than at this time.\n\nHere are the quotations from the Anatomy of Mondino which show that he\npracticed not one but many methods of making dissections, according to\nthe purposes he had in view. The leaf and line references are to the\nDryander Edition, Marburg, 1541. (Taken from Prof. Pilcher.)\n\n  \"I do not consider separately here the anatomy of component parts,\n  because their anatomy does not appear {44} clearly in the fresh\n  subject, but rather in those macerated in water.\" (Leaf 2, lines\n  8-13.)\n\n  \".... these differences are more noticeable _in the cooked_ or\n  perfectly dried body, and so you need not be concerned about them,\n  as perhaps _I will make an anatomy upon such a one at another time_\n  and will write what I observe with my own senses, as I have proposed\n  from the beginning.\" (Leaf 60, lines 14-17.)\n\n  \"What the members are to which these nerves come cannot well be seen\n  in such dissection as this, but it should be liquified with rain\n  water, and this is not contemplated in the present body.\" (Leaf 60,\n  lines 31-33.)\n\n  \"After the veins you will note many muscles and many large and\n  strong cords, the complete anatomy of which you will not endeavor to\n  find in such a body, but in a body dried in the sun for three years,\n  as I have demonstrated at another time; I also declared completely\n  their number, and wrote the anatomy of the muscles of the arms,\n  hands and feet in a lecture which I gave over the first, second,\n  third and fourth subjects.\"\n\nAs must be clear to anyone, many of these expressions are, as\nProfessor Pilcher insists, intelligible only if we accept the\nconclusion that their author had done many dissections, under many and\nvarying circumstances, during his career as an anatomist before\nwriting this volume. We have other evidence, of a much more direct\ncharacter, for this fact. Mondino uses the expression, that he had\ndemonstrated many times a certain anatomical feature which could only\nbe the subject of demonstration after dissection. The expression\noccurs in a description of the hypo-gastric region which he calls the\nsumen. Through this region, he says, there pass to the surface certain\nveins which transmit fluid in the fetus {45} during the time of its\nlife in utero. For this reason they are better studied in the unborn\nthan in the fully developed, since they lose their function as soon as\ncomplete development is reached. In this description Mondino uses the\nwords \"ego hoc modo multitotiens monstravi.\"\n\nAs with regard to this, so as to another bit of evidence of Mondino's\nfrequency of dissection, Professor Pilcher has supplied the material.\nHe says in his article on the Mondino Myth, already cited:\n\n  \"Shortly after his (Mondino's) death, the young Guy de Chauliac, of\n  Montpelier, came to Bologna to study anatomy under the tuition of\n  Mondino's successor, Bertrucius. When he wrote his own treatise, 'La\n  Grande Chirurgie,' thirty years later, he prefaced it with an\n  appreciation of the study of anatomy, saying: 'It is necessary and\n  useful to every physician to know first of all anatomy'; and that a\n  knowledge of anatomy was to be acquired by two means; 'these are,'\n  he says, 'the study of books, a means useful indeed, but not\n  sufficient to explain those things which can only be appreciated by\n  the senses; the other, experimentally on the dead body, according to\n  the treatise of Mondinus, of Bologna, which he has written, and\n  which (experimental anatomy on the cadaver) he (Mondinus) has done\n  many times'--'_et ipsam fecit multitoties._'\"\n\nBesides this evidence we have details of the lives of two of Mondino's\nassistants which furnish further proofs of the frequency of dissection\nat the University of Bologna during these first two decades of the\nfourteenth century, which, it will be recalled, are also the first two\ndecades after the promulgation of Pope Boniface's bull. Curiously\nenough, one of these assistants was a young woman who, as was not\ninfrequently the custom at this {46} time in the Italian universities,\nwas matriculated as a student at Bologna. She took up first philosophy\nand afterwards anatomy under Mondino. While it is not generally\nrealized, co-education was quite common at the Italian universities of\nthe thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and at no time since the\nfoundation of the universities has a century passed in Italy without\ndistinguished women occupying professors' chairs at some of the\nItalian universities. This young woman, Alessandra Giliani, of\nPersiceto, a country district not far from Bologna, took up the study\nof anatomy with ardor and, strange as it may appear, became especially\nenthusiastic about dissection. She became so skilful that she was made\nthe prosector of anatomy, that is, one who prepares bodies for\ndemonstration by the professor.\n\nAccording to the Cronaca Persicetana, quoted by Medici in his History\nof the Anatomical School of Bologna:\n\n\"She became most valuable to Mondino because she would cleanse most\nskilfully the smallest vein, the arteries, all ramifications of the\nvessels, without lacerating or dividing them, and to prepare them for\ndemonstration she would fill them with various colored liquids, which,\nafter having been driven into the vessels, would harden without\ndestroying the vessels. Again, she would paint these same vessels to\ntheir minute branches so perfectly and color them so naturally that,\nadded to the wonderful explanations and teachings of the master, they\nbrought him great fame and credit.\" This whole passage shows a\nwonderful anticipation of all our most modern methods--injection,\npainting, hardening--of making anatomical preparations for class and\ndemonstration purposes.\n\nSome of the details of the story have been doubted, but her memorial\ntablet, erected at the time of her death {47} in the Church of San\nPietro e Marcellino of the Hospital of Santa Maria de Mareto, gives\nall the important facts, and tells also the story of the grief of her\nfiance, who was himself Mondino's other assistant. This was Otto\nAgenius, who had made for himself a name as an assistant to the chair\nof Anatomy in Bologna, and of whom there were great hopes entertained\nbecause he had already shown signs of genius as an investigator in\nanatomy. These hopes were destined to grievous disappointment,\nhowever, for Otto died suddenly, before he had reached his thirtieth\nyear. The fact that both these assistants of Mondino died young and\nsuddenly, would seem to point to the fact that probably dissection\nwounds in those early days proved even more fatal than they\noccasionally did a century or more ago, when the proper precautions\nagainst them were not so well understood. The death of Mondino's two\nprosectors in early years would seem to hint at some such unfortunate\noccurrence.\n\nAs regards the evidence of what the young man had accomplished before\nhis untimely death, probably the following quotation, which Medici has\ntaken from one of the old chroniclers, will give the best idea. He\nsaid:\n\n\"What advantage indeed might not Bologna have had from Otto Agenius\nLustrolanus, whom Mondino had used as an assiduous prosector, if he\nhad not been taken away by a swift and lamentable death before he had\ncompleted the sixth lustrum of his life!\"\n\nFurther absolute proof that dissections were very common about the\ntime that Mondino made those which are recorded, and the mention of\nwhich has led to the false assumption as to the rarity of dissection,\nis to be found in the legal prosecution for body-snatching, which I\nhave already mentioned and which took place within five {48} years\nafter Mondino made the public demonstrations in dissection that are\nthe subject of discussion. It will be conceded by everyone that such\nprosecutions for body-snatching are not likely to occur when only one\nor two graves are violated a year, but are usually the result of a\nseries of such outrages, which arouse the community against them. We\nprefer to give this bit of history once more in the words of Professor\nPilcher, who has argued this whole case for _the frequency of\ndissection within twenty years after the bull that is supposed to have\nforbidden it_ better than anyone else, and whose knowledge of Mondino\nand his times is such as to make him an authority on the subject. He\nhas no interest in them, as I have said, either for or against the\nPopes. His only idea is to bring out the real meaning of whatever data\nwe possess for the history of anatomy and dissection at this time.\n\n  \"An instructive and interesting side-light on the conditions\n  attending the study of practical anatomy in the days of Mondino may\n  be found in a record, still extant, of a legal procedure which\n  occurred in Bologna in the year 1319, four years after Mondino had\n  begun his public demonstrations and at a time when Otto and\n  Alessandra were doubtless enthusiastically working with him.\n  According to the record, four students, three from Milan and one\n  from Piacenza, were accused of having gone at night time to the\n  cemetery of the church of San Barnada, outside the San Felice gate,\n  and to have sacrilegiously violated the grave in which was buried\n  the body of a certain Pasino who had been hung on the gallows near\n  the Ponte di Reno. It was charged that the students had taken up the\n  body and carried it to the school of the parish of San Salvatore,\n  near the pharmacy of {49} Giacomo de Guido, where Master Alberto\n  (Zancari) was teaching. There were witnesses who affirmed that they\n  had seen the body of Pasino in the school and the students and\n  others intent upon dissecting it. It was the sixth of December when\n  the arrests were made, but the final outcome of the trial is not\n  stated.\"\n\nSurely all this must be considered sufficient evidence to show that\nPope Boniface's bull neither forbade dissection, nor was\nmisinterpreted as prohibiting any practice in connection with\nanatomical investigation. It is not enough for President White,\nhowever, for after the publication of my original article in the\nMedical Library and Historical Journal on The Popes and Anatomy, and\nanother article on Pope John XXII. and the Supposed Bull against\nChemistry, President White wrote thus in reply: \"Dr. Walsh takes up\nthe decretal of Boniface VIII., in 1300, and endeavors to show that,\nso far from forbidding dissection, it had quite a different tenor, and\nthat at sundry universities in Italy and at the University at\nMontpelier, in France, dissection was permitted and most openly\npracticed. This seems to me very disingenuous. The decretal of\nBoniface was construed universally as prohibiting dissections for any\npurpose whatever.\"\n\nFor President White, then, the publication of the text of the bull is\nonly an _endeavor_ to show that, so far from forbidding dissection, it\nhad quite a different tenor. This endeavor seems to him very\ndisingenuous(!) It matters not what evidence there may be for\ndissection, or lack of evidence as to ecclesiastical opposition, the\ndecretal of Boniface was _construed universally_ as prohibiting any\ndissections for any purpose whatever. All history must yield before\nthe reiteration of the assertion {50} that the Popes did forbid\ndissection, and that there was no anatomy during the thirteenth,\nfourteenth and fifteenth centuries, except such as by chance, in some\nway or other, succeeded in evading the Church regulations. It simply\nmust have been so. President White has said it. For anyone to deny it\nis to question his historical infallibility. Only those who are\ndisingenuous will dare to do so.\n\nIt is true, he grants there were some permits to dissect given, but\nthese were wrung from the unwilling hands of the ecclesiastical\nauthorities, and are only proofs of their opposition, not at all of\ntheir toleration of dissection. There is no limit to which Professor\nWhite will not go in order to maintain his proposition that the Popes\ndid forbid anatomy, and that there was no anatomical investigation\nduring the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Here, for\ninstance, is a paragraph from Professor White's answer which shows\nvery strikingly one method of arguing with regard to a question of\nmajor significance in the history of education as well as of science,\nand especially of medicine, during the Middle Ages. Comments on it are\nentirely unnecessary:\n\n  \"And now, as to Dr. Walsh's statement that dissection was permitted\n  by Popes and ecclesiastical authorities in universities. His\n  argument in the matter is an excellent example of Jesuitism. It is\n  true that under the pressure of the developing science of medicine,\n  sundry civil and ecclesiastical authorities did, from time to time,\n  issue permits allowing an occasional dissection, at rare intervals,\n  here and there; as, for example, the permission given to the\n  University of Lerida, in 1391, to dissect one dead criminal every\n  three years, and to sundry other universities to dissect one or two\n  human {51} bodies each year. It is a fact of which we have ample\n  testimony, that Mundinus, the great anatomist preceding Vesalius,\n  only dissected three human bodies with his classes during his entire\n  career. So far from effectually helping anatomy, these permissions\n  served really to fasten the idea upon the European mind that\n  dissection to any considerable extent by anatomical investigators\n  ought not to be allowed, and, as a matter of fact, it was not until\n  Vesalius, _in spite of theological opposition, braved calumny,\n  persecution, and possibly death, that this ecclesiastical barrier to\n  investigation was broken through._\" (Italics ours.)\n\nSince Professor White has insisted so much on the significance of\nthese permissions, a discussion of them will not be out of place.\nThere are records of a certain small number of permissions to dissect\nhaving been granted by the Popes to various universities during the\nfourteenth and fifteenth centuries. These are so few, however, that it\nwould seem that if they represented the only opportunities afforded\nfor dissection, then the development of anatomy must have been much\nhampered.\n\nWith regard to this, it may be said that if the Popes gave permission\nfor dissection, then this practice was not forbidden by them. Here is\nthe proof of it out of the mouths of those who say the opposite. Why\nshould a permission be necessary, however, will be asked?\n\nAt the present moment such formal permissions are required quite as\nmuch in all civilized countries as they were during the Middle Ages.\nIn certain parts of the United States a bond has to be filed by\napplicants before permission to dissect will be given. Dissection is\nrecognized generally as a practice that needs definite regulation.\nWithout such regulation all sorts of abuses {52} would creep in.\nDuring the Middle Ages popular feeling was all against dissection. It\nwas difficult, in many places, for the university authorities to\nobtain permission for dissection from their immediate political\nrulers. As a consequence of this they reverted to the theory, very\ngenerally accepted at that time, that the university was independent\nof the political authorities of the place in which it was situated, in\neducational matters, and an appeal was made directly to the\necclesiastical authorities for permission to dissect, as coming under\ntheir jurisdiction in education. They had thus obtained many other\neducational privileges that would not have been allowed them by\nmunicipalities, and they were successful also in this. Anyone who\nknows the details of the struggle of the universities to maintain the\nrights of their students and faculties against the encroachments of\nmunicipal and state authorities, will appreciate how much this\npossibility of appeal to the Pope meant for the universities of that\ntime.\n\nThe permission to dissect was only another, but a very striking\nexample, of ecclesiastical authority granting privileges to\nuniversities beyond those which they could have obtained from the\nlocal governments under which they existed. Such permissions, far from\nshowing that the Popes were hampering or prohibiting dissection,\nprove, on the contrary, that they were securing for educational\ninstitutions what local popular prejudice would not have allowed them.\nThat this is the proper way to view this question will be best\nappreciated by a review of the history of anatomy during the two\ncenturies and a half in which ecclesiastical authorities are said to\nhave prevented or discouraged its development. From this it will be\nseen very clearly that the nearer to Rome the {53} medical schools\nwere, the more dissection was done in them; that dissection was most\ncommon in Rome, at least during the latter part of this period; that\nthe golden age of anatomy developed most luxuriantly in Bologna when\nthat was a Papal city, and in Rome itself; and that in general the\nPopes must be looked upon as having fostered and patronized the\nmedical sciences and anatomy in every possible way, while there is not\nthe slightest hint anywhere to be found of the ecclesiastical\nopposition that is supposed to have dominated these centuries of\nmedical history.\n\nIn concluding this chapter it has seemed worth while to trace the\norigin of the misinterpretation of Pope Boniface's decretal, which\nmakes it forbid dissection for anatomical purposes as well as the\ncutting up and boiling of bodies in order to facilitate their removal\nfor long distances for burial. Prof. White quotes with great\nconfidence in the matter the Benedictine Literary History of France as\nhis authority, which he declares to be a Catholic authority. Under\nordinary circumstances, this would be quite sufficient to establish\nthe fact that such a misinterpretation must have taken place, for the\nBenedictines were extremely careful in such matters and were not\nlikely to admit an assertion of this kind, unless they had good\nfoundation for it. The quotation on which Prof. White depends for his\ndeclarations in the matter is found in the Sixteenth Volume of the\nHistoire Litteraire de la France, which runs as follows:\n\n  \"But what was to retard still more (than the prohibition of surgery\n  to the clergy mentioned in the preceding paragraph) was the very\n  ancient prejudice which opposed anatomical dissection as\n  sacrilegious. By a decree inserted in Le Sexte, Boniface VIII.\n  forbade the boiling {54} of bodies in order to obtain skeletons.\n  Anatomists were obliged to go back to Galen for information, and\n  could not study the human body directly, and consequently could not\n  advance the human science of bodily health and therapeutics.\"\n\nHad this been written by the Benedictines, there would have been every\nreason to think that though Boniface's decretal itself did not forbid\ndissection it had unfortunately been so misinterpreted. While the\nHistoire Litteraire de la France, however, was begun by the\nBenedictine Congregation of St. Maur, their work, like many another\nmagnificent undertaking of the monks, was interrupted by the French\nRevolution. What they had accomplished up to this time showed the\nnecessity for such work, and accordingly in the early part of the\nnineteenth century a continuation of it was undertaken by the members\nof the Institute of France. The Sixteenth Volume from which the\nquotation just cited comes was mainly written by Pierre Claude\nFrancois Daunou, the French historian and politician. His life had not\nbeen such as to make him a sympathetic student of the Middle Ages. He\nhad been a deputy to the Convention, 1792-1795, was elected the first\nPresident of the Council of 500 in this latter year, and became a\nmember of the Tribunate in 1800. His contributions to history were\nmade near the close of his life. While he is usually considered an\nauthority in the political details of these centuries, it is easy to\nunderstand that he was not favorably situated for familiarity with the\nmedical history of these times.\n\nOnce it is understood that the paragraph in question was written by M.\nDaunou and not by the Benedictines, its adventitious prestige as a\nCatholic historical {55} authority, to which we shall see presently it\nhas absolutely no right, vanishes. A word about M. Daunou will serve\nto show how carefully any declaration of his with regard to the Popes\nmust be weighed. He belonged to that French school of Catholics who\ntry to minimize in every way the influence of the Papacy in the\nChurch, and who, as students of history know very well, do not\nhesitate even to twist historical events to suit their prejudices and\ngive them a significance detrimental to the Popes. This was the\nprincipal purpose of Daunou's historical writing. There is a little\nvolume called Outlines of a History of the Court of Rome and of the\nTemporal Power of the Popes, declared by the translator to be by\nDaunou, which was published in Philadelphia in 1837. The American\nedition was issued as a Protestant tract, and the translator states\nfrankly that M. Daunou's purpose in composing it was to prove that\n\"the temporal power of the Roman Pontiffs originated in fraud and\nusurpation; that its influence upon their pastoral ministry has been\nto mar and degrade it, and its continuation is dangerous to the peace\nand the liberties of Europe; and that its constant influence to these\neffects is to retard the advancement of civilization and knowledge.\"\nM. Daunou's title for the work as issued originally in French was An\nHistorical Essay on the Temporal Power of the Popes and on the Abuses\nwhich they have made of their Spiritual Ministry. [Footnote 3]\n\n[Footnote 3: The time at which this little book was published\nfurnishes the best possible commentary on its purpose. It was\noriginally issued in 1810, the year after Pope Pius VII. had been\ncarried off from Rome, and when Napoleon was using every effort to\ndiscredit the Pope and bring about a state of affairs in which the\npontiff would be compelled to accept a Concordat that would deprive\nthe Church of many of her former rights. It was then really a\npolitical pamphlet meant to curry favor with Napoleon, and issued\nanonymously, because even Daunou did not care to put his name to it\nunder the circumstances. This will give a better idea of how much\ncredence may be given to Daunou's assertions with regard to the Popes\nof the Middle Ages, than any reflections that we could make.]\n\nEverything that M. Daunou has to say with regard to the Popes is\ntinged by his political and Gallican {56} prejudices. This is why he\nstates so definitely in the Histoire Litteraire de la France that the\nbull of Pope Boniface VIII., if it did not actually forbid dissection,\nat least was responsible for hampering the practice for two centuries.\nThat M. Daunou's expressions on this subject have been taken so\nseriously, however, is to me at least a never-ending source of\nsurprise. He himself must have known nothing at all of the history of\ndissection, while those who accepted his opinion must have carefully\navoided consulting authorities on the history of anatomy, for it is\nactually just after this bull that the history of public dissection\nbegins. It is clear to me, then, that this absurd assertion of M.\nDaunou never would have been swallowed so readily only that writers\nwere over-anxious to find material to use against the Popes and the\nChurch.\n\nDaunou found this bull of Boniface an excellent opportunity to\ndiscredit the Popes in their relations to science. It is true, the\nbull itself says nothing about dissection, nor is there anything in it\nthat would tend to create even a distant impression that it was\ndirected against anatomical preparations of any kind. We might expect,\nthen, that his assertion in this matter would have been contradicted\nat once by some one who would read the bull. The bull is, however, not\neasy to find for consultation purposes. It does not occur, as we have\nsaid, in Le Sexte itself, that is, in the ordinary Sixth Book of Papal\nDecretals, published by Boniface VIII., though Daunou quotes it as\nfrom there and without a {57} hint as to where it may be really found.\nIt is in an appendix to this work, added after Boniface's death. It\nwould be rather difficult, then, and would require some special\nknowledge and no little patience on the part of a subsequent collator\nof historical sources to find the bull, unless he were determined on\ngetting at the bottom of this whole question. As a consequence\nDaunou's assertion has remained practically unchallenged for the\nbetter part of a century, though many scholars who were familiar with\nBoniface's sixth book have doubtless realized its falsity, but owing\nto the fact that they would not ordinarily come across the bull in\ntheir direct reading of Boniface's famous volume, would not be in a\nposition to contradict its misquotation. If looked at in this way,\nDaunou's passage in the Histoire Litteraire would seem to be a\ndeliberate and very clever and, unfortunately, successful perversion\nof history.\n\nDaunou, who was a deep student of Papal affairs and whose knowledge of\nthe history of the Papacy would not be likely to have missed so\nimportant a detail, might very well have known, that about a half a\ncentury before the time when he wrote asserting that this bull of\nBoniface VIII. had prevented dissection, someone who had a doubt on\nthe subject asked the ecclesiastical authorities at Rome, whether this\nPapal document was to be considered as referring in any way to the\npractice of dissection, or the cutting up of human bodies for\nanatomical purposes. In reply to this question Pope Benedict XIV. made\na very direct answer, absolutely in the negative. This is the only\nhint that I know of in serious history that Pope Boniface's bull was\never considered to have any reference to dissection for anatomical\npurposes. At the time when Pope Benedict XIV.'s answer {58} was\npublished the Papal Medical School had been in existence for some five\ncenturies and a half. For about two centuries and a half it had been\ndistinguished in the annals of medicine, and as we shall see in the\nchapter on The Papal Medical School, some of the most distinguished\nanatomists of their time had been investigating and teaching by means\nof dissections, and their demonstrations had been attended by many of\nthe high ecclesiastics, even many autopsies had been made on\nCardinals.\n\nPope Benedict's reply is quoted in full in Puschmann's Handbuch der\nGeschichte der Medizin. Vol. II., page 227, in Robert Ritter Von\nToeply's article on the History of Anatomy. It occurs in the midst of\nan abundance of material of great historical importance which shows\nthe place that the Popes occupy as patrons of anatomy for several\ncenturies. Von Toeply has no illusions with regard to any supposed\nopposition of the Popes to medical science. He even says, that while\nthe older writers have always told the story of the development of\nanatomy as if the Popes tried to prevent the study of it, as a matter\nof fact, there is scarcely any evidence for this, and copious evidence\nfor their having done much to foster this branch of medical science\nwhich they consider so important for the healing of the ills of\nmankind. His reference to Boniface's answer with regard to the\nrelation of Boniface's bull to dissection runs as follows:\n\n  \"Under the heading, Concerning the Dissection of Bodies in Public\n  Institutions of Learning, and in reply to the question whether the\n  bull of Boniface VIII. forbids the dissection of human bodies,\n  Benedict XIV. said (Institute 64):\n\n  \"By the singular beneficence of God the study of medicine flourished\n  in a very wonderful manner in this {59} city (Rome). Its professors\n  are known for their supreme talents to the remotest parts of the\n  earth. There is no doubt that they have greatly benefited by the\n  diligent labor which they have devoted to dissection. From this\n  practice beyond doubt they have gained a profound knowledge of their\n  art and a proficiency that has enabled them to give advice for the\n  benefit of the ailing as well as a skill in the curing of disease.\n  Now such dissection of bodies is in no way contrary to the bull of\n  Pope Boniface. He indeed imposed the penalty of excommunication, to\n  be remitted only by the Sovereign Pontiff himself, upon all those\n  who would dare to disembowel the body of any dead person and either\n  dismember it or horribly cut it up, separating the flesh from the\n  bones. From the rest of his bull, however, it is clear that this\n  penalty was only to be inflicted upon those who took bodies already\n  buried out of their graves and by an act horrible in itself, cut\n  them in pieces in order that they might carry them elsewhere and\n  place them in another tomb. It is very clear, however, that by this,\n  the dissection of bodies, which has proved so necessary for those\n  exercising the profession of medicine, is by no means forbidden.\"\n  [Footnote 4]\n\n[Footnote 4: The original Latin taken from Puschmann runs thus: \"De\ncadaverum sectione facienda in publicis Academiis, utrum constitutio\nBonifacii VIII. sectioni humanorum cadaverum adversetur. Singulari\ndei beneficio medicinae studium in hac civitate (Roma) magnopere\nfloret cujus etiam professores ob eximiam virtutem in remotissimis\nterrae partibus commendantur. Ipsis sane maxime profuit, quod\nincidendis mortuis corporibus diligentem operam contulerint, ex qua\nprocul dubio praeclaram artis scientiam, in consultationibus obeundis\npro aegrotorum salute praestantiam, morbisque eurandis peritiam\nconsecuti sunt . . . . Porro haec membrorum incisio nullo modo adversatur\nBonifacii Institutioni . . . . Ille quidem poenam excommunicationis\nindicit Pontifici solo remittendam, iis omnibus qui audeant\ncuiuscumque defuncti corpus exenterare, ac illud membratim vel in\nfrustra immaniter concidere ab ossibus tegumentum carnis excutere.\nTamen ex reliquis ejusdem constitutionis partibus clare\ndeprehenditur, hanc poenam illis infligi qui sepulta corpora e tumulis\neruentes ipsa nefario scelere in frustra secabant ut alio deferrent,\nalioque sepulchro collocarent. Quamobrem membrorum incisio\nminime interdicitur, quae adeo necessaria est medicinae facultatem\nexercentibus.\"]\n\nThis whole subject of the Supposed Papal Prohibition of Anatomy is\ntypical of a certain form of controversial writing against the Church.\nA document of some time or other from the Middle Ages is taken,\ntwisted from its {60} original meaning and set up as a serious\nstumbling block to the development of science or education in some\nway. It is quoted confidently by some one without much authority.\nOthers who are glad of the opportunity to have such an objection to\nurge against the Papacy, take it up eagerly, do not look it up in the\noriginal, absolutely fail to consider the circumstances in which it\nwas issued, and then spread it broadcast. Of course it is accepted by\nunthinking readers, whose prejudices lead them to believe that this is\nwhat was to be expected anyhow. It maybe that history, as is the case\nin anatomy, absolutely contradicts the assertion. That makes no\ndifference. History is ignored and treatises are written showing how\nmuch science would have developed only for Papal opposition, by people\nwho know nothing at all about the real story of the development of\nscience. The real history of anatomy, showing very clearly how much\nwas done for the science by the Popes and ecclesiastics, will be told\nin the following chapters.\n\n\n{61}\n\n\nTHE STORY OF ANATOMY DOWN TO THE RENAISSANCE.\n\nWe have seen that the supposed prohibition of anatomy by the Popes has\nno existence in reality. In spite of this fact, which it was easy for\nanyone to ascertain who wished to consult the documents asserted to\nforbid, a number of historical writers have insisted on finding\nreligious or ecclesiastical, or theological, opposition to anatomical\nstudies. Professor White has been most emphatic in his assertions in\nthis regard. He admits that the supposed bull of prohibition had quite\na different purport, yet he still continued to assert its connection\nwith the failure of anatomy to develop during the Middle Ages. This\npresumed failure of anatomy during the Middle Ages is a myth. It\ncontinues to secure credence only in the minds of those who know\nnothing of the history of medical science during the thirteenth,\nfourteenth, and fifteenth centuries and who have not consulted the\nserious histories of medicine that treat of this time, but flourishes\nvigorously in the minds of those who have a definite purpose in making\nout a story of theological or Church opposition to science in general.\n\nTo counteract the false impression that has gained such wide\nacceptance in this matter, it has seemed advisable, in order to settle\nthe question definitely once and for all, to trace the history of\nanatomical science from its beginning in the Middle Ages down to\nmodern {62} times. It will not be hard to show that there was a\nconstant development and an unfailing interest in this subject. This\ncan be understood even more clearly from the story of the development\nof surgery in the Middle Ages and its relations to anatomy than from\nthe history of anatomy itself. As is well known, materials with regard\nto practical and applied science interest men more at all times, and\ndocuments with regard to them are more likely to be preserved, and so\nthe history of surgery is very full, while the history of anatomy may\nprove not quite so satisfactory. It is true of all sciences, that\nthere are periods when they have much less attraction than at other\ntimes, and the success of investigators and original workers is not\nalways the same. As in nearly everything else, the real advances in\nall science come when genius makes its mark, and not merely because a\nlarge number of men happen to be interested in the subject. This will\nbe found as true in anatomy as in other sciences, and so there are\nperiods when not much is doing, but nowhere is there a trace of\necclesiastical opposition to account for these variations of interest.\n\nThere is no doubt at all that there was much popular opposition to the\npractice of dissection in the Middle Ages; that has existed at all\ntimes in the world's history. It was very pronounced among the old\nPagans in Rome as well as in Greece, and it prevented anatomical study\nto a very great degree. It continued to exist in modern times until\nalmost the present generation. Indeed, it has not yet entirely\ndisappeared, as any physician who has tried to secure autopsies on\ninteresting cases knows very well. The New York Academy of Medicine is\nonly a little over a half century old, and yet nearly every one of its\nearly presidents had thrilling {63} experiences in body-snatching as a\nyoung man, because no proper provision for the supplying of anatomical\nmaterial had as yet been made by law, and bodies had to be obtained.\nThe feeling of objection to having the bodies of friends anatomized is\nnatural and not due to religion. It exists quite as strongly among the\nignorant who have no religion as among the religiously inclined. It\nhas not disappeared among the educated classes of our own time,\nreligious or irreligious. If this is borne in mind, the history of the\ndevelopment of anatomy will be easier to understand.\n\nThe first definite evidence in modern history for the existence of the\npractice of dissection is a famous law of the German Emperor,\nFrederick II., from the first half of the thirteenth century. This law\nwas promulgated for the two Sicilies, that is, for Southern Italy and\nSicily proper, very probably in the year 1240. It has often been\nvaguely referred to, but its actual significance can only be\nunderstood from the terms of the law itself, which has been literally\ntranslated by Von Toeply in his Studien Zur Geschichte der Anatomie in\nIm Mittelalter. [Footnote 5]\n\n[Footnote 5: Deuticke Leipzig und Wien, 1893]\n\nThe paragraph with regard to dissection runs\nas follows:\n\n  \"As an enactment that will surely prove beneficial to health, we\n  decree that no surgeon will be allowed to practice, in case he has\n  not a written testimonial, which he must present to the teachers in\n  the medical faculty, that he has for at least a year applied himself\n  to that department of medicine which is concerned with the teaching\n  and practice of surgery, and that he has, above all, learned the\n  anatomy of the human body in this manner, and that he is fully\n  competent in this department {64} of medicine, without which neither\n  surgery can be undertaken with success nor sufferers cured.\"\n  [Footnote 6]\n\n[Footnote 6: The complete text of this law, which is a marvelous\nanticipation of all our efforts for the regulation of the practice of\nmedicine down even to the present day, will be found in the appendix.]\n\nSuch a regulation, as pointed out by Professor Pilcher in an article\non the early history of dissection, [Footnote 7] and as we know by\nmodern experience, does not come into force as a rule before the\nactual practice of what is prescribed, has been for some time the\ncustom and its usefulness proved by the results attained. It seems\nvery probable, then, that even at this early day the Emperor Frederick\nwas only making into a law what had been at least a custom before this\ntime. Lest anyone should think that this is a far-fetched assumption,\ncertain other paragraphs of this law, which show very definitely the\nhigh degree to which the development of medical teaching had reached,\nmust be recalled. Frederick declared that medicine could only be\nlearned if there was a proper groundwork of logic. Only after three\nyears devoted to logic, then, under which term is included the grammar\nand philosophy of an ordinary undergraduate course, could a man take\nup the study of medicine. After three years devoted to medicine, to\nwhich it is again specifically declared another year must be added if\nsurgery were to be practiced, a man might be given his degree in\nmedicine, but must spend a subsequent full year in the practical study\nof medicine under the supervision of an experienced physician.\n\n[Footnote 7: The Mondino Myth, Medical Library and Historical Journal,\n1906]\n\nThe law further decreed definite punishments for the practice of\nmedicine without due warrant and violation of its regulations, and\nalso regulated the practice of apothecaries. It is rather interesting\nto find that these {65} were forbidden to share their profits with\nphysicians, and the physicians themselves were not allowed to\ndistribute their own medicines. In a word, practically every one of\nthe problems in the practice of medicine which medical societies are\ntrying to solve at the present moment, were also occupying the\nattention of the civil authorities about seven centuries ago. Anyone\nwho reads this law will not be loath to believe that it represents the\nculmination of a series of efforts to regulate medical practice, and\nespecially medical education, and that it was not merely a chance\nlegal utterance that happened to touch a single important question for\nthe first time. One of the paragraphs of the law even contains some\nclauses that would prevent fake medical schools and that establishes a\nboard of medical examiners. This consisted of certain state officials\nand some professors of the art of medicine. In a word, medical\neducation had reached a high grade of development, and medical\npractice was legally established on a high plane of professional\ndignity.\n\nSalerno had already enjoyed a high reputation as a medical school for\nmore than two centuries when Frederick's law was promulgated. It is\ntrue that we have no definite records of dissections done in the\nschool. If these were not an uncommon occurrence, however, but came as\ndid dissections later on, quite as a matter of course, the absence of\nsuch records, when we recall how liable to destruction were the meagre\naccounts of the university transactions of the time during the long\nperiod that has intervened and because of the many vicissitudes they\nwere liable to, is not surprising. During the century following this\ndecree there seems to be no doubt that dissections were done\nregularly, though {66} perhaps not very frequently from our modern\nstandpoint, at Salerno. Salerno, as we shall see in the chapter on The\nPapal Medical School, was always closely in touch with the\necclesiastical authorities, and especially with the Papacy. There was\nno hint of friction of any kind, either before or after this law of\nFrederick's. The question of ecclesiastical interference with\ndissection does not seem to have arisen at all, much less to have\nproved an obstacle to the development of medical science.\n\nAt the beginning of the fourteenth century the center of interest in\nanatomy and the matter of dissections shifts to Bologna. We have\nalready discussed the question whether Mondino was the first to do\npublic anatomies, and as to whether he performed only the few that by\na narrow misunderstanding of certain of his own words have sometimes\nbeen ascribed to him. Professor Pilcher, in the article The Mondino\nMyth, already cited, is of the opinion, and gives excellent reasons\nfor it, that Taddeo, the great Bolognese physician of the thirteenth\ncentury, who was Mondino's master, had done at least some dissections\nin Bologna. Personally I have long felt sure that Taddeo or Thaddeus,\nas he is sometimes called in the Latin form of his name, did not a\nfew, but a number of dissections.\n\nProfessor Pilcher's account of him does not exaggerate his merits. I\nmay say that he was one of the great Papal physicians of whom we shall\nhave more to tell hereafter.\n\n  \"Any comprehensive attempt to trace the real influences to which was\n  due so great a step as a return to the practice of dissections of\n  the human body, seems to me must be very defective if it failed to\n  take into consideration the influence of such a man as Thaddeus\n  (Italian Taddeo).{67} That he was able to impress himself in the way\n  in which history records that he did, both upon the general public\n  and upon the scholastic foundations of Bologna, shows a strength of\n  character and a mastery of the peculiar conditions of the moment in\n  the fields of science and philosophy which made him a master and an\n  inspirer. If he is to be considered in his proper historical light,\n  as one who declares that the knowledge of the structure of the human\n  body to a most minute degree is the foundation upon which all\n  rational medicine and surgery must be built, then it is impossible\n  to exaggerate the importance of the pivotal moment when, in the\n  development of science, the human body began to be anatomized. Nor\n  is any fault to be found with the custom which has crowned with the\n  laurels of universal appreciation the names of those men who began\n  and who continued anatomical study, who vulgarized the practice of\n  dissection.\n\n  \"In my own investigations and reflections upon the conditions which\n  led up to this happy renewal of scientific search into the\n  composition of the body of man, it has seemed to me that writers\n  have hitherto fallen short of tracing through to its ultimate\n  source, the earlier spirit of enthusiasm for knowledge, of insight\n  into the problems of disease, and of contempt for traditionary\n  shackles, to the influence of which, as shown by the master, Taddeo,\n  the latter work of the pupil, Mondino, was in great measure due.\"\n\nMedici, in his History of the School of Anatomy at Bologna, [Footnote\n8] quotes Sarti on The Distinguished Professors of the University of\nBologna for proof of Taddeo's familiarity with dissection. Von Toeply\ndoes not think that {68} this quotation is enough absolutely to prove\nthat Taddeo had done dissections, yet it would be hard to understand\nit unless some such interpretation is made. Taddeo was asked to decide\na medico-legal question with regard to a pregnant woman. He refused,\nhowever, with a modesty that might well be commended to medico-legal\nexperts of more modern times, to answer the question decisively,\nbecause he had never made a dissection of a pregnant woman. Sarti\nargues that it is evident from this that he had dissected other bodies\nmore easy to obtain than those of pregnant women, or else that he had\nhad the opportunity to make observations on them when dissected by\nothers.\n\n[Footnote 8: Medici Compendio Storico Della Scuola Anatomica de\nBologna, Bologna, 1857. ]\n\nCertain of Taddeo's contemporaries must have had the incentive of his\nexample to help them to a knowledge of human anatomy, for they surely\ncould not have accomplished all that they did in surgery without\nexperience in dissection, yet Taddeo was looked up to as a master by\nall of them.\n\nAnyone who has read the contributions to surgery of William of Salicet\nand his great pupil Lanfranc, even if only what we give with regard to\nthem in our chapter on Surgery during the Middle Ages, cannot but be\nimpressed with the idea that they must have done human dissections.\nThey do not mention this fact explicitly, but portions of their\nsurgical works are taken up with the consideration of applied anatomy.\nThey discuss the relations of various structures to one another,\nespecially with reference to the surgery of them. Von Toeply, in his\nStudies on the History of Anatomy in the Middle Ages, says that the\nanatomies written before William's chapters on applied anatomy, were\nmost of them purely theoretic discussions meant to be guides for\ninternal {69} medicine, or else they were very short directions for\nthose who undertook the practical work of the dismemberment of bodies,\nusually, however, with reference to animals rather than to human\nbodies. In William of Salicet we encounter, he says, for the first\ntime a treatise on anatomy made with the deliberate purpose of its\napplication to practical surgery. Everywhere William gives hints for\nsurgical operations with special reference to the anatomical\nrelations.\n\nPuccinotti quotes from William of Salicet's surgery, written about\n1270, a passage that shows how familiar this surgeon must have been\nwith dissection. The nephew of Count Pallavicini received an arrow\nwound in the jugular vein and died within an hour. During his death\nagony he suffered from a peculiar form of rattle in his throat. It was\nthought that this might be due to the fact that the arrow had been\npoisoned. William was called in to decide this question, and found\nthat there was nothing responsible for his death except the wound\nitself. He describes how he found the blood in the lungs and in the\nheart, and considers that the conditions that were present were due to\nthe wound. Von Toeply has suggested that William would have given more\ndetails had he actually examined these organs, but when the autopsy\nreport is negative, such descriptive details are not usual even at the\npresent time. If he had found reason for thinking that there was\npoison in the case, a careful description of the other organs would be\nnecessary. The fact, however, that he was asked to decide such a\nquestion, would seem to indicate that he was supposed to have a\nknowledge of the normal appearances of human tissues when examined by\ndissection.\n\nIn everything else Lanfranc went farther than his {70} master William,\nand he did so also in anatomy. Some of the details of his work will be\nfound in our chapter on Surgery in the Middle Ages. He could not have\nbeen able to give the detailed instructions that he has for the\ntreatment of every portion of the body only that he knew them by\nactual contact in the cadaver as well as the patient. His outlook upon\nscientific medicine and surgery would satisfy even the most exacting\nof modern experimental scientists. The famous aphorism of his runs as\nfollows: \"Every science which depends on operation is greatly\nstrengthened by experience.\" More than anything else, however, surgery\nowes to Lanfranc the distinct advantage that he carried into the West\nas far as Paris, the methods which had come into existence in Italy,\nand were ever after to prove a precious heritage in the great French\nUniversity. As Salicet's work was carried on by Lanfranc, at least as\nwell was Lanfranc's work further advanced by his pupil and successor\nin the chair of surgery, Henri de Mondeville. This subject of surgical\ndevelopment will be treated in the chapter on Surgery in the Middle\nAges. Here it is introduced only to emphasize the opportunity there\nmust have been for anatomical study through dissection in the\nthirteenth century, or these men would not have made the marvelous\nprogress they actually accomplished in this department.\n\nWith regard to Mondino, Taddeo's successor at Bologna, enough has been\nsaid already in the preceding chapter. About this time, however, very\ndefinite evidence begins to accumulate of the frequent practice of\ndissection. Roth, whose life of Vesalius is a standard work in the\nhistory of anatomy, has summed up most of what we know with regard to\ndissections in the early {71} part of the fourteenth century, in his\nchapter on Dissection Before Vesalius's Time. Roth's work is well\nknown and is frequently referred to in Dr. White's History of the\nWarfare of Science with Theology. There can be no question, then, but\nthat in taking what Roth has to say I shall be quoting from a work\nwith regard to which there can be no hint even of partiality. Roth\nhimself was a Swiss, with no leaning toward the Church. There are\ncertain portions of his book, indeed, in which he is inclined not to\nallow that the Church did as much for education in these times as she\nactually did. His study of the rise of anatomy can be accepted with\nabsolute assurance, that it is at least not written from the\nstandpoint of one who wants to make the situation with regard to\nanatomy more favorable than it actually was during the fourteenth\ncentury, for the sake of showing any lack of opposition on the part of\necclesiastics.\n\nSome of the material that Roth has made use of has already been\nreferred to in the preceding chapter, but it has seemed proper to\nrepeat it here because this gives a connected account from a definite\nauthority in the history of medicine, and especially of anatomy, with\nregard to the century immediately following the promulgation of\nBoniface's bull. Besides, it gives an opportunity for such comments on\nvarious features of the history of anatomy, as he details it, as will\nbring out the significance of his remarks. His account will make it\nvery clear that, far from the Papal bull in question having been\nuniversally construed as prohibiting dissections, as Dr. White says it\nwas, it never entered into the minds of medieval anatomists to\nconsider it as having any such signification. The bull was never\nthought of in that sense at all. It does not refer to anatomy or\ndissection and it never had {72} any place in the history of anatomy\nuntil dragged into it without warrant by Daunou and other nineteenth\ncentury writers. Roth says:\n\n  \"In the pre-Vesalian period the dissection of the human body was\n  practiced, according to the terms of Frederick's law, for the\n  instruction of those about to become physicians and surgeons. The\n  natural place for this school anatomy--for a dissection was called\n  anatomia, or, erroneously, anatomia publica--was at the universities\n  and the medical schools. Apart from teaching institutions, however,\n  public anatomies were held in Strasburg and in Venice. Their purpose\n  was the instruction of the practicing medical personnel of these\n  towns. Dissections which were not made for general instruction were\n  called private anatomies. They were performed for the benefit of a\n  few physicians, or students, or magistrates, or artists. Private\n  anatomies began to have special importance only toward the end of\n  the pre-Vesalian period (this would be about the end of the\n  fifteenth and the first quarter of the sixteenth century). It is a\n  play of chance that the first historical reference to a dissection\n  concerns a private anatomy, one undertaken for the purpose of making\n  a legal autopsy. This was made in Bologna in the year 1302 (two\n  years after the decretal supposed to forbid dissection). A certain\n  Azzelino died with unexpected suddenness, after his physicians had\n  visited him once. A magistrate suspected poison and commissioned two\n  physicians and three surgeons to determine the cause of death. It\n  was found that death resulted from natural causes. (As I have said,\n  it would appear that this was not an unusual procedure, for unless\n  medical autopsies had been done before, it does not seem probable\n  that this method of {73} determining the cause of death would have\n  been so readily taken up.)\n\n  \"Thirteen years later there is an account of the dissection of two\n  female bodies, in January and March of the year 1315, performed by\n  Mundinus.\" (We have already seen that the fact that the two female\n  bodies should be especially mentioned, though taken by some\n  historians of medicine to indicate that Mundinus had done but few\n  dissections, will not stand such an interpretation, in the light of\n  the evidence that he had dissected many male bodies at least, as his\n  text-book of anatomy indeed makes very clear. These two dissections\n  of females happened only to have special features that made them\n  noteworthy.) \"A few years later (1319) there is a remarkable\n  document which tells the story of body-snatching for dissecting\n  purposes.\" (This would seem to be sufficient of itself to show that\n  a number of dissections were being done, and, indeed, as I have\n  already said, Rashdall, in his History of the Universities, states\n  that, according to the University statutes teachers were bound to\n  dissect such bodies as students brought to them.) Roth concludes\n  with the words (italics are mine): \"_These are a few, but weighty\n  testimonies for the zeal with which Bologna pursued anatomy in the\n  fourteenth century._\" (I may add that all of these concern the\n  twenty years immediately following Pope Boniface's supposed\n  prohibition.)\n\nNor was the custom of making dissections any less active during the\nrest of the half century after the time when, if we are to believe\nProfessor White, the decree of Boniface had been universally\ninterpreted to forbid it. In a note to his history of dissection\nduring this period in Bologna, Roth says: \"Without doubt the passage\nin {74} Guy de Chauliac which tells of having very often (multitoties,\nmany times, is the exact word) seen dissections must be considered as\nreferring to Bologna.\" This passage runs as follows: \"My master,\nBertruccius, conducted the dissection very often after the following\nmanner: The dead body having been placed upon a bench, he used to make\nfour lessons on it. First, the nutritional portions were treated,\nbecause they are so likely to become putrified. In the second, he\ndemonstrated the spiritual members; in the third, the animate members;\nin the fourth, the extremities.\" (Guy de Chauliac was at Bologna\nstudying under Bertruccius just before the middle of the fourteenth\ncentury. It is evident beyond all doubt, from what he says, that\ndissections were quite common. This is during the first fifty years\nafter the decree. I shall show a little later that there are records\nof dissections during the second half of this century. Roth, however,\ngoes on to tell next of the fifteenth century.)\n\nRoth says nothing about the decree of Boniface VIII., nor of any\npossible effect that it had upon anatomy. The real historian, of\ncourse, does not mention things that have not happened. Roth\nconfesses, as I have said, that he takes the material for his sketch\nof anatomy before Vesalius's time from Corradi. [Footnote 9] Corradi\nbeing an Italian, and knowing of the slander with regard to the Papal\ndecree, explicitly denies it. Surely, here is material enough to\nconvince anyone that all that Professor White has said with regard to\nthe supposed effect of the misinterpretation of Boniface's decree is\nwithout foundation in the history of anatomy. Within twenty years {75}\nafter the bull was issued dissection was practiced to such an extent,\nthat body-snatching became so common that there were prosecutions for\nit, and public dissections seem to have been held every year in the\nuniversities of Italy during most of the fourteenth century.\n\n[Footnote 9: Corradi Dello Studio e dell' Insegnamento dell' Anatomia\nin Italia nel Medio Evo ed in parte del Cinquecento, Padova, 1873.]\n\nDe Renzi [Footnote 10] gives an interesting account of the methods by\nwhich material was obtained for dissection purposes before governments\nmade any special provision for this purpose. Naturally, the rifling of\ngraves was resorted to by students intensely interested in the subject\nof anatomy. The first criminal prosecution for body-snatching on\nrecord is in 1319, when some students brought a body to one Master\nAlbert, a lecturer in medicine at the University at Bologna, and he\ndissected it for them. At this time, according to the statutes of the\nuniversity, teachers of anatomy were bound to make a dissection if the\nstudents supplied the body. The whole party were brought to trial for\nthis offence, though they do not seem to have suffered any severe\npenalty for their violation of the laws. At this time, according to De\nRenzi, there was a rage for dissection and many bodies were yearly\nobtained surreptitiously for the purpose.\n\n[Footnote 10: De Renzi Storia della Medicina in Italia, Napoli.\n1845-49, Vol. II., p. 247.]\n\nWith regard to the bodies of condemned criminals, people began to\ncountenance the procedure, and while unwilling as yet to give them\nfreely, allowed the bodies to be taken. Corradi, quoted by Puschmann,\nsays \"that laws against the desecration of graves, without being\nabolished, became a dead letter. The authorities interfered only if\ndecided violence had been used or a great scandal raised. Such\nconsequences were likely to follow only if, in the ardor of their\nenthusiasm for anatomical knowledge, students rifled the graves of\nwell-known {76} persons or took the bodies of those whose relatives\ndiscovered the desecration and proceeded against the marauders by\nlegal measures.\"\n\nAt the Italian universities after the middle of the fourteenth century\nthere is abundant evidence for perfect freedom with regard to\ndissection. We have already shown by our quotation from Roth that\nBertrucci was very active in dissection work and did many public\ndissections. He was followed by Pietro di Argelata, who died toward\nthe end of the fourteenth century. These men followed Mondino in the\nchair of anatomy at Bologna, and Julius Pagel, in his chapter on\nAnatomy and Physiology in Puschmann's Handbuch der Geschichte der\nMedizin (Vol. I., p. 707), says that \"the successors of Mondino were\nin a position, owing to the gradual enlightenment of the spirit of the\ntime and the general realization of the importance of anatomy as well\nas the fostering liberality of the authorities, _to make regular,\nsystematic dissections of the human body._\" This would bring us down,\nthen, to the end of the fourteenth century.\n\nTo return now to Roth, who takes up the next century. He says:\n\n  \"For the fifteenth century, the university statutes of Bologna for\n  the year 1405 furnish many sources of information. There is a\n  special division which is concerned with the _annual anatomy or\n  dissection_ that had to be made and the selection of the persons to\n  be present, the payment of the expenses and other details. An\n  addition to the statutes, made in the year 1442, determines the\n  arrangement of the delivery of the body from the city to the\n  university authorities. Every year two bodies, one male and one\n  female, must be provided for the {77} medical school dissections. In\n  default of a female body, a second male body was to be provided. In\n  the presence of such detailed regulations, the absence almost\n  entirely of details as to the actual performance of dissections can\n  mean very little. Bologna reached its highest development as a\n  medical school at the beginning of the sixteenth century when\n  Alexander Achillinus and Jacob Berengarius had charge of the public\n  dissections there. Of these I shall speak later.\" (All this is at\n  the University of Bologna, where ecclesiastical influence was\n  supreme and where the Popes exercised their jurisdiction as the\n  ultimate authority to be appealed to in all disputed educational\n  questions.)\n\n  Roth continues: \"Padua had, like Bologna, dissection in the\n  fourteenth century. There is the record of a dissection made in the\n  year 1341, in which Gentilis made the discovery of a gall-stone.\"\n  (It is evidently not because the dissection was unusual, but because\n  the discovery was unusual, that this incident is mentioned. The\n  dissections were such ordinary occurrences as not to deserve special\n  mention except for some particular reason.)\n\n  \"Much more is known about dissection at Padua in the fifteenth\n  century, when the city had become Venetian.\" [Footnote 11] (It is\n  significant to note that the previous occurrence was in pre-Venetian\n  days, for Professor White insists that it was the Venetian\n  authorities, in opposition to the Pope, who allowed dissection at\n  Padua. Here is the rebuttal of any such theory.) \"Bertapaglia, in\n  his Surgery, has the record of the dissection of a criminal made\n  under the direction of Master Hugo De Senis, on {78} the 8th of\n  February, 1429. On the 4th of April, 1430, the dissection of a woman\n  was made. In 1444 Professor Montagnana speaks of fourteen\n  dissections at which he had been present.\" (This would seem to\n  indicate that dissections were quite common and that the occasional\n  records of them give no proper idea of their actual number.)\n\n[Footnote 11: Note that this is a full century before Vesalius's time,\nwho, Professor White insists, reintroduced dissection.]\n\nI would not wish to produce the impression, however, that Italy was\nthe only place in Europe in which dissections were freely done during\nthe fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. There is no doubt that anatomy\nand surgery and every branch of medicine was cultivated much more\nassiduously and with much better opportunities provided for students\ndown in Italy, than anywhere else in the world. This of itself alone\nshows the utter absurdity of the declarations that the Church was\nopposed to medical progress in any way, since the nearer the center of\nChristendom, the more ardor there was for investigation and the more\nliberty to pursue original researches. Other countries also began to\nwake up to the spirit of progress in medical education that was\nabroad. In France there were two centers of interest in anatomy. One\nof these was at Montpelier, the other at Paris. It is interesting to\nnote, however, that the men to whom anatomical progress is due at\nthese universities obtained their training, or at least had taken\nadvantage of the special opportunities provided for anatomical\ninvestigation to be had, in the Italian cities. Guy de Chauliac I have\nalready mentioned. He is spoken of as the Father of Modern Surgery,\nand there is no doubt that he did much to set surgery on a very\npractical basis and to make anatomy a fundamental feature of the\ntraining for it. He declared that it was absurd to think that surgeons\ncould do good work unless they knew their anatomy.\n\n{79}\n\nUnder his fostering care the study of anatomy flourished to a\nremarkable degree at the University of Montpelier. The difficulty\nhitherto had been that it was very hard to procure bodies for\ndissecting purposes. It is easy to understand that friends of the dead\nwould always prevent dissections as far as they could. They do so even\nat the present moment, and there are not many of us who find it in our\nhearts to blame them over much for it. Few of us are ready to make the\nsacrifice of our own dead. Even the poor in those days had friends who\nprevented the cutting up of their remains; for large alms-houses were\nnot presided over by paid officials, but by religious, to whom their\npoor in their friendlessness appealed as kindred. There were not many\nprisons, and they were not needed because all felonies were punished\nby death. Guy de Chauliac realized that here was the best opportunity\nto procure bodies. Accordingly it was mainly through his\ninstrumentality that a regulation was made handing over the dead\nbodies of malefactors to the medical school for dissecting purposes.\nIt must be recalled that when he did this the Papal court was at\nAvignon, in the South of France, and exerted great influence over the\nUniversity of Montpelier, situate not far away.\n\nThe reputation of the University of Paris is such that we should not\nexpect her to be backward in this important department of education.\nAs a matter of fact, there is abundant evidence of dissection having\nbeen carried on here at the end of the thirteenth century, and the\npractice was not interrupted at the beginning of the fourteenth\ncentury. Lanfranc, the famous surgeon who had studied with William of\nSalicet in Italy (we have already mentioned both of them and we shall\nhave much {80} to say of them hereafter), taught surgery from a very\npractical standpoint in Paris, and illustrated his teachings by means\nof dissections. Lanfranc was succeeded in Paris by Mondeville, whose\nname is also associated with the practice of dissection by most\nhistorians of medicine, and whose teaching was of such a practical\ncharacter that there can be no doubt that he must have employed this\nvaluable adjunct in his surgical training of students. In general,\nhowever, the records of dissecting work and of anatomical development\nare not near so satisfactory at Paris as in the Italian universities.\nAs is the case in our own day and has always been true, universities\nwere inclined to specialties in the Middle Ages, and the specialty of\nParis was Philosophy and Theology. This was choice, however, not\ncompulsion, any more than similar conditions in our own time. The\nmedical school continued to be in spite of this one of the best in the\nworld, though it was not famous for its original work, except in\nsurgery, which is, however, the subject most nearly related to anatomy\nand the one whose development would seem necessarily to demand\nattention to anatomy.\n\nWith the Renaissance, which is usually said to begin after the fall of\nConstantinople in 1453, and the consequent dispersion of Greek\nscholars throughout Italy, a new spirit entered into anatomy as into\nevery other department of intellectual life at this time. The reason\nfor it is not easy to explain. Perhaps the spread of Greek texts with\nregard to medicine inspired students and teachers to try out their\nproblems for themselves, and so a new impetus was given to anatomical\ninvestigation. Whatever it was that caused it, the new movement came\nunhampered by the Church, and Italy {81} continued to be even to a\ngreater degree than before the Mecca for medical students who wished\nto do original work in anatomy. During the last fifty years of the\nfifteenth century anatomy began its modern phase, and original work of\na very high order was accomplished. There are five names that deserve\nto be mentioned in this period. They are Gabriele Zerbi, Achillini,\nBerengar of Carpi, Matthew of Gradi and Benivieni. Each of these men\ndid work that was epoch-making in anatomy, and each has a place in the\nhistory of the science that will never be lost.\n\nZerbi, who did his work at Verona, traced the olfactory nerves and\ndescribes the nerve supply of the special senses more completely than\nit had ever been done before. After his time it was only a question of\nfilling in the details of this subject. Achillini added much to our\nknowledge of the anatomy of the head, being the first to describe the\nsmall bones of the ear and also to recognize the orifices of Wharton's\nducts. Besides this, which would have been quite enough to have given\nhim a place in the history of anatomy, he added important details to\nwhat had been previously known with regard to the intestines, and\ndescribed very clearly the ileocecal valve and suggested its function.\nMatthew of Gradi, or De Gradibus, was the first, according to\nProfessor Turner in his article on Anatomy in the Encyclopaedia\nBritannica, who represented the ovaries in the correct light as\nregards their anatomical relations and their function.\n\nThe most important of these fifteenth century investigators in pure\nanatomy, however, is Berengarius or Berengar of Carpi, who did his\nwork at Bologna at the end of the fifteenth and the beginning of the\nsixteenth {82} century. His commentaries on Mondino's work show how\nmuch he added to that great teacher's instruction. If he had no other\ndistinction than that of having been the first to undertake a\nsystematic view of the several textures of which the body is composed,\nit would have been sufficient to stamp him as a great original worker\nin anatomy. He treats successively of the anatomical characters and\nproperties of fat, of membrane in general, of flesh, of nerve, of\nvillus or fibre, of ligament, of sinew or tendon, and of muscle in\ngeneral. Almost needless to say, he must have made many dissections to\nobtain such clear details of information, and, as we shall see, he\nprobably did make many hundreds. If he had done nothing else but be\nthe first to mention the vermiform appendix, it would have been quite\nsufficient to give him a distinction in our day. Everything that he\ntouched, however, he illuminated. His anatomy of the fetus was\nexcellent. He was the first to note that the chest of the male was\nlarger than in the female, while the capacity of the female pelvis was\nin the opposite ratio. In the larynx he discovered the two arytenoid\ncartilages. He recognized the opening of the common biliary duct, and\nwas the first to give a good description of the thymus gland. All\nthis, it must be remembered, before the end of the second decade of\nthe sixteenth century, that is, almost before Vesalius was born.\n\nBerengar's work was done at Bologna. Some five years before his death\nBologna became a Papal city. There is no sign, however, that this\nchange in the political fortunes of the city made any difference in\nBerengar's application to his favorite studies in anatomy. As we shall\nsee in the chapter on The Papal Medical School, already the Popes were\nlaying the foundations {83} of their own great medical school in Rome,\nin which anatomy was to be cultivated above all the other sciences, so\nthat there would be no reason to expect from other sources of\nhistorical knowledge any interruption of Berengar's work, and it did\nnot come.\n\nA fifth great student of anatomy during the fifteenth century was\nBenivieni, who has been neglected in the ordinary histories of anatomy\nbecause his work concerned itself almost exclusively with\npathological, not with normal anatomy. In our increasing interest in\npathology during the nineteenth century, he has very properly come in\nfor his due share of attention. Professor Allbutt, in his address on\nthe Historical Relations of Medicine and Surgery down to the Sixteenth\nCentury, declares that Benivieni should be revered as the forerunner\nof Morgagni and as one of the greatest physicians of the late Middle\nAges. Benivieni's life occupies almost exactly the second half of the\nfifteenth century, as he was born probably in 1448, and died in 1502.\nAllbutt says:--\n\n  \"He was not a professor, but an eminent practitioner in Florence, at\n  a period when, in spite of its Platonism, Florence on the whole was\n  doing most for science; for as Bologna turned to law, Padua turned\n  to humanism and philosophy. He was one of those fresh and\n  independent observers who, like Mondeville, was oppressed by the\n  authority neither of Arab nor Greek.\"\n\nWe are not interested, however, at the present time in what he\naccomplished for surgery, though there are a number of features of his\nwork, including the crushing of stone in the bladder and his puncture\nof the hymen for retained menses, as well as his methods of division\nand slow extension of the cicatricial contractions {84} resulting from\nburns near the elbow, which place him among the most ingenious and\noriginal of surgical thinkers. It is his interest in dissection that\ncommends him to us here. He must have done a very great number of\nautopsies.\n\nHis interest in the causes of disease was so great that he seems to\nhave taken every possible opportunity to search out changes in organs\nwhich would account for symptoms that he had observed. His place in\nanatomy and the history of pathology has not been properly appreciated\nin this matter, and Professor Allbutt claims for him the title of\nFather of Pathology, rather than for those to whom it has been given,\nand demands for his work done in Florence during the second half of\nthe fifteenth century the credit of laying the real foundation-stones\nof the great science of pathological anatomy. Unfortunately, he died\ncomparatively young and without having had time properly to publish\nhis own contributions to medical science. Professor Allbutt says:--\n\n  \"The little book _De abditis causis morborum_ (brief title), was not\n  published in any form by Antony Benivieni himself, but posthumously\n  by his brother Jerome, who found these precious notes in Antony's\n  desk after his death, and with the hearty cooperation of a friend\n  competent in the subject, published them in 1506 in a form which no\n  doubt justly merits our admiration. Benivieni's chief fame for us is\n  far more than all this; it is that he was the founder of\n  pathological anatomy. So far as I know, he was the first to make the\n  custom and to declare the need of necropsy to reveal what he called\n  not exactly \"the secret causes,\" but the hidden causes of diseases.\n  Before Vesalius, before Eustachius, he opened the bodies of the dead\n  as {85} deliberately and clear-sightedly as any pathologist in the\n  spacious time of Baillie, Bright and Addison. Virchow, in his\n  address at Rome, said Morgagni was the first pathological anatomist\n  who, instead of asking What is disease? asked Where is it?\"\n\n  But Benivieni asked this question plainly before Morgagni: \"Not\n  only,\" says he, \"must we observe the disease, but also with more\n  diligence search out the seat of it.\" The precept is so important, I\n  will quote the original words: \"Oportet igitur medicum non solum\n  morbum cognoscere, sed et locum in quo fit, diligentius\n  perscrutari.\"\n\nAmong the pathological reports are morbus coxae (two cases); biliary\ncalculus (two cases); abscess of the mesentery, thrombosis of the\nmesenteric vessels; stenosis of the intestine; some remarkable cardiac\ncases, several of \"polypus\" (clot, which was a will-of-the-wisp to the\nelder pathologists); scirrhus of the pylorus, and probably another\ncase in the colon; ruptured bowel (two cases); caries of ribs with\nexposure of the heart. He gives a good description of senile gangrene\nwhich even Pare did not discriminate. He seems to have had remarkable\nsuccess in obtaining necropsies; concerning one fatal case he says\nplaintively, \"Sed nescio qua superstitione versi negantibus cognatis,\"\netc. Of another he says, \"cadavere publicae utilitatis gratia inciso\"\n(the case of cancer of the stomach). With this admirable and original\nleader, Italian medicine of the fifteenth century closes gloriously,\nto slumber for some fifty years, till the dayspring of the new\nlearning. Of his work Malpighi says, and apparently with truth, \"up to\nnow it is the only work in pathology which owes nothing to anyone.\"\n\n{86}\n\nThis should be enough, it seems to me, to settle the question that\nanatomy was permitted very freely before Versalius's time. I have said\nit in other places, but it may be well to recall here, that Berengar\ndid his dissection at Bologna just before and after the time it became\na Papal city and when Papal influence was very strong. In spite of the\nfact that in 1512 Bologna passed under the dominion of the Popes,\nthere is no question of any interruption or hampering of Berengar's\nwork in anatomy, and as a matter of fact, this great anatomist did not\nsucceed to the professorship of anatomy, which had been held up to\nthis time by Achillini, until in the very year when Bologna came under\nPapal sway, and had his opportunity to do his independent work only\nafter this. Professor Turner can scarcely find words strong enough to\nset down his admiration for Berengar and his work. Besides what we\nhave already quoted he says that, \"the science of anatomy boasts in\nBerengar of one of its most distinguished founders.\"\n\nThe distinguished Edinburgh anatomist harbors no illusions with regard\nto any supposed opposition of the Church to dissection or to the\ndevelopment of anatomy. As a life-long student of anatomy who knew the\nhistory of his favorite science, he appreciated very well just who had\nbeen the great workers in it and where their work had been done. He\nsays that \"Italy long retained the distinction of giving birth to the\nfirst eminent anatomists in Europe, and the glory she acquired in the\nnames of Mondino, Achillini, Berengar of Carpi, and Massa was destined\nto become more conspicuous in the labors of Columbus, Fallopius and\nEustachius.\" These are the greatest names in the history of anatomy\ndown to the beginning of the seventeenth century, with the single\nexception of Vesalius.\n\n{87}\n\nAll this of anatomical development in Italy at universities that were\ndirectly under the ecclesiastical authorities would seem to settle all\nquestion of interference by the Popes or the Church with any phase of\nanatomical development. It does not seem sufficient for Dr. White,\nhowever. When I called attention to all these details of the history\nof anatomy, long before the reformation and before Vesalius, Dr.\nWhite's response was the following paragraph in which he explains how\ndissection came to be practiced at all, and reiterates not only his\nbelief that Pope Boniface's bull prevented dissection, but even\ninsists on what cannot but seem utterly absurd to any one who has read\neven the brief account I have given here, that except at one or two\nplaces, and then only to a very limited degree, dissection was not\npracticed at all. Here is how the history of dissection must be viewed\naccording to Dr. White:--\n\n  \"But Dr. Walsh elsewhere falls back on the fact that shortly after\n  the decree of Pope Boniface VIII., which struck so severe a blow at\n  dissection, the Venetian Senate passed a decree ordaining that a\n  dissection of the human body should be made every year in the city\n  of Venice, and he leaves his readers to conclude that this\n  effectually proves that dissection had not really been discouraged\n  by the Pope. The very opposite conclusion would be deduced by anyone\n  familiar with the relations between the Republic of Venice and the\n  Papacy. These two powers were always struggling against each other;\n  again and again the Venetian Republic, in maintaining its rights,\n  braved the Papal interdicts. The fact that it allowed dissections,\n  so far from proving that the Pope allowed them, would seem to prove\n  that in this case, and in so many other cases, and especially that\n  of {88} Vesalius of Padua, the Venetian Senate sought to show the\n  Vatican that it would yield none of its rights to clerical control.\n  This very fact--that Venice refused to be bound with regard to\n  anatomical investigation by an order from the Vatican--seems to be\n  entirely in the line with all the other facts in the case, which\n  show that the Roman court had committed itself, most unfortunately,\n  against the main means of progress in anatomy and medicine.\"\n\nHere then is the answer that a modern historian and educator makes to\nall the representations with regard to the development of anatomy and\nthe practice of dissection during the Middle Ages. If the practice of\ndissection was permitted it was in spite of the Popes. The fact that\nthere were a dozen of medical schools in Italy at which dissection was\ncarried on is ignored. The great anatomists of the fourteenth and\nfifteenth centuries simply did not exist--Dr. White knows nothing\nabout them. There must be no admission that the Popes permitted\ndissection or any other form of science. Dr. White makes his last\nstand by a really marvelous tour d'esprit. It was Venice defying the\nVatican that permitted dissection. This, he supposes, may help him,\nfor anatomy did develop very wonderfully at Padua when it was Venetian\nterritory. But, as pointed out by Roth, dissection was practiced very\nsuccessfully, and the anatomical tradition established at Padua,\nbefore it came under the dominion of Venice. At all the other\nimportant cities of Italy dissection was carried on. We have given\nsome of the evidence for Verona, for Pisa, for Naples, for Bologna,\nfor Florence, and, be it remembered, even for Rome. Padua was the\nrival of Bologna in anatomy only for a comparatively short time.\nBologna {89} always maintained a primacy in the field of anatomy, and\nnever more so than after she became a Papal city at the beginning of\nthe sixteenth century. Vesalius taught and demonstrated not at Padua\nalone, but also at Bologna and at Pisa. For two centuries Rome was the\nmost successful rival of Bologna, _and hundreds of dissections were\ndone in the Papal Medical School_.\n\nOf course, the appeal to Venetian opposition to the Papacy as an\nexplanation for dissection being carried on in Italy in spite of\necclesiastical regulations to the contrary is only a subterfuge. It\ncan only be found in histories written by those who refuse to see\nfacts as they were, because those facts do not accord with pet\ntheories as to Papal Opposition to Science, and the Warfare Between\nTheology and Science, which must be maintained at all costs, though\nwith an air of apology always for having to tell such unpleasant\ntruths of these old-time religious authorities.\n\n\n{90}\n\n  THE GOLDEN AGE OF ANATOMY\n  VESALIUS.\n\nThe Golden Age of discovery in anatomy culminated during the first\nhalf of the sixteenth century. This will not be surprising if it is\nbut recalled that this period represents the culmination also of that\nlarger golden age of achievement in art and letters, which has been\ncalled the Renaissance. Columbus and Copernicus were giving men a new\nworld and a new universe. Raphael, Michael Angelo, Lionardo da Vinci,\nthe Bellinis and Titian were creating a new world of art. Most of\nthese artists were deeply interested in anatomy. Every phase of human\nthought was being born anew. Unfortunately, this word Renaissance has\ngiven rise to many misunderstandings. Many people have taken its\nsignificance of re-birth to mean that art and letters, and with them\neducation and thinking, were born again into the modern world at this\ntime with the coming in of the New Learning, just as if there had been\nnothing worth while talking about in these lines of human\naccomplishment in the preceding centuries. Taken in this sense, the\nword Renaissance is entirely a misnomer. Magnificent achievements in\nart and letters and every form of education preceded the Renaissance\nby at least three or four centuries. The Gothic cathedrals and the\nenduring artistic development that took place in their making, the\nmagnificent organization of technical education in the training of\nartist artisans by the guilds of the time (we would be glad if our\ntechnical schools could accomplish {91} anything like the same\nresults, for evidently, though the name technical education is our\ninvention, these medieval peoples had the reality to a high degree),\nand finally the universities, which have remained essentially the same\ndown to our own day--all these serve to show how much was done for\nevery form of education many centuries before the beginning of the\nRenaissance so-called.\n\nIt is not surprising that with this much of education abroad in the\nland men succeeded in making enduring literature in every form and in\nevery country in Europe, and in setting examples of style in prose and\nverse that succeeding generations have nearly always gone back to\nadmire lovingly. Such an amount of education and development of\nthinking could not have come without profound attention to science,\nand, as a matter of fact, there was much more anticipation of even\nwhat is most modern in our scientific thinking than most scholars seem\nto have any idea of. Personally, I have found, in writing the history\nof The Thirteenth the Greatest of Centuries, more that interested me\nin the science of this century than in almost any other department of\nits wonderful educational development.\n\nWe have already seen that while anatomy had during preceding centuries\nonly the beginning of the development that it was destined to reach\nduring the sixteenth century, it would be a serious mistake to think\nthat the study of anatomy, having died in the old classical days, was\nnot re-born until the sixteenth century. This would be to commit the\nerror that many ardent devotees of the Renaissance make with regard to\nall the accomplishments of this period. In spite of the contrary\nalmost universal impression, the Renaissance was not original {92} to\nany marked degree. With the touch of the Greek spirit that had come\nagain into the world, it only carried the preceding work of great\noriginal thinkers to a high order of perfection. This happened as well\nin anatomy as in art and architecture and literature. Anatomical\nscience was a lusty infant of great promise when Vesalius, the Father\nof Anatomy, came on the scene. The great painters, Raphael and\nLionardo and Michael Angelo, owed much to Giotto and Fra Angelico, who\nhad preceded them, but not more than Vesalius and his contemporaries,\nwho did such magnificent work in original anatomical investigation,\nowed to Mondino, Bertrucci, Zerbi, Achillini, and above all to\nBerengar of Carpi and Benivieni, who did their work before and just\nafter the sixteenth century opened. There is never a sudden\ndevelopment in the history of any department of man's knowledge or\nachievement, as there is nothing absolutely new under the sun, though\nit is still the custom of the young man in his graduation essay to\ntalk of such things, and older men sometimes fail to realize the truth\nthat in history as in biology, life always comes from preceding\nlife--_omne vivum ex vivo_--and there is no such thing as spontaneous\ngeneration.\n\nIf the achievements of this earlier period of scientific work, which\naffected anatomy even more than any of the other sciences, be kept in\nmind, the discussion of the Golden Age of Anatomy will find its proper\nplace in the history of the relation of the Popes to science. Though\nthe date of the Golden Age in Anatomy follows that of the so-called\nreformation, there is absolutely no connection between the two series\nof events, for the one took place in Germany and the other in Italy.\nThe Golden Age of Anatomy was indeed a perfectly {93} legitimate and\nquite to be expected culmination of the anatomical interest which had\nbeen gradually rising to a climax in the Italian universities during\nthe preceding century. It has a definite place in the evolution of\nscience, and is not a sudden or unlooked for phenomenon.\n\nIf there was any place in the world at the beginning of the sixteenth\ncentury in which the ecclesiastical authorities had much to say with\nregard to what should not be taught and what should not be studied in\nthe universities, it was Italy. In spite of this fact, all medical men\nwho wanted to do post-graduate work in medicine went down into Italy.\nThis was especially true for those who desired to obtain ampler\nopportunities for anatomical study than were afforded by the rest of\nEurope. In his maturer years as a student of medicine, Vesalius went\ndown to Italy in order to avail himself of the magnificent field for\ninvestigation that was provided there. This favorable state of affairs\nas regards research in anatomy had existed for more than a century\nbefore his time. It continued to be true for at least two centuries\nafter his time. As a matter of fact, Italy was to the rest of the\nworld of the fifteenth and sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the\nhome of post-graduate opportunities in all sciences as well as in\nmedicine.\n\nThese are not idle words, but are fully substantiated by the lives of\nthe men who stand at the head of our modern medicine. More than a\ndecade before Vesalius was born, Linacre, the distinguished English\nphysician and founder of the Royal College of Physicians, went to\nItaly to complete his medical studies and incidentally also to round\nout his education in the midst of the new learning which was so\nthoroughly cultivated there. When Linacre was leaving Italy, with true\nclassic spirit {94} he set up a little altar on the top of the Alps\nwhence he could get his last view of the Italian plains, and greeted\nthe charming country that he was leaving so reluctantly with the\nbeautiful name of Alma Mater Studiorum. To him, after his return to\nEngland, English-speaking medical men owe the establishment of the\ninstitution which above all others has helped to uplift the dignity of\nthe medical profession and make the practice of the healing art\nsomething more than a mere trade--the Royal College of Physicians.\n\nOne of Vesalius's most distinguished fellow students at Padua was Dr.\nJohn Caius, who was later to become the worthy president of the Royal\nCollege of Physicians of England and the author of certain important\nmedical works. Dr. Caius was the first to introduce the practice of\npublic dissections into England. Caius and Vesalius were roommates,\nthough at the time Vesalius was an instructor at the University, and\nthe inspiration of his originality seems to have had a great effect\nupon young Caius. They were nearly of the same age, though Vesalius\nwas a precocious genius, and Caius's greatness only showed itself in\nmaturity. Caius was studying in Italy partly because the religious\ndisturbances in England had made it uncomfortable for him to remain in\nhis native country, for he was a firm adherent of the old Church and\nhe hoped they would pass over, but mainly because he coveted the\nopportunities afforded by that country. Later in life, out of the\nrevenues of his position as Royal Physician to Queen Mary and\nsubsequently for some time to Queen Elizabeth, he founded the famous\nCaius College at Cambridge, usually called Key's College by\nCantabrigians.\n\nBefore either of these men there had been a third {95} distinguished\nEnglish physician who had gone down to Italy for his education. This\nwas the celebrated and learned John Phreas, who was born about the\ncommencement of the fifteenth century. Very little is known of his\ncareer, but what we do know is of great interest. He was educated at\nOxford and obtained a fellowship on the foundation of Balliol College.\nAfterward he seems to have studied medicine with a physician in\nEngland, but was not satisfied with the medical education thus\nobtained. He set the fashion for going down into Italy sometime during\nthe first half of the fifteenth century, and after some years spent at\nPadua received the degree of doctor in medicine, which in those days\ncarried with it, as the name implies, the right to teach. As not\ninfrequently happens to the brilliant medical student, he settled down\nfor practice in the university town in which he graduated, to take up\nboth occupations, that of teacher and practitioner. He is said to have\nmade a large fortune in the practice of physic. [Footnote 12] The best\nproof of his scholarship is to be found in some letters still\npreserved in the Bodleian and in the Library of Balliol College.\nPersonally, I have considered that his career was interesting from\nanother standpoint. I have often looked in history for the cases of\nappendicitis which occur so frequently in our day and with regard to\nwhich people ask how is it they did not occur in the past. The fact\nis, they did occur, but were unrecognized. People were taken suddenly\nill, not infrequently a short time after a meal, and after\nconsiderable pain and fever, swelling and great tenderness in the\nabdomen {96} developed, and they died with all the signs of poisoning.\nThey were actually poisoned, not by some extraneous material, but by\nthe putrid contents of their own intestines which found a way out\nthrough the ruptured appendix. These cases were set down as poisoning\ncases, and usually some interested person was the subject of\nsuspicion. Dr. Phreas's learning had obtained for him an appointment\nto a bishopric in England, a curious bit of evidence of the absence of\nopposition between medical science and religion in his time. He died\nshortly after this, under circumstances that raised a suspicion of\npoisoning in the minds of some of his contemporaries--but raises the\nthought of appendicitis in mine,--and one of his rivals was blamed for\nit.\n\n[Footnote 12: Like the other distinguished physicians of this time,\nJohn Phreas did not devote himself to medicine alone. He had a taste\nfor literature, and besides being an accomplished scholar he was a\npoet.]\n\nNor did the custom for English medical students to go down to Italy to\ncomplete their education cease with the so-called reformation. Some\ntwo generations after Vesalius's time another distinguished\nEnglishman, Harvey, went down to Italy to complete the studies he had\nalready made and eventually to lay the foundation of that knowledge on\nwhich he was twenty years later to construct his doctrine of the\ncirculation of the blood. This doctrine, however, remained merely a\ntheory until the distinguished Italian anatomist, Malpighi, after\nanother half century, demonstrated the existence of the capillaries,\nthe little blood vessels which connect the veins and arteries, and by\nthus showing the continuity of both the blood systems, proved beyond\nall doubt the certainty of the teaching that the blood does circulate.\n\nStudents came, moreover, from even the distant North of Europe to the\nItalian schools of medicine during these centuries. Neil Stensen, or\nas he is perhaps better known by his Latin name, Nicholas Steno, the\n{97} discoverer of the duct of the parotid gland, which has been named\nafter him, and of many other anatomical details, especially of the\nfact that the heart is a muscle, which stamp him as an original\ninvestigator of the highest order, after having made extensive studies\nin the Netherlands and in France to complete the medical education\nwhich he had begun in his native city of Copenhagen, went down into\nItaly to secure freer opportunities for original research than he\ncould obtain anywhere else in Europe. [Footnote 13]\n\n[Footnote 13: It may perhaps be of interest to say that while doing\ninvestigation in anatomy and certain other sciences allied to\nmedicine, Steno became a convert to the Catholic Church and after some\nyears became a priest. Before his ordination, however, though after\nhis conversion, he received the call to the chair of anatomy at\nCopenhagen. He accepted this and worked for several years at the Danish\nUniversity, but was dissatisfied with the state of affairs around him\nas regards religion and went back to Italy. Eventually he was made a\nbishop--hence the curious picture of him in a Roman Catholic Bishop's\nrobes in the collection of pictures of professors of anatomy at the\nUniversity of Copenhagen. Not long after, at his own request, he was\nsent up to the Northern part of Germany in order to try to bring back\nto the Church as many of the Germans as might be won by his gentleness\nof disposition, his saintly character, his wonderful scientific\nknowledge, and his winning ways. He is the Father of Modern Geology as\nwell as a great anatomist, and his little book on geology was\npublished after he became a priest, yet did not hamper in any way his\necclesiastical preferment nor alienate him from his friends in the\nhierarchy. He was honored especially by the Popes. In a word, his\ncareer is the best possible disproof of any Papal or ecclesiastical\nopposition to science in his time.]\n\nWe have mentioned that it was while he was pursuing his special\ninvestigations in various Italian universities that Stensen was\nhonored with the invitation to become professor of anatomy at the\nUniversity of Copenhagen. This was not a chance event, but a type of\nthe point of view in university education at the time. Just as at the\npresent time the prestige of research in a German university counts\nfor much as a recommendation for professorships in our American\nuniversities, so in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was it\nwith regard to study in Italy. It was felt that men who had spent {98}\nseveral years there could be reasonably expected to know all that\nthere was to be known in the rising sciences of anatomy and\nphysiology; at the same time there was a very general impression,\nquite justified by the results observed, that those who did their\npost-graduate work in Italy were nearly always sure to make\ndiscoveries that would add to the prestige of their universities\nlater, and that would be a stimulus to students and to the other\nteachers around them such as could be provided in no other way. If\nread in the proper spirit, the history of the universities of those\ntimes is quite like our own, only for influence, the name of Italy\nmust always be substituted for that of Germany. Yet Italy, if we were\nto believe some of the writers on the history of education and\nscience, was at this time laboring under the incubus of ecclesiastical\nintolerance with regard to anatomy and an almost complete suppression\nof opportunities for dissection. Those who write thus know nothing at\nall of the actual facts of the history of science, or else they are\nblinding themselves for some reason to the real situation.\n\nFortunately students of the facts of history, especially those who\nhave devoted any serious attention to the history of medicine, make no\nsuch mistake. For them it is perfectly clear that there was a\nwonderful development in anatomy which took place down in Italy,\nbeginning about the middle of the fifteenth century or even earlier,\nand which led to the provision of such opportunities for dissection\nand original research in medicine, that students from all over the\nworld were attracted there. For instance, Professor Clifford Allbutt,\nin the address on the Historical Relations of Medicine and Surgery to\nthe end of the Sixteenth Century, already quoted, has a passage {99}\nin which, as an introduction to what he has to say about Galen, he\nsums up the history of anatomy from the return of the Popes from\nAvignon to Rome, which took place just about the beginning of the last\nquarter of the fourteenth century, down to the time of Vesalius. This\nexpresses so well what I have been trying to say with regard to the\ngradual development that led up to the Golden Age of Anatomy and to\nVesalius's work, that I quote it.\n\n  \"Meanwhile, however, the return of the Popes to Rome (1374) and the\n  displacement of the Albucasis and Avicenna by the Greek texts\n  renewed the shriveling body of medicine, and with the help of\n  anatomy, Italian medicine awoke again; though until the days of\n  Vesalius and Harvey the renascence came rather from men of letters\n  than of medicine. The Arabs and Paris said: \"Why dissect if you\n  trust Galen? _But the Italian physicians insisted on verification;\n  and therefore back to Italy again the earnest and clear-sighted\n  students flocked from all regions._ Vesalius was a young man when he\n  professed in Padua, yet, young or venerable, _where but in Italy\n  would he have won, I would not say renown, but even sufferance!_ If\n  normal anatomy was not directly a reformer of medicine, by way of\n  anatomy came morbid anatomy, as conceived by the genius of\n  Benivieni, of Morgagni, and of Valsalva; the galenical or humoral\n  doctrine of pathology was sapped, and soaring in excelsis for the\n  essence of disease gave place to grubbing for its roots.\"\n\nA sketch of Vesalius's career will give the best possible idea of the\ninfluences at work in science during this Golden Age of anatomical\ndiscovery, and will at the same time serve to show better than\nanything else, how {100} utterly unfounded is the opinion that there\nwas opposition between religion, or theology and science, and above\nall medical science, at this time. On the other hand, it will\ndemonstrate that the educational factors at work in Vesalius's time\nwere not different from those of the preceding century, nor indeed\nfrom those that had existed for two or three centuries before his\ntime; and though his magnificent original research introduced the new\ninitiative which always comes after a genius has left his mark upon a\nscientific department, the spirit in which science was pursued after\nhis time did not differ essentially from that which had prevailed\nbefore. He represents not a revolution in medical science, as has so\noften been said, though always with the purpose of demonstrating how\nmuch the so-called reformation accomplished in bringing about this\ngreat progress in anatomy, but only a striking epoch in that gradual\nevolution which had already advanced so far that his work was rendered\neasy and some such climax of progress as came in his time was\ninevitable.\n\nVesalius's earlier education was received entirely in his native town\nof Louvain. There were certain preparatory schools in connection with\nthe university at Louvain, and to one of these, called Paedagogium\nCastri because of the sign over the door, which was that of a fort,\nVesalius was sent. Here he learned Latin and Greek and some Hebrew.\nHow well he learned his Latin can be realized from the fact that at\ntwenty-two he was ready to lecture in that language on anatomy in\nItaly. His knowledge of Greek can be estimated from the tradition that\nhe could translate Galen at sight, and he was known to have corrected\na number of errors in translations from that author made by preceding\n{101} translators. To those who know the traditions of that time in\nthe teaching of the classic languages along the Rhine and in the Low\nCountries, these accomplishments of Vesalius will not be surprising.\nThey knew how to teach in those pre-reformation days, and probably\nLatin and Greek have never been better taught than by the Brethren of\nthe Common Life, whose schools for nearly a hundred years had been\nopen in the Low Countries and Rhenish Germany for the children of all\nclasses, but especially of the poor. Other schools in the same region\ncould scarcely fail to be uplifted by such educational traditions.\nAltogether, Vesalius spent some nine years in the Paedagogium.\n\nAs illustrating how men will find what interests them in spite of\nsupposed lack of opportunities, it may be said that from his earliest\nyears Vesalius was noted for his tendency to be inquisitive with\nregard to natural objects, and while still a mere boy his anatomical\ncuriosity manifested itself in a very practical way. He recalls\nhimself in later years, that the bladders with which he learned to\nswim, and which were also used by the children of the time as\nplay-toys for making all sorts of noises, became in his hands objects\nof anatomical investigation. Anatomy means the cutting up of things,\nand this Vesalius literally did with the bladders. He noted\nparticularly that they were composed of layers and fibres of various\nkinds, and later on when he was studying the veins in human and animal\nbodies he was reminded of these early observations, and pointed out\nthat the vein walls were made up of structures not unlike those,\nthough more delicate, of which the bladders of his childhood days had\nproven to be composed.\n\nHis preparatory studies over, Vesalius entered the {102} University of\nLouvain, at that time one of the most important universities of\nEurope. At the end of the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth\ncentury, Louvain probably had more students than any other university\nin Europe except that of Paris, and possibly Bologna. There are good\ngrounds for saying that the number in attendance here during the first\nhalf of the sixteenth century was always in excess of 5,000. The\nuniversity was especially famous for its teaching of jurisprudence and\nphilology. The faculty of theology, however, was considered to be one\nof the strongest in Europe, and Louvain, as might be expected from its\nposition in the heart of Catholic Belgium, was generally acknowledged\nto be one of the great intellectual bulwarks of Catholicity against\nthe progress of Lutheranism in the Teutonic countries at this time.\nVesalius's parents were, and his family always had been, ardent\nCatholics, so that, quite apart from his dwelling not far away, it was\nvery natural that he should have been sent here. He seems to have\nspent five years in the university mainly engaged in the study of\nphilosophy and philology, but also of the classics and languages so\nfar as they were taught at that time.\n\nIt may be noted as another instance in his life of how a student will\nfind that which appeals to him even in the most unexpected sources,\nthat Vesalius took special interest in certain treatises of Albertus\nMagnus and Michael Scotus, which treated of the human body in the\nvague, curious way of the medieval scholars, and yet with a precious\namount of information, that this inquisitive youth eagerly drank in.\nMore interesting for Vesalius himself were certain studies undertaken\nentirely independently of his university course. One of his {103}\nbiographers tells that he dissected small animals, rats and mice, and\noccasionally even dogs and cats, in his eagerness to learn the details\nof anatomy for himself and at first hand.\n\nAfter graduating at Louvain in philosophy and philology, Vesalius went\nto Paris to study medicine. At this time at Paris, Sylvius, after whom\none of the most important fissures of the brain, the sylvian, is\nnamed, was not only teaching anatomy in a very interesting way, but\nwas also providing opportunities for original research in anatomy in\nconnection with his own investigations. The interest that his teaching\nexcited may be gathered from the fact that over 400 students were in\nattendance at his lectures. Besides Sylvius, Guenther of Andernach in\nSwitzerland was also teaching in Paris, and with both of these\ndistinguished professors Vesalius became intimately associated. His\ndeep interest in the subject of anatomy would of itself be quite\nsufficient to attract the attention of professors, but he had besides\nthe added advantage of being known as the descendant of a family which\nhad occupied prominent posts as medical attendants to the greatest\nruling family of Europe.\n\nIt was at Paris, then, that Vesalius first was able to devote himself\nwith the intense ardor of his character to the study of anatomy.\nNothing less than original research at first hand would satisfy his\nardent desire for information and his thirst for accurate knowledge.\nHis practical temper of mind was demonstrated by a revolution that he\nworked in the method of doing dissections at the time. The dissections\nin Paris used to be performed by the barber-surgeons, as a rule rather\nignorant men, who knew little of their work beyond the barest outline\nof the technics of dissection. Teachers in {104} anatomy used to stand\nby and direct the operation and demonstrate the various parts. These\nteachers, however, considered it quite beneath them to use the knife\nthemselves. The faultiness of this method can be readily understood.\nVesalius began a new era in the history of anatomy by insisting on\ndoing the dissections himself. It was not long, however, before he\nrealized that Paris could not afford him such opportunities as he\ndesired. Altogether he did not remain there more than a year, and then\nreturned to the Low Countries.\n\nAt Louvain he continued his anatomical work, finding it difficult\nenough to procure human material, but using such as might come to\nhand. The story is told of his first attempt to get a complete\nskeleton. A felon had been executed just outside the walls of Louvain,\nand his remains were, as was the custom at that time, allowed to swing\non the gibbet until the birds of the air had eaten his flesh and the\nwind and rain had bleached his bones. As might be thought, these bones\nwere a great temptation to Vesalius. Finally, one night he and a\nfellow student stole out of the town and robbed the gibbet of its\ntreasure. In order to accomplish their task--no easy one, because the\nskeleton was fastened to the beams of the scaffold by iron\nshackles--they had to remain out all night. They buried it and later\nremoved it piecemeal, and when they had finally assembled the parts\nagain it was exhibited as a skeleton brought from Paris.\n\nEven this story has been made to do duty as showing the ecclesiastical\nopposition to dissection and the advancement of anatomical knowledge.\nIt is hard to understand, however, why men will not look at such an\nincident from the standpoint of our own experience in {105} the modern\ntime. There are men still alive in certain states of the Union who\nrecall how much trouble they had to go to as medical students in order\nto procure a skeleton. If we go back fifty years, nearly every\nskeleton that physicians had in their offices was obtained in some way\nalmost as surreptitious as that just described, or was purchased\nthrough some underhand channel. They were dug up from potter's field,\nor sometimes procured from complacent prison officials, or\noccasionally stolen from respectable cemeteries. In this respect\nVesalius was not much worse off than were his medical colleagues for\nnearly three centuries and a half after his time in the northern\ncountries. It was easier to procure such material in Italy.\n\nVesalius had that precious quality that makes the investigator desire\nto see and know things for himself. He could not get opportunities for\ndefinite anatomical knowledge in the western part of Europe, so he\ngave up his practice, though Louvain, his native town, was a most\npromising place, having nearly 200,000 inhabitants and business\nrelations with all the world at the moment, and went down into Italy\nwhere he knew that he could pursue his anatomical studies to his\nheart's content. The tradition of the work that Zerbi and Achillini\nhad done, and especially what Benivieni and Berengar had accomplished\nwithin a few decades before this time, was commonly known in all the\nmedical schools of Europe, and many an ardent young anatomist in the\nWest yearned for the opportunities and the incentive that he could\nobtain down there. Church influence was predominant; the ecclesiastics\nwere the actual rulers of the universities, but medical science, and\nabove all anatomy, was being studied very ardently. Vesalius thus\nprompted, {106} came and found what he looked for. At the end of ten\nshort years of work down there, he had completed his text-book of\nanatomy which was to earn for him deservedly the title of Father of\nAnatomy.\n\nAt first Vesalius seems to have spent some time in Venice, where he\nattracted considerable attention by his thorough, practical anatomical\nknowledge and independent mode of thinking. After only a short period\nin Venice, however, he proceeded to Padua, where he spent some months\nin preparation for his doctor's examination. It is known that, having\ncompleted his examination in the early part of December, 1537, he was\nallowed within a few days to begin the teaching of anatomy, and,\nindeed, was given the title of professor by the university\nauthorities.\n\nThe next six years were spent in teaching at Padua, Bologna and Pisa,\nand in fruitful investigation. Every opportunity to make dissections\nwas gladly seized, and Vesalius's influence enabled him to obtain a\nlarge amount of excellent anatomical material. He began at once the\npreparations for the publication of an important work on the anatomy\nof the human body. This was published in 1543 at Basel, at a time when\nits author was not yet thirty years of age. It is one of the classics\nof anatomical literature. Even at the present day it is often\nconsulted by those who wish to see the illustrative details of\nVesalius's wonderful dissections as given in the magnificent plates\nthat the work contains. It has become one of the most precious of\nmedical books, and is eagerly sought for by collectors.\n\nFor ten years more Vesalius devoted himself to his favorite studies in\nanatomy and physiology, for it must not be forgotten that he was\nconstantly applying his {107} knowledge of form and tissue to\nfunction, and came to be looked upon as the leading medical\ninvestigator of the world. It is apparently sometimes not realized,\nhowever, that Vesalius was no mere laboratory or dissecting room\ninvestigator. After the publication of his great work on anatomy he\nset himself seriously to the application of what he had discovered to\npractical medicine and surgery. He was an intensely practical man. As\na consequence, it was not long before consultations began to pour in\non him, and he came to be considered as one of the greatest medical\npractitioners of his time. Ruling princes in Italy, visitors of\ndistinction, high ecclesiastics--all wished to have Vesalius's opinion\nwhen their cases became puzzling. This is a side of his character that\nmany of his modern biographers have missed. Even Sir Michael Foster,\nwhose knowledge of the history of medicine, and especially of\nphysiology, makes one hesitate to disagree with him, seems not to have\nappreciated Vesalius's interest in practical medicine. A laboratory\nman himself, he was apparently not able to appreciate why Vesalius\nshould have given up his scientific research in Italy to accept the\npost of Royal Physician to the Emperor Charles V.\n\nProfessor Foster thinks it necessary, then, to find some other reason\nthan the temptation of the importance of the position to account for\nVesalius's acceptance of it. He concludes that it was because of\ndiscouragement in his purely scientific studies as a consequence of\nthe opposition of the Galenists. Opposition on the part of the old\nconservative school of medicine there was, and some of it was rather\nserious. This was not enough, however, to have discouraged Vesalius.\nProfessor Foster goes so far as to wax almost sentimental over the\n{108} fact that the acceptance of the post of physician to Charles V.\nended Vesalius's scientific career; \"for though in the years which\nfollowed the Father of Anatomy from time to time produced something\noriginal, and in 1555 brought out a new edition of his Fabrica,\ndiffering chiefly from the first one, so far as the circulation of the\nblood is concerned, in its bolder enunciation of its doubts about the\nGalenic doctrines touching the heart, he made no further solid\naddition to the advancement of knowledge. Henceforward his life was\nthat of a court physician much sought after and much esteemed--a life\nlucrative and honorable and in many ways useful, but not a life\nconducive to original inquiry and thought. The change was a great and\na strange one. At Padua he had lived amid dissections; not content\nwith the public dissections in the theatre, he took parts, at least,\nof corpses to his own lodgings and continued his labors there. No\nwonder that he makes in his Fabrica some biting remarks to the effect\nthat he who espouses science must not marry a wife; he cannot be true\nto both. A year after his arrival at the Court he sealed his divorce\nfrom science by marrying a wife; no more dissections at home, no more\ndissections indeed at all; at most, some few post-mortem examinations\nof patients whose lives his skill had failed to save. Henceforth his\ndays were to be spent in courtly duties, in soothing the temporary\nailments, the repeated gouty attacks of his imperial master, in\nhealing the maladies of the nobles and others round his throne, and\ndoubtless in giving advice to more humble folk, who were from time to\ntime allowed to seek his aid. Whither his master went, he went too,\nand we may well imagine that in leisure moments he entertained the\nEmperor and {109} the Court with his intellectual talk, telling them\nsome of the fairy tales of that realm of science which he had left,\nand of the later achievements of which news came to him, scantily,\nfitfully and from afar.\"\n\nProfessor White has gone much farther than Sir Michael Foster. The\nEnglish physiologist knew too much about the history of medicine in\nItaly even to hint at any ecclesiastical opposition with regard to\nVesalius. President White, however, has no scruples in the matter.\nThis makes an excellent opportunity to write the kind of history that\nis to be found in his book. Apparently forgetful of the thought that\nthe Emperor Charles V. was not at all likely to take as his body\nphysician a man who had been in trouble with the ecclesiastical\nauthorities in Italy, he insists that the reason why Vesalius\ndedicated his great work on anatomy to the Emperor Charles V. was \"to\nshield himself as far as possible in the battle which he foresaw must\ncome.\" Later he suggests that it was only the favor of the Emperor\nsaved him from the ecclesiastical authorities.\n\nAll that has been said by historians with regard to the reasons for\nVesalius's acceptance of the post of physician to the Emperor Charles\nV. can only have come from men who either did not know or had for the\nmoment forgotten the story of Vesalius's ancestry. The family\ntradition of having one of its members as physician to the Court of\nthe German Emperor was four generations old when Vesalius accepted the\nposition.\n\nVesalius's great-grandfather occupied the position of\nphysician-in-ordinary to Marie of Burgundy, the wife of the German\nEmperor Maximilian I., the distinguished patron of letters in the\nRenaissance period. He lived to an advanced age as a professor of\nmedicine at Louvain. {110} From this time on Vesalius's family always\ncontinued in official medical relation to the Austrian-Burgundy ruling\nfamily. His grandfather took his father's place as physician to Mary\nof Burgundy, and wrote a series of commentaries on the aphorisms of\nHippocrates. Vesalius's father was the physician and apothecary to\nCharles V. for a while, and accompanied the Emperor on journeys and\ncampaigns. What more natural than that his son, having reached the\ndistinction of being the greatest medical scientist alive, should be\noffered, and as a matter of course accept the post of imperial\nphysician!\n\nThe simple facts of the matter are that Vesalius came down into Italy\nin order to study anatomy, because in that priest-ridden and\necclesiastically-ruled country he could get better opportunities for\nanatomical study and investigation than anywhere else in Europe. He\nspent ten years there and then wrote his classical work on anatomy.\nAfter that he spent some years applying anatomy to medicine. Then when\nhe had come to be the acknowledged leader of the medical profession of\nthe world, the Emperor Charles V., at that time the greatest ruler in\nEurope, asked him to become his court physician. Vesalius accepted, as\nwould any other medical investigator that I have ever known, under the\nsame circumstances. His position with Charles V. gave him\nopportunities to act as consultant for many of the most important\npersonages of Europe, and it must not be forgotten that when the King\nof France was injured in a tournament Vesalius was summoned all the\nway from Madrid, and gave a bad prognosis in the case.\n\nIn the light of this simple story of Vesalius's life in Italy, and of\nthe reasons for his going there and his departure, it is intensely\namusing to read the accounts of {111} this portion of Vesalius's life,\nwritten by those who must maintain at all costs the historical\ntradition that the Church was opposed to anatomy, that the Popes had\nforbidden dissection, and that the ecclesiastical authorities were\nconstantly on the watch to hamper, as far as possible at least, if not\nabsolutely to prevent, all anatomical investigation, and were even\nready to put to death those who violated the ecclesiastical\nregulations in this matter. Dr. White, for instance, has made a great\nhero of Vesalius for daring to do dissection. He was only doing what\nhundreds of others were doing and had been doing in Italy for hundreds\nof years; but to confess this would be to admit that the Church was\nnot opposed to anatomy or the practice of dissection, and so perforce\nVesalius must be a hero as well as the Father of Anatomy. To read Dr.\nWhite's paragraph in the History of the Warfare of Science with\nTheology, one cannot but feel sure that Vesalius must practically have\nrisked death over and over again in order to pursue his favorite\npractice of dissection and his original researches in anatomy. I would\nbe the last one in the world to wish to minimize in any way Vesalius's\nmerits. He was a genius, a great discoverer--above all an inspiration\nto methods of study that have been most fruitful in their results, and\nwithal a devout Christian and firm adherent of the Roman Catholic\nChurch. He was not a hero in the matter of dissection, however, for\nthere was no necessity for heroism. Dissection had been practiced very\nassiduously before his time in all the universities of Italy,\nespecially in Bologna, which was a Papal city from the beginning of\nthe sixteenth century, and also in Rome at the medical college of the\nRoman University under the very eye of the Popes.\n\n{112}\n\nIn the light of this knowledge read President White's paragraph with\nregard to Vesalius:\n\n  \"From the outset Vesalius proved himself a master. In the search for\n  real knowledge he _risked the most terrible dangers, and especially\n  the charge of sacrilege, founded upon the teachings of the Church\n  for ages._ As we have seen, even such men in the early Church as\n  Tertullian and St. Augustine held anatomy in abhorrence, and the\n  decretal of Pope Boniface VIII. was _universally construed as\n  forbidding all dissection, and as threatening excommunication\n  against those practicing it. Through this sacred conventionalism\n  Vesalius broke without fear; despite ecclesiastical censure,_ great\n  opposition in his own profession and popular fury, he studied his\n  science by the only method that could give useful results. No peril\n  daunted him. To secure material for his investigations, he haunted\n  gibbets and charnel-houses, _braving the fires of the Inquisition_\n  and the virus of the plague.\" (The italics are mine.)\n\nA very interesting commentary on the expressions of Professor White\nwith regard to Vesalius is to be found in a paragraph of Von Toeply's\narticle on the History of Anatomy in the second volume of Puschmann's\nHistory of Medicine, already quoted. \"Out of the fruitful soil so well\ncultivated in the two preceding centuries, there developed at the\nbeginning of the sixteenth century the Renaissance of anatomy, with\nall the great and also with all the unpleasant features which belong\nto the important works of art of that period. One has only to think of\nDonatello, Mantegna, Michel Angelo, and Verochio to realize these. The\nRenaissance of anatomy developed in a field of human endeavor which,\nif it did not owe all, at least owed very much to the art-loving and\n{113} culture-fostering rulers, Popes and cardinals of the time. Older\nhistorians have told the story of the rise of anatomy in such a way\nthat it seemed that the Papal Curia had set itself ever in utter\nhostility to the development of anatomy. As a matter of fact, the\nPapal Court placed scarcely any hindrances in its path. On the\ncontrary, the Popes encouraged anatomy in every way.\"\n\nIn the page and a half following this quotation Von Toeply has\ncondensed into brief form most of what the Popes did for medicine and\nthe medical sciences, though more especially for anatomy, during the\ncenturies from the sixteenth down to the beginning of the nineteenth.\nSome excerpts from this, with a running commentary, will form the best\ncompendium of the history of the Papal relations to medical education\nand will show that they are strikingly different from what has usually\nbeen said. Von Toeply begins with Paul III., who is known in history\nmore especially for his issuance of the Bull founding the Jesuits. It\nmight ordinarily be presumed by those who knew nothing of this Pope,\nthat the Head of the Church, to whom is due an institution such as the\nJesuits are supposed to be, would not be interested to the slightest\ndegree in modern sciences, and would be one of the last ecclesiastical\nauthorities from whom patronage of science could possibly be expected.\nIt was he, however, who founded special departments for anatomy and\nbotany and provided the funds for a salary for a prosector of anatomy\nat Rome.\n\nAfter this practically every Pope in this century has some special\nbenefaction for anatomy to his credit. Pope Paul IV. (1555-59) called\nColumbus to Rome and gave him every opportunity for the development of\nhis original genius in anatomical research. Columbus had {114}\nsucceeded Vesalius at Padua and had been tempted from there to Pisa by\nthe duke who wished to create in that city a university with the most\nprominent teachers in every department that there was in Italy, yet it\nwas from this lucrative post that Pope Paul IV. succeeded in winning\nColumbus. Quite apart from what we know of Columbus's career at Rome\nand his successful investigation on the cadaver of many anatomical\nproblems, perhaps the best evidence of the friendly relations of the\nPopes to him and to his work is to be found in the fact that, first\nColumbus himself, and then after his death his sons, in issuing their\nfather's magnificent work De Re Anatomica, dedicated it to the\nsuccessor of Pope Paul IV., the reigning Pope Pius IV. In the meantime\nCardinal Della Rovere had brought Eustachius to Rome to succeed\nColumbus.\n\nUnder Sixtus V., who was Pope from 1585 to 1590, the distinguished\nwriter on medicine, and especially on anatomy, Piccolomini, published\nhis lectures on anatomy with a dedication to that Pope. It is well\nknown that the relations between the professor of anatomy at the Papal\nMedical School and the Pope were very friendly. As was the case with\nregard to Colombo or Columbus, so also with Caesalpinus. Columbus was\nthe first to describe the pulmonary circulation. Caesalpinus is\ngenerally claimed by the Italians to have made the discovery of the\ncirculation of the blood throughout the body before Harvey. Columbus\nhad been at Pisa and was tempted to come to Rome. Caesalpinus had also\nbeen at Pisa until Clement VIII. held out inducements that brought him\nto Rome. Clement is the last Pope of the century, but Von Toeply\nmentions five Popes in the next century who were in intimate relations\nwith {115} distinguished investigators into medical subjects and whose\nnames are in some way connected with some of the most noteworthy\nteaching and writing in medical matters during the seventeenth\ncentury.\n\nIt will be readily seen what a caricature of the life of Vesalius is\nProf. White's paragraph, if one compares it with the following\nparagraph taken from so readily available an historical source as the\narticle on the History of Anatomy, by Prof. Turner, of Edinburgh, in\nthe first volume of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. The distinguished\nScotch anatomist who so worthily filled the chair of anatomy at the\nUniversity of Edinburgh says with regard to Berengar of Carpi, who was\nthe professor of anatomy at Bologna thirty-five years before\nVesalius's time, that, \"In the annals of medicine Berengar's name will\nbe remembered as one of the most zealous and eminent in cultivating\nthe anatomy of the human body. It was long before the anatomists of\nthe following age could boast of equalling him. His assiduity was\nindefatigable, and he declares that he dissected above one hundred\nhuman bodies.\" This should be enough, it seems to me, to settle the\nquestion that anatomy was permitted very freely before Vesalius's\ntime. Professor Turner's authority in such a matter is above all\nsuspicion. He knew the history of anatomy.\n\nIf more evidence be needed, compare with President White's fantastic\nsketch of Vesalius the following sketch of his great contemporary,\nColumbus or Colombo, to whose anatomical investigations we owe the\ndiscovery of the pulmonary circulation:\n\n  \"The fame of Columbus as an anatomical teacher was exceedingly great\n  and widespread. Students were attracted to the universities where he\n  professed, from all {116} quarters and in large numbers. He was an\n  ardent student of his favorite science and was imbued with the\n  genius and enthusiasm of an original investigator. He was not\n  satisfied with the critical examination of mere structure, but\n  extended his researches into the more subtle, difficult and\n  important investigation of the physiological function. He has been\n  most aptly styled the Claude Bernard of the sixteenth century. The\n  work of Columbus is a masterpiece of method and purity of style, as\n  well as on account of its richness in facts and observations. He\n  spent over forty years in these studies and researches. _He\n  dissected an extraordinary number of human bodies. It must have been\n  an age of remarkable tolerance for scientific investigation, for in\n  a single year he dissected no less than fourteen bodies._ He also\n  entered the crypts and catacombs of ancient churches, where the\n  bones of the dead had been preserved and had accumulated century\n  after century, and there, with unwearied care, he handled and\n  compared over a half million of human skulls.\"\n\nThis account was written by Dr. George Jackson Fisher in his\n\"Historical and Bibliographical Notes\" for the _Annals of Anatomy and\nSurgery_ (Brooklyn, 1878-1880). All the material that Dr. Fisher used\nin his sketch is to be found in Roth's \"Life of Vesalius,\" p. 256.\nNow, Columbus was a contemporary of Vesalius, and worked with him at\nBologna. The years of their lives correspond almost exactly. When\nVesalius left Padua to become the royal physician to Charles V., it\nwas Columbus who succeeded him. Later he taught also at Pisa. Then,\nstrange as it may seem for those who have put any faith in Dr. White's\nexcursion into medical science, he was invited to become Professor of\n{117} Anatomy at the Papal University at Rome, and it was while there\nthat he had as many as three hundred students present at his\ndemonstrations in anatomy and there that he did fourteen dissections\nin one year. The pretense that there was any ecclesiastical objection\nto dissection becomes absolutely farcical when one compares the life\nof Vesalius sketched by President White with a motive, and the life of\nhis contemporary and successor, Columbus, by an unbiased physician,\nwhose only idea was to bring out the facts.\n\nAccording to Prof. White's opinion, Vesalius dedicated his work to\nCharles V. to shield himself as far as possible, and after this gave\nup his anatomical studies in Italy to put himself under the protection\nof Charles V.\n\nVesalius's successor, Columbus, did not have to do any such thing.\nInstead, he went down to Rome, and under the protection of the Popes\ncontinued to carry on his anatomical work there.\n\nWhen Charles V. died, however, according to President White, a new\nweapon was forged against Vesalius. Vesalius was charged with\ndissecting a living man. President White hints that \"the forces of\necclesiasticism united against the innovators of anatomy, and either\nfrom direct persecution or from indirect influences Vesalius became a\nwanderer.\" Just what that means I do not know. President White does\nnot say that he was exiled, though that idea is implied. There is a\ngreat deal of doubt about this charge of Vesalius having made an\nautopsy on a living person. Roth discusses various versions. The whole\nthing seems to be a trumped-up story; but supposing it true, would it\nnot be only proper that a man who made an autopsy on a living person\nshould be brought before the court? He certainly would {118} in our\nday in any civilized country. Professor Foster, of the University of\nCambridge in England, following the lead of President White in this\nmatter, blames the Inquisition for instituting the prosecution. If\nthis were true, no more proof would be needed that the Inquisition was\na civil and not a religious institution, since after all the killing\nof a man by a premature autopsy is a plain case of homicide.\n\nThe fact of the matter seems to be that Vesalius, who had not been\nvery well in the unsuitable climate of Madrid, made the trip to the\nHoly Land, partly for reasons of health, but partly also for reasons\nof piety. While returning he was shipwrecked on the island of Zante\nand died from exposure. Vesalius had been born in Brabant, at that\ntime one of the most faithful Catholic countries in Europe. Like most\nof the other great men of his time, the reformation utterly failed to\ntempt him from his adhesion to the Catholic Church. His greatest\ncolleagues in anatomy and in medicine were Italians, most of whom were\nin intimate relations with the Catholic ecclesiastics of the time and\ncontinued this intimacy in spite of the disturbing influences that\nwere abroad. Many of these men will be mentioned in our account of the\nPapal Medical School and of the Papal Physicians during the next two\nor three centuries. The distinguished anatomists and physicians of\nFrance in Vesalius's time were quite as faithful Catholics as he was.\nEven Paracelsus, the Swiss, whose thorough-going independence of mind\nwould, it might naturally seem, have tempted him to take up with the\nreformed doctrines, had no sympathy with them at all. He recognized\nthe abuses in the Church, but said that Luther and the so-called\nreformers were doing much more harm {119} than good, and that until\nthey were gotten rid of no improvement in ecclesiastical matters could\nbe looked for. When Paracelsus came to die he left his money mainly to\nthe Shrine of the Blessed Virgin in his native town of Einsiedeln and\nfor masses for his soul. Since their time most of the distinguished\nmedical scientists have been quite as faithful in their Catholicity as\nthese two great medical colleagues of the Renaissance period. While\nmedicine is supposed to be unorthodox in its tendencies, the really\ngreat thinkers in medicine, the men to whose names important\ndiscoveries in the science were attached, were not only faithful\nbelievers in the doctrines of Christianity, but were much more often\nthan has been thought even devout Catholics.\n\nAt the death of Vesalius the Golden Age of the development of anatomy\nwas not at its close, but was just beginning. Eustachius, Caesalpinus,\nHarvey and Malpighi were during the course of the next century to make\nanatomy a science in the strict sense of that word. After Vesalius's\ntime the history of anatomy in Italy centers around the Papal Medical\nSchool to a great extent. During Vesalius's lifetime his greatest\nrival became the professor of anatomy there. The anatomical school of\nBologna, in connection with that city, became an important focus of\nanatomical investigation. At this time Bologna was a Papal city. It\nwas in the dominions of the Popes, then, as we shall see, that anatomy\nwas carried on with the most success and with the most ardor. Far from\nthere being any opposition to the development of the science, every\nencouragement was given to it, and it was the patronage of the Popes\nand of the higher ecclesiastics that to a great degree made possible\nthe glorious evolution of the science during the next century.\n\n\n{120}\n\nSUPPOSED PAPAL PROHIBITION OF CHEMISTRY.\n\nA false impression, exactly corresponding to that with regard to\nanatomy, has been created and fostered by just the same class of\nwriters as exploited the anatomy question, with reference to the\nattitude of the Popes and the Church of the Middle Ages toward the\nstudy of chemistry. This is founded on a similar misrepresentation of\na Papal document. When it was pointed out that this Papal document,\nlike Pope Boniface's bull, had no such purport as was suggested, just\nthe same subterfuge as with regard to anatomy was indulged in. If the\nPapal document did not forbid chemistry directly, as was said, at\nleast it was so misinterpreted, and chemistry failed to develop\nbecause of the supposed Papal opposition. These expressions were used,\nin spite of the fact that, just as in the case of anatomy, it is not\nhard to trace the rise and development of chemistry, or its\npredecessor, alchemy, during the years when it is supposed to be in\nabeyance. Certainly there was no interruption of the progress of\nchemical science at the date of the supposed Papal prohibition, nor at\nany other time, as a consequence of Church opposition.\n\nThe similarity of these two history lies is so striking as to indicate\nthat they had their birth in the same desire to discredit the Popes at\nall cost, and to make out a case of opposition on the part of\necclesiastical authorities to scientific development, whether it\nactually existed or not. The surprise is, however, that the same form\nof invention should have been used in both cases. One {121} might\nreasonably have expected that the ingenuity of writers would have\nenabled them to find another basis for the story on the second\noccasion. Still more might it have been expected that when the error\nwith regard to the tenor of the Papal document was pointed out to\nthem, a different form of response would be made in the latter\ninstance. The whole subject indicates a dearth of originality that\nwould be amusing if it were on a less serious matter, and does very\nlittle credit either to those who are responsible for the first draft\nof the story, but still less to those who have swallowed it so readily\nand given it currency.\n\nThe story of the Supposed Papal Prohibition of Chemistry was\ncharacteristically told by William J. Cruikshank, M. D., of Brooklyn,\nNew York, in an address bearing the title, \"Some Relations of the\nChurch and Scientific Progress,\" published in The Medical Library and\nHistorical Journal of Brooklyn for July, 1905. The writer called\nemphatic attention to the fact that chemistry, during the Middle Ages,\nhad come under the particular ban of the ecclesiastical authorities,\nwho effectually prevented its cultivation or development. \"The\nchemist,\" Dr. Cruikshank says, \"was called a miscreant, a sorcerer,\nand was feared because of his supposed partnership with the devil. He\nwas denounced by Pope and priest and was persecuted to the full extent\nof Papal power. Pope John XXII. was especially energetic in this\ndirection, and in the year 1317 A.D., issued a bull calling on all\nrulers, secular and ecclesiastical, to hunt down the miscreants who\nwere afflicting the faithful, and he thereupon increased the power of\nthe Inquisition in various parts of Europe for this purpose.\"\n\nAt the suggestion of the editor of the Medical Library {122} and\nHistorical Journal, I answered these assertions of Dr. Cruikshank,\npointing out that the Papal document which he mentioned had no such\npurport as he declared, and that the history of chemistry or alchemy\npresented no such break as his assertions would demand. Dr. Cruikshank\nimmediately appealed by letter to his authority on the subject, whose\nwords, in the History of the Warfare of Theology with Science in\nChristendom, though I did not realize it at the time, he had repeated\nalmost literally. In his chapter on From Magic to Chemistry and\nPhysics, Dr. Andrew D. White says: \"In 1317, Pope John XXII. issued\nhis bull _Spondent pariter,_ levelled at the alchemists, but really\ndealing a terrible blow at the beginning of chemical science. He\ntherefore called on all rulers, secular and ecclesiastical, to hunt\ndown the miscreants who thus afflicted the faithful, and he especially\nincreased the power of inquisitors in various parts of Europe for this\npurpose.\" It will be seen that, as I have said, Dr. Cruikshank's words\nare almost a verbatim quotation from this paragraph. It is true that\nhe has strengthened the expressions quite a little and added some\ntrimmings of his own, still I suppose his expressions could be\njustified if those of President White had a foundation in fact. A\nlittle comparison of the two sets of phrases will show how a history\nlie grows as it passes from pen to pen. _Crescit eundo_--like rumor,\nit increases in size as it goes.\n\nIn defense of this passage in the History of the Warfare of Science\nwith Theology in Christendom, Dr. White wrote a letter of reply to Dr.\nCruikshank, which was incorporated into Dr. Cruikshank's response to\nmy article in the Medical Library and Historical Journal. I presume\nthat this was done with Dr. White's permission. {123} In this letter\nhe admitted that Pope John's decretal had no such significance as he\noriginally claimed for it, but he still maintained his previous\nopinion, that this decretal, like Boniface's bull for anatomy, had\nactually prevented, or at least greatly hampered the study of\nchemistry. To this I replied with a brief story of chemistry in the\nfourteenth century, and though that article was published more than a\nyear ago, no admission has been made and nothing further has been\npublished on the subject. The material of the reply to Dr. White, to\nwhich as yet there has been no answer, is comprised in this chapter.\n\nAs I have already hinted, the most surprising thing about this\ncitation of a Papal decree forbidding chemistry, is that it proves on\ninvestigation to be founded on just exactly the same sort of\nmisinterpretation of a Papal document as happened with regard to\nanatomy. The bull of Pope Boniface VIII. forbidding the boiling of\nbodies and their dismemberment for burial in distant lands, did\nnothing to hinder the progress of anatomy, had no reference to any\npreparations required for dissection, and was not misinterpreted in\nany such sense until the nineteenth century, and then only for the\npurpose of discrediting the Popes and their relations to science. Pope\nBoniface's bull, far from being harmful in any way to education or to\nthe people, was really beneficial, and constituted an excellent\nsanitary regulation which doubtless prevented, on a number of\noccasions, the carriage of disease from place to place.\n\nThe decree of Pope John XXII., which has been falsely claimed to\nforbid chemistry, was another example of Papal care for Christendom,\nand not at all the obscurantist document it has been so loudly\nproclaimed. Pope {124} John learned how much imposition was being\npracticed on the people by certain so-called alchemists who claimed to\nbe able to make silver and gold out of baser metals. In order to\nprevent this, within a year after his elevation to the pontificate he\nissued not a bull, but a very different form of document--a\ndecretal--forbidding any \"alchemies\" of this kind. The punishment to\nbe inflicted, however, instead of being the penalty of death, as Dr.\nCruikshank, Dr. White and many others have declared, or at least let\nit be understood from their mode of expression, was that the person\nconvicted of pretending to make gold and silver and selling it to\nother people, should pay into the public treasury an amount equal to\nthe supposed amount of gold and silver that he had made. _The money\nthus paid into the public treasury was to be given to the poor._\n\nThe best way to show exactly what Pope John intended by his decree is\nto quote the decree. It does not occur in the ordinary collection of\nthe bulls of John XXII., for it was not, as we have said, a bull in\nthe canonical sense of the term, but a Papal document of minor\nimportance. There is an important distinction between a decree and a\nbull, the former being but of lesser significance, usually referring\nonly to passing matters of discipline. The decretal may be found in\nthe Corpus Juris Canonica, Tome II., which was published at Lyons in\n1779. It is among the decrees or constitutions known as Extravagantes.\n[Footnote 14]\n\n[Footnote 14: The meaning of this term we discussed in the previous\nchapter on Anatomy in relation to the bull of Boniface and Liber VI.\nThe motto of the publisher of the volume in which it occurs deserves\nquotation because of its apt application in the present circumstance.\nIt is in Latin: \"Quod tibi fieri non vis, alteri ne feceris\"--\"What\nyou would not have done to yourself, don't do to another.\" If writers\nabout the Popes were as careful to substantiate accusations against\nthem as fully as they would like any accusations against themselves to\nbe corroborated before being accepted and circulated, we should hear\nmuch less of Papal intolerance and of Church opposition to science.\nEven a dead Pope must be considered as a man whose reputation one\nshould not malign without good reason and substantial proof. I must\nadd that, as with regard to the other Papal documents mentioned, I owe\nthe copy of this decree to Father Corbett, of St. Charles Borromeo\nSeminary, Overbrook, Pennsylvania, and am indebted to him besides for\nmany helpful suggestions.]\n\n{125}\n\nWe quote the decree as it is found in Canon Law:\n\n  The Crime of Falsification.\n\n  \"Alchemies are here prohibited and those who practise them or\n  procure their being done are punished. They must forfeit to the\n  public treasury for the benefit of the poor as much genuine gold and\n  silver as they have manufactured of the false or adulterate metal.\n  If they have not sufficient means for this, the penalty may be\n  changed to another at the discretion of the judge, and they shall be\n  considered criminals. If they are clerics, they shall be deprived of\n  any benefices that they hold and be declared incapable of holding\n  others.\" (See also the Extravagant of the same John which begins\n  with the word 'Providens' and is placed under the same title.)\n  [Footnote 15]\n\n[Footnote 15: The decree referred to here was issued by John XXII.\nagainst the counterfeiting of the money of France. The fact that the\ntwo decrees should be considered by canonists as connected in subject\nshows just what was thought to be the purport of the first, namely, to\nprevent the debasement of the currency by the admixture of adulterate\ngold as well as to protect the ignorant from imposition.]\n\n  \"Poor themselves, the alchemists promise riches which are not\n  forthcoming; wise also in their own conceit they fall into the ditch\n  which they themselves have digged. For there is no doubt that the\n  professors of this art of alchemy make fun of each other because,\n  conscious of their own ignorance, they are surprised at those who\n  say anything of this kind about themselves; when the truth sought\n  does not come to them they fix on a day [for their experiment] and\n  exhaust all their arts; then they dissimulate [their failure] so\n  that finally, though there is no such thing in nature, they pretend\n  to make genuine gold and silver by a sophistic transmutation; to\n  such an extent does their damned and damnable temerity go that they\n  stamp upon the base metal the characters of {126} public money for\n  believing eyes, and it is only in this way that they deceive the\n  ignorant populace as to the alchemic fire of their furnace. Wishing\n  to banish such practices for all time, we have determined by this\n  formal edict that whoever shall make gold or silver of this kind or\n  shall order it made, provided the attempt actually follows, or\n  whoever shall knowingly assist those engaged (actually) in such a\n  process, or whoever shall knowingly make use of such gold or silver\n  either by selling it or giving it for debt, shall be compelled as a\n  penalty to pay into the public treasury, to be used for the poor, as\n  much by weight of genuine gold and silver as there may be of\n  alchemic metal, provided it be proved lawfully that they have been\n  guilty in any of the aforesaid ways; for those who persist in making\n  alchemic gold, or, as has been said, in using it knowingly, let them\n  be branded with the mark of perpetual infamy. But if the means of\n  the delinquents are not sufficient for the payment of the amount\n  stated, then the good judgment of the justice may commute this\n  penalty into some other (as, for example, imprisonment, or another\n  punishment, according to the nature of the case, the difference of\n  individuals, and other circumstances.) Those, however, who in their\n  regrettable folly go so far as not only to sell moneys thus made but\n  even despise the precepts of the natural law, pass the bounds of\n  their art and violate the laws by deliberately coining or casting or\n  having others coin or cast counterfeit money from alchemic gold or\n  silver, we proclaim as coming under this animadversion, and their\n  goods shall be confiscate, and they shall be considered as\n  criminals. And if the delinquents are clerics, besides the aforesaid\n  penalties they shall be deprived of any benefices they shall hold\n  and shall be declared incapable of holding any further benefices.\"\n  [Footnote 16]\n\n[Footnote 16: The Latin text of this decretal will be found entire in\nthe appendix.]\n\nIt is evident that John's decree against \"The Crime of Falsification\"\ndid not directly forbid chemistry, nor alchemy in the proper sense of\nthe word, nor did it in any way interfere with the study of substances\nto {127} determine their composition, or the synthesis of materials to\nproduce others, provided there was no pretense of making gold and\nsilver in order to obtain genuine gold and silver from ignorant dupes.\nThere seems to be no doubt that had the famous scheme to obtain gold\nfrom sea water, which caused serious loss to so many foolish and even\npoor people a few years ago, come up during the time of John XXII., he\nwould have prevented it from being so lucrative to its promoters, by\npublicly denouncing them and promulgating a law for their punishment.\n\nIt may be considered that excommunication was not a very severe\npenalty for such dishonest practices, and that the sharpers who gave\nthemselves to such a profession, which would be about that of the\nconfidence or green goods men of our time, were not likely to be\naffected much by this merely religious deprivation. It must not be\nforgotten, however, that in those ages of faith, excommunication\nbecame an extremely telling social punishment. It was forbidden that\nanyone, even nearest and dearest friends, should have anything to do\nwith the one excommunicated until the ban was removed. It was bad\nenough in a town where everyone belonged to the same church, and all\nwent to church frequently, to be forbidden to go there; it was\ninfinitely worse, however, to have everybody who passed refuse to\ngreet you or have relations of any kind with you. President Hadley, of\nYale, said, not long since, that social ostracism is the only\neffective punishment for such manifest extra legal irregularities,\nwhich are yet not so essentially criminal as to bring those guilty of\nthem under legal punishment. The sentence of excommunication was an\neffective social ostracism--the {128} completest possible. This is an\naspect of excommunications usually missed, but well deserving of study\nby those who resent the use of such an instrument by ecclesiastical\nauthorities. Just as soon as the man repented of what he had done and\npromised to do so no more, he was received back into the Church, and\nthe ostracism ceased, so long as he did not relapse into his forbidden\nways.\n\nWhen the eminently beneficial character of this Papal document is thus\nappreciated, it is indeed painful to have to realize, that for its\nissuance John has been held up more to scorn and ridicule than perhaps\nhas ever been the case for any other single formal document that has\never been issued by an ecclesiastical or political authority. He was\nsimply correcting an abuse in his day, the existence of which we\nrecognize and would like to be able to correct in ours. For this\neminently proper exercise of the Papal power, however, his whole\ncharacter has been called into question, and a distinguished modern\neducator has used every effort to place him in the pillory of history,\nas one of the men who have done most to hamper progress in science and\neducation in all world history. The amusing thing is the utter\ninequality between the document itself and its supposed effects. Of\ncourse it had no such effect as President White claims for it, and,\nindeed, he seems never to have seen the document in its entirety\nbefore it was called forcibly to his attention long after his\ndeclarations with regard to it were published. The real attitude of\nPope John XXII. with regard to education and the sciences, which was\nexactly the reverse of that predicated of him by his modern colleague\nin education, will be the subject of the next chapter.\n\n{129}\n\nThere is another document of John XXII., the bull _Super Illius\nSpecula_, that has been sometimes quoted, or rather misquoted, and\nwhich indeed at first I was inclined to think was the bull referred to\nby Dr. Cruikshank. This second Papal document, however, was not issued\nuntil 1326. It is concerned entirely with the practice of magic. The\nPope knew that many people, by pretended intercourse with the devil or\nwith spirits of various kinds, claimed to be able to injure, to obtain\nprecious information, to interpret the future and the past, and to\nclear up most of the mysteries that bother mankind. We have them still\nwith us--the palmist, the fortune-teller, the fake-spiritist. In order\nto prevent such impostures, John issued a bull forbidding such\npractices under pain of excommunication. It is almost needless to say\nthat this Papal document must have effected quite as much good for the\npeople at large as did the previous one forbidding \"alchemies,\" which\nmust have prevented the robbing of foolish dupes who were taken with\nthe idea that the alchemists whom they employed could make gold and\nsilver. Of this second Papal document, this time really a bull, we\nshall, because President White has given it an even falser\nconstruction than the one we have just been discussing, have more to\nsay in the next chapter.\n\nWe must return, however, to the decretal _Spondent pariter,_--the\ndecree supposed to have forbidden chemistry; for as with regard to the\nbull of Boniface VIII., previously discussed, it seems that it is\nnecessary not only to show that the decree was not actually intended\nby the Popes to prohibit chemistry, but also it will have to be made\nclear that it was not misinterpreted so as to hamper chemical\ninvestigation. This is indeed a very {130} curious state of affairs in\nhistory. First, it is solemnly declared, that certain bulls and Papal\ndocuments were directed deliberately against the sciences of anatomy\nand chemistry by the Head of the Church, who wished to prevent the\ndevelopment of these sciences lest they should lessen his power over\nhis people. Then, when it is shown that the documents in question have\nno such tenor, but are simple Papal regulations for the prevention of\nabuses which had arisen, and that they actually did accomplish much\ngood for generations for which they were issued, the reply is not an\nacknowledgement of error, but an insistence on the previous\ndeclaration, somewhat in this form: \"Well, the Popes may not have\nintended it, but these sciences, as a consequence of their decrees,\ndid not develop, and the Popes must be considered as to blame for\nthat.\" Then, instead of showing that these sciences did not develop,\nthis part is assumed and the whole case is supposed to be proved.\nCould anything well be more preposterous. And this is history! Nay, it\nis even the history of science.\n\nWhen I called attention to the fact that this decretal contained none\nof the things it was said to, and published the text of it, Dr. White\nvery calmly replied: \"Dr. Walsh has indeed correctly printed it, and I\nnotice no flaw in his translation.\" Instead of conceding, however,\nthat he had been mistaken, he seemed to consider it quite sufficient\nto add, \"I have followed what I found to be the unanimous opinion of\nthe standard historians of chemistry.\" He did not mention any of the\nhistorians, however. I asked him by letter to name some of the\nstandard historians of chemistry who made this declaration, but though\nI received a courteous reply, it contained no names, and, indeed,\navoided the question {131} of chemistry entirely. It is not too much\nto expect that an historian shall quote his authorities. Dr. White\nseems to be above this. Some documents that he quotes are distorted,\nand prove on examination, as we have seen, to have quite a different\nmeaning to that which he gives them. As might be expected, his\nsupposed facts prove to have as little foundation. It will be\nremembered that he completely ignored or was ignorant of the history\nof anatomy. He seems to have been just as ignorant of the history of\nchemistry, in spite of his confident assurance in making far-reaching\nstatements with regard to it. In order to satisfy myself, I went\nthrough all of the standard histories of chemistry in German, English\nand French that are available in the libraries of New York City, and I\nfailed to find a single one of them which contains anything that might\nbe supposed even distantly to confirm President White's assertion.\n\nI may have missed it, and shall be glad to know if I have. I cannot do\nmore than cite certain of them that should have it very prominently,\nif Dr. White's assertion is to be taken at its face value. Here are\nsome standard historians whom I have searched in vain for the\ndeclaration that all of them should have.\n\nKopp, who is the German historian of chemistry, mentions the fact that\nthere was much less cultivation of chemistry during the fourteenth\ncentury than during the thirteenth, but makes no mention of the bull\nof Pope John as being responsible for it. There are curious cycles of\ninterest in particular departments of science, with intervals of\ncomparative lack of interest that can only be explained by the\ndiversion of human mind to other departments of study. This seems to\nhave happened with regard to chemistry in the fourteenth century.\n\n{132}\n\nHoefer, the French historian of chemistry, mentions the fact that Pope\nJohn XXII. took severe measures against the alchemists who then\nwandered throughout the country, seeking to enrich themselves at the\nexpense of the credulity of the people. He evidently knew of this\ndecree then, but he says nothing of its forbidding or being\nmisinterpreted, so as to seem to forbid chemical investigation.\nThomson, the English historian of chemistry, has no mention of any\nbreak in the development of chemical science, caused by any action of\nthe Popes, though, to the surprise doubtless of most readers, he\ndevotes considerable space to the history of chemical investigation\nduring the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Ernst von Meyer\nmentions the fact that alchemy was abused by charlatans, in order to\nmake pretended gold and silver, and notes that there was not so much\ninterest in chemistry in the fourteenth as in the thirteenth century,\nbut does not ascribe this fact to the bull of Pope John.\n\nI expected at least that I should find something with regard to the\nquestion of the possible influence of the bull in Berthelot's \"History\nof Chemistry in the Middle Ages.\" [Footnote 17] But though there are\nvarious historical topics treated that would seem to imply the\nnecessity for saying something about the bull, if it had any such\neffect as described, yet there is no mention of it. He mentions the\nFranciscan alchemists of northern Italy, who lived about this time,\nand discusses the \"Rosarium,\" written very probably after the date of\nthe bull by a Franciscan monk, but there is no suggestion as to any\nhampering of alchemy by Papal or other ecclesiastical restrictions.\n\n[Footnote 17: Berthelot's Histoire de la Chimie au Moyen Age. Paris,\n1893.]\n\n{133}\n\nThe French Grande Encyclopedie does not mention it, nor does a German\nencyclopaedia, also consulted. Even the Encyclopaedia Britannica, in\nits article on alchemy, makes no mention of the prohibition of alchemy\nby Pope John XXII., and when the Encyclopaedia Britannica does not\nmention any scandal with regard to the Popes, then the scandal in\nquestion must have an extremely slight or no foundation.\n\nOf course this is what might be expected. Anyone who reads the Papal\ndecree can see at once that it has nothing to do with, or say about,\nchemistry or chemical investigation. Since, however, an aspersion has\nbeen cast upon the progress of chemistry during the Middle Ages, and\nsince it will surely be thought by many people that, if chemistry did\nnot happen to interest mankind at that time, it must have been because\nthe Pope was opposed to it (for such seems to be the curious chain of\nreasoning of certain scholars), it has seemed well to review briefly\nthe story of chemistry during the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth\ncenturies. More will be said about it in the chapter on Science at the\nMedieval Universities, and here the only idea is to bring out the fact\nthat men were interested in what we now call chemical problems; that\nwhatever interest they had was absolutely unhampered by ecclesiastical\nopposition; that indeed the very men who did the best work in this\nline, and their work is by no means without significance in the\nhistory of science, were all clergymen; and that most of them were in\nhigh favor with the Popes, and some of them have since received the\nhonor of being canonized as saints.\n\nTake for a moment the example of the great English medieval scientist\nwho wrote near the end of the {134} thirteenth century a work on\nscience, which was undertaken at the command of the Pope of his time,\nto show him the character of the teaching of science at the University\nof Oxford. Roger Bacon defined the limits of chemistry very accurately\nand showed that he understood exactly what the subject and methods of\ninvestigation must be, in order that advance should be made in it. Of\nchemistry he speaks in his \"Opus Tertium\" in the following words:\n\"There is a science which treats of the generation of things from\ntheir elements and of all inanimate things, as of the elements and\nliquids, simple and compound, common stones, gems and marble, gold and\nother metals, sulphur, salts, pigments, lapis lazuli, minium and other\ncolors, oils, bitumen, and infinite more of which we find nothing in\nthe books of Aristotle; nor are the natural philosophers nor any of\nthe Latins acquainted with these things.\"\n\nThe thirteenth century saw the rise of a number of great physical\nscientists, who made observations that anticipated much more of our\nmodern views on scientific problems than is usually thought. One of\nthe greatest of the chemists of the thirteenth century was Albert the\nGreat, or Albertus Magnus, as he is more familiarly called, who taught\nfor many years at the University of Paris. He was a theologian as well\nas a physician and a scientist. His works have been published in\ntwenty-one folio volumes, which will give some idea of the immense\nindustry of the man. Those relating to chemistry are as follows:\nConcerning Metals and Minerals; Concerning Alchemy; A Treatise on the\nSecrets of Chemistry; A Brief Compend on the Origin of the Metals; A\nConcordance, that is, a Collection, of Observations from Many Sources,\nwith Regard to the Philosopher's {135} Stone; A Treatise on Compounds;\na book of eight chapters on the Philosopher's Stone. Most of these are\nto be found in his works under the general heading \"Theatrum\nChemicum.\" Thomson, in his \"History of Chemistry,\" says, that they\nare, in general, plain and intelligible. Albertus Magnus's most famous\npupil was the celebrated Thomas Aquinas. Three of his works are on\nchemistry: The Intimate Secrets of Alchemy; on the Essence and\nSubstance of Minerals; and finally, later in life, the Wonders of\nAlchemy. It is in this last work, it is said, that the word _amalgam_\noccurs for the first time. While Thomas Aquinas and Albertus Magnus\nwere working in France and Germany, Roger Bacon was doing work of\nsimilar nature at Oxford in England. Altogether, he has eighteen\ntreatises on chemical problems. Some of these contain wonderful\nanticipations of modern chemistry. After Roger Bacon came Raymond\nLully, who wrote, in all, sixteen treatises on chemical subjects. At\nabout the same time, Arnold of Villanova was teaching medicine at\nParis and paying special attention to chemistry. From him there are\ntwenty-one treatises on chemical subjects still extant. Arnold of\nVillanova died on the way to visit Pope Clement V., the immediate\npredecessor of John, who lay sick unto death at Avignon.\n\nIt is evident, then, that there was no spirit of opposition to\nchemistry gradually forming itself in ecclesiastical circles, and\nabout to be expressed in a decree by John. The chemists of the\nthirteenth century had been among the most distinguished churchmen of\nthe period. One of them at least, Thomas Aquinas, had been declared a\nsaint. Another, Albertus Magnus, has been given the title of Blessed,\nsignifying that his life and {136} works are worthy of all veneration.\nPope John XXII. had as a young man been a student of these men at the\nUniversity of Paris, and would surely have imbibed the tradition of\ntheir interest in the physical sciences. That he should have unlearned\nall their lessons seems out of the question.\n\nIt remains, then, to see whether there was any diminution of the\ninterest in chemistry after the issue of this decree by John. In the\nfourteenth century we find the two Hollanduses, probably father and\nson, whose lives run during most of the century, doing excellent work\nin science. They frequently refer to the writings of Arnold of\nVillanova, so that they certainly post-date him. From them altogether,\nwe have some eleven treatises on various chemical subjects. Some of\nthese, especially with regard to minerals, have very clear\ndescriptions of processes of treatment which serve to show that their\nknowledge was by no means merely theoretical or acquired only from\nbooks.\n\nProbably before the end of the fourteenth century there was born a man\nwho must be considered the father of modern pharmaceutical chemistry.\nThis was Basil Valentine, the German Benedictine monk, whose best\nknown work is the \"The Triumphal Chariot of Antimony.\" Its influence\ncan be best appreciated from the fact that it introduced the use of\nantimony into medicine definitely, and that substance continued to be\nused for centuries, so that it was not until practically our own\ngeneration that the true limitations of its usefulness were found.\nValentine described the process of making muriatic acid, which he\ncalled the spirit of salt, and taught how to obtain alcohol in\nconcentrated form. Altogether, this monk-alchemist, who was really the\n{137} first of the chemists, left twenty-three treatises, some of them\ngood-sized books, on various subjects in chemistry. [Footnote 18] It\ndoes not look, then, as though chemistry was much neglected during the\nfourteenth and fifteenth centuries.\n\n[Footnote 18: For a brief sketch of his career see my Catholic\nChurchmen in Science. Dolphin Press, Philadelphia. 1906.]\n\nOne step more in the history remains to be taken, which brings us down\nto a man who is more familiar to modern physicians--Paracelsus.\nParacelsus received his education just at the beginning of the\nsixteenth century, before the Reformation began. He was not a man, as\nthose who know his character will thoroughly appreciate, to confess\nthat he had received much assistance from others. He does mention,\nhowever, that he was helped in his chemical studies by the Abbot\nTrithemius, of Spanheim; by Bishop Scheit, of Stettbach; by Bishop\nErhardt, of Lavanthol; by Bishop Nicholas, of Hippon; and by Bishop\nMatthew Schacht.\n\nWe have been able to follow, then, the development of chemistry during\nthe fourteenth and fifteenth centuries down to the time of the\nReformation, and find nowhere any lessening of the ardor for chemical\nstudies, though most of the great names in the science continue to be,\nas they were before the decree was issued, those of distinguished\necclesiastics. John's decree, then, was neither intended to hamper the\ndevelopment of chemistry, nor did it accidentally prevent those who\nwere most closely in touch with the ecclesiastical authorities from\npursuing their studies. Those, of course, who knew anything of the\ncharacter of the author, would not expect it to interfere with the\ntrue progress of science. As we shall see in the next chapter, Pope\nJohn XXII. was really one of the most liberal patrons of education and\nof science in history.\n\n{138}\n\n\nA PAPAL PATRON OF EDUCATION AND SCIENCE.\n\nThe question of the Papal bull supposed to forbid chemistry, or at\nleast its mother science, alchemy, has necessarily brought into\nprominence in this volume the name of Pope John XXII. Few Popes in\nhistory have been the subject of more bitter denunciation than John.\nWriters on the history of the Papacy who were themselves not members\nof the Catholic Church, have been almost a unit in condemning him for\nmany abuses of Papal power, especially such as were associated with\nthe employment of Church privileges for the accumulation of money.\nCertain Catholic historians even have not found themselves able to rid\ntheir appreciation of the character of Pope John from similar\nobjections. It is acknowledged that he was one of the most learned men\nof his time. It is confessed that he was one of the most abstemious of\nmen. Indeed, in this respect he has been very appropriately compared\nwith Pope Leo XIII. He did succeed in setting the Papacy on a firm\nfoundation in Avignon, and did arrange the financial economy of the\nChurch in such a way that large amounts of money were bound to\naccumulate in the Papal treasury.\n\nThis has been the main element of the accusations against him. A\nprominent American encyclopaedia summed up his character very\ntrenchantly as follows: \"He was learned in Canon Law and was\nremarkable for avarice.\" Many have not hesitated to say that even his\ncondemnation of alchemy had for its main purpose {139} the idea of\nadded revenues for the Papal See, by the fines inflicted, and by the\nconfiscation of the goods of those condemned as well as by the Court\nfees in the matter, though there is nothing in the decree to justify\nsuch an opinion, and we have pointed out that the fines collected\nwere, according to the document itself, to be given to the poor.\n\nWith the ecclesiastical aspects of Pope John's character we have\nnothing to do here. It would require a large volume by itself properly\nto tell the story of his life, for he was one of the most influential\nmen of an important time, and though he ascended the Papal throne when\nhe was past seventy, he lived to be ninety, and his pontificate is\nfilled with evidence of his strenuous activity till the end of his\nlife. There is no doubt that the regulations for which he is\nresponsible with regard to the Papal finances eventually led to very\nserious abuses in the Church. It is easy to understand, however, how\nspecial arrangements had to be made for the support of the Holy See at\nAvignon. Pope John XXII.'s predecessor, Clement, was the first Pope\nwho, because of the unsettled state of affairs in Italy and the\ninfluence of the French King, resolved to live at Avignon instead of\nRome. Under these circumstances, the ordinary sources of revenue for\nthe support of the Papal Court, which required comparatively as\nexpensive an establishment then as now, were more or less cut off.\nDuring the first pontificate at Avignon, this proved a serious\ndrawback to ecclesiastical efficiency. In Pope John's time the\nnecessity for providing revenues became acute. Besides, he wished to\nmake the new Papal City as worthy of the Holy See as the old one had\nbeen. To him is largely due the development of Avignon, which {140}\noccurred during the fourteenth century. The abuses which his\nregulations in this matter led to did not culminate in his time, but\ncame later. The revenues obtained by him were, as we shall see, used\nto excellent purpose, and were applied to such educational and\nmissionary uses as would eminently meet the approval of the most\ndemanding of critics in modern times.\n\nJohn was a liberal and discriminating patron of learning and of\neducation in his time. He helped colleges in various parts of the\nworld, established a college in the East, and sent out many\nmissionaries at his own expense. These missionaries proved as\nefficient as modern travelers in adding to the knowledge of the East\nat that time, and practically laid the foundations of the science of\ngeography. [Footnote 19]\n\n[Footnote 19: Those who are interested in the wonderful things\naccomplished for geography by these missionary travelers of the\nthirteenth and fourteenth centuries, will find a brief account of them\nin the chapter on Geography and Exploration in my book on The\nThirteenth, Greatest of Centuries.]\n\nWhat is of special interest to us here, however, in this volume, is\nthe fact that Pope John gave all the weight of the Papal authority,\nthe most important influence of the time in Europe, to the\nencouragement of medical schools, the maintenance of a high standard\nin them, and the development of scientific medicine. At this time\nmedicine included many of the physical sciences as we know them at the\npresent time. Botany, mineralogy, climatology, even astrology, as\nastronomy was then called, were the subjects of study by physicians,\nthe last named because of the supposed influence of the stars on the\nhuman constitution. Because of his encouragement of medical schools\nand his emphatic insistence on their maintaining high standards, Pope\nJohn must be commended as a patron of science and as {141} probably\nhaving exerted the most beneficial influence in his time on education.\n\nThis is of course very different from what is usually said of this\nPope, Prof. White can scarcely find words harsh enough to apply to\nhim, because of his supposed superstition and the influence which he\nhad upon his time in leading men's minds away from science and into\nthe foolish absurdities of superstitious practices. Pope John XXII. is\none of the special betes noires of the sometime President of Cornell.\nYet, I am sure that when the formal documents which Pope John has left\nrelating to education and science are read by modern educators, they\ncannot help but consider him as one of their most enterprising\ncolleagues in the realm of education. Indeed, a number of his bulls\nread very much like the documents that issue occasionally from college\npresidents with regard to the maintenance of standards in education,\nand his encouragement of the giving of the best possible opportunities\nfor scientific and literary studies, and especially that the smaller\ncolleges shall be equal as far as possible to the greater institutions\nof learning, will arouse the sympathetic interest of every educator of\nthe modern day.\n\nThe documents that I shall quote in translations (the originals may be\nfound in the appendix) will show that the Pope wanted the doctorates\nin philosophy and in medicine to be given only after seven years of\nstudy, at least four of which were to be devoted to the post-graduate\nwork in the special branch selected. He wished, moreover, to insist on\nthe necessity for preliminary education. He wanted the permission to\nteach these branches, which in that day was equivalent to our term of\ndoctorate, to be given in all institutions for {142} the same amount\nof work and after similar tests. These are just the matters that have\noccupied the thoughts of university presidents for the last quarter of\na century, and have been the subjects of discussion in the meetings of\nvarious college and university associations. Pope John's bulls would\nbe interesting documents to have read before such associations even at\nthe present time, and would form excellent suggestive material on\nwhich the discussion of the necessity for maintaining college\nstandards might well be founded. This is so different from what is\nusually thought in the matter, that personally I have found it even\nrather amusing. It is not amusing, however, to think that this great\nprogressive, yet conservative educator should have been so\nmisrepresented by modern educators and historians, simply because they\ndid not study the man in his own writings, but knew him only at second\nhand from those who judged his character from another standpoint.\n\nAll this will show John as really one of the greatest Popes not only\nin the century in which he lived, but as distinguished as only a\ncomparatively small number have been among the successors of Peter.\nThough he ascended the Papal throne at the age of seventy, the next\ntwenty years were full of work of all kinds, and John's wonderful\ncapacity for work stamps him as one of the great men of all time. It\nis a well-known rule, constantly kept in mind by Catholic students of\nhistory, that the Popes against whom the most objections are urged by\nnon-Catholic historians are practically always found, on close and\nsympathetic study, to be striking examples of men who at least labored\nto accomplish much. As a rule, they strove to correct abuses, and as a\nconsequence made bitter enemies, who left behind them {143} many\ncontemporary expressions of disapproval. Any contemporary authority is\nsomehow supposed to be infallible. We forget, when a man tries to do\ngood he is likely to meet with bitter opposition from many. If their\nexpressions are taken seriously by historians who write with the\npurpose of finding just as little good and just as much evil as\npossible in a particular character, the resulting appreciation is\nlikely to be rather far from the truth. If some of the criticisms of\nour present President are only preserved long enough, how easy it will\nbe for a future historian who may have the purpose of showing how much\nof evil began as the result of his policy, to find material on which\nto build up his thesis. Men who do nothing make no enemies and also\nmake no mistakes. Fortunately, however, doing things is its own\njustification.\n\nJohn XXII. had had eminent opportunities for the acquisition of an\neducation as thorough, and a culture as broad, as any that might be\nafforded even by our educational opportunities at the present time. He\nhad been many years at the University of Paris; he had traveled in\nEngland, a rare occurrence in those days, and had spent most of his\ntime while there at Oxford; he had also passed several years in Italy\nand was familiar with educational conditions down there. He certainly\ndid more for education than any man of his generation. He had the\ngreatest of opportunities, but it cannot but be said that he took\nthem, very wonderfully. There are very few in all the history of\neducation who have insisted as he on the important principles of the\nnecessity for careful training, for the maintenance of high standards\nin examination and degree-giving, and for the endeavor to bring the\nlarge universities in intimate contact with the {144} small ones, to\nthe benefit especially of the latter, though, as we know now, always\nalso to the reactionary advantage of the important institutions. All\nthis is to be found in the documentary history of a man who has been\nset up as an object of scorn and derision by modern educators, who\nsurely, if they knew the actual facts, would be sympathetic, and not\nantipathetic as they have been.\n\nIt seems too bad that it was just this man that should have been\npicked out for the slander that he had prevented the development of\nchemistry by a Papal decree, which proves on examination to be only an\nadded evidence of his beneficent care for his people. But this is not\nthe only charge that has been brought against Pope John XXII.\nPresident White has painted his character in the worst possible\ncolors. Even after his attention was called to the fact that the\ndocument supposed to prohibit chemistry did not have any of the\nmeaning which he attributed to it in his History of the Warfare of\nScience With Theology in Christendom, he still could find terms\nscarcely black enough in which to paint Pope John, and recurs to other\ndocuments issued by that Pope to prove his assertions. Strangely\nenough, especially after the warning of having had to acknowledge that\none quotation from him was entirely wrong, he proceeds to quote\nanother bull by the same Pope, that he has evidently never read, and\nhis remarks with regard to it show that he never took the trouble to\nlearn anything about this Pope by reading any of the original\ndocuments that he issued, but depends entirely on second-hand\nauthorities. He says:--\n\n  \"It is a pity that Dr. Walsh does not quote in full Pope John's\n  other and much more interesting bull, _Super illius specula_, of\n  1326. One would suppose from the {145} doctor's account that this\n  Pontiff was a kindly and rational scholar seeking to save the people\n  from the clutch of superstition. The bull of 1326 shows Pope John\n  himself, in spite of his infallibility, sunk in superstition, the\n  most abject and debasing; for, in this bull, supposed to be inspired\n  from wisdom from on high, Pope John complains that both he and his\n  flock are in danger of their lives by the arts of the sorcerers. He\n  declares that such sorcerers can shut up devils in mirrors,\n  finger-rings and phials, and kill men and women by a magic word;\n  that they had tried to kill him by piercing a waxen image of him\n  with needles, in the name of the devil. He therefore, not only in\n  this bull, but in brief after brief, urged bishops, inquisitors and\n  other authorities, sacred and secular, to hunt down the miscreants\n  who thus afflicted the faithful, and he especially increased the\n  power of the inquisitors in various parts of Europe for this\n  purpose. This bull it was indeed, and others to the same purpose,\n  which stimulated that childish fear and hatred against the\n  investigation of nature which was felt for centuries and which\n  caused chemistry to be known more and more as one of the 'seven\n  devilish arts.'\"\n\nThere can be no doubt that this is an awful arraignment of a Pope. The\nbull in question is quoted so confidently under its Latin title that\nanyone who reads this paragraph must necessarily conclude that it\ncontains all that President White says, and that he was fresh from the\nreading of it. I may say that, though I had already found that two\nother Papal documents had been utterly misrepresented in President\nWhite's references, I could not bring myself to think that the same\nthing might be true with regard to this third Papal document cited by\nhim. After having had two lessons in the necessity for {146} careful\ncollation of his references to his authorities, I did not think it\npossible for him to make another misquotation, if possible, more\nserious than the preceding examples. Though I had by me, thanks to my\ngood friend Father Corbett, of St. Charles Seminary, Overbrook, Pa., a\ncopy of this bull at the time I wrote an answer to some of President\nWhite's curious wanderings into the history of anatomy and chemistry,\nI did not consult it, for I felt sure that it must contain the\nexpressions which were so confidently quoted. My surprise can be\nbetter imagined than described when on reading the bull I found that\nit contained practically no foundation for the awful charges made by\nPresident White. I had been given another lesson in the difference\nbetween traditional and documentary history, the significance of which\nwill, I hope, be appreciated by others. It led me to consult further\nbulls of John XXII., which bring out his character better than any\nmodern historian possibly can, and which serve to show that, far from\nbeing an obscurantist in any sense of the word, he was deeply\ninterested in education, expressed his appreciation for it on many\noccasions in the highest terms, encouraged his people to seek it, in\nany and every form, scientific as well as literary and philosophic,\nand stated confidently that education would surely redound to the\nbenefit of the Church and deserved to be the special object of\necclesiastical favor.\n\nFirst, however, let me quote the bull _Super illius specula_, of which\nPresident White has said so much. I present a close, almost literal,\ntranslation of the document as it is to be found in the collections of\nThomassetti and Coquelines. As President White conceded that my\ntranslation of the previous document of Pope John {147} with regard to\nalchemy was flawless, I shall be careful not to undo his compliment.\n[Footnote 20]\n\n[Footnote 20: The full Latin text of this bull will be found in the\nappendix.]\n\n  \"Seeking to discover how the sons of men know and serve God by the\n  practice of the Christian religion, we look down from the\n  watch-tower where, though unworthy, we have been placed by the\n  favoring clemency of Him who made the first man after His own image\n  and likeness; setting him over earthly things; adorning him with\n  heavenly virtues; recalling him when a wanderer; bestowing on him a\n  law; freeing him from slavery; finding him when he was lost; and\n  finally ransoming him from captivity by the merit of His passion.\n  With grief we discover, and the very thought of it wrings our soul\n  with anguish, that there are many Christians only in name; many who\n  turn away from the light which once was theirs, and allow their\n  minds to be so clouded with the darkness of error as to enter into a\n  league with death and a compact with hell. They sacrifice to demons\n  and adore them, they make or cause to be made images, rings,\n  mirrors, phials or some such things in which by the art of magic\n  evil spirits are to be enclosed. From them they seek and receive\n  replies, and ask aid in satisfying their evil desires. For a foul\n  purpose they submit to the foulest slavery. Alas! this deadly malady\n  is increasing more than usual in the world and inflicting greater\n  and greater ravages on the flock of Christ.\n\n  \"Section I.--Since, therefore, we are bound by the duty of our\n  pastoral office to bring back to the fold of Christ the sheep who\n  are wandering through devious ways and to exclude from the Lord's\n  flock those who are diseased lest they should infect the rest, We,\n  by this edict, which, in accordance with the counsel of our brother\n  bishops, is to remain in perpetual vigor, warn all and in virtue of\n  holy obedience and under pain of anathema enjoin on all those who\n  have been regenerated in the waters of baptism not to inculcate or\n  study any of the perverse teachings we have mentioned, or, what is\n  more to be condemned, practise them in any manner upon any one.\n\n{148}\n\n  \"Section II.--And because it is just that those who by their deeds\n  make mockery of the Most High should meet with punishments worthy of\n  their transgressions we pronounce the sentence of excommunication\n  which it is our will they shall _ipso facto_ incur, who shall\n  presume to act contrary to our salutary warnings and commands. And\n  we firmly decree that in addition to the above penalties a process\n  shall be begun before competent judges for the infliction of all and\n  every penalty which heretics are subject to according to law, except\n  confiscation of goods, against such as being duly admonished of the\n  foregoing or any of the foregoing practices, have not within eight\n  days from the time when the admonition was given amended their lives\n  in the aforesaid matters.\n\n \"Section III.--Moreover, since it is proper that no opportunity or\n occasion should be given for such flagitious practices, We, in\n conformity with the advice of our brother bishops, ordain and command\n that no one shall presume to have or to hold books or writing of any\n kind containing any of the before-mentioned errors or to make a study\n of them. On the contrary, we desire and in virtue of holy obedience\n we impose the precept upon all, that whoever shall have any of the\n aforesaid writings or books shall, within the space of eight days\n from their knowledge of our edict in this matter, destroy and burn\n them and every part thereof absolutely and completely; otherwise, we\n decree that they incur the sentence of excommunication _ipso facto_\n and, when the evidence is clear, that other and greater penalties\n shall be inflicted upon culprits of this kind.\"\n\nNow here is a Papal document that, far from containing any of the\nsuperstitions that President White so outspokenly declares it to\ncontain, is a worthy expression of the fatherly feelings of the head\nof Christendom that might well have been issued at even the most\nenlightened period of the world's history. The two sentences on which\nall of President White's serious accusation is founded are simple\nexpressions of the Pope's solicitude for his flock on hearing of some\nof the practices that {149} some are said to give themselves up to. He\ndoes not say even that sorcerers can shut up devils in mirrors,\nfinger-rings and phials, but uses the hypothetical expression that in\nthese things, by magic art, evil spirits are to be enclosed. The bull\nhas no reference at all to the killing of men and women by a magic\nword, and where President White found that Pope John declares in this\nbull that sorcerers had tried to kill him by piercing a waxen image of\nhim with needles in the name of the devil, it is impossible to\nunderstand; I should like very much to know what his authority is,\nbecause then it could be refuted in its source. As it is, Dr. White\nsaid it was in the bull, and now every one can see for himself that it\nis not.\n\nLet us go a step further and take President White's single sentence,\n\"One would suppose from the doctor's (Dr. Walsh's) account that this\nPontiff was a kindly and rational scholar seeking to save the people\nfrom the clutch of superstition,\" and let us illustrate the phrase \"a\nkindly and rational scholar\" by some documents issued by Pope John\nXXII. Take for instance the special bull issued by him for the\nconfirmation of the establishment of chairs in canon and civil law,\nand the founding of masterships in medicine and in arts in the\nUniversity of Perugia by which he also conveyed the authority to\nconfer the degrees of doctor and bachelor in all these faculties on\nthose who were found worthy after careful examinations. In the\npreamble of this bull we shall find abundant evidence of Pope John's\nkindly and rational scholarship, of his eminent desire to encourage\neducation in all its forms, literary and scientific, and to make the\npeople of his time understand how valuable he considered education,\nnot only for the sake of the {150} individuals who might acquire it,\nbut also for the Church and for the cause of religion.\n\nThis bull was issued Feb. 18, 1321:\n\n  \"While with deep feelings of solicitous consideration we mentally\n  resolve how precious the gift of science is and how desirable and\n  glorious is its possession, since through it the darkness of\n  ignorance is put to flight and the clouds of error completely done\n  away with so that the trained intelligence of students disposes and\n  orders their acts and modes of life in the light of truth, we are\n  moved by a very great desire that the study of letters in which the\n  priceless pearl of knowledge is found should everywhere make\n  praiseworthy progress, and should especially flourish more\n  abundantly in such places as are considered to be more suitable and\n  fitting for the multiplication of the seeds and salutary germs of\n  right teaching. Whereas some time ago, Pope Clement of pious memory,\n  our predecessor, considering the purity of faith and the excelling\n  devotion which the city of Perugia belonging to our Papal states is\n  recognized to have maintained for a long period towards the church,\n  wishing that these might increase from good to better in the course\n  of time, deemed it fitting and equitable that this same city, which\n  had been endowed by Divine Grace with the prerogatives of many\n  special favors, should be distinguished by the granting of\n  university powers, in order that by the goodness of God men might be\n  raised up in the city itself pre-eminent for their learning, decreed\n  by the Apostolic authority that a university should be situated in\n  the city and that it should flourish there for all future time with\n  all those faculties that may be found more fully set forth in the\n  letter of that same predecessor aforesaid. And whereas we\n  subsequently, though unworthy, having been raised to the dignity of\n  the Apostolic primacy, are desirous to reward with a still richer\n  gift the same city of Perugia for the proofs of its devotion by\n  which it has proven itself worthy of the favor of the Apostolic See,\n  by our Apostolic authority and in accordance with the council of our\n  brother bishops, we grant to our venerable brother the Bishop of\n  Perugia and to those who may be his successors in {151} that diocese\n  the right of conferring on persons who are worthy of it the license\n  to teach (the Doctorate) in canon and civil law, according to that\n  fixed method which is more fully described and regulated more at\n  length in this our letter.\n\n  \"Considering, therefore, that this same city, because of its\n  conveniences and its many favoring conditions, is altogether\n  suitable for students and wishing on that account to amplify the\n  educational concessions hitherto made because of the public benefits\n  which we hope will flow from them, we decree by Apostolic authority\n  that if there are any who in the course of time shall in that same\n  university attain the goal of knowledge in medical science and the\n  liberal arts and should ask for license to teach in order that they\n  may be able to train others with more freedom, that they may be\n  examined in that university in the aforesaid medical sciences and in\n  the arts and be decorated with the title of Master in these same\n  faculties. We further decree that as often as any are to receive the\n  degree of Doctor in medicine and arts as aforesaid, they must be\n  presented to the Bishop of Perugia, who rules the diocese at the\n  time or to him whom the bishop shall have appointed for this\n  purpose, who having selected teachers of the same faculty in which\n  the examinations are to be made, who are at that time present in the\n  university to the number of at least four, they shall come together\n  without any charge to the candidate and, every difficulty being\n  removed, should diligently endeavor that the candidate be examined\n  in science, in eloquence, in his mode of lecturing, and anything\n  else which is required for promotion to the degree of doctor or\n  master. With regard to those who are found worthy their teachers\n  should be further consulted privately, and any revelation of\n  information obtained at such consultations as might redound to the\n  disadvantage or injury of the consultors is strictly forbidden. If\n  all is satisfactory the candidate should be approved and admitted\n  and the license to teach granted. Those who are found unfit must not\n  be admitted to the degree of doctor, all leniency or prejudice or\n  favor being set aside.\n\n  \"In order that the said university may in the aforesaid studies of\n  medicine and the arts so much more fully {152} grow in strength,\n  according as the professors who actually begin the work and teaching\n  there are more skillful, we have decided that until four or five\n  years have passed some professors, two at least, who have secured\n  their degree in the medical sciences at the University of Paris,\n  under the auspices of the Cathedral of Paris, and who shall have\n  taught or acted as masters in the before-mentioned University of\n  Paris, shall be selected for the duties of the masterships and the\n  professional chairs in said department in the University of Perugia\n  and they shall continue their work in this last-mentioned university\n  until noteworthy progress in the formation of good students shall\n  have been made.\n\n  \"With regard to those who are to receive the degree of doctor in\n  medical science, it must be especially observed that all those\n  seeking the degree shall have heard lectures in all the books of\n  this same science which are usually required to be heard by similar\n  students at the universities of Bologna or of Paris and that this\n  shall continue for seven years. Those, however, who have elsewhere\n  received sufficient instruction in logic or philosophy having\n  applied themselves to these studies for five years in the aforesaid\n  universities, with the provision, however, that at least three years\n  of the aforesaid five or seven-year term shall have been devoted to\n  hearing lectures in medical science in some university, and\n  according to custom, shall have been examined under duly authorized\n  teachers and shall have, besides, read such books outside the\n  regular course as may be required may, with due observation of all\n  the regulations which are demanded for the taking of degrees in\n  Paris or Bologna, also be allowed to take the examination at\n  Perugia.\"\n\nHere is a bull issued within five years after the bull which President\nWhite so falsely impugns and which tells a very different story with\nregard to the relationship of the Popes to education in general, and\nespecially to scientific education, from that which unfortunate\nmisrepresentations have accorded to them. Perugia was a city of the\nPapal States, though really scarcely more {153} than under the\ndominion of the Popes in name. The citizens exercised a large freedom\nnot only in all civic matters, but even in regard to their\nrelationships with neighboring cities and political powers. One of the\nthings which Pope John seems to have been especially solicitous about,\nhowever, as we shall see in a subsequent bull, was that the\neducational institutions in the Papal States should be maintained at a\nhigh standard. A university had been established at Perugia by his\npredecessor, and Pope John not only confirmed this establishment, but\ngave the additional privilege of conferring degrees in Canon and Civil\nLaw as well as in Medicine and the Arts.\n\nLest there should be any thought that the fact that the conferring of\nsuch privileges by the Pope might seem to be a limitation of\nuniversity privilege, it may be said at once that practically all\nuniversities have at all times been under the supervision of\nGovernment and have derived their privileges from the political\nauthorities. During the Middle Ages the universities were really\ndevelopments of Cathedral schools, and as such were usually under the\nauthority of the Chancellor of the Cathedral. As an ecclesiastical\nperson he looked to the Pope as the source of his authority, and in\norder that uniformity of requirement for various degrees and of\neducational methods might be maintained, there was practically\nuniversal agreement that such centralization of the power to grant\nprivileges for the erection of universities and the conferring of\ndegrees was the most practical way. With regard to Perugia besides\nthere was the additional reason that the Pope represented the\npolitical as well as the ecclesiastical authority in the matter, and\nthat very naturally the {154} encouragement for the good educational\nwork already being done in the Umbrian City should come from him.\n\nThis premised, certain features of this bull are especially noteworthy\nin the light of modern educational experiences. The Pope was\nconfirming the establishment of a new university. It was to be as he\nrealized, a smaller university in size, but he did not want its\nstandard of education to be lower than that of the great universities.\nFor this reason he insists specifically in the bull that the license\nto teach--the equivalent of our modern doctorate in law, letters and\nscience, shall not be given except after the completion of a course\nequivalent to those given in these subjects in Paris or Bologna, the\ngreat universities of the time, and that the examination shall be\nquite as rigid and shall be conducted under conditions that, as far as\nhuman foresight can arrange, shall preclude all possibility of\nfavoritism of any kind entering into the promotion of candidates for\nthese degrees. The fact that oaths were required in the hope that\nstandards would be thus maintained shows how seriously the subject of\neducation was taken at this time, when, if we would believe some of\nthose who depreciate the Middle Ages, ecclesiastical efforts were\nmainly occupied with the attempt to keep the people as ignorant as\npossible.\n\nThis phase of the Papal decree is all the more interesting when it is\nviewed in the light of some modern educational developments. A few\nyears ago there was a very general complaint that the doctorate in\nphilosophy was conferred too easily, especially by the minor\nuniversities, and that as a consequence this degree had come to mean\nvery little. It required a distinct crusade of effort to raise\nstandards in this matter, and even at {155} the present time the\nsituation is not entirely satisfactory. A very curious element in the\nsituation lies in the fact that, in comparison to the number of\nstudents, certain of the smaller universities confer this distinction\nmuch more frequently than the larger universities. This was found to\nbe true even among the German universities, where I believe that\naccording to statistics the little University of Rostock, in\nMecklenberg, confers the degree proportionately oftener than any other\nGerman university. Pope John XXII. was evidently endeavoring to\nprevent any such development as this, or perhaps he was trying to\nremedy an abuse which he knew had already crept in, for all of his\nbulls on educational matters insist with no little emphasis on the\nnecessity for the maintenance of a high standard of educational\nrequirements as regards the length of time in years and the books to\nbe read and lectures attended, as well as on the rigor, yet absolute\nfairness of examinations.\n\nI am sure that the bulls of John XXII. must never have come under\nPresident White's eyes, or he, as an experienced educator who has had\nto meet most of these problems in our time, would have been more\nsympathetic with this medieval ecclesiastic, who did all in his power\nto maintain university standards. Pope John's career deserves study by\nall modern educators for this reason, and the surprise of it will be\nthat in education, as practically in everything else, in spite of our\npresent-day self-complacency in the matter of educational progress,\nthere is nothing new under the sun, certainly nothing new in the\nproblems university authorities have to meet in order to maintain\ntheir standards.\n\nThe best possible proof that Pope John XXII. was not opposed in any\nway to the development of science nor {156} to the study of sciences\nat the universities is to be found in his establishment of this\nmedical school at Perugia. We may say at once that this is not the\nonly medical school with whose encouragement he was concerned since\nthe erection of the University of Cahors, his birthplace, and the\nestablishment of a medical school there, as well as the provision of\nfunds for certain medical chairs in the University at Rome, shows the\nreality and the breadth of his interest in medicine. It must be\nremembered that under the term medicine at this time most of the\nphysical sciences as we know them now were included. It is the custom\nsometimes to think that the students of medicine in the Middle Ages\nknew very little about medicine itself or the sciences related to\nmedicine. This thought was excusable some years ago when the old\nmedical text-books of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries had not\nas yet been printed.\n\nAt the present time, such a mistake would be unpardonable for any\nscholar who pretends to first-hand knowledge of this period. In the\nchapter on Science at the Medieval Universities I call special\nattention to the fact that medicine and surgery developed in such a\nwonderful way at the medical schools of the universities of the\nthirteenth and fourteenth centuries, that many presumed discoveries of\nmuch later times were marvelously anticipated. A short catalogue of\nthem here may not be out of place, though the reader is referred to\nother chapters for further details. In the medical schools which Pope\nJohn XXII. was then fostering, they taught the ligature of arteries,\nthe prevention of bleeding by pressure, the danger of wounds of the\nneck, the relation of dropsy to hardening of the kidneys, the true\norigins of the venereal diseases, the methods of treating {157} joint\ndiseases, the suture of divided nerves, the use of the knife rather\nthan the cautery because it made a cleaner wound which healed more\nreadily, and even, wonder of wonders, healing by first intention.\nAnyone who was fostering this kind of education in medicine was\nadvancing the cause of one of the applied sciences in a very wonderful\nway.\n\nIf we add that, at this same time the proper use of opium in medicine\nwas a feature of medical teaching which had just been introduced by a\nPapal physician, while a form of anaesthesia was being practically\ndeveloped and very generally employed, the question will be why we, in\nthe twentieth century, do not know ever so much more than we actually\ndo, rather than why these earnest students of the thirteenth century\nknew so little, which is the absurd thought that most authorities in\neducation seem to entertain at the present time with regard to our\nforbears of early university history. The student of medicine during\nthe thirteenth century had to devote himself very nearly to the same\ndepartment of science as those which occupy his colleagues of the\npresent century.\n\nThe prospectus of a medical school of the time would announce very\nprobably some such program of studies as this. Besides learning\nsomething of astrology (the astronomy of the day) the student would be\nexpected to know much about climate and its influence on disease, and\nabout soil in its relation to pathology (these were supposed to be\nfruitful causes of disease). Certain minerals, among them very\nprobably antimony, were beginning to be used in medical practice, and\nso mineralogy was a special subject of study. Of plants they were\nexpected to know in a general way much more than the modern {158}\nmedical student, to whom botany is not considered of much importance,\nand of zoology they probably had at least as great practical\nknowledge, since many of their dissections were made on animals, and\nthe differences in structure between them and man were pointed out\nwhen the annual anatomies or human dissections at the universities\nwere made. Of pharmacology and the allied subject, chemistry, they had\nto know all that would enable them to use properly the several hundred\nvegetable remedies then used in medicine. This will give an idea,\nthen, what were in general the studies which Pope John was trying to\nfoster with so much care in the University of Perugia.\n\nThere is another phase of his regulations with regard to medical\nschools which cannot but prove of the greatest interest to members of\nour present-day medical faculties. It has been realized for some time,\nthat what is needed more than anything else to make good physicians\nfor the present generation is that medical students should have a\nbetter preliminary education than has been the case in the past. In\norder to secure this, various states have required evidence of a\ncertain number of years spent at high school or college before a\nmedical student's certificate allowing entrance into a medical school\nwill be granted. Some of the most prominent medical schools have gone\neven farther than this, and have required that a degree in arts should\nbe obtained in the undergraduate department before medical studies may\nbe taken up. Something of this same kind was manifestly in Pope John's\nmind when he required that seven years should have been spent at a\nuniversity, at least three years of which should have been entirely\ndevoted to medical studies, before the candidate might {159} be\nallowed to go up for his examination for the doctor's degree.\n\nAs we begin the twentieth century, we note that the presidents of our\nAmerican universities are trying to secure just exactly the same\nnumber of years of study for candidates for the degree of Doctor of\nMedicine, as this medieval Pope insisted on as a prerequisite for the\nsame degree in a university founded in the Papal States at the\nbeginning of the fourteenth century. After the year 1910 most of the\nlarge universities in this country will not admit further students to\ntheir medical departments unless they have a college degree or its\nequivalent, that is, unless they have devoted four years to college\nundergraduate work. It is generally understood, that in the last year\nof his undergraduate course the student who intends to take up\nmedicine may elect such scientific studies in the college department\nas will obtain for him an allowance of a year's work in the medical\nschool. He will then be able to complete his medical course in three\nyears, so that our modern institutions will, if our plans succeed,\nrequire just exactly the same amount of time for the doctorate in\nMedicine as Pope John demanded, and not only demanded, but required by\nlegal regulation, for this bull was a law in the Papal States, just\nsix centuries ago. The coincidence is so striking that, only that it\nis supported by documentary evidence of the best kind, we could\nscarcely believe it.\n\nYet it is the Pope who encouraged devotion to science in all forms as\nit was studied in his day, who insisted that the standards of\neducation in the universities of the Papal States, over which he had\ndirect control, should be equal to those of Paris and Bologna, who\nsuggested that teachers should be brought from the famous {160}\nuniversities for the purpose of introducing the best educational\nmethods, who is now declared by President White to have \"stimulated\nthe childish fear and hatred against the investigation of nature which\nwas felt for centuries, and whose decrees and briefs are said to have\ncaused chemistry to be known more and more as one of the 'seven\ndevilish arts.'\" Here is the striking difference between traditional\nand documentary history.\n\nThere are other bulls of Pope John which serve to bring out his\ninterest in education quite as clearly as this one, and show that the\necclesiastics of the time were encouraged to think and act up to the\nthought, that education of all kinds was sure to be of benefit to the\nChurch and her members. In extending the privileges of the University\nof Perugia on another occasion by the bull _Inter ceteras curas_, John\ndeclared that among the other cares which were enjoined on him from on\nhigh by his Apostolic office and amongst the many projects which were\nconstantly in his mind for the betterment of religion, his thoughts\nwere directed more frequently and more ardently to this conclusion\nthan to any other, that the professors of the Catholic faith whom the\ntrue light of the true faith illuminates should be imbued with the\ndeepest wisdom and should become erudite in all the studies that bring\nprofitable knowledge. For, he adds, this gift cannot be bought by any\nprice, but is divinely granted to minds that are of good will. For the\npossession of knowledge is evidently desirable, since by it the\ndarkness of ignorance and the gloom of error are entirely done away\nwith and the intelligence of students is increased so as to direct all\ntheir acts and deeds in the light of truth. \"It is for this reason\n(and no wonder),\" he adds, \"that I am led to encourage the study of\n{161} letters in which the priceless pearl of knowledge is to be\nfound, and especially in such places as may bear worthy fruit for the\nChurch itself and for its members.\"\n\nThe expressions that he here uses are almost word for word, though not\nquite the same as occur in other bulls, showing that a sort of formula\nwas constantly used to express the opinion of the Holy See with regard\nto the desirableness of knowledge and the benefit that might be\nexpected to flow from education. Not all of the bull, however, is a\nformula, since in the rest of it Pope John insists that at least five\nyears must be required at the university for the study of Canon and\nCivil Law, and detailed injunctions are set forth as to the method of\nexamination so as to secure two things, first that a proper standard\nshall be maintained and that those who have completed the course shall\nhave the right to examinations without further payment of fees, and\nsecondly, that such examinations shall be absolutely fair, without any\nfavor being shown to the applicant in any way, and at the same time\nwithout any prejudice being allowed to influence his examiners against\nhim.\n\nLest readers should be tempted to think of Perugia as a town of very\nslight importance from a political and civil standpoint, and therefore\nconsider anything done for it as amounting to very little in the\nculture or influence of the period, a short sketch of it will not be\nout of place. This little town has had the distinction of being the\ncenter of interest in at least four marvelous epochs of human\ndevelopment. Long before Roman civilization in Italy arose, the\nEtruscans did some of their greatest art-work in the country around\nPerugia, the remains of which have been unearthed in recent years.\nSeven centuries later, the Romans left some magnificent {162}\narchitectural monuments of their occupation of this neighborhood.\nSomewhat more than a thousand years passed, and St. Francis breathed\nhis profound spirit of love for nature in all its forms into the world\nalmost within sight of its walls, and with him the Renaissance began.\nThe great Umbrian school of painters in the Renaissance period came\nfrom this district, and they include such names as Raphael and his\ngreat master Perugino, who received his name from his birthplace.\nBefore John XXII. did so much to make it a center of culture and\neducation for this portion of Italy, it had been noted in the early\npart of the thirteenth century for possessing a library of Canon and\nCivil Law to which scholars often traveled from great distances for\nconsultation purposes. The Pope, then, though in distant Avignon, was\ngreatly helping on that movement which was to culminate and mean so\nmuch for Umbria, that great center of culture and influence in the\nRenaissance time.\n\nIn erecting the University of Cahors, Pope John took occasion to say\nthat he did so because the city promised to provide facilities and\nproper conditions for the university and he believed that the\nexistence of such an institution would in very many ways be of benefit\nto the commonwealth. He wished, therefore, that in Cahors, \"a copious,\nrefreshing fountain of science should spring up and continue to flow,\nfrom whose abundance all the citizens might drink, and where those\ndesirous of education might become imbued with knowledge so that the\ncultivators of wisdom might sow seed with success and all the student\nbody become learned and eloquent and in every way distinguished,\nbearing abundant fruit which the Lord in His own good time would give\nthem if they applied themselves with good will.\" He wished that {163}\nthe erection of the university should be considered as a special\nreward for their devotion to the Holy See and should always stand as a\nmemorial of that.\n\nThe thought may possibly occur to some that Pope John, after having\nissued these noteworthy documents in the cause of education in the\nearly years of his pontificate, might subsequently have changed his\nmind and considered with advancing years that the repression of the\nenthusiasm for learning would be better for his people from a\nspiritual standpoint. There is, however, no sign of this to be found\nin the important documents of his pontificate, nor would anyone think\nof it who realized that John became Pope at the age of 72, after\nhaving a very wide personal experience in political affairs as well as\necclesiastical matters, an experience which took him over many parts\nof Europe and must have greatly broadened his intellectual horizon,\nand that he remained in full possession of his wonderful intellectual\npowers until he was well past 90. Within two years before his death he\nissued the bull which laid the foundation of the University of Cahors,\nhis native place. This he did at the request of the citizens of the\ntown, who pleaded that no better memorial of their great fellow\ncitizen who had become Pope could be raised among them than a\nuniversity.\n\nIn the light of these other bulls it is not surprising to find that\nJohn should also have endeavored to maintain the standard of the\nUniversity of the City of Rome. It must be remembered that at this\ntime the Popes were at Avignon, and that as a consequence the\npopulation of the city of Rome had greatly decreased and there were so\nmany civic dissensions that very little attention could be given to\neducational matters. Pope John issued a {164} bull, however, from\nAvignon, confirming the erection of the University of the City of Rome\nby his predecessor of happy memory, Boniface VIII. (the same who is\nsaid, though falsely, to have hampered the development of anatomy),\nand further laying down regulations for the maintenance of the\nstandard of education in the Roman University. In this bull John says\nthat he considers that a Pope could confer no greater favor on the\nCity of Cities so closely attached to the Roman Church, than to bring\nabout the re-establishment of the university there, so that the\ninhabitants and the visitors to Rome might all have the opportunity\nand also the incitement to seek after wisdom, for this is a gift which\ncomes from on high, which cannot be bought for a price, but which is\nonly granted to those who seek it with good will.\n\nJohn proceeds to say that he hopes that the city of Rome shall, under\nthe favor of Providence, produce men of pre-eminent worth in science,\nand that in order that the wishes of Pope Boniface VIII. in this\nmatter may be fulfilled he confirms and extends all the privileges\nwhich had been originally granted. In the University at Rome there\nwere also professors of medicine, and there is good historical\nauthority for the assertion that John himself offered to pay out of\nthe Papal revenues the salary of the professor of physic, in order\nthat this department of the university might become established as\nfirmly as were the other departments. In a word, in the documentary\nevidence so readily available to any one who wishes to consult it, we\nfind John manifesting that he was \"a kindly and rational scholar,\" to\nuse President White's expression, \"seeking,\" surely if education shall\nhave any such effect, and in modern times we have been led {165} to\nbelieve that it can, \"to save the people from the clutch of\nsuperstition.\" President White has employed the expression\nsatirically. I think that any one who reads the contemporary documents\nin the case must acknowledge that it is literally true.\n\nThe life of Pope John XXII. is a striking example of the difference\nbetween traditional and documentary history. According to the\ntraditions that have gathered around his name, John has been declared\nby many to be one of the banes of civilization and education in the\nMiddle Ages. A little study of the documents issued by him shows him\nin quite a different light. He was not only interested in educational\nmatters of every kind, but he was deeply intent, and as far as the\nPapal power enabled him he succeeded in carrying out his intention, of\nmaking education thoroughly effective in every department. It is by a\nman's intentions that he must be judged. John meant to do everything\nfor the best. Unfortunately, some of his actions in the matter of the\nprovision of revenues became subject later to abuse. For this it is\nhard to understand how he should be held responsible. In the meantime,\nfor educators, the study of the actual documents issued by him and\ntheir utterly different significance from what might be expected\naccording to the usually accepted notion of his character, cannot but\nprove a lesson in historical values. It illustrates very well a phase\nof history that has recently been called to attention.\n\nAs we have said, one hundred years ago De Maistre declared that\nhistory had been a conspiracy against the truth. At last a universal\nrecognition is coming of the fact that history has been written\nentirely too much from the personal standpoint of the historian\nwithout {166} due reference to contemporary documents and authorities,\nor with the citation of only such references from these as would\nsupport the special contention of the writer. Even the writers of\nhistory whose reputation has been highest have suffered from this\nfault, and the consequence is that on disputed points it is more\nimportant to know what party a historian belongs to than what he\nwrites.\n\nIs it not time that at least our educators should cease accepting this\nold traditional opinion with regard to the times before the\nreformation so-called, and get at the truth in the matter, or as near\nit as possible. These educators of the thirteenth and fourteenth\ncenturies were zealous and earnest beyond cavil. That everyone admits.\nIt is supposed, however, that they were ridiculously ignorant and\nsuperstitious. Only those who are themselves ridiculously ignorant and\nsuperstitious, for the real meaning of superstition is persistence in\naccepting a supposed truth that is a survival (_superstes_) from a\nprevious state of knowledge, after the reasons for its acceptance have\nbeen shown to be groundless, will continue to believe this absurd\nproposition. If the educator of the modern day will only study with\nthe sympathy they deserve, the lives of the earliest educators of\nmodern times, the professors, the officials, and the ecclesiastical\nauthorities as well as the Papal patrons of the universities of the\nthirteenth and fourteenth centuries, we shall hear no more of the\nChurch during the Middle Ages having been opposed to education, nor to\nscience, nor to any other department of human knowledge.\n\n\n{167}\n\nTHE CHURCH AND SURGERY DURING THE MIDDLE AGES.\n\nIt is with regard to surgery that the opposition of the Church is\nsometimes supposed to have been most serious in its effects upon the\nprogress of medical science and its applications for the relief of\nhuman suffering. President White has stated this, as usual, very\nemphatically in certain paragraphs of his chapter on From Miracles to\nMedicine, especially under the caption of Theological Discouragement\nof Medicine. He says, for instance:--\n\n  \"As to surgery, this same amalgamation of theology with survivals of\n  pagan beliefs continued to check the evolution of medical science\n  down to the modern epoch. The nominal hostility of the Church to the\n  shedding of blood withdrew, as we have seen, from surgical practice\n  the great body of her educated men; hence surgery remained down to\n  the fifteenth century a despised profession, its practice continued\n  largely in the hands of charlatans, and down to a very recent period\n  the name 'barber-surgeon' was a survival of this. In such surgery,\n  the application of various ordures relieved fractures; the touch of\n  the hangman cured sprains; the breath of a donkey expelled poison;\n  friction with a dead man's tooth cured toothache.\"\n\nIn another and earlier portion of the same chapter, under the heading\n\"Theological Opposition to Anatomical Studies,\" he states the reasons\nwhy this low state of surgical practice existed. Once more it is\ndeclared to be {168} because of a prohibitory decree, or several of\nthem, directed against the practice of surgery by ecclesiastical\nauthorities. These decrees, we shall find, as was true of previous\nsupposed prohibitions, are entirely perverted from their real meaning\nby President White, who has the happy faculty of lighting upon mares'\nnests of Papal decrees and decrees of councils and neglecting to pay\nany attention to the real history of the science of which he writes.\nPresident White says:\n\n  \"To those arguments against dissection was now added another one\n  which may well fill us with amazement. It is the remark of the\n  foremost of recent English philosophical historians, that of all\n  organizations in human history, the Church of Rome has caused the\n  greatest spilling of innocent blood. No one conversant with history,\n  even though he admit all possible extenuating circumstances and\n  honor the older Church for the great circumstances which can\n  undoubtedly be claimed for her, can deny this statement. Strange is\n  it, then, to note that one of the main objections developed in the\n  Middle Ages against anatomical studies was the maxim that 'The\n  Church abhors the shedding of blood.'\"\n\n  \"On this ground, in 1248, the Council of Le Mans forbade surgery to\n  monks. Many other councils did the same, and at the end of the\n  thirteenth century came the most serious blow of all: for it was\n  then that Pope Boniface VIII., without any of that foresight of\n  consequences which might well have been expected in an infallible\n  teacher, issued a decretal forbidding a practice which had come into\n  use during the Crusades, namely, the separation of the flesh from\n  the bones of the dead whose remains it was desired to carry back to\n  their own country.\" Note always the return to Pope Boniface's {169}\n  bull and always the perversion of the meaning of the word\n  infallibility.\n\nI have already stated the real significance of Boniface's bull. It\nneither forbade, nor did its interpretation in any way hamper, the\ndevelopment of anatomy. Just exactly the same thing is true with\nregard to the Papal regulations or decrees of councils that are\nclaimed to have hampered surgery. President White and others have\ninsisted that the prohibition of surgery to monks and priests\nprevented the development of surgery or was responsible for the low\nstate of surgical practice. Here once more we are in the presence of a\ndeduction, and not of an induction that represents the actual facts in\nthe case. Most students at the universities were clerks, that is, had\nthe privileges of clergymen, and were, as a rule, in minor orders. All\nthe great surgeons of this time, and they were many, were\necclesiastics.\n\nThe climax of President White's treatment of the relationship of the\nChurch to surgery and of the intense opposition manifested by\necclesiastics to surgical progress, and, I may add, the climax of\nabsurdity as far as the real history of surgery is concerned, comes in\nthe last paragraph of this portion of his chapter on From Miracles to\nMedicine, which President White has placed under the title Theological\nOpposition to Anatomical Studies. He says:\n\n  \"So deeply was the idea rooted in the mind of the Universal Church\n  that for over a thousand years surgery was considered dishonorable;\n  the greatest monarchs were often unable to secure an ordinary\n  surgical operation; and it was only in 1406 that a better beginning\n  was made, when the Emperor Wenzel of Germany ordered that dishonor\n  should no longer attach to the surgical profession.\"\n\n{170}\n\nPresident White insists over and over again that whatever surgery\nthere was, and especially whatever progress was made in surgery, was\ndue to the Arabs, or at least to Arabian initiative. Gurlt, in his\nHistory of Surgery, [Footnote 21] which we have referred to elsewhere,\nis very far from sharing this view. I need scarcely say that Gurlt is\none of our best authorities in the history of surgery. In his sketch\nof Roger, the first of the great Italian surgeons of the thirteenth\ncentury who came after the foundation of the universities, Gurlt says\nthat, \"though Arabian writings on surgery had been brought over to\nItaly by Constantine Africanus a hundred years before Roger's time,\nthose exercised no influence over Italian surgery in the next century,\nand there is not a trace of the surgical knowledge of the Arabs to be\nfound in Roger's work.\" His writing depends almost entirely upon the\nsurgical traditions of his time, the experience of his teachers and\ncolleagues, to whom in two places he has given due credit, and on the\nGreek writers. There are no traces of Arabisms to be found in Roger's\nwriting, while they are full of Grecisms. Roger represents the first\nimportant writer on surgery in modern times, and his works have been\nprinted several times because of their value as original documents.\n\n[Footnote 21: Geschichte der Chirurgie und ihrer Ausuebung. Von Dr. E.\nGurlt, Vol. I., p. 701.]\n\nIt is wonderfully amusing to anyone who knows Gurlt's History of\nSurgery, [Footnote 22] that the distinguished old professor of the\nUniversity of Berlin, looked up to as so well informed as to the\nhistory of the branch of medical science to which he had devoted a\nlong life, should have wasted some three hundred pages of his first\nvolume on the {171} History of Surgery in Middle and West Europe\nduring the Middle Ages, for they are mainly taken up with the\nconsideration of the period when President White asserts that there\nwas no surgery in Europe. Gurlt even protests that he has not as much\nspace as he would like to devote to these old-time masters of surgery,\nwho did so much to lay the foundation of modern surgical practices.\nThose who have paid any attention to President White's assertion with\nregard to surgery at this time, should at least look over Gurlt. They\nwill thus realize what a dangerous thing it is to attempt large\nconclusions in the history of a department of knowledge of which one\nknows nothing. They will also realize how easy it is for a writer with\nsome prestige, to lead others astray in a matter of history, by simply\nmaking assertions without taking the trouble to see whether they are\nsupported by the facts in the case or not.\n\n[Footnote 22: Geschichte der Chirurgie und ihrer Ausuebung. Von Dr. K.\nGurlt, Geh. Med. Rath, Prof, der Chirurgie an der Koeniglichen\nFriedrich-Wilhelms-Universitaet zu Berlin. Berlin, 1898.]\n\nThe modern American historian of Theology and Science says, \"for over\na thousand years surgery was considered dishonorable.\" For the sake of\ncontrast with this opinion of President White's, read for a moment the\nfollowing remarks which constitute the opening sentences of Pagel's\nparagraphs on Surgery from 1200 to 1500, in Puschmann's Handbuch of\nthe History of Medicine, already referred to. Before making the\nquotation, let me recall attention to the fact that Professor Pagel is\nthe best informed living writer on the history of medicine. This book\nwas issued in 1902. It is universally conceded to contain the last\nwords on the history of medical development. There is no doubt at all\nabout its absolute authoritativeness. President White has been calling\non his imagination; Professor Pagel has consulted original documents\nin the history of surgery. He says:\n\n{172}\n\n  \"A more favorable star shone during the whole Middle Ages over\n  surgery than over practical medicine. The representatives of this\n  specialty succeeded earlier than did the practical physicians in\n  freeing themselves from the ban of scholasticism. In its development\n  a more constant and more even progress cannot fail to be seen. The\n  stream of literary works on surgery flows richer during this period.\n  While the surgeons are far from being able to emancipate themselves\n  from the ruling pathological theories, there is no doubt that in one\n  department, that of manual technics, free observation came to occupy\n  the first place in the effort for scientific progress. Investigation\n  is less hampered and concerns itself with practical things and not\n  with artificial theories. Experimental observation was in this not\n  repressed by an unfortunate and iron-bound appeal to reasoning.\" I\n  am tempted to add as a reflection, deduction was not allowed to\n  replace attention to facts, though it has in some supposed surgical\n  history of this period.\n\n  Pagel continues: \"Indeed, the lack of so-called scholarship, the\n  freshness of view free from all prejudice with which surgery,\n  uninfluenced by scholastic presumption, was forced to enter upon the\n  objective consideration of things, while most of the surgeons\n  brought with them to their calling an earnest vocation in union with\n  great technical facility, caused surgery to enter upon ways in which\n  it secured, as I have said, greater relative success than did\n  practical medicine.\"\n\nPresident White has evidently never bothered to look into a history of\nsurgery at all, or he would not have fallen into the egregious error\nof saying that the period from 1200 to 1400 was barren of surgery, for\nit is really one of the most important periods in the development of\n{173} modern surgery. Further evidence as to this is rather easy to\nobtain.\n\nI have cited two German authorities in the history of medicine and\nsurgery. Here is an English writer who is quite as authoritative. In\nthe address on The Historical Relations of Medicine and Surgery to the\nend of the Sixteenth Century, which Professor Clifford Allbutt, the\nRegius Professor of Physic at the University of Cambridge, delivered\nby special invitation at the Congress of Arts and Sciences of St.\nLouis in 1904, this distinguished authority in the history of medicine\nhad much to say with regard to the wonderful development of surgery in\nthe thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, that is, during the period\nwhen, if we were to accept President White's declarations, surgery\neither did not exist, or else had been relegated to such mere\nhandicraftsmen that no real scientific progress in it could possibly\nbe expected. As Professor Allbutt was trying only to give a twentieth\ncentury audience some idea of the magnificent work that had been\naccomplished by fellow members of his profession of medicine seven\ncenturies before, and had no idea of discussing the influence,\nfavorable or otherwise, of the Church upon the progress of medical\nscience, I have preferred to quote directly from this address for\nevidence of the surgery of these centuries, than to gather the details\nfrom many sources, when it might perhaps be thought that I was making\nout a more favorable case than actually existed, for the sake of the\nChurch and the Popes.\n\n  \"Both for his own great merits as an original and independent\n  observer and as the master of Lanfranc, William Salicet (Gugliemo\n  Salicetti of Piacenza, in Latin G. Placentinus or de Saliceto--now\n  Cadeo) was eminent {174} among the great Italian physicians of the\n  latter half of the thirteenth century. Now, these great Italians\n  were as distinguished in surgery as in medicine, and William was one\n  of the protestants of the period against the division of surgery\n  from inner medicine--a division which he regarded as a separation of\n  medicine from intimate touch with nature. Like Lanfranc and the\n  other great surgeons of the Italian tradition, and unlike Franco and\n  Pare, he had the advantage of the liberal university education of\n  Italy; but, like Pare and Wuertz, he had large practical experience\n  in hospital and in the battlefield. He practiced first at Bologna,\n  afterwards in Verona. William fully recognized that surgery cannot\n  be learned from books only. His surgery contains many case\n  histories, for he rightly opined that good notes of cases are the\n  soundest foundation of good practice; and in this opinion and method\n  Lanfranc followed him. William discovered that dropsy may be due to\n  a \"durities renum\"; he substituted the knife for the Arabist abuse\n  of the cautery; he investigated the causes of the failure of healing\n  by first intention; he described the danger of wounds of the neck;\n  he sutured divided nerves; he forwarded the diagnosis of suppurative\n  disease of the hip; and he referred chancre and phagedaena to \"their\n  proper causes.\"\n\nAnyone who knows the history of surgery and of supposed modern\nprogress in medicine will recognize at once that many of these ideas\nof Salicet are anticipations of discoveries supposed to have been made\nin the nineteenth century. The connection between dropsy and hardening\nof the kidneys is a typical example of this. The fact that William\nshould have insisted that surgery cannot be learned from books is an\nopen contradiction {175} of what is so frequently said about\nscholasticism having invaded the realm of medicine, and the study of\nbooks having replaced the study of patients. It is not surprising that\nwith his study of cases William should have recognized the danger of\nwounds of the neck, nor that he should have taught the suture of\ndivided nerves. It cannot fail to be a matter of surprise, however,\nthat he should have any hint of the possibility of union by first\nintention, for that is supposed to be quite recent, and the knowledge\nhe displays of venereal diseases is supposed to have come into\nmedicine and surgery at least two centuries later.\n\n  Allbutt next takes up Salicet's great pupil Lanfranc. \"Lanfranc's\n  'Chirurgia Magna' was a great work, written by a reverent but\n  independent follower of Salicet. He distinguished between venous and\n  arterial hemorrhage, and used styptics (rabbit's fur, aloes, and\n  white of egg was a popular styptic in older surgery), digital\n  compression for an hour, or in severe cases ligature. His chapter on\n  injuries of the head is one of the classics of medieval surgery.\n  _Clerk as he was_, Lanfranc nevertheless saw but the more clearly\n  the danger of separating surgery from medicine. 'Good God!' he\n  exclaims, 'why this abandoning of operations by physicians to lay\n  persons, disdaining surgery, as I perceive, because they do not know\n  how to operate ... an abuse which has reached such a point that the\n  vulgar begin to think that the same man cannot know medicine and\n  surgery... I say, however, that no man can be a good physician who\n  has no knowledge of operative surgery; a knowledge of both branches\n  is essential.' (Chir. Magna.) Is it not strange that this ancient\n  was wiser than most of us are even yet.\"\n\n{176}\n\nStriking as all this is, much more that is of interest might be added\nto it from Pagel's account of Lanfranc's work. Pagel says that he has\nexcellent chapters on the affections of the eyes, the ears and mouth,\nthe nose, even the teeth, and treats of hernia in a very practical,\ncommon sense way. He warns against the radical operation, and says in\nphrases that have often been repeated even in our own time, that many\nsurgeons decide on operations too easily, not for the sake of the\npatient, but for the sake of the money there is in them. He believes\nthat most of the danger and inconvenience of the hernia can be removed\nby means of a properly fitting truss. He treats of stone in the\nkidney, but insists that the main thing for this affection is\nprophylaxis. He suggests that stone in the bladder should first be\ntreated by internal remedies; but in severe cases advises extraction.\nLanfranc's discussion of cystotomy, Pagel characterizes \"as prudent,\nyet rational,\" for he considers that the operation should not be\nfeared too much nor delayed too long. In patients suffering from the\ninconvenience which comes from large quantities of fluid in the\nabdomen, he advises _paracentesis abdominis_. He warns, however,\nagainst putting the patient in danger from such an operation without\ndue consideration and only when symptoms absolutely demand it.\n\nPagel says that Lanfranc must be considered as one of the greatest of\nthe surgeons of the Middle Ages and the real founder of the French\nSchool of Surgery which continued to be the most prominent in the\nworld down to the nineteenth century. Lanfranc had equalled, if not\nsurpassed, his great master William Salicet. His own disciple,\nMondeville, accomplished almost as much for surgery as his master,\nhowever. Both of them were {177} destined to be thrown into the shade\nfor succeeding generations by another great French surgeon of the next\nhalf-century, Guy de Chauliac. Pagel can scarcely say enough of the\ncapacity as a teacher of Lanfranc. The seeds of surgical doctrine\nwhich he sowed bore fruit richly. His important successors in French\nsurgery walked for the most part in his tracks and thus furnished the\nbest proof of the enduring character of his capacity as a teacher.\n\nThe next great name in thirteenth century surgery, for we are not yet\nout of that fruitful period, is Henri de Mondeville. He was known by\nhis contemporaries and immediate successors as the most cultured of\nthe surgeons. Whatever he wrote bears the traces of his wide reading\nand of his respect for authority, yet shows also his power to make\nobservations for himself, and his name is due much more to his\nindependent work both in the technics and the diagnostics of surgery,\nthan to his reputation for scholarship or the depth of his culture.\nLanfranc (whose name was Lanfranchi) had been an Italian. Mondeville\nwas born in Normandy sometime about the beginning of the last quarter\nof the thirteenth century. The place of his education is not\nabsolutely sure, but there is good authority for saying that he was,\nfor a time at least, in Bologna. On his return from Italy he passed\nsome time, just at the beginning of the fourteenth century, in\nMontpelier. He seems to have looked for a professorship at Montpelier,\nbut instead received the appointment as surgeon to the French king,\nPhilip Le Bel. This brought him to Paris, where the first portion of\nhis book on surgery was written about 1306. This was not completed\nuntil 1312. His work was interrupted by several campaigns on which he\nattended {178} the king along the Northern coast. When he again took\nup his work of writing, he revised what he had written at first by the\nlight of the experience that he had acquired in the campaign. Pagel\nsays that his style is lively and clear and often full of meat. Many\nof his own opinions and experiences are incorporated in his work, and\nin spite of his tendency to display his erudition by quotations, his\noriginality is not seriously interfered with.\n\nSome of his remarks are very curiously interesting to the modern. He\nseems to have had the idea that portions of metal which had penetrated\nthe body as the result of explosions, for gun-powder was already being\nused, might be removed by means of a magnet. He would not have been a\ndistinguished surgeon without inventing a needle-holder, and\naccordingly we find that he was one of the first of a long line of\nsuch inventors. He invented certain instruments also for the removal\nof arrow-heads, which because of their form and hooks become firmly\nimbedded in the tissues. Mondeville had no such fear of trephining as\nLanfranc had, though he did not hesitate to emphasize the value of\nexpectant treatment in most of these cases of injury to the head that\nmight seem at first to demand the trephine.\n\nPagel notes the fact that when he prescribed drinks for his patients\nthis medieval surgeon suggested that certain verses of the psalms\nwhich were usually recited, according to the custom of the times,\nwhenever anything was administered to a patient, should be said. Pagel\nconsiders it quite natural that as a believing physician he should\nhave realized how much his believing patients would be influenced for\nthe better by such a procedure. He did not place any supreme faith in\nits efficacy, but {179} knew that it could do no harm, and had\nprobably seen, as has many a physician and surgeon of the modern time,\nthat such a practice does good, if not by the direct interference of\nProvidence, then at least by the calmness of mind which it\nsuperinduces in the patient. In the same way Mondeville was not averse\nto his patients going on pilgrimages. He did not expect that they\nwould all be cured miraculously, but according to Pagel, his\ndiscussion of this subject is quite modern. Travel and change of scene\nwould do good anyhow in many cases, expectancy would help the\npatient's condition, and the hope aroused was also good. The best\nmerit, however, of this French surgeon is undoubtedly the immense\ninfluence which he exerted over his great successor, Guy de Chauliac.\n\nWe are really only beginning to accumulate knowledge with regard to\nthe surgery of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Pagel has\ndevoted three very full pages, in his compressed account of surgery,\nto John Yperman, a surgeon of the early fourteenth century of whom\npractically nothing was known until about twenty-five years ago, when\nthe Belgian historian Broeck brought to light his works and gathered\nsome details of his life. He was a pupil of Lanfranc's, and at the end\nof the thirteenth century studied at Paris on a scholarship provided\nby his native town of Ypres, which deliberately sent him in order that\nhe might become expert in surgery. This may seem a strange thing for a\nmedieval town to do, at least it may seem so to those who have been\naccustomed to think little of the Middle Ages, but it will not to\nanyone who knows anything about the wonderful civic spirit of the Free\nTowns. In the chapter on Science at the Medieval Universities I have\nquoted {180} from Prince Kropotkin's work on Mutual Aid in the\nMedieval Towns, and further consultation of that as a ready reference,\nwould make all cause for ignorant surprise with regard to the culture\nand the enterprise of medieval towns disappear. Ypres, while a town of\nonly fifteen thousand inhabitants now, was one of the most important\ntowns of Flanders in the Middle Ages, noted for its manufacture of\nlinens and fine laces, and has a handsome cathedral dating from the\nthirteenth century and a town hall, the famous Cloth Hall, from the\nsame period, which is one of the most beautiful architectural\nmonuments in Europe and one of the finest municipal buildings in the\nworld.\n\nAfter his return Yperman settled down in his native town and practiced\nsurgery until his death, which probably took place about 1330. He\nobtained a great renown, and this has been maintained so that in that\npart of the country even yet, an expert surgeon is spoken of as an\nYperman. He is the author of two works in Flemish. One of these is\nwhat Pagel calls an unimportant compilation on internal medicine, but\nthe headings of the chapters as he gives them can scarcely fail to\nattract the attention of the modern physician. He treats of dropsy,\nrheumatism, under which occur the terms coryza and catarrh, icterus,\nphthisis (he calls the tuberculous, tysiken), apoplexy, epilepsy,\nfrenzy, lethargy, fallen palate, cough, shortness of breath, lung\nabscess, hemorrhage, blood-spitting, liver abscess, hardening of the\nspleen, affections of the kidney, bloody urine, diabetes, incontinence\nof urine, dysuria, strangury, gonorrhoea and involuntary seminal\nemissions--all these terms are quoted directly from Pagel.\n\nAll this would seem to show that Yperman was a {181} thoroughly\nrepresentative medical man. When I add that Pagel says he shows a well\nmarked striving to free himself from the bondage of authority and that\nmost of his therapeutic prescriptions rest upon his own experience, it\nwill be seen that he deserves the greatest possible credit. His work\nin medicine, however, Pagel considers as nothing compared to his work\nin surgery. A special feature of this is the presence of seventy\nillustrations of instruments of the most various kinds, together with\na plate showing the anatomical features of the stitching of a wound of\nthe head. The work as we have it is only a fragment. The last part of\nit which treated of the extremities is defective. If anyone thinks for\na moment that surgery was a neglected specialty at the end of the\nthirteenth and the beginning of the fourteenth century, he should\nconsult the text of this, or even Pagel's brief account of its\ncontents. Some of the features of it are noteworthy. There is a\nchapter devoted to intoxications, which includes the effects of\ncantharides as well as alcohol, and treats of the bites of snakes,\nscorpions, and of hydrophobia due to the bites of mad hounds. There is\nscarcely a feature of modern surgery of the head that is not touched\nupon very sensibly in this work.\n\nThe best proof, however, at once of the flourishing state of surgery\nduring the fourteenth century and of the utter absurdity of saying\nthat surgery did not develop because of the opposition of the Church\nor of ecclesiastics, and above all of the Popes, is to be found in the\nlife of Guy de Chauliac, who has been deservedly called the Father of\nModern Surgery and whose contributions to surgery occupy a prominent\nplace in every history of medicine that one picks up. While the works\nof other {182} great writers in surgery of the thirteenth and\nfourteenth centuries have as a rule only come to be commonly known\nduring the latter part of the nineteenth century, Guy de Chauliac's\nposition and the significance of his work and his writings have been a\ncommonplace in the history of medicine for as long as it has been\nwritten seriously. We have already stated in several places in this\nvolume his relations to the Popes. He was a chamberlain of the Papal\nCourt while it was at Avignon, and while he was teaching and\ndeveloping surgery at the University of Montpelier he was also body\nphysician to three of the Popes, and the intimate friend and\ninfluential adviser to whom they turned for consultation in matters\nrelating to medical education and to science generally.\n\nIn the present chapter, then, we shall only discuss the contributions\nto surgery of this surgeon of the Popes, at a time when, according to\nPresident White, because of Church opposition, surgery was considered\ndishonorable; \"_when the greatest monarchs were often unable to secure\nan ordinary surgical operation, and when it required an edict of the\nGerman Emperor in order that dishonor should no longer attach to the\nsurgical profession._\" This is what Chauliac accomplished, according\nto Professor Allbutt:\n\n  \"Of his substantial advances in surgery no sufficient account is\n  possible; but some chief points, with the aid of Haeser, Malgaigne,\n  and Nicaise, I may briefly sum up thus: He pointed out the dangers\n  of surgery of the neck, among them that of injuring the voice by\n  section of the recurrent laryngeal nerve, a precaution he probably\n  learned from Paul. He urges a low diet for the wounded, as did\n  Mondeville and many others. He uses sutures well and discreetly (p.\n  9), but with far too many salves. {183} On fractures of the skull he\n  is at his best; he noted the escape of cerebro-spinal fluid, and the\n  effect of pressure on the respiration. It is somewhat strange that\n  in days of war the study of chest wounds had been rather neglected\n  by Galen, Haly, and Avicenna; their practice, however, was to leave\n  them open, lest pus should gather about the heart. Theodoric and\n  Henry ordered chest wounds to be closed 'lest the vital spirits\n  escape.' Guy also closed these wounds, unless there were any\n  effusion to be removed. In empyema he objects to caustics and\n  prefers the knife. For haemorrhages he used sutures--a little too\n  closely perhaps--styptics, cautery or ligature. Sinuses he dilated\n  with tents of gentian root, or he incised them upon a director. On\n  ulcers his large experience is fully manifest. He describes the\n  carcinomatous kind as hopeless, unless the mass can be excised at a\n  very early stage and the incision followed by caustics. If in\n  fractures and dislocations he tells us nothing new, these sections\n  testify to a remarkable fulness of knowledge at a period when the\n  Hippocratic treatises were unknown. Haeser says that in respect of\n  position in fractured femur he was the best physician in the Middle\n  Ages.\"\n\n[Illustration: Guy de Chauliac's Cauteries:--5, 6, 7, 8, cauteries\ncalled from their shapes: knife, sword, olive, date kernel; 9, cautery\nwith protective nail to be inserted cold; 10, protective plate for\ncauteries.]\n\n\n[Illustration: Guy de Chauliac's Cauteries:--11, 12, long, smooth\ncautery and canula protector; 13, 14, ring cautery with five buttons\nand the protective plate with five openings.]\n\n\nThis is the period, it must not be forgotten, when, according to\nPresident White, surgery was in such a state that _the application of\nvarious ordures relieved fractures; the touch of the hangman cured\nsprains; the breath of a donkey expelled poison; friction with a dead\nman's tooth cured a toothache._ [Footnote 23]\n\n[Footnote 23: Quite as curious notions as these which President White\nmentions still exist in popular medicine in our own day. I have myself\nknown a man to blow the dried excrement of the dog into the throat of\nhis child suffering from diphtheria, and _he assured me that it cured\nhim_. In the country districts they still use ordure poultices for\nsprains of various kinds, and I have known doctors prescribe them. I\nhave seen an intelligent woman smoking dried angleworms in a pipe for\ntoothache. I sincerely hope, however, that no serious(!) historian of\nthe twenty-fifth century will gather up side remarks like the present\nwith regard to such curious customs--real superstitions that have\nnothing to do with religion, as most supersititions have not--and\nstate them as showing the ignorance of our generation, and above all\nas indicating the low state of medicine in our time.]\n\n{184}\n\nLest it should be thought that possibly Professor Allbutt had been\nrather partial to the great Father of Modern Surgery in his enthusiasm\nfor these medieval surgeons, it seems worth while to compress here\nsomething of what Pagel has to say with regard to this great man, who\nrepresents in himself a full hundred years of progress in surgery. He\nwrote an immense text-book of surgery, from which his teaching may be\nlearned with absolute authenticity. The great significance attached to\nGuy's writings by his contemporaries and successors will be readily\nappreciated from the immense number of manuscript copies, original\neditions in print, and the many translations which are extant. This\nmonument of scientific surgery has for dedication a sentence that\nwould alone and of itself obliterate all the nonsense that has been\ntalked about Papal opposition to the development of surgery. It runs\nas follows:--\n\n(I dedicate this work) \"To you my masters, physicians of Montpelier,\nBologna, Paris, and Avignon, especially you of the Papal Court with\nwhom I have been associated in the service of the Roman Pontiffs. The\nexact words as given by Pagel are \"Vobis dominis meis medicis\nMontispessulani, Bononiae, Parisiis atque Avinionis, praecipue\npapalibus, quibus me in servitio Romanorum pontificum associavi.\"\n\nPagel has three closely printed pages in small type of titles alone of\nsubjects which Chauliac treated with {185} distinction. His\ndescription of instruments and methods of operation is especially full\nand suggestive. He knew how to prescribe manipulations and set forth\nthe principles on which they were founded. Scarcely anything was added\nto his method of taxis for hernia for five centuries after his time.\nHe describes the passage of a catheter with the accuracy and complete\ntechnic of a man who knew all the difficulties of it in complicated\nconditions. He recognizes the dangers that arise for the surgeon from\nthe presence of anatomical anomalies of various kinds, and describes\ncertain of the more important of them. He did not hesitate to suggest\nsome very serious operations. For instance, for empyema he advises\nopening of the chest. He has very exact indications for trephining. He\nrecognizes the absolute fatality of wounds of the abdomen, in which\nthe intestines were opened, if they were left untreated, and describes\na method of suturing wounds of the intestines in order to save the\npatient's life. In a word, there is nothing that has been attempted in\nthese modern times, with our aseptic precautions and the advantage of\nanaesthesia, which this father of surgery did not discuss very\npractically and with excellent common sense as well as surgical\nacumen.\n\nChauliac's career is interesting because it is that of a self-made man\nof the Middle Ages, which brings out the fact that men do not differ\nso much as might be thought at this distance of time, and shows that\nthere were chances for a man to rise by his own genius from a lowly to\na lofty position at this time of the Middle Ages, when it is usually\nsupposed that men were excluded from such opportunities. Allbutt says\nof him:\n\n  \"Still, Guy of Chauliac, who flourished in the second {186} half of\n  the fourteenth century, was enabled to feed his virile and\n  inquisitive spirit on rich sources of learning. While he succeeded\n  to the stores of Arnold (of Villanova) and Gordon with his just and\n  cautious reason and wealth of experience, he cast out of them much\n  of the sorcery, jugglery, astrology and mysticism which were their\n  reproach. Chauliac is a village in the Auvergne, and Guy was but a\n  farmer's lad. It was by the aid of powerful friends that he studied\n  at Toulouse and Montpelier, took orders and the degree of Master of\n  Medicine; in his time there was no degree of Doctor of Medicine in\n  France. Then he studied anatomy at Bologna under Bertruccio, the\n  successor of Mondino, a study which, with Henry (de Mondeville) he\n  regarded as the foundation of surgery. The surgeon ignorant of\n  anatomy, he says, \"carves the human body as a blind man carves\n  wood.\" [Footnote 24]\n\n[Footnote 24: This is a very striking reflection on the necessity for\nthe study of anatomy for the practice of surgery to have been made\nwithin a half century after the supposed prohibition of dissection by\nthe Popes, and at a time when, according to President White, \"even\nsuch serious matters as fractures, calculi and difficult parturition,\nin which modern science has achieved some of its greatest triumphs,\nwere dealt with by relics,\" and when \"there were religious scruples\nagainst dissection,\" and surgery \"was denounced by the Church,\" and\nwhen \"pastoral medicine had checked all scientific effort in medical\nscience.\" And the reflection was made by a chamberlain of the Papal\nhousehold.]\n\n  \"Thence he paid a brief visit to Paris, where for a moment, by the\n  renown of Lanfranc, Jean Pitard, and Henry of Mondeville, surgery\n  was in the ascendant. For the moment the Church and the faculty had\n  not succeeded in paralyzing the scientific arm of medicine.\n  [Footnote 25] {187} Guy began practice in Lyons, whence he was\n  called to Avignon by Clement VI. as 'venerabilis et circumspectus\n  vir, dominus Guido de Cauliaco, canonicus et propositus ecclesiae\n  Sancti Justi Lugduni, medicusque domini nostri Papae.' In Avignon he\n  stayed, while other physicians fled, to minister to the victims of\n  the plague (A.D., 1348), and he may have attended Laura in spite of\n  Petrarch's tirades against all physicians and even against Guy\n  himself. His description of this epidemic is terrible in its naked\n  simplicity. He did not, indeed, himself escape, for he had an attack\n  with bubo, and was ill for six weeks. He gave succor also in a later\n  epidemic in Avignon, in 1360. His 'Chirurgia Magna' or Inventarium\n  seu Collectorium Artis Chirurgicalis Medicinae--so called in\n  distinction to the meagre little handbooks or Chirurgiae Parvae\n  compiled from the larger treatises--was in preparation in 1363.\n  This great work I have studied carefully, and not without prejudice;\n  and yet I cannot wonder that Fallopius compared the author to\n  Hippocrates, or that John Freind calls him the Prince of Surgeons.\n  It is rich, aphoristic, orderly and precise. _As a clerk_ he wrote\n  in Latin, in the awkward hybrid tongue that medical Latin then was,\n  containing many Arabian, Provencal and French words, but very little\n  Greek.\"\n\n[Footnote 25: It is worthy of remark, how even Prof. Allbutt, in a\npassage like this, where he is providing abundant material for the\ncontradiction of the English Protestant tradition of the supposed\nopposition of the Church to science, and especially to surgery, yet\ncannot break away from the influence of that tradition entirely. It\nhas been bred in him, and even while showing its falsity he is not\nentirely convinced himself, because the old mode of view has so firm a\nhold on him that he is not open to conviction. A little later in this\nsame passage he speaks of taking up the study of Chauliac, prejudiced\nagainst him, and being convinced of his greatness against his\nwill. Verily history has been a conspiracy against the truth, in which\nmany people have joined almost unconsciously, led astray by feeling,\nnot intellect.]\n\n\n[Illustration:\nGuy de Chauliac's Instruments:--15, 16, cautery apparatus with canula\nfor cauterizing the uvula and tonsils; 17, bistoury; 18, amputation\nknife; 19, small sickle knife for opening abscesses and fistulas.]\n\n\n[Illustration: Guy de Chauliac's Instruments:--21, bow for extracting\narrows the head of which had penetrated a limb; 22, mechanical\ntrephine revolved by up-and-down movement of cross-bar.]\n\n\nWe have seen that there was great surgery in Italy, in France, and in\nthe Netherlands, but it had also crossed the channel into England.\n\nThere was a famous English surgeon during the {188} fourteenth century\nby the name of John Ardern. He was educated at Montpelier and\npracticed surgery for a time in France. About the middle of the\ncentury, however, according to Pagel, he went back to his native land\nand settled for some twenty years at Newark, in Nottinghamshire, and\nthen for nearly thirty years longer, until nearly the end of the\ncentury, was in London. He is the chief representative of English\nsurgery during the Middle Ages. His Practice, as yet unprinted,\ncontains, according to Pagel, a short sketch of internal medicine, but\nis mainly devoted to surgery. Contrary to the usual impression with\nregard to works in medicine and surgery at this time, the book abounds\nin references to case histories which Ardern had gathered, partly from\nhis own and partly from others' experience. The therapeutic measures\nthat he suggests are usually very simple, in the majority of cases\nquite rational, though, of course, there are many superstitions among\nthem; but Ardern always furnished a number of suggestions from which\nto choose. He must have been an expert operator, and had excellent\nsuccess in the treatment of diseases of the rectum. He seems to have\nbeen the first operator who made statistics of his cases, and was\nquite as proud as any modern surgeon, of the large numbers that he had\noperated on, which he gives very exactly. He was the inventor of a new\nclyster apparatus.\n\nDaremberg, the medical historian, who saw a copy of Ardern's\nmanuscript in St. John's College, Oxford, says that it contains\nnumerous illustrations of instruments and operations. His work seems\nreally to be a series of monographs or collection of special articles\non different subjects, which Ardern had made at various times, rather\nthan a connected work. Pagel bewails the fact {189} that a more\nthorough consideration of Ardern's work is impossible, because the\ngreater part of what he wrote remains as yet unprinted.\n\nIn general, when we consider how difficult was the task of making\ncopies of works on surgery by hand, and especially such as contain\nnumerous illustrations, the wonder grows that we should have so much\nabout the surgery of these centuries rather than so little. Some of\nthese works have been preserved for us by the merest chance. There\nhave been many centuries since their time, when what these surgeons\nwrote would have been thought of very little value because physicians\nwere not educated up to them. In spite of this liability to loss,\nwhich must have caused the destruction of many valuable works, we\nstill have enough to show us what wonderful men were these surgeons of\nthe thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, who anticipated our best\nthinking of the modern times in many of the most difficult problems.\nIt is only during the last twenty-five years that anything like\njustice has been done them. The only way to know what these men did\nand taught is to read their own works, and these have been buried in\nmanuscript or hidden away in large folio volumes, printed very early\nin the history of printing, and considered so valuable that\nconsultation of them was almost resented by librarians. Anyone who\ntalks about the lack of surgery in Europe during the thirteenth and\nfourteenth centuries is supremely ignorant of the real course of\nhistory at this time, and when in addition he attributes the failure\nof surgery to develop to a trumped-up opposition of the Church or\necclesiastics, he is simply making a ridiculous exhibition of\nintolerance and of foolish readiness to accept anything, however\ngroundless, that may {190} enable him to make out a case against the\necclesiastical authorities.\n\nIt is curious to reflect that in spite of all this wonderful progress\nin surgery, somehow there has crept in the tradition which has been\nvery generally accepted by historians not acquainted with the details\nof medical history, that surgery was neglected during the thirteenth\nand fourteenth centuries. The existence of this tradition, and its\nacceptance by men who had no idea that they were being influenced by\nthat peculiar state of mind which considers that nothing good can come\nout of the Nazareth of the times before the reformation so-called, is\nof itself a warning with regard to the way history has been written,\nespecially for the Teutonic and English-speaking peoples, that should\ncarry weight in other departments of history beside medicine and\nsurgery.\n\nEven Pagel could not get entirely away from the old tradition which\nhas existed for so long, that the Church, if she did not oppose, at\nleast hampered the progress of surgery. While his first paragraph\nshows that he recognized the important advances that were made in the\nMiddle Ages, he cannot rid himself of the prejudice that has existed\nso long and has tinged so much of the historical writing of the last\nfour centuries. He furnishes an abundance of material himself to\ndisprove the old opinion, and evidently has been influenced by this\nevidence, but cannot give up notions that have been part and parcel of\nhis education from his earliest days in Protestant Germany. He says:--\n\n  \"A set-back must also be recognized to some extent in surgery,\n  especially attributable to the fact that as a consequence of the\n  pressure of the Church upon scientific medicine, the representatives\n  of medical {191} science felt themselves bound to neglect the\n  practical art of surgical operation. Church regulations forbade the\n  shedding of blood to churchmen, and not a few physicians were more\n  than inclined to accept this prohibition as in accordance with their\n  own feelings. For this reason the practice of surgery was left for\n  the most part to the lower orders of those engaged in healing. This\n  went to such an extent, that physicians even came to look upon\n  surgery as an unworthy occupation. Even venesection, which was so\n  commonly employed and which came to be indispensable to the practice\n  of internal medicine, made it necessary to call for the services of\n  a barber-surgeon.\"\n\nAs we shall see, there were many other and much more important factors\nat work in the degradation of surgery than the supposed repression of\nthe Church. The time to which Pagel refers is in the earlier centuries\nof the Middle Ages, and not the later ones; yet it is from these later\ncenturies that the supposed prohibitory decrees are all quoted. The\ncontempt for surgery was due rather to the general lack of culture\nbefore the foundation of the universities than to any ecclesiastical\nrepression. Just as soon as the great medical schools were opened--and\nthat at Salerno came into existence in the early part of the tenth\ncentury if not earlier--surgery began to be in honor. Pagel himself\nconfesses this in the very next paragraph of this brief conspectus of\nsurgery, and shows how generally was the uplift of surgery made\npossible by university education, though there still remained many\ndrawbacks to progress because of the jealousy of physicians.\n\n  \"Gradually, however, a beneficial transformation of customs in this\n  matter began to be manifest. Physicians {192} who were\n  scientifically trained began to take up surgery with enthusiasm, and\n  from that time (end of twelfth century) dates the visible uplift of\n  this specialty. Eventually the most noteworthy literary events and\n  remains of the representatives of the great schools of the Middle\n  Ages--Salerno, Bologna, Paris and Montpelier--concern quite as much\n  the department of surgery as of practical medicine. These medieval\n  literary contributions constitute the principal steps in the\n  historical development of scientific surgery. The Crusades represent\n  an extremely important influence upon the perfecting of the surgery\n  of wounds. Italian surgeons in large numbers took prominent parts\n  therein. They took the abundant opportunities afforded them to\n  gather experience, which they used to great advantage in their\n  practice and in their teaching after their return home. From Roger,\n  the first and most important of the representatives of the\n  Salernitan school (whose life occupies the end of the twelfth and\n  the beginning of the thirteenth century), and down to Guy de\n  Chauliac (who died toward the end of the fourteenth century), in a\n  space therefore of not quite two hundred years, a complete breach\n  with the blood-fearing traditions of the Arabs was made. In no\n  European land does one fail to find evidence of intense as well as\n  successful scientific occupation with surgery.\"\n\nAs a reflection that throws a brilliant light on the true conditions\nthat brought about the diminished estimation in which surgery came to\nbe held, Guy de Chauliac has an interesting passage in which he\nsuggests an explanation for it, which is surely much nearer the truth\nthan any modern explanation is likely to be. He says that, after the\ntime of the Arabs, who were all both physicians and surgeons, either\nbecause of the lack of interest of {193} physicians or their laziness,\nfor the practice of surgery is a difficult matter, or because they\ncame to be too much occupied with the ills which they might hope to\ncure by medicines alone, surgery became separated from medicine and\npassed down into the hands of mere mechanics. This is a complaint not\ninfrequently heard even at the present day, that medicine and surgery\nare drawing too much apart for the good of either specialty. Both the\nRegius Professors of medicine in England have recently insisted that\nphysicians must oftener be present at operations if they would really\nappreciate the value of diagnosis, while there has been for many years\na feeling that surgery would be benefitted if surgeons did not always\nwish to have recourse to the knife, but appreciated how much good\nmight be accomplished by other remedial measures. The great French\nFather of Surgery, then, was only expressing what was to be a\nperennial complaint in the domain of medicine and surgery when he\nexplained the separation of the two departments of healing. He has\nnothing whatever to say of the evil influence upon surgery of any\nChurch regulations, though he must have been in a position to realize\ntheir significance very well in this respect if they actually had any.\nHe was himself, as we have said, a member of the Papal household; he\nwas even a cleric, and seems to have encountered no difficulty at all\nnot only in devoting himself to surgery, but even in lifting up that\ndepartment of medicine from the slough of neglect into which it had\nfallen because of the lack of initiative of preceding generations in\nhis native land.\n\nIt may be wondered, then, how the tradition of opposition to surgery,\nwhich is so common in history, had its origin. Nearly always for these\nexaggerated stories {194} there is some basis of truth. For instance,\nwith regard to the opposition to Vesalius, the origin of the stories\nof persecution by the Church and ecclesiastical authorities is\nevidently the fact that he was very much opposed by the old-time\nphysicians and surgeons, who believed in Galen and thought it worse\nthan heresy to break with him. It is the opposition of scientists, or\npseudo-scientists, to scientific progress that constitutes the real\nbar to advance, and has over and over again been attributed to\nreligious motives, when it is really due to that very human\noverconservatism, which so constantly places men in the position of\nopponents to novelties of any kind, no matter how much of value they\nmay eventually prove to have. There has always existed a certain\nprejudice against surgery on the part of physicians--meaning by that\nterm, for the moment, those who devote themselves to internal\nmedicine. This feeling has never quite died out. There were times in\nthe Middle Ages when it was very marked. Not a little of the feeling\nis due to professional jealousy, and that, it is to be feared, like\nthe poor, we shall have always with us.\n\nProfessor Allbutt has in the address at St. Louis, already quoted\nfrom, a very interesting passage with regard to the College of St.\nCome at Paris, in which this jealousy between physicians and surgeons\nis very well brought out. I quote it here in order to illustrate once\nmore that opposition of scientists to scientific advance, for personal\nreasons, which has always existed, is still one of the features of the\nhistory of science, and will probably always continue to be a\nnoteworthy phase of scientific progress. It will serve at the same\ntime to furnish to those who cannot think that these stories with\nregard to the hampering of surgical development are {195} entirely\nwithout foundation, some basis for them that will account for their\nuniversality, but will only render clearer the intolerance of those\nwho have constantly perverted the meaning of this opposition to\npersecution on the part of Church authorities. Ecclesiastics not only\nhad nothing to do with this, but more often than not were the active\nfactors in such amelioration of the conditions it brought about as\nvery much to lessen its effects.\n\n  Allbutt's story of the College of Surgeons of St. Come at Paris is,\n  as we have said, interesting from this standpoint. \"Some of my\n  readers may wonder how it is that in discoursing of medieval surgery\n  I have not dwelt upon the Surgical College of St. Come of Paris.\n  Well, St. Come did no great things for surgery. The truth is that,\n  infected with the exclusiveness and dialectical conceits of all the\n  schools of Paris, St. Come was almost ready to sacrifice surgery\n  itself if thereby it might choke off its parasites, the barbers.\n  Lest they should be suspected of mixing their philosophy with facts,\n  its members went about with their hands ostentatiously tied behind\n  them. If perhaps Malgaigne speaks too contemptuously of St. Come, it\n  must be admitted that the college was in a false position\n  throughout. In aping the Faculty of Medicine, it lost the touch of\n  mother earth without gaining any harbourage in the deep waters of\n  the proud. Nay, such is the Nemesis of pride, the barbers came to\n  command the position. It did not suit the Faculty to see the barbers\n  weakened; for in their weakness lay the strength of the surgeons of\n  St. Come, who sought incessantly to appear as lettered clerks, to\n  attach their college to the university, and even to claim a place\n  beside the Faculty itself. To bring St. Come to its knees, and to\n  check the presumptuous claims of this corporation on the {196}\n  privileges of the Faculty of Medicine, on a liberal education in\n  arts and medicine, on a place in the university, on the suppression\n  of unqualified surgical practice, and less, honourably, on relief\n  from handicraft and urgent calls, the Faculty had to coquette with\n  the barbers. Medicine, proclaimed the Faculty when it suited its\n  purpose, contains the theoretical and the practical side of surgery;\n  a surgeon is therefore but the servant of a physician. If St. Come\n  sought to provide lectures in surgery, the Faculty, which kept\n  possession of teaching licenses and desired in the surgeon a docile\n  assistant, took the teaching from the college and invited the\n  barbers to lectures of its own. In their duplicity and conceit of\n  caste, physicians of the Faculty condescended even to publish books\n  on surgery, books as arid and as insincere as their lectures. On the\n  other hand, in the person of the King's Barber, the barbers had a\n  secret and potent influence at Court. The Faculty persisted in\n  denying to St. Come all 'esoteric' teaching, all diagnosis, and all\n  use of medical therapeutics. Aristotle was pronounced to be\n  unfavorable to the 'vulgarizing of science.' Joubert was attacked\n  for editing Guy, but replied with dignity (in the notes of his\n  edition). While the Faculty thus tried to prevent the access to\n  letters of a presumptuous body of artisans, St. Come in mimic\n  arrogance disdained the barbers, sought to deny them the name of\n  surgeon, and was jealous of the diffusion of technical knowledge\n  among them in the vernacular tongue.\" [Footnote 26]\n\n    [Footnote 26: As showing how professional jealously may exist in\n    such ways in the modern times as to hinder progress, the following\n    paragraph, which is the opening portion of Professor Allbutt's\n    address, has seemed to me to deserve quotation here. It will\n    illustrate a phase of the subject that is probably utterly\n    unexpected by those unfamiliar with the inner history of medicine\n    in our time, but which is not so surprising to physicians who know\n    the jealousy with which men guard their specialties from what they\n    consider the interference of others, in hospital work and in\n    teaching, though this exclusiveness often proves detrimental both\n    to the breadth of development of the student and to the good\n    health of the patient.\n\n    \"It was, I think, in the year 1864, when I was a novice on the\n    Honorary Staff of the Leeds General Infirmary, that the unsurgical\n    division of us was summoned in great solemnity to discuss a method\n    of administration of drugs by means of a needle. This method\n    having obtained some vogue, it behooved those who practiced 'pure'\n    medicine to decide whether the operation were consistent with the\n    traditions of purity. For my part, I answered that the method had\n    come up early, if not originally, in St. George's Hospital, and in\n    the hands of a house physician--Dr. C. Hunter; that I had\n    accustomed myself already to the practice and proposed to continue\n    it; moreover, that I had recently come from the classes of\n    Professor Trousseau, who, when his cases demanded such treatment,\n    did not hesitate himself to perform paracentesis of the pleura, or\n    even incision of this sac, or of the pericardium. As, for lack not\n    of will but of skill and nerve, I did not intend myself to perform\n    even minor operations, my heresy, as one in thought only, was\n    indulgently ignored, and we were set free to manipulate the drug\n    needle if we felt disposed to this humble service.\"]\n\n\n{197}\n\nIn conclusion, we may say that, in the Middle Ages, once men had\nlifted themselves up from the condition into which they had been\nplunged by the incursions of the barbarians, there was nothing like\nthe neglect of surgery which is sometimes said to have existed.\nSurgery had its normal development, and reached as high a stage as\nmedicine in that beginning Renaissance, which is the characteristic\nfeature of the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries. The\ntraditions of a low state of surgery at this time are all false and\nfounded on insufficient knowledge of the real conditions, which have\nbeen so clearly revealed to us by the investigation of original\ndocuments in the last twenty-five years. This was, in fact, one of the\ngreatest periods in the history of surgery that the world has ever\nknown. Whatever of difficulty in development surgery encountered was\ndue not to any Church opposition, but to unfortunate conditions that\narose in the practice of medicine. Professional jealousy and\nshortsightedness was the main element in it. Even this, however, did\nnot prevent the very wonderful development of surgery that came {198}\nduring the Middle Ages, and that made this department of human\nknowledge quite as progressive and successful as any other, in that\nmarvelous period when the universities came into existence in the form\nwhich they have maintained ever since.\n\n\n{199}\n\n                      PAPAL PHYSICIANS.\n\nMost of what historical writers generally, who follow the old\ntraditions of the medieval eclipse of medicine, have to say with\nregard to the supposed Papal opposition to the development of medical\nscience, is founded on the assumption that men who believed in\nmiracles and in the efficacy of prayer for the relief of disease could\nnot possibly be interested to any serious degree in scientific\nmedicine. As Dr. White says, \"out of all these inquiries came\ninevitably that question whose logical answer was especially injurious\nto the development of medical science: why should men seek to build up\nscientific medicine and surgery, when relics, pilgrimages, and sacred\nobservances, according to an overwhelming mass of concurrent\ntestimony, have cured and are curing hosts of sick folk in all parts\nof Europe.\" He goes even farther than this, however, when he suggests\nthat \"it would be expecting too much from human nature to imagine that\nPontiffs who derived large revenues from the sale of the Agnus Dei, or\npriests who derived both wealth and honors from cures wrought at\nshrines under their care, or lay dignitaries who had invested heavily\nin relics, should favor the development of any science which\nundermined their interests.\"\n\nOn the strength of assumptions such as these, that \"medieval belief in\nmiracles of healing must have checked medical science,\" and that\ntherefore it did actually prevent the development of scientific\nmedicine, statements are made with regard to the history of {200}\nmedicine that are utterly at variance with the plain facts of history.\nOnce more, as in the case of the supposed failure of surgery to\ndevelop during the Middle Ages, it is a deduction that has been made\nfrom certain supposed principles, and not an induction from the actual\nfacts as we know them. Such historians would be the first to emphasize\nthe narrowness of the schoolmen for their supposed dependence on\ndeduction, but what they have to say on medical history is entirely\ndeductive, and unfortunately from premises that will not stand in the\npresence of the story of the wonderful rise and development of medical\nscience and medical education, mainly under the patronage of\necclesiastics, in the Middle Ages.\n\nThe argument may be stated formally with perfect fairness as follows:\nWhen men believe in miracles they cannot build up scientific medicine\nand surgery; but men believed in miracles in the Middle Ages,\ntherefore they did not build up scientific medicine and surgery. When\nstated thus baldly in formal scholastic form, the argument loses most\nof the glamor that has been thrown around it. This is one of the\nadvantages of the old scholastic method--it strips argument to its\nnaked significance. Logic asserts herself and rhetoric loses its\nforce.\n\nWith regard to the major premise that when men believe in miracles\nthey will not successfully pursue investigations in the medical\nscience, there are two answers. One of these concerns the actual\nattitude of mind towards scientific medicine of men who believe in\nmiracles, for we have such men still with us, and have always had them\nall during the past seven centuries. The other portion of the answer\nconcerns what men who were distinguished scientific investigators\nthought of {201} miracles, and how much they accomplished for the\nmedical sciences while all the time maintaining their belief in the\npossibility of miraculous intervention for the cure of disease.\n\nApparently the writers who insist on the incompatibility of the belief\nin miracles with devotion to scientific medicine do not realize that\nthe greater number of thinking physicians during the last seven\ncenturies, and quite down to our own day, have been ready to confess\ntheir belief in the possibility of miraculous healing, yet have tried\nto do everything in their power to relieve suffering and cure human\nills by the natural means at their command. Their attitude has been\nvery much that attributed to Ignatius of Loyola, who said to the\nmembers of his order: \"Do everything that you can with the idea that\neverything depends on you, and then hope for results just as if\neverything depended on God.\" There is no lack of logic in this; and\nthe physician of the present day who realizes his impotency in the\npresence of so many of the serious ailments of mankind is not a\nscoffer at the attitude of mind that looks for help from prayer; but\nif he is sensible, welcomes the placidity of mind this will give his\npatient, even if he does not, as many actually do, however, believe in\nthe possible interposition of supernatural forces.\n\nIf Prof. White knew anything about the lives of the men whose names\nare most distinguished in the history of medicine during the\nthirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, we would have heard\nnothing of his almost incomprehensible negation of the existence of\nscientific medicine, during centuries when so many men who have\nstamped their names indelibly on the history of the medical sciences\nwere doing their work and {202} writing. If he had taken any pains to\nlearn even a few details of the personal relations of these old-time\nmakers of medicine to the Popes, we would have heard none of this\nutter absurdity of Papal opposition to medicine or ecclesiastical\nhampering of medical science. To answer Prof. White's argument, that\n\"it would be expecting too much from human nature to imagine that\nPontiffs should favor the development of any science which undermined\ntheir interests,\" the simple story of the men the Popes choose as\ntheir own medical advisers, and who because of the prestige of their\nappointment as Papal Physicians helped to raise up in the eyes of the\npeople the dignity of the medical profession which they represented,\nwill be quite enough. It will also serve to show how different is\nhistory founded on an assumption from history founded on actual facts.\n\nThe best, most easily obtainable, and most impressive data for the\ninductive method of reaching the truth as regards the relation of the\nPopes to medical science and (because of the fact that physicians were\nthe scientists _par excellence_ of the Middle Ages) to all science,\nwill be found in a brief consideration of the lives of the men who\noccupied the position of Papal Physician during the last seven\ncenturies. I do not think that this group of men has ever been treated\ntogether before; at least I have been unable to find any work on the\nsubject. While I am able to present a considerable amount of\ninteresting material in brief form with regard to them, I am sure that\nthere are many of them whom I have omitted. Practically up to the day\nof going to press I have been finding new references that led to\nfurther precious information with regard to this most wonderful group\nof men in medical history. It will be well {203} understood, then,\nthat impressive as the consideration of the work and character of the\nmen whose names I have found must be, this does not represent all the\ntruth in the matter, but can be supplemented without much difficulty\nfrom other sources.\n\nIf the Popes had been interested only in the miraculous healing of\ndisease, and had wished to teach the lesson that men should depend\nsolely for their recovery from serious symptoms and ailments of all\nkinds on prayers and relics and pilgrimages, then they would either\nhave had no physicians at all in regular attendance on them, or at\nleast their physicians would not have been selected from among the men\nwho were doing most to advance the cause of practical and scientific\nmedicine and of medical education. The very opposite of this is the\ncase. The Papal physicians were as a rule the most scientific medical\nmen of their time. This is not a pious exaggeration, but is literally\ntrue for seven centuries of history, as we shall see presently. The\nwonder of it is that there were not some charlatans among them. The\nphysicians whom educated people select are not, as physicians we'll\nknow, always worthy examples of progressive medical men. Literary folk\nparticularly seem to have a distinct tendency to want to be different\nfrom other people, and their physicians are often the veriest\ntheorizers. A medical friend who occasionally quotes, but perverts the\nold line, \"the people people have for friends are often very queer,\"\nsays, half in jest of course, but alas! more than half in earnest,\nthat \"the people literary folk and the clergy have for doctors are the\nqueerest ducks (docs.) of all.\"\n\nIt is only too true that clergymen are especially prone to be erratic\nin the choice of their medical advisers and {204} lacking in a\ncritical judgment as to the remedies and methods of treatment of which\nthey become the willing recipients, and occasionally even the sponsors\nas regards other people, who look up to their judgment for other\nreasons with confidence. Prof. Osler once said that the nearer to the\nCouncil of Trent the clergyman, the nearer he was likely to be to\ntruth and common sense in medical matters; but then perhaps all would\nnot agree with him. It is all the more surprising under the\ncircumstances, and very greatly to their credit, that the Popes should\nhave had as their physicians a list of men whose names are the\nbrightest on the roll of great contributors to medical literature and\nsome of the most distinguished among the great discoverers in medical\nscience.\n\nThis fact alone constitutes the most absolute contradiction of the\ndeclarations as to supposed Church opposition to medicine that could\npossibly be given. No better means of encouraging, fostering, and\npatronizing medical science could be thought of than to give the\nprestige and the emoluments of physician to the head of the Church to\nimportant makers of medicine in every generation. The physicians to\nthe rulers of Europe have not always been selected with as good\njudgment, and, as I have already said, there is no list of physicians\nto any European Court, nor indeed any list of names of medical men\nconnected together by any bond in history--no list, for instance, of\nany medical faculty of a university--which can be compared for\nprestige in scientific medicine with the Papal Physicians.\n\nBefore the beginning of the thirteenth century very little is known of\nthe medical attendants of the Popes. We point out in the following\nchapter that the Papacy was closely in touch with the medical school\nat Salernum. {205} It seems not unlikely, and indeed there are some\ntraditions to that effect, that in cases of severe illnesses of the\nPopes, important members of the medical faculty were sometimes\nsummoned from the South of Italy to Rome. The relations of the Popes\nto the neighboring abbey of Monte Cassino might, as we have said,\nsuggest this. We have, however, very few details in this matter. With\nthe beginning of the great thirteenth century, however, the records of\nhuman achievement in every line are better kept, and at once we begin\nto know something definite about Papal Physicians. The first one of\ndecided prominence was Guy or Guido of Montpelier, who was summoned to\nRome by Pope Innocent III. in order that he might re-establish the\nhospital of the Santo Spirito at Rome, in accordance with what were\nconsidered to be the latest ideas in the matter of hospital building\nand the enlightened care of the sick. How well he accomplished this\nwork, and how well he deserves to head the glorious roll of Papal\nPhysicians, will be seen in the chapter on The Popes and City\nHospitals.\n\nThe next of the Papal Physicians of whom much is known in the history\nof medicine was Richard the Englishman, usually spoken of as Ricardus\nAnglicus. He was the physician to the famous Pope Gregory IX.\n(1237-1241). Richard, who was born in England not long before the\nbeginning of the thirteenth century, died shortly after the middle of\nthat century. For a time he was at Paris, and accordingly is sometimes\nspoken of as Ricardus Parisiensis. According to Gabriel Naude he was\nat Paris after the death of his patient, Gregory IX., and towards the\nend of his life retired to the Abbey of St. Victor, to spend his last\ndays in recollection and prayer. In this he anticipated another great\nEnglish physician {206} with a European reputation--Linacre--who,\nthree centuries later, after having been the royal physician for many\nyears to King Henry VIII., became a clergyman. It is interesting to\nrealize that, early in history as Richard's life occurs, some works\nattributed to him contain definite information with regard to anatomy.\nMost of this, it is true, is taken from Hippocrates, Galen, and the\nArabs, but some of it seems to be the result of his own personal\nexperience, on the living, if not on the dead.\n\nAfter Richard, the next of the physicians to the Popes who has an\nimportant place in the history of medicine is the famous Thaddeus\nAlderotti, who lived for more than eighty years during the thirteenth\ncentury. He has the added interest for this generation of having been\na self-made man, for he was the son of very poor parents of the lowest\nrank. Up to his thirtieth year he remained without any special\neducation. He made his living, it is said, by selling candles. Having\nacquired a little competency, at the age of thirty he began with great\nzeal the study of philosophy and of medicine, two sciences which in\nthe old days were supposed to go very well together, though,\nunfortunately, they are often rigidly separated from each other in\nlater times. Fifteen years after he began the study of medicine we\nhear of him as a medical teacher, and then ten years later he began to\nbe famous as a writer on all sorts of medical topics. He became the\nphysician of Pope Honorius IV., himself one of the most liberal and\nbroadly educated of men, and as the result of the confidence awakened\nby his occupancy of this honorable position, he secured an immense\nsuccess in practice and made an enormous fortune. Alderotti's work\nrepresents what is best in medicine for the whole of the thirteenth\ncentury.\n\n{207}\n\nA curiously interesting episode that deserves a place in the history\nof Papal Physicians occurred during Alderotti's life. One of the Popes\nelected to fill the Papal chair had been earlier in life a physician.\nThis was the famous Peter of Spain, though he was really a Portuguese,\nwho, under the name of John XXI., occupied the Papal throne during the\nyears 1276-1277. Peter of Spain had been one of the most distinguished\nnatural scientists of this interesting century. Dr. J. B. Petella, in\nan article published in Janus about ten years ago, entitled A Critical\nand Historical Study of the Knowledge of Ophthalmology of a\nPhilosopher Physician who became Pope, gives an excellent account of\nthe life of Pope John XXI. [Footnote 27]\n\n[Footnote 27: Janus, Archives International es pour l'histoire de la\nMedicine et pour la Geographie Medicale, paraissant tous les deux\nmois. Amsterdam, 1897-1898.]\n\nPetella does not hesitate to say of him that he was \"one of the most\nrenowned personages of Europe during the thirteenth century, from the\npoint of view of the triple evolution of his extraordinary mind, which\ncaused him to make his mark in the physical sciences, in the\nmetaphysical sciences, and in the religious world. In him there was an\nincarnation of the savant of the time, and he must be considered the\nmost perfect encyclopedist of the Middle Ages in their first\nrenascence.\"\n\nAnyone who reads Dr. Petella's account of this book by Pope John XXI.\nwill be surprised at how much was known about diseases of the eye at\nthe middle of the thirteenth century. For instance, hardening of the\neye is spoken of as a very serious affection, so that there seems to\nbe no doubt that the condition now known as glaucoma was recognized\nand its bad prognosis appreciated. His account of the external anatomy\nof the eye, eight coats of which he describes, beginning with the\n{208} conjunctiva and ending with the retina, is quite complete. The\neye is said to have eight muscles, the levator of the upper eyelid and\nthe sphincter muscle of the eye being counted among them. The other\nmuscles are picturesquely described as reins, that is, guiding ribbons\nfor the eye. Cataract is described as water descending into the eye,\nand two forms of it are distinguished--one traumatic, due to external\ncauses, and the other due to internal causes. Lachrimal fistula is\ndescribed and its causes discussed. Various forms of blepharitis are\ntouched upon. Many suggestions are made for the treatment of\ntrichiasis. That a man who was as distinguished in medicine as Peter\nof Spain should have been elected Pope, is the best possible proof\nthat there was no opposition between science and religion during the\nthirteenth century.\n\nBut to return to the Papal Physicians in our original meaning of the\nterm. Alderotti's successor as physician to the Papal Court was\nscarcely, if any, less distinguished. This was Simon Januensis, the\nmedical attendant to Pope Nicholas IV., whose pontificate lasted from\n1288-1292. Simon did much to make the use of opium more scientific\nthan it had been, and he established definite rules for its\nadministration. Before this the anodyne effects of the drug had been\nwell known, but the difficulty had been to regulate its dosage\nproperly and prevent the use of too large quantities, while at the\nsame time securing the administration of sufficient of the drug to\nrelieve pain. At the beginning there was much prejudice with regard to\nopium. Indeed, as every physician knows, this prejudice has not\nentirely died out even in our own day. How much of good, then, Simon\nwas able to accomplish because the prestige of his position as {209}\nPapal Physician helped to break down this prejudice, and how much\nhuman suffering he saved as a consequence, it is easy to understand.\n\nSimon is best known in the history of medical science as the author of\nwhat was probably the first important dictionary of medicine. This was\ncalled the Synonyma Medicinae or Clavis Sanationis, the Key of Health.\nSteinschneider has declared this book to be one of the most important\nworks in the field of Synonymies. Julius Pagel, in his chapter on\nTherapeutics in the Middle Ages, in Puschmann's Handbook of the\nHistory of Medicine, already quoted, says that this Papal Physician\nsucceeded in solving very happily the problem which he set himself, of\ngathering together the information that had been collected during past\ncenturies with regard to medical words, and especially those relating\nto the use of various remedial measures. The industry of the writer\nmay be very well appreciated from the fact that his glossary contains\nsome six thousand articles. Its place in the history of science, as\ngiven by Meyer, the German historian of botany, is that for the\nunderstanding of the older words in natural science, no better aid\nthan this can be found. He considers it the best work of its kind\nuntil Caspar Bauhin's similar volume came to replace it, but that was\nnot until well on in the seventeenth century. Simon was greatly\nencouraged in this work by Popes Nicholas IV. and Boniface VIII., to\nboth of whom he was body physician and at the same time an intimate\nfriend.\n\nThe custom of having for medical attendant one of the leading\nphysicians of the day, if not actually the most prominent medical\nscientist of the time, which had obtained at Rome during the\nthirteenth century, was maintained at Avignon during the\nthree-quarters of a {210} century in which the Papal See had its seat\nthere. Just who the regular medical attendant of Clement V., the first\nof the Avignon Popes, was is not very sure. When he became seriously\nill toward the end of his life, however, Arnold of Villanova, one of\nthe professors of physic at Paris and probably the most distinguished\nliving physician of the time, was summoned in consultation, and began\nhis journey down to Avignon. This summons attracted widespread\nattention, which was still further emphasized by the fact that Arnold\nof Villanova died on the journey. It is not difficult to appreciate\neven at this distance of time how much weight the summoning of a\nphysician from a long distance to attend His Holiness would have on\nthe minds of the people, and how much it would tend to call their\nattention to the important medical school from which the great man\ncame. People generally, who heard the facts, would want at least to\nhave in attendance on them, if possible, a physician who had been\ngraduated at the school from which Arnold of Villanova was summoned on\nhis important medical mission. How much this would mean for the\nencouragement of scientific medicine as it was developing at the\nUniversity of Paris can scarcely be overestimated.\n\nThe distinct tendency of the Popes to keep in touch with the best men\nin medicine and surgery in their time is well illustrated by the case\nof Guy de Chauliac. This great French surgeon and professor at the\nUniversity of Montpelier is hailed by the modern medical world as the\nFather of Modern Surgery. There is no doubt at all of his intensely\nmodern character as a teacher, nor of his enterprise as a progressive\nsurgeon. Few men have done more for advance in medicine, and his name\nis {211} stamped on a number of original ideas that have never been\neclipsed in surgery. After studying anatomy very faithfully,\nespecially by means of dissections, in Italy, where he tells us that\nhis master at Bologna, Bertrucci, made a larger number of dissections\nscarcely more than thirty years after the supposed Papal decree of\nprohibition, he returned to Montpelier to become the professor of\nsurgery there, and introduced the Italian methods of investigation\ninto the famous old university.\n\nAt this time the Popes were at Avignon, not far distant from\nMontpelier. From them Guy received every encouragement in his\nscientific work. He insisted that no one could practice surgery with\nany hope of success unless he devoted himself to careful dissection of\nthe human body. If we were to believe some of the things that have\nbeen said with regard to the Popes forbidding dissection, this should\nhave been enough to keep the French surgeon from the favor of the\nPopes, but it did not. On the contrary, he was the intimate friend and\nconsultant medical attendant of two of the Avignon Popes, and was the\nchamberlain to one of them. The good influence of Chauliac on the\nminds of the Popes is reflected in their interest in the medical\ndepartment of the University of Montpelier. About this time Pope Urban\nVI. founded the College of Twelve Physicians at Montpelier. He was an\nalumnus of the university, and had been appealed to to enlarge the\nopportunities of his Alma Mater. He did so in the manner just related.\n\nOne of the Papal Physicians of the Avignon times was unfortunate. This\nwas the ill-fated Cecco di Ascolo, who was distinguished as a poet and\na philosopher as well as a physician. But for his sad end, one might\nbe tempted to say, that he had so many irons in the fire {212} that it\nwas scarce to be wondered at that he suffered the fate of many another\ntender of too many irons, and eventually got his fingers burnt. He was\nbody physician of Pope John XXII. during a good part of the long\npontificate of that strenuous old man, who became Pope when over\nseventy, lived to be ninety, yet accomplished important work in every\nyear of his career. After leaving Avignon Cecco went to Italy and\nbecame the Professor of Astrology at Bologna. The term astrology had\nnone of the unfortunate or derisory signification that it has at the\npresent time. It was, as the etymology of the word implies, the\nscience of the stars, though it was cultivated with due reference to\nthe influence of these heavenly bodies on human fate and human\nconstitutions. Hence a physician's interest in it. This continued to\nbe a characteristic of astrology down to the time of Tycho-Brahe, the\nDanish astronomer, at the beginning of the seventeenth century. Cecco\nand another distinguished physician of the time, Dino de Garbo, became\ninvolved in a public controversy, as the result of which Cecco was\ndenounced to the public authorities as undermining the basis of\ngovernment and virtually teaching anarchy, though it was called\nheresy, and as a result of the bitter feud he suffered the penalty of\ndeath by fire.\n\nThe last of the Papal Physicians connected with the Pontifical Court\nat Avignon was almost as illustrious as any of his predecessors. He\nwas the well-known Joannes de Tornamira, who was the body physician to\nGregory XI. until that Pontiff brought the Papal Court back to Rome.\nThen Tornamira became the chancellor of the University of Montpelier.\nHe wrote an introduction to the study of medicine, meant for the use\nof students and young physicians, called a Clarificatorium, which,\n{213} according to Puschmann's History of Medicine, was the most used\ntext-book of medicine during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.\nBesides this he wrote a long and important work On Fevers and the\nAccidents of Fevers, in which he sums up all the medical knowledge of\nthe time on these subjects.\n\nThat the policy of the Popes did not change as regards the selection\nof their physicians on their return from Avignon to Rome, is to be\nseen from the physician of the Popes whose See was in both places.\nThis was the famous Francis of Siena, who is known best in history as\nthe intimate friend of Petrarch, and who was physician to Pope Gregory\nXI. and to his successor, Urban VI. He had been a professor of\nmedicine at the University of Pisa, and by special invitation went to\nfill the same position in the University of the Papal City, and became\nat the same time the medical adviser of the Popes. His influence on\nmedicine was not very important, but he occupied a very prominent\nposition among the learned men of the time, and his personal prestige\ndid much to add to the dignity of the profession. In our own time, the\nmedical men who have been best known and whose membership in the\nprofession has added greatly to its popular estimation, have at times\nnot been distinguished for great things in medicine. Francis of Siena\nwas such a man, and the fact that he was medical adviser to the Popes\nat the same time must be counted as an important factor in the\nevolution of medical dignity.\n\nOne of the first writers on medical cases who did not indulge much in\ntheory was Baverius de Baveriis, of Imola, who died about 1480, and\nwho was the physician to Pope Nicholas V. shortly before and after the\nmiddle of the fifteenth century. In the light of the fact that a {214}\nrecent Papal physician, Dr. Lapponi, has written a book on hypnotism\nand spiritism, it is interesting to find that his predecessor in the\npost of Papal Physician four centuries and a half ago, discussed the\ndifferential diagnosis of hysteria, catalepsy, epilepsy and syncope.\nHe also discusses certain interesting cases of vertigo due to stomach\ntrouble, and in general anticipates very unexpectedly neurotic\nconditions that are supposed to have been recognized in medicine much\nlater than his time. Perhaps the most startling thing to be found in\nhis works is his recommendation of iron for chlorosis, which he\nclaimed to have treated with the greatest success by means of this\nremedy. Of course, there was no idea at the time that chlorosis was\ndue in any sense to a lack of iron in the system, and its value as a\ntherapeutic agent must have come entirely from empiric considerations;\nbut then most of our advances in drug therapeutics have come by no\nbetter way.\n\nAnother of the distinguished Papal Physicians of the fifteenth century\nwas John of Vigo (1460-1520), who, as Professor Allbutt notes, was\nattached to the court of the fighting Pontiff, Julius II., and as a\nconsequence saw much of field surgery. His text-book of surgery,\nprinted at Rome in the early part of the sixteenth century, went\nthrough an enormous number of editions. No standard surgical treatise\nhad appeared since that of Guy de Chauliac, and Vigo's continued to be\nthe standard for the next full century. He was a shrewd and skilful as\nwell as a learned physician. His surgical acumen deserves to be noted.\nHe recognized that fracture of the inner table of the skull might take\nplace without that of the outer, and made some very practical remarks\nwith regard to gangrene and its causes. He attributed {215} gangrene\nin certain cases to faulty bandaging in fractures, and discussed its\norigin also as the result of severe cold. He treated syphilis with\nmercurial inunctions, a practice still followed by the best\nspecialists in this line. His greatest claim to fame, however, is\nfounded on the fact that he was the first to write a surgical treatise\non wounds made by firearms.\n\nAt this time, during the first half of the sixteenth century, the\nPapal Medical School begins to assume an importance in the history of\nmedicine which it was to continue to hold for the next two centuries.\nAfter the refoundation of the Sapienza by Pope Alexander VI., and its\ndevelopment under Pope Leo X., special care was taken and no expense\nspared by their successors, to secure the greatest teachers in anatomy\nin the world for the medical department of the Papal University. At\nthis time all the great physicians were distinguished for their\nattainments in anatomy, somewhat as in the nineteenth century great\nphysicians obtained their prestige by original work in pathology. The\nsituations in the two centuries had much more in common than the\ncasual reader of history or even the ordinary student of medicine\nwould appreciate. The list of Papal Physicians, then, becomes to a\ngreat extent the roll of the professors of anatomy at the Papal\nUniversity Medical School. The Popes of this period were wise enough\nin their generation to realize that the men who devoted themselves to\noriginal research in increasing the knowledge of the human body, were\nalso those likely to know most about the diseases of the body and\ntheir treatment. These scientific anatomists, with the chastening\nknowledge of the complexity of the human body before them, probably\nmade less claims to power to cure diseases than many an {216}\nenthusiastic therapeutist of the time, who thought, as have\nrepresentatives of this specialty in every generation, that he has\nmany infallible remedies for the cure of disease, though subsequent\ngenerations have not agreed with him.\n\nThe true significance of the lives of the men who occupied the post of\nPapal Physician after this time will be best appreciated from our\ntreatment of them in the chapter on The Papal Medical School. It will\nbe sufficient here simply to recall the names of the distinguished men\nwho, besides being professors in the Papal Medical School, were the\nmedical advisers of the Popes.\n\nThe first and most important of the great Renaissance professors of\nanatomy of the Roman Medical School who were also Papal Physicians was\nColumbus. He had been Vesalius's assistant at Padua and later his\nsuccessor. He had lectured also at Bologna. When a special effort was\nmade to give prestige to the University of Pisa, he was tempted by\nparticularly liberal offers to become the professor of anatomy in that\ncity. It was from here, by still more generous patronage, that the\nPopes obtained him for their medical school. On treating of the Papal\nMedical School, we shall have more to say of him and his successor in\nthe professorship of anatomy and medicine as well as in the post of\nPapal Physician, who was the third of the first anatomists of the\ntime--Eustachius. He with Columbus and Vesalius constitute the trinity\nof great original investigators in anatomy about the middle of the\nsixteenth century. It is extremely interesting, with the traditions\nthat exist in the matter, to find that the Popes secured two of these\ngreat anatomists for their personal physicians as well as for their\nmedical school. The third one, Vesalius, became the body {217}\nphysician first to the Emperor Charles V. and then to his son Philip\nII., whom many would declare to be as Catholic as the Popes themselves\nin religious tendencies.\n\nAfter Eustachius came Varolius, whose name is engraved in the history\nof medicine because the Pons Varolii or bridge of Varolius, an\nimportant structure in the brain now often simply called the pons, was\nnamed after him. To Varolius we owe one of the earliest detailed\ndescriptions of the anatomy of the brain. He was the Papal Physician\nto Gregory XIII., who will be remembered as the Pope under whom the\nreform of the calendar was made by the great Jesuit mathematician and\nastronomer, Father Clavius. Pope Gregory's enlightened patronage of\nmedicine in the person of Varolius will be better appreciated if we\nadd that he was chosen as Papal Physician when he was not yet thirty\nyears of age, though he had already given abundant evidence of his\ntalent for original investigation in anatomy. He died at the early age\nof thirty-two, but not until after he had accomplished a life's work\nsufficient to give him an enduring place in the history of anatomy.\nAfter Varolius as Papal Physician came Piccolomini and then\nCaesalpinus, whom the Italians hail as the discoverer of the\ncirculation of the blood before Harvey, and of whom we shall have much\nto say in the next chapter. Piccolomini was not as great an original\nthinker and worker as many of his predecessors and successors, but he\nwas a man whose prestige in medicine was scarcely less than theirs.\n\nThat this same liberal patronage of distinguished physicians was\ncontinued in the next century may be realized from the fact that\nMalpighi, the great founder of comparative anatomy, became one of the\nPapal Physicians. His intimate friend, Borelli, to whom we owe the\n{218} introduction of physics into medicine, had spent some years in\nRome, where, having been robbed by his servants, with the consent of\nthe Pope he took up his abode with the Society of the Pious Schools of\nSan Pantaleone. Here he finished his important work De Motu Animalium,\nin which the principles of mechanics were first definitely introduced\ninto anatomy and physiology. The preface to this book was written by\nan ecclesiastic, who praises the piety of Borelli during his stay in\nRome and chronicles his encouragement by the Popes in his medical\nwork. Malpighi was succeeded as Papal Physician by Tozzi, who is\nfamous for his commentaries on the ancients rather than for original\nobservation, but who was looked upon in his time as one of the most\nprominent physicians in Italy, and at this period that meant one of\nthe most prominent physicians in the world. At the beginning of the\nnext century, the eighteenth, Lancisi, by many considered the Father\nof Modern Clinical Medicine, became the Papal Physician.\n\nAmong the consultant physicians to the Popes of the eighteenth\ncentury, though he never occupied the post of regular medical\nattendant, was Morgagni. His advice was often sought by a succession\nof Popes not only with regard to their personal health, but also with\nregard to the teaching of medicine and other questions of like nature.\nVirchow has called Morgagni the Father of Modern Pathology, because he\nwas the first to point out, that for a knowledge of disease it is\nquite as important to know where the disease has been as to try to\nlearn what it has been. All of the Popes, five in number, of the\nlatter part of Morgagni's life were on terms of intimacy with him.\nPope Benedict XIV., one of the very great Popes of the century, a\nnative of Bologna, was {219} an intimate friend of Morgagni. His\nscarcely less famous successor, Pope Clement XIII., had known Morgagni\nbefore his elevation to the Papacy, and after his election he wrote\nassuring Morgagni of his continued esteem and friendship, and asks him\nto consider the Papal palace always open to him on his visits to Rome.\nIn an extant letter Clement praises his wisdom, his culture, his\ncourtesy, his piety toward God, his charity toward men, and holds him\nup as an example to all others for the special reason that,\nnotwithstanding all his qualities, he had not aroused the enmity or\nenvy of those around him, thus showing what a depth of humanity there\nwas in him in addition to his scientific attainments.\n\nAt this time Morgagni was looked upon by all the medical world as\nprobably the greatest of living medical scientists. Visitors who came\nto Italy who were at all interested in science, always considered that\ntheir journey had not been quite complete unless they had had an\nopportunity of meeting Morgagni. He had more personal friends among\nthe scientists of all the countries of Europe than any other man of\nhis time. The fact that this leader in science should be at the same\ntime a great personal friend of the Popes of his time is the best\npossible evidence of the more than amicable relations which existed\nbetween the Church and medicine during this century. Morgagni's life\nof nearly ninety years indeed, covers most of the eighteenth century,\nand is of itself, without more ado, an absolute proof that there was\nnot only no friction between religion and medicine, but shows on the\ncontrary that medical science encountered patronage and encouragement\nas far as ecclesiastics were concerned, while success in it brought\nhonor and emolument. {220} Morgagni's personal relations to the Church\nare best brought out by the fact that, of his fifteen children, ten of\nwhom lived to adult life, eight daughters became members of religious\norders and one of his two surviving sons became a Jesuit. The great\nphysician was very proud and very glad that his children should have\nchosen what he did not hesitate to call the better part.\n\nAfter Morgagni's time, the days of the French Revolution bring a cloud\nover the Papacy. There were political disturbances in Italy and the\nPopes were shorn of their temporal power. As a consequence their\nmedical school loses in prestige and finally disappears. The Papal\nPhysicians after this, while distinguished among their fellow members\nof the Roman medical profession, were no longer the world-known\ndiscoverers in medicine that had so often been the case before. So\nlong as the Popes had the power and possessed the means, they used\nboth to encourage medicine in every way, as the list of Papal\nPhysicians shows better than anything else, and a study of this\nchapter of their history will undo all the false assertions with\nregard to the supposed opposition between the Church and science.\n\nWe have already said, and it seems to deserve repetition here, that\nduring most of these centuries in which the Papal Physicians were\namong the most distinguished discoverers in medicine, the term\nmedicine included within itself most of what we now know as physical\nscience. Botany was studied as a branch of medicine, and as we have\nseen, one of the Papal Physicians, Simon Januensis, compiled a\ndictionary that a modern German Historian of Botany finds excellent.\nAstrology, under which term astronomy was included, was studied for\nthe sake of the supposed influence of the stars on {221} men's\nconstitutions.--Chemistry was a branch of medical study. Mineralogy\nwas considered a science allied to medicine, and the use of antimony\nand other metals in medicine originated with physicians trying to\nextend the domain of knowledge to minerals. Comparative anatomy was\nfounded by a Papal Physician. These were the principal physical\nsciences. To talk of opposition between science and religion, then,\nwith the most distinguished scientists of these centuries in friendly\npersonal and official relations with the Popes, is to indulge in one\nof those absurdities common enough among those who must find matter\nfor their condemnation of the Popes and the Church, but that every\nadvance in modern history has pushed farther back into the rubbish\nchamber of outlived traditions.\n\n\n{222}\n\nTHE POPES AND MEDICAL EDUCATION AND\nTHE PAPAL MEDICAL SCHOOL.\n\nAfter the story of the Papal Physicians, the most important phase of\nthe relations of the Popes to the medical sciences is to be found in\nthe story of the Papal Medical School. While it seems to be generally\nignored by those who are not especially familiar with the history of\nmedical education, a medical school existed in connection with the\nPapal University at Rome during many centuries--according to excellent\nauthorities, from the beginning of the fourteenth century--and this\nmedical school had, as we have said elsewhere, during nearly two\ncenturies some of the most distinguished professors of medicine in its\nranks, and boasts among its faculty some of the greatest discoverers\nin the medical sciences, and especially in anatomy. For these two\ncenturies it had but two important rivals, Padua and Bologna. Both of\nthese were in Italy, and one, that of the University of Bologna, was\nin a Papal city, that is, was under the political dominion of the\nPopes. The best medical teaching, then, was to be found in the Papal\nStates and under conditions such, that if there had been the slightest\nopposition, or indeed anything but the most cordial encouragement for\nmedical study, the medical schools of Rome and Bologna would surely\nhave languished instead of flourishing beyond all others.\n\nJust about the beginning of the fourteenth century {223} Pope Boniface\nVIII., who was himself one of the distinguished scholars of his time,\ndetermined that, besides the university of the Papal Court, which had\nexisted for nearly a century at Rome, but which was mainly occupied\nwith philosophy and theology and mainly attended by ecclesiastics,\nthere should also be a university of the City of Rome for the people\nof his capital. This determination was reached only a short time\nbefore the culmination of the difficulty between Pope Boniface and the\nKing of France, which eventually resulted in what has been called the\noutrage of Anagni and the subsequent death of the Pope within a short\ntime. It has usually been thought, then, that in spite of certain\nextant Papal documents creating the University of the City of Rome,\nthis university had not been organized before Pope Boniface's death,\nand as his successor did not take his seat at Rome, but at Avignon, it\nhas usually been assumed that the University of the City came into\nexistence at most only in an abortive form. Denifle, whose History of\nthe Universities of the Middle Ages is looked upon as the best\nauthority in such matters, however, insists that a complete university\nof the City of Rome did come into existence as a result of Boniface's\ndecree.\n\nAll during the time when the Popes were at Avignon this university\ncontinued to exist, and in spite of the fact that at one time, as a\nconsequence of a great earthquake followed by a pestilence, and then\nserious political troubles because of the absence of the Popes, Rome\nhad only something less than ten thousand inhabitants, the university\ncontinued its work. Denifle calls attention to the fact that there are\nletters of Pope John XXII. which show that he paid out of the Papal\nrevenues {224} the salary of a teacher of physic at the University of\nthe City of Rome while the Papal Court was at Avignon. It is rather\ninteresting to find the names of the two Popes, Boniface VIII. and\nJohn XXII., whose Papal decrees are supposed to have prevented the\nstudy of anatomy and chemistry, thus cropping up on unquestionable\nauthority as the founder and the patron of medical teaching in the\nCity of Rome. Pope Boniface VIII. is now generally credited with\nhaving been the founder of the Sapienza, the medical school of which,\nat the beginning of the sixteenth century, was to develop into one of\nthe most important schools of its kind in Europe, and to have on its\nfaculty list the greatest teachers of their time, who had been tempted\nto come to Rome because the Popes wished to enhance the prestige of\nthe medical school of their capital.\n\nWhile it may be a surprise for those who have been accustomed to think\nof the Popes as inalterably opposed to all science, and especially to\nmedical science, thus to find them encouraging and fostering medical\nteaching, it will only be what would naturally be expected by those\nwho know anything of the real history of medicine in the earlier\nMiddle Ages. There is no doubt at all, that during the so-called \"dark\nages,\" that is, when the invasion of the barbarians had put out the\nlights of the older civilizations, it was mainly ecclesiastics who\npreserved whatever traditions there were of the old medical learning\nand carried on whatever serious teaching of medicine, in the sense of\nmedical science, that existed during this time. The monks were the\nmost prominent in this; and the Benedictines, after their foundation\nin the sixth century, added to their duties of caring for the other\ntemporal needs of the poor, who so {225} often appealed to them, that\nof helping them as far as they could in any bodily ailments with which\nthey might be afflicted. There are even definite traditions that a\ncertain amount of training in medicine, or at least in the care of the\nsick, was one of the features of the Benedictine monasteries.\n\nDr. Payne in his article on the History of Medicine in the\nEncyclopaedia Brittanica said: \"In civil history there is no real\nbreak. A continuous thread of learning and practice must have\nconnected the last period of Roman medicine with the dawn of science\nin the Middle Ages. But the intellectual thread is naturally traced\nwith greater difficulty than that which is the theme of civil history;\nand in periods such as that from the fifth to the tenth century in\nEurope, it is almost lost. The chief homes of medical as of other\nlearning in these disturbed times were the monasteries. Though the\nscience was certainly not advanced by their labors, it was saved from\ntotal oblivion, and many ancient medical works were preserved in Latin\nor the vernacular versions. It was among the Benedictines that the\nmonastic studies of medicine first received a new direction and aimed\nat a higher standard. The study of Hippocrates, Galen, and other\nclassics was recommended by Cassiodorus (sixth century), and in the\noriginal mother abbey of Monte Cassino medicine was studied, though\nthere was probably not what could be called a medical school there;\nnor had this foundation any connection (as has been supposed) with the\nfamous school of Salerno.\"\n\nA review of some of the interesting features of the early history of\nmedical education will serve to show that, not only was there no\necclesiastical interference with the new developing science, but, on\nthe contrary, {226} without the personal aid and the intelligent\npatronage of ecclesiastics of all degree, and especially of\narchbishops and Popes, the development of medical teaching that took\nplace at Salerno would probably not have had the significance in\nhistory that it now enjoys. While there was no institutional\nconnection between the medical school of Salerno and the Benedictine\nMonastery at Monte Cassino, it is known that at the end of the seventh\ncentury there was a branch Benedictine monastery at Salerno, and some\nof the prelates and higher clergy occupied posts as teachers in the\nschool, and even became distinguished for medical acquirements.\n\nThough the Salernitan medical school proper was a secular institution,\nthere is no doubt that the Benedictines had great influence in it and\nhad fostered its formation. How close the monks of Monte Cassino were\nallied to the Popes, everyone knows. The Benedictines considered\nthemselves the special wards of the Papacy, and a number of the Abbots\nof Monte Cassino, or monks belonging to the community, and of men who\nhad been educated in the monastery, had been raised to the Papacy\nduring the Middle Ages. The origin of modern medical teaching is thus\nclosely associated not only with the Benedictines, but through them\nwith the Popes, without whose encouragement and sanction the work\nwould not have flourished as it did.\n\nIn advance of the formal establishment of medical schools, in the\nmodern sense of the word, two Popes were distinguished before their\nelevation to the Papacy for their attainments in all the sciences, and\nespecially in medicine, one of whom actually founded an important\nschool of thought in medicine, while the other was a professor at\nSalerno. The first of these is the famous {227} Gerbert, who, under\nthe name of Sylvester II., was Pope at the end of the millenium and\ncarried Christianity over what was supposed to be the perilous period\nof the completion of the first thousand years, when the end of the\nworld was so universally looked for. Gerbert was famous for his\nattainments in every branch of science, and indeed so many wonderful\ntraditions have collected around his name in this matter that one\nhesitates to accept most of them. There seems to be no doubt, however,\nthat he was the beloved master of Fulbert of Chartres, who did much\nfor medicine in France at the beginning of the eleventh century and\nwho was the founder of the so-called school of Chartres and himself\nthe teacher of John of Chartres, who became the physician to King\nHenry I., of France, and of Peter of Chartres and Hildier and\nGoisbert.\n\nBefore the end of the eleventh century Pope Victor III., who had been\nthe Abbot of Monte Cassino, was elected Pope much against his will. He\noccupied the Papal throne only for about a year and a half. He had\nbeen especially recommended by Pope Gregory VII., the famous\nHildebrand, as a very suitable successor. Desiderius, as he was called\nbefore becoming Pope, was one of the best scholars of his time, and\nhad taught for some years with great distinction at Salerno. It is not\nknown absolutely that he taught medicine, but, as the university of\nSalerno is usually considered not to have been founded until the\nmiddle of the next century, and as before that time the main teaching\nfaculty was that of the medical school and all other teaching was\nsubordinated to it, Desiderius must surely be considered as a teacher\nat least of medical students. At that time a physician was expected to\nknow something more than merely his {228} profession. Mathematics and\nphilosophy were the two favorite subjects to which, besides medicine,\nthey devoted themselves. The presence of the future Pope at Salerno\nis, moreover, the best possible index of the sympathy between the\necclesiastical authorities and the medical school.\n\nBesides there are definite records of the friendship which existed\nbetween Alphanus, Archbishop of Salerno, and Desiderius, while they\nwere both members of the Benedictine Community of Monte Cassino.\nAlphanus subsequently taught medicine at Salerno, and some of his\nwritings on medicine have been preserved for us. He was the author of\na work bearing the title _De Quatuor Elementis Corporis Humani_, a\ntreatise on the four elements of the human body, which is a compendium\nof most of the knowledge of anatomy and physiology of the time, though\nit also contains much more than the information with regard to the\nmerely physical side of man's being. The fact that Alphanus should\nhave been promoted from the professorship in the medical faculty to\nthe Archbishopric of Salerno is only another proof of the entire\nsympathy which existed between the Church and the professors of\nmedical science at that time.\n\nDuring the thirteenth century universities were founded in some twenty\nimportant cities in Europe, and in connection with most of them a\nmedical school was established. These educational institutions were\nthe result of the initiative of ecclesiastics; their officials all\nbelonged to the clerical body, most of their students were considered\nas clerics--and indeed this was the one way to secure them against the\ncalls for military service which would otherwise have disturbed the\nenthusiasm for study--and the Popes were considered the supreme {229}\nauthority over all the universities. In spite of this thoroughly\necclesiastical character of the universities and educational\ninstitutions, there is not a hint of interference with the teaching of\nmedical science and abundant evidence of its encouragement. Indeed,\nfor anyone who knows the story of the universities of the thirteenth\ncentury, it is practically impossible to understand how there could\nhave arisen any tradition of ecclesiastical opposition to education in\nany form, and there is not a trace of foundation for the stories with\nregard to ecclesiastical intolerance of science, which are supposed to\nbe supported by certain Papal decrees.\n\nThe best possible demonstration of the maintenance of the most\namicable relations between churchmen and physicians during the century\nin which these decrees were issued is also the most interesting fact\nin the history of medicine during the thirteenth century. It is not\ngenerally known that one of the most distinguished physicians of the\nthirteenth century, one who wrote a book on the special subject of eye\ndiseases that is still a classic, afterwards became Pope under the\nname of John. He is variously known as John XIX., John XX., or John\nXXI., according as certain occupants of the Papal throne are\nconsidered to be of authority or not. He was educated at Paris, and\nprobably spent some time at Montpelier. Under the name of Peter of\nSpain, though he was what we should now call a Portuguese, he\nsubsequently taught physic at the University of Sienna. Here he wrote\nthe famous little work on the Diseases of the Eye, which was reviewed\nby Dr. Petella, physician-in-chief of the Royal Italian Marine, in\nJanus, the International Archives for the History of Medicine and for\nMedical Geography in 1898. Petella does not {230} hesitate to proclaim\nhim one of the greatest men of his time. Daunou, one of the\ncontinuators of the Benedictines' literary history of France,\n[Footnote 28] says that this Peter of Spain was one of the most\nnotable persons in Europe in his generation.\n\n[Footnote 28: Histoire Litteraire de la France, Vol. XVI. This is the\nfamous work begun by the Benedictines of St. Maur.]\n\nPope John XXI., before his accession to the Papacy, had certainly\naccomplished remarkable work in medicine, and of a kind that makes his\nwritings of great interest even at the present day. There is scarcely\nan important pathological condition of the eye which does not receive\nsome consideration in this little book, and it is a constant source of\nsurprise in reading it to find, with their limited knowledge and lack\nof instruments, what good diagnosticians the ophthalmologists of the\nthirteenth century were. Cataract is described, for instance, under\nthe name of \"water that descends into the eye,\" and a distinction is\nmade between cataract from internal and external causes. Hardening of\nthe eye is mentioned and is declared to be very serious in its\neffects. There seems no doubt that this was glaucoma. Conditions of\nthe lids, particularly, were differentiated and treated by rational\nmeasures, some of them quite modern in substance. A curious\nanticipation of modern therapeutics is the frequent recommendation of\nextracts of the livers of various fishes for external and internal\nuse, that is a reminder of the present employment of cod-liver oil.\nThe book is acknowledged to be a classic in medicine. The fact that\nits author should have become Pope later, is the best proof that\ninstead of opposition there was the greatest sympathy between medicine\nand ecclesiasticism in his time.\n\n{231}\n\nWith these thoroughly amicable relations between the Church and the\nmedical schools during the thirteenth and preceeding centuries, it\nwill not be so much of a surprise as it might otherwise be, to learn\nof the foundation of the Medical School of Rome and of the\ncontinuation of Papal patronage of it even while the Popes were absent\nat Avignon. University records do not say much about it during the\nnext two centuries. With the coming of the Renaissance, however, and\nthe entrance of a new spirit into education, the Popes also were\ntouched by the educational time-spirit, and there came a rejuvenation\nof the University of the City, which now acquired a new name, that of\nthe Sapienza, and became the home of some of the most distinguished\nteaching in Europe in every department. Early in the sixteenth century\nthe medical department of the Sapienza, or Papal University at Rome,\nbecame one of the most noteworthy institutions of Europe because of\nthe work in medicine accomplished there, and had among its faculty the\nmost distinguished investigators in medical science, and especially in\nthat department of medicine--anatomy--which by an unfortunate\ntradition the Popes are said to have hampered.\n\nThe most important event in the history of the institution, after its\nfoundation, was its establishment in the home which it was to occupy\ndown to our own time. Its new habitation was prepared for it by the\nPope who has probably been the most maligned in history--Alexander VI.\nA magnificent site was appropriated for it, and the construction of\nsuitable buildings begun. A little more than a decade later, Leo X.,\nanother one of the misunderstood Popes, came to the conclusion that\nthe two universities in Rome, that of the Papal Court and that of\n{232} the City, would do better work if combined into one, and\naccordingly this combination was effected. This made provision for one\nvery strong teaching faculty in Rome. The final steps for the\ncompletion of the union of the two universities were taken by Pope\nAlexander VII., and the buildings which the new university was to\noccupy were finished in a manner worthy of the great institution of\nlearning which it was hoped to create in Rome.\n\nThe first of the great professors who made the Papal Medical School\nfamous was Realdo Colombo, often spoken of as Columbus simply, who was\ninvited to teach in Rome by Pope Paul III., the same Pope who issued\nthe bull founding the Jesuits. Some people might consider the two\nactions as representing contrary tendencies in education, but they are\nnot such as know either the history of the Jesuits, or of the constant\nendeavor of the Popes to foster education. Columbus came to Rome, as\nwe have said, with the prestige of having succeeded Vesalius at Padua,\nand later having been specially tempted by the reigning prince in\nPisa, who wanted to create a great medical school in connection with\nhis university in that city, which he was at that moment trying to\nraise to distinction, to accept the professorship of anatomy there.\n\nVesalius was still alive at this time, and the period when, if we\nwould credit certain historians who emphasize the opposition between\nthe Church and science, it was dangerous to dissect human bodies had\nnot yet passed. It is interesting to read the account of Columbus's\nreception in Rome, and the interest manifested in his work by all\nclasses in the Roman University at this time. His course in anatomy\nwas so enthusiastically {233} attended that, as he himself tells in a\nletter to a friend, he often had several hundred persons in his\naudience when he gave his anatomical demonstrations on the cadaver.\nThese were not all medical students, but many of them were\necclesiastics, and some of them important members of the hierarchy.\nEven cardinals manifested their interest in anatomy, and occasionally\nattended the public dissections--public, that is, as far as the\nUniversity is concerned--which were made by Columbus.\n\nColumbus's enthusiasm for anatomy was such that, as Dr. Fisher said of\nhim in the Annals of Anatomy and Surgery, Brooklyn, 1878-1880, \"he\ndissected an extraordinary number of human bodies, and so devoted\nhimself to the solution of problems in anatomy and physiology that he\nhas been most aptly styled the Claude Bernard of the sixteenth\ncentury.\" In one year, for instance, he is said to have dissected no\nless than fourteen bodies, demonstrating, as Dr. Fisher has said, that\n\"it was an age of remarkable tolerance for scientific investigation.\"\n\nBesides being an investigator, Columbus was a great teacher, and many\nof our modern methods of instruction in medical schools had their\norigin in the system of demonstrations introduced by him. His\ndescriptions of the demonstrations for students upon living animals,\nshow that some of the most recent ideas in medical teaching were\nanticipated by this Roman professor of anatomy and medicine in the\nRenaissance period. His demonstrations of the heart and blood-vessels\nand of the actions of the lungs are particularly complete, and must\nhave given his students a very practical working knowledge of these\nimportant physiological functions. In a word, the medical teaching of\nthe Roman {234} University, under him at this time, far from being\nmerely theoretic and distant from actual experience and demonstration,\nwas thoroughly modern in its methods.\n\nIt is no wonder, then, that practically all the ecclesiastical\nvisitors who came in such numbers to Rome, made it a custom at this\ntime to attend one or more of Columbus's anatomical lectures. They\nwere looked upon as one of the features of the Roman university life\nof the time. How much good was accomplished by this can scarcely be\nestimated. The example must have had great influence especially on\nmembers of faculties of various educational institutions who came to\nthe Papal See. To some degree at least these interesting teaching\nmethods must have aroused in such men the desire to see them emulated\nin their own teaching institutions, and therefore must have done much\nto advance medical education. The fact that these things were done in\nthe Papal Medical School only emphasized the significance of them for\necclesiastics, and made them more ready to bring about their imitation\nin other teaching centers.\n\nHow well the Popes were justified in their estimation of Columbus's\ngenius as an anatomical investigator will be best appreciated from his\ndiscovery of the pulmonary circulation, which formed, as Harvey\nconfesses at the beginning of his work on the circulation, the\nfoundation on which Harvey's great discovery naturally arose. It is\nprobable that Columbus would not have come to Rome, in spite of the\nflattering offers held out to him, only that he was already the\npersonal friend of a number of high ecclesiastics, and even of the\nPope who extended the invitation. How well the Popes continued to\nthink of Columbus after his years of work in the {235} Roman Medical\nSchool will be well understood from the fact that, when his great work\n_De Re Anatomica_ was published after his death by his sons, Pope Pius\nIV. accepted the dedication of it. This was of course not an unusual\nthing, for many books on other sciences were dedicated to the Popes,\nand the example thus set was subsequently imitated. Twenty-five years\nlater, Professor Piccolomini dedicated his Anatomical Lectures to Pope\nSixtus V. Subsequent anatomical publications of the Papal Medical\nSchool were issued under like patronage. The famous edition of\nEustachius's anatomical sketches, published under the editorship of\nLancisi, is a notable example of this, and went to press mainly at the\nexpense of Pope Clement XI., who realized how valuable they were\nlikely to be for the teaching of anatomy.\n\nThese two great discoverers in anatomy, Columbus and Eustachius, were\nsucceeded, as is so often the case in the history of university\nfaculties, by a man more capable of writing about great discoveries\nthan of making them himself. This was Piccolomini, who devoted himself\nto showing how much the ancients had taught about anatomy, though at\nthe same time he also made clear the place occupied by modern\nanatomical discoveries. While his name is not attached to any great\ndiscovery in the science of anatomy, he is generally acknowledged to\nhave been one of the great teachers of his time and one who was needed\njust then in order to make people realize how the old and the new in\nanatomy must be coordinated. Piccolomini's successor in the chair of\nanatomy at Rome was another original genius and investigator whose\nname, however, and fame has never been as great among English-speaking\npeople as in Italy, or among the Latin races generally. The fact that\nhe was a rival {236} of Harvey's in the matter of the discovery of the\ncirculation of the blood has always made the Italians exaggerate his\nposition in medical history, while it has undoubtedly made English\nwriters of medical history diminish the importance of his work.\n\nHistorians of science consider him worthy to be called the greatest\nliving scientist of his time--the end of the sixteenth century. He was\nnot only a scientific physician, but he was an authority in all the\nsciences related to medicine, and indeed had profound interests in\nevery branch of physical science. His contemporaries looked up to him\nas a leader in scientific thought. To anyone who examines the question\nof the discovery of the circulation of the blood with freedom from\nbias, there can be no doubt but that the honor for this discovery has\nbeen unduly taken away from Caesalpinus in English-speaking countries,\nto be conferred solely on Harvey. Not that there is any wish to lessen\nthe value of Harvey's magnificent original work, nor make little of\nhis wonderful powers of observation, nor of the marvelous experimental\nand logical method by which he followed out his thoughts to their\nlegitimate conclusion, but that I would insist on giving honor where\nhonor is due, though most writers in English refuse to give\nCaesalpinus's claims a proper share of attention.\n\nThe Italians have always declared that Caesalpinus was the real\ndiscoverer of the circulation, and there is no doubt that his career\noccurs just at that point in the evolution of the medical sciences,\nand especially anatomy and physiology in Italy, where this discovery\nwould naturally come. Lest it should be thought, however, that my\ninterest in the Popes and the Papal Medical School has led me to\nexaggerate the claims of {237} Caesalpinus as a great naturalist and\nmedical scientist, I prefer to quote the description of him given by\nProfessor Michael Foster in his lectures on the History of Physiology,\ndelivered in this country as the Lane Lectures, at the Cooper Medical\nCollege in San Francisco, and published by the Cambridge University\nPress, 1901. Professor Foster was not one to exaggerate the claims of\nany Italian, and least of all of any Italian who might be supposed to\nhave a claim that would stand against Harvey's. The soupcon of\nChauvinism in his treatment of Servetus and Columbus in this regard is\nindeed rather amusing. He said:--\n\n  \"Of a very different stamp to Columbus was Andreas Caesalpinus. Born\n  at Arezzo in 1519, he was for many years Professor of Medicine at\n  Pisa, namely, from 1567 to 1592, when he passed to Rome, where he\n  became Professor at the Sapienza University and Physician to Pope\n  Clement VIII., and where at a ripe old age he died in 1603.\n\n  \"If Columbus lacked general culture, Caesalpinus was drowned in it.\n  Learned in all the learning of the ancients and an enthusiastic\n  Aristotelian, he also early laid hold of all the new learning of the\n  time. Naturalist as well as physician, he taught at Pisa botany as\n  well as medicine, being from 1555 to 1575 Professor of Botany, with\n  charge of the Botanic garden founded there in 1543, the first of its\n  kind--one remaining until the present day.\"\n\nProfessor Foster admits that Caesalpinus had a wonderful power of\nsynthetising knowledge already in hand and anticipating conclusions in\nscience that were to be confirmed subsequently. In his Medical\nQuestions, though the work is written in rambling, discursive vein, he\nenunciated views which, however he arrived at them, certainly\nforeshadowed or even anticipated those which {238} were later to be\nestablished on a sound basis. Foster quotes a passage in which\nCaesalpinus made it very clear that he thoroughly understood the\nmechanism of the circulation and grasped every detail essential to it.\nAfter quoting this passage, which it must be confessed is rambling,\nFoster thus sums up what Caesalpinus has to say with regard to the\ncirculation:--\n\n  \"He thus appears to have grasped the important truth, hidden, it\n  would seem, from all before him, that the heart, at its systole,\n  discharges its contents into the aorta (and pulmonary artery), and\n  at its diastole receives blood from the vena cava (and pulmonary\n  vein).\"\n\n  \"Again, in his Medical Questions he seems to have grasped the facts\n  of the flow from the arteries to the veins, and of the flow along\n  the veins to the heart.\"\n\nThat there was no change of Papal policy in the next century can be\ngathered from an interesting phase of Papal interest in science which,\nthough not directly concerned with medicine, eventually resulted in\nimportant theoretic advances in medical science. This was the\nencouragement of Father Kircher's work at Rome. Father Kircher was the\nJesuit who made the first scientific museum. As the result of his\ngeneral interest in things scientific he wrote a little book on the\npest. In this book he stated in very clear terms the modern doctrine\nof the origin of disease from little living things, which he called\ncorpuscles. Because of this Tyndall attributes to Father Kircher the\nfirst realization of the role that bacteria play in disease. Even more\nwonderful than this, however, was Father Kircher's anticipation of\nmodern ideas with regard to the conveyance of disease. He insisted\nthat contagious diseases, as a rule, were not carried, as had been\nthought, by the air, but {239} were conveyed from one person to\nanother, either directly, or by the intermediation of some living\nthing. He considered that cats and dogs were surely active in\nconveying diseases, and he even reached the conclusion that insects\nwere also important in this matter. His expressions with regard to\nthis are not of the indefinite character which one often encounters in\nthe supposed anticipation of important principles in medicine, but are\nvery precise and definite. Father Kircher is quoted by Dr. Howard\nKelly, of Baltimore, in his life of Major Walter Reed, whose work in\nshowing that yellow fever is transmitted by mosquitoes is well known,\nas saying in one place, \"Flies carry the plague,\" and in another\nplace, \"There can be no doubt that flies feed on the internal\nsecretions of the diseased dying, then flying away they deposit their\nexcretions on the food in neighboring dwellings, and persons who eat\nit are thus infected.\" It is interesting to find that the Professor of\nthe Practice of Medicine in the Papal University at Rome when this\nbook was published, far from resenting, as many professors of medicine\nmight, the excursion of an outsider into his science, said Father\nKircher's book \"not only contains an excellent resume of all that is\nknown about the pest or plague, but also many valuable hints and\nsuggestions on the regional spread of the disease which had never\nbefore been made.\" He did not hesitate to add that it was marvelous\nfor a man, not educated as a physician, to have reached such\nsurprising conclusions, which seemed worthy of general acceptance. All\nthis, it may be said in passing, was within a few years after the\ntrial of Galileo. In this next century the Popes continued their\nspecial efforts to secure the greatest teachers of anatomy and\nphysiology for their Roman medical school. One of the {240} results\nwas the appointment of Malpighi, whose name has deservedly become\nattached to more structures in the human body because of tissues which\nhe first studied in detail, than any other man in the history of\nmedicine. Malpighi represents the beginning of most of the comparative\nbiological sciences, and his original observations upon plants, upon\nthe lower animals, on fishes and then on the anatomical structure of\nman and the higher animals, stamp him as an investigating genius of\nthe highest order. He was the personal friend of Innocent XI., who\nwished to have him near him at Rome as his own medical adviser, and\nbesides desired the prestige of his fame and the stimulating example\nof his investigating spirit for the students of the medical school of\nthe Sapienza. The closing years of Malpighi's life were rendered\nhappier, and his wonderful researches were as well rewarded as such\nwork can be, by the estimation in which he was held at Rome.\n\nMalpighi was succeeded as Papal Physician and Professor in Rome by\nTozzi, who is distinguished in the history of medicine for his\ncommentaries on the ancients rather than for original observation, but\nwho was looked upon in his time as one of the most prominent\nphysicians in Italy. Tozzi had been the Professor of Medicine and\nMathematics at the University of Naples, where he became famous. From\nhere he received a flattering invitation to the chair of physic at\nPadua. In order that he might not desert Naples, his salary was raised\nand he was given the post of Protomedicus or Chief Physician to the\nCourt. It was after this that the death of Malpighi left an important\nchair vacant in Rome, and there being no one apparently more worthy\nthan this man for whom other important universities were contending,\nhe {241} was offered the chair on such excellent conditions that he\naccepted it. It is another case of the Popes being not only willing\nand even anxious, but also able because of their position, to secure\nthe best talent available for their medical school at the Roman\nUniversity.\n\nUndoubtedly one of the greatest members of the faculty that the Papal\nMedical School ever had is Lancisi, one of the supreme medical\nteachers of history, who is usually considered one of the founders of\nmodern clinical medicine. When at the beginning of the eighteenth\ncentury Boerhaave attracted the attention of the world by his bedside\nteaching of medicine at Leyden, there were two occupants of thrones in\nEurope who proved to have particular interest in this new departure.\nThey were perhaps the last two who might ordinarily be expected to\nhave much use for such improvements in medical education. One of them\nwas the Empress Maria Theresa, of Austria, whose patronage of\nBoerhaave 's pupil, Van Swieten, secured the establishment of that\nsystem of clinical teaching which has since made the Vienna Medical\nSchool famous. The other was the Pope. With his approbation Lancisi\nestablished clinical teaching at Rome, and thus did much to maintain\nat Rome a great center of medical progress during the eighteenth\ncentury.\n\nLancisi was graduated at the Sapienza, the Roman University, at the\nearly age of eighteen. When only twenty-two he became assistant\nphysician at the Santo Spirito Hospital and began to show the first\nhint of the brilliant genius he was to display later in life.\n\nSome ten years later, as the result of a competitive examination which\nstill further demonstrated his talents, he was chosen Professor of\nAnatomy in his Alma Mater, {242} the Sapienza. He was only\nthirty-three at the time, and the fact that he should be chosen shows\nthat the Papal University was ready to take advantage of talent\nwherever it found it and did not allow itself to be won only by\nnotoriety at a distance. The excellence of the choice was demonstrated\nbefore long by Lancisi's brilliant career as a teacher and an original\ninvestigator. Some of the most distinguished medical men from all over\nthe world came to listen to his lectures (according to Hirsch's\nBiographical Lexicon of the Most Prominent Physicians of All Times and\nPeoples), and even Malpighi and Tozzi, the Papal physicians during the\ntime, were among his auditors. [Footnote 29]\n\n[Footnote 29: Most of these details are taken from Hirsch's\nBiographisches Lexicon der hervorragenden Aertzte aller Zeiten und\nVoelker. Wien und Leipzig, 1886.]\n\nAfter the departure of Tozzi from Rome Lancisi became the Papal\nphysician. He continued to be the medical adviser of Popes Innocent\nXI. and XII. and of Clement XI. until his death in 1720. It was under\nClement that he had the new clinic built, in which teaching after the\nmanner of Boerhaave was to be established. At his death Lancisi left\nhis fortune and his library to Santo Spirito Hospital, on condition\nthat a new portion of the hospital should be erected for women. There\nis no doubt that he belongs among the most distinguished of\ncontributors to medical science, and Hirsch declares that anatomy,\npractical medicine, and hygiene are indebted to him for notable\nachievements. His books are still classics. The one on Sudden Death\nworked a revolution in the medical diseases of the brain and heart.\nHis work _De Motu Cordis et Aneurysmatibus_ has been pronounced\nepoch-making, and his suggestion of percussion over the sternum in\norder to {243} determine the presence of an aneurysm, made him almost\nan anticipator of Auenbrugger and prompted Morgagni's famous book _De\nSedibus et Causis Morborum_, which appeared after his death. Lancisi's\nwork on Aneurysms was not published until after his death.\n\nTwo others of his books deserve mention because they show how broad\nwere the interests of the man in many phases of progress in medicine.\nTheir titles are Diseases and Infections of Domestic Animals and The\nClimate of Rome.\n\nThe next great name in Italian medicine is that of Morgagni. He was\nnot a regular Papal physician, nor a member of the faculty of the\nPapal Medical School, but he was often consulted, as we told in the\nchapter on Papal Physicians, both as to the health of the Popes and\nthe methods of teaching at the Roman Medical School. His life brings\nus down almost to the nineteenth century, and the cordial relations of\nthe Popes to him, far from being an exception in the history of\nmedicine, are only typical of the attitude of the Roman Pontiffs to\nmedical and all other scientists from the dawn of the history of\nscience in modern times.\n\nWhile the Papal Medical School at Rome, attached to the university of\nthe city and directly under the control of the Papal Curia, more\nespecially deserves the name thus given it, it must not be forgotten\nthat there was in the Papal States a series of medical schools in\nvarious cities. One of these, at Perugia, founded by a bull of Pope\nJohn XXII., has come under consideration in the chapter on A Papal\nPatron of Medical Education. Another medical school, that of Ferrara,\nwhich also was in the Papal States, had considerable prestige. Some\ndistinguished professors taught there before going to {244} Padua or\nBologna. At the beginning of the sixteenth century, Bologna, after\nhaving been during the preceding three centuries under the domination\nof one powerful family or another, from the Pepoli to the Bentivogli,\nand then to the Visconti and back again to the Bentivogli, was\nincorporated in the Papal States under Pope Julius II. At this time\nthe Medical School of Bologna was at the height of its reputation and\nwas one of the two greatest medical schools in Italy. Padua was its\nonly rival. Shortly after this Rome became a serious competitor in\nmedical education. Practically, then, this was a second Papal medical\nschool, almost as directly under the control of the Popes as the Roman\nMedical School. Far from there being any diminution in the glory or\nthe efficiency of the Bolognese Medical School, its reputation even\nbecame enhanced after the city came under the control of the Popes.\n\nThis is all the more surprising because, as we have shown, just about\nthis time the Popes began the work of making their Medical School at\nRome the most important center for medical education, especially in\nthe scientific phases of medicine--anatomy, physiology, and\ncomparative anatomy--that there was at that time in the world. In\nspite of this rivalry, however, nothing was done directly to hurt the\nprestige of the school of Bologna, and indeed the rivalry seems to\nhave been more of an encouraging competition than in any sense a\ndestructive struggle for existence. When the Popes took possession of\nBologna, Alexander Achillini was professor of anatomy and medicine in\nthe Bolognese school, and his discoveries and methods of investigation\nattracted the attention of students from all over the world. His\nassistant for many years and his successor in the {245} post was\nBerengar of Carpi, of whom we have already said much in the chapter\nAnatomy Down to the Renaissance. For some time Vesalius lectured on\nmedicine and anatomy at Bologna, and one of Berengar's most\ndistinguished successors in the sixteenth century was Aranzi, who\noccupied the post of anatomical professor for thirty-two years and who\ncorrected a number of errors in anatomical detail that had been made\nby Vesalius and others of the preceding generation. He confirmed\nColumbus's discoveries at Rome with regard to the course which the\nblood follows in passing from the right to the left side of the heart,\nand made many important additions to the knowledge of the anatomical\nrelations of the cavities of the heart, the valves, and the great\nblood vessels. There are a number of important structures in the brain\nwhich owe their names to him, and his descriptions of them are better,\naccording to Prof. Turner, than those of other anatomists for a\ncentury after his time.\n\nThe tradition of great teachers thus carried on during the first\ncentury after the absorption of Bologna into the Papal States,\ncontinued uninterruptedly in the next century, when we find on the\nlist of professors at Bologna such names as those of Malpighi, the\ngreatest mind in the medical sciences of the seventeenth century, and\nhis colleague Fracassati, who, though over-shrouded by Malpighi, still\nclaims a prominent place in the history of medicine. Bologna has a\nspecial feature of medical development to its credit which, because of\nits importance for science in general as well as for medicine,\ndeserves to be mentioned here. During the century after the Popes\nbecame the rulers of the city scientific societies were founded here,\nand as the professors and {246} students of the medical school were\nalso the most interested in science in general, the membership of\nthese societies was largely made up of individuals connected with the\nmedical school. A special society for the cultivation of anatomical\nknowledge, the first of its kind ever founded, was established in\nBologna scarcely more than a century after the city came under the\nPapal dominion. It was called the Coro Anatomico, or anatomical choir,\nand had at first only nine members. Among these, however, were such\ndistinguished men as Malpighi, Fracassati, Capponi, and Massari, to\nthe last of whom the initiative of the foundation of the society is\nsaid to have been due. Bologna was noted during the sixteenth and\nseventeenth centuries for the number of foreign students of medicine\nwho were attracted to its hospitable medical school and who carried\nthe tradition of science for its own sake, so characteristic of this\nPapal Medical School, to all parts of the world.\n\nAfter this consideration of the relation of the Popes to medical\nscience during many centuries when medicine practically included all\nthe physical sciences, it may seem utterly inexplicable to any\nfair-minded person that the tradition of the opposition of the Popes\nto science and scientific educational development should have\napparently become a commonplace in history. This will not be a\nsurprise, however, to those who know how perversive and influential\nhas been the Protestant tradition which from the beginning of the\nsixteenth century has devoted itself to blackening the reputation of\nthe Church, the Popes, and Catholic ecclesiastics generally. Nowhere\nis this more true than in history as written for English-speaking\npeople. Those who left the old Church and their immediate descendants,\njustified their {247} withdrawal to themselves as well as others, by\ntaking every possible excuse and inventing every possible pretext, to\nshow how unworthy of their continued allegiance the old Church had\nbeen. The point of view thus assumed was taken quite seriously by\nsucceeding generations, until at length a whole body of historical\ntraditions, utterly unfounded in fact, accumulated, especially in\nEngland, where it must be remembered that for several centuries\nCatholics were not in a position to impugn and eradicate it. This\nunfortunate state of affairs, and not real opposition on the part of\nthe Popes to science, is the source of the tradition with regard to\nthe supposed opposition between the Church and science.\n\n\n{248}\n\n             THE FOUNDATION OF CITY HOSPITALS.\n\nProbably the most important work that the Popes did for medical\nscience in the Middle Ages was their encouragement of the development\nof a hospital system throughout Christianity. The story of this\nmovement is not only interesting because it represents a coordination\nof social effort for the relief of suffering humanity, but also\nbecause it represents the provision of opportunities for the study of\ndisease and the skilled care of the ailing such as can come in no\nother way. Those who are familiar with the history of medicine, and\nespecially of surgery, know that a great period of progress in these\ndepartments came during the thirteenth century. The next two centuries\nindeed represent an epoch of surgical advance such as was probably\nnever surpassed and only equalled by the last century. This seems much\nto say of a medieval century 700 years ago, but our chapter on surgery\nwill, I think, amply justify the assertion. The reasons for this great\ndevelopment in surgical knowledge are properly understood only when we\ncome to realize that there was a corresponding development in hospital\norganization. These two features of medicine always go hand in hand.\nThe hospitals, as might be expected, preceded the surgical\ndevelopment, and owed their great progress at this time mainly to the\nPopes.\n\nThe city hospital as we have it at the present time, that is, the\npublic institution meant for the reception of those suffering from\naccidents, from acute diseases of various kinds, and also for\nproviding shelter for those {249} who have become ill and have no\nfriends to take care of them, is an establishment dating from the\nbeginning of the thirteenth century. It will doubtless be a surprise\nto most people to be told that the modern world owes this beneficent\ninstitution to the fatherly watchfulness, the kindly foresight, and\nthe very practical charity of one of the greatest of the Popes, whose\nname is usually associated with ambitious schemes for making the\nPapacy a great political power in Europe, rather than as the prime\nmover in what was probably the most far-reaching good work of supreme\nsocial significance that was ever accomplished.\n\nAt the beginning of the thirteenth century, mainly as the result of\nthose much abused sources of many benefits to mankind in the Middle\nAges, the Crusades, the people of Europe had begun to dwell together\nin towns much more than before. It is closeness of population that\ngives rise to the social needs. While people were scattered throughout\nthe country diseases were not so prevalent, epidemics were not likely\nto spread, and the charitable spirit of the rural people themselves\nwas quite sufficient to enable them to care for the few ailing persons\nto be found. With the advent of even small city life, however, came\nthe demand for hospitals in the true sense of the word, and this need\ndid not long escape the watchful eye of Innocent III. He recognized\nthe necessity for a city hospital in Rome, and in accordance with his\nvery practical character and wonderful activity, at once set about its\nfoundation.\n\nAs was to be expected from his wise foresight, he did not do so\nwithout due consideration. He consulted many visitors to Rome and many\ndistinguished medical authorities as to what they considered to be the\nbest conducted {250} and most ably managed institution for the care of\nthe sick in Europe at that time. Almost by common consent he was\nassured that the most successful hospital management was to be found\nat Montpelier. This French town near the shores of the Mediterranean\nhad succeeded to the medical prestige formerly held by Salerno, and\nwas now the favorite place of pilgrimage for the nobility and reigning\nsovereigns of Europe, whenever they became so ill that their ordinary\nmedical attendants seemed to be able to do nothing for them. Pope\nInnocent was further told that the institution at Montpelier which was\nbest conducted was undoubtedly the Hospital of the Fathers of the Holy\nSpirit.\n\nAccordingly, the Pope extended an invitation which, under the\ncircumstances, must have been practically a command, to Guy or Guido\nof Montpelier, the administrative head to whom the hospital there owed\nits successful organization, to come to Rome and establish a hospital\nof his order in the Papal capital. He provided the order with a\nsufficient foundation in what is now known as the Borgo, not far from\nthe present Vatican. On this was erected, at the beginning of the\nthirteenth century, a hospital of the Holy Spirit, which still exists\nthere, though, of course, the building has been many times renewed\nsince the original foundation. This hospital of the Holy Spirit soon\nattained a world-wide reputation for careful nursing and medical\nattendance and for the discretion with which its surgical cases were\ntreated. It was understood that all the ailing picked up on the\nstreets should be brought to the hospital, and that all the wounded\nand injured would be welcomed there. Besides, certain of the\nattendants of the hospital went out every day to look for any patients\nwho might {251} be neglected or be without sufficient care, especially\nin the poorer quarters of the city, and these were also transported to\nthe hospital. This old Santo-Spirito hospital then was exactly the\nmodel of our modern city hospitals.\n\nPope Innocent's idea, however, was not to establish a hospital at Rome\nalone, but his fatherly solicitude went out to every city in\nChristendom. In accordance with this pre-determined plan, by personal\npersuasion, by the display of an interest in hospital work, and by\nofficial Papal encouragement he succeeded in having, during his own\npontificate, a number of hospitals established in all parts of the\nthen civilized world on the model of this hospital of the Holy Ghost\nat Rome. The initiative thus given proved lasting, and even after the\nPontiff's death hospitals of the Holy Ghost continued to multiply in\nvarious parts of Europe, until scarcely a city of any importance was\nwithout one.\n\nIt is no less a person than Virchow, the greatest of modern medical\nscientists, who has traced the origins of the modern German city\nhospitals back to Innocent and given us a list of those which were\nestablished during the century following his pontificate. Here are the\nnames of those towns from Virchow's list in which hospitals were\nfounded during the thirteenth century in Germany alone, which will\nshow very convincingly how widespread the hospital establishment\nmovement was: Zurich, St. Gallen, Bern, Basel, Constanz, Villingen,\nPfullendorf, Freiburg, Breisch, Stephansfelden, Oppenheim, Mainz,\nSpeyer, Coblenz (an der Leer), Cologne, Crefeld, Ulm, Biberach,\nRothenburg, Kirchheim, Mergentheim, Wimpfen, Reutlingen, Memmingen,\nAugsburg, Rothenburg a. Tauber, Muenchen, Frankfort a. M., {252}\nHoxter, Dortmund, Brandenburg, Spandau, Salzwedel, Stendal, Berlin,\nPerleberg, Pritzwalk, Halberstadt, Halle, Quedlinburg, Helmstedt,\nMagdeburg, Sangerhauson, Eisenach, Naumburg, Hanover, Gottingen,\nNortheim, Bremen, Hamburg, Luebeck, Parchim, Wismar, Rostock, Schwerin,\nMollen, Oldeslo, Ratzelburg, Ribnitz, Stettin, Stralsund, Greifswald,\nDemmin, Anclam, Breslau, Bunzlau, Gorlitz, Brieg, Glatz, Sagan,\nSteinau, Glogau, Inowraclaw, Wien, Meran, Brixen, Sterzing, Elbing,\nThorn, Koenigsberg, Danzig, Marienburg, Riga.\n\nMany of these towns were comparatively small. In fact, there were no\ncities that we moderns would call large in the thirteenth century.\nLondon had probably not more than some twenty thousand; Paris, even at\nthe most flourishing period of the university, under fifty thousand.\nMost of the German towns had less than ten thousand, and of these\nwhich are the sites of hospital foundations mentioned by Virchow,\nprobably not more than a dozen, if that many, had more than five\nthousand inhabitants. Since the movement spread even to such small\ntowns, it can be readily understood how far-reaching in its effects\nwas the policy initiated by Innocent III. and how thoroughly he laid\nthe secure foundations of a great Christian hospital system.\n\n\n[Illustration: Holy Ghost Hospital (Luebeck)]\n\n\nSince the Papal example and recommendations produced so much effect\nupon Germany, which was not so closely united to the Holy See as were\nthe Latin nations, it is easy to understand what an impetus to the\nhospital movement must have been given in the southern countries, even\nthough we have not had the advantage of so patient a collector of\ninformation as Virchow to give us all the details. In the larger\ncities hospitals were already in existence, and these took on a new\nlife because of the {253} hospital movement. In Paris, for instance,\nthe Hotel Dieu, which had been in existence for some time, became so\ncramped for room in its original location, just beyond the Petit Pont,\nthat at this time it had to be transferred to its present commodious\nquarters next to the Cathedral, on the square of Notre Dame. The\nhospital became a city hospital in the genuine sense of the word, and\nthe citizens became interested in it to a noteworthy degree. It began\nto be the subject of bequests and benefactions of all kinds on the\npart of the clergy and laity, and many interesting details of these\nbenefactions are still at hand in documents contained in the hospital\narchives of Paris. [Footnote 30]\n\n[Footnote 30: Bordier, Archives Hospitalieres De Paris, Paris;\nChampion, Publications for the Society of the History of Paris, 1877.]\n\nThere are some curious historical details in these old documents,\nsince they serve to show the method in use for designating houses at\nthat time when, it must be recalled, street numbers had not as yet\nbeen invented. Most of the houses had on their facades some image or\nfigure by which they were known. The Hotel Dieu, for instance,\nacquired during the thirteenth century the houses with the image of\nSt. Louis, with the sign of the golden lion of Flanders, with the\nimage of the butterfly with that of the wolf, with the images of the\nthree monkeys, with the image of the iron lion, with the cross of\ngold, with the three chimneys, etc. A certain amount for the support\nof the hospital was allowed out of the city revenues, and a favorite\nmethod was to permit, in times of special stress upon the hospital,\nthe collection of a tax on all of a certain commodity that came into\nthe city. For a time, for instance, during an epidemic or other period\nof necessity, a hospital would obtain {254} permission to collect a\ntax on all the salt, or, occasionally, on all the wheat that entered\nParis. This serves to show the renewed interest in city hospital\naffairs that had arisen mainly as the result of Papal initiative and\nencouragement.\n\nIn the smaller towns in France there was the same hospital movement as\ncharacterized the situation in Germany. In the south, the closeness of\nMontpelier made the example of the hospital of the Holy Ghost of that\ncity especially forceful. In other portions of France it is well known\nthat the Sisters of the Holy Ghost very early established separate\nhospitals from those founded by the Brothers of the Holy Ghost. There\nare records of such separate hospitals entirely under the control of\nSisters in Bar-Sur-Aube, in Neuf-Chateau, and, according to Virchow,\nat many other places. At the same time, however, there still continued\nto be hospitals of the Holy Ghost as at Besancon, where the Brothers\nand Sisters of the Holy Ghost had their institutions in common, though\nthere was a distinct separation of the communities and allotment of\ntasks. The Brothers cared rather for the surgical cases, while the\ncare of the children and the pregnant women was confided to the\nSisters. This of itself was rather an advantage, since the separation\nof the women and the children from the ordinary hospital patients,\nmust have proved an important preventive of infection and an\nameliorating factor as regards that hospital atmosphere especially\nlikely to be unfavorable to these delicate, sensitive cases. We know\nnow what hospitalism means for them.\n\nThat the influence of the movement initiated by Innocent III. was felt\neven in distant England is very clear, from the fact that practically\nall of the famous old {255} British hospitals date their existence as\ninstitutions for the care of the ailing from the thirteenth century.\nThe famous St. Bartholomew's Hospital in London had been a priory\nfounded at the beginning of the twelfth century, which took care of\nthe poor and the destitute sick, but at the beginning of the\nthirteenth century it became, in imitation of the Hospital of the Holy\nSpirit at Rome, frankly a hospital in the modern sense of the word.\nSt. Thomas's Hospital, which continues to be down to the present time\none of the great medical institutions of London, was founded by\nRichard, Prior of Bermondsey, in 1213. Bethlehem, or as the name was\nsoftened in the English speech of the people, Bedlam, was founded\nabout the middle of the thirteenth century. Originally it was a\ngeneral hospital for the care of the sick of all kinds, though in\nlater times it became, as its name has come to signify in modern\nEnglish, a place exclusively for the care of the insane. Bedlam, in\nthe fourteenth century, and probably also in the later years of the\nthirteenth, made provision for a certain number of the insane in\naddition to other patients, so that it presented the accomplishment of\nthat desideratum for which we are striving in the twentieth century--a\ncity general hospital with psychopathic wards. This arrangement, as we\nhave said in the chapter on the Church and the Mentally Afflicted, has\nmany advantages over the special hospital for the insane, entrance to\nwhich, as a rule, requires tedious formalities.\n\nBridewell and Christ's Hospital, the other two of the institutions\nlong known as the five royal hospitals of London, were either actually\nfounded or received a great stimulus and a thorough reorganization\nduring the thirteenth century. In the succeeding centuries Bridewell\n{256} ceased to be a hospital and became a prison, while Christ's\nHospital, though retaining its name, became a school. With some of\nthese institutions the name of Edward VI. has become associated, but,\nas pointed out by Gairdner, the English historical writer, without any\ndue warrant. Gairdner says in his History of the English Church in the\nSixteenth Century, \"Edward has left a name in connection with\ncharities and education which critical scholars find to be little\njustified by fact.\" The supposed foundation of St. Thomas's Hospital,\nas he points out, was only the re-establishment of this institution,\n\"and even when it was granted by Edward to the citizens of London, it\nwas not without their paying for it.\" Many institutions, charitable\nand educational, had been destroyed by Henry VIII., and the crying\nneed for them became so great under Edward's reign that the government\nwas compelled to provide for their re-establishment.\n\nIt is no wonder, with all this activity of the hospital foundation\nmovement, that Virchow should have been unstinted in his praise of the\nPontiff and of the Church responsible for the great charity. He said:\n\"It may be recognized and admitted that it was reserved for the Roman\nCatholic Church, and above all for Innocent III., not only to open the\nbourse of Christian charity and mercy in all its fulness, but also to\nguide the life-giving stream into every branch of human life in an\nordered manner. For this reason alone the interest in this man and in\nthis time will never die out.\"\n\nEven this was not all that he felt bound to say, and in his admiration\nhe quite forgot the constant opposition he manifested toward the\nPapacy on all other occasions. This happened to be the one feature of\nPapal influence {257} and endeavor that he had investigated most\nthoroughly, and one is tempted to wonder if like investigation in\nother directions would not have shown him the error of prejudiced\nviews he harbored with regard to other phases of the beneficent\ninfluence of the Popes in history. More knowledge is all that is\nneeded, as a rule, to overcome all the anti-Papal prejudices founded\non supposed historical grounds.\n\nIndeed, Virchow's tribute to Pope Innocent III. as the initiator of\nall this humanitarian work is so frank and outspoken that, coming as\nit does from a man whose sympathies with the Papacy were well known to\nbe the slightest, it deserves to be recalled in its completeness, in\norder that another factor for the vindication of Innocent's character\nmay be better known. The great pathologist said: \"The beginning of the\nhistory of all of these German hospitals is connected with the name of\nthat Pope who made the boldest and farthest-reaching attempt to gather\nthe sum of human interests into the organization of the Catholic\nChurch. The hospitals of the Holy Ghost were one of the many means by\nwhich Innocent III. thought to hold humanity to the Holy See. And\nsurely it was one of the most effective. Was it not calculated to\ncreate the most profound impression to see how the mighty Pope, who\nhumbled emperors and deposed kings, who was the unrelenting adversary\nof the Albigenses, turned his eyes sympathetically upon the poor and\nsick, sought the helpless and the neglected upon the streets, and\nsaved the illegitimate children from death in the waters! There is\nsomething at once conciliating and fascinating in the fact, that at\nthe very time when the fourth crusade was inaugurated through his\ninfluence, the thought of founding a great {258} organization of an\nessentially humane character, which was eventually to extend\nthroughout all Christendom, was also taking form in his soul; and that\nin the same year (1204) in which the new Latin Empire was founded in\nConstantinople, the newly erected hospital of the Holy Spirit, by the\nold bridge on the other side of the Tiber, was blessed and dedicated\nas the future centre of this organization.\" [Footnote 31]\n\n[Footnote 31: Virchow's article on the German hospitals is to be found\nin the second volume of his collection of essays on Public Medicine\nand the History of Epidemics, which is, unfortunately, not translated\ninto English, so far as I know, but will have to be consulted in the\noriginal Gesammelte Abhandlungen aus dem Gebiete der Oeffentlichen\nMedicin und der Seuchenlehre von Rudolf Virchow, Berlin, 1879. August\nHirschwald.]\n\nThe quotation from Virchow gives a good and quite comprehensive idea\nof the scope of these institutions. The ailing of all kinds were\nreceived beneath their hospitable roof. In many cases the regulations\nfor the reception of pregnant women and for the care of the foundlings\nare still extant, besides the hospital rules for the care of the\nvarious kinds of patients. The department set aside for the foundlings\nwas in most places rather an allied institution than an integral part\nof the hospital itself. While these were called findel or foundling\nhouses in Germany, in Italy this harsh name was not used, but the\ninstitutions were termed hospitals for the innocents, thus emphasizing\nthe most pitiable feature of the cases of the little patients, and not\nbranding them for life with a name that suggested their having been\nabandoned by those who should have cared for them.\n\nThe regulations for the admission and care of patients are interesting\nas showing how much these medieval institutions tried to fulfill the\nideal of hospital work. The people of the Middle Ages had not as yet\nsuffered all {259} the disillusionments that come from the abuse of\ncharity at the hands of those who least deserve help, and besides, the\nattendants at the hospitals were expected to do their work for its own\nsake and from the highest motives of Christian benevolence rather than\nfor any lesser reward. At the beginning, at least, there seems to be\nno doubt that this lofty purpose was accomplished very satisfactorily;\nbut men and women are only human, and after a time there was\ndeterioration. Even Virchow, however, was so struck by the ideal\nconditions that existed in these early hospitals that he discussed the\nnecessity for having in modern times hospital attendants with as\nunselfish motives as those of the medieval period. It seems worth\nwhile then to give some of the details of this supremely Christian\nmanagement of hospital work.\n\nIn an article on the medieval hospitals in the Dublin Review for\nOctober, 1903, Elizabeth Speakman quotes from the statutes of various\nhospitals sufficient to show how the internal government of these\ncharitable institutions was regulated. There was always a porter at\nthe main door, usually one of the Brothers or Sisters, who had the\npower to receive patients applying for admission. At certain places,\nhowever, it seems to have been necessary to inform the superior; and\nthe statutes of the French Hospital at Angers say, that the prioress\nis to go herself without delay to receive patients or to send one of\nthe Sisters for that purpose, \"not severe or hard, but kind of\ncountenance.\" At the same place the statutes say, \"the number of the\nsick is not to be defined, for the house is theirs, and so all\nindifferently shall be received as far as the resources of the house\nallow.\"\n\nFrom many of the hospitals members of the community were sent out from\nday to day to find out if there {260} were any lying sick who needed\ncare and who should be sent to the hospital. They were expected also\nto pick up any of the infirm whom they might find along the streets\nand bring them to the hospital. The attitude which the religious\nattendants at the hospitals were to assume toward the patients upon\nwhom they wait is clearly stated. In nearly all of the French\nhospitals of the thirteenth century, at least, the statutes in this\nmatter do not differ much from this specimen:\n\n\"When the patient arrives he shall be received thus: First, having\nconfessed his sins to the priest, he shall be communicated religiously\nand afterward be carried to bed and treated there as our Lord,\naccording to the resources of the house; each day, before the repast\nof the brethren, he shall be given food with charity, and each Sunday\nthe epistle and gospel shall be read and aspersion with holy water\nmade with procession.\"\n\nAs is noted by Miss Speakman, all through the hospital statutes of\nthese times the name of Masters or Lords is applied to the patients.\nThe expression in Old French is Les Seignors Malades. The ordinary\nname for hospital was Maison Dieu, which has been well translated\n\"God's Hostelry.\" It is evident, then, though the origin of the phrase\n\"Our Lords the Poor,\" as applied to hospital patients, has been said\nto be obscure, that it is only a re-echo of the scriptural expression,\n\"Whatsoever ye shall do, even to the least of these, behold ye do it\nunto Me.\" A quotation which was emphasized in the old rule of St.\nBenedict, promulgated for the treatment of those received into the\nhospitality of the Benedictine monasteries, \"All guests shall be\nreceived as Christ, who Himself has said, 'I was a stranger and ye\ntook Me in.'\"\n\n{261}\n\nIn modern times, the necessity for providing for patients whatever\nwithin reason they may long for has often been insisted on. It is\ncuriously interesting to find a striking anticipation of this very\nmodern rule in the customs of these old-time hospitals. As a result of\nthe attitude of supreme good will toward patients, there is an\ninjunction in many hospital statutes, that whatever the patient may\ndesire, if it can be obtained and is not bad for him, shall be given\nto him until he is restored to health. The Knights Hospitalers of St.\nJohn of Jerusalem followed the injunction so carefully and endeavored\nto satisfy even whims of their patients that might seem unreasonable\nto such an extent, that their conduct in the matter became proverbial\nand gave rise to at least one pretty legend, the hero of which is no\nless a personage than the famous Eastern Sultan of the later Crusade\nperiod.\n\n  \"Saladin desiring to prove for himself this reputed indulgence of\n  the knights to their patients, disguised himself as a pilgrim and\n  was received among the sick in the hospital in Jerusalem. He refused\n  all food, declaring that there was only one thing that he fancied,\n  and that he knew they would not give him. On being pressed, he\n  confessed that it was one of the feet of the horse of the Grand\n  Master. The latter, on being acquainted with this fact, ordered that\n  the noble animal should be killed and the sick stranger's desire\n  satisfied. Saladin at this point, thinking the experiment had gone\n  far enough, declared himself taken with a repugnance to it, so the\n  animal was spared.\"\n\nVirchow studied very faithfully the management of these medieval\nhospitals, and was evidently quite impressed with the success with\nwhich difficulties had been {262} met and overcome. None knew better\nthan he all the difficulties there were in hospital management, for\nduring nearly fifty years he had been identified with many hospitals,\nfrom city charity institutions to the various kinds needed for war and\nthose erected in connection with universities for teaching purposes.\nHe had very little patience with religious formulas, and was indeed a\ntypical agnostic. Notwithstanding this, he has been perfectly frank in\nconfessing how much is accomplished by the religious management of the\nhospitals, and even did not hesitate to declare that if hospitals for\nthe poor particularly, are to be successfully managed, there must be a\nchange in the view-point of those who take up the work of hospital\nnursing, and the attendants must come from better social classes than\nis at present the custom. (This is of course for Germany.)\n\nThe question as to whether secular or religious management of\nhospitals shall prevail has not been as yet absolutely decided, and\nthis adds to the value of Virchow's opinion. No one knew better than\nhe of the many sacrifices required if the patients are to be properly\ncared for. Himself, as I have said, utterly without religion, it is\ncurious to see how he recognizes the benefit that religious motives\nconfer upon the management of a hospital, and how much better the work\nis likely to be done by those who give themselves up to the care of\nthe sick as a Christian duty. He says:\n\n  \"The general hospital is the real purpose of our time, and anyone\n  who takes up service in it must give himself up to it from the\n  purest of humanitarian motives. The hospital attendant must, at\n  least morally and spiritually, see in the patient only the helpless\n  and suffering man, his brother and his neighbor; and in order to be\n  able to {263} do this he must have a warm heart, an earnest\n  devotion, and a true sense of duty. There is in reality scarcely any\n  human occupation that brings so immediately with it its own reward,\n  or in which the feeling of personal contentment comes from thorough\n  accomplishment of purpose.\n\n  \"But so far as the accomplishment of the task set one is concerned,\n  the attendant in the hospital has ever and anon new demands made\n  upon him and a new task imposed. One patient lies next the other,\n  and when one departs another comes in his place.\n\n  \"From day to day, from week to week, from year to year, always the\n  same work, over and over again, only forever for new patients. This\n  tires out the hospital attendant. Then the custom of seeing\n  suffering weakens the enthusiasm and lessens the sense of duty.\n  There is need of a special stimulus in order to reawaken the old\n  sympathy. Whence shall this be obtained--from religion or from some\n  temporal reward? In trying to solve this problem we are standing\n  before the most difficult problem of modern hospital management.\n  Before us lie the paths of religious and simple care for the sick.\n  We may say at once that the proper solution has not yet been found.\n\n  \"It may be easy, from an impartial but one-sided view of the\n  subject, to say that the feeling of duty, of devotion, even of\n  sacrifice, is by no means necessarily dependent on the hope of\n  religious reward, nor the expectation of material remuneration. Such\n  a point of view, however, I may say at once, such a freedom of good\n  will, such a warmth of sympathy from purely human motives as would\n  be expected in these conditions, are only to be found in very\n  unaccustomed goodness of {264} disposition, or an extent of ethical\n  education such as cannot be found in most of those who give\n  themselves at the present time to the services of the sick in the\n  hospitals. If pure humanity is to be a motive, then other circles of\n  society must be induced to take part in the care of the sick. Our\n  training schools for nurses must teach very differently to what they\n  do at present, if the care of the sick in municipal hospitals shall\n  compare favorably with that given them in religious institutions.\n  Our hospitals must become transformed into true humanitarian\n  institutions.\"\n\nWhile some of this striking opinion of Virchow's was derived from\npersonal experience with hospitals managed by religious, it must not\nbe forgotten that such hospitals are rarer in Germany, at least in the\nnorth, than almost anywhere else in the world. His opportunities then\nwere limited, and undoubtedly much of his favorable persuasions in\nthis regard was founded on his investigation of conditions as he had\nlearned to know them in the old-time hospitals of the later Middle\nAges. The traditions as to the treatment of patients in these early\ntimes are such as to make us believe that hospital attendants did take\ntheir work seriously from a very lofty motive, and that while medicine\nand surgery were much less effective than in more modern times, the\ntender care of patients did as much as was possible to make inevitable\nsuffering more bearable, and to keep the sight of painfully\napproaching death from being a source of discouragement and even of\ndespair.\n\nWe have the best evidence, that of a contemporary, as to the\nconditions which obtained in these medieval hospitals, and the\ndispositions of the attendants as regards their religious duties would\nseem to be an unmistakable {265} index as to their willingness to\nsacrifice their own comfort for the sake of the patients. The well\nknown Jacques de Vitry, who had been Bishop of Acre and afterwards\nCardinal, and whose wide travel had given him many opportunities to\njudge for himself, said:\n\n  \"There are innumerable congregations, both of men and women,\n  renouncing the world and living regularly in leper houses and\n  hospitals of the poor, humbly and devoutly ministering to the poor\n  and the infirm. They live according to the rule of St. Augustine,\n  without property and in community and under obedience to one above\n  them; and having assumed the regular habit, they promise to God\n  perpetual continence. The men and women, with all reverence and\n  chastity, eat and sleep apart. The canonical hours, as far as\n  hospitality and the care of the poor of Christ allow, by day and\n  night they attend. In houses where there is a large congregation of\n  brethren and sisters, they congregate frequently in chapter for the\n  correction of faults and other causes. Readings from Holy Scriptures\n  are frequently made during meals, and silence is maintained during\n  meals in the refectory and other fixed places and at certain times.\n  .... Their chaplains, ministering in spiritual matters with all\n  humility and devotion to the infirm, instruct the ignorant in the\n  word of divine preaching, console the faint-hearted and weak, and\n  exhort them to patience and to correspond to the action of grace.\n  They celebrate divine office in the common chapel assiduously by day\n  and night, so that the sick can hear from their beds. Confession and\n  extreme unction and the other sacraments they administer diligently\n  and solicitously to the sick, and to the dead they give due burial.\n  These ministers of Christ, sober and sparing to themselves and {266}\n  very strict and severe to their bodies, overflowing with charity to\n  the poor and infirm and ministering with tender heart to their\n  necessities according to their powers, are all the more lowly in the\n  House of God as they were of high rank in the world. They bear for\n  Christ's sake such unclean and almost intolerable things, that I do\n  not think any other can be compared to this martyrdom, holy and\n  precious in the sight of God.\"\n\nIt might perhaps be thought that these hospitals of the Middle Ages\nwould be of very little interest to the modern student of things\nsocial and medical except for the fact, surprising enough in itself at\nthis time of supposed neglect of social duties, when the paternal\nspirit of the municipality is presumed scarcely to have developed as\nyet, that such institutions were provided. It would ordinarily be\nassumed that they were, in accordance with the lack of knowledge of\nthe time as regards the influence of light and air on the ailing,\ndingy and unventilated, lacking most of the qualities that distinguish\nour modern hospital. As a matter of fact, however, just as our\narchitects go back to the Middle Ages to get models for our churches\nand municipal buildings, and even our millionaires' palaces and public\ninstitutions, they also find that in the matter of hospitals much\nvaluable guidance is to be obtained from what was accomplished by\nthese people of the Middle Ages, of whom we ordinarily think so\nlittle. Mr. Arthur Dillon, an architect, writing in the \"Mail and\nExpress\" for May 7th, 1904, described the hospital founded by\nMarguerite of Bourgogne, the sister of St. Louis, at Tanierre in\nFrance in 1293. It consisted of a ward, a building attached to it by a\ncovered passage in which Marguerite herself lived for many years, and\n_separate buildings_ for {267} kitchens, for storage of provisions and\nfor the lodging of the twenty monks and nuns who had charge of the\nsick. A feature that perhaps we would not admire very much, was that\nadjacent to the buildings there was a cemetery. They were not so\nfearful about death in the Middle Ages, however, as we are apt to be;\nand who shall say that the contemplation of it did not often give that\nrestful sense of submission to whatever would come, that sometimes\nmeans so much in serious illness, and keeps the patient from still\nfurther exhausting vitality by worrying as to the outcome? The\nmedicine was stronger than our degenerate generation might be able to\nbear, but then all their medicines were apt to be stronger in that\ntime.\n\nThe situation of the hospital might well be thought ideal. The\nprincess had gardens about her lodging, and the whole property was\nsurrounded by a high wall, along which flowed the branches of a small\nstream, which doubtless tempered the atmosphere and served as a\ncarrier off of much undesirable material. The hospital ward itself was\n55 feet wide and 270 feet long and had a high arched ceiling of wood.\nIt was lighted by large pointed windows high up in the walls. At the\nlevel of the window-sills, some twelve feet from the floor, a narrow\ngallery ran along the wall, from which the ventilation through the\nwindows might be readily regulated and on which convalescent patients\nmight walk or be seated in the sunshine. The beds were placed each in\na little room formed by low partitions. Privacy was thus secured much\nbetter than in the modern hospital wards, and as there were only forty\nbeds, the ventilation was abundant.\n\nMr. Dillon, from the standpoint of the architect, says\nof it:\n\n{268}\n\n  \"It was an admirable hospital in every way, and it is doubtful if we\n  to-day surpass it. It was isolated, the ward was separated from the\n  other buildings, it had the advantage we so often lose of being but\n  one story high, and more space was given to each patient than we can\n  now afford.\n\n  \"The ventilation by the great windows and ventilators in the ceiling\n  was excellent; is was cheerfully lighted, and the arrangement of the\n  gallery shielded the patients from dazzling light and from draughts\n  from the windows and afforded an easy means of supervision, while\n  the division by the roofless, low partitions isolated the sick and\n  obviated the depression that comes from the sight of others in pain.\n\n  \"It was, moreover, in great contrast to the cheerless white wards of\n  to-day. The vaulted ceiling was very beautiful; the woodwork was\n  richly carved, and the great windows over the altars were filled\n  with colored glass. Altogether, it was one of the best examples of\n  the best period of Gothic architecture.\"\n\nProbably the most interesting feature of the early history of the\nhospital movement is the spirit of evolution to meet growing needs and\ndeveloping ideals which it manifested. In spite of the judicious\nconsideration devoted to the establishment of the original hospital of\nthe Holy Ghost at Rome, it was not long before it proved inadequate\nfor its purpose. One of the eminently noteworthy things that\nconstantly repeat themselves in history is that where a social need is\ndiscovered and a remedy found for it, it is not long before the need\nincreases to such a degree as to outstrip the original remedy. Before\nhalf a century had passed Innocent's successors declared in\nunmistakable terms that the original hospital was entirely too cramped\nand crowded.\n\n\n[Illustration: Hospital Ward of Tonnerre, France (_Viollet-le-Duc,\nDictionnaire de l' Architecture Francaise, XI au XVI Siecle_). This\nwas built by the sister of Louis IX of France, Marguerite of\nBourgogne, who retired to it herself to spend her life caring for the\nailing poor.]\n\n\n{269}\n\nAccordingly, a much larger and handsomer building was erected.\nVisitors to Rome admired the new building, and it proved an incentive\nfor larger plans for hospitals in other important cities. At the end\nof the thirteenth and the beginning of the fourteenth centuries some\nreally imposing edifices were erected as hospitals, especially in\ntowns of Italy. It was at this time that the artistic Italian mind\nseems to have realized the truth, which has only come to be recognized\nagain in quite recent times, that a hospital building should be as\nfine a structure as the finances of a city will permit. It was felt\nthat nothing was too good for the ailing citizens and that the city\nhonored itself by making its public buildings a monument of artistic\npurpose. The earliest example of how well this was accomplished is to\nbe found at Siena, whose hospital continues to be down to the present\ntime one of the most interesting objects of admiration for the\nvisitor. Portions of this Siena hospital as it now exists were built\nas early as the last decade of the thirteenth and the first decade of\nthe fourteenth century. It was during the first half of the fourteenth\ncentury that it was resolved to make the building as beautiful in the\ninterior by means of great artistic decoration and frescoes as it was\nimposing on the exterior. It was not for a century and a half later\nthat Milan's magnificent hospital took on its modern shape, though the\ncity had been always famous for its care of the sick. The hospital\nmovement of the thirteenth century, however, culminated in monuments\nas famous and as architecturally beautiful as any that have been built\nin recent years.\n\nTo take, for example, that of Siena, a good {270} description of which\nmay be found in The Story of Siena, by G. Gardner. (Dent, London,\n1902.) The buildings occupy the whole side of the Piazzo del Duomo,\ndirectly opposite the facade. They constitute almost as striking a bit\nof architecture as any edifice of the period, and contain a\nmagnificent set of frescoes, some of them of the fourteenth century,\nmany others of later centuries. The Siena school of painting in the\nfourteenth century was doing some of the best art work of the time,\nand as a consequence the hospital has been of perennial interest.\nArtists and amateurs and dilettante visitors have gladly spent time in\nstudying and admiring its artistic treasures at nearly all times, but\nmore especially in recent years. The sympathetic admiration for its\nart has led to a better appreciation of the motives of the generation\nthat built it, than even the sublime humanitarian purpose which\ndictated it or the work for suffering humanity which it accomplished.\n\nIt is typical of the times in many ways. We have only just begun again\nin very modern times, as we have already said, to consider that some\nof the best of our buildings in any large city should be those\nintended for the sick and the poor of the community. The city must\nrespond nobly to its civic duties. The idea, however, came so\nnaturally to the medieval mind that apparently there was no question\nabout it. Only in very recent years has come the additional thought\nthat these buildings must be appropriately decorated, and that the\nwork of the greatest artists of the time can have no better place for\nits display than the walls of a hospital or a great charitable\ninstitution. Bartolo's frescoes, on the walls of the hospital at\nSiena, tell the story of the work that was done for foundlings and\npilgrims as well as for {271} the sick in the early days of its\nestablishment. The first picture of the series represents the baptism\nof the children that had been picked up and brought to the hospital.\n\nIt is characteristic of the times, too, that one of the greatest\npictures on the hospital walls is not something that makes for the\nglory of the trustees or the founders, nor that is some fancy of the\npainter, some study of myth or landscape, in which he might have been\nespecially interested. Probably the masterpiece of the old painters is\nthe Scala del Paradiso (the stairs to heaven), by Vecchietta. The\npicture was evidently painted for the department of the foundlings,\nand its subject is the ascent of these little children to heaven and\ntheir welcome by the angels and saints and by the Heavenly Father. A\nmore inspiring vision to be impressed upon the minds of these growing\nchildren who had been abandoned by their own, and who must have felt\nall of their loneliness in spite of their favorable surroundings,\ncould scarcely have been imagined.\n\nThe dedication of the hospital is expressed in terms very typical of\nthe Middle Ages, or as they might better be called, \"The Ages of\nFaith.\" It reminds one of the formal terms of wills, as they used to\nbe worded in olden times: \"In the Name of God, Amen. To the honor,\npraise and reverence of God and of His Mother, Madonna, Holy Mary\nVirgin, and of all the saints of God, and to the honor and exaltation\nof Holy Mother Church and of the Commune and of the people of the city\nof Siena, and to its good and pacific state, and to the increase of\nthe Hospital of Madonna, Holy Mary Virgin, of Siena, which is placed\nin front of the chief church of the city, and to the recreation of the\nsick and {272} the foundlings of the said hospital.\" This dedication\nis to be found at the beginning of the statutes of the hospital as\nthey were formulated in 1305.\n\nThe hospital did excellent service, and most of the original building\nhas remained down to our own day. It has seen many times of trial for\nthe citizens of Siena, and has proved its usefulness. Twice during the\nfourteenth century it saw the coming of the Black Death, and its wards\nand corridors and every room were filled with the dead and the dying.\nDuring the fourteenth century St. Catherine of Siena spent much of her\ntime in the hospital, and it was her work here that gave her the\nglorious prestige that came so unlooked for. The special confraternity\nwith which she was associated met in one of the smaller rooms of the\nhospital. Attached to the hospital there was a special house for\nlepers, and this was one of the favorite places for St. Catherine's\nvisitations. It is not surprising to find that she was, at the\nbeginning at least, very much opposed by her family in her choice of\nsuch an occupation as this personal devotion to the poor and the sick.\nIn reading the story, one is reminded of the opposition that is\nsometimes evoked at the present time when young women feel the\nnecessity for some occupation other than so-called social duties, and\ntake to slum visiting, or the care of the cancer poor, or some other\nform of practical aid for the needy, apart from the giving of money,\nor of doing a little sewing in a Lenten class, supposed to be the\nlimit of their charitable work in their special social circle.\n\n\n[Illustration: HOSPITAL, MEXICO (FOUNDED BEFORE 1524) This hospital\nwas founded by Cortez prior to 1524 \"in recognition of the graces and\nmercies that God had bestowed upon him by the discovery and conquest\nof New Spain and as an exoneration or satisfaction for any forgotten\nfault or load which might weigh on his conscience and for which he\ncould not make special or particular atonement.\" After his death the\nendowment was administered by a superintendent and has continued to be\nunder private management. It now belongs to the Dukes of Terranova y\nMontaleone, Cortez' Italian descendants, who nominate and maintain an\nagent to supervise the hospital (_A History of Nursing, Nutting and\nDock_).]\n\n\nIt is of curious interest, though not surprising, to find that in the\nmidst of the organization of new hospitals and reorganization of old\nhospital foundations in the thirteenth century, attempts were made to\ncorrect {273} abuses which still continue to be some of the thorny\nproblems of hospital management. For instance, the danger was\nrecognized of having the expenses of administration outrun those of\nthe hospital proper, and of having the number of attendants, or at\nleast of persons living upon the hospital revenues, greater than was\nabsolutely needed for the care of patients. There are various Papal\ndecrees and decisions of diocesan synods in this matter. Pope Honorius\nIII., who occupied the Papal See from 1216 to 1227, and must be\nconsidered as a very worthy successor of the first great Pope of the\ncentury, Innocent III., in approving the union of two hospital\nfoundations at Ghent, required that only a certain limited number of\nBrothers and Sisters for nursing purposes should be received, in order\nthat the community expenses proper might not impair to too great a\ndegree the resources of the hospital for its real purpose of taking\ncare of patients. Previously, he had insisted by a decree that the\nnumber of Brothers and Sisters in the hospital community at Louvain\nshould not exceed the proportion of more than one to nine of the\npatients. Synodal decrees in various bishoprics allowed only board and\nclothing, but nothing more, to attendants in hospitals. In the\nthirteenth century the personal satisfaction of accomplishing a\ncharitable work in attendance upon the sick was expected to make up\nfor any further remuneration.\n\nThe other serious problem of hospital management was to keep those not\nreally suffering from serious disease, malingerers of various kinds,\nfrom occupying beds and claiming attention, to the deprivation of\nthose who were genuinely ill. Various regulations were made looking to\nthe careful examinations of such persons, {274} though in most places\nwith the affirmation of a standing rule, that all those complaining of\nillness were to be received into the hospital for at least one day,\nuntil their cases could be examined with sufficient care to decide how\nmuch of reality and how much of simulation there might be in their\npretended symptoms. The tramp, of course, has always been in the\nworld, and probably always will be, and so what are called the sturdy\nvagrants (validi vagrantes) received the special attention of those\nwishing to eliminate hospital abuses, and various decrees were made in\norder to prevent them from receiving sustenance from the hospitals, or\nin any other way abusing the privileges of these charitable\ninstitutions.\n\nA hospital movement, quite distinct from that of Innocent III., which\nattracted so much attention shortly after the general hospital became\ncommon as to deserve particular consideration, was the erection of the\nleproseries or special institutions for the care of lepers. Leprosy\nhad become quite common in Europe during the Middle Ages, and the\ncontinued contact of the West with the East during the crusades had\nbrought about a notable increase of the disease. It is not definitely\nknown how much of what was called leprosy at that time, really\nbelonged to the specific disease now known as lepra. There is no doubt\nthat many affections, which have since come to be considered as quite\nharmless and non-contagious, were included under the designation\nleprosy by the populace and even physicians incapable as yet of making\na proper differential diagnosis. Probably severe cases of eczema and\nother chronic skin diseases, especially when complicated by the\nresults of wrongly directed treatment or of lack of cleansing, were\nnot infrequently pronounced to be true leprosy.\n\n{275}\n\nThere is no doubt at all, however, of the occurrence of real leprosy\nin many of the towns of the West from the twelfth to the fifteenth\ncenturies, and the erection of these hospitals proved the best\npossible prophylactic against the further spread of the disease.\nLeprosy is contagious, but only mildly so. Years of intimate\nassociation with a leper may, and usually do, bring about the\ncommunication of the disease to those around them, especially if they\ndo not exercise rather carefully, certain precise precautions as to\ncleanliness after personal contact or after the handling of things\nwhich have previously been in the leper's possession. As the result of\nthe existence of these houses of segregation, leprosy disappeared\nduring the course of the next three centuries, and thus a great\nhygienic triumph was obtained by sanitary regulation.\n\nThis successful sanitary and hygienic work, which brought about\npractically the complete obliteration of leprosy in the Middle Ages,\nfurnished the first example of the possibility of eradicating a\ndisease that has once become a serious scourge to mankind. That this\nshould have been accomplished by a movement that had its greatest\nsource in the thirteenth century is all the more surprising, since we\nare usually accustomed to think of the people of the times as sadly\nlacking in any interest in sanitary matters. The role of the Popes in\nthe matter is another striking feature well worthy of note. The\nsignificance of the success of this segregation method was lost upon\nmen down almost to our own time. This was unfortunately because it was\nconsidered that most of the epidemic diseases were conveyed by the\nair. They were thought infectious and due to a climatic condition\nrather than contagious, that is, conveyed by actual {276} contact with\nthe person having the disease or something that had touched him, which\nis the view now held. With the beginning of the crusade against\ntuberculosis in the later nineteenth century, however, the most\nencouraging factor for those engaged in it was the history of the\nsuccess of segregation methods and careful prevention of the spread of\nthe disease, which had been pursued against leprosy. In a word, the\nlessons in sanitation and prophylaxis of the thirteenth century are\nonly now bearing fruit because the intervening centuries did not have\nsufficient knowledge to realize their import and take advantage of\nthem.\n\nPope Innocent III. was not the only occupant of the Papal throne whose\nname deserves to be remembered with benedictions in connection with\nthe hospital movement of the thirteenth century. His successor took up\nthe work of encouragement where Innocent had left it at his death, and\ndid much to bring about the successful accomplishment of his\nintentions in the ever wider spheres. Honorius III. is distinguished\nby having made into an order the Antonine Congregation of Vienna,\nwhich was especially devoted to the care of patients suffering from\nthe \"holy fire\" and from various mutilations. The disease known as the\nholy fire seems to have been what is called in modern times\nerysipelas. During the Middle Ages it received various titles, such as\nSt. Anthony's fire, St. Francis's fire, and the like, the latter part\nof the designation evidently being due to the striking redness which\ncharacterizes the disease, and which can be compared to nothing better\nthan the intense erythema consequent upon a rather severe burn. This\naffection was much more common in the Middle Ages than in later times,\nthough it must not be forgotten that its {277} disappearance has come\nmainly in the last twenty-five years. It is now known to be a\ncontagious disease, and indeed, as Oliver Wendell Holmes pointed out\nover half a century ago, may readily be carried from place to place by\nthe physician in attendance. It does not always manifest itself as\nerysipelas when thus carried, however, and the merit of Dr. Holmes's\nwork was in pointing out the fact that physicians who attended\npatients suffering from erysipelas and then waited on obstetrical\ncases, were especially likely to carry the affection, which manifested\nitself as puerperal fever. A number of cases of this kind were\nreported and discussed by him, and there is no doubt that his warning\nserved to save many precious lives.\n\nOf course nothing of this was known in the thirteenth century; yet the\nencouragement given to this religious order which devoted itself\npractically exclusively to the care in special hospitals of\nerysipelas, must have had no little effect in bringing about a\nlimitation of the spread of the disease. In such hospitals patients\nwere not likely to come in contact with many persons, and consequently\nthe contagion-radius of the disease was limited. In our own time,\nimmediate segregation of cases when discovered has practically\neradicated it, so that many a young physician, even though ten years\nin practice, has never seen a case of it. It was so common during the\nCivil War and for half a century before that here in America, that\nthere were frequent epidemics of it in hospitals, and it was generally\nrecognized that the disease was so contagious, that when it once\ngained a foothold in a hospital ward nearly every patient suffering\nfrom an open wound was likely to be affected by it.\n\nIt is interesting then to learn that these people of the {278} Middle\nAges attempted to control the disease by erecting special hospitals\nfor it, though unfortunately we are not in a position to know just how\nmuch was accomplished by these means. A congregation devoted to the\nspecial care of the disease had been organized, as we have said, early\nin the thirteenth century. At the end of this century this was given\nthe full weight of his amplest approval by Pope Boniface VIII., who\nconferred on it the privilege of having priests among its members It\nwill be remembered that Pope Boniface VIII. is said to have issued the\nbull which forbade the practice of dissection. That bull only\nregulated, as I have shown, the abuse which had sprung up of\ndismembering bodies and boiling them in order to be able to carry them\nto a distance for burial, which was in itself an excellent hygienic\nmeasure. His encouragement of the special religious order for the care\nof erysipelas must be set down to his credit as another sanitary\nbenefit conferred on his generation.\n\nMany orders for the care of special needs of humanity were established\nduring the thirteenth century. It is from this period that most of the\nreligious habits worn by women originate. They used to be considered\nrather cumbersome for such a serious work as the nursing and care of\nthe sick, but in recent years quite a different view has been taken.\nThe covering of the head, for instance, and the shearing of the hair\nmust have been of distinct value in preventing the communication of\ncontagious diseases. There has been a curious assimilation in the last\nfew years of the dress required to be worn by nurses in operating\nrooms to that worn by most of the religious communities. The head must\nbe completely covered and the garments worn are of material that can\nbe washed. {279} It will be recalled that the head-dress of religious\nbeing, as a rule, of white, on which the slightest speck shows, must\nbe renewed frequently, and therefore must be kept in a condition of\nwhat is practically surgical cleanliness. While this was not at all\nthe intention of those who adopted the particular style of head-dress\nworn by religious, yet their choice has proved, in what may well be\nconsidered a Providential way, an excellent protective for the\npatients on whom they waited, against certain dangers that would\ninevitably have been present, if their dress had been the ordinary one\nof the women of their class, during these many centuries of hospital\nnursing by religious women.\n\nIn a word, then, all the features which characterize our modern\nhospitals, found a place in the old-time institutions for the care of\nthe ailing, which we owe to the initiative of the Church and religious\norders, and above all, the Popes. While we are accustomed to hear\nthese old-time institutions spoken of slightingly, that is because our\nknowledge of them was not as detailed as it should be, until the\nrecent interest in things medieval revealed many details previously\nmisunderstood. The hospitals of the thirteenth, fourteenth and\nfifteenth centuries were much better than those of subsequent\ncenturies down practically to our own time. The reason for this\ndecadence is rather complex, but it evidently occurred in spite of the\nChurch and the Popes. Much of it was due to the fact that,\nparticularly in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the political\ngovernments interfered in the work of charity and hospital management,\nand always to the detriment of it. The greatest triumph of the Church\nduring the earlier centuries is to be found in the magnificent\norganization of the {280} hospital system and the anticipation of so\nmany things in the organization of hospital work, the care of patients\nand even the prevention of contagious disease, that we are apt to\nthink of as essentially modern.\n\n\n\n{281}\n\nTHE CHURCH AND THE EXPERIMENTAL METHOD.\n\nThere is a very generally accepted false impression with regard to the\nattitude maintained by the Church during the Middle Ages, especially\ntoward what is known as the experimental method in the gaining of\nknowledge, or as we would now say, in the study of science. It is\ncommonly supposed that at least before the sixteenth century, though\nof course in modern times it has had to change its attitude to accord\nwith the advances of modern science, the Church was decidedly opposed\nto the experimental method, and that the great ecclesiastical scholars\nof the wonderful period of the rise of the universities were all\nabsolute in their confidence in authority and their dependence on the\ndeductive method as the only means of arriving at truth. This\nwidespread false impression owes its existence and persistence to many\ncauses.\n\nIt is supposed by many of those outside the Church that there is a\ndistinct incompatibility between the state of mind which accepts\nthings on faith and that other intellectual attitude which leads man\nto doubt about his knowledge and consequently to inquire. This\ndoubting frame of mind, which is readily recognized to be absolutely\nnecessary for the proper pursuit of experimental science, is supposed\nquite to preclude the idea of the peaceful settlement of the doubts\nthat assail men's minds as to the significance of life, of the\nrelation of man to man and to his Creator, and the hereafter, which\ncomes {282} with the acceptance of what revelation has to say on these\nsubjects. Somehow, it is assumed by many people that there is\nsomething mutually and essentially repellent in these two forms of\nassent. If a man is ready to accept certain propositions on authority\nand without being able to understand them, and still more, if he\naccept them, realizing that he cannot understand them, it is\nconsidered to be impossible for him to be able to assume such a mental\nattitude towards science as would make him an original investigator.\n\nIt is almost needless to say to anyone who knows anything about the\nhistory of modern science--even nineteenth century science, that there\nis absolutely no foundation for this prejudice. Most of our greatest\ninvestigators even in nineteenth century science have been faithful\nbelievers not only in the ordinary religious truths, in a Providence,\nin a hereafter, and in this life as a preparation for another, but\nalso in the great mysteries of revelation. I have shown this amply\neven with regard to what is usually considered so unorthodox a science\nas medicine, in my volume on the Makers of Modern Medicine. Most of\nthe men who did the great original work in last century medicine were\nCatholics. The same thing is true for electricity, for example. All\nthe men after whom modes and units of electricity are named--Galvani,\nVolta, Coulomb, Ampere, Ohm--were not only members of the Church, but\nwhat would be even called devout Catholics.\n\nA second and almost as important a reason for the superstition--for it\nis a supposed truth accepted without good reasons therefor--that\nsomehow the Church was opposed to the inductive or experimental\nmethod, is the persistent belief which, in spite of frequent {283}\ncontradictions, remains in the minds of so many scientists, that the\ninductive or experimental method was introduced to the world by\nFrancis Bacon, the English philosopher, at the beginning of the\nseventeenth century. Bacon himself was a Protestant; he did not do his\nwriting until the reformation so-called had been at work in Europe for\nnearly a century, and somehow it is supposed that these facts are\nlinked together as causes and effects. The reason why such a\nformulation of the inductive method had not come before was because\nthis was forbidden ground! Nothing could be less true than that Lord\nBacon had any serious influence in bringing about the introduction of\nthe inductive method into science. At most he was a chronicler of\ntendencies that he saw in the science of his day. It is true that his\nwritings served to give a certain popular vogue to the inductive\nmethod, or rather a certain exaggerated notion of the import of\nexperiment to those who were not themselves scientists. Bacon was a\npopular writer on science, not an original thinker or worker in the\nexperimental sciences. Popularizers in science, alas! have from\nAmerigo Vespucci down reaped the rewards due to the real discoverers.\n\nInduction in the genuine significance of the word had been recognized\nin the world long before Bacon's time and been used to much better\neffect than he was able to apply it. Personally, I have always felt\nthat he has almost less right to all the praise that has been bestowed\non him for what he is supposed to have done for science, than he has\nfor any addition to his reputation because of the attribution to him\nby so many fanatics of the authorship of Shakespeare's plays. It is\nrather difficult to understand how his reputation ever came about.\nLord {284} Macaulay is much more responsible for it than is usually\nthought; his brilliancy often overreached itself or went far beyond\ntruth; his favorite geese were nearly always swans, in his eyes.\n\nDe Maistre, in his review of Bacon's Novum Organum, points out that\nthis work is replete with prejudices; that Bacon makes glaring\nblunders in astronomy, in logic, in metaphysics, in physics, in\nnatural history, and fills the pages of his work with childish\nobservations, trifling experiments, and ridiculous explanations. Our\nown Professor Draper, in his Intellectual Development of Europe, has\nbeen even more severe, and has especially pointed out that Bacon never\nreceived the Copernican System, but \"with the audacity of ignorance he\npresumed to criticise what he did not understand, and with a superb\nconceit disparaged the great Copernicus.\"--\"The more closely we\nexamine the writings of Lord Bacon,\" he says farther on, \"the more\nunworthy does he seem to have been of the great reputation which has\nbeen awarded to him. . . The popular delusion, to which he owes so\nmuch, originated at a time when the history of science was unknown.\nThis boasted founder of a new philosophy could not comprehend and\nwould not accept the greatest of all scientific discoveries when it\nwas plainly set before his eyes.\"\n\nAs a student of the history of medicine, it has always been especially\nirritating to me to hear Francis Bacon's name heralded as the Father\nof Experimental Science. Literally hundreds of physicians had applied\nthe experimental method in its perfect form to many problems in\nmedicine and surgery during at least three centuries or more before\nBacon's time. They did not need to have the principles of it set forth\nfor them by this {285} publicist, who knew how to write about\nscientific method, but did not know how to apply it, so far as we know\nanything about him; and who was utterly unable to see the great\ndiscoveries that had been made by the experimental method in the\ncentury before his time, and refused to accept such great advances in\nscience as were made by Copernicus and others. Some two score of years\nbefore Bacon wrote, in England itself, the great Gilbert of\nColchester, who was elected the president of the Royal College of\nPhysicians for the year 1600, and who was physician-in-ordinary to\nQueen Elizabeth, had applied the experimental method to such good\npurpose that he well deserves the title that has been conferred upon\nhim of Father of Electricity.\n\nThere was never a more purely experimental scientist than Gilbert. His\nwork, De Magnete, is one of the great contributions to experimental\nscience. Anyone who thinks that experiments came only after Lord\nBacon's time should read this wonderful work, which is at the\nfoundation of modern electricity. For twenty years, from 1580 to 1600,\nGilbert spent all the leisure that he could snatch from his\nprofessional duties, in his laboratory. He notes down his\nexperiments--his failures as well as his successes--discusses them\nvery thoroughly, suggests explanations of success and failure, hits\nupon methods of control, but pursues the solution of the problems he\nhas in hand ever further and further. As a biographer said of him, \"we\nfind him toiling in his work-shop at Colchester quite as Faraday\ntoiled, more than two hundred years later, in the low dark rooms of\nthe Royal Institution of Great Britain.\" Faraday was actuated by no\nmore calm, persevering, inquiring spirit than was Gilbert. To say that\nany Englishman invented {286} or taught the world the application of\nthe experimental method in science after Gilbert's time is to talk\nnonsense.\n\nYet it was of this great scientific observer that Lord Bacon, carried\naway by ill-feeling and jealousy of a contemporary, went so far as to\nsay in his _De Augmentis Scientiarum_, that Gilbert \"had attempted to\nfound a general system upon the magnet, and endeavored to build a ship\nout of materials not sufficient to make the rowing-pins of a boat.\"\nWhen Bacon refused to accept Copernicus's teachings, he did not commit\na greater error, nor do a greater wrong to mankind, than when he made\nlittle of Gilbert of Colchester's work. Poggendorf called Gilbert the\n\"Galileo of Magnetism\" and Priestley hailed him as the \"founder of\nmodern electricity.\" When Gilbert did the work on which these titles\nare founded, however, he was only following out the methods which had\nbeen introduced into England long before, and which had been\nexemplified so thoroughly all during the life of Friar Bacon, and of\nFriar Bacon's great teacher, Albertus Magnus. One would expect that at\nleast in science credit would be given properly, and that the false\nnotions introduced by litterateurs and historians of politics should\nnot be allowed to dominate the situation.\n\nThe position popularly assigned to Bacon in the history of science is\nindeed one of those history lies, as the Germans so bluntly but\nfrankly call them, which, though very generally accepted, is entirely\ndue to a lack of knowledge of the state of education and of the\nprogress of scientific investigation long before his time. The reason\nfor this ignorance is the unfortunate tradition which has been so long\nfostered in educational circles, {287} that nothing worth while ever\ncame out of the Nazareth of the Middle Ages, or the centuries before\nthe so-called reformation and the Renaissance. The ridiculously utter\nfalsity of this impression we shall be able properly to characterize\nat the end of the next chapter.\n\nAs a matter of fact, it would have been much truer to have attributed\nthe origin of experimental science to his great namesake, Roger Bacon,\nthe Franciscan friar, whose work was done at Paris and at Oxford\nduring the latter half of that wonderful thirteenth century that saw\nthe rise and the development of the universities to that condition in\nwhich they have practically remained ever since. Even Bacon, however,\nis not the real originator of the inductive method, since, as we shall\nsee, the writings of his great teacher, the profoundest scholar of\nthis great century, whose years are almost coincident with it, Albert\nMagnus, the Dominican, who afterwards became Bishop of Ratisbon,\ncontained many distinct and definite anticipations of Bacon as regards\nthe inductive method.\n\nThe earlier Bacon, the Franciscan, laid down very distinctly the\nprinciple, that only by careful observation and experimental\ndemonstration could any real knowledge with regard to natural\nphenomena be obtained. He not only laid down the principle, however,\nbut in this, quite a contrast to his later namesake, he followed the\nroute himself very wonderfully. It is for this reason that his name is\ndeservedly attached to many important beginnings in modern science,\nwhich we shall have occasion to mention during the course of this and\nthe next chapter. His general attitude of mind toward natural science\ncan be best appreciated from the famous passage with regard to his\nfriend, Petrus Peregrinus, {288} who did such excellent work in\nmagnetism in the thirteenth century, and sent to Friar Bacon the\ndetails of it with the loving solicitude of a pupil to a master.\n\nIn his Opus Tertium, Bacon thus praises the merits of Peregrinus: \"I\nknow of only one person who deserves praise for his work in\nexperimental philosophy, for he does not care for the discourses of\nmen and their wordy warfare, but quietly and diligently pursues the\nwork of wisdom. Therefore, what others grope after blindly, as bats in\nthe evening twilight, this man contemplates in all their brilliancy\n_because he is a master of experiment_. Hence, he knows all of natural\nscience, whether pertaining to medicine and alchemy, or to matters\ncelestial or terrestrial. He has worked diligently in the smelting of\nores, as also in the working of minerals; he is thoroughly acquainted\nwith all sorts of arms and implements used in military service and in\nhunting, besides which he is skilled in agriculture and in the\nmeasurement of lands. It is impossible to write a useful or correct\ntreatise in experimental philosophy without mentioning this man's\nname. Moreover, he pursues knowledge for its own sake; for if he\nwished to obtain royal favor, he could easily find sovereigns who\nwould honor and enrich him.\"\n\nBrother Potamian's reflections on this unexpected passage of Bacon are\nthe best interpretation of it for the modern student of science.\n\n  \"This last statement is worthy of the best utterances of the\n  twentieth century. Say what they will, the most ardent pleaders of\n  our day for original work and laboratory methods, cannot surpass the\n  Franciscan monk of the thirteenth century in his denunciation of\n  mere book-learning, or in his advocacy of experiment and research;\n  {289} while in Peregrinus, the medievalist, they have Bacon's\n  impersonation of what a student of science ought to be. Peregrinus\n  was a hard worker, not a mere theorizer, preferring,\n  Procrusteanlike, to make theory fit the facts rather than facts fit\n  the theory; he was a brilliant discoverer, who knew at the same time\n  how to use his discoveries for the benefit of mankind; he was a\n  pioneer of science and a leader in the progress of the world.\"\n  [Footnote 32]\n\n[Footnote 32: The letter of Petrus Peregrinus on the Magnet, A. D.\n1269, translated by Bro. Arnold, M. Sc, with an Introductory Note by\nBro. Potamian, N.Y., 1904.]\n\nThis letter of Roger Bacon contains every idea that the modern\nscientists contend for as significant in education. It counsels\nobservation, not theory, and says very plainly what he thinks of much\ntalk without a basis of observation. It commends a mastery in\nexperiment as the most important thing for science. It suggests, of\ncourse, by implication at least, that a man should know all sciences\nand all applications of them; but surely no one will object to this\nmedieval friar commending as great a breadth of mental development as\npossible, as the ideal of an educated man, and especially with regard\nto the experimental sciences. Finally, it has the surprising phrase,\nthat Peregrinus pursues knowledge for its own sake. Friar Bacon\nevidently would have sympathized very heartily with Faraday, who at\nthe beginning of the nineteenth century wanted to get out of trade and\ninto science, because he thought it unworthy of man to spend all his\nlife accumulating money, and considered that the only proper aim in\nlife is to add to knowledge. He would have been in cordial accord with\nPasteur, at the end of the century, who told the Empress Eugenie, when\nshe asked him if he would not exploit his discoveries in fermentation\nfor the purpose of building up a great {290} brewing industry in\nFrance, that he thought it unworthy of a French scientist to devote\nhimself to a mere money-making industry.\n\nFor a man of the modern time, perhaps the most interesting expression\nthat ever fell from Roger Bacon's lips is his famous proclamation of\nthe reasons why men do not obtain genuine knowledge more rapidly than\nwould seem ought to be the case, from the care and time and amount of\nwork which they have devoted to its cultivation. This expression\noccurs in Bacon's Opus Tertium, which, it may be recalled, the\nFranciscan friar wrote at the command of Pope Clement, because the\nPope had heard many interesting accounts of all that the great\nthirteenth century teacher and experimenter was doing at the\nUniversity of Oxford, and wished to learn for himself the details of\nhis work. Friar Bacon starts out with the principle that there are\nfour grounds of human ignorance.\n\n\"These are: first, trust in adequate authority; second, that force of\ncustom which leads men to accept too unquestioningly what has been\naccepted before their time; third, the placing of confidence in the\nopinion of the inexperienced; and fourth, the hiding of one's own\nignorance with the parade of superficial knowledge.\" These reasons\ncontain the very essence of the experimental method, and continue to\nbe as important in the twentieth century as they were in the\nthirteenth. They could only have emanated from an eminently practical\nmind, accustomed to test by observation and by careful searching of\nauthorities every proposition that came to him.\n\nIt is very evident that modern scientists would have more of kinship\nand intellectual sympathy with Friar {291} Bacon than most of them are\napt to think possible. A faithful student of his writings, who was at\nthe same time in many ways a cordial admirer of medievalism, the late\nProfessor Henry Morley, who held the chair of English literature at\nUniversity College, London, whose contributions to the History of\nEnglish Literature are probably the most important of the nineteenth\ncentury, has a striking paragraph with regard to this attitude of\nBacon toward knowledge and science--two words that have the same\nmeaning etymologically, though they have come to have quite different\nconnotations. In the third volume of his English Writers, page 321,\nProfessor Morley, after quoting Bacon's four grounds of human\nignorance, said:--\n\n  \"No part of that ground has yet been cut away from beneath the feet\n  of students, although six centuries ago the Oxford friar clearly\n  pointed out its character. We still make sheep walks of second,\n  third and fourth and fiftieth-hand references to authority; still we\n  are the slaves of habit; still we are found following too frequently\n  the untaught crowd; still we flinch from the righteous and wholesome\n  phrase, 'I do not know,' and acquiesce actively in the opinion of\n  others, that we know what we appear to know. Substitute honest\n  research, original and independent thought, strict truth in the\n  comparison of only what we really know with what is really known by\n  others, and the strong redoubt of ignorance is fallen.\"\n\nThis attitude of mind of Friar Bacon toward the reasons for ignorance,\nis so different from what is usually predicated of the Middle Ages and\nof medieval scholars, that it seems worth while insisting on it.\nAuthority is supposed to have meant everything for the scholastics,\n{292} and experiment is usually said to have counted for nothing. They\nare supposed to have been accustomed to swear to the words of the\nmaster--\"_jurare in verba magistri_\"--yet here is a great leader of\nmedieval thought insisting on just the opposite. As clearly as ever it\nwas proclaimed, Bacon announces that an authority is worth only the\nreasons that he advances. These thirteenth century teachers are\nsupposed, above all, to have fairly bowed down and worshipped at the\nshrine of Aristotle. Many of them doubtless did. In every generation\nthe great mass of mankind must find someone to follow. As often as\nnot, their leaders are much more fallible than Aristotle. Bacon,\nhowever, had no undue reverence for Aristotle or anyone else, and he\nrealized that the blind following of Aristotle had done much harm. In\nhis sketch of Gilbert of Colchester, which was published in the\n\"Popular Science Monthly\" for August, 1901, Brother Potamian calls\nattention to this quality of Roger Bacon in a striking passage.\n\n  \"Roger Bacon, after absorbing the learning of Oxford and Paris,\n  wrote to the reigning Pontiff, Clement IV., urging him to have the\n  works of the Stagirite burnt in order to stop the propagation of\n  error in the schools. The Franciscan monk of Ilchester has left us,\n  in his Opus Majus, a lasting memorial of his practical genius. In\n  the section entitled, \"Scientia Experimentalis,\" he affirms that\n  \"Without experiment, nothing can be adequately known. An argument\n  proves theoretically, but does not give the certitude necessary to\n  remove all doubt; nor will the mind repose in the clear view of\n  truth, unless it finds it by way of experiment.\" And in his Opus\n  Tertium: \"The strongest arguments prove nothing, so long as the\n  conclusions are not verified by {293} experience. Experimental\n  science is the queen of sciences and the goal of all speculation.\"\n\nLest it should be thought that these expressions of laudatory\nappreciation of the great thirteenth century scientist are dictated\nmore by the desire to magnify his work and to bring out the influence\nin science of the churchmen of the period, it seems well to quote an\nexpression of opinion from the modern historian of the inductive\nsciences, whose praise is scarcely if any less outspoken than that of\nothers whom we have quoted and who might be supposed to be somewhat\npartial in their judgment. This opinion will fortify the doubters who\nmust have authority, and at the same time sums up very excellently the\nposition which Roger Bacon occupies in the history of science.\n\nDr. Whewell says that Roger Bacon's Opus Majus is \"the encyclopedia\nand Novum Organon of the thirteenth century, a work equally wonderful\nwith regard to its general scheme and to the special treatises with\nwhich the outlines of the plans are filled up. The professed object of\nthe work is to urge the necessity of a reform in the mode of\nphilosophizing, to set forth the reasons why knowledge had not made a\ngreater progress, to draw back attention to the sources of knowledge\nwhich had been unwisely neglected, to discover other sources which\nwere yet almost untouched, and to animate men in the undertaking by a\nprospect of the best advantages which it offered. In the development\nof this plan all the leading portions of science are expanded in the\nmost complete shape which they had at that time assumed; and\nimprovements of a very wide and striking kind are proposed in some of\nthe principal branches of study. Even if the work had no leading\npurposes it would have {294} been highly valuable as a treasure of the\nmost solid knowledge and soundest speculations of the time; even if it\nhad contained no such details, it would have been a work most\nremarkable for its general views and scope.\"\n\nThe open and inquiring attitude of mind toward the truths of nature is\nsupposed usually to be utterly at variance with the intellectual\ntemper of the Middle Ages. We have heard so much about the submission\nto authority and the cultivation of tradition on the part of medieval\nscholars that we forget entirely how much they accomplished in adding\nto human knowledge, and though they had their limitations of\nconservatism, they were no more old fogies clinging to old-fashioned\nruts than are the older men of each successive generation down even to\nour own time, in the minds of their younger colleagues. It might seem\nto be difficult to substantiate such a declaration. It may appear to\nbe a paradox to talk thus. It is not hard to show good reasons for it,\nand far from being a far-fetched attempt to bolster up an opinion more\nfavorable to the Middle Ages, it is really a very simple expression of\nwhat the history of these generations shows that they actually tried\nto accomplish. Roger Bacon must not be thought to be alone in this. On\nthe contrary, he was only a leader with many followers. Even before\nhis time, however, these ideas as to the necessity for observation had\nbeen very forcibly expressed by many, and by no one more than Roger's\ndistinguished teacher, Albertus Magnus, whose name is now becoming\nfamiliar to scholars as Albert the Great.\n\nAlbert's great pupil, Roger Bacon, is rightly looked upon as the true\nfather of inductive science, an honor that history has unfortunately\ntaken from him to confer {295} it undeservedly on his namesake of four\ncenturies later; but the teaching out of which Roger Bacon was to\ndevelop the principles of experimental science can be found in many\nplaces in the master's writings. In Albert's tenth book, wherein he\ncatalogues and describes all the trees, plants, and herbs known in his\ntime, he observes: \"All that is here set down is the result of our own\nexperience, or has been borrowed from authors whom we know to have\nwritten what their personal experience has confirmed: for in these\nmatters experience alone can give certainty\"--_experimentum solum\ncertificat in talibus_. \"Such an expression,\" says his biographer,\n\"which might have proceeded from the pen of (Francis) Bacon, argues in\nitself a prodigious scientific progress, and shows that the medieval\nfriar was on the track so successfully pursued by modern natural\nphilosophy. He had fairly shaken off the shackles which had hitherto\ntied up discovery, and was the slave neither of Pliny nor of\nAristotle.\"\n\nAlbert was a theologian rather than a scientist, and yet, deeply\nversed as he was in theology, he declared in a treatise concerning\nHeaven and Earth, [Footnote 33] that \"in studying nature we have not\nto enquire how God the Creator may, as He freely wills, use His\ncreatures to work miracles and thereby show forth His power; we have\nrather to enquire what nature with its immanent causes can naturally\nbring to pass.\" This can scarcely fail to seem a surprising\ndeclaration to those who have been accustomed to think of medieval\nphilosophers as turning by preference to miraculous explanations of\nthings, but such a notion is founded partly on false tradition, with\nregard to the real teaching of the medieval {296} scholars, and even\nmore on the partisan declarations of those who thought it the proper\nthing to make as little as possible of the intelligence of the people\nof the Middle Ages, in order to account for their adhesion to the\nCatholic Church.\n\n[Footnote 33: De Coelo et Mundo, I. tr. iv., X.]\n\nAs a matter of fact, Albert's declaration, far from being an\ninnovation, was only in pursuance of the truly philosophic method\nwhich had characterized the writings of the great Christian thinkers\nfrom the earlier time. Unfortunately, the declarations of lesser minds\nare sometimes accepted as having represented the thoughts of men and\nthe policy of the Church. It is not these lesser men, however, who\nhave been in special honor. No one, for instance, can possibly be\nlooked upon as representing Church teaching better than Augustine, who\nbecause of the depth of his teaching, yet his wonderful fidelity to\nChristian dogma, received the formal title of Father of the Church,\nwhich carried with it the approval of everything that he had written.\nThere is a well-known quotation from St. Augustine which shows how\nmuch he deprecated the attempt to make Scriptures an authority in\nscience, and how much he valued observation as compared with\nauthority, in such matters as are really within the domain of\ninvestigation by experiment and observation.\n\nHe says: \"It very often happens that there is some question as to the\nearth or the sky, or the other elements of this world, respecting\nwhich one who is not a Christian has knowledge derived from most\ncertain reasoning or observation\" (that is, from the ordinary means at\nthe command of an investigator in natural science), \"and it is very\ndisgraceful and mischievous, and of all things to be carefully\navoided, that a {297} Christian speaking of such matters as being\naccording to the Christian Scriptures, should be heard by an\nunbeliever talking such nonsense that the unbeliever, perceiving him\nto be as wide from the mark as east from west, can hardly restrain\nhimself from laughing.\" It is the opinions of such men as Augustine\nand Albert that must be taken as representing the real attitude of\ntheologians and churchmen toward science, and not those of lesser men,\nwhose zeal, as is ever true of the minor adherents of any cause,\nalways is prone to carry them into unfortunate excesses.\n\nAlbert the Great was indeed a thoroughgoing experimentalist in the\nbest modern sense of the term. He says in the second book of his\ntreatise On Minerals (De Mineralibus): \"The aim of natural science is\nnot simply to accept the statements of others, that is, what is\nnarrated by people, but to investigate the causes that are at work in\nnature for themselves.\" When we take this expression in connection\nwith the other, that \"we must endeavor to find out what nature can\nnaturally bring to pass,\" the complete foundation of experimentalism\nis laid. Albert held this principle not only in theory, but applied it\nin practice.\n\nIt is often said that the scholastic philosophers, and notably\nAlbertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas, almost idolatrously worshipped at\nthe shrine of Aristotle, and were ready to accept anything that this\ngreat Greek philosopher had taught. We have already quoted Roger\nBacon's request to the Pope to forbid the study of the Stagirite. It\nis interesting to find in this regard, that while Albert declared that\nin questions of natural science he would prefer to follow Aristotle to\nSt. Augustine--a declaration which may seem surprising to many people\n{298} who have been prone to think that what the Fathers of the Church\nsaid medieval scholars followed slavishly--he does not hesitate to\npoint out errors made by the Greek philosopher, nor to criticise his\nconclusions very freely. In his Treatise on Physics, [Footnote 34] he\nsays, \"whoever believes that Aristotle was a god must also believe\nthat he never erred. But if one believe that Aristotle was a man, then\ndoubtless he was liable to err just as we are.\" In fact, as is pointed\nout by the Catholic Encyclopaedia in its article on Albertus Magnus,\nto which we are indebted for the exact reference of the quotations\nthat we have made, Albert devotes a lengthy chapter in his Summa\nTheologiae [Footnote 35] to what he calls the errors of Aristotle. His\nappreciation of Aristotle is always critical. He deserves great credit\nnot only for bringing the scientific teaching of the Stagirite to the\nattention of medieval scholars, but also for indicating the method and\nthe spirit in which that teaching was to be received.\n\n[Footnote 34: Physica, lib. VIII., tr. i., xiv.]\n\n[Footnote 35: Summa Theologiae, Pars II., tr. i., Quaest iv.]\n\nWith regard to Albert's devotion to the experimental method and to\nobservation as the source of knowledge in what concerns natural\nphenomena, Julius Pagel, in his History of Medicine in the Middle\nAges, which forms one of the parts of Puschmann's Handbook of the\nHistory of Medicine, has some very interesting remarks that are worth\nwhile quoting here: \"Albert,\" he says, \"shared with the naturalists of\nthe scholastic period the quality of entering deeply and thoroughly\ninto the objects of nature, and was not content with bare superficial\ndetails concerning them, which many of the writers of the period\npenetrated no further than to provide a nomenclature. While Albert was\na churchman and an {299} ardent devotee of Aristotle in matters of\nnatural phenomena, he was relatively unprejudiced and presented an\nopen mind. He thought that he must follow Hippocrates and Galen rather\nthan Aristotle and Augustine in medicine and in the natural sciences.\nWe must concede it as a special subject of praise for Albert, that he\ndistinguished very strictly between natural and supernatural\nphenomena. The former he considered as entirely the object of the\ninvestigation of nature. The latter he handed over to the realm of\nmetaphysics.\"\n\n  \"Albert's efforts\" Pagel says, \"to set down the limits of natural\n  science shows already the seeds of a more scientific treatment of\n  natural phenomena, and a recognition of the necessity to know things\n  in their causes--_rerum cognoscere causas_--and not to consider\n  that everything must simply be attributed to the action of\n  Providence. He must be considered as one of the more rational\n  thinkers of his time, though the fetters of scholasticism still\n  bound him quite enough, and his mastery of dialectics, which he had\n  learned from the strenuous Dominican standpoint, still made him\n  subordinate the laws of nature to the Church's teaching in ways that\n  suggested the possibility of his being less free than might\n  otherwise have been the case. His thoroughgoing piety, his profound\n  scholarship, his boundless industry; the almost uncontrollable\n  impulse of his mind after universality of knowledge; his\n  many-sidedness in literary productivity; and finally the universal\n  recognition which he received from his contemporaries and succeeding\n  generations,--stamp him as one of the most imposing characters and\n  one of the most wonderful phenomena of the Middle Ages.\"\n\nPerhaps in no department of the history of science {300} has more\nnonsense been talked, than with regard to the neglect of experiment\nand observation in the Middle Ages. The men who made the series of\nexperiments necessary to enable them to raise the magnificent Gothic\ncathedrals; who built the fine old municipal buildings and abbeys and\ncastles; who spanned wide rivers with bridges, and yet had the\nintelligence and the skill to decorate all of these buildings as\neffectively as they did,--cannot be considered either as impractical\nor lacking in powers of observation. As I show in the chapter The\nMedieval University Man and Science, Dante, the poet and literary man\nof the thirteenth century, had his mind stored with quite as much\nmaterial information with regard to physical science and nature study,\nas any modern educated man. It is true that the men of the Middle Ages\ndid not make observations on exactly the same things that we do, but\nto say either that they lacked powers of observation, or did not use\ntheir powers or failed to appreciate the value of such powers, is\nsimply a display of ignorance of what they actually did.\n\nOn the other hand, when it comes to the question of the principles of\nexperimental science and the value they placed on them, these men of\nthe medieval universities, when sympathetically studied, prove to have\nbeen quite as sensible as the scientists of our own time. The idea\nthat Francis Bacon in any way laid the foundation of the experimental\nsciences, or indeed did anything more than give a literary statement\nof the philosophy of the experimental science, though he himself\nproved utterly unable to apply the principles that he discussed to the\nscientific discoveries of his own time, is one of the inexplicable\nabsurdities of history that somehow get in and {301} cannot be got\nout. The great thinkers of the medieval period had not only reached\nthe same conclusions as he did, but actually applied them three\ncenturies before; and the great medieval universities were occupied\nwith problems, even in physical science, not very different from those\nwhich have given food for thought for subsequent generations. We shall\nsee in the next chapter how successfully they applied these great\nprinciples of the experimental method, and how much they anticipated\nmany phases of science that we are apt to think of as distinctly\nmodern.\n\n\n\n{302}\n\nCHURCHMEN AND PHYSICAL SCIENCE AT THE MEDIEVAL UNIVERSITIES.\n\nThere can be no doubt at all in the minds of those who know anything\nabout the early history of the universities, but that the Popes were\nentirely favorable to the great educational movement represented by\nthese institutions. It is ordinarily supposed, however, that the\nmedieval universities limited their attention to philosophy and\ntheology, and that even these subjects were studied from such narrow\nreligious standpoints, as to make them of very little value for the\ndevelopment of human knowledge or the evolution of the human mind. Any\nsuch supposition is the result of ignorance on the part of those who\nentertain it, as to the actual curriculum of studies at the early\nuniversities, though it is not surprising that it should be very\ncommon, because, unfortunately, it has been fostered by many writers\non educational subjects, especially in English. Scholasticism is often\nsaid to have been the very acme of absurdity in teaching, and its real\nimport is entirely missed. Students and professors are supposed to\nhave been limited in their interests to dialectics and metaphysics in\nthe narrowest sense of these terms, and much time was, according to\neven presumably good authorities, frittered away in idle speculations\nwith regard to things that are absolutely unknowable. [Footnote 36]\n\n[Footnote 36: Much of the remainder of this chapter is taken from the\nchapter on What and How They Studied at the Universities, in my book\nThe Thirteenth Greatest of Centuries. (Catholic Summer School Press,\nN. Y.) Some of the sources from which the material is obtained will be\nfound more fully referred to there, and further information with\nregard to scientific studies at these universities will be found in\nthe chapter on Post-graduate Work in the same book, from which a\ncertain amount of material is used again here.]\n\n{303}\n\nAnyone who studies the works of the professors at these medieval\nuniversities can scarcely fail to become entirely sympathetic toward\nthese scholars, who devoted themselves with so much ardor to every\nform of learning that interested them, and who did not fail to\naccomplish at least as much for future generations, as any other\ngeneration of university men in history. Professor George Saintsbury\nin his book On the Rise of Romance and the Flourishing of Allegory,\nwhich is really the story of thirteenth century literature in Europe,\nin the series of Periods of European Literature, [Footnote 37] in\nsumming up the contributions of these medieval professors to human\nknowledge, said:\n\n[Footnote 37: Scribners, 1896.]\n\n  \"Yet, there has always, in generous souls who have some tincture of\n  philosophy, subsisted a curious kind of sympathy and yearning over\n  the work of these generations of mainly disinterested scholars, who,\n  whatever they were, were thorough, and whatever they could not do,\n  could think. And there have been in these latter days some graceless\n  ones who have asked whether the science of the nineteenth century,\n  after an equal interval, will be of any more positive value--whether\n  it will not have even less comparative interest than that which\n  appertains to the Scholasticism of the thirteenth.\"\n\nNothing could well be less true than the impression that philosophy\nand theology were the exclusive subjects of the medieval university\ncurriculum. If because our modern universities devote a great amount\nof time to physical science in its various forms, and more of their\npublications concern this department of educational work than any\nother, it were to be said by some future generation that our\nuniversities occupied themselves {304} with nothing but physical\nscience, it would be much more true than the expressions which stamp\nmedieval university teaching as limited to dialectics and metaphysics.\nBesides science in the modern universities, philosophy in all its\nbranches is the subject of ardent devotion, and the classics and\nlanguages are not neglected, and medicine and law are important\npost-graduate departments, and even theology comes in for a goodly\nshare of attention and occupies the minds of many deep students. In\nthe medieval universities, medicine particularly occupied a very large\nshare of attention; but all the physical sciences were the subject not\nonly of distant curiosity, but of careful investigation, many of them\nalong lines that are supposed to be distinctly modern, yet which are\nreally as old as the university movement.\n\nTurner in his History of Philosophy [Footnote 38] summed up the books\nmost commonly used, the method of examination and of conferring\ndegrees, in a way that shows the character of university teaching\nduring the thirteenth century, and brings out not only its\nthoroughness, but also the fact that a good deal of time was devoted\nto what we now call physical or natural science, since the treatises\non animals, on the earth and on meteors, under which all the phenomena\nof the Heavens were included, represent almost exactly those questions\nin physical science that most men who do not intend to devote\nthemselves particularly to science care to know something about at the\npresent time. He says:\n\n[Footnote 38: Ginn & Co., Boston and New York, 1903.]\n\n  \"By statutes issued at various times during the thirteenth century,\n  it was provided that the professor should read, that is, expound,\n  the text of certain standard {305} authors in philosophy and\n  theology. In a document published by Denifle (the distinguished\n  authority on medieval universities), and by him referred to the year\n  1252, we find the following works among those prescribed for the\n  Faculty of Arts: Logica Vetus (the old Boethian text of a portion of\n  the Organon, probably accompanied by Porphyry's Isagoge); Logica\n  Nova (the new translation of the Organon); Gilbert's Liber Sex\n  Principiorum; and Donatus's Barbarismus. A few years later (1255),\n  the following works are prescribed: Aristotle's Physics,\n  Metaphysics, De Anima, De Animalibus, De Caelo et Mundo, Meteorica,\n  the minor psychological treatises and some Arabian or Jewish works,\n  such as the Liber de Causis and De Differentia Spiritus et Animae.\"\n\nAs time went on in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the\nattention to physical sciences was increased rather than diminished.\nMuch of Albertus Magnus's work, and practically all of that of Aquinas\nand Roger Bacon, was done after the date here given (1255).\n\nThe medieval workers at the universities were under the obligation of\nhaving to lay the foundations for modern thought, instead of being\nable to build up the magnificent superstructure which has risen in the\nseven centuries since the universities were founded. Without the\nfoundation, however, the building would indeed not be worthy of\nadmiration. Their work is concealed beneath the surfaces of things,\nbut is not the less important for that, and is in most ways more\nsignificant than many portions of the structure that have risen above\nit. Unless one digs down to see how broad and deep and firm they laid\nthe foundations, the modern critic will not be able to appreciate\ntheir work at its true value. Very few men are able to do this; still\nfewer have the time or the inclination. The consequence is a sad lack\nof sympathy with these old-time workers, who nevertheless did their\nwork so well, and whose accomplishment meant so much for the modern\ntime. It is not hard to {306} show that their minds were occupied with\njust the same problems that interest us, and the wonderful thing is\nthat they anticipated so many of our conclusions, though these\nanticipations are wrapped up not infrequently in a terminology that\nobscures their meaning for any but the patient, sympathetic student.\nIn his Harveian Lecture, Science and Medieval Thought, Professor\nClifford Allbutt, of the University of Cambridge, England, said:--\n\n  \"Each period of human achievement has its phases of spring,\n  culmination, and decline; and it is in its decline that the leafless\n  tree comes to judgment. In the unloveliness of decay, the Middle\n  Ages are as other ages have been; as our own will be; but in those\n  ages there was more than one outburst of life; more than once the\n  enthusiasm of the youth of the West went out to explore the ways of\n  the realm of ideas; and if we believe ourselves at last to have\n  found the only thoroughfare, we owe this knowledge to those who\n  before us traveled the uncharted seas. If we have inherited a great\n  commerce and dominion of science, it is because their argosies had\n  been on the ocean and their camels on the desert. _Discipulus est\n  prioris posterior dies;_ man cannot know all at once; knowledge must\n  be built up by laborious generations. In all times, as in our own,\n  the advance of knowledge is very largely by elimination and\n  negation; we ascertain what is not true, and we weed it out. To\n  perceive and respect the limits of the knowable, we must have sought\n  to transgress them. We can build our bridge over the chasm of\n  ignorance with stored material in which the thirteenth century was\n  poor indeed; we can fix our bearings where then was no foundation;\n  yet man may be well engaged when he knows not the ends of his work;\n  and the schoolmen in digging for treasure cultivated the field of\n  knowledge, even for Galileo and Harvey, for Newton and Darwin. Their\n  many errors came not of indolence, for they were passionate workers;\n  not of hatred of light, for they were eager for the light; not of\n  fickleness, for they wrought with unparalleled devotion; nor indeed\n  of ignorance of particular things, {307} for they knew many things.\n  They erred because they did not know, and they could not know the\n  conditions of the problems which, as they emerged from the cauldron\n  of war and from the wreck of letters and science, they were\n  nevertheless bound to attack, if civil societies worthy of the name\n  were to be constructed.\"\n\nWe are very prone to think that the interests of the men of the Middle\nAges were very different to our own, and that they had not the\nslightest inkling of what were to be the interests of the future\ncenturies. Ordinarily students of science, for instance, would be sure\nto think that electricity and magnetism, interest in which is supposed\nto be a thing of comparatively recent years, or at most of the last\ntwo centuries, would not be mentioned at all in the thirteenth\ncentury. Such an idea is not only absolutely false to the history of\nscience as we know it, but is utterly unjust to the powers of\nobservation of men who have always noted, and almost necessarily tried\nto investigate, the phenomena which are now grouped under these\nsciences. Perhaps no better idea of the intense interest of this first\ncentury of university life in natural phenomena can be obtained, than\nwill be gleaned at once from the following short paragraph, in which\nBrother Potamian, of Manhattan College, in his brief, striking\nintroduction to the letter of Petrus Peregrinus describing the first\nconception of a dynamo, condenses the references to magnetic\nmanifestions that are found in the literature of the time. [Footnote\n39]\n\n[Footnote 39: The Letter of Petrus Peregrinus, N. Y., 1904.]\n\nMost of the writers he mentions were not scientists in the ordinary\nsense of the word, but were literary men; and the fact that these\nreferences occur, shows very clearly that there must have been\nwidespread interest in such scientific phenomena, since they had\nattracted the {308} attention of literary writers, who would not have\nspoken of them doubtless, but that they knew that in this they would\nbe satisfying as well as exciting public interest.\n\n  \"Abbot Neckam, the Augustinian (1157-1217), distinguished between\n  the properties of the two ends of the lodestone, and gives in his De\n  Utensilibus what is perhaps the earliest reference to the mariner's\n  compass that we have. Albertus Magnus, the Dominican (1193-1230),\n  in his treatise De Mineralibus, enumerates different kinds of\n  natural magnets and states some of the properties commonly\n  attributed to them; the minstrel, Guyot de Provins, in a famous\n  satirical poem written about 1208, refers to the directive quality\n  of the lodestone and its use in navigation, as do also Cardinal de\n  Vitry in his Historia Orientalis (1215-1220); Brunetto Latini, poet,\n  orator and philosopher (the teacher of Dante), in his Tresor des\n  Sciences, a veritable library, written in Paris in 1260; Raymond\n  Lully, the enlightened Doctor, in his treatise, De Contemplatione,\n  begun in 1272; and Guido Guinicelli, the poet-priest of Bologna, who\n  died in 1276.\"\n\nAll of these writers, it may be said, with a single exception, were\nclergymen, and some of them were very prominent ecclesiastics in their\ntime.\n\nThe present generation has not as yet quite got over the bad habit of\nmaking fun of these medieval thinkers for having accepted the idea of\nthe transmutation of metals and searched so assiduously for the\nphilosopher's stone. This supposed absurdity has for most scientific\nminds during the nineteenth century been quite enough of itself,\nwithout more ado, to stamp the generations of the Middle Ages who\naccepted it, as utterly lacking, if not in common sense, at least in\nserious reasoning power. At the present moment, however, we are in the\nfull tide of a set of opinions that tend to make us believe not {309}\nonly in the possibility, but in the actual occurrence of the\ntransmutation of metals. Observations made with regard to radium have\nrevolutionized all the scientific thinking in this matter. Radium has\napparently been demonstrated changing into helium, and so there is a\ntransmutation of metals. On the strength of this and certain other\nrecently investigated physical phenomena, there is a definite tendency\nin the minds of many serious students of physics and chemistry to\nconsider that other metals possibly change into one another, and that\nall that is needed is careful observation to discover it, for this\nchange is supposed to be going on around us all the time. Not very\nlong since, a professor of physical science at an important American\nuniversity suggested that it would be extremely interesting to take a\nlarge specimen of lead ore, say several tons, and having removed from\nit carefully all traces of silver that might be contained in it, put\nit away for twenty years, and then see whether any further traces of\nsilver could be found. The idea that possibly lead occasionally\nchanges into silver by some slow chemical process is evidently\ndeep-seated in his mind. It would remind one of Newton's expression\nsome two centuries ago, that he had seen copper and gold ores\noccurring together in specimens, and that he looked upon this as\nevidence that copper in the course of time changes into gold. Certain\nit is that lead ores constantly occur in connection with silver, or at\nleast that silver is found wherever lead is; that a corresponding\nrelationship between gold and copper has also been noted; and that\nNewton's idea was not near so absurd, in the light of what we now\nknow, or still more, what we surmise on good scientific grounds, as\nthe nineteenth century scientists would have had us believe.\n\n{310}\n\nAs I go over this manuscript for the last time just before going to\npress, there comes the announcement that Sir William Ramsay has\nprobably solved the problem of the transmutation of metals. He has\nshown apparently that lithium, when acted upon by radium emanations,\nchanges to some extent to copper. It is true that the change is only\nin small quantities, and that there is no question as yet of any\ncommercial value to the process; but we all know that it is by such\nsmall scientific announcements as this that the entering wedges of\nlarge industrial processes are introduced. The fact that this\nannouncement should have been made before the British Association for\nthe Advancement of Science and by a thoroughly conservative English\nchemist, probably settles forever the question of the transmutation of\nmetals, in the way that the people of the Middle Ages looked at the\nproblem rather than as the intervening centuries did.\n\nThe old medieval thinkers, then, were only ridiculous to a few\ngenerations of nineteenth century scientists who, because they knew a\nlittle more about certain details in science than preceding\ngenerations had done, thought that they knew all that there was to be\nknown about this immense subject, and made fun of thinkers quite as\ngreat as themselves in preceding centuries. At the beginning of the\ntwentieth century, instead of making ourselves ludicrous by raising a\nlaugh at the expense of these fellow students in science of the olden\ntime, we should rather feel like congratulating them upon the\nperspicacity which enabled them to anticipate a great truth with\nregard to the relationships of chemical elements, especially the\nmetals, to each other. The present-day idea of thinking physicists and\nchemists is {311} that the seventy odd elements described in our\ntextbooks on chemistry, are not so many essentially independent forms\nof matter, but are rather examples of one kind of material exhibiting\nspecial dynamic energies which it possesses under varying conditions,\nas yet not well understood. This was exactly the idea that the old\nscholastic philosophers had of the constitution of matter. They said\nthat matter was composed of two principles, prime matter and form.\nWhen this doctrine of theirs is properly elucidated, it proves to be\nan anticipation of what is most modern in the thoughts of twentieth\ncentury physicists. A re-statement of the old-time views would read\nnot unlike many a contribution to a discussion of this subject at an\nannual meeting of the British or American Associations for the\nAdvancement of Science.\n\nThis doctrine of prime matter and form, which the scholastics adopted\nand adapted from the Greeks, and especially from Aristotle, cannot\nfail to be of interest even to modern scientists. According to it,\nprime matter was an indeterminate something which made up the\nunderlying substratum of all material things. Form was the dynamic\nelement which entered into the composition of matter and made it\nexhibit its specific qualities. We have heard much of ionization in\nrecent times, and in many ways this would remind one even only\nslightly familiar with the old scholastics, of their theories of form\nentering into matter. Prime matter was supposed to be absolutely\nwithout distinguishing characteristics of its own. It was indifferent,\nand had no influence on other material unless when associated with\nform. Form was the dynamic and energizing element.\n\nThis, of course, still remains in the realm of theory; {312} but it is\ninteresting to realize that in the olden time they theorized about the\nconstitution of matter at the universities of the thirteenth and\nfourteenth centuries just as we do now, and most surprisingly came to\nconclusions quite like ours. Their thoughts not only concerned the\nsame subject, but were worked out in the same way. It is idle to say\nthat they knew nothing about it and hit on their theory by chance. As\na matter of fact, they knew very little, if any less about it than we\ndo, for our ignorance on this subject is monumental, and they\nanticipated our latest thinking by seven centuries. Many have been the\ndivagations of thought since that time, but now we return to their\nconclusions. It is chastening to the modern mind, so confident of the\nadvances that have been made by these latter generations, \"the heirs\nof all the ages in the foremost files of time,\" to find that we are so\nlittle farther on in an important problem than these men of the\nthirteenth century.\n\nOther basic problems with regard to matter and force filled the minds\nof the medieval schoolmen quite as they do those of the modern\ngenerations. For instance, they occupied themselves with the question\nof the indestructibility of matter, and also, strange as it may seem,\nwith the conservation of energy. We have presumably learned so much by\nexperimental demonstration and original observation in the physical\nsciences in the modern times, and especially during the precious\nnineteenth century, that any thinking of the medieval mind along these\nlines might, in the opinion of those who know nothing of what they\nspeak, be at once set aside without further question as preposterous,\nor at best nugatory. The opinions of medieval scholars in these\nmatters would be presumed, without more ado, to have been so entirely\n{313} speculative as to deserve no further attention. Nothing could\nwell be farther from the truth than this. Nowhere will more marvelous\nanticipations of what is most modern in science be found than in some\nof these considerations of basic principles in the physical sciences.\n\nFor instance, Thomas Aquinas, usually known as St. Thomas, in a series\nof lectures given at the University of Paris toward the end of the\nthird quarter of the thirteenth century, stated as the most important\nconclusion with regard to matter that _\"Nihil omnino in nihilum\nredigetur._--Nothing at all will ever be reduced to nothingness.\" By\nthis, as is very evident from the context, he meant to say that matter\nwould never be annihilated and could never be destroyed. It might be\nchanged in various ways, but it could never go back into the\nnothingness from which it had been taken by the creative act.\nAnnihilation was pronounced as not being a part of the scheme of\nthings as far as the human mind could hope to fathom its meaning.\n\nIn this sentence, then, Thomas of Aquin was proclaiming the doctrine\nof the indestructibility of matter. It was not until well on in the\nnineteenth century that the chemists and physicists of modern times\nrealized the truth of this great principle. The chemists had seen\nmatter change its form in many ways, had seen it disappear apparently\nin the smoke of fire or evaporate under the influence of heat, but\ninvestigation proved that if care were taken in the collection of the\ngases that came off under these circumstances, of the ashes of\ncombustion and of the residue of evaporation, all the original\nmaterial that had been contained in the supposedly disappearing\nsubstance could be recovered, or at least {314} completely accounted\nfor. The physicists on their part had realized this same truth, and\nfinally there came the definite enunciation of the absolute\nindestructibility of matter. St. Thomas's conclusion, \"Nothing at all\nwill ever be reduced to nothingness,\" had anticipated this doctrine by\nnearly seven centuries. What happened in the nineteenth century was\nthat there came an experimental demonstration of the truth of the\nprinciple. The principle itself, however, had been reached long before\nby the human mind, by speculative processes quite as inerrable in\ntheir way as the more modern method of investigation.\n\nWhen St. Thomas used the aphorism, \"Nothing at all will ever be\nreduced to nothingness,\" there was another signification that he\nattached to the words quite as clearly as that by which they expressed\nthe indestructibility of matter. For him _nihil_ or nothing meant\nneither matter nor form, that is, neither the material substance nor\nthe energy which is contained in it. He meant, then, that no energy\nwould ever be destroyed as well as no matter would ever be\nannihilated. He was teaching the conservation of energy as well as the\nindestructibility of matter. Here once more the experimental\ndemonstration of the doctrine was delayed for over six centuries and a\nhalf. The truth itself, however, had been reached by this medieval\nmaster-mind, and was the subject of his teaching to the university\nstudents in Paris in the thirteenth century. These examples should, I\nthink, serve to illustrate that the minds of medieval students were\noccupied with practically the same questions as those which are now\ntaught to the university students of our day, and that the content of\nthe teaching was identical with ours.\n\n{315}\n\nThe scholars of the Middle Ages are usually said to have been\nprofoundly ignorant as regards the shape of the earth, its size, and\nthe number of its inhabitants, and to have cherished the queerest\nnotions, when they really permitted themselves any ideas at all, as to\nthe antipodes. This is very true if the ideas of the ignorant masses\nof the people and the second-rate authors and thinkers be taken as the\nstandard of medieval thought. Unfortunately, such sources as these\nhave only too often served as authorities for modern historians of\neducation and modern essayists on the history of science. This state\nof affairs would painfully suggest the curiously inverted notion of\nthe supposed ideas entertained with regard to science in our day, that\nwould be obtained by some thirtieth century student, were he to judge\nour scientific opinions from some of the queer books written by\npretentiously ignorant writers, who have pet scientific hobbies of\ntheir own and exploit them at the expense of a long-suffering world,\nif by some accident of fortune these books should be preserved and the\nreally great contributions to science be either actually lost or lost\nto sight. It is from Albert the Great and such men, and not from their\npetty contemporaries, that the true spirit of the science of the age\nmust be deduced. Albert's biographer said:\n\n  \"He treats as fabulous the commonly-received idea, in which\n  Venerable Bede had acquiesced, that the region of the earth south of\n  the equator was uninhabitable, and considers, that from the equator\n  to the South Pole, the earth was not only habitable, but in all\n  probability actually inhabited, except directly at the poles, where\n  he imagines the cold to be excessive. If there be any animals there,\n  he says, they must have very thick skins to defend them from the\n  rigor of the climate, and they are probably of a white color. The\n  intensity of cold is, {316} however, tempered by the action of the\n  sea. He describes the antipodes and the countries they comprise, and\n  divides the climate of the earth into seven zones. He smiles with a\n  scholar's freedom at the simplicity of those who suppose that\n  persons living at the opposite region of the earth must fall off, an\n  opinion that can only rise out of the grossest ignorance, _'for when\n  we speak of the lower hemisphere, this must be understood merely as\n  relatively to ourselves.'_\n\n  \"It is as a geographer that Albert's superiority to the writers of\n  his own time chiefly appears. Bearing in mind the astonishing\n  ignorance which then prevailed on this subject, it is truly\n  admirable to find him correctly tracing the chief mountain chains of\n  Europe, with the rivers which take their source in each; remarking\n  on portions of coast which have in later times been submerged by the\n  ocean, and islands which have been raised by volcanic action above\n  the level of the sea; noticing the modification of climate caused by\n  mountains, seas and forests, and the division of the human race,\n  whose differences he ascribes to the effect upon them of the\n  countries they inhabit. In speaking of the British Isles, he alludes\n  to the commonly-received idea that another distant island called\n  Thile, or Thule, existed far in the Western Ocean, uninhabitable by\n  reason of its frightful climate, but which, he says, has perhaps not\n  yet been visited by man.\"\n\nIn only needs to be said in addition to this, that Albert had more\nthan a vague hint of the possible existence of land on the other side\nof the globe. He gives an elaborate demonstration of the sphericity of\nthe earth, and it has been suggested by more than one scholar that his\nviews on this subject led eventually to the discovery of America.\n\nHumboldt, the distinguished German natural philosopher of the\nbeginning of the nineteenth century, who was undoubtedly the most\nimportant figure in scientific thought in his own time, and whose own\nwork was great enough to have an enduring influence even down to our\n{317} day, in spite of the immense progress made during the nineteenth\ncentury, has praised Albert's work very highly. Almost needless to\nsay, Humboldt was possessed of a thorough critical faculty and had a\nvery wide range of knowledge, so that he was in an eminently proper\nposition to judge of Albert's work. He has summed up his appreciation\nbriefly as follows:\n\n  \"Albertus Magnus was equally active and influential in promoting the\n  study of natural science and of the Aristotelian philosophy. His\n  works contain some exceedingly acute remarks on the organic\n  structure and physiology of plants. One of his works, bearing the\n  title of 'Liber Cosmographicus de Natura Locorum,' is a species of\n  physical geography. I have found in it considerations on the\n  dependence of temperature concurrently on latitude and elevation,\n  and on the effect of different angles of incidence of the sun's rays\n  in heating the ground, _which have excited my surprise._\"\n\nI have thought that perhaps the best way to bring out properly\nAlbert's knowledge in the physical sciences would be to take up\nHumboldt's headings in their order and illustrate them by quotations\nfrom the great scholar's writings--the only scholar to whom the\nepithet has been applied in all history--and from condensed accounts\nas they appear in his life written by Sighart. [Footnote 40] These\nwill serve to show at once the extent of Albert's knowledge and the\npresumptuous ignorance of those who make little of the science of the\nmedieval period.\n\n[Footnote 40: Sighart, Albertus Magnus: Sein Leben und Seine\nWisenschaft, Ratisbon, 1857, or its translation by Dixon; Albert the\nGreat, his life and scholastic labors. London, 1870.]\n\nWhen we have catalogued, for instance, the many facts with regard to\nastronomy and the physics of light that are supposed to be of much\nlater entrance into the sphere of human knowledge that were grasped by\n{318} Albert, and evidently formed the subject of his teaching at\nvarious times at both Paris and Cologne, since they are found in his\nauthentic works, we can scarcely help but be amused at the pretentious\nlack of knowledge that has relegated their author to a place in\neducation so trivial as is that which is represented in many minds by\nthe term scholastic.\n\n  \"He decides that the Milky Way is nothing but a vast assemblage of\n  stars, but supposed, naturally enough, that they occupy the orbit\n  which receives the light of the sun. The figures visible on the\n  moon's disc are not, he says, as hitherto has been supposed,\n  reflections of the seas and mountains of the earth, but\n  configurations of her own surface. He notices, in order to correct\n  it, the assertions of Aristotle that lunar rainbows appear only\n  twice in fifty years; 'I myself,' he says, 'have observed two in a\n  single year.' He has something to say on the refraction of a solar\n  ray, notices certain crystals which have a power of refraction, and\n  remarks that none of the ancients and few moderns were acquainted\n  with the properties of mirrors.\"\n\nBotany is supposed to be a very modern science, and to most people\nHumboldt's expression that he found in Albertus Magnus's writings some\n\"exceedingly acute remarks on the organic structure and physiology of\nplants,\" will come as an supreme surprise. A few details with regard\nto Albert's botanical knowledge, however, will serve to heighten that\nsurprise, and to show that the foolish tirades of modern sciolists,\nwho have often expressed their wonder that with all the beauties of\nnature around them these scholars of the Middle Ages did not devote\nthemselves to nature study, are absurd; because if the critics but\nknew it, there was profound interest in nature and all her\nmanifestations, and a series of discoveries that anticipated not a\nlittle of what we {319} consider most important in our modern science.\nThe story of Albert's botanical knowledge has been told in a single\nvery full paragraph by his biographer. Sighart also quotes an\nappreciative opinion from a modern German botanist, which will serve\nto dispel any doubts with regard to Albert's position in botany that\nmodern students might perhaps continue to harbor, unless they had good\nauthority to support their opinion, though, of course, it will be\nremembered that the main difference between the medieval and the\nmodern mind is only too often said to be that the medieval required an\nauthority, while the modern makes its opinion for itself. Even the\nmost skeptical of modern minds, however, will probably be satisfied by\nthe following paragraph:\n\n  \"He was acquainted with the sleep of plants, with the periodical\n  opening and closing of blossoms, with the diminution of sap through\n  evaporation from the cuticle of the leaves, and with the influence\n  of the distribution of the bundles of vessels on the folial\n  indentations. His minute observations on the forms and variety of\n  plants intimate an exquisite sense of floral beauty. He\n  distinguished the star from the bell-floral, tells us that a red\n  rose will turn white when submitted to the vapor of sulphur, and\n  makes some very sagacious observations on the subject of\n  germination. . . . The extraordinary erudition and originality of\n  this treatise (his tenth book) has drawn from M. Meyer the following\n  comment: 'No botanist who lived before Albert can be compared to\n  him, unless Theophrastus, with whom he was not acquainted; and after\n  him none has painted nature in such living colors or studied it so\n  profoundly until the time of Conrad Gesner and Caesalpino.' All\n  honor, then, to the man who made such astonishing progress in the\n  science of nature as to find no one, I will not say to surpass, but\n  even to equal him for the space of three centuries.\"\n\nPagel in Puschmann's History of Medicine gives a list {320} of the\nbooks written by Albert which are concerned with the physical\nsciences. These were: Physica, Books VIII., that is, eight treatises\non Natural Science, consisting of commentaries on Aristotle's Physics\nand on the underlying principles of natural philosophy, and of energy\nand movement; four treatises concerning the Heavens and the Earth,\nwhich contain the general principles of the movement of the heavenly\nbodies. Besides there is a treatise On the Nature of Places,\nconsisting of a description of climates and natural conditions. This\nvolume contains, according to Pagel, numerous suggestions with regard\nto ethnography and physiology. There is a treatise on the causes of\nthe properties of the elements, which takes up the specific\npeculiarities of the elements, according to their physical and\ngeographical relations. To which must be added two treatises on\ngeneration and corruption; six books on meteors; five books on\nminerals; three books on the soul, in which is considered the vital\nprinciple; a treatise on nutrition and nutritives; a treatise on the\nsenses; another on the memory and the imagination; two books on the\nintellect; a treatise on sleep and waking; a treatise on youth and old\nage; a treatise on breath and respiration; a treatise on the motion of\nanimals, in two books, which concerns the voluntary and involuntary\nmovements of animals; a treatise on life and death; a treatise in six\nbooks on vegetables and plants; a treatise on breathing things. His\ntreatise on minerals contains, according to Pagel, besides an\nextensive presentation of the ordinary peculiarities of minerals, a\ndescription of ninety-five different kinds of precious stones, among\nthem the pearl, of seven metals, of salt, vitriol, alum, arsenic,\nmarcasite, nitre, tutia, and amber. Albert's {321} volumes on the\nvegetables and plants were reproduced under the editorship of Meyer,\nthe historian of botany in Germany, and published in Berlin (1867).\nAll Albert's books are available in modern editions.\n\nIn a word, there was scarcely a subject in natural science which\nAlbert did not treat, in what would now be considered a formal serious\nvolume, and no department of science that he did not illuminate in\nsome way, not only by the collection of information that had\npreviously been in existence, but also by his own observations, and\nespecially by his interpretations of the significance of the various\nphenomena that had been observed. His work is especially noteworthy\nfor its lack of dependence on authority and the straightforward way in\nwhich the great pioneer of modern science made his observations.\n\nSome of Albert's contemporaries, and especially his pupils, were\nalmost as distinguished as he was himself in the physical sciences.\n\nIn a previous chapter we spoke particularly of Roger Bacon's attitude\ntoward the physical sciences, above all in what concerns the\nexperimental method. He was typically modern in the standpoint that he\nassumed, as the only one by which knowledge of the things of nature\ncan be obtained. It will be interesting now to see the number of\nthings which Friar Bacon succeeded in discovering by the application\nof the principle of testing everything by personal observation, of not\naccepting things on second-hand authorities, and of not being afraid\nto say, \"I do not know,\" in trying to learn for himself. His\ndiscoveries will seem almost incredible to a modern student of science\nand of education who has known nothing before of the progress of\nscience made {322} by this wonderful man, or who has known only\nvaguely that Friar Bacon was a great original thinker in science, in\nspite of the fact that his life-history is bounded by the thirteenth\ncentury. I may say that the material of what I have to say of him, and\nalso of his great contemporaries, Albertus Magnus and St. Thomas\nAquinas, is taken almost literally from the chapter of my book, The\nThirteenth Greatest of Centuries, on What They Studied at the\nUniversities.\n\n  Roger Bacon has been declared to be the discoverer of gunpowder, but\n  this is a mistake, since it was known many years before by the Arabs\n  and by them introduced into Europe. He did study explosives very\n  deeply, however, and besides learning many things about them,\n  realized how much might be accomplished by their use in the\n  after-time. He declares in his Opus Magnum: \"That one may cause to\n  burst forth from bronze, thunderbolts more formidable that those\n  produced by nature. A small quantity of prepared matter occasions a\n  terrible explosion accompanied by a brilliant light. One may\n  multiply this phenomenon so far as to destroy a city or an army.\"\n  Considering how little was know about gunpowder at this time, this\n  was of itself a marvelous anticipation of what might be accomplished\n  by it.\n\n  Bacon anticipated, however, much more than merely destructive\n  effects from the use of high explosives, and indeed it is almost\n  amusing to see how closely he anticipated some of the most modern\n  usages of high explosives for motor purposes. He seems to have\n  realized that some time the apparently uncontrollable forces of\n  explosion would come under the control of man and be harnessed by\n  him for his own purposes. He foresaw that one of the great\n  applications of such a force would be for transportation.\n  Accordingly he said: \"Art can construct instruments of navigation\n  such that the largest vessels, governed by a single man, will\n  traverse rivers and seas more rapidly than if they were filled with\n  oarsmen. One may also make carriages which without the aid of any\n  animal will run with remarkable swiftness.\" {323} When we recall\n  that the very latest thing in transportation are motor-boats and\n  automobiles driven by gasoline, a high explosive, Roger Bacon's\n  prophecy becomes one of those weird anticipations of human progress\n  which seem almost more than human.\n\n  It was not with regard to explosives alone, however, that Roger\n  Bacon was to make great advances and still more marvelous\n  anticipations in physical science. He was not, as is sometimes\n  claimed for him, either the inventor of the telescope or of the\n  theory of lenses. He did more, however, than perhaps anyone else to\n  make the principles of lenses clear and to establish them on a\n  mathematical basis. His traditional connection with the telescope\n  can probably be traced to the fact that he was very much interested\n  in astronomy and the relations of the heavens to the earth. He\n  pointed out very clearly the errors which had crept into the Julian\n  calendar, calculated exactly how much of a correction was needed in\n  order to restore the year to its proper place, and suggested the\n  method by which future errors of this kind could be avoided. His\n  ideas were too far beyond his century to be applied practically, but\n  they were not to be without their effect, and it is said that they\n  formed the basis of the subsequent correction of the calendar in the\n  time of Pope Gregory XIII., about three centuries later.\n\n  It is rather surprising to find how much besides the theory of\n  lenses Friar Bacon had succeeded in finding out in the department of\n  optics. He taught, for instance, the principle of the aberration of\n  light, and, still more marvelous to consider, taught that light did\n  not travel instantaneously, but had a definite rate of motion,\n  though this was extremely rapid. It is rather difficult to\n  understand how he reached this conclusion, since light travels so\n  fast that, as far as regards any observation that can be made upon\n  earth, the diffusion is practically instantaneous. It was not for\n  over three centuries later that Roemer, the German astronomer,\n  demonstrated the motion of light and its rate by his observations\n  upon the moons of Jupiter at different phases of the earth's orbit,\n  which showed that the light of these moons took a definite and quite\n  appreciable time to reach the earth after their eclipse by the\n  planet was over.\n\n{324}\n\n  Albertus Magnus's other great pupil besides Roger Bacon was St.\n  Thomas Aquinas. If any suspicion were still left that Thomas did not\n  appreciate just what the significance of his teachings in physics\n  was, when he announced that neither matter nor force could ever be\n  reduced to nothingness, it would surely be removed by the\n  consideration that he had been for many years in intimate relations\n  with Albert, and that he had probably also been close to Roger\n  Bacon. In association with such men as these, he was not likely to\n  stumble upon truths unawares, even though they might concern\n  physical science. St. Thomas himself has left three treatises on\n  chemical subjects, and it is said that the first occurrence of the\n  word amalgam can be traced to one of these treatises. Everybody was\n  as much interested then, as we are at the present time, in the\n  transformation of metals and mercury with its silvery sheen; its\n  facility to enter into metallic combinations of all kinds, and its\n  elusive ways, naturally made it the center of scientific interest\n  quite as radium is at the present moment.\n\nThese three men, Albertus Magnus, Thomas Aquinas, and Roger Bacon,\nwere all closely associated with ecclesiastical authorities, and\nindeed all three of them had intimate personal relations with the\nPopes of their time. Albertus Magnus had been highly honored by the\nDominican Order, to which he belonged. He had been chosen as\nProvincial--that is, the superior of a number of houses--in the\nGerman part of Europe at least once, and he had been constantly\nappealed to by his superiors for advice and counsel. Although it was\nalmost a rule that members of religious orders should not be chosen as\nbishops, he was made Bishop of Ratisbon, and his appointment was\nconsidered to be due to his surpassing merit as a great scholar and\nteacher. In spite of his devotion to scientific studies during a long\nlife, he lost nothing of the ardor of his faith, and is universally\nconsidered to have been a saint. He has been formally raised to the\n{325} altars of the Catholic Church, as the expression is--that is, he\nhad the title of \"Blessed\" conferred on him, and his prayers may be\ninvoked as one of those who are considered to stand high in the favor\nof Heaven.\n\nOf Thomas Aquinas the same story may be told only in much more\nemphatic words. He was honored by his own order, the Dominican, in\nmany ways. Early in his life they recognized his talent and sent him\nto Cologne to study under the great Albert. When the Dominicans\nrealized the necessity for not only making a significant exhibition of\nthe talents of their order at the University of Paris, which had\nbecome the most prominent educational institution in the world, but\nalso wished to influence as deeply as possible the cause of education,\nAlbert was sent to Paris, and Thomas Aquinas accompanied him. When\nthere were difficulties between Dominicans and the university, it was\nto Thomas that his order turned to defend them and maintain their\nrights. He did so not only with intellectual acumen, but with great\ntact and successfully. After this he was sent on business of his order\nto England and was for some time at Oxford. His reputation as a\nphilosopher and a scientist had now spread over the world and he was\ninvited to teach at various Italian universities where ecclesiastical\ninfluences were very strong. The Popes asked, and their request was\npractically a command, that he should teach for some time at least at\ntheir own university at Rome. Later he taught also at the University\nof Naples.\n\nWhile here, one of the Popes wishing to confer a supreme mark of favor\non him, his name was selected for the vacant archbishopric of Naples.\nThe bulls and formal documents creating him Archbishop were already on\nthe way when Thomas was informed of it, and he asked {326} to be\nallowed to continue his studies rather than to have to take up the\nunwonted duties of an archbishop. His plea was evidently so sincere\nthat the Pope relented and respected Thomas's humility and his desire\nfor leisure to finish his great work, the Summa Theologiae. He\ncontinued to be the great friend of the Popes and their special\ncounsellor. When the Council of Lyons was summoned, a number of\nimportant questions concerning the most serious theological problems\nwere to be discussed. Thomas was asked to go to Lyons as the\ntheologian for the Papacy. It was while fulfilling this duty that he\ncame to his death, at a comparatively early age, though not until the\nCouncil, consisting of the bishops of all the world, had shown their\nrespect for him, had listened to his words of wisdom, and had\nacknowledged that he was the greatest scholar of his time and worthy\nof the respect and admiration of all of them. Because of all that his\nkindness to them had meant for their uplift, the workmen of Lyons\ncraved and obtained the permission to carry his coffin on their\nshoulders to his tomb.\n\nLike his great teacher Albert, Thomas was respected even more for his\npiety than for his learning. Not long after his death, people began to\nspeak of him as a saint. Though he was the most learned man of his\ntime, he was considered to have given an example of heroic virtue. A\ncareful investigation of his life showed that there was nothing in it\nunworthy of the highest ideals as a man and a religious. Accordingly\nhe was canonized, and has ever since been considered the special\npatron, helper and advocate of Catholic students. All down the\ncenturies his teaching has been looked upon as the most important in\nthe whole realm of theology. There has never been {327} a time when\nhis works have not been considered the most authoritative sources of\ntheological lore. At the end of the nineteenth century Leo XIII.\ncrowned the tributes which many Popes had conferred upon Thomas by\nselecting him as the teacher to whom Catholic schools should ever turn\nby formulating the authoritative Papal opinion--the nearer to Thomas,\nthe nearer to Catholic truth. When it is recalled that this is the man\nwho gave the great modern impulse to the doctrine of matter and form,\nwho taught the indestructibility of matter and the conservation of\nenergy, and declared with St. Augustine that the Creator had made only\nthe seeds of things, allowing these afterwards to develop for\nthemselves, which is the essence of the doctrine of evolution, it is\nhard to understand how there should be question of opposition between\nthe Church and science in his time. With regard to the third of these\ngreat physical scientists, the story of his relation to the\necclesiastical authorities is not quite so simple. Roger Bacon was in\nhis younger years very much thought of by his own order, the\nFranciscans. They sent him to Paris and provided him opportunities to\nstudy under the great Albert, and then transferred him to Oxford,\nwhere he had a magnificent opportunity for teaching. Many years of his\nlife were spent in peace and happiness in the cloister. A friend and\nfellow student at Paris became Pope Clement, and his command was the\nprimary cause of the composition of Bacon's great works. All three of\nhis books, and especially the Opus Majus, were written at the command\nof the Pope, and were highly praised by the Pontiff himself and by\nthose who read them in Rome. Unfortunately, difficulties occurred\nwithin Friar Bacon's own order. It is not quite clear now just how\nthese {328} came about. The Franciscans of the rigid observance of\nthose early times took vows of the severest poverty. There had been\nsome relaxation of the rule, however, and certain abuses crept in. The\nconsequence was the re-assertion after a time of the original rule of\nabsolute poverty in all its stringency. It was Friar Bacon himself who\nhad chosen this mode of life and had taken the vows of poverty. Paper\nwas a very dear commodity, if indeed it was invented early enough in\nthe century for him to have used it. Vellum was even more expensive.\nJust what material Bacon employed for his writings is not now known.\nWhatever it was, it seems to have cost much money, and because of his\nviolation of his vow of poverty Roger Bacon fell under the ban of his\norder. He was ordered to be confined to his cell in the monastery and\nto be fed on bread and water for a considerable period. It must not be\nforgotten that this was within a century after the foundation of the\nFranciscans, and to an ardent son of St. Francis the living on bread\nand water would not be a very difficult thing at this time, since his\nordinary diet would, at least during certain portions of the year, be\nscarcely better than this. There is no account of how Roger Bacon took\nhis punishment. He might easily have left his order. There were many\nothers at that time who did. He wished to remain as a faithful son of\nSt. Francis, and seems to have accepted his punishment with the idea\nthat his example would influence others of the order to submit to the\nenforcement of the regulation with regard to poverty, which superiors\nnow thought so important, if the original spirit of St. Francis was to\nbe regained.\n\nIt is sometimes said that Friar Bacon indulged in scientific\nspeculations which seemed subversive of {329} Christian mysteries, and\nthat this was one reason for his punishment. Recently he has been\ndeclared the first of the modernists since he attempted to rationalize\nreligious mysteries. Whatever truth there may be in this, of one thing\nwe are certain, that before his death Bacon deeply regretted some of\nhis expressions and theories, and did not hesitate to confess humbly\nthat he was sorry to have even seemed to hint at supposed science\ncontrary to religious truth.\n\nOf course, it may well be said, even after all these communities of\ninterest between the medieval and the modern teaching of the general\nprinciples of science have been pointed out, that the universities of\nthe Middle Ages did not present the subjects under discussion in a\npractical way, and their teaching was not likely to lead to directly\nbeneficial results in applied science. It might well be responded to\nthis, that it is not the function of a university to teach\napplications of science, but only the great principles, the broad\ngeneralizations that underlie scientific thinking, leaving details to\nbe filled in in whatever form of practical work the man may take up.\nVery few of those, however, who talk about the purely speculative\ncharacter of medieval teaching, have manifestly ever made it their\nbusiness to know anything about the actual facts of old-time\nuniversity teaching by definite knowledge, but have rather allowed\nthemselves to be guided by speculation and by inadequate second-hand\nauthorities, whose dicta they have never taken the trouble to\nsubstantiate by a glance at contemporary authorities on medieval\nmatters, much less by reading the old scholastics themselves.\n\nHow much was accomplished in applied science during the Middle Ages,\nthat is, in those departments of science {330} which are usually\nsupposed to have been least cultivated, since educators are prone to\nridicule the over-emphasis of speculation in education and the\nconstant preoccupation of mind of the scholars of these generations\nwith merely theoretic questions, may be appreciated from any history\nof the arts and architecture during the thirteenth, fourteenth, and\nfifteenth centuries. Some of the most difficult problems in mechanics\nas applied to the structural work of cathedrals, palaces, castles,\nfortresses, and bridges, were solved with a success that was only\nequaled by the audacity with which they were attempted. Men hesitated\nat nothing. There is no problem of mechanical engineering as applied\nto structural work which these men did not find an answer for in their\nwonderful buildings. This has been very well brought out by Prince\nKropotkin in certain chapters of his book, Mutual Aid a Factor of\nEvolution, [Footnote 41] in which he treats of mutual aid in the\nmedieval cities. He says:\n\n[Footnote 41: New York, McClure, Philips & Co., 1902.]\n\n  \"At the beginning of the eleventh century the towns of Europe were\n  small clusters of miserable huts, adorned with but low clumsy\n  churches, the builders of which hardly knew how to make an arch; the\n  arts, mostly consisting of some weaving and forging, were in their\n  infancy; learning was found in but a few monasteries. Three hundred\n  and fifty years later, the very face of Europe had been changed. The\n  land was dotted with rich cities, surrounded by immense thick walls\n  which were embellished by towers and gates, each of them a work of\n  art itself. The cathedrals, conceived in a grand style and profusely\n  decorated, lifted their bell-towers to the skies, displaying a\n  purity of form and a boldness of imagination which we now vainly\n  strive to attain. The {331} crafts and arts had risen to a degree of\n  perfection which we can hardly boast of having superseded in many\n  directions, if the inventive skill of the worker and the superior\n  finish of his work be appreciated higher than rapidity of\n  fabrication. The navies of the free cities furrowed in all\n  directions the Northern Seas and the Southern Mediterranean; one\n  effort more and they would cross the oceans. Over large tracts of\n  land, well-being had taken the place of misery; learning had grown\n  and spread; the methods of science had been elaborated; the basis of\n  natural philosophy had been laid down; and the way had been paved\n  for all the mechanical inventions of which our own times are so\n  proud.\"\n\nThe period for which Prince Kropotkin is thus enthusiastic in the\nmatter of applied science, is all before the date usually given as the\nbeginning of the Renaissance--the fall of Constantinople in 1453. The\nthree centuries and a half from the beginning of the eleventh century\nrepresent just the time of the rise of scholasticism and the beginning\nof its decline. Few periods of history are so maligned as regards\ntheir intellectual feebleness, and in nothing is that quality supposed\nto be more marked than in applied science; yet here is what a special\nstudent of the time says of this very period in this particular\ndepartment.\n\nKropotkin has shown just what were the limitations of scientific\nprogress in the Middle Ages while emphasizing how much these wonderful\ngenerations accomplished. In this I am inclined to the opinion that he\ndoes not allow as much to the Middle Ages as he should. I have been\nable to point out, I think, in this chapter many evidences of\nimportant principles in science that were fully reached during the\nMiddle Ages. Because of {332} his more conservative opinion in this\nmatter, however, Kropotkin's opinion should carry all the more weight\nwith those who are now called upon to realize for the first time, how\nmuch these despised generations accomplished in matters that were to\nprove a precious heritage for subsequent generations, and the\nfoundation-stones of that great edifice of science which has been\nbuilt up in more recent years. Kropotkin says:\n\n  \"True that no new principle was illustrated by any of these\n  discoveries, as Whewell said; but medieval science had done\n  something more than the actual discovery of new principles. It had\n  prepared the discovery of all the new principles which we know at\n  the present time in mechanical sciences; it had accustomed the\n  explorer to observe facts and to reason from them. It had inductive\n  science, even though it had not yet fully grasped the importance and\n  the powers of induction; and it had laid the foundations of both\n  mechanical and natural philosophy. Francis Bacon, Galileo, and\n  Copernicus were the direct descendants of a Roger Bacon and a\n  Michael Scot, as the steam engine was a direct product of the\n  researches carried on in the Italian universities on the weight of\n  the atmosphere, and of the mathematical and technical learning which\n  characterized Nuremberg.\"\n\n  \"But why should one take trouble to insist upon the advance of\n  science and art in the medieval city? Is it not enough to point to\n  the cathedrals in the domain of skill, and to the Italian language\n  and the poem of Dante in the domain of thought, to give at once the\n  measure of what the medieval city created during the four centuries\n  it lived?\"\n\nWe are prone to think of evolution in human affairs as being the\nruling principle. As a consequence of this, {333} we are apt to\nconsider that since intervening periods between the nineteenth century\nand the Middle Ages were lacking in education, in applied science, and\nin interest in physical science to a great degree, beyond doubt, then,\nthe Middle Ages must have been still more lacking in these desirable\nqualities of education and human knowledge. This is the sort of\ndeduction that greets one constantly in so-called histories of\neducation, and especially in such supposed contributions to the\nhistory of the relationship of science to religion or theology as have\nbeen made here in America. This deduction, as I have said before, is\nmade by men who are the first to asperse the medieval scholars for\nhaving used deduction too freely, and who are ever ready to praise\ninduction. The induction in this matter--that is, the story of the\nactual history of science in the Middle Ages--is the direct\ncontradiction of the deduction from false principles. Intervening\ncenturies not only failed to progress beyond the Middle Ages, but some\nof them were far behind the achievements of that unfortunately\ndespised period. Once more Prince Kropotkin has touched this matter\nvery suggestively. After describing the achievements of applied\nscience in the Middle Ages, he says:\n\n  \"Such were the magic changes accomplished in Europe in less than\n  four hundred years. And the losses which Europe sustained through\n  the loss of its free cities can only be understood when we compare\n  the seventeenth century with the fourteenth or thirteenth. The\n  prosperity which formerly characterized Scotland, Germany, the\n  plains of Italy, was gone. The roads had fallen into an abject\n  state, the cities were depopulated, labor was brought into slavery,\n  art had vanished, commerce itself was decaying.\"\n\n{334}\n\nIn the meantime the reformation so-called had come, and had carried\naway with it in its course nearly everything precious that men had\ngained during the four centuries immediately preceding. Art,\neducation, science, liberty, democracy--everything worth while had\nbeen hurt; most of them had been ruined for the time. Even the\nnineteenth century did not succeed in bringing us back to a level with\nthe earlier centuries in all the intellectual and esthetic\naccomplishments.\n\nAnother striking evidence of the deep interest of these generations in\nscience of all kinds and in details of information with regard to\nwhich they are generally said to have been quite incurious, was the\npublication of the famous encyclopedia, the first work of its kind\never issued, which was written about the middle of the thirteenth\ncentury by Vincent of Beauvais. It is only when a generation actually\ncalls for it, and when the want of it has been for a good while felt,\nthat such a work is likely to be undertaken. This immense literary\nundertaking was completed under the patronage of King Louis IX. by\nVincent, a Dominican friar, who died at the beginning of the last\nquarter of the thirteenth century. His Majus Speculum is not the first\nbook of general information, but it is the first deserving the name of\nEncyclopedia in the full sense of the word that we have. It is divided\ninto three parts--the Speculum Naturale, Doctrinale, and Historiale.\nThe only one which interests us here is the Speculum Naturale, which\nfills a huge folio volume of nearly a thousand pages, closely printed\nin double columns. It is divided into 32 books and some 4,000\nchapters. The Encyclopaedia Brittanica says of it:--\n\n  \"It was, as it were, the great temple of medieval {335} science,\n  whose floor and walls are inlaid with an enormous mosaic of\n  skilfully arranged passages from Latin, Greek, Arabic, and even\n  Hebrew authors. To each quotation, as he borrows it, Vincent\n  prefixes the name of the book and the author from which it is taken,\n  distinguishing, however, his own remarks by the word 'actor.'\"\n\nThe interest aroused by Vincent's compilation outside of professional\nand educational circles strictly so-called, can be very well\nappreciated from the fact that, besides King Louis's interest, his\nQueen Margaret, their son Philip and son-in-law, King Theobald V., of\nChampagne and Navarre, were, according to tradition, among those who\nencouraged him in the work and aided him in bearing the expenses of\nit. It is rather curious to find that the method of compilation was\nnearly the same as that employed at the present day. Young men, mainly\nmembers of Vincent's own order of the Dominicans, were engaged in\ncollecting the material, collating references, and verifying\nquotations. The main burden of the work, however, fell upon Vincent\nhimself, and he accordingly deserves the reputation for wonderful\nindustry which he has enjoyed. Much as he wrote, however, it does not\nexceed much in amount what was written by others of the great\nscholastics, and theirs was original material and not merely the\ncollection of information.\n\nIf we had no other evidence of interest in nature and in natural\nscience than this great work of Vincent of Beauvais, it would be ample\nto show the absurdity of the general impression that exists in the\nminds of most scientists, and, unfortunately, also in the minds of\nmany educators, with regard to the barrenness of interest of {336} the\nMiddle Age in natural phenomena. It might easily be imagined that this\nwork of Vincent would have very little of interest for a modern\nscientist. Any such anticipation is entirely due, however, to the\nfalse impression that exists with regard to the supposed ridiculously\nabsurd views in matters of science entertained by the medieval\nscholars. Those who do not take their opinions on theory, but actually\nconsult the books with regard to which they are ready to express\nthemselves, have no such opinion. There has been much more interest in\nthis class of books and in the scientific side of the literature of\nthe thirteenth and fourteenth centuries during the last few years, and\nthe consequence has been a complete reversal of opinions with regard\nto them, among German and French scholars.\n\nAn excellent example of this is to be noted in Dr. Julius Pagel, who,\nin his chapter on Medicine in the Middle Ages, in Puschmann's Handbook\nof the History of Medicine, says: \"There were three writers whose\nworks were even more popular than those of Albertus Magnus. These\nthree were: Bartholomew the Englishman, Thomas of Cantimprato, and\nVincent of Beauvais, the last of whom must be considered as one of the\nmost important contributors to the generalization of scientific\nknowledge, not alone in the thirteenth, but in the immediately\nsucceeding centuries. His most important work was really an\nencyclopedia of the knowledge of his time. It was called the Greater\nTriple Mirror, and there is no doubt that it reflected very thoroughly\nthe knowledge of his period. He had the true scientific spirit, and\nconstantly cites the authorities from whom his information was\nderived. He cites hundreds of authors, and there is scarcely a subject\nthat he does not {337} touch on. One book of his work is concerned\nwith human anatomy, and the concluding portion of it is an\nabbreviation of history carried down to the year 1250.\"\n\nIt might be considered that such a compend of information would be\nvery dry-as-dust reading and that it would be fragmentary in character\nand little likely to be attractive except to a serious student. Dr.\nPagel's opinion does not agree with this _a priori_ impression. He\nsays with regard to Vincent's work: \"The language is clear, readily\nintelligible, and the information is conveyed usually in an excellent,\nsimple style. Through the introduction of interesting similes the\ncontents do not lack a certain taking quality, so that the reading of\nthe work easily becomes absorbing.\" This is, I suppose, almost the\nlast thing that might be expected of a scientific teacher in the\nthirteenth century, because, after all, Vincent of Beauvais must be\nconsidered as one of the schoolmen, and they are supposed to be\neminently arid, but evidently, since we must trust this testimony of a\ndiscerning modern German physician, only by those who have not taken\nthe trouble to read them.\n\nVincent of Beauvais was not the only one to occupy himself with work\nof an encyclopedic character during the thirteenth century. At least\ntwo other clergymen gave themselves up to the life-long work of\ncollecting details of information so as to make them available for\nready reference in their own times and for succeeding generations. The\nvery fact that three men should have taken up such a task, shows that\nthere must have been a loud call for this sort of writing, and that\nthere must have been a veritable thirst for information among the\neducated classes of the time. Such books, as we have said, are not\ncreated without a demand for them, though {338} they undoubtedly serve\nin turn to awaken a greater thirst for the information which they\npurvey. The other two encyclopedists of the time are Thomas\nCantipratano and Bartholomaeus Anglicus, the Englishman.\n\nThomas of Cantimprato's work was probably published about 1260. Von\nToeply, in his Studies in Anatomy in the Middle Ages, has the most\nreadily available information with regard to Thomas's work. [Footnote\n42] The work of most interest to us is the De Natura Rerum, a single\nlarge volume in twenty books. It required some fifteen years of work,\nand for some fifteen years before he began his work on it Thomas had\nbeen writing various historical and biographical works. Thomas's\nencyclopedic volume contains one book with regard to anatomy, one with\nregard to human monsters, and books with regard to quadrupeds, birds,\nmarine monsters, fishes, serpents, worms, ordinary trees, aromatic and\nmedicinal plants and the virtues of herbs, and of curative waters of\nvarious kinds. Then there are books on precious stones and their\ncutting, on the seven regions and the humors of the air, on the earth\nand the seven planets, and on the four elements and the Heavens and\neclipses of the sun and moon. When such a work was published for\ngeneral reading, it is easy to understand that no phase of information\nwith regard to nature failed to be of interest to readers of the\nthirteenth century. Much that is absurd is contained in the book. But\nwhen we compare it with books written in the early part of the\neighteenth century, we are apt to wonder rather at how little advance\nhad taken place in the four centuries of interval, than at the\nignorance of the medieval writer.\n\n[Footnote 42: Studien zur Geschichte der Anatomie im Mittelalter von\nRobert Ritter von Toeply, Leipzig und Wien. Franz Deuticke, 1898.]\n\n{339}\n\nWe have been able, of course, in this limited space to give only a\nmodicum of the evidence for the cultivation of the Physical Sciences\nat the Medieval Universities, and their records in monumental works\nstill extant; but this will probably be enough to enable those who are\ninterested in the subject to realize its significance and to gather\nfurther material if they so wish. The universities were ecclesiastical\ninstitutions. Most of them derived their authority to give degrees\ndirectly from the Popes. Appeals were frequently made to the Popes\nwith regard to the discipline and the teaching at the universities.\nMost of the great teachers of physical science were ecclesiastics.\nNearly all the students were clerics. Many of those who were most\nsuccessful in science reached high preferment in the Church. Evidently\nthe pursuit of science did not prejudice their advancement, either in\ntheir orders, when they belonged to any of the various religious\norders, or in the Church itself. They were the near and dear friends\nof archbishops, cardinals and Popes. This is entirely contrary to the\nordinary impression in the matter; but this is the plain truth, while\nthe contrary opinions are founded on the false assumption of Church\nopposition to science.\n\n\n\n{340}\n\nTHE MEDIEVAL UNIVERSITY MAN AND SCIENCE.\n\nEven after the series of demonstrations which we have given that the\ngreat thinkers and teachers at the medieval universities were deeply\ninterested in the problems of what we now call natural or physical\nscience, most people will still not be open to conviction that\ninterest in nature was quite as lively in the Middle Ages as at any\nsubsequent period, even our own. In spite of the fact that the\nscholastics faced scientific questions in nearly the same mood as we\ndo ourselves, and, curiously enough, anticipated very closely many of\nthe doctrines now current in science, not a few of those who are most\ninterested in the history of education will continue to think that\nscience occupied the minds of the students at the medieval\nuniversities very little, and that while the great thinkers may have\nknown something about it, the rank and file of the university men of\nthe time gave scarcely any thought to it. Besides, they will be almost\nsure to conclude that, whatever they did think was likely to be inept,\nand in most cases quite ridiculous. Such thoughts are a part of that\nunfortunate educational tradition which stamps the Middle Ages as\nneglectful of nature study, as we would call it now, and as lacking in\ninterest in natural phenomena. Nothing could well be less true, and it\nwill require, I think, but the simple tracing of the life and\nerudition of a single well-known student of these medieval\nuniversities, to show how utterly absurd and unfounded is the popular\nbelief.\n\n{341}\n\nI have chosen Dante for this purpose, mainly because so much more is\nknown about the personal details of his life than of anyone else, and\nwe are able to glean from his writings and the contemporary comments\non them, a good idea of what the general information on scientific\nsubjects of the educated man of his period was. The fact that Dante\nwas a member of the Guild of the Apothecaries in Florence, an\nassociation that included also the physicians of the city, has added\nan adventitious interest to his attractions as one of the few greatest\nof poets of all time, and has made details of his career and evidence\nof the breadth of his education and culture of special import, so that\nI have frequently taken occasion to call the attention of physicians\nto the honor implied by Dante's fraternal relation to us. His\nmembership in the Guild of the Apothecaries, however, did not call for\nany special knowledge of science on his part. He had nothing to do\nwith the sale of drugs, much less with the science of medicine.\nOriginally the Italian apothecaries, as the Greek origin of the word\nindicates, were shop-keepers selling all sorts of things--edible,\nadorning, or useful for personal service. They sold drugs also, and as\nsome of these were imported from the East, they commonly added to\ntheir stock certain other Eastern specialties--perfumes, gems and the\nlike. In this way they soon became wealthy, as a rule, and indeed the\nname of the rich Florentine family who came eventually to rule their\nnative city--the Medici--is said to be derived from similar\nconnections. It was the sons of these men who became the upper middle\nclasses in Florence. Perhaps one should say they became the upper\nclasses, for Florence had no nobility, in the proper sense of the\nword, and men made their own positions. Their {342} descendants became\nthe men of culture, until finally the Florentine Guild of the\nApothecaries represented the most intelligent class of the population\nof the city. During the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, then,\nmost of the artists, the literary men, the architects, the sculptors,\nwere members of the guild. Dante's occupation when he was a peaceful\ncitizen of Florence was, according to tradition, that of architect,\nand one building designed by him is supposed to be still in existence\nin Florence.\n\nDante should represent for us, then, what an architect in Florence at\nthe end of the thirteenth century knew about natural science, as the\nresult of his school and university training. In our time, architects\nare likely to know more about certain forms of physical science than\nmost other people, and due allowance would have to be made for this in\nDante's case. It will be found, though, as we discuss his erudition,\nthat the sciences in which he was particularly interested--astronomy\nand various phases of biology with physical geography--were not those\nwhich appeal especially to an architect, and certainly have no\nrelation to his occupation. His knowledge of flowers might be thought\nto be due to his wish to use floral forms for structural decorative\npurposes, but Dante is rather weak for a poet in the matter of the\ndescription of flowers, and it is only from the side of their color\nthat they made any special appeal to him.\n\nMost people have been led to think of Dante as not a student of\nnature, because that impression would inevitably be gathered from\ncertain passages of John Ruskin with regard to him. Ruskin was so\nfaithful and loving a student of Dante that he would be expected not\nto be {343} mistaken in such a matter, nor is he; but he has dwelt\novermuch on certain phases of Dante's lack of interest in nature,\nuntil the great Florentine's devotion to creation as he saw it around\nhim is obscured. It is not difficult to show, from Dante's own\nwritings, how much he was interested in nearly every phase of nature\nand natural phenomena. In the \"Westminster Review\" for July and\nAugust, 1907, Mr. George Trobridge, in articles on Dante as a Nature\nPoet, has furnished abundant evidence to prove his thesis, though he\ntoo has felt the necessity for apologizing for even apparently\ndiffering from so great a critic and such an enthusiastic Dante\nstudent as Ruskin. Dante's works, however, themselves can be the only\nappeal in this matter, and Mr. Trobridge has used them with good\neffect and in such a way as to carry to anyone the conviction that\nDante was a profound student of nature in all her moods and tenses.\nMr. Trobridge says in the introduction:\n\n  \"It will appear presumptuous in the present writer to differ from so\n  great a critic and such an enthusiastic student of Dante as Ruskin,\n  but it seems to him that the author of Modern Painters has done\n  scant justice to the intense insight of the poet into the beauties\n  of the world we live in and his wonderful power of expressing what\n  he saw. There are few even modern poets who have taken so wide a\n  view of the field of nature, and even Shakespeare himself scarcely\n  excells the great Florentine in felicity and concentration of\n  expression. The Divina Commedia is full of vivid pictures covering\n  the whole range of natural phenomena. As these pass before our eyes,\n  we can scarcely realize that the painter of them is not of our own\n  day, so thoroughly does he enter into the spirit of modern landscape\n  art. {344} Sometimes his pictures are momentary impressions--studies\n  of effects painted with a large brush; at others his touch is of a\n  Preraphaelitic nicety, and now and then he gives us a studied\n  composition full of doubtful detail like one of Turner's landscapes.\n  He was one with Wordsworth in his sincere delight in every form of\n  natural beauty. Like him, he lived beneath the habitual sway of\n  fountains, meadows, hills and groves; with him he saw the 'splendor\n  in the grass' and the 'glory in the flower.' He could 'feel the\n  gladness of the May' and rejoiced in 'the innocent brightness of a\n  new day.'\"\n\nIn the matter of science as distinct from poetic interest in nature,\nquite as much can be said for Dante. This greatest of Italian poets is\na fair example to take of the university man of the thirteenth century\nin this respect. He was thirty-five before the first century of\nuniversity existence properly so-called closed. He may be considered a\ntypical product of university life. It is true he had had the almost\ninestimable advantage of the schooling and culture of his native\nFlorence, where at the end of the thirteenth century there were more\nchildren, it is said, in attendance at the schools to the number of\nthe population than there is at the present moment even in most of our\nAmerican cities. Brother Azarias in his Essays Educational, [Footnote\n43] said:\n\n[Footnote 43: Essays Educational, by Brother Azarias, with Preface by\nHis Eminence Cardinal Gibbons. Chicago, D. H. McBride & Co., 1906.]\n\n\"In the thirteenth century, out of a population of 90,000 in Florence,\nwe find 12,000 children attending the schools, a ratio of school\nattendance as large as existed in New York City, in the year of Grace\n1893.\" This ratio, it may be said, is as great as is ordinarily to be\nfound anywhere, and this fact alone may serve to show {345} how\nearnest were these medieval burghers for the education of their\nchildren. Dante had the advantage of this, and in addition, of the\ntraining at two or three of the universities at least of Italy,\nbesides spending some time at Paris, and probably a visit at least to\nOxford.\n\nLest it should be thought that perhaps Brother Azarias gave too\nfavorable an estimate in his account of the schools in Florence,\nthough he quotes as his authority Villani, and other authorities are\nreadily available, it seems worth while to give a very interesting\nreference to this subject of education in one of the notes in Prince\nKropotkin's chapter on Mutual Aid in the Medieval City, from his book\nMutual Aid a Factor in Evolution, a work that we have placed under\ncontribution a number of times already in this attempt to picture\nmedieval conditions as they were in reality, and not in the foolish\nimaginings of outworn traditions. Kropotkin's studies in what the free\ncities accomplished by the union of the guilds for every fraternal\npurpose, and the coordination of their citizens for every detail of\nthe commonweal, has made him realize that common or public school\neducation was an important feature of medieval free city life, and\nstrange as that fact may appear to many modern minds, that such public\nschool education occupied at least as prominent a position as it does\nwith us in our own time. In the quotation from him it will be seen\nthat he considers that Florence was not alone in this matter, and he\nventures to place Nueremberg on a level with her. Doubtless other\nGerman cities, as certainly other Italian cities, provided similar\nfacilities for general education.\n\nKropotkin says: \"In 1336 it (Florence) had 8,000 to 10,000 boys and\ngirls in its primary schools, 1,000 to {346} 1,200 boys in its seven\nmiddle schools, and from 550 to 600 students in its four universities.\nThe thirty communal hospitals contained over 1,000 beds for a\npopulation of 90,000 inhabitants. (Capponi, ii. 249 seq.) It has more\nthan once been suggested by authoritative writers, that education\nstood, as a rule, at a much higher level than is generally supposed.\nCertainly so in democratic Nueremberg.\"\n\nThe content of this educational system is our main subject of interest\nat the present moment.\n\n\"Seven hundred young men received the higher education. (This in a\ncity of less than 100,000 inhabitants. How do our cities of 100,000\ninhabitants compare with it?) The very spirit of the arts was\nscholastic in Dante's day. You read the story in the oratory of\nOrsanmichele, in which each art with its masterpiece receives a crown;\nyou read it in the chapters of Santa Maria Novella, in Gaddi's\npainting of the Trivium and Quadrivium; you read it in Giotto's\nsculpture of the same subject upon this marvelous campanile. Here was\nthe atmosphere in which Dante's boyhood and early manhood were\npassed.\"\n\nWe shall not be surprised, then, to find in Dante, the typical product\nof this form of education, an interest in every form of erudition and\nin all details of information.\n\nI have preferred to take the evidence for Dante's knowledge of science\nfrom others, rather than attempt to supply it entirely by means of\nquotations from his works. This latter would be the most scholarly\nway, but Dante is not easy reading even in a good translation, and one\nneeds to be familiar with his modes of expression and to be accustomed\nto the wonderful compression of his style to appreciate his full\nsignificance. There is {347} no lack of good authorities, however, who\nhave made deep studies in Dante, to bring out for us the complete\nimport of all the references to the science of his time, which Dante\nwas tempted to make. We have perhaps been prone to think, in\nEnglish-speaking countries, that no poets have ever kept more\nthoroughly in touch with the progress of science, or at least have\never used references to scientific details with more accuracy, than\nsome of our own nineteenth century poets. A little study of the first\ngreat poet of modern times, in whom Carlyle said \"ten silent centuries\nfound a voice,\" though Dante by no means stands alone in the century,\nbut is the culmination of a series of great poets, will show that he\nprobably must be considered as taking the palm even from our most\nmodern of poets in this respect. If the expressions in text-books of\nthe history of education are to be accepted as evidence of the\nthoughts of educators with regard to the details of education in\nDante's time, even a brief sketch of Dante's scientific knowledge will\nbe a supreme surprise to them.\n\nAs will be at once appreciated, Dante was not a specialist in science,\nbut used the knowledge of science current in his day in order to drive\nhome his thoughts by means of figures. It is surprising, however, what\na marvelous display of scientific knowledge, entirely without\npedantry, which anyone who knows his supreme compression of style will\nrealize to be the fault Dante is least liable to, was thus made by\nthis educated literary man of the thirteenth century. Dr. L. Oscar\nKuhns, Professor in Wesleyan University, has in his little book The\nTreatment of Nature in Dante's Divina Commedia, suggested a comparison\nbetween Dante and Goethe. [Footnote 44 ] {348} Everyone realizes at\nonce how profound a scientist was Goethe. Professor Kuhns' comparison,\nthen, will bring out the scientific qualities of this great medieval\npoet, who is the representative scholar of the universities of his\ntime.\n\n[Footnote 44: The Treatment of Nature in Dante's Divina Commedia, by\nL. Oscar Kuhns, Professor in Wesleyan University, Middletown, U. S. A.\nEdward Arnold, London and New York. 1897.]\n\n  \"There is perhaps no innate contradiction between science and\n  poetry, but it is not often that they are found together in the same\n  man. Dante, like Goethe, half a millennium later, was not only drawn\n  by the beauty of nature, but he had likewise an unquenchable\n  intellectual curiosity, and sought diligently to understand the\n  meaning of the universe in which he lived.\n\n  \"No other poet has ever combined the loftiest poetry with the\n  discussion of such complicated topics in all branches of learning.\n  In one place we find a long discussion of the origin and development\n  of life, which, naive and scholastic as it is, shows some lines of\n  resemblance to the modern doctrines in biology; in another place\n  there is a learned discussion between the poet and Beatrice\n  concerning the cause of the spots in the moon, in which an actual\n  experiment in optics is given.\"\n\nThe first passage to which Professor Kuhns refers, while containing\nmany speculative elements, is a discussion of certain important basic\nproblems in biology that have always appealed to thinking men at every\nperiod of the history of science, and never more so than in our own\nday. They must still be considered undecided, though many volumes have\nbeen written on them in the last century. There are thoughts in\nDante's exposition of the subject that are startling enough to the\nmodern biologist, and that make it clear how much men's minds run\nalong the same grooves in facing questions that we are prone to think\nhave occurred to men only in the last {349} few generations. The other\nquotation to which Professor Kuhns refers deserves to be quoted\nentire. It is perhaps even more striking because of its actual\ndescription of an experiment in optics, which shows how much this\ngreat poetic intelligence of the medieval time, usually supposed to be\nso abstracted and occupied with things other-worldly and supernal,\nliving his intellectual life quite beyond the domain of sense, still\nremembered the teachings of his university days, and even recalled the\ndetails of demonstrations that he had seen. The passage occurs in the\nII. canto of the Paradiso, beginning with line 97:\n\n  \"Take thou three mirrors, two of them remove\n    From thee an equal distance, and the last\n  Between the two, and further from thee move;\n    And turned towards them let a light be cast,\n  Behind thy back, upon those mirrors three,\n    So that from all reflected rays are passed.\n  Then, though the light which furthest stands from thee\n    May not with them in magnitude compete,\n  Yet will it shine in brightness equally.\"\n\nIt is easy to understand, then, that Professor Kuhns should have been\nenthusiastic with regard to Dante's knowledge of science. He says:\n\n  \"The whole structure of Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise shows a\n  thorough knowledge of the Ptolemaic system; and we invariably find\n  astronomical facts, mingled with classical quotations, in the\n  description of stellar phenomena. But not only in specific passages\n  do we find evidence of Dante's love for science, but in brief\n  allusions to the various aspects of nature--metaphors, {350}\n  figures, descriptions--a word or two is added, giving the cause of\n  the phenomenon in question. Examples of this abound.\"\n\nIt is with regard to astronomy, of course, that Dante has given us the\nmost convincing evidence of his knowledge of science, his interest in\nnature and natural phenomena, his questioning spirit in nature study,\nand the wonderful anticipations of his generation with regard to\nknowledge that has usually been supposed to have been hidden from\nthem. The stars appealed to his poetic spirit, and then besides, his\ngreat poem occupied itself with all the visible universe, and\nespecially with the parts outside this world. Professor Kuhns has\nsaid:\n\n\"One may confidently assert that no such perfect lines descriptive of\nthe stars have ever been written. Shakespeare and others can furnish\nfamous passages, but none, I think, equal to those of Dante. They have\nall the quality of his art--truth, clearness, possessing the power of\ntouching deeply the imagination, yet terse and compact, containing not\na word too much. We see the stars at all hours of the night, in all\ndegrees of brilliancy, fading away at the approach of dawn, gradually\nappearing as twilight comes on, shining with splendor on a moonless\nnight, keenly sparkling after the winds have cleared the atmosphere,\nor eclipsed by the greater effulgence of the moon. The motion of the\nconstellations about the pole is referred to, those which are nearest\nto it never setting beneath the horizon.\"\n\nIt is often thought that the proper idea of the explanation of the\nMilky Way was quite modern. Dante, however, discusses in his Convito\nthe theories of it that had been suggested up to his time, and then\ngives his own {351} views, which he confesses are founded on\nAristotle, but which are evidently the result also of his own\nthinking. Pythagoras, he said, attributed it to the scorching heat of\nthe sun, as if somehow this left a trace of itself even after the sun\nhad sunk. Other Greek philosophers, as for example Anaxagoras and\nDemocritus, explained it as a reflection of the light of the sun which\nstill found its way even though that luminary had passed from sight.\nDante himself says that, following Aristotle, he cannot help but think\nthat the Milky Way is composed of a multitude of minute stars which\nare gathered very closely together in this particular part of the\nheavens, and which are so small that they cannot be distinguished from\none another, though their light causes that special white luminosity\nwhich we call the Milky Way. This explanation is the true one, only\nthat the apparent smallness of the stars are due to their distance,\nand not to their actual minuteness of size.\n\nA brief list of the other astronomical phenomena mentioned by Dante\nhas been made by Professor Kuhns. This serves to show very clearly\nthat Dante's knowledge with regard to the heavens was quite as\nextensive as that of the modern educated man, indeed, probably more\nso, and that it was quite as exact. The little touch which shows that\nhe knew, for instance, that August is the month when shooting stars\nare more frequent, is wonderfully illuminating. His powers of\nobservation are brought out by his having seen them during the day as\nwell as at night. In all this it must not be forgotten that Dante was\nno mere pedant making a display of his knowledge; that he was not one\nto parade his erudition for the sake of show; that indeed no one has\never written so compressedly as he; that every word that he {352} used\ncounts in bringing out his meaning, and yet that we find all this\nwealth of information with regard to astronomy in a book that was\nmeant to proclaim, and has, in the opinion of men for all time since,\nexpressed more sublimely the significance of man's relations to the\nuniverse and his reflections on the infinite in lofty poetic thought,\nthan any other that was ever written. Professor Kuhns says:\n\n  \"The other celestial phenomena mentioned by Dante may be dismissed\n  briefly. We have references to the eclipse and its cause, and the\n  Blessed in the Heaven of the Fixed Stars flame brightly, _a guisa di\n  comete_ (in the guise of a comet). Shooting-stars are referred to\n  several times, almost invariably as a conventional figure for\n  rapidity. August is the month when they are the most frequent, and\n  they are most seen to shoot with lightninglike swiftness across the\n  serene blue sky or pierce the clouds that gather around the setting\n  sun. One fine passage describes the spectator following them with\n  his eyes as they lose themselves in the distance.\"\n\nIt is no wonder, then, that Prof. Kuhns should be quite enthusiastic\nwith regard to Dante's use of astronomical knowledge. He insists,\nhowever, that while it was his poetic soul and love for the stars that\ntempted him to allow his thoughts to wander so frequently into the\nrealm of the celestial bodies, his interest was always profoundly\nscientific. His passage to this effect is worth while quoting _in\nextenso_, because it brings out this fact very clearly. As Prof.\nKuhns' only idea in this was to show how marvelously the\nrepresentative poet of the Middle Ages turned to nature in his poetry,\nand there was no thought of controverting the foolish notions of those\nwho so lightly declare that the students of the {353} Middle Age\nuniversities knew nothing of science, the paragraph is a bit of very\nstriking evidence in this matter.\n\n  \"Dante's love for the stars was largely scientific; he knew\n  thoroughly the Ptolemaic system of astronomy, which forms the\n  framework of the whole structure of the Paradiso. We find constant\n  and accurate allusions to the constellations, their various shapes\n  and positions in the heavens; while the hour of the day and the\n  season of the year are often referred to in terms of astronomical\n  science, frequently interwoven with mythology. But besides this\n  scientific interest, he was deeply touched by the beauty, the\n  mystery and the tranquilizing power of the celestial orbs. There is\n  hardly a phase of them that he has not touched upon; many of his\n  descriptions and allusions have a truth and vividness unsurpassed\n  even in this present day of nature worship. Here, as elsewhere in\n  the Divina Commedia, science and learning and poetry go hand in\n  hand. We have no mere dry catalogue of facts, but the wonderful\n  mechanism of the starry heavens is brought before our eyes, rolling\n  its spheres in celestial harmony, radiant with light and splendour,\n  while the innumerable company of angels and the 'spirits of just men\n  made perfect' raise the chorus of praise to the Alto Fattore.\"\n\nWe cannot but add the reflection that, as our own poets of the\nnineteenth century indulged themselves in figures drawn from science\nnot only because of their own interest in the subject, but because\nthey realized the interest of the men of their time in matters\nscientific and appreciated that figures drawn from them would add to\nthe significance of their own thoughts, so Dante would not have used\nfigures drawn from science only {354} that, closely in touch as he was\nwith the educated men of his time in many cities and countries, he\nfelt that he would thus not only be adding to the interest of his\nwork, but would be making his own meaning clearer by a wealth of\nallusion from things scientific. This is indeed the side of this study\nof Dante that deserves the most thorough consideration by educators in\nour time, if they would understand what the real spirit of the\nteaching of science in the medieval universities was, and what the\nattitude of educated people of the time toward nature study, which has\nbeen so egregiously misrepresented by those who know nothing at all\nabout it, must be considered to have been. All this we must judge,\nhowever, from contemporary sources, and not from subsequent\nsupercilious misrepresentations.\n\nIt must not be thought, however, that Dante's interest in science was\nexhausted by his excursions into astronomy. This has already been more\nthan hinted at in some of the passages quoted, which show his interest\nin other phases of science. In the modern time, however, it is almost\nthe rule, that if a scholar who is not a scientist, and especially if\nhe happens to be, as Dante was, a literary man, indulges in some\nscientific pursuits, he has at most but an interest in one branch of\nscience. Quite as often as not he rather prides himself on knowing\nnothing at all about this department of knowledge. Specialism has\ninvaded even scientific education, and a man specializes in some\nfavorite department of science for his avocation, and is apt to know\nvery little about other departments. Dante was not thus constituted,\nhowever. It will be comparatively easy to show that every form of\nscientific thought interested him, and that his love of nature led him\ninto nature study, in the {355} best sense of that very modern term,\nand caused him to make observations for himself, or so retain the\nobservations of others that he had heard or read, that he was able to\nuse them very forcibly and appropriately in the figurative language of\nhis great poem.\n\nAlexander von Humboldt, the distinguished German naturalist and leader\nof scientific thought in the early nineteenth century, whose\ncompliment to Albertus Magnus, quoted in the chapter on Science at the\nMedieval Universities, is probably a surprise to most people, but\nserves to show how wide was the reading of this great scientist, was\nalso an attentive student of Dante, and has a passage with regard to\nthe Florentine poet's knowledge of science quite as striking as that\nwith regard to the great scholastic's excursions into the same field.\nIn his Cosmos he has the following tribute to Dante as a student of\nnature and as a loving observer of natural phenomena:\n\n  \"When the story of the Arabic, Greek or Roman dominion--or, I might\n  almost say, when the ancient world had passed away, we find in the\n  great and inspired founder of a new era, Dante Alighieri, occasional\n  manifestations of the deepest sensibility to the charms of the\n  terrestrial life of nature, whenever he abstracts himself from the\n  passionate and subjective control of that despondent mysticism which\n  constituted the general circle of his ideas.\"\n\nWith regard to the famous description of the river of light in the\nthirtieth canto of the Paradiso, Humboldt declared that the picture\nmust have been suggested to Dante by the phosphorescence seen so\nbeautifully and so luxuriantly in the Adriatic Sea at times. The\npassage itself is so beautiful and is so well worth the reading a\n{356} second time, even for those who have read it before, that I give\nit a place here, followed by Humboldt's comment.\n\n  I saw a glory like a stream flow by,\n    In brightness rushing, and on either shore\n  Were banks that with spring's wondrous hues might vie.\n    And from that river living sparks did soar,\n  And sank on all sides on the floweret's bloom.\n    Like precious rubies set in golden ore.\n  Then, as if drunk with all the rich perfume,\n    Back to the wondrous torrent did they roll,\n  And as one sank another filled its room.\n\nDean Plumptre says that Humboldt's suggestion with regard to this\ndescription has not been found elsewhere, and as it adds to the\ncompleteness of the idea conveyed by the figure, he gives it a place\nin his studies and estimates of Dante. Humboldt said:\n\n  \"It would almost seem as if this picture had its origin in the\n  poet's recollection of that peculiar and rare phosphorescent\n  condition of the ocean when luminous points appear to rise from the\n  breaking waves, and, spreading themselves over the surface of the\n  waters, convert the liquid plain into a moving sea of sparkling\n  stars.\"\n\nIt is with regard to the little things in life, particularly those\nthat are so small that one would be tempted to think at first blush\nthat Dante paid no attention to them at all, that his powers of\nobservation as a student of nature, and his all-pervading love for\nevery even smallest manifestation of her power, is especially made\nmanifest. With regard to this subject, Prof. Kuhns, to whom I have\nalready turned so often, has an illuminating {357} passage, which sums\nup a large amount of reading of the poet. He says:\n\n  \"The smallest members of the animal kingdom do not escape the\n  observing eye of the poet, and such unpoetical insects as the flea,\n  the gnat, and the fly are brought into use. By means of these latter\n  he has accurately given the time of day and season of the year in\n  one line, where, showing us the farmer lying on the hillside of a\n  summer evening, looking down upon the valley alight with fire-flies,\n  he says the time was that\n\n    'When the fly yields to the gnat.'\n\n  Those pests of dogs, the flea and hornet, are referred to in a\n  passage already given, where the dog is seen snapping and scratching\n  in agony. The butterfly was symbolical, during the Middle Ages, of\n  the death and resurrection of the body. The various phases of its\n  development are referred to by Dante; the caterpillar state, the\n  latter referring to the cocoon of the silk-worm, furnishing a figure\n  for the souls in Paradise, swathed in light; in one passage,\n  backsliding Christians are compared to insects in a state of\n  arrested development.\"\n\nDante's passage in the tenth canto of the Purgatorio, in which he\ncompares man to the butterfly, who in this life passes through the\ncaterpillar stage, passing in death, as it were, into the larval stage\nwhen in his coffin he is motionless and apparently dead, as the insect\nin its cocoon, yet finally reaching the glory of the resurrection in\nthe winged butterfly stage, shows how well these medieval observers of\nnature had studied carefully aspects of nature which we are apt to\nthink were holden entirely from their eyes. The passage would remind\none of the story of the Jesuit, three centuries later, who, in {358}\nthe early days of missionary work in this country, wondered how he\nwould obtain a fitting word to express to the Indians the abstract\nidea of the resurrection of the body. The good Father finally recalled\nhis Dante, and having found a caterpillar that had entered into the\nlarval stage after having spun its cocoon and wrapped itself round\nwith its shroud to lie down in what is a striking similitude of death,\npresented it to the Indians, and then having waited until the\nbutterfly came out, asked them what they called this process, and\napplied the word for it to the resurrection. Dante says:--\n\n  \"Perceive ye not we are of a wormlike kind,\n    Born to bring forth the angel butterfly,\n  That soars to Judgment, and no screen doth find?\n    Why doth your soul lift up itself on high?\n  Ye are as insects yet but half complete,\n    As worms in whom their growth fails utterly.\"\n\nIt is with regard to bees and ants, however, that Dante's observant\nlove of nature and of natury study is especially to be admired. It is\ntrue, as has been often pointed out, that the older poets, of whom\nDante was an assiduous and mindful reader, made use of figures with\nregard to bees, and Virgil, with all of whose works Dante was so\nintimately acquainted that nothing must have escaped him, devoted one\nof the four books of his Georgics to what is practically a treatise on\nApiculture. In this most of the problems of bee raising are discussed.\nLucretius, Lucan, and Ovid, all made use of this interesting insect\nfor figures in their poetry. Dante might have obtained most of the\nreferences to the bee, then, from his reading. Prof. Kuhns is of the\nopinion, however, that some at {359} least of Dante's references to\nthem are due to his observations, quite apart from his literary\nreminiscences with regard to their habits and instincts. He says:--\n\n  \"There are certain touches in the Divina Commedia which seem to\n  prove that Dante's use of them was not entirely conventional. In the\n  wonderful passage where he stands contemplating\n\n    'La forma general di Paradiso,'\n\n  he saw the Blessed in the shape of a great white rose on the banks\n  of the river of light; and the white-robed angels, with wings of\n  gold and faces of flame, as they fly unceasingly back and forth from\n  the seats of the saints to the effulgent river, are compared to\n  bees, following their inborn instinct to make honey, flying from\n  flower to flower, burying themselves in the chalice, and then rising\n  heavily to carry their burden to their hives. In another passage\n  their buzzing noise is compared to the noise of a distant\n  waterfall;\"--a touch of nature that could only have come from\n  familiarity with the insects.\n\nIn is with regard to ants even more than bees that Dante's\nproclivities for nature study are most evident. When in the\nPurgatorio, in the twenty-sixth canto, Dante would describe the\nmeeting of souls in Paradise who kiss each other as they speed on\ntheir way, he compares them to the ants who as they meet one another\ntouch antennae, thus communicating various messages, and then go on\ntheir way. The passage is very striking because, as Dean Plumptre\nremarks, the picture drawn reminds one almost of Sir John Lubbock's\nant studies, or the remarkable descriptions of ant life in Bishop\nKen's Hymnotheo. Dante's lines are as follows:--\n\n{360}\n\n  \"So oft, within their dusk brown host proceed\n  This ant and that, till muzzle muzzle meet;\n  Spying their way, or how affairs succeed.\"\n\nThus did Dante know the whole round of science in his time better than\nany modern university man. People who take exception to his knowledge\nfail to realize its environment. They may smile a little scornfully\nnow at his complacent acceptance of the Ptolemaic system without a\nquestion, but it must not be forgotten that for three centuries after\nhis time educated men still continued to accept it, and that even the\ndistinguished Jesuit astronomer, Clavius, to whom we owe the Gregorian\nreformation of the calendar and the restoration of the year to its\nproper place as regards the heavens, not only accepted it, but worked\nout his calendar reform problems by means of it. Clavius's great\ncontemporary, Tycho-Brahe, the distinguished Danish astronomer, found\nno reason to reject it. Even Lord Bacon, who with perverted historical\nsense is still proclaimed the father of modern experimental science,\nalso accepted the Ptolemaic system, and found that it thoroughly\nexplained all the phenomena of the heavens, while he rejected the\nCopernican system, then nearly a century before the world, because he\nthought it did not. The surprise, however, is not in Dante's knowledge\nof astronomy, but in his familiarity with details of biology that\nenables him to reason, though in poetic language, with straightforward\nand logical directness with regard to basic thought in this science\nthat is usually considered so thoroughly modern.\n\nAnother surprising feature is the knowledge of the habits of birds and\nof insects. Our modern students of {361} nature are supposed to be the\nfirst who went deeply enough into these subjects to make them material\nfor literature. Here, however, is Dante describing, in a few\npicturesque words, characteristic peculiarities of birds and insects,\nwhich our modern writers spend pages over, yet tell us scarcely more\nabout them. A little knowledge of Dante is evidently the best antidote\nthat our generation can have for that foolish persuasion that the\nMiddle Ages were ignorant of science and that the universities taught\nnothing but nonsense about nature.\n\nI am tempted to add just a few paragraphs with regard to another\naspect of Dante's scientific interests which assimilates him to the\nmodern educated man. Education itself would seem to be one of the\nsciences the development of which was surely left to a late and more\nconscious age. There are, however, as has been pointed out by Brother\nAzarias, quite enough materials in Dante's works to show that a\nserious student who was, however, only a literary man and not an\neducator, had many thoughts with regard to the practical side of\neducation, and had come to many conclusions with regard to how it\nshould be carried on, that are anticipations of the most fruitful\nthoughts of our modern educators and that have formed the subject of\nmany theses on education down to our own day. Education is, of course,\nscarcely one of the physical sciences, yet since its subject-matter is\nmainly the child and the developing human intellect, and in that sense\nit is nature study in its highest form, this aspect of Dante's\nthinking also deserves to be given due weight here. Brother Azarias\nsays:--\n\n  \"It is the mission of the poet to reflect in his work the\n  predominant, all-pervading spirit and views of his age. Now, in his\n  day, the universities were the {362} controlling element in thought,\n  in art, in politics, moulding the thinkers and rulers of the age\n  both in church and state. But Dante was a life-long student. He\n  traveled from land to land and from school to school, and sat\n  impatiently, yet humbly, at the feet of masters, imbibing whatever\n  knowledge they could convey. He disputed in public. His bright eyes\n  and strong, sombre, reserved features attracted the attention of\n  fellow students as he wended his way, absorbed in his own thoughts,\n  through the rue de Fouarre and entered the hall in which Siger was\n  holding forth. Tradition has it that he was no less assiduous a\n  frequenter of School Street in Oxford. He has left us no distinct\n  treatise on education; but he who embodied all the science of his\n  day, who was supreme in teaching so many other lessons, could not be\n  silent in regard to pedagogy. From his writings a whole volume of\n  rules and principles bearing upon education might be gleaned. In 'Il\n  Convito' he expresses himself fully on the different ages of human\n  growth and development; speaks of obedience as an essential\n  requisite for the child; after his father he should obey his master\n  and his elders. He should also be gentle and modest, reverent and\n  eager to acquire knowledge; reserved, never forward; repentant of\n  his faults to the extent of overcoming them. As our soul in all its\n  operations makes use of a bodily organ, it behooves us to exercise\n  the body, that it grow in grace and aptness, and be well ordained\n  and disposed in order that the soul may control it to the best\n  advantage. Thus it is that a noble nature seeks to have a sound mind\n  in a sound body.\"\n\n\n\n{363}\n\nTHE CHURCH AND THE MENTALLY AFFLICTED.\n\nIt is especially with regard to the attitude of the churchmen, the\npeople, and even the physicians of the Middle Ages toward insanity,\nthat most opprobrium has been heaped upon the Church and her teachings\nin the so-called histories of the relations of science to theology or\nfaith. Much of what has been said that has been supposed to tell worst\nagainst the Church, however, should not rest upon the shoulders of\necclesiastics, and should not be set down to the evil effect of\ntheology. It is easy now to look back and blame men for the acceptance\nof supernatural agencies as causes in nearly all cases of mental and\nnervous diseases, but the reason for this is rather to be looked for\nin the nature of man than in his belief in religion. Ethnology shows\nus traces of it everywhere. Our American Indians, long before any\ntincture of Christianity, and before any hint of theology of any kind\nreached them, beyond that which develops spontaneously from the depths\nof their natural faculties, believed in the effect of the evil spirits\nin producing disease, and, of course, particularly the mental diseases\nwhich made men do things so contrary to their own interests, and often\nso harmful to the beings they loved best in the world.\n\nIn the Middle Ages they had not yet outgrown this primitive way of\nlooking at mental diseases. For that matter, we have not even as yet.\nThe intelligent classes in the community are, as a rule, convinced of\nthe physical basis of mental diseases, but there are a {364} great\nmany people who still are inclined to think that some of them, at\nleast, are manifestations of some punitive force outside of the\npatients themselves, or even some manifestation of ill-understood\nforces quite apart from matter. Not all the thinking people of the\nMiddle Ages accepted all the absurd notions sometimes rehearsed in\nthis matter, but as in our own time, foolish traditions and\nsuperstitions dominated the unthinking classes, which form still,\nunfortunately, the great mass of mankind. We have had just the\nopposite delusions forced upon our attention in our own day. Large\nnumbers, supposedly of intelligent people, have pretended to believe\nor have definitely accepted the teaching that disease is nothing. This\nis quite as foolish as attributing to spiritual agencies what has come\nto be recognized as due to physical factors. It is to be hoped that\nour generation and its thinking shall not be judged by future\ngenerations to have been utterly foolish, just because a few millions\nof us accepted Eddyism,--and it must be remembered that these are not,\nas a rule, the uneducated. Another side of this question is even more\ninteresting, or at least has become so during the last twenty years. A\ngeneration ago it was the custom to scoff not a little scornfully in\nscientific circles, at the idea of admitting even the possibility of\nthe interference of immaterial or spiritual agencies, or of any other\nintelligences or wills at work in the ordinary affairs of this life,\nthan those of men. This scornful attitude still continues to be the\npose of many students and teachers of science. It is by no means so\nuniversal as it was, however. Strikingly enough, the converts from\nthis attitude of mind have come, not from the lower ranks of teachers\nof science, but from among the very leaders in original {365} research\nand scientific investigation. We may still continue to laugh at and\nridicule the medieval people for their admission of the activity of\nspirits in ordinary mundane affairs, but if we do so, we must also\nlaugh at and ridicule just as much, such prominent leaders of\nscientific thought and progress as Sir William Crookes, Mr. Alfred\nRussell Wallace, Sir Oliver Lodge, Professor Charles Richet, the\ndistinguished French physiologist, Flammarion the astronomer, and even\nof late years Professor Lombroso, the well-known Italian\ncriminologist, whose special doctrines as to crime and criminals would\napparently insure him against such theories as those of the\nspiritualists. All of these men have confessed their belief not only\nin the possibility of spiritual interference in this world of ours,\nbut insist that they have seen such interference, and are absolutely\nconvinced of its frequent occurrence.\n\nThis is a decided reaction from previous states of the scientific mind\non this subject, and represents a retroversion to medieval modes of\nthought that may be deprecated by scientific investigators of\nmaterialistic tendencies, but that cannot be neglected, and must not\nbe despised. When the results of these recent investigations are taken\ninto account, the opprobrium which has been heaped upon medieval\nscholars and churchmen for the facility with which they accepted the\ndoctrine of the interference of spirits in human life, must be\nminimized to such a degree, or indeed eradicated so entirely, that a\nsaner view of the whole situation as regards the relationship of the\nspiritual and material world seems likely to prevail. It is easy and\ncheap to reject without more ado and without serious consideration,\nsuch evidence of spiritual manifestations as has {366} convinced these\nleaders of scientific thought. But this rejection is not scientific,\nnor does it show an open mind. What is needed is a calm review of the\nsituation, in order to see just where truth lies. It is not at either\nextreme. It is not in too great credulity with regard to spiritual\ninterference, but certainly not at the opposite pole of the negation\nof all spiritual influence in human life, that genuine progress in\nknowledge is to come. This premised, we may take up the consideration\nof the actual accomplishment of the Middle Ages with regard to the\ninsane, better prepared to appreciate their point of view and to get\nat the significance of their attitude toward the mentally diseased.\n\nThere are two phases of this question of the attitude of even\nintelligent men of the Middle Ages toward nervous and mental diseases,\nthat deserve to be studied, not superficially, but in their actual\nrelationships to the men of that time, and to our opinions at the\npresent day. These are: first, the question of the treatment of the\nmentally afflicted, and second, the mystery of demoniacal possession\nand its related phenomenon--mediumship, as we call it.\n\nPersonally, I was very much surprised some years ago, while collecting\nmaterial for a paper to be read before the International Guild for the\nCare of the Insane, to find how many things that are most modern in\nour methods of treating the insane, and that are among the desiderata\nwhich are universally conceded to be most necessary for the\nimprovement of present conditions in our management of mental\ndiseases, were anticipated by the generations of the thirteenth to the\nfifteenth centuries. It is not hard, for instance, to show that such\neminently desirable conditions as the {367} open door for mild cases,\nthe combination of the ordinary hospital with a ward for psychic\ncases, the colony system for the treatment of those of lower\nmentality, were all in existence in the Middle Ages and did good work.\nThe colony system particularly, as it comes to us from the Middle\nAges, has recently been studied very carefully, and this has given us\nmany valuable hints as to the methods that will have to be adopted in\nother countries in modern times.\n\nThe conditions which developed at Gheel in Belgium have deservedly\nattracted much attention in recent times, and have been the subject of\narticles in the medical journals of nearly every country in the world,\nbecause of the poignant realization by our generation that large\ninstitutions, meaning by this large single buildings or closely\nassociated groups of buildings, are very unfavorable for the care of\nthe insane. In America, one of these articles was published in the\nJournal of Nervous and Mental Diseases, and a second, written by my\nfriend, Dr. Jelliffe, who is the Professor of Mental Diseases in\nFordham University School of Medicine, was written after a special\nvisit paid to Gheel by him, in order to investigate conditions there.\nThough the situation at Gheel now is practically identical with that\nwhich originated there at least five centuries ago, there are many who\nconsider that similar conditions would be ideal for the treatment of\ncertain classes of the insane even in our own day. It is this sort of\ninterpretation of the work of these old-time philanthropists and\nphysicians that we need, and not the cheap condemnation which makes it\nnecessary for us to begin all over again in each generation.\n\nIn the light of this unexpected revelation and the {368} consequent\nrevolution of thought it suggests, a short review of the treatment of\nthe insane will not be out of place. It is usual for our\nself-complacent generation to consider that it was not until our own\ntime that rational measures for the care of the insane were taken.\nMost of the text-books on mental diseases that touch at all on the\nhistorical aspects of the treatment question, are apt to say that the\nevolution of methods for the treatment and cure of the insane might be\ndivided into four historical periods: First, the era of exorcism, on\nthe theory that insane patients were possessed of devils. Second, the\nchain and dungeon era, during which persons exhibiting signs of\ninsanity were imprisoned and shackled in such a manner as to prevent\nthe infliction of injury upon others. Third, the era of asylums.\nFourth, the present era of psychopathic wards in general hospitals for\nthe acutely insane in cities, and colonies for the chronic insane in\nthe country, which is only just beginning to develop.\n\nFrom this classification, the ordinary reader would suppose that\nnothing at all was done for the insane during the first two periods,\nexcept exorcism in one and confinement in the other. As a matter of\nfact, the number of the harmlessly insane has always been much larger\nthan the violent, and the latter, indeed, constitute only a very small\nportion of the mentally ailing at any period. Exorcism, as a rule, was\napplied only to the violent and to the hysterical. In the asylums at\nall times there were a number of patients who were not chained or\nconfined to any great degree, and unless one had shown some special\nviolent manifestation, severe measures were not taken. It is the\ntreatment of the great mass of the insane rather than of the few {369}\nexceptional cases, that must be considered as representing the\nattitude of mind of the generations of the Middle Age toward the\nmentally afflicted, and not what they found themselves compelled to do\nbecause of their fear and dread of violence.\n\nFor those who were mentally afflicted in a mild degree, abundant\nsuitable provision was made by the generations of the fourteenth and\nfifteenth centuries. When historical writers suggest the contrary,\nthey are only making one of the usual assumptions from ignorance of\nthe details. Because in some cases insanity was supposed to be due to\npossession by the devil, to say that, therefore, in all cases no\nprovision was made for the insane is nonsense. It is comparatively\neasy to find, from records of the hospitals of the fourteenth and\nfifteenth centuries, that there were what we now call psychopathic\nwards for the acutely insane in the cities, and some colonies for the\nchronic insane in country places.\n\nKnowing nothing of this, Prof. White, for instance, says: \"The stream\nof Christian endeavor, so far as the insane were concerned, was almost\nentirely cut off. In all the beautiful provision during the Middle\nAges for the alleviation of human suffering, there was for the insane\nalmost no care. Some monasteries indeed gave them refuge. We hear of a\ncharitable work done for them at the London Bethlehem Hospital in the\nthirteenth century, at Geneva in the fifteenth, at Marseilles in the\nsixteenth, by the Black Penitents in the South of France, by certain\nFranciscans in Northern France, by the Alexian Brothers on the Rhine,\nand by various agencies in other parts of Europe; but, curiously\nenough, the only really important effort in the Christian Church {370}\nwas stimulated by the Mohammedans.\" This last clause is a slur on\nChristianity absolutely without justification. As is true for all\nbroad generalizations, to ignore thus the work of caring for the\ninsane and the methods employed in earlier times, amounts to\ndeplorable injustice to generations whose provision for the sick of\nevery class was not only much more abundant, but more rational and\ncomplete, than it has been our custom to recognize and acknowledge.\nThe earliest city hospitals that we know of were due to the fatherly\ncare and providence of that great Pope, Innocent III., whose\npontificate (1198-1213) has been more misunderstood than perhaps any\ncorresponding period of time in history. It was Virchow, the great\nGerman pathologist, whose sympathies with the Papacy were very slight,\nand whose attitude in the Kulturkampf in Germany showed him to be a\nstrenuous opponent of the Papal policy, who paid the high tribute to\nPope Innocent III. which we quote in the chapter on the Foundation of\nCity Hospitals. It was in connection with these hospitals founded by\nPope Innocent III., or the result of the movement initiated by him,\nthat the insane were cared for at first. This may seem to have been an\nundesirable method, but at the present time there is an almost\nuniversal demand on the part of experts in mental diseases for wards\nfor the mentally diseased in connection with city hospitals, because\nadmission is thus facilitated, treatment is begun earlier, the patient\nis not left in unsuitable conditions so long, friends are readier to\ntake measures to bring the patient under proper treatment and\nsurveillance, and, as a consequence, more of the acutely insane have\nthe course of their disease modified at once, and more cures take\nplace than would otherwise be possible. Of course, this was {371} not\nthe idea of the original founder of the medieval hospitals, or even\nthe conscious plan of those who were in charge. They had to take the\nmentally infirm because there was nowhere else for them to go at that\ntime. As a matter of fact, however, their simple method of procedure\nwas better in the end for the patient than is our more complex method\nof admission to insane asylums, with its disturbing necessity for\nformal examination of the patient under circumstances that are likely\nto increase any excitement that he may be laboring under. And the\ntransfer to an institution bearing the dreaded name of asylum, or even\nsanitarium (for that term has taken quite as ominous a meaning in\nrecent years) is sure to aggravate the patient's irritated state, and\nto exaggerate symptoms which might otherwise be relieved by prompt,\nsoothing care, and by the consciousness that his ailment is being\ntreated rather than that he himself is being placed in durance.\n\nAn examination of the methods for the care of the insane in the Middle\nAges brings out clearly the fact, that the modern generation may learn\nfrom those old Catholic humanitarians, whose hearts and whose charity\nserved so well to make up for any deficiencies of intellect or of\nscience the moderns would presume them to have labored under. There\nare said to be three great desiderata for the intelligent care for the\ninsane:\n\nFirst: The open door system, permitting patients who are not violent,\nand who can be trusted even though they have many queer notions, to\ncome and go at will.\n\nSecond: The after care treatment of those who have been insane, to the\nend that they may not be compelled to go back to strenuous lives of\ntoil; and above all, that they {372} may not be forced into the too\nharrassing conditions of which their mental breakdown originally was\nborn.\n\nThird: A colony system by which patients of lowered intelligence may\nbe cared for in the country, far away from the stress of city life,\nand where, without the cares of existence pressing upon them, they may\nbe surrounded by gentle, patient, kindly friends who will make every\nallowance for their peculiarities and strive to help them in their\nup-hill struggles.\n\nThese desiderata are so absolutely modern that they have only been\nformulated definitely with the beginning of the twentieth century.\nNotwithstanding this apparent newness, I think that it will not be\ndifficult to show that the old-time methods of caring for the insane\npartook, to a greater degree than would be suspected at the present\ntime, of these desirable qualities that modern science has come to\nrecognize as so indispensable for the rational care of the mentally\nunbalanced. In saying this I do not wish to claim for the Middle Ages\naccomplishments beyond their deserts. My idea is rather to write an\ninterpretation; to make clear from what we know of the details of the\ncare of the insane in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, that\nunconsciously those generations, in their large-hearted charity,\nanticipated what is best in our present system.\n\nThe first record in English medical literature of a home for the\ninsane is that of Bethlehem Royal Hospital, London, which has become\nfamous under the familiar shortened name of Bedlam, meaning a house or\nplace of confusion. Bethlehem was a general hospital into which during\nthe fourteenth century insane patients were admitted. There is a\nhistorical record to the effect that at the beginning of the fifteenth\ncentury a royal commission {373} investigated the methods of treating\nthe insane in vogue there, because there had been complaint of abuses\nin the institution. Practically every century since there have been\nwritten corresponding records of similar investigations. The trouble\nseems always to have been that there were too few attendants properly\nto take care of insane patients, and thus they had to be placed in\nconfinement in various ways, which inevitably led to abuses.\n\nFor a generation or longer after each exposure by a committee of\ninspection, the evils of this system would be more or less tolerable;\nthen they would become unbearable once more and another investigation\nwould be demanded. I would like to feel that we have progressed in all\nrespects beyond these hit and miss methods, but any one familiar with\nthe present situation in the matter is quite well aware that there are\nstill many abuses that need correction, and inspection committees find\nmany suggestions to make and sometimes gross evils to stigmatize.\n\nBedlam seems, however, to have always been as well and as humanely\nconducted as the spirit of the times demanded. It must not be\nforgotten that according to well authenticated tradition, a very large\npart of the hospital's income was obtained by the collection of fees\nfor the admittance of visitors who came to be amused by the vagaries\nof the insane. The number visiting the asylum for this purpose must\nhave been enormous, for, though only a penny was charged for\nadmission, the resulting revenue is said to have amounted to four\nhundred pounds sterling a year, showing that nearly one hundred\nthousand persons had visited the institution.\n\nFrom generations that were pleased to derive morbid amusement out of\nthe misfortunes of others, humanitarian {374} care of the insane could\nnot be reasonably expected; but in view of this custom it is difficult\nto understand how there could have been at this period any great abuse\nof patients, in the matter of severe punishments or inhuman restraint.\n\nSome of the customs of the old-time hospitals were interesting. It was\nbelieved that the one chance for an insane patient to recover lay in\ntrusting him somewhat, allowing him even to go unattended outside the\nwalls at times. Patients in Bedlam were permitted to go out alone\nafter they improved in health, and if they were poor they were allowed\nto obtain their living by means of begging. In order that they might\nmore easily work upon public sympathy, they were permitted to wear tin\nplates fastened to their arms. The wearers of these were called\n\"Bedlams,\" or \"Bedlamites\" or \"Bedlam beggars,\" and tradition says\nthat they received much more consideration than ordinary beggars.\n\nIt may appear that this was dangerous liberty, but the ordinary person\nis apt to consider as dangerous the open door treatment of the insane\nwhich most alienists now hold to be the most commendable feature of\npresent day treatment. It seems reasonable that to permit patients to\ngo into the open air and sunshine was better than confining them in\nthe hospital, and doubtless the insignia which they wore especially\ncommended them to the care and alms and sympathy of the people.\n\nMuch has been said with regard to the alleged neglect and abuse of the\ninsane during the period of exorcism, because of the misunderstanding\nof the cause of the disease. There are persons who consider\nneurasthenia and major-hysteria as more or less modern forms of\nnervous diseases, but it is more than probable that they {375} existed\nwith considerable frequency in the olden time. Many of these cases\nwould be cured by strong suggestions, that is, by the treatment\nusually given to supposed possessed persons, and as we know that the\nbest possible treatment for certain forms of major-hysteria is to\nfrighten the patient (the earthquake at San Francisco cured a dozen\npersons who had not been regarded as able to walk, some of them for\nyears), it is probable that a goodly number of the patients of the\npast were cured by the rather heroic measures sometimes devised. Sir\nThomas More mentions such cases, and though himself eminently humane,\ncommends this method of treatment \"in which such patients were\nseverely scourged and thoroughly aroused from their willfulness.\"\n\nWhen psychiatrists talk slightingly of the old-time methods of caring\nfor the insane, it is well to recall that, considering the conditions\nand limitations of scientific knowledge, they seem to have done very\nwell in those times. It has been the custom of critics to hold up to\nridicule that insane patients were sometimes taken to special shrines\nin order that their ills might be cured by the direct interposition of\nHeaven; or that the devil supposed to possess them, might be driven\nout. It must not be forgotten, however, that such procedures were of\nsupreme utility in mild cases viewed merely from the human standpoint,\nand without any appeal to the supernatural. The journey to a favorite\nshrine, undertaken under conditions that gave variety to life and new\ninterests, together with the hope aroused while there, were sufficient\nto help the patient physically and, not infrequently, mentally.\n\nSome of the most distinguished specialists in mental diseases in\nGermany, France and England are on record {376} as believing that one\nof the most helpful agencies in the relief of certain symptoms of\nmental disturbance, and even the cure of milder forms of insanity, is\nconfidence in the Almighty as expressed by prayer. At a meeting of the\nBritish Medical Association two years ago, this idea was expressed\nvery forcibly by a distinguished specialist, and was concurred in by a\nnumber of those at the meeting of the Section on Mental Diseases. He\nsaid:\n\n  \"As an alienist and one whose life has been concerned with the\n  suffering of the mind, I would state that of all hygienic measures\n  to counteract disturbed sleep, depressed spirits and all of the\n  miserable sequels of a distressed mind, I would undoubtedly give the\n  first place to the simple habit of prayer. * * * Such a habit does\n  more to calm the spirit and strengthen the soul to overcome mere\n  incidental emotionalism than any other therapeutic agent known to\n  me.\"\n\nThe medieval peoples realized this, and finding it beneficial, used it\nto decided advantage in a large number of cases.\n\nOccasionally some very striking developments resulted from pilgrimages\nmade for the cure of the insane. A typical instance is to be found at\nthe shrine of St. Dympna in Belgium. Many persons in various stages\nand differing forms of mental derangement were accustomed to go or be\ntaken to the shrine of this Irish girl missionary, whose martyrdom had\nso elevated her in the estimation of the people of the neighborhood\nthat they thought her tomb worthy of special reverence. The sufferers\nwho journeyed thither frequently lingered for some time in order to\ninvoke the aid of the Saint, and, if possible, secure her intercession\nfor the relief of their {377} ailments. Many of them were found to get\nalong better in the quiet of the little village than they had done in\ntheir homes, and as they were simply quartered among the people of the\nvillage, their friends were able for a trifling pecuniary\nconsideration to secure their maintenance there for an indefinite\nperiod, in the hope that what the Saint had not granted at the\nbeginning might be obtained by more assiduous devotion at her shrine.\nAt first the friends probably intended to come back and take the\npatients away, but after a time, finding that they got along so well\nnear the shrine, they gradually learned to leave them there entirely.\nThus originated the famous insane colony at Gheel which has in recent\nyears been the subject of more attention on the part of alienists the\nworld over than almost any other therapeutic method of our time. This\nmedieval invention of caring for the non-violent insane, especially\nthose of low grades of intelligence, in the midst of small families,\nwhere none of the cares of life burden them and where they have\noccupation of mind and body and certain human interests, such as might\nappeal to their weakened intelligence, is probably the ideal method of\ncaring for such patients. Certain it is that it is much better than\nthe large institutional system, the invention of succeeding centuries,\nfrom which we are now trying to get away as fast and as far as\npossible.\n\nThe Gheel mode of caring for the insane is really the colony system\nthat is now universally recognized as the most favorable mode of\ntreatment for these patients. It seems not unlikely that there was\nmuch more of this practice during the Middle Ages in Europe than we\nhave any idea of.\n\nWith regard to the serious accusations so often made {378} against the\npeople of the Middle Ages for their cruelty to the insane, not much\napology will be needed by those who know anything about the treatment\nof the insane, even in quite recent times. Measures of rigid restraint\nwere employed for dangerous cases. Patients who had shown\nmanifestations of violence were likely to be chained. Severe and\nunusual punishments were sometimes inflicted. Of all this there is no\ndoubt. Abuses crept into institutions. The insane were sometimes\nbrutally treated or hideously neglected. These, however, are\nobjections that can be urged against our system of taking care of the\ninsane in many places even at the present day. In certain states, in\norder to lessen the expense of caring for the insane, they are kept in\ndepartments in the Poor Houses, and every now and then a legislative\ncommittee of investigation tells the story of appalling evils that\nhave been discovered. It was not because they thought that possessed\npeople deserved punishment, nor because they hoped thus to get the\ndevils to go out of them, that the medieval generations allowed such\nthings in their asylums, but because human nature will neglect its\nduties toward the ailing unless carefully superintended, and because\nregular attendants become hardened in their feelings sooner or later,\nwhen they serve only for pay, and the result always is the abuse of\npatients.\n\nIn proportion to the number of patients cared for, there was much more\nneed for restraint in those old days than at present. As a rule,\nduring the Middle Ages prisons and asylums were few. Only the\nviolently insane, who already had actually committed some serious\ncrime or threatened to, were kept in the asylums. For these restraint\nis needed even at the present {379} time. We have learned to apply\nmilder measures by employing many more attendants, but even that has\ncome only in the last generation or two. The milder cases of insanity\nwere not kept in asylums, but were allowed to wander about the\ncountry, or were cared for in their families with a devotion of which\none finds no example at the present time; or if the insane person\nbelonged to a noble family, very often the patient was kept in the\nhouse of a retainer and gently cared for. The fact that the milder\ncases were allowed to wander about the country might seem to be\ndangerous, but is not so serious as is ordinarily thought. Only a\nlimited number of insane patients are likely to be violent, and these,\nas a rule, show manifestations of it early in the history of their\naffection. It was the frequent meeting with these harmless insane, as\nthey were to be encountered in the many places through which he\nwandered professionally in England, that enabled Shakespeare to make\nhis pictures of insane characters so true to life, that even at the\npresent day we are able to recognize from his marvelous description\nexactly the form of insanity that was present.\n\nIn a word, these generations of the Middle Ages builded better than\nthey knew in this matter of the care of the mentally afflicted, as in\neverything else which they took up for serious consideration. They did\nonly the most obvious things, and what they could not very well help,\nunder the circumstances, and yet very often the solutions of grave\nproblems which they hit upon so naturally, proved to be as efficient\nas, indeed sometimes practically identical with, those we have reached\nby much more elaborate methods. This story of the treatment of the\ninsane in the Middle Ages {380} deserves careful study. I have given\nonly a few suggestions for the interpretation of certain methods of\naction on their part, apparently very different from our ideas, yet in\nreality anticipating our most recent conclusions.\n\nWhat many people have not been able to forgive the generations of the\nMiddle Ages, and especially the ecclesiastics of the centuries before\nour own, is that as educated men and leaders of the people they should\nhave accepted the view that mental diseases may, in some of their\nforms at least, be due to possession by the devil or some other\nspiritual interference with the working of the human intellect. During\nthe latter half of the nineteenth century, it became the custom among\nthe educated to scoff at any possible manifestation of this kind. The\ninterference of the spiritual world with any of man's actions came to\nbe looked upon as absurd, except by those who still clung to old-time\nbeliefs and thought that new fashions in opinion might very well prove\nalmost as variable as do corresponding fads in the realm of dress or\nof interests. The difficulty in the matter was that the generations of\nthe latter nineteenth century lost their faith, to a great extent, in\nthe existence of a spiritual world, and consequently it was easy to\nlaugh at those who had found the interference of such a world as not\nonly possible, but actual, in a great many affairs in human life. As a\nmatter of fact, when we realize how many utterly inexplicable\nphenomena the earlier centuries tried to explain this way, it is not\nsurprising to find their explanation sometimes wrong.\n\nIt is very easy, to my mind, for men of our generation to be too hard\nin their judgments of the men of {381} the Middle Ages with regard to\nthe curious phenomena, psychic, spiritistic and occult, which, with\nall our advance in science, are still almost as obscure to the eye of\nthe intellect as they were seven centuries ago. The medieval\ngenerations saw a great many things that they could not explain\nhappening round them, and attributed them to spiritual agencies. We\nhave learned since that many of these things are merely natural, and\nmust not be considered as due to anything else than the ordinary laws\nof nature. We have not eliminated belief in the spiritual world,\nhowever, and there is still a large proportion of mankind who think\nthat they see, even in the matter-of-fact world around them of the\npresent day, many signs of interference in human affairs by agencies\ndistinct from those of human beings and quite independent of matter.\nIt is easy to dismiss this side of the question with a shrug of the\nshoulders and say that it need not be taken into account. A man who\ndoes this easily succeeds in convincing himself that there are no\nevidences for spiritual manifestations in our life, and that the\nstories with regard to them are all nonsense.\n\nIt is curious, however, that anyone who investigates and does not\nmerely dismiss at once, is very prone to come to a contrary\nconclusion, even though all his training and the traditions of his\neducation are opposed to such an admission. There are many prominent\nscientists who have allowed themselves to be drawn into the\ninvestigation of spiritualistic manifestations so-called. Very few of\nthem have come away from their investigations entirely convinced that\nthere was nothing in them. Frauds they have found; sleight-of-hand\nimpositions they have exposed; but apart from all these, there {382}\nis a residue of phenomena which they cannot explain and which\nconvinces many of them of the existence and the mundane action of\nforces independent of matter. The men who come to these conclusions\nare not only the ignorant, nor the over-credulous, but frequently\nrepresentative leaders in scientific thought--men who are known to be\nthoroughly capable of weighing evidence, prominent lawyers and judges,\nabove all, men who are accustomed to investigation as most painstaking\nscientists and faithful students of nature.\n\nA few examples will illustrate this. Mr. Alfred Russell Wallace, the\nco-discoverer with Darwin of the theory of natural selection, has a\nname in the scientific world that places him among the leaders of\nscientific thought. For many years he has been convinced that\nspiritualism contains in itself truths that deserve careful\ninvestigation, and he for one is persuaded that the neglect of\ninvestigation of this subject, on the part of recent generations, is\none of the most serious mistakes, from a purely scientific standpoint,\nthat they have made. Sir William Crookes, whose brilliant theories\nwith regard to the fourth stage of matter, radiant matter, would seem\nto have quite appropriately prepared him for the proper investigation\nof existences even beyond the domain of the attenuated substances with\nwhich he had been so much concerned, is another of the prominent\nscientists of the day who confesses to a belief in the truth of\nspiritualistic phenomena. He made his first publication on the subject\nmore than a quarter of a century ago. When a score of years after this\nhe was elected as the President of the British Association for the\nAdvancement of Science, the most prominent scientific body in Great\nBritain, and, it may be said, in the {383} English-speaking world, he\nrecurred in his Presidential address to the subject of spiritualism,\nand said that in the meantime he not only had not changed his mind\nwith regard to the truth of certain spiritualistic phenomena, but had\neven become more convinced than he was originally.\n\nThese are prominent English scientists, and Englishmen are supposed to\nbe more conservative, less likely to be influenced by personal\nmotives, and less prone to be led astray by imaginative influences,\nthan their colleagues on the Continent. Besides these two whom we have\nmentioned, there is a third one, of quite as great prominence, Sir\nOliver Lodge, who is also a convert to belief in the reality of\ncertain spiritual manifestations, and other names might readily be\nmentioned. Over in France, the most prominent of living physiologists,\nProfessor Charles Richet, who is well known for investigating work of\na high order and successful original research that has made his name\nfamiliar throughout the medical world at least, is another modern\nscientist who cannot but think that there is something in\nspiritualistic manifestations. The latest convert to these notions is\nan even more surprising addition to such a group of witnesses to the\npossibility of the interference of spirits with human affairs. This is\nno less a person than Lombroso, the well-known writer on criminology,\nwho has recently confessed that certain tests made by him showed\nbeyond all doubt that there were influences at work quite independent\nof human powers, and showing the existence of a world apart from\nmatter. This immaterial world evidently interpenetrates, and may\ninterfere with things in the material world as we know it.\n\n{384}\n\nIn a word, it may be said that if a man wants to keep the spiritual\nside of things out of his purview of life, he may do so by refusing to\ninvestigate any evidence that would demonstrate the existence of\nspiritual forces in the world around him. The heavy price, however,\nthat he pays for absolute certainty and peace of mind in this\nmatter--is peremptory refusal to investigate. If he gives himself up\nto investigations, he comes inevitably to the conclusion that there is\nsomething in the belief in the existence of spirits all round us, and\nof the possibility of their interference in the ordinary affairs of\nlife. It is true that after he has come to this conclusion he may not\nbe able to demonstrate it to others. His conviction of it, however,\nwill be none the less absolute because of this. His adhesion to the\nnew belief may seem to many people absurd. He will accept this view of\nhis state of mind quite calmly, and apparently enjoy the compensation\nof finding the absurdity to be in the other point of view. It matters\nnot how distinguished a scientist he may be, he comes out of\ninvestigation of spiritual phenomena persuaded of the existence of a\nspiritual world.\n\nThis persuasion seems to come by some form of intuition not quite\ndependent on the ordinary processes of intelligence. It is as if\nspirit called to spirit across the abyss, from the immaterial to the\nmaterial, as if somehow we obtained a conviction of the existence of\nspirits around us by the very sympathy of our natures and their\nrelationship to the immaterial world, rather than by the ordinary\navenues of intelligence. It is, in a word, a telepathy, the other\nagent in which is not material, but quite independent of matter, yet\nsomehow is able to set up those vibrations in the ether which {385}\naffect brain cells, and thus bring about communications, as Sir\nWilliam Crookes explains the curious phenomena in this line that occur\nbetween human beings. Such an explanation may easily be dismissed as\nhighly imaginative and altogether theoretic. As a student of\npsychology now for many years, it has appealed to me, however, as the\nonly possible hypothesis that gives any plausible explanation of the\ncurious conversions which so inevitably result from sympathetic\nattempts at investigation of the possibility of spirit interference in\nmundane affairs.\n\nHow far this persuasion of spiritual interference in ordinary human\naffairs has gone, will not be realized except by those who are\nfamiliar with some of the literature which has been made in the last\ntwenty years on the subject of psychical research. Not long since, a\ndistinguished European professor of physical science went so far as to\nwarn people of the dangers there might be in dismissing the opinion\nthat other intelligences than those of men could interfere for the\nabrogation of certain natural laws. This may be scoffed at as the\nheight of credulity, and may be received in sceptical mood by those\nwho refuse to look into such matters, because they know _a priori_\nthat they _cannot be true!_ It is hard, however, to differentiate the\nattitude of mind of such persons from that which Galileo deprecated so\nmuch, in that letter of complaint to Kepler, in which he said so\nbitterly that they refused to look through his telescope and\ndemolished, as they thought, his observations by logical conclusions\nfrom what they knew already. It is to be remarked that it was not\necclesiastics of whom he was talking at this time, but professors of\nscience at the University of {386} Pisa, who were quite as\nunsympathetic towards certain of his astronomical discoveries as were\nany of the ecclesiastics of his time.\n\nAlfred Russell Wallace has summed up this matter in a well-known\nchapter on psychic research, which he places among what he calls the\nfailures of A Wonderful Century--the nineteenth. While personally\nviewing this matter from a very different standpoint to that from\nwhich it is viewed by Mr. Wallace, I cannot help but think that the\nposition he occupies is much nearer the truth than the absolute\nrefusal to credit stories of supra-natural or ultra-natural, if not\nsupernatural interferences in human affairs. When Mr. Wallace has an\nopinion he is likely to express it very forcibly, and he has done so\nin this case. He does not hesitate to attribute a great many marvelous\nhappenings to practically the same forces as the medieval people\nformulated for them, though they would disagree utterly in the\npurposes attributed to these events. Mr. Wallace says:\n\n  \"The still more extraordinary phenomena--veridical hallucinations,\n  warnings, detailed predictions of future events, phantoms, voices or\n  knockings, visible or audible to numerous individuals, bell-ringing,\n  the playing on musical instruments, stone-throwing and various\n  movements of solid bodies, all without human contact or any\n  discoverable physical cause, still occur among us as they have\n  occurred in all ages. These are now being investigated, and slowly\n  but surely are proved to be realities, although the majority of\n  scientific men and of writers for the press still ignore the\n  cumulative evidence and ridicule the inquirers. These phenomena\n  being comparatively rare, are as yet known to but a limited number\n  of persons; but the evidence for their reality is {387} also very\n  extensive, and it is absolutely certain that during the coming\n  century they too will be accepted as realities by all impartial\n  students and by the majority of educated men and women.\"\n\nMr. Wallace has insisted further on the utterly unscientific position\nof many of those who refuse to look into the evidence for these\nphenomena, so plainly beyond the power of the ordinary forces of\nnature as we know them, or of the human intelligences in the body,\nthat are immediately around us. He deprecates, as does Galileo, the\nmethod by which this subject has been kept from receiving its due meed\nof attention. He points out that it is because of intellectual\nintolerance that this subject has been relegated to the background of\nscientific attention. He even contends that a great lesson is to be\nlearned from this neglect, and one which will help men to free\nthemselves from that burden of overconservatism which, much more than\nreligion or theology, has impeded the progress of knowledge and the\nadvance of science. He says:\n\n  \"The great lesson to be learnt from our review of this subject is,\n  distrust of all _a priori_ judgments as to facts; for the whole\n  history of the progress of human knowledge, and especially of that\n  department of knowledge now known as psychical research, renders it\n  certain that whenever the scientific men or popular teachers of any\n  age have denied, on _a priori_ grounds of impossibility or opposition\n  to the 'laws of nature,' the facts observed and recorded by numerous\n  investigators of average honesty and intelligence, these deniers\n  have always been wrong.\"\n\n  \"Future ages will, I believe, be astonished at the vast amount of\n  energy and ignorance displayed by so many {388} of the great men of\n  this century in opposing unpalatable truths, and in supposing that\n  _a priori_ arguments, accusations of imposture or insanity, or\n  personal abuse, were the proper means of determining matters of fact\n  and of observation in any department of human knowledge.\"\n\nIf these hard-headed scientists, whose training has been obtained in\nwhat physical scientists themselves, at least, are fain to call the\nrigid school of the logic of facts, and under the severe mental\ndiscipline of the inductive method, accept on the evidence afforded\nthem, the manifestations of the spiritual world and its influences in\nthis as true, surely we will not condemn these men of the Middle Ages,\nwho approached the subject in such a different temper, if they came to\nthe same conclusion. We recognize that the modern scientist, with his\ntrained powers of observation and his elaborate facilities for\neliminating the adventitious in his experiments, is in a position to\njudge impartially with regard to such subjects. More than this, his\nlife has usually been spent in making such syntheses of evidence for\nand against the significance of facts, as should enable him to be a\nproper judge. If, then, whenever he seriously devotes himself to such\nan investigation, he comes almost inevitably to the conclusion that\nspirits do intervene in our affairs, yet we refuse to believe with\nhim, it is hard to know on what principle we shall accept his\nscientific conclusions. If we cannot bring ourselves to think his\nconclusions are of equal value in both cases, we place ourselves in a\nstrange dilemma. The medieval scholars were prone, because of the\nfaith to which they had given their whole-hearted adhesion, to see\nspiritual powers at work in many things. In this they were {389}\nsometimes sadly mistaken, but not so much mistaken as certain\ngenerations of the nineteenth century, who absolutely refused to\naccept any possibility of spiritual interference in things mundane.\nBoth the extremes are mistakes. It is manifestly more of a mistake,\nhowever, to deny spiritual influence entirely (I talk now from the\nstandpoint of the scientist and not the believer), than to accept so\nmuch of spiritual interference as the medieval generations permitted\nthemselves to be convinced of.\n\nThis whole subject is one that cannot be dismissed as the conclusion\nof a bit of vapid superficial argumentation. It is one of the great\nmysteries of life and of the significance of man in the world. The\nmedieval peoples did much harm by accepting the position, that many\npersons suffering from ordinary nervous and mental diseases as we now\nknow them were really possessed by the devil. The treatment accorded\nthese supposedly possessed (for the moment we lay aside the question\nas to the possibility of the reality of diabolic possession) was not\nany worse than has frequently been accorded to sufferers from mental\nand nervous disease in presumably much more intelligent times, either\nbecause of fear of them, or neglect on account of the absence of a\nsufficient number of keepers, or because of curious theories of\nmedical science. Mankind, it is hoped, is progressing, but the amount\nof progress from generation to generation is not enough, that any\nsucceeding age should criticise severely the well-intentioned though\nmistaken efforts of their predecessors to meet, according to the best\nof their ability, problems that are as deep as those involved in\nnervous and mental diseases.\n\n\n{390}\n\n\n\nAPPENDIX.\n\n\n\n  \"The truth seeker has had to struggle for his physical life. Each\n  acquisition of truth has been resisted by the full force of the\n  inertia of satisfaction with preconceived ideas. Just as a new\n  thought comes to us with a shock which rouses the resistance of our\n  personal conservatism, so a new idea is met and repelled by the\n  conservatism of society.\" (_Jordan, The Struggle for Realities, in\n  Footsteps of Evolution._)\n\n\n\nI.\n\nOPPOSITION TO SCIENTIFIC PROGRESS.\n\nThe main purpose of this book has not been accomplished unless it has\nbeen shown that the Church, the Popes, and ecclesiastics generally\nduring the Middle Ages, and especially during the three centuries\nbefore the reformation so-called, far from opposing scientific advance\nor investigation, were constantly in the position of encouraging and\nfostering science, even if the meaning of that term be limited, as it\nhas come to be in modern times, to the physical or natural sciences.\nThe Popes and the great ecclesiastics were patrons of learning of\nevery kind, and that they not only encouraged, but aided very\nmaterially the institutions of learning in which the problems of\nscience with which we are now engaged, were discussed in very much the\nsame way as we discuss them at the present time, is evident from the\nstory of the foundation of the universities. It will be a source of\nwonder to many people how, with all this as a matter of simple\neducational history, the traditions with regard to the supposed\nopposition of the Church and the Popes to science have grown up. This\nis not so difficult to understand, however, as might be thought, {391}\nand a few words of explanation will serve to show that there was\nopposition to science, but that this was not due to religious\nintolerance in any proper sense of the term.\n\nThose who give the religious element a prominent place in this, forget\nhow much natural opposition to the introduction of new ideas there is\nin men's minds, quite apart from their religious convictions. Nearly\ntwo centuries ago Dean Swift said, in his own bitter frame of mind of\ncourse, but still with an approach to truth that has made the\nexpression one of the oft-quoted passages from his works: \"When a true\ngenius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign--that all\nthe asses are in confederacy against him.\"\n\nI suppose the Dean himself would have been the first to insist that\nsome of his colleagues in the ministry eminently deserved the\nopprobrious substantive epithet he employed. It would be too much to\nexpect that there should not be as many foolish ones among the clergy\nof the olden times as in any other of the professions. Occasionally\none of these foolish clergymen rose up in opposition to science.\nWhenever he did, especially if he belonged to the class mentioned by\nDean Swift, then he surely made his religion the principal reason for\nhis opposition. That gave an added prestige in his mind and in the\nminds of those who accepted his teachings, to whatever he had to say\non the subject. This no more involved the Church itself, nor\necclesiastics generally, in the condemnation of the particular\nscientific doctrine, than does the frequent opposition of peculiar\nmembers of medical societies to real progress in medicine, involve the\norganization to which they belong in the old-fogyism which would\nprevent advance.\n\nIt must not be forgotten that small minds are always prone to find\nvery respectable reasons for their opposition to something that has\nbeen hitherto unknown to them. While novelty is supposed to attract,\nand does when it comes in a form not too unfamiliar, and when men are\nnot asked to give up old convictions for its sake, real newness always\nevokes opposition. Washington Allston once said very well with regard\nto this, that \"An original mind is rarely understood until it has been\nreflected from some half-dozen congenial with it, so {392} averse are\nmen to admitting the true in an unusual form; whilst any novelty,\nhowever fantastic, however false, is greedily swallowed.\" This\nprinciple will be of great service in making clear the real\nsignificance of many incidents in the history of science, in which not\nonly intelligent men without special scientific training have been\nfound in opposition to real scientific progress, but in which men\nhaving had the advantage of long experience in scientific\ninvestigation, having themselves sometimes as younger men done\noriginal work of value, have yet placed themselves squarely in\nopposition to scientific advance that eventually proved of the highest\npossible significance.\n\nScientific men have, as a rule, been quite ready at all times to argue\nthat an announced new discovery could not be true, that indeed it was\nabsurd to think of it. The word nonsense is perhaps oftener on\nscientists' tongues than on any others'. It is not because he is\ndeliberately opposed to scientific progress that this is the case with\nthe scientist, but that he is so convinced of the ultimate\nsignificance of many things that he knows already, that he cannot\nreadily bring himself to admit the idea of progress along lines with\nwhich he is familiar. To do so, indeed, supposes that he himself has\nbeen lacking in perspicacity and in powers of observation. The fact\nthat it is usually a young man who makes the new observation, not\ninfrequently a young man who does not know the great body of science\nthat the older acknowledged scientist does, only adds to the readiness\nwith which the senior is apt to consider the new proposition as\nabsurd. Ecclesiastics have done this same thing, but not nearly so\nfrequently as scientists. There was a time when the majority of\neducated men belonged to the clerical order, and then it seemed as\nthough it must be religion that prompted some of the conservatism\nwhich led them to oppose what proved eventually to be new truths. It\nwas not, however, but only human nature asserting itself in spite of\neducation.\n\nProf. David Starr Jordan in reviewing briefly the history of the\nStruggle for Realities in one of the essays in his Foot-notes to\nEvolution, [Footnote 45] has summed up the genuine {393} significance\nof this supposed opposition of science and theology in some striking\nparagraphs. To my mind, he places the whole subject on its proper\nfoundation, and properly disposes of the supposed conflict between\nreligion or theology and science. He says:--\n\n[Footnote 45: N. Y., Appleton, 1902.]\n\n  \"But as I have said before, the real essence of conservatism lies\n  not in theology. The whole conflict is a struggle in the mind of\n  man. It exists in human psychology before it is wrought out in human\n  history. It is the struggle of realities against tradition and\n  suggestion. The progress of civilization would still have been just\n  such a struggle had religion or theology or churches or worship\n  never existed. But such a conception is impossible, because the need\n  for all these is part of the actual development of man.\n\n  Intolerance and prejudice is, moreover, not confined to religious\n  organizations. The same spirit that burned Michael Servetus and\n  Giordano Bruno for the heresies of science, led the atheist\n  \"liberal\" mob of Paris to send to the scaffold the great chemist\n  Lavoisier, with the sneer that \"the republic has no need of\n  savants.\" The same spirit that leads the orthodox Gladstone to\n  reject natural selection because it \"relieves God of the labor of\n  creation,\" causes the heterodox Haecekel to condemn Weismann's\n  theories of heredity, not because they are at variance with facts,\n  but because such questions are settled once for all by the great\n  philosophic dictum (his own) \"of monism.\"\n\nThis very natural ultra-conservative mood of scientists is well\nillustrated by a passage from Galileo's life, in which he himself\ndescribes in a letter to Kepler, the great mathematician and\nastronomer of his time, the reception that his new invention, the\ntelescope, met with from distinguished men of science, their\ncolleagues of the moment. The Italian astronomer encountered the\nwell-known tendency of men to reason from what they already know, that\ncertain advances in knowledge are impossible or absurd. The favorite\nexpression is that the thoughts suggested by some new discovery are\nillogical. Men have always reasoned thus, and apparently they always\nwill. Knowledge that they learn before they are forty constitutes,\nconsciously or unconsciously, for them the possible sum of human\nknowledge, and {394} they can only think that apparent progress that\ncontradicts their previous convictions must be founded on false\npremises or faulty observation. We cannot help sympathizing with\nGalileo, though it must be a consolation for others who are struggling\nto have ideas of theirs adopted, to read the words addressed to his\ngreat contemporary and sympathetic fellow worker by the Italian\nastronomer.\n\n  \"What wilt thou say,\" he writes, \"of the first teachers at the\n  University at Padua, who when I offered to them the opportunity,\n  would look neither at the planets nor the moon through the\n  telescope? This sort of men look on philosophy as a book like the\n  AEneid or Odyssey, and believe the truth is to be sought not in the\n  world of nature, but only in comparison of texts. How wouldst thou\n  have laughed, when at Pisa the leading Professor of the University\n  there endeavored, in the presence of the Grand Duke, to tear away\n  the new planets from Heaven with logical arguments, like magical\n  exorcisms!\"\n\nThis gives the key to the real explanation of the Galileo incident\nbetter than would a whole volume of explanation of it. It is now\nrealized that very few of those who have been most ready to quote the\nexample of Galileo's condemnation as an argument for Church\nintolerance in the matter of science, know anything at all about the\ndetails of his case. The bitter intolerance of many men of science of\nhis time, including even that supposed apostle of the experimental\nmethod--Bacon--to the Copernican system, is an important but ignored\nphase of the case of Galileo, as it came before the Roman inquisition.\nThe peculiar position occupied by Galileo caused Prof. Huxley, writing\nto Prof. St. George Mivart, November 12th, 1885, to say that, after\nlooking into the case of Galileo when he was in Italy, he had arrived\nat the conclusion \"that the Pope and the College of Cardinals had\nrather the best of it.\" In our own time, M. Bertrand, the Perpetual\nSecretary of the French Academy of Sciences, declared that \"the great\nlesson for those who would wish to oppose reason with violence was\nclearly to be read in Galileo's story, and the scandal of his\ncondemnation was learned _without any profound sorrow to Galileo\nhimself; and his long life, considered as a whole, must be looked upon\nas the most serene and enviable in the history of science.\"_\n\n{395}\n\nCertain historical incidents in which Church authorities and\necclesiastics assumed an attitude distinctly opposed to true\nscientific advance can be found. They are, however, ever so much rarer\nthan is thought. Let those who accept unquestioningly the supposed\nopposition of Church to science, count over for themselves the\ndefinite cases of this in history which they know for certain, and\nthey will be surprised, as a rule, on what slight grounds their\npersuasion in this matter is founded. We have detailed the policy of\nthe Church with regard to education and science. Such incidents of\nopposition as can be gathered were breaks away from that policy. They\nwere not due so much to faith or theology, though these were often\nmade excuses for them, as to the natural opposition to novelty, so\ncommon in man.\n\nWith regard to this matter, as with regard to opposition in general to\nscience, President Jordan has once more set forth the realities of the\nsituation so as to make it clear that, even when it was the dogmatic\nspirit that was behind the refusal to accept certain scientific\ntruths, not only was there the best of intentions in this in all\ncases, but in nearly all, the results were such as to benefit mankind,\nand even to help rather than hinder science. He says:\n\n  \"The desire of dogmatism to control action is in its essence the\n  desire to save men from their own folly. The great historic churches\n  have existed 'for the benefit of the weak and the poor.' By their\n  observances they have stimulated the spirit of devotion. By their\n  commands they have protected men from unwise action. By their\n  condemnations they have saved men from the grasp of vice and crime.\"\n\nThe ultra-conservatism which is the real factor at fault in these\ncases exists in all men beyond middle life. It is a wise provision of\nnature very probably to prevent the young and headstrong from running\naway with the race. We would be plunged into all sorts of curious\nexperimental conditions only for the fact that those beyond middle\nlife act as a brake on the initiative of their juniors. While it does\nsome harm, there is no doubt of its supremely beneficial effects in\nthe long run. {396} For one announced great discovery that proves its\nactual right to the title, there are at least a hundred that are\nproclaimed with loud blare of trumpet, yet prove nonentities. This\nsometimes becomes a very troublesome brake on progress, however. Some\nthree hundred years ago, Harvey said with regard to his epoch-making\ndiscovery of the circulation of the blood, that he did not expect any\nof his contemporaries who was over forty years of age to accept it.\nHis premonition in this matter was fully confirmed by the event.\nDarwin, I believe, once remarked that he did not think that men of his\nown age in his own generation would accept his theory, and most of\nthem did not.\n\nThe opposition which, as a consequence of this natural conservatism,\nis so constantly ready to manifest itself, is as human as the envy\nwhich, much as we may bewail the fact, accompanies all individual\nsuccess. A history of this phase of scientific progress is of itself\nvery interesting and of great psychological importance. A short sketch\nof it will serve the purpose of placing the opposition of churchmen to\nscience in the category where it belongs, and will make this subject\nappear in its true light of a very natural and universal psychic\nmanifestation, not a religious or supposed theological phenomenon.\n\nAs a matter of fact, it is comparatively easy to show that there are\nmany more incidents of opposition to the progress of science on the\npart of scientists because of their conservatism, than on the part of\necclesiastics because of religion or theology. There has scarcely ever\nbeen a really important advance made in science, a really new\ndiscovery announced, which has not met with such bitter opposition on\nthe part of the men who were most prominent in the science concerned\nat the time, as to make things very uncomfortable for the discoverer,\nand on many occasions this opposition has taken on the character of\nreal persecution. It will be at once said that this is very different\nfrom the formal condemnation by organized bodies of truths in science,\nwith all that this implies of ostracization and of discouragement on\nthe part of scientific workers. The history of science is full of\nstories showing that formal scientific bodies refused to consider\nseriously what were {397} really great discoveries, or that scientific\neditors not only rejected papers representing valuable original\nresearch, but even did not hesitate to discredit their authors in such\na way as to make it extremely difficult for them to pursue their\nstudies in science successfully, and still more to prevent them from\nsecuring such positions as would enable them to carry on their\nscientific investigations under favorable circumstances. In a word,\npersecution was carried out just as far as possible, and the result\nwas quite as much discouragement as if the opposition were more\nformal. It is not hard to show, on the other hand, that while formal\nopposition by Church authorities was very rare, rejection by medical\nand scientific societies and by the scientific authorities for the\nmoment of new discoveries was so common, as to be almost the rule in\nthe history of progress in science.\n\nThis is so different from what is ordinarily supposed to be the calm\ncourse of scientific evolution, that it will need a series of\nillustrative cases to support it. In recent years, however, the\ncultivation of the history of science has been more ardent than in the\npast, and the result has been that many more know of this curious\nanomaly and paradox in scientific history than was the case a few\nyears ago, and it is comparatively easy to obtain the material to\ndemonstrate it. One of the most striking instances is that of Harvey.\n\nHarvey discovered the circulation of the blood, at a time and under\ncircumstances that would surely lead us to expect its immediate\nacceptance and the hailing of him as a great original thinker in\nscience. He first expounded it to his class, very probably in 1616,\nwhich will be remembered as the year of Shakespeare's death. The glory\nof the great Elizabethan era in England was not yet passed. Men's\nminds had been opened to great advances in every department of thought\nduring the preceding century, by the Renaissance movement and the New\nLearning in England. Probably no greater group of original thinkers\nhas ever existed than were alive in England during the preceding\ntwenty-five years. Four years after Harvey had sufficiently elaborated\nhis ideas on the circulation to present them to his class, and the\nvery year after he wrote his treatise on the {398} subject, though he\ndared not publish it as yet, Lord Bacon published his Novum Organum,\nin which he advocated the use in science of the very principles of\ninduction on which Harvey's great discovery was founded.\n\nWhat happened is interesting for our purpose. Harvey was so well\nacquainted with the intolerant temper of men as regards new\ndiscoveries, that he hesitated to publish his book on the subject\nuntil men had been prepared for it, by his ideas gradually filtering\nout among the medical profession through the members of his class. He\nwaited nearly fifteen years after his first formal lesson on the\nsubject, before he dared to commit it to print. Shakespeare had made\nBrutus say to Portia:\n\n  \"You are my true and honorable wife,\n  As dear to me as are the ruddy drops\n  That visit my sad heart;\"\n\nbut men were not yet ready to accept the great principle of the blood\nmovement. There seems to be good authority for saying that Harvey had\nmore than suspected his great truth for twenty-five years before he\ndared print it. He realized that it would surely meet with opposition\nand would make serious unpleasantness between him and his friends. He\nwas not deceived in anticipation. Many of his friends fell away from\nhim, and according to tradition, he lost more than half of his\nconsulting practice, because physicians could not and would not\nbelieve that a man who evolved such a strange idea as the constant\nmovement of the blood all over the body, from heart to surface and\nback, could possibly be in his right mind, and, above all, be a\nsuitable person to consult with in difficult cases.\n\nHarvey's case is a lively picture of what happened to Vesalius the\ncentury before in Italy, which we have already discussed at length in\nthe chapter on the Golden Age of Anatomy. President White insists that\nthis persecution was due to ecclesiastical opposition to dissection,\nbut of this there is not a trace to be found. Dissection was carried\non with perfect freedom at all of the Italian universities, though\nthey were all under ecclesiastical influence, and in none was there\nmore freedom than in the Papal University of Rome, at the {399} very\ntime when Vesalius was doing his work in Northern Italy. At this time,\ntoo, Bologna was famous for its work in anatomy. Berengar of Carpi did\na very large number of dissections, though Bologna was at the moment a\nPapal city and the University was directly under the Popes.\n\nIt is clear, then, that the opposition to Vesalius arose entirely from\nthe conservatism of fellow scientists in medicine, who thought that\nwhat had been taught for many hundreds of years in the universities,\nand had been accepted by men quite as good as Vesalius or any of their\ngeneration for over a thousand years, must surely be nearer absolute\ntruth than what this young investigator wished them to accept. It is\nscarcely to be wondered that they resented, as men always do, what\nmust have seemed the intrusive rashness of this young medical student,\nwho was not yet thirty when he began to claim the right to teach his\nteachers, and who wanted to tell them that the medical world had all\nbeen wrong not only for many years, but for many centuries, and that\nhe had been born to set them right. This is, after all, the attitude\nof mind which naturally develops in these cases, and it is no wonder\nthat the old men use whatever means they have in their power to\nprevent rash young men from leading, as they think, the world astray.\n\nThe cases of Harvey and Vesalius are by no means exceptional, nor was\nthe opposition limited to England and Italy, but examples of it may be\nfound in every country in Europe. Nor was it only with regard to\nanatomy and anatomical discoveries and problems that such opposition\nmanifested itself. In this matter the story of Servetus is very\ninteresting. He made some new discoveries in anatomy, but these had\nnothing to do with the bitter opposition which some of his ideas\nencountered in Paris, quite apart from any question of theology or\nreligion. We do not know just when he discovered the circulation in\nthe lungs, which he described so clearly in the volume on the renewal\nof Christianity, for which he was burned at Geneva by Calvin. While at\nthe University of Paris, he had been mainly occupied with the\ndepartment of therapeutics rather than of anatomy or physiology. He\nhad suggested especially certain changes in the mode of {400} giving\ndrugs. He had much to do with the general introduction of syrups to\nreplace more nauseating preparations of medicine. He was probably the\nfirst one to realize that elegant prescribing, that is, the choice of\ndrugs and their combination in such a way as to make them less\nunpleasant to the patient, was a consummation eminently to be desired\nin medical practice. His ideas on this subject met, as novelties\nalways do, no matter how good in themselves, with the most rancorous\nopposition. Factions were formed in the University. There were riots\nin the streets. Students were wounded in the fights which took place.\nSome even were killed apparently. All this over the question whether\nmedicine as given to patients should be pleasant or unpleasant.\n\nAs we have had examples from England, France and Italy, we may quote\none from the Netherlands. We do so only to emphasize the fact that\neverywhere, no matter what the character of the people, nor the\nreligion which they happened to profess, their conservatism set them\nin opposition at once to novelties in science. England was Protestant\nin Harvey's time, and the Netherlands mainly so at the period of which\nwe are about to speak.\n\nWhen Stensen, or as he is more familiarly known by his Latin name,\nSteno, discovered and announced the fact that the heart is a muscle,\nhe was looked upon with very much the same suspicion as to his sanity\nas Harvey, a half-century before, when the great English physiologist\nproclaimed the circulation of the blood, and such suspicions were\nrather openly expressed by those who were too conservative to accept\nthis new teaching. The heart had been considered, not figuratively as\nwe now speak, but seriously and very literally, as the seat of the\nemotions. Over and over again, all men had had the experience that in\ntimes of emotional stress the heart was disturbed. They could feel\ntheir emotions welling up from their hearts, therefore there was no\ndoubt in their minds of the truth of the old teaching. Into the midst\nof this perfectly harmonious concord of scientific opinion, without a\ndissenting voice anywhere in the world, comes a young man not yet\ntwenty-five, who almost sacrilegiously declares that the heart is\nmerely a muscle and not a secreter of emotions. Fortunately for him,\nhe was of gentler disposition than most of the other {401} men who\nhave had the independence of mind to make discoveries, and so no very\nbitter opposition was aroused against him. He was considered too\nharmless to be taken very seriously, but at least when the\nannouncement first came, most of those who knew anything about\nmedicine, or thought they did, and this is much more serious in these\ncases, recognized that young Stensen had somehow allowed himself to be\nled astray into a very foolish notion, and one that could only emanate\nfrom a mind not quite capable of realizing truth as it was; and they\ndid not hesitate to say so.\n\nAfter this Stensen found the Netherlands quite an unsympathetic place\nfor his studies, and so moved down into Italy, where he could find\nmore freedom of thought for research and more appreciation, and\ncontinue his original investigations with less scorn for his new\ndiscoveries. Here he continued to hit upon original ideas that were\nlikely to make things quite uncomfortable for him, not because of\nreligious intolerance, but because of the more or less hide-bound\nconservatism that always characterizes mediocre minds. Far from coming\ninto disrespect here, however, he acquired many and very close\nfriends. He laid the foundation of modern geology and wrote a little\nbook that is a very wonderful anticipation of supposedly nineteenth\ncentury ideas in that science. He had come down into Italy a\nProtestant, having been raised in that religion in his native Denmark.\nHe found so much of sympathy with every phase of intellectual activity\namong the ecclesiastics in Italy, that he not only became a convert to\nCatholicity, but after a time a Catholic priest. His reputation spread\nto Rome, and the Pope not only sent for and received this innovator in\nanatomy and the founder of geology very courteously, but treated him\nwith every mark of appreciation, and this within a half a century\nafter Galileo's condemnation. Stensen eventually went back to Northern\nEurope as a bishop, in the hope of being able to convert to\nCatholicity those among the Teutonic nations who had been led away\nduring the religious revolt.\n\nIt might be thought that such examples of persecution were of course\nrather frequent in the distant centuries, and must not be taken too\nseriously, since they come in times before men had learned to respect\none another's {402} opinions and to realize that the assertions of an\nauthority in science are only to be considered as worth the reasons he\nadvances for them. Most people will be quite ready to congratulate\nthemselves on the fact that our modern time has outlived this\nunfortunate state of mind, which served to hamper scientific\ninvestigation. They will probably even be quite self-complacent over\nthe supposed fact that, ever since the study of natural science was\ntaken up seriously at the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of\nthe nineteenth century, this unfortunate temper has disappeared. Those\nwho think so, however, know nothing of the history of nineteenth\ncentury science, and especially not of nineteenth century medicine.\nJenner's great discovery of the value of vaccination against small-pox\ncame just before the nineteenth century opened. It met with the\nbitterest kind of opposition. This was especially the case in England.\nThere is a doubt whether Germany did not eventually do more to bring\nabout the recognition of the immense value of Jenner's discovery than\nhis native England. Anyone who has read Jenner's life knows how much\nhe was made to suffer from the bitterness of opponents' expressions\nwith regard to him. [Footnote 46] It is true that he was eventually\nrewarded quite liberally, and that honors were showered upon him, but\nonly after a preliminary series of trials that must have made him\nregret, if possible, that he had ever devoted himself to the\npropaganda of a great truth. Nor did the dawn of the vaunted\nnineteenth century bring in a better state of affairs in this regard.\n\n[Footnote 46: See my sketch of his life in Makers of Modern Medicine.\nFordham University Press, N. Y., 1907.]\n\nIt might perhaps be thought that this almost constant tendency to\noppose new developments in science was not recognized for what it\nreally is, the ultra-conservatism of human nature as men grow older,\nuntil comparatively modern times. Anyone who knows some of the\nintimate details of the history of medicine is sure to be better\ninformed in this matter, and to be well aware that, like Harvey, most\ndiscoverers in medicine anticipated this opposition. Usually they have\nhad no experience of it before, but they realize from the way men\n{403} think around them, and very probably also from their own prompt\nreaction of opposition to whatever is novel, that men are sure to be\nready to oppose the introduction of whatever is new. One of the\nquietest, gentlest and most lovable characters among the geniuses in\nmedicine was Auenbrugger, who, in Vienna, about 150 years ago,\ndiscovered the method of percussion of the chest, which is so helpful\nin the diagnosis of chest diseases. He perfected his discovery when he\nwas a young man of about 25. He did not publish it until he was nearly\n40 years of age. Like Harvey, he waited nearly a score of years before\ngiving it to the world. The reason for the delay is given in the\npreface in the following words:\n\n  \"I foresee very well that I shall encounter no little opposition to\n  my views, and I put my invention before the public with that\n  anticipation. _I realize, however, that envy and blame and even\n  hatred and calumny have never failed to come to men who have\n  illuminated art or science by their discoveries or have added to\n  their perfection. I expect to have to submit to this danger myself,_\n  but I think that no one will be able to call any of my observations\n  to account. I have written only what I have myself learned by\n  personal observation over and over again, and what my senses have\n  taught me during long hours of work and toil. I have never permitted\n  myself to add or subtract anything from my observations because of\n  the seductions of preconceived theory.\"\n\nNearly fifty years after the publication of Auenbrugger's book,\nLaennec completed the development of the diagnostic methods necessary\nfor the differentiation of chest diseases by the discovery of\nauscultation. His was the greatest work ever done in clinical\nmedicine. The solution of the meaning of the multitude of sounds that\ncan be heard in the human chest required a genius for observation, and\nalmost infinite patience. Laennec spent twelve years at the task, and\nthen published his books on the subject. Practically nothing of\nimportance has been added to his methods and results in the more than\nthree-quarters of a century of active attention that has been given to\nmedicine since that time. Laennec did not expect that his discovery\nwould be taken up by his contemporaries. He even refers to the cool\nreception which had been given to {404} Auenbrugger's work, and\ndeprecates the fact that a man who had done so much for mankind should\nhave met with such neglect and lack of appreciation, and even the\ncontempt of his colleagues in medicine, who could not bring themselves\nto think that his method of \"drumming on the chest,\" as they called\nit, could ever mean much for the recognition of disease. [Footnote 47]\n\n[Footnote 47: Makers of Modern Medicine, by James J. Walsh, M.D.,\nPh.D., LL.D. Fordham University Press, New York, 1907.]\n\nIn the preface of his book Laennec, like Auenbrugger, prophesies that\nhis work will not receive the attention that it deserves, and attempts\nto lessen the effect of the derision that will be meted out to it by\ncalmly stating his expectation of it. It is curious that both of these\nmen, one of them a German and the other a Frenchman, one of them a\nrather stolid Styrian, the other of the lively Celtic nature of the\nBretons, should in turn have realized, at a distance of a thousand\nmiles and more than half a century from one another, just what the\nattitude of the men of science was to be toward their discoveries,\neven though those are of a kind that were eventually to be hailed as\namong the most important steps in medical progress ever made. Certain\nwords of Laennec's preface are an echo of Auenbrugger's expressions.\nHe said:\n\n  \"For our generation is not inquisitive as to what is being\n  accomplished by its sons. Claims of new discoveries made by\n  contemporaries are likely, for the most part, to be met by smiles\n  and mocking remarks. It is always easier to condemn than to test by\n  actual experience.\"\n\nMany people are accustomed to think that, after the spirit that came\ninto the world with the French Revolution, men were less prone to\nlisten to authority or cling to old-fashioned notions, and that\nliberalism of mind is to be found written large on many pages of\nnineteenth century scientific history. One of the great scientists of\nthe first part of the last century was Dr. Thomas Young, to whom we\nowe so much with regard to the theory of light waves and the existence\nof the ether to carry them. Men absolutely refused to listen to this\nidea at all at the beginning, though now it is the {405} groundwork of\nmost of our thinking and of nearly all of our mathematical\ndemonstrations with regard to the movement of light. They not only\nrefused, however, but they expressed their scorn of the man who\ninvented such a cumbrous theory. Dr. George M. Gould, in one of the\nvolumes of his Biographic Clinics, has told the story of Dr. Young's\ncareer, and I prefer to present it in his words rather than my own.\n\n  \"A practicing physician, Young, as early as 1801, hit upon the true\n  theory of the luminiferous ether, and of light and color, which\n  nearly a century before had been discovered by Robert Hooke. But his\n  scientific contemporaries would not see it, and to avoid persecution\n  and deprivation of practice, Dr. Young was compelled to publish his\n  grand discoveries and papers anonymously. Published finally by the\n  Royal Society (one can imagine the editor's smile of superior wisdom\n  over such trash), they were as utterly ignored as were those of\n  Mitchell, Thompson and Martin as to eyestrain, two or three\n  generations later. Arago finally championed Dr. Young's theory in\n  the French Academy, but the leaders, LaPlace, Poissin, Biot, etc.,\n  denounced and conquered, and not until 1823 would the Academy allow\n  the publication of Fresnel's papers on the subject; in about\n  twenty-five years the silencers were themselves silenced. But Young\n  had been silenced too; his disgust was so great that he resigned\n  from the Royal Society, and devoted himself to his poor medical\n  practice and to deciphering Egyptian hieroglyphics.\" (In which, by\n  the way, as might be expected I suppose, he made a distinguished\n  name for himself.)\n\nMany another important medical discoverer in the nineteenth century\nfound the truth of Auenbrugger's and Laennec's expressions, and met\nthe fate of Jenner and Young. Next to vaccination for small-pox,\nprobably the most important advance in nineteenth century medicine was\nthe discovery of the cause of puerperal fever, and the consequent\ndiminution of the death-rate from that very fatal disease. At one time\nin the nineteenth century, it was much more dangerous for a woman to\nhave a child in a lying-in hospital in Europe than to go through an\nattack of typhoid fever. The death-rate was at least 10 per cent. When\nit was {406} reduced to five per cent, the hospital authorities felt\nquite self-complacent about it. Shortly after the beginning of the\nsecond quarter of the nineteenth century, there began to come\nglimmerings of the real cause of the affection. It was not due to\nsomething from within the patient, but was caused by a _materies\nmorbi_ introduced from without. Usually the physician in attendance\nwas responsible for the introduction of it. He came to these patients\nafter contact with septic cases of various kinds improperly cleansed.\nThe consequence was that he infected them, and puerperal fever was\ncontracted.\n\nIt would seem as though the medical profession would be very ready and\nwilling to test any such simple explanation of the origin of a serious\ndisease, and if possible secure its diminution. On the contrary, the\nold men proved to be so wedded to the notion that the physician could\nnot possibly be the cause of this serious condition, that they were\nvery bitter in their denunciation of those who tried to introduce the\nnew idea. One distinguished old professor of midwifery declared very\nsuperciliously that, of course, it was a very charming thing for a\nyoung poet to insist on the notion that these serious diseases were\nnot associated necessarily with the beautiful function of maternity\nitself, but were extraneous factors quite apart from it; but there was\nno doubt, he declared, that the affection came from within, all the\nsame, and that the youthful poet's idea was only a pleasant fiction.\nThe poet in the case was Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, and, needless to\nsay now, though he was laboring under the heinous crime of being a\nyoung man, and did indulge in occasional poetry, he was entirely in\nthe right, and the distinguished old professor entirely in the wrong.\nNo little denunciation was heaped upon the devoted head of Holmes,\nhowever, for his strenuous humanitarian work with regard to this\nsubject. It cost Holmes some of his medical friends and not a little\npractice for some time. Even in America, then the land of the free,\nthere was a strong conservatism that made the introduction of new\nideas a very difficult and almost a dangerous thing.\n\nThe man who worked out the same idea to a practical {407} effect in\nEurope met with even more determined opposition than did our own Dr.\nHolmes. I refer, of course, to Semmelweiss, who, while teaching\nobstetrics in Vienna, realized that it was the students and doctors\nengaged in pathological work at the same time that they were taking\nout their courses in obstetrics, who caused the havoc among the\npatients in his (obstetrical) department in the hospital. The\ndeath-rate in the hands of these obstetrical attendants, who came\ndirectly to the lying-in department from their work in pathology, was\nsometimes as high as one in five. Semmelweiss insisted that this state\nof affairs must cease, and that while the students were doing the\npathological work they must not be allowed to attend obstetrical\ncases. This at once raised a storm of opposition in the university.\nPoor Semmelweiss lost his position as a consequence of it. In the\nmidst of the rancorous discussion that followed, Semmelweiss lost his\nreason also for a time, and had to be cared for in an insane asylum.\nIt is well recognized that his beneficent discovery was for him the\ncause of many years of unhappiness.\n\nNor must it be thought that it is only with regard to medical\ndiscoveries that such opposition--bitter, personal, rancorous and\npersecutory--can be aroused. While it might be thought that the great\nminds in the ordinary natural sciences would have no reason for the\npersonal element which more or less necessarily enters into medical\ndiscussion because men had been applying for gain the notions that now\nare proved to be incorrect, and their reputations have been made on\nsuch applications, to think that all was placid and quiet in the\nphysical sciences would be a serious mistake. Long ago Virgil asked in\na famous line, \"Is it possible that there can be such great wrath in\ndivine minds?\"--\"_tantaene animae celestibus irae_\"--and we might be\ntempted to ask, can there be such foolish intolerance on the part of\nscientific teachers? but the answer would be the same in each case.\nVirgil found that the gods were very human in this respect, and anyone\nwho knows the history of science knows the scientists are like the\npagan dieties, when their conservative spirit is aroused, and when\nthey are up in arms, as they fondly think, to protect their beloved\nscience from foolish innovators.\n\n{408}\n\nA typical example of the sort of opposition which a modern discoverer\nin science meets with is to be found in the life of Ohm, after whom,\nbecause of his discovery of the law of electrical resistance, the unit\nof resistance is called. When he made his discovery Ohm was working in\nthe Gymnasium at Cologne. The leading physicists of the day could not\nbring themselves to believe that this comparatively young man--he was\nscarcely forty at the time--could have made a discovery that went far\nbeyond their knowledge. His paper on the subject was discussed rather\ncoldly and without any recognition of the far-reaching significance of\nthe work that he had accomplished. A distinguished representative of\nthe University of Berlin criticised it severely. As the law was\nadvanced on mathematical as well as experimental grounds, the opinion\nof the university authorities at Berlin was looked upon as extremely\nimportant, since at the time mathematics was the _forte_ there. The\nminister of education took his cue from the authorities at Berlin. Ohm\nand his friends urged his appointment to a university position. This\nwas not only refused, but was rejected in such terms that Ohm offered\nhis resignation as a teacher. His resignation was accepted with\nregrets by the ministry, but with a distinct expression that Ohm must\nnot expect other than a gymnasium position. The consequence of this\nmisunderstanding was that other teaching institutions in Germany would\nnot give him a place on their staff, because of the danger of\nmisunderstanding with the ministry of education. Ohm had to accept a\nprivate tutorship in mathematics in Berlin and a few hours of teaching\nin a military school, for which he was paid three hundred thalers a\nyear. This would be something over $200 in our money, though money was\nworth, in buying power, probably two or three times as much as it is\nat the present time. Six precious years of Ohm's life, at the very\nacme of his powers as an investigator, were thus spent away from the\nlarger educational institutions and their opportunities for research,\nbecause men would not accept the great discovery that he had made, and\ncould not be brought to understand that a genius might come along to\nrevolutionize all their thinking, though he did his work from an\nobscure position, and practically attracted no attention {409} before\nhe found this wonderful clue to the maze of electrical science, which\nmeant so much for the elucidation of difficulties hitherto insoluble.\n\nAlways men find some excuse other than their own unwillingness to\nconfess that they were wrong. It is to this that they object, and not\nthe acceptance of the new truth. In the course of writing the\nbiographies of the Makers of Modern Medicine, published last year, and\nthe Makers of Electricity, which is now preparing for the press, one\nfact proved to be very striking. It is that discoverers of really\ngreat truths are practically always what we would call young men, and\nwhat older men are apt to think of as scarcely more than mere boys.\nSuch men as Morgagni, the Father of Pathology; Laennec, the Father of\nPulmonary Diagnosis; Stokes, who taught us so much about the lungs;\nand Corrigan, who laid the foundation of exact knowledge in heart\ndiseases,--were under twenty-five when they made their primal\ndiscovery, and some of them scarcely more than twenty. Vesalius\npublished his great work on anatomy when he was not yet thirty, and\nStensen did his best work under twenty-five. When such men attempt to\nteach their elders, of course they are properly put in their places by\ntheir elders, and this often includes a good deal of bitter satire and\ndiscouragement. It is the eternal conflict between youth and age that\nconstitutes the main reason for opposition to progress in any form of\nknowledge, for youth will be progressive and age will be conservative.\nUnfortunately age often dissembles the reasons for its opposition even\nto itself, and religion and common sense and supposedly established\nprinciples of science are all appealed to as contradicted by the new\ndoctrine introduced by young men, the truth of which their elders\ncannot see.\n\nNor must it be thought that the second half of the nineteenth century\nwas free from this tendency to persecute those who made advances in\nmedicine. There is probably no form of treatment which, in the minds\nof those who know most about the disease, that has done more to save\nawful suffering in mankind than the Pasteur treatment for rabies.\nAnyone who knows anything about the history of the introduction of\nthat treatment will not be likely to forget how much of pain {410} and\nsuffering the discovery and introduction of it cost its author.\nNothing too bitter could be said by the medical profession of Germany\nfor many years after the treatment was first broached. One of the most\ndistinguished of German medical discoverers in the nineteenth century\nsaid, in a very climax of satire, \"that the distinguished Frenchman\ndeserved to be well known as one who treated diseases of which he knew\nnothing by remedies of which he knew less.\" His good faith was\nimpugned, his statistics scorned, his results laughed at, even his\nfriends hesitated to say anything on the subject. Those who were close\nto Pasteur know that he suffered, for his nature was of the most\nsensitive, veritable torment because of this bitter opposition, which\nat one time, because his French colleagues also were sceptical of his\ntreatment, threatened to impair the usefulness of our greatest\ndiscoverer in nineteenth century medicine and leave him without that\nsupport which would enable him to go on with his precious\ninvestigation.\n\nThe more recent furore against antitoxin is still in many persons'\nminds. Physicians who used it, and in whose cases serious results took\nplace, not the consequence of the antitoxin, but the consequence of\nfactors of the disease over which they had no control, sometimes\nsuffered seriously in their practice. All forms of opposition were\naroused against it. Even at the present time one still hears of the\ncrime, as some do not hesitate to call it, of injecting the serum of a\ndiseased animal into the veins of the human being, and above all a\nlittle child. There are men (intelligent men!) who do not stop short\nof tracing all sorts of disease incidents that happen after such an\ninjection, even many years later, to the evil effects of the horse\nserum employed. Such people are exercising that superstitious fanatic\nfaculty which at all times has caused the obstinately conservative to\nseek and find the most serious objections to any new doctrine,\ncareless of the consequences that they might bring on the discoverer\nor the benefit they might prevent for the mass of humanity.\n\nOriginally vaccination was opposed by certain clergymen on the grounds\nof theological objection to its use. At the present time most of such\nobjection has ceased, {411} It is still clergymen, however, who are\nthe most prominent among the anti-vaccinationists, though now they\nusually find biological and pathological, instead of theological\nreasons. They proclaim it a crime against nature, from the biological\nstandpoint, that the disease of an animal should be conveyed to man,\neven for protective purposes. At the present time one can find just as\nbitter objections to vaccination in anti-vaccination journals as when\nthe subject was first brought under discussion. Men must find some\nreason for their opposition, and they take the weapon that is handiest\nand that they are able to use with best effect. In an era when\ntheological ideas were dominant, theology was ready at hand for this\npurpose, but any other ology will do just as well, and the history of\nscience, even in the present day, will show that always some ology,\nregardless of human feelings, is used quite as ruthlessly and as\ncruelly as in the olden days. There are tortures of spirit that are\nworse than prison or even fire.\n\nWhen we recall how few examples there are of opposition to science on\nthe part of ecclesiastics, and how most of these prove on careful\nexamination to be due to misunderstandings rather than to actual\ndesire to prevent the development of science, the stories of the way\nin which discoveries in science were received in more modern times\nbecome a striking lesson that makes us appreciate the broad-mindedness\nand liberal policy of ecclesiastical educators in the olden time. They\nwere evidently much more ready to accept novel ideas, and much less\nprone to set themselves up in opposition to them, than the educational\nauthorities of more modern times. This is the phase of the history of\neducation in the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth centuries that\ndeserves the most careful study, and that should make modern educators\nfeel proud of their kinship with these old founders and patrons in\neducation, who at the same time furnish an example of liberality of\nmind that it would be very beneficial to have in our modern supposedly\nfree universities.\n\nFor while we are prone to be proud of our academic freedom, we have\nhad more than one example in recent times of how dangerous it is for a\nman, even though he may be recognized as an authority in his\ndepartment, {412} to treat certain economic questions from a\nstandpoint that is not favored by the rest of the faculty, or by the\nBoard of Governors, or, above all, by certain munificent patrons of\nthe particular educational institution. Much has been said about\nreligious educational institutions, about the middle of the nineteenth\ncentury, so hampering the work of men in the physical sciences,\nespecially with regard to problems in geology and evolution, as to\nnullify progress. Just this same thing, however, is true with regard\nto many economic questions, because of the attitude of educational\ninterests with regard to free trade and protection, single tax, and\nsocialism and the like. No professor of science at a religious\ninstitution ever felt himself more in the grip of old-fashioned\nnotions than do certain professors in departments of finance and\nsociology with regard to problems that are now of the most profound\ninterest. Men have changed the reason for their conservatism, but the\nconservatism itself remains, and apparently always will remain. This\nis what must be realized when the stories of ecclesiastical opposition\nto progress are told.\n\n\n{413}\n\n\nAPPENDIX II.\n\nLatin text of the Papal bulls and decrees which are given in English\nin the body of this book. These documents are taken from Tomassetti's\nBullarium, except the decree of John XXII. with regard to alchemies,\nwhich is taken from the Corpus Juris Canonici, Tome II., Lyons, 1779.\n\n\nI.\n\nBull of Pope Boniface VIII. with regard to burials, which is supposed\nto have been misconstrued into a prohibition of dissection.\n\n  De Sepulturis, Bonifacius VIII. Corpora defunctorum exenternantes,\n  et ea immaniter decoquentes, ut ossa a carnibus separata ferant\n  sepelienda in terram suam, ipso facto sunt excommunicati.\n\n  Cap. I. Detestandae feritatis abusum, quem ex quodam more (Alias,\n  _modo_) horribili nonnulli fideles improvide prosequuntur, nos piae\n  intentionis ducti proposito, ne abusus praedicti saevitia ulterius\n  corpora humana dilaceret, mentesque fidelium horrore commoveat, et\n  perturbet auditum, digue decrevimus abolendum. Praefati namque\n  fideles hujus suae improbandae utique consuetudinis vitio\n  intendentes, si quisquam ex eis genere nobilis, vel dignitatis\n  titulo insignitus, praesertim extra suarum partium limites debitum\n  naturae persolvat, in suis, vel alienis remotis partibus sepultura\n  electa; defuncti corpus ex quodam impiae pietatis affectu\n  truculenter exenterant, ae illud membratim, vel in frusta immaniter\n  concidentes, ea subsequenter aquis immersa exponunt ignibus\n  decoquenda. Et tandem (ab ossibus tegumento carnis excusso) eadem ad\n  partes praedictas mittunt, seu deferunt tumulanda. Quod non solum\n  Divinae majestatis conspectui abominabile plurimum redditur, sed\n  etiam humanae considerationis obtutibus occurrit vehementius\n  abhorrendum. Volentes igitur (prout officii nostri debitum exigit),\n  illud in hac parte remedium adhibere, per quod tantae abominationis,\n  tantaeque immanitatis, et impietatis abusus penitus deleatur, nec\n  extendatur ad alios; Apostolica auctoritate statuimus, et ordinamus,\n  ut cum quis cujuscumque status, aut generis, seu dignitatis\n  exstitent: in civitatibus, terris, seu locis, in quibus catholicae\n  fidei cultus viget, diem de caetero claudet extremum circa corpora\n  defunctorum hujusmodi abusus, vel similis nullatenus observetur, nec\n  fidelium manus tanta immanitate foedentur. Sed ut defunctorum\n  corpora sic impie, ac crudeliter non tractentur, et deferantur ad\n  loca in quibus viventes eligerint sepeliri, aut in civitate, castro,\n  vel loco ubi decesserint, vel loco vicino ecclesiasticae sepulturae\n  tradantur ad tempus, ita, quod demum incineratis corporibus, aut\n  alias ad loca ubi sepulturam eligerint, deportentur, et sepeliantur\n  in eis. Nos enim si praedicti defuncti executor, vel executores, aut\n  familiares ejus, seu quivis alii cujuscumque ordinis, conditionis,\n  status aut gradus fuerint etiam si pontificali dignitate\n  praefulgeant, aliquid contra hujusmodi nostri statuti, et\n  ordinationis tenorem praesumpserint attentare defunctorum corpora\n  sic inhumaniter et crudeliter pertractando, vel faciendo pertractari\n  {414} excommunicationis sententiam (quam exnunc in ipsos plurimos)\n  ipso facto se moverint incursuros, a qua non nisi per Apostolicam\n  sedem (praeterquam in mortis articulo) possint absolutionis\n  beneficium obtinere. Et nihilominus ille, cujus corpus sic inhumane\n  tractatum fuerit, ecclesiastica careat sepultura. Nulli ergo, etc.\n  Datum Latera. XII. Calen. Martii, Pontificatus nostri anno VI.\n\n\nII.\n\nDecree of Pope John XXII. forbidding alchemies, by which he prohibited\nthe pretended making of gold and silver, but is claimed to have\nhampered the progress of chemistry.\n\n    De Crimine Falsi Titulus VI. I Joannis XXII. [circa annum 1317 Avenioni]\n\n  Alkimiae hic prohibentur, et puniuntur facientes et fieri\n  procurantes: quoniam tantum de vero auro et argento debent inferre\n  in publicum, ut pauperibus erogetur quantum de falso et adulterino\n  posuerunt. Et si eorum facultates non sufficiunt, poena per judicis\n  discretionem in aliam commutabitur, et infames fiunt. Et si sint\n  clerici beneficiis habitis privantur et ad habenda inhabiles\n  efficiuntur. (Vide Extravagantem ejusdem Joannis quae incipit\n  \"Providens\" et est sub eodem titulo collocata.)\n\n  Spondent quas non exhibent divitias, pauperes Alchimistae; pariter\n  qui se sapientes existimamt in foveam incidunt quam fecerunt. Nam\n  haud dubie hujus artis Alchimiae alterutrum se professores\n  ludificant; cum suae ignorantiae conscii, eos, qui supra ipsos\n  aliquid hujusmodi dixerint, admirentur: quibus cum veritas quaesita\n  non suppetat, diem cernunt, facultates exhauriunt; idemque verbis\n  dissimulant falsitatem, ut tandem quod non est in rerum natura, esse\n  verum aurum vel argentum sophistica transmutatione confingant; eoque\n  interdum eorum temeritas damnata et damnanda progreditur, ut fictis\n  metallis cudant publicae monetae characteres fidis oculis, et non\n  alias Alchimicum fornacis ignem vulgum ignorantem eludant. Haec\n  itaque perpetuis volentes exulare temporibus, hac edictali\n  constitutione sancimus, ut quicumque hujusmodi aurum vel argentum\n  fecerint, vel fieri secuto facto mandaverint, vel ad hoc scienter\n  (dum id fieret) facientibus ministraverint, aut scienter vel auro\n  vel argento usi fuerint vendendo vel dando in solutum: [illegible\n  letter or or mark] verum tanti ponderis aurum vel argentum poenae\n  nomine inferre cogantur in publicum pauperibus erogandum, quanti\n  Alchimicum existat; circa quod eos aliquo praedictorum modorum\n  legitime constiterit deliquisse: facientibus nihilominus aurum vel\n  argentum Alchimicum aut ipso, praemittitur, scienter utentibus\n  perpetuae, infamiae nota respersis. Quod si ad praefatam poenam\n  pecuniarum exsolvendam deliquentium ipsorum facultates non\n  sufficiant, poterit discreti moderatio judicis poenam hanc in aliam\n  (puta carceris, vel alteram juxta qualitatem negotii personarum\n  differentiam aliasque attendendo circumstantias) commutare. Illos\n  vero qui in tantae ignorantiam infelicitatis proruperint, ut nedum\n  nummos vedunt, sed naturalis juris praacepta contemnant, artis\n  excedant metas, legumque violant interdieta scienter videlicet\n  adulterinam ex auro et argento Alchimico cudendo seu fundendo, cudi\n  seu fundi faciendo monetam; hac animadversione percelli jubemus, ut\n  ipsorum bona deserantur carceri, ipsique perpetuo sint infames. Et\n  si clerici fuerint delinquentes, ipsi ultra praedictas poenas\n  priventur beneficiis habitis et prorsus reddantur inhabiles ad\n  habenda.\n\n\nIII.\n\nBull of Pope John XXII. forbidding certain magical practices, which,\nlike the prohibition of alchemies, protected his flock from {415}\nsharpers of various kinds, sooth-sayers, pretended sorcerers,\nmagicians, _et id genus omne_. This is the bull which Pres. White\nquotes under its Latin title, _Super illius specula_, as if he had it\nunder his eye at the moment of writing, and which he says \"shows Pope\nJohn himself, in spite of his infallibility, sunk in superstition the\nmost abject and debasing; for in this bull, supposed to be inspired\nfrom wisdom from on high, Pope John complains that both he and his\nflock are in danger of their lives by the arts of the sorcerers. He\n(the Pope) declares that such sorcerers can shut up devils in mirrors\nand finger-rings and phials and kill men and women by a magic word;\n_that they had tried to kill him by piercing a waxen image of him with\nneedles in the name of the devil.\"_\n\n\n  Contra immolantes daemonibus, aut responsa et auxilia ab eis\n  postulantes; sive tenentes libros de eiusmodi erroribus tractantes.\n\n  Ioannes episcopus servus servorum Dei, ad perpetuam rei memoriam.\n\n  Super illius specula, quamvis immeriti, Eius favente clementia qui\n  primum hominem humani quidem generis protoplastum, terrenis\n  praclatum, divinis virtutibus adornatum, conformem et consimilem\n  imagini suea fecit, revocavit profugum, legem dando; ac demum\n  liberavit captivum, reinvenit perditum, et redemit venditum, merito\n  suae Passionis, ut contemplaremur ex illa super filios hominum, qui\n  christianae religionis culta Deum intelligunt et requirunt: dolenter\n  advertimus, quod etiam cum nostrorum turbatione viscerum cogitamus\n  quamplures esse solo nomine christianos, qui relicto primo veritatis\n  lumine, tanto erroris caligine obnubilantur, quod cum morte foedus\n  ineunt, et pactum faciunt cum inferno: daemonibus namque immolant,\n  hos adorant, fabricant ac fabricari procurant imagines, annulum vel\n  speculum, vel phialam, vel rem quamcumque aliam magice ad daemones\n  inibi alligandos, ab his petunt responsa, ab his recipiunt, et pro\n  implendis pravis suis desideriis auxilia postulant, pro re faet\n  idissima faetidam exhibent servitutem: Proh dolor! hujusmodi morbus\n  pestifer, nunc per mundum solito amplius convalescens, eccessive\n  gravius inficit Christi gregem.\n\n  1. Cum igitur, ex debito suscepti pastoralis officii, oves\n  aberrantes per devia teneamur ad caulas Christi reducere, et\n  excludere a grege dominico morbidas, ne alias corrumpant: hoc edicto\n  in perpetuum valituro, de consilio fratrum nostrorum, monemus omnes\n  et singulos renatos fonte baptismatis, in virtute sanctae\n  obedientiae, et sub interminatione anathematis, praecipientes\n  eisdem, quod nullus ipsorum aliquid de perversis dictis dogmatibus\n  docere ac addiscere audeat: vel, quod execrabilius est, quomodolibet\n  alio modo, in aliquo illis uti.\n\n  2. Et quia dignum est, quod hi, qui per sua opera perversa spernunt\n  Altissimum, poenis suis pro culpis debitis percellantur: nos in\n  omnes et singulos, qui contra nostra saluberrima monita et mandata\n  facere de praedictis quicquam praesumpserint, excommunicationis\n  sententiam promulgamus, quam ipsos incurrere volumus ipso facto.\n  Statuentes firmiter, quod praeter poenas praedictas, contra tales,\n  qui admoniti de praedictis seu praedictorum aliquo infra octo dies a\n  monitione computandos praefata, a praefatis non se correxerint, ad\n  infligendas poenas omnes et singulas, praeter bonorum [Transcriber:\n  might be \"ponorum\"] confiscationem dumtaxat, quas de iure merentur\n  haeretici, per suos competentes iudices procedetur.\n\n  3. Verum cum sit expediens, quod ad haec tam nefanda omnis via\n  omnisque occasio praecludatur, de dictorum nostrorum fratrum\n  consilio, universis praecipimus et mandamus, quod nullus eorum\n  libellos, scripturas quascumque ex praefatis damnatis errobus\n  quicquam continentes, habere aut tenere vel in ipsis studere\n  praesumat; quin {416} potius volumus, et in virtute sanctae\n  obedientiae cunctis praecipimus, quod quicumque de scripturis\n  praefatis vel libellis quicquam habuerint, infra octo dierum spatium\n  ab huiusmodi edicti nostri notitia computandum, totum et in toto et\n  in qualibet sui parte abolere et comburere teneantur: alioquin\n  volumus, quod incurrant sententiam excommunicationis ipso facto,\n  processuri contra contemptores huiusmodi (cum constiterit) ad poenas\n  alias graviores. Datum Avenione, etc.\n\n\n                             IV.\n\nBull of Pope John XXII. authorizing the institution of chairs of\nmedicine and arts in the University of Perugia. The bull shows John's\ncare for the maintenance of standards in education, and is a\nrevelation by its anticipation of requirements for the Doctor's Degree\nthat we are only now coming to enforce once more.\n\n\n  Erectio cathedrarum medicinae et artium in Perusino Studio, data\n  insuper facultate episcopo licentiandi et laureandi in utraque\n  facultate idoneos, pro quorum examine nonullae sanciuntur leges.\n\n  Ioannes episcopus servus servorum Dei, ad perpetuam rei memoriam.\n\n  Dum solicitae considerationis indagine in mente revolvimus, quam sit\n  donum scientiae pretiosum, quamque illius desiderabilis et gloriosa\n  possessio, per quam profugandur ignorantiae tenebrae, et eliminata\n  funditus erroris caligine, studentium curiosa solertia cursus et\n  actus disponit et ordinat in lumine veritatis; magno nimirum\n  desidero ducimur, ut literarum studia, in quibus impretiabilis\n  margarita scientiae reperitur, laudanda ubilibet incrementa\n  suscipiant: sed in illis praesertim locis propensius vigeant, quae\n  ad multiplicanda doctrinae semina et germina salutari producenda\n  fore magis accommoda et idonea dignoscuntur.\n\n  1. Dudum siquidem felicis recordationis Clemens Papa praedecessor\n  noster, attendens fidei puritatem et devotionem eximiam, quam\n  civitas Perusina, terra peculiaris Romanae Ecclesiae, ad ipsam\n  Ecclesiam ab olim habuisse dignoscitur, et quod illas ad eam\n  successibus temporum de bono in melius augumentarat, dignum duxit et\n  aequitati consonum existimavit, ut civitatem eamdem, quam divina\n  gratia multarum praerogativa bonitatum gratiose dotaverat,\n  concessione generalis Studii insigniret: et ut auctore Deo ex\n  civitate ipsa producerentur viri scientia praepollentes auctoritate\n  apostolica statuit, ut in ea esset Studium generale, illudque\n  vigeret ibidem perpetuis futuris temporibus in qualibet facultate,\n  prout in literis praedecessoris eiusdem inde confectis plenius\n  dicitur contineri.\n\n  2. Ac subsequenter nos, licet immeriti, ad apicem Summi Apostolatus\n  assumpti, civitatem eamdem propter suae devotionis insignia quibus\n  se dignam Apostolicae Sedis gratia exhibebat, uberiore dono gratiae\n  prosequi cupientes, auctoritate apostolica de fratrum nostrorum\n  consilio, venerabili fratri nostro episcopo Perusino et\n  successoribus eius episcopus _Perusinis_, qui essent pro tempore,\n  impertiendi personis ad hoc idoneis docendi licentiam in iure\n  canonico et civili iuxta certum modum in literis nostris expressum,\n  liberam concessimus potestatem, prout in eisdem literis nostris\n  plenius et seriosius continetur.\n\n  3. Considerantes igitur, quod eadem civitas propter eius\n  commoditates et conditiones quamplurimas est non modicum apta\n  studentibus, ac propterea concessiones huiusmodi ob profectus\n  publicos, quos exinde provenire speramus, ampliare volentes,\n  apostolica auctoritate statuimus ut si qui processu temporis in\n  eodem Studio fuerint, qui etiam in medicinali scientia et\n  liberalibus artibus scientiae bravium assecuti, sibi docendi\n  licentiam, ut alios liberius erudire valeant, petierint in\n  perpetuum, in praedictis medicinali scientia et artibus examinari\n  possint ibidem et in eisdem facultatibus {417} titulo magisterii\n  decorari: statuentes, ut quotiens aliqui in praedictis medicina et\n  artibus fuerint doctorandi, praesententur episcopo Perusino, qui pro\n  tempore fuerit, vel ei, quern ad hoe praedictus episcopus duxerit\n  deputandum, qui magistris huiusmodi facultatis, in qua examinatio\n  fuerit facienda, in studio eodem praesentibus, qui ad minus quatuor\n  numero in examinatione huiusmodi esse debeant, convocatis eos\n  gratis, et difficultate quacumque sublata, de scientia, facundia,\n  modo legendi, et aliis, quae in promovendis ad doctoratus seu\n  magistratus officium requiruntur, examinari studeat diligenter; et\n  illos, quos idoneos repererit, petito secrete magistrorum eorumdem\n  consilio, quod utique consilium in ipsorum consulentium dispendium\n  vel iacturam revelare quomodolibet districtius prohibemus, approbet\n  et admittat, eisque petitam licentiam largiatur: alios minus idoneos\n  nullatenus admittendo, postpositis gratia, odio vel favore.\n\n  4. Ut autem in praedictis medicina et artibus praefatum Studium\n  tanto plenius coalescat, quanto peritiores doctores in huiusmodi\n  suis primitiis ibidem caeperint actu regere etdocere, statuimus,\n  quod usque ad triennium vel quatriennium aliqui doctores, duo ad\n  minus, qui in medicinali scientia in Parisien, vel Bononien, aut\n  aliis famosis generalibus Studiis honorem receperint doctoratus, ad\n  docendum et regendum in scientia medicinae et tres vel duo ad minus,\n  qui in artibus in Parisien. Studio apud maiorem Parisien. Ecclesiam\n  docendi licentiam fuerint assecuti, et saltem per annum rexerint,\n  sue docuerint in Parisien. Studio memorato, ad regendum et docendum\n  in dictis artibus in praefato Perusin. Studio assumantur, qui usque\n  ad quatriennium vel quinquennium, donec praefatum Studium in bonis\n  studentibus laudabiliter progressum acceperit, regant et doceant in\n  eodem.\n\n  5. Circa doctorandos vero in scientia medicinae hoc praecipue\n  observetur, ut huiusmodi decorandi audiverint omnes libros eiusdem\n  scientiae, qui in Bononien. vel Parisien. Studio a studentibus\n  promovendis consueverunt audiri, per septennium, vel qui in\n  logicalibus aut philosophia alias forent sufficienter instructi\n  saltem per quinquennium in scientia praedicta studerint, ita quod\n  saltem tribus annis eiusdem septennii vel quinquenni, ut\n  praedicitur, in medicinali scientia audierint in aliquo Studio\n  generali, et ut moris est, responderint sub doctoribus et\n  extraordinarie legerint libros legi extraordinarie consuetos,\n  servato circa examinationem ipsius in medicinae scientia promovendi\n  more laudabili, qui in talibus erga eos, qui promoventur in\n  Parisien. vel Bononien. Studio observatur.\n\n  6. Circa doctorandos vero in artibus liberalibus etiam observetur,\n  quod studuerint per quatuor vel quinque annos, de quibus saltem\n  duobus annis audierint in aliquo Studio generali: ita videlicet ut\n  in grammatica Priscianum maiorem et minorem, et in dialectica\n  Logicam novam et veterem Aristotelis, ac in philosophia librum de\n  anima, et saltem quatuor libros Ethicorum; et tarn in iis, quam in\n  caeteris aliis liberalibus artibus illos alios libros audierint, qui\n  in Parisien. Studio per promovendos in dicta facultate artium\n  consueverint audiri, servato circa examinationem tarn in communibus\n  quam in propriis ipsius artibus promovendi more laudabili, qui in\n  talibus erga eos, qui promoventur, apud praefatam maiorem Ecclesiam\n  Parisien. observatur.\n\n  7. Verum quia non passim reperiuntur in Studiis, qui omnes huiusmodi\n  libros audierint, praefato Perusin, episcopo suisque successoribus\n  Perusin episcopis, qui pro tempore fuerint, indulgemus, ut in\n  auditione aliorum praefatorum librorum de forma circa licentiandos\n  ipsos in artibus, prout sufficientia eorumdem licentiandorum\n  exegerit et sibi videbitur expedire, auctoritate nostra valeat\n  dispensare.\n\n  8. Illi autem, qui in dicta civitate Perusin, taliter examinati et\n  approbati fuerint, ac docendi licentiam obtinuerint, ut est dictum,\n  ex tunc, absque examinatione vel approbatione alia, regendi et\n  docendi ubique plenam et liberam habeant auctoritate praesentium\n  facultatem, nec a quoquam valeant prohiberi.\n\n  9. Sane ut rite in praefatis examinationibus procedatur,\n  praecipimus, ut tarn {418} episcopus Perusin., qui pro tempore\n  fuerit quam ille, cui praefatus episcopus ex causa rationabili\n  impeditus in hac parte commiserit vices suas, eidem episcopo,\n  propositis tamen, sed non tactis Evangeliis, ab aliis vero\n  corporaliter tactis iurent, quod in hac parte officium suum\n  fideliter exequentur. Volumus autem quod personis, quae per\n  examinationem huiusmodi repertae fuerint idoneae, huiusmodi licentia\n  debeatur impertiri, et quod idem episcopus personaliter, non per\n  vicarium vel substitutum examinationi huiusmodi interesse debeat:\n  nisi esset ex aliqua rationabili causa adeo impeditus quod suam non\n  posset examinationi praedictae personalem praesentiam exhibere: in\n  quo casu eidem episcopo interessendi examinationi huiusmodi per\n  vicarium, vel alium ad hoc idoneum substitutum, tenore praesentium\n  indulgemus: et quod nomini huiusmodi impartietur licentia, nisi, ei,\n  quern omnis vel maior pars doctorum, qui huiusmodi examinationi\n  intererint, approbabunt.\n\n  10. Magistri quoque, regere in eodem Studio cupientes, vel alias\n  inibi residentes, antequam incipiant, praestent in manibus dicti\n  episcopi iuramentum, quod ipsi vocatio ad examinationes easdem\n  venient, nisi fuerint legitime impediti, et gratis sine difficultate\n  dabunt examinatori fidele consilium, qui de examinatis ut digni\n  approbari debeant, aut indigni merito non admitti. Qui vero\n  iuramentum huiusmodi praestare noluerint, nec ad examinationes\n  eorumdem, nec etiam ad aliqua ipsius Studii commoda vel beneficia\n  ullatenus admittantur.\n\n  11. Nulli ergo omnino hominum liceat hanc paginam nostrarum\n  constitutionis, prohibitionis, concessionis, praecepti et voluntatis\n  infringere, etc.\n\n  Datum Avenioni, duodecimo kalendas martii, pontificatus nostri anno\n  v. Dat. die 18 februarii 1321, pontif. anno v.\n\n\n\n                             V.\n\nBull of Pope John XXII. in which he authorizes the foundation of a\nUniversity in the City of Cahors, his birthplace, as a memorial of his\ninterest in the townspeople and a monument of his zeal for education.\n\n  Confirmatio erectionis Universitatis studiorum in civitate\n  Cadurcensi.\n\n  Ioannes episcopus servus servorum Dei, ad perpetuam rei memoriam.\n\n  Cum civitas Cadurcensis, quam excellentiae divinae bonitas\n  multiplicium gratiarum bonis et dotibus decoravit, propter ipsius\n  commoditates et conditiones quamplurimas apta non modicum generali\n  Studio censeatur, nos reipublicae multipliciter expedire credentes,\n  quod in civitate praefata fiat et emanet fons scientiarum irriguus,\n  de cuius plenitudine hauriant universi, litteralibus cupientes imbui\n  documentis, et etiam cultores sapientiae inserantur et provehantur\n  diversarum facultatum dogmatibus eruditi, facundi et undique\n  illustrati, fructum uberem, largiente Domino, suo tempore\n  producturi; attendentes quoque sincerae fidei puritatem, ac eximiae\n  devotionis affectum, quos dilecti filii consules et Universitas\n  eiusdem civitatis ad nos et Romanam Ecclesiam habere noscuntur: ex\n  praedictis causis, porrectis etiam nobis pro parte consulum et\n  Universitatis praedictae humilibus et devotis supplicationibus\n  inclinati, auctoritate apostolica statuimus et ordinamus, quod in\n  civitate praedicta perpetuis futuris temporibus generale. Studium\n  habeatur et vigeat in qualibet licita facultate, quodque praefatum\n  Studium, ac eius Universitas, ac doctores, magistri, licentiati,\n  baccalaurei et scholares pro tempore commorantes causa studiorum\n  ibidem, omnibus privilegiis, liberatibus et immunitatibus, concessis\n  Studio Tholosamensi ac Universitati eius, plene et libere gaudeant\n  et utantur.\n\n  Nulli ergo omnino hominum etc.\n\n  Datum Avenione vii idus iunii, pontificatus nostri anno xvi.\n\n  Dat. die 7 iunii 1332, pont. anno xvi.\n\n\n{419}\n\n                          APPENDIX III.\n\nMEDIEVAL LAW FOR THE REGULATION OF THE PRACTICE OF MEDICINE.\n\nIt is usually presumed that the practice of medicine was on a very low\nplane during the Middle Ages, and that while only little was known\nabout medical science, the methods of practicing the medical art were\ncrude, as befitted an earlier time in evolution before modern advances\nhad come. Any such impression is founded entirely on ignorance of the\nconditions which actually existed. In his studies in the history of\nanatomy in the Middle Ages, Von Toeply [Footnote 48] quotes the law for\nthe regulation of the practice of medicine issued by the Emperor\nFrederick II. in 1240 or 1241. The Law was binding on the two\nSicilies, and shows exactly the state of medical practice in the\nsouthern part of Italy at this time. Everything that we think we have\ngained by magnificent advances in modern times is to be found in this\nlaw. A physician must have a diploma from a university and a license\nfrom the government; he must have studied three years before taking up\nmedicine--then three years in a medical school, and then must have\npracticed with a physician for a year before he will be allowed to\ntake up the practice of medicine on his own account. If he is to take\nup surgery, he must have made special studies in anatomy. The law is\nespecially interesting because of its regulation of the purity of\ndrugs, in which it anticipates by nearly seven centuries our Pure Drug\nLaw of last year. (This law was published in the form here given in\nthe \"Journal of the American Medical Association,\" January, 1908.)\n\n[Footnote 48: Studien zur Geschichte der Anatomie im Mittelalter von\nRobert Ritter Von Toeply. Leipzig, 1898.]\n\n  \"While we are bent upon making regulations for the commonweal of our\n  loyal subjects, we keep ever under our observation the health of the\n  individual. In consideration of the serious damage and the\n  irreparable suffering which may occur as a consequence of the\n  inexperience of physicians, we decree that in future no one who\n  claims the title of physician shall exercise the art of healing or\n  dare {420} to treat the ailing, except such as have beforehand, in\n  our University of Salerno, passed a public examination under a\n  regular teacher of medicine, and been given a certificate not only\n  by the professor of medicine, but also by one of our civil\n  officials, which declares his trustworthiness and sufficient\n  knowledge. This document must be presented to us, or in our absence\n  from the kingdom to the person who remains behind in our stead, and\n  must be followed by the obtaining of a license to practice medicine\n  either from us or from our representative aforesaid. Violation of\n  this law is to be punished by confiscation of goods and a year in\n  prison for all those who in future dare to practice medicine without\n  such permission from our authority.\n\n  \"Since students cannot be expected to learn medical science unless\n  they have previously been grounded in logic, we further decree that\n  no one be permitted to take up the study of medical science without\n  beforehand having devoted at least three full years to the study of\n  logic.\" (Under logic at this time was included the study of\n  practically all the subjects that are now taken up in the arts\n  department of our universities. Huxley, in his address before the\n  University of Aberdeen on the occasion of his inauguration as Rector\n  of that University, said that \"the scholars [of the early days of\n  the universities] studied Grammar and Rhetoric; Arithmetic and\n  Geometry; Astronomy, Theology and Music.\" He added: \"Thus their\n  work, however imperfect and faulty, judged by modern lights, it may\n  have been, brought them face to face with all the leading aspects of\n  the many-sided mind of man. For these studies did really contain, at\n  any rate, in embryo--sometimes, it may be, in caricature--what we\n  now call Philosophy, Mathematical and Physical Science, and Art. And\n  I doubt if the curriculum of any modern university shows so clear\n  and generous a comprehension of what is meant by culture as the old\n  Trivium and Quadrivium does.\" Huxley, Science and Education Essays,\n  page 197. New York, D. Appleton & Co., 1896.--J. J. W.)\n\n  \"After three years devoted to these studies, he (the student) may,\n  if he will, proceed to the study of medicine, provided always that\n  during the prescribed time he devotes himself also to surgery, which\n  is a part of medicine. After this, and not before, will he be given\n  the license to practice, provided he has passed an examination in\n  legal form as well as obtained a certificate from his teacher as to\n  his {421} studies in the preceding time. After having spent five\n  years in study, he shall not practice medicine until he has during a\n  full year devoted himself to medical practise with the advice and\n  under the direction of an experienced physician. In the medical\n  schools the professors shall during these five years devote\n  themselves to the recognized books, both those of Hippocrates as\n  well as those of Galen, and shall teach not only theoretic, but also\n  practical medicine.\n\n  \"We also decree, as a measure intended for the furtherance of Public\n  Health, that no surgeon shall be allowed to practice, unless he has\n  a written certificate, which he must present to the professor in the\n  medical faculty, stating that he has spent at least a year at that\n  part of medicine which is necessary as a guide to the practice of\n  surgery, and that, above all, he has learned the anatomy of the\n  human body at the medical school, and is fully equipped in this\n  department of medicine, without which neither operations of any kind\n  can be undertaken with success nor fractures be properly treated.\n\n  \"In every province of our Kingdom which is under our legal\n  authority, we decree that two prudent and trustworthy men, whose\n  names must be sent to our court, shall be appointed and bound by a\n  formal oath, under whose inspection electuaries and syrups and other\n  medicines be prepared according to law and only be sold after such\n  inspection. In Salerno in particular, we decree that this\n  inspectorship shall be limited to those who have taken their degrees\n  as Masters in Physic.\n\n  \"We also decree by the present law, that no one in the Kingdom,\n  except in Salerno or in Naples (in which were the two universities\n  of the Kingdom), shall undertake to give lectures on medicine or\n  surgery, or presume to assume the name of teacher, unless he shall\n  have been very thoroughly examined in the presence of a Government\n  official and of a professor in the art of medicine.\n\n  \"Every physician given a license to practice must take an oath that\n  he shall faithfully fulfil all the requirements of the law, and in\n  addition, whenever it comes to his knowledge that any apothecary has\n  for sale drugs that are of less than normal strength, he shall\n  report him to the court, and besides he shall give his advice to the\n  poor without asking for any compensation. A physician shall visit\n  his patient at least twice a day, and at the wish of his patient\n  once also at night, and shall charge him, in case the visit does not\n  {422} require him to go out of the village or beyond the walls of\n  the city, not more than one-half tarrene in gold for each day's\n  service.\" (A tarrene in gold was equal to about thirty cents of our\n  money. Money had at least twenty times the purchasing power at that\n  time that it has now. At the end of the thirteenth century,\n  according to an Act of the English Parliament, a workman received 4d\n  [eight cents] a day for his labor, and according to the same Act of\n  Parliament the following prices were charged for commodities: A pair\n  of shoes cost eight cents, that is, a day's wages. A fat goose cost\n  seven cents, less than a day's wages. A fat sheep unshorn cost\n  thirty-five cents; shorn, about twenty-five cents. For four days pay\n  a man could get enough meat for himself and family to live on for a\n  week, besides material out of which his wife could make excellent\n  garments for the family. A fat hog cost twice as much as a fat\n  sheep, and a bullock about six times as much.--J. J. W.) \"From a\n  patient whom he visits outside of the village or the wall of the\n  town, the physician has a right to demand for a day's service not\n  more than three tarrenes, to which maybe added, however, his\n  expenses, provided that he does not demand more than four tarrenes\n  altogether.\n\n  \"He (the regularly licensed physician) must not enter into any\n  business relations with the apothecary, nor must he take any of them\n  under his protection nor incur any money obligations in their\n  regard.\" (Apparently many different ways of getting round this\n  regulation had already been invented, and the idea of these\n  expressions seemed to be to make it very clear in the law that any\n  such business relationship, no matter what the excuse or method of\n  it, is forbidden.--J. J. W.) \"Nor must any licensed physician keep\n  an apothecary's shop himself. Apothecaries must conduct their\n  business with a certificate from a physician, according to the\n  regulations and upon their own credit and responsibility, and they\n  shall not be permitted to sell their products without having taken\n  an oath that all their drugs have been prepared in the prescribed\n  form, without any fraud. The apothecary may derive the following\n  profits from his sales: Such extracts and simples as he need not\n  keep in stock for more than a year before they may be employed may\n  be charged for at the rate of three tarrenes an ounce.\" (90 cents an\n  ounce seems very dear, but this is the maximum.) \"Other medicines,\n  however, which in consequence of the special conditions required for\n  their preparation or for any other reason the apothecary has to have\n  in {423} stock for more than a year, he may charge for at the rate\n  of six tarrenes an ounce. Stations for the preparation of medicines\n  may not be located anywhere, but only in certain communities in the\n  Kingdom, as we prescribe below.\n\n  \"We decree also that the growers of plants meant for medical purpose\n  shall be bound by a solemn oath that they shall prepare medicines\n  conscientiously, according to the rules of their art, and as far as\n  it is humanely possible that they shall prepare them in the presence\n  of the inspectors. Violations of this law shall be punished by the\n  confiscation of their movable goods. If the inspectors, however, to\n  whose fidelity to duty the keeping of these regulations is\n  committed, should allow any fraud in the matters that are entrusted\n  to them, they shall be condemned to punishment by death.\"\n\n\n\n{424}\n\nAPPENDIX IV.\n\nCHURCH DECREES RELATING TO MEDICINE.\n\nBesides the Papal documents referred to in the body of this book and\nquoted in the original in the Appendix to the first edition\nimmediately preceding this, there is a series of decrees of Councils\nand Synods of the Church which are sometimes referred to as\nrepresenting a distinct policy of opposition on the part of the Church\nto science and particularly medical and surgical practice, as if their\npurpose had been to force people to have recourse to prayers and\nrelics and pilgrimages and masses rather than to take advantage of\nmedical knowledge and surgical experience for the relief of their\nills. The Papal documents quoted and discussed in the previous edition\nof this book proved to have no such meaning as was attributed to them\nand the history of the medical sciences as traced, shows that these\nChurch regulations were not misconstrued either in their own or\nsubsequent generations in such a way as to have the effect of\ninterfering with the development of medical science or medical\neducation as has been claimed. Their citation in support of the thesis\nof Church opposition to science, theoretic or applied, is entirely\nwithout justification.\n\nExactly this same thing is true with regard to the other documents\nthat are referred to as having a parallel and confirmatory\nsignificance of Church opposition to medical science, or medical or\nsurgical practice, or medical teaching. It requires no lengthy\nexplanation to see that the decrees referred to are simply\necclesiastical disciplinary regulations, aimed at putting an end to\ncertain abuses that had arisen in religious matters, and well\ncalculated to prevent their further occurrence. The Church authorities\nrecognized as will anyone who understands the circumstances that men\nwho had devoted their lives in religious orders exclusively to the\nwork of religion, should not be permitted to neglect their religious\nvocations because of devotion to some secular profession. They were\nforbidden to practice and to study medicine, but the practice of law\nwas forbidden to them quite as well and for the same reason. There was\nno question of limiting the number of persons who might take up\nmedical study, but all those who had bound themselves for life to\nreligious duties must not withdraw from these to take up secular\noccupations. The case against the Church as opposed to science, and\nabove all medicine and surgery, must indeed be weak {425} when it has\nto be bolstered up by recondite references to documents such as these,\nthe purport of which is so clear and the good sense of which is as\nevident now as it was when they were issued.\n\nEveryone recognizes that absorbing professional occupations such as\nthe practice of medicine or of law keeps men from devoting themselves\nto the intellectual or the spiritual life. The opposite is also felt\nto be the case and there is still a profound distrust of the lawyer or\nthe physician who devotes himself to literature or to any intellectual\navocation, for the feeling is that he cannot be practically successful\nat his profession. This feeling is often a mere prejudice and great\nlawyers and great physicians have often been litterateurs of\ndistinction, but as a rule there is incompatibility between the two\nmodes of occupation. In the medieval period it was felt that there was\nthe same incompatibility between proper devotion to the spiritual life\nand the professions, and as members of religious orders had given up\nworldly affairs and interests in order to devote themselves to\nother-worldliness and had taken vows of poverty, chastity and\nobedience for that purpose, it was sincerely felt that they should not\nengage in gainful occupations and professional work that distracted\nthem from the religious profession which they had taken up. Hence\nthese decrees.\n\nThe only way to make perfectly clear the meaning of these decrees in\ntheir proper place in history both as regards education in general and\nmedical education, is to give the text of the documents in the\naccompanying translation. I owe the text of them to Father Corbett of\nthe Seminary of St. Charles Borromeo at Overbrook, Pa., who supplied\nme with the similar documents for the first edition of this work. The\ntranslations are made from the recognized authoritative edition of the\ndecrees of the Church councils and synods issued at Paris in 1671, the\ntitle page of which reads as follows: \"Sacrosancta concilia ad regiam\neditionem exacta quae nunc quarta parte prodit auctior studio Philip.\nLabaei et Gab. Cossartii, Soc. Jesu Prebyterorum, Tomus Decimus,\n1053--1197, Lutetiae Parisiorum 1671.\" [Footnote 49]\n\n[Footnote 49: I feel that I should say that when there was question of\npublishing these documents I consulted Dr. Garrison, the Assistant\nLibrarian of the Surgeon General's Library at Washington and the\nauthor of the best history or medicine in English, as to the Church\ndecrees that ought to be published in their entirety in order to make\ntheir meaning perfectly clear. I have followed the list suggested by\nhim.]\n\n\n_The Council of Rheims held under Pope Innocent II, A.D. 1131,_ Canon\nVI, forbidding monks or regular canons to study law or medicine for\nthe sake of gain.\n\n{426}\n\n  \"An evil custom as we consider it and detestable has grown up by\n  which monks and regular canons after having received the habit and\n  made their profession, spurning the rule of their blessed masters\n  Benedict and Augustine, learn secular law and medicine for the sake\n  of temporal gain. Inflamed by the fire of avarice they make\n  themselves the patrons of causes [that is the attorneys of legal\n  proceedings] and when they ought to be devoting themselves to\n  psalmody and hymns, confiding in the support of a fine voice and the\n  variety of their pleas, they confound justice and injustice, right\n  and wrong. Imperial constitutions attest that it is absurd, nay even\n  an opprobrium, for members of the clerical order to wish to be\n  skilled in forensic disputation. We decree that violators of the\n  religious life of this kind should fall under the severe judgment of\n  the apostolical authority, for as they have neglected the cure of\n  souls and in no way attend to the purpose of their order, promising\n  health for filthy lucre, they make themselves guardians of human\n  bodies. And since an impure eye is the index of an impure heart and\n  since religion ought not to deal with those things even to talk\n  about which brings the blush of shame to the cheek of honesty, in\n  order therefore that the monastic and canonical order should be\n  preserved inviolably pleasing to God in its holy purpose, we\n  interdict by the apostolical authority that any such proceeding\n  should be allowed hereafter. Bishops therefore and abbots and priors\n  who consent to such an enormity shall be deprived of their own\n  dignities.\"\n\n\n_The Council of Tours held under Pope Alexander III, A.D. 1163,_ Canon\nVIII. That religious should avoid secular studies.\n\n  \"Not only does the envy of the old enemy of mankind bring him to\n  labor greatly to destroy the infirm members of the Church, but he\n  also puts his hand to securing the desirable members of the Church\n  and strives even to supplant the elect according to the saying of\n  the Scriptures 'for the elect are his food.' He plumes himself if he\n  can bring about the fall of many, but especially if he can bring\n  down some more distinguished member of the Church by making him\n  lukewarm. Hence it is that he knows how to transfigure himself after\n  his usual fashion into an angel of light, so that under the pretext\n  of caring for the health of ailing brethren and more faithfully\n  carrying out ecclesiastical business he leads members of the regular\n  religious orders to the study of law and of physical problems which\n  have to be given attention outside of the cloister. For this reason,\n  so that spiritual men under the pretext of science may not again\n  become involved in mundane affairs and themselves lose their\n  interior life while they are thinking to provide for others in the\n  exterior, we have decreed by the assent of the present council in\n  the endeavor to meet this evil, that no one at all after taking the\n  vows of religion or the making of religious profession should be\n  allowed to absent himself from the cloister for the study of\n  medicine and physic. If however he has already absented himself and\n  shall not have returned to his cloister within the space of two\n  months he is to be avoided by all as excommunicate, and if he should\n  presume to try the effect of patronage in no case should {427} he be\n  heard. On his return to the cloister he must always be the last of\n  the brothers in the choir and unless by the special indult or\n  permission of the Holy See must lose hope of all promotion.\"\n\n\n_The Council of Paris, A.D. 1212,_ Second Part, Canon XX.\n\n \"Since certain of the members of the regular orders under the\n pretense of caring for the bodies of ailing brother members and of\n more faithfully managing ecclesiastical affairs, to use the words of\n the Lateran Council, have not hesitated to go out of their cloisters\n to learn mundane law and give themselves to the study of physical\n problems in order to give their time to jurisprudence and medicine\n and on account of that are lacking in the interior life because they\n are devoting themselves to care for external things, we walking\n closely in the footsteps of that council decree that unless within\n the space of two months such students of law and medicine return to\n their cloisters, in spite of the permission of their abbot, which he\n is not empowered to give, they are to be excommunicated and avoided\n by all; and in no case if they should endeavor to use patronage to\n aid them are they to be admitted.\n\n \"We prohibit also anyone who enters the cloister for the sake of\n religion to go out of it in order to go to school; whatever a student\n may wish he should learn in the cloister. Those who are now in the\n schools should within two months return to the cloister.\"\n\n\n_Decree of the Council of Montpellier held under Pope Alexander\nIII, 1162._\n\nSince the proceedings of this Council are not extant the records of it\nare preserved in two monuments. One an Epistle of Pope Alexander to\nthe Bishop of Verona and the other the decrees of the Council of\nMontpellier held in 1195 which enacted similar legislation.\n\n  Cap. 15. \"The Council prohibited besides under the full severity of\n  ecclesiastical discipline any monk or canon regular or other member\n  of a religious order to take up the study of secular laws or\n  medicine. Anyone violating this statute must be canonically\n  published by the diocesan Bishops according to the decree\n  promulgated in this matter under Pope Alexander in the Council of\n  Montpellier.\"\n\nIt has been suggested that this exclusion of monks and religious from\nthe study of medicine by Church ordinance practically shut out all the\nclerics, that is, all the educated men of the medieval period, from\nthe medical profession. Any such idea, however, could only have\noccurred to one who does not realize that at any given time there are\nonly a comparatively few religious and a great many secular clergymen.\nPractically all those who could read and write in the Middle Ages were\nknown as clerks, that is clerics, and were under the protection of the\nChurch, most of them indeed receiving minor orders, and if all the\nclergy were to have been excluded {428} from the medical profession\nthis contention would be true. So far is it from the truth, however,\nthat a number of the great physicians and surgeons of the thirteenth\nand fourteenth centuries belonged to the clerical orders, not a few of\nthem were priests and some of the greatest of them, like Theodoric,\nwere actually bishops. It was only the religious, that is the men who\nhad specially devoted their lives to monasticism, who were forbidden\nto take up the study of medicine because it did not comport with their\nmonastic vocation.\n\nA second series of ecclesiastical decrees that are often referred to\nin the history of medicine are those which concern the relations of\nthe physician and his patient whenever there is danger of death. The\nChurch's duty was to secure the proper dispositions on the part of\nthose who were in danger of death. Physicians sometimes did not let\npatients and their friends know how serious the illness was and as a\nconsequence patients died without the sacraments and rites of the\nChurch. In order to prevent this the Church regulation was promulgated\nthat a physician was bound to have a patient take care of his soul at\nthe same time that his body was being treated. Physicians of the\npresent day, even when they are not themselves Catholics, know how\nmuch of good, even physical good, is done to patients almost without\nexception by the consolations of religion. Instead of being perturbed\nas is sometimes thought by those who have not had experience with the\ncustom, exactly the opposite effect is produced, and patients often\ndrop their anxieties and solicitudes and begin to improve immediately\nafter the reception of the sacraments. They usually submit themselves\nto whatever Providence has in store for them, put off their worries,\nand this factor of itself is eminently therapeutic.\n\nMany a non-Catholic physician obeys these decrees of the Church with\nregard to the summoning of a priest to an ailing Catholic patient\nwithout knowing anything about them. He does it because of his\nexperience that his patients are benefited by the consolations of\nreligion. The wisdom of the Church in the decrees is seen very well by\nthe paragraph in which it is suggested that the reason for having the\nphysician always advise the calling in of a priest is that if this\nadvice is given only when there is serious danger of death many\npatients knowing this will be thrown into a state of depression very\nharmful to them when the suggestion is made.\n\nHow such decrees could be thought in any way to interfere with\nmedicine or its practice, or with the physician and his duties, or,\nabove all, represent any effort on the part of the Church to hamper\nmedical science or discourage patients from having physicians, I {429}\ncannot for the life of me imagine. The idea sometimes suggested that\nthe real reason for this legislation was that the Church did not want\npatients to die before priests were given an opportunity to secure\nmoney for services in the administration of the last rites or for\nmasses for the recovery of the patient and the like, would only enter\ninto the mind of someone who not only did not understand the Church\nand had no experience of Catholics and Catholic life, but who had no\nproper recognition of the place of religion in life as a great source\nof consolation and strength in the face of the mystery of death and\nthe hereafter.\n\nThose who think religion a mere hypocrisy imposed on people by\ndesigning clergy are so lacking in the knowledge that would enable\nthem to judge of the meaning of such decrees that their opinion is not\nworth while considering. It must not be forgotten that these decrees\nare still binding on a Catholic physician, and far from resenting them\nwe welcome them as helps in securing the aid of the consolations of\nreligion for our patients. Many a worried business man suffering from\nsome severe disease like pneumonia or typhoid fever, goes on to\ndevelop a much more favorable mental attitude toward himself and his\naffection after he has seen the priest. The last paragraph of the\nfirst decree also emphasizes the wisdom of the Church and shows how\nmuch of an aid her legislation was in the support of ethical\nstandards, for it forbids under the severest penalties that a\nphysician should ever advise a patient to anything contrary to his\nconscience. This paragraph is also still binding on Catholic\nphysicians.\n\n\n_The Fourth Lateran Council held under Pope Innocent III, A.D. 1215,_\nCanon XII. That the sick should rather provide for the soul than the\nbody.\n\n  \"Since bodily infirmity sometimes proceeds from sin, the Lord\n  himself saying to the ailing man whom he had cured 'Go now and sin\n  no more lest something worse should happen to you,' we declare by\n  the present decree and distinctly impose upon physicians of the body\n  that whenever it shall happen that they are called to ailing\n  persons, they must before all warn and persuade the ailing that they\n  should call in physicians of the soul so that after the spiritual\n  safety of the sick has been provided for he may proceed more\n  healthfully to the remedy of corporeal medicine, since the cause\n  ceasing the effect shall also cease.\n\n  \"This among other things gave cause for this edict that certain\n  people lying on a bed of sickness when persuaded by physicians that\n  they should dispose things for the safety of their souls fall into a\n  condition of despair whence the more easily they incur the danger of\n  death.\n\n{430}\n\n  \"If any one of the physicians after this constitution of ours shall\n  have been published should transgress it he should be kept from\n  entrance to the Church until he shall have satisfied competently for\n  the transgression.\n\n  \"Besides, since the soul is by far more precious than the body, we\n  prohibit under dire anathema that any physician should ever advise a\n  patient to do anything for his corporal welfare that would bring him\n  into danger of losing his soul.\"\n\n\n_The Synodal Statutes of the Church of Mans (the chief town of\nthe Province of Main), A.D. 1247._\n\nOn Communion for the Sick.\n\n  \"It was decreed in the general session and distinctly enjoined on\n  physicians of the body that when they happen to be called to the\n  ailing they must before everything else warn and persuade their\n  patients to call physicians of the soul, in order that after the\n  spiritual safety of the sick one may be provided for they may\n  proceed with more assurance to the remedy of corporal ills. If any\n  physician should transgress this constitution let him be kept from\n  entrance to the Church until he shall have made competent\n  satisfaction.\n\n  \"Besides since the soul is much more important than the body it is\n  prohibited under anathema that any physician should advise a patient\n  anything for his bodily health which might bring his soul into\n  peril.\"\n\n\n{431}\n\nAPPENDIX V.\n\nPAPAL PHYSICIANS.\n\nTo make many sources of information with regard to this vexed question\nof the relation of the Popes to Science more readily available, a\nseries of authoritative references to Papal Physicians so far as we\nknow them and their work during the past seven centuries has seemed to\nme especially needed. Physicians at all times have been interested in\nphases of science besides medicine and have not infrequently made\nimportant discoveries in the non-medical sciences. Their constant\noccupation with scientific subjects in their professional capacity has\nalways given them an open mind for scientific advances. As the Papal\nPhysicians were at all times men chosen because they had reached\ndistinction in medicine, they were usually scholars who thought for\nthemselves and were ready to recognize the new in science in any\ndepartment from which it might be presented. Many of the Papal\nPhysicians made important contributions to other sciences and not a\nfew of them laid important foundations, especially in the biological\nsciences. The fact that the Popes constantly had near them, in the\nconfidential capacity so inevitable between a man and his physician,\nscientists of prestige in their chosen profession, so often the\nteachers of their generation in medicine and almost as a rule\ninterested in the sciences related to medicine and not infrequently in\nphysical science generally, is the best possible evidence not only\nthat there could not be opposition, but on the contrary that there\nmust have been, so far as human assumption may go, a constant\nfavorable attitude of mind of the Popes toward science.\n\nIn my chapter on Papal Physicians in the first edition of this volume\nI gathered such references as would enable me to bring out the\nvaluable services of many of the medical attendants of the Popes to\nmedical and physical science. I was not aware then that a more or less\ncomplete list of Papal Physicians for some five centuries at least had\nbeen published, giving an excellent idea of what they had done and\nwritten in scientific matters. There was no copy of the work in this\ncountry so far as I could learn and it was only after considerable\ndifficulty that I was able to secure the volumes through the kind\noffices of Rev. Father Hagan, S.J., who is the Papal Astronomer in\nRome at the present time. From that {432} work the History of the\nPapal Physicians, originally written by Mandosio at the end of the\nseventeenth century and extended and annotated by Marini at the end of\nthe eighteenth, [Footnote 50] it has seemed worth while to present\nsuch abstracts as will supply ample material for the consultation of\nthose interested in Papal relations to science yet who have not the\nlonger work available for reference. This will show that many of the\nPapal Physicians were, as I have said, leaders in the science of their\ntime, not only in medicine and also the biological sciences generally,\nbut in all departments of physical science.\n\n[Footnote 50: _Degli Archiatri Pontifici_, Roma, Pagliarini, 1784.]\n\n\nNicholas I the Great (858-67).--Almost needless to say the available\nlist of the Papal Physicians does not go back much beyond the\nthirteenth century, though we have the name of one Ursus who is\nmentioned in a very old manuscript, No. 5696 (Fol. 184) of the Vatican\nLibrary. The author of this manuscript work is Anastasius the Abbot\nand he dedicates it to Ursus, Physician, Domestic Prelate of Pope\nNicholas I. Beyond a mention of Ursus by Fioravante Martinello in his\nwork, _Roma ex Ethnica Sacra_, (p. 414), nothing else is known of this\nold-time physician. Even this mention, however, seems to make it clear\nthat there was a physician formally attached to the Papal See thus\nearly in the Middle Ages.\n\n\n\nSylvester II (999-1003), Victor III (1086-87).--In the tenth century\nGerbert, who became Pope under the name of Sylvester II, was famous\nfor his knowledge of medicine as well as other sciences and the close\npersonal friend of men who did much for medical education in France,\nas we have noted in the body of the book. Before the end of the\neleventh century the Abbot Desiderius, as we have said, became Pope\nafter having been for years the intimate friend of Constantine\nAfricanus, to whom we owe the earliest serious development of the\nmedical school of Salerno and the first important medical writings in\nmodern Europe. We owe much of Constantine's writing to Desiderius'\ninspiration.\n\n\nInnocent III (1198-1216), Gregory IX (1227-41), Martin IV\n(1281-85).--With the beginning of the thirteenth century the documents\nfor the history of culture in Europe are better preserved and the list\nof Papal Physicians begins to be more complete. Guy of Montpellier was\nsummoned to Rome to establish the Hospital of Santo Spirito by\nInnocent III just at the opening of the thirteenth century. Richard\nthe Englishman was the physician to the famous Pope Gregory IX, one of\nInnocent's successors in the first half {433} of this century. Another\nEnglishman, Hugo Atratus or Atractus, said to have been from Evesham,\nbecame the physician of Pope Martin II, 1281. Oldoino in his _Athenaeo\nRomano_ mentions a series of books written by this Hugh of Evesham, as\nhe is called in English. They bear the titles _Medicinales Canones_,\nMedical Canons, and _De Genealogiis Humanis_ and there is besides an\n_opusculum_ by him on the work of Isaac the well-known Jewish\nphysician of the Middle Ages \"On Fevers.\" The physicians of Pope\nHonorius IV, Taddeo the Florentine, and of Nicholas IV, Simon a Corde,\nor as he is better known, Simon Januensis, are mentioned in the body\nof the book.\n\n\nBoniface VIII (1294-1303), Benedict XI (1303-04), Clement V\n(1305-14).--In the preface of his great text-book of surgery, written\nin the first half of the fourteenth century, Henry of Mondeville,\nwhose work represents an important landmark in the history of surgery\nthat has been reissued in our own generation in at least two editions,\none in Germany, the other in France, declares that \"I began to write\nthis work ... on the proposal and request of Master William of\nBrescia, distinguished professor in the science of medicine and\nformerly physician to Pope Boniface VIII, and Benedict XI, and Clement\nV, the present Pope.\" This is almost all that we know of William, and\nhe is not mentioned in Mandosio's list of Papal Physicians nor in\nMarini's additions to Mandosio. This is not so hard to understand\nbecause no printed edition of Mondeville, who died untimely from\ntuberculosis and whose work was left unfinished, was issued until our\ntime. If William had done nothing else, however, than stimulate his\nyounger colleague Mondeville to write his great book, which Pagel\nthought it worth while to edit in our generation and to which Gurlt,\nin his History of Surgery, devotes some forty pages, he would have a\nright to a distinctive place in the history of surgery. As it is we\nhave Mondeville's praise of him and as the French professor of surgery\nwas himself one of the most scholarly men of that important period,\nhis opinion is of great value.\n\nAnother of the physicians of Pope Boniface VIII, Angelus Camerinensis,\nis called by Oldoino \"a most learned doctor of medicine (medicus\nabsolutissimus) who made a fortune out of his profession and for many\nyears not only pleased but benefited the students who crowded to hear\nhim.\" The two books from him that we know are on \"The Regimen for\nPreservation from the Pest\" and on \"Protection against Poisons.\"\n\nOne of the most distinguished of the Papal Physicians was Arnold {434}\nof Villanova, who, after having been protected by Pope Benedict XI\nfrom enemies who insisted that his scientific writings were heretical,\nafterwards became the friend and physician of Pope Clement V at\nAvignon. He is the author of a great many writings which have gone\nthrough a number of editions. His works have proved a treasure house\nof quotations from a number of his colleagues in medicine and surgery\nwho lived before his time, from whom nothing has been preserved except\nthese quotations in Villanova. The edition of his works published at\nLyons in 1504 contains some fifty-five different treatises.\n\nOne of the physicians of Pope Clement V, at least he seems to have\nbeen summoned in consultation when the Pope was suffering from a\nsevere illness, the cure of which was attributed to him, was Petrus\nAichspadius. He appears to have been a very Admirable Crichton of\nvarious learning, for Mandosius says of him that \"he was distinguished\nfor his knowledge of the best literature, and as a theologian as well\nas for his virtues, an excellent physician whose reputation had made\nmedicine respected in his time.\" With all this he was the Bishop of\nBasel and after Pope Clement's recovery he was transferred to the See\nof Moguntum by the Pope, who declared that as he was such a happy\ncurer of bodies it seemed only appropriate that he should be given a\nlarger cure of souls.\n\n\nPope John (XXI) XXII (1314-16).--Gentilis Gentilis, said to have been\nthe son of another Papal Physician of the name of Gentilis, was the\nmedical attendant of John (XXI) XXII. His death was due to his\nfaithful devotion to the citizens of Perugia during a time of\npestilence. He is the author of a volume of Commentaries on Avicenna,\nof \"The Best Councils for every Form of Disease of the Whole Body,\" of\na volume \"On Fevers,\" of a treatise \"On Leprosy,\" a monograph \"On\nBaths,\" and of a book that went through many editions after printing\nwas introduced on \"The Proportions of Medicine and the Method of\nInvestigating their Composition and of Knowing the Appropriate Dose of\nEach Medicine.\" This was printed at Padua more than a century after\nhis death and later at Lyons, and there seems to have been another\nedition in the Low Countries. He wrote a series of smaller medical\ntreatises on \"The Activity of Medicines,\" on \"Phthisis\" and on\n\"Medical Dosage.\" He also wrote \"On the Pulse and on Urine\" in a\nvolume of which editions were issued at Venice and at Lyons.\n\nAnother of the physicians of Pope John XXII was Dino del Garbo, a\nFlorentine, the son of Bruno del Garbo, a skilful surgeon and the\ndisciple of Taddeo of Florence. He is sometimes known as {435} Dino\nthe Expounder because of his successful devotion to the exposition of\nGalen and Avicenna. Like many of the physicians of his time he had\ndegrees in both medicine and philosophy and was celebrated for his\nscholarliness. According to Van der Linden, he wrote _De Caena et\nPrandio Epistola_, which was published by Jerome of Cartularius in\n1545; Commentaries on Hippocrates' Nature of the Foetus, Venice, 1502;\na treatise on surgery which was published at Ferrara in 1485 and a\nsubsequent edition at Venice in 1536. His Commentaries on Avicenna and\nthe General Practice of Medicine were published at Venice in 1495 and\nhis book on The Virtues of Simple Medicines, a commentary on the\nSecond Canon of Avicenna, was published at Venice the same year. Dino\nis usually looked upon as one of the most distinguished contributors\nto medicine in the fourteenth century. His son Thomas is said also to\nhave been in the service of the Popes and has written books on The\nReduction of Medicines, a Commentary on Avicenna and a commentary on\nGalen's work \"On Fevers.\"\n\n\nJohn XXII (1316-34), Clement VI (1342-52), Innocent VI (1352-62), St.\nUrban V (1362-70).--Of Guy de Chauliac, physician to the Popes at\nAvignon, enough has been said in the text of this book to make clear\nhow important was his place in the surgery of his time and, indeed, of\nall the modern time. I have written on him more at length in my Old\nTime Makers of Medicine (Fordham University Press), and during the ten\nyears that have elapsed since the writing of the original edition of\nthis volume on The Popes and Science, Guy de Chauliac's fame and\nmerits have come to be recognized everywhere.\n\n\n\nGregory XI (1370-78).--One of the well-known physicians of the Popes\nat Avignon was Jean de Tornemire, known by his Latin name of\nTornamira, the physician of Pope Gregory XI, who on the death of that\nPope went to Montpellier, where he became Dean and Chancellor of the\nMedical Faculty. Gurlt, in his History of Surgery, says that he must\nbe \"counted among the most learned and expert physicians of his time.\"\nHe wrote a commentary on Rhazes and some notes of his on stone in the\nkidney and bladder show how careful an observer he was. His Rhazes was\npublished at Lyons, 1490. His collected works were published in many\neditions in the sixteenth century.\n\n\nUrban VI (1378-89), Innocent VII (1404-06), Martin V\n(1417-31).--Francis Casinus, the son of a noble family of Siena, one\nof the best-known of the physicians of North Italy in the fourteenth\ncentury, was chosen physician to Urban VI in 1378. His son {436}\nFrancis was physician to Pope Martin V, 1417. A brother of Francis\nCasinus, John by name, was Papal Physician to Pope Innocent VII.\nIsadoras Ugurgerius in his work _\"Le Pompe Sanesi\"_ says, \"The Casini\namong the philosophers and physicians of their time held easily the\nfirst place. John lectured on the theory of medicine at Siena about\nthe year 1370 and afterwards was summoned to Rome by Pope Innocent\nVII, by whom he was admitted among his most intimate friends and\ndeclared the guardian and conserver of his health.\" One of John\nCasinus' sons became Cardinal Antonius Casinus, and another,\nBartholomeus, was the Abbot of Valombrosa, while the son of Francis\nCasinus, his brother, became Bishop of Massa and is famous for a\ncollection of manuscripts made during the first half of the fifteenth\ncentury.\n\nAnother of the physicians of Pope Martin V was Andrew Gamuccius, who\nhad also been physician to Pope John XXIII. He was a descendant of a\nnoble family of San Gemignano, well known for scholarship and for the\nnumber of distinguished men who came from it.\n\n\nEugene IV (1431-47) chose as his physician John Baptist Verallus,\ndoctor of medicine and philosophy, to whom he gave besides the title\nof archiater to the Pope that of chief physician of the city. Verallus\nis famous for his work in improving the health of Rome itself and\nrepresents one of the pioneers in public hygiene. At various times\nmost of our modern hygienic regulations were anticipated at Rome. The\nancient Romans had brought in water from a distance, because they had\nexperienced the seriousness of contamination and during the early\nRenaissance the aqueducts which had fallen out of repair were\ngradually restored. The contagiousness of tuberculosis began to be\nsuspected at this time and the idea of intimate contact with patients\nsuffering from disease as a definite cause took shape. In a chapter of\n\"The Century of Columbus,\" Catholic Summer School Press, N. Y., 1914,\nI reviewed some of these anticipations in Italy of our modern hygiene\ndue to thinking physicians, of whom Verallus was one of the pioneers.\n\nAnother of the physicians of Pope Eugene IV was Ludovicus Scarampus.\nHis fame was for surgery rather than medicine, so that it is\ninteresting to learn in spite of the supposed ecclesiastical\nopposition to surgery that Pope Eugene learned to think so much of him\nthat he made him a Bishop and then Archbishop of Florence, and\nafterwards Patriarch of Aquilea with the rank of Cardinal. More than\none distinguished medieval surgeon in Italy had been a colleague in\nthe episcopal dignity. Practically all the historical {437} writers of\nScarampus' time give him a prominent place in their histories.\n\n\nNicholas V (1448-55).--One of the physicians of Pope Nicholas V, the\nRenaissance patron of learning, was Bernard Garzonius, distinguished\nfor his knowledge of philosophy and medicine, who had been professor\nin the medical school at Bologna before being summoned to Rome.\nAlidosio in his volume _I Dottori Bolognesi di Teologia, Filosofia,\nMedicina, ed Arti Liberali_ (page 29) gives an interesting account of\nthe hours and subjects of his teaching at Bologna. At nine in the\nmorning Garzonius lectured on the Theory of Medicine, and in the\nafternoon on the Practice of Medicine. Besides there were special\nlectures on Moral Philosophy probably setting forth the moral\nprinciples of medical practice on the festival days. Garzonius died in\nRome of the pest in 1454, having devoted himself to the care of those\nsuffering from the disease, though the mortality was so high that most\nof those who could, including even not a few of his colleagues in\nmedicine, had left the city.\n\nAnother of the physicians of Pope Nicholas V was Laurentius Roverella\nof Ferrara, of whom his contemporaries speak in the highest praise for\nhis erudition, his ability to teach and the piety and charity of his\nlife. He was for a time professor at the University of Ferrara, but\nafterwards was called to Padua, where his lectures attracted a great\ndeal of attention. He was recalled to Ferrara by the D'Estes in order\nto secure his prestige for his native city and it was from here that\nhe was summoned to Rome to become the chamberlain and physician of\nPope Nicholas V. After the death of Nicholas V he went to Paris,\nlectured there for a time and was crowned with the doctorate. After\nthis he returned to Ferrara and was frequently sent as ambassador to\ndiverse European princes by the Duke of Ferrara. He was also sent as\nambassador for the Popes into France and Hungary. He died at the\nMonastery of Monte Oliveto in the arms of his brother, who was the\nPrior of the monastery, but his body was brought for burial to the\nChurch of St. George in Ferrara. Roverella finds a significant place\nin all the histories of the time.\n\n\n\nCalixtus III (1455-58).--The physician of Pope Calixtus III and Pius\nII was Joannes Serninus. He was a native of Siena, practised for a\ntime in his native city, was offered the position with a good salary\nof public physician to Citta di Castella, then went to Ancona in a\nsimilar position with such success, according to tradition, that his\ncures were considered almost miracles. From here he was summoned by\nPope Calixtus III, and after his death {438} was retained as his\nphysician by Pope Pius II, himself one of the Piccolomini family of\nSiena. After his death his body was transferred to Siena because the\ncity considered that the remains of so great a son should rest in her\nsoil. It is significant that this physician of wide experience in\npublic health matters, whose successful career in helping various\nItalian towns to make conditions more healthy for their citizens gave\nhim a wide reputation, should be the chosen physician of Pope Calixtus\nIII, to whom is attributed a famous Bull, that has never been found\nhowever, against Halley's comet on its appearance in 1456. The\nselection of such a man as Serninus as Papal Physician makes it\nextremely improbable that the Pope should have issued any such\ndocument as is attributed to him. Its issue has been accepted only\nwith the thought that in the middle of the fifteenth century the Pope\nand his court were buried in ignorance of science and above all of\nmedicine and the cause of disease. [Footnote 51]\n\n[Footnote 51: The whole subject of the supposed Papal Bull against the\ncomet is discussed in my sketch of Regiomontanus the father of modern\nastronomy, as he is sometimes called, in \"Catholic Churchmen in\nScience,\" second series, Phila., Dolphin Press, 1909.]\n\nAnother of the physicians of Pope Nicholas V and Calixtus III was\nSimon Tebaldi, who came of a distinguished family, one of whom was a\nCardinal. He is called by the historians of the time an illustrious\nphilosopher and physician of the period.\n\n\n\nPaul II (1464-71).--Christopher of Verona is mentioned by Platina in\nhis life of Paul II as the physician of that Pope, but nothing more is\nknown of him. Jacobus Gottifredus, another of Paul's physicians, is\nbetter known. He taught medicine for a time at Rome, which was his\nnative city, and devoted himself particularly to the practice of his\nprofession. According to tradition he became the most sought after\nphysician of the city and made a large fortune. He had many\narchaeological interests, collected curiosities of all kinds and\ngenerally used the fortune which he made in medicine for cultural\npurposes.\n\nAnother of the physicians of Pope Paul II was Joannes Burgius, who was\nalso a bishop. He is highly praised by his contemporaries, and\nMandosius describes a huge manuscript volume by him preserved in one\nof the libraries in Rome, bearing the title _Secreta Verissima ad\nVarios Curandos Morbos_--The Truest Secrets for Curing Various\nDiseases.\n\nThe fourth of the physicians of Paul II of whom there is record was\nSanctes Floccus, whose activities as writer and physician are summed\nup in the inscription on his tombstone.\n\n{439}\n\n  _\"Flocca Domus, nomen mihi Sanctes, Patria Firmum,\n  Scriptor eram, et medicus Paule Secunde tuus.\"_\n\nThe fifth of the physicians of Paul II was Sebastianus Veteranus, who\nwas also the archiater or chief physician of the city of Rome\naccording to the list given in the appendix of the statutes of the\nRoman College, called _Nomenclatura Medicorum._ He is mentioned by his\ncontemporaries as \"well versed in the serious disciplines of\nphilosophy and medicine and as constantly a diligent, fruitful\ncultivator of them, devoting his life to his studies.\"\n\n\n\nSixtus IV (1471-84).--One of the physicians of Pope Sixtus IV was\nOnofrio de Onofriis. Oldoinus declares him \"a celebrated physician\ngreatly esteemed for the success which he had in the treatment of\npatients and the very large practice which he consequently enjoyed.\"\nHe had been a professor of philosophy and of medicine--the two nearly\nalways went together in these days, unfortunately they do not so often\nany more--at the University of Perugia, where he achieved great\nsuccess. It was from here that he was summoned to be the physician of\nPope Sixtus. He wrote a series of books on medicine and some of his\nlectures were published, though these are not now extant.\n\nAnother of the physicians of Pope Sixtus IV, to whom he dedicated his\nimportant work on food, was John Philip de Lignamine, who had been\nprofessor of medicine at Perugia, where his lectures attracted a large\nfollowing. His book, which appeared at Rome after his office of Papal\nPhysician secured him the leisure for its completion, is \"On Every\nKind of Food and Drink Useful and Harmful For Man with a Consideration\nof Their Prime Qualities\" (_De Unoquoque Cibo, et Potu Utili Homini,\net Novivo, Eorumque Primis Qualitatibus_). [Footnote 52]\n\n[Footnote 52: Lignamine interested himself in the new art of printing\nand was the publisher of a well-known series of finely printed\n_incunabula_.]\n\nOne of the important medical scientists of the end of the fifteenth\ncentury was Benedict of Nursia, whose book _De Conservatione\nSanitatis_ is really an important contribution to medical botany. He\nis placed in the list of Papal Physicians by Mandosius, whose\nauthority is usually unquestioned. Giacobilli is his authority. Marini\nin his comments on Mandosius' work declares that Benedict was not a\nPapal Physician but the ducal physician at Milan, and tells the story\nof his exile from his native country Nursia. He was so distinguished\nfor his medical learning that he became almost at once one of the most\nprominent of the physicians in Milan. There is no doubt, however, that\nBenedict dedicated his book, {440} which is now looked upon as basic\nin the history of medical botany, to Sixtus IV, and the suggestion\nthat he was a Papal Physician seems to have come from the fact that\nthough remaining in the service of the Duke of Milan he was summoned\nin consultation to see this Pope during an illness.\n\n\n\nInnocent VIII (1484-92).--Petrus Leonius, one of the physicians of\nInnocent VIII, finds a place among Paul Jovius' \"Eulogies of Learned\nMen\" and is the author of a commentary on medicine and mathematics and\na treatise, _De Urinis_. He had been a professor of medicine at\nseveral of the important Italian universities and was very well known\nthroughout Italy. He was summoned to treat Lorenzo de Medici and the\nearly death of that illustrious Florentine gave occasion for a good\ndeal of opprobrium for his physician, though the most careful\ninvestigation has shown that there was no reason for criticism of him.\nThe fact that Petrus Leonius had been called as the consultant in\nLorenzo's case shows how thoroughly he was appreciated. One of his\nbiographers suggests of him that he was \"a learned rather than a lucky\nphysician.\" Physicians will probably appreciate that distinction,\nbetter than others.\n\n\nAlexander VI (1492-1503).--The first of the Papal Physicians of Pope\nAlexander VI (Alexander de Espinosa) was like that Pontiff himself of\na family of Castilian origin though long enough in Italy to have\nbecome thoroughly Italianized and even to have received the Roman\ncitizenship. He is mentioned in terms of praise by Baldus Baldi in his\nwork on \"The Oriental Opobalsam.\" Mandosius speaks of him as \"a man of\ngreat erudition endowed with high intelligence and with a great zeal\nfor promoting the health of humanity.\"\n\nGaspar Torella, also a Spaniard, was another of the physicians of Pope\nAlexander VI, and wrote a series of books on the venereal diseases\nwhich attracted so much attention in Italy about this time, and which\nare supposed to have been imported from America, though there is no\ndoubt now of their existence in Europe and in Asia long before. He\nalso wrote a book on \"Portents, Prodigies and Prophecies\" and another\n\"On Diet or the Preservation of Health\" in the form of a dialogue on\neating and drinking which became rather popular. Torella was made a\nbishop under Pope Julius II and his volume on diet is dedicated to\nthat Pope.\n\nAnother of the Papal Physicians of the end of the fifteenth century\nwas Petrus Pintor, a Spaniard from Valencia, who was \"the beloved\nfriend and physician\" of Pope Alexander VI. He wrote a {441}\n\"Compilation of the Opinions of All the Doctors on the Prevention and\nCure of the Pestilence\" (under the word pestilence was included at\nthat time any form of epidemic) which was published at Rome in 1499\nand was very well known by his contemporaries.\n\n\n\nJulius II (1503-13).--One of the Papal Physicians of Pope Julius II\nwas Horatio Lancillotti, of whom it is declared that his whole delight\nwas in books. \"Constantly he was occupied with the thought of helping\nhis patients and he practised medicine with liberality and good will,\nkindly caring for the infirmities of the poor and of friends so that\nhe rendered himself worthy of every praise.\" He is spoken of as a man\nof sublime intellect who gave himself to medicine with his whole\nheart, but whose prudence, wisdom and conduct gave him a reputation\neven beyond that which he enjoyed as a physician. His son was made a\nCardinal by Gregory XIII and other sons of his reached distinction.\n\nAnother of the physicians of Pope Julius II was Scipio Lancillotti,\nthe brother of Horatio just mentioned. It is related of him that once\nwhen the Pope was severely ailing and on the fourth day of his illness\nwas overcome by so deep a coma that for some hours he was considered\ndead, Scipio Lancillotti administered some medicine, and not only\nbrought the Pontiff back to consciousness, but freed him from danger\nof death and restored him sufficiently to take up his work again.\n\nAnother of the physicians of Julius II was Joannes Bodier, whose tomb\nin the Church of Saint Sebastian on the _Via Appia_ outside the Porta\nCapena is well known. He was a scholarly ecclesiastic who because of\nhis intellectual and religious distinction was made the Abbot of the\nMonastery of San Sebastiano by the Pope.\n\nOne hears much of Jewish physicians in attendance on the Popes, but\nthe records do not bear out the generally received opinion that there\nwere many of them. Occasionally there is mention of one and usually he\nis some distinguished medical scientist well known in his time whose\nservices were asked also for the Pope. Evidently even the Christian\nintolerance toward the Jews at this time was not sufficient to prevent\nsuch relations on the part of the Popes. Indeed the tradition of the\nfrequency of Jewish physicians to Popes is probably due to the\nreaction produced by the surprise of finding that there were any\nJewish physicians in attendance at the Papal Court. One of those who\nattended Pope Julius II was Samuel Sarfadi or Sarfati, a Spanish Rabbi\nwho was looked upon as a leader of his people in Rome. It was he who\nas their {442} representative greeted Pope Julius during the\nprocession when the Pontiff took possession of the city and in\naccordance with the ancient usage presented him with a copy of the Old\nTestament. Julius' reply was in the formula of the Roman Ordo\ncommending the Law but condemning the religious practice that did not\ngo beyond the Old Testament, which had reached completion in the New.\nThe Pope and the rabbi continued on terms of intimate friendship and\nas Papal Physician he was able to protect his people and secure them\nin the rights that were more freely granted them at Rome than\nelsewhere in Europe.\n\n\n\nPius III.--One of the Papal Physicians of Pius III was Antonius\nPetrutius, Doctor of Philosophy and of Medicine, of whom Mandosius in\nhis Lives of the Papal Physicians says that \"he was the most excellent\nphysician of his time.\"\n\n\nLeo X (1513-21).--One of the physicians of Pope Leo X who served also\nin the conclave after his death was Dioscorides da Velletri, to whom\nwe owe a series of monographs on medicine that are of special\ninterest. He wrote on diet, _De Ordine Cibandi;_ on diagnosis, _De\nCognitione Naturae Aegritudinis_ (literally on the recognition of the\nnature of disease), and on stone in the kidney, _De Lapide Renum._\n\nAnother of the physicians of Pope Leo X was Bartholomeo of Pisa. He is\nmentioned by Carolus Cartharius in the _Athenaeo Romano_ as a\nphysician of great skill. He was professor in the Roman Archigymnasium\nand is the author of an Epitome of the Theory and Practice of Medicine\nissued at Florence early in the sixteenth century. This epitome is\nsaid to have been of special service because it contained in brief a\ngreat deal of information gathered from books and illustrated by\nBartholomeo's own experience.\n\nStill another of the physicians of Pope Leo X was Bernardinus\nSperonius, a Paduan by birth and a professor of high esteem in the\nUniversity of Padua. Angelus Portenarius in his work _Della Felicita\ndi Padova_ says of him that he was a physician of such great skill and\nreputation that Pope Leo selected him for his physician while he was\nlecturing at Padua, and Bernardinus felt himself highly honored by the\nselection and accepted the post.\n\nThe fourth of the physicians of Pope Leo X was Jerome Sessa, Doctor of\nPhilosophy and Medicine, who was afterwards the particular friend and\nphysician of Pope Paul IV. He is the author of a treatise on medical\nmatters, _De Re Medica_, and was singularly respected for his kindness\nto the poor, and for the {443} self-sacrifice with which he gave\nhimself to the more difficult duties of his profession.\n\nThe fifth physician of Pope Leo X was Clementius Clementinus, noted in\ndistinction from many of his colleagues as a Doctor of Arts and\nMedicine instead of the usual combination with philosophy. Van der\nLinden declares that \"he was second to none in the opinion of Rome and\nthe whole of Italy in his knowledge of medicine though he was at the\nsame time a very celebrated astronomer.\" He had been professor of\nphilosophy and mathematics at Padua. He is the author of a work on The\nPrecepts of Medicine published by Jacob Mazzocchium at Rome, 1512. He\nalso wrote a work on astronomy, and a monograph on fevers.\n\n\n\nAdrian VI (1522-23), the distinguished Belgian scholar elected to the\nPapacy to succeed Leo X, had the honor of having dedicated to him a\nmonograph, _De Pestilentia_, written by the well-known Bartholomeo\nMontagnana, who is one of the great Renaissance physicians of Italy.\nThe almost equally famous John Battista Elisio dedicated to him his\nwork _De Praesagiis Sapientum,_ On the Prognosis of the Wise. Some of\nAdrian's physicians were among the most widely known members of the\nmedical profession at this time. To one of them, Giovanni Antracino,\nJohn De Vigo dedicated his treatise _De Morbo Gallico_ in words of the\nhighest praise. Latin dedications lend themselves to flattery, but\nwith even all due discount for this, Vigo's expressions show how much\nAntracino must have been appreciated at the time. He praises him for\n\"his singular wisdom, marvellous perspicacity, rightness of judgment\nand serious purpose,\" and recalls that in many consultations where\nthey had been present together Antracino had excelled not only in\nmedical theory, but in medical practice.\n\nAnother of the physicians of Pope Adrian VI was Francesco Fusconi,\nwhose name is sometimes wrongly given as Frasconi. Amato Lusitano\ncalls him \"a most famous physician,\" and Marsilio Cagnati in his work\n_De Aeris Romani Salubritate_ notes that Francesco was the first to\nrecognize that starving a fever and especially the malarial fevers of\nthe neighborhood of Rome, though it had been the custom for a long\ntime for physicians to advise it, did much more harm than good. He\ninsisted that the ailing should be more richly nourished and that\nabove all they should be fed on chopped meats which would make it\neasier for them to ingest such quantities as would be good for them.\nCagnati says that many Roman physicians followed this teaching and\nsaved much {444} suffering and many lives. Fusconi is the physician\nwhom Benvenuto Cellini praises for having saved his life. The famous\nsculptor was taken with a very severe fever and the \"first physicians\"\nof Rome were called to see him, among them Master Francesco (Fusconi)\nDa Norcia, who was a very old man, but of great reputation. The fever\nincreased to such a degree that the professors held the disease for\ndesperate, but not Norcia. He took charge of the case and by the most\ncareful treatment succeeded in freeing Benvenuto from an illness which\ndid not seem as though it could possibly come to an end without fatal\nissue.\n\n\n\nClement VII (1523-34), who was of the Medici family, had a number of\nphysicians and on one occasion when ill no less than eight were in\nattendance on him. This gave occasion to the satiric poet Berni to\ndeclare in verse that when the Pope after his recovery went to make\nhis thanksgiving to Our Lady he might indeed have felt that it was a\nmiraculous event to have been saved from the hands of eight physicians\nall at once. At least three of these physicians of Pope Clement are\nfamous in the history of medicine; that is to say, they wrote books\nfrequently referred to by their medical colleagues. One of these,\nAndrea Cibo, or Andreas Cibbo, was also physician to Pope Paul III and\nwill be mentioned under his name. Cibo had been a professor at the\nUniversity of Perugia before being made Papal Physician. One of his\ncontemporaries refers to him as \"the secure health of the sick.\"\nAnother of Clement's physicians was Andrea Turini, who had been a\nprofessor at Pisa. He seems afterwards to have been royal physician to\nLouis XII, King of France. There are two books of his, _De Embrochia_\nand _De Curatione Pleuritidis_ published at Lyons in 1537, in which\nAndrea gives himself the titles of physician and counsellor of the\nPope and the King. Andrea was something of a wit and is quoted in the\n_Facetiae_ of Domenichi. After a visit to Pisa he declared that \"Pisa\nwas a maritime city without fish, having a handsome Cathedral without\na sacristy, a leaning tower which did not fall, a well without any\nbuckets, and a university without professors.\"\n\nLudovico Augeni, another of the physicians of Pope Clement VII, taught\nfor a while at Perugia and is said to have written a book on the use\nof wines in health and disease, but he is famous principally as the\nfather of Orazio Augeni, professor at the Sapienza at Rome, who\ndedicated to his father his commentary on the nine books of Rhazes. A\nnephew of his, Sabastiano, issued a volume, _De Catarrho_, which he\ndedicated to Paul IV.\n\n{445}\n\nOne of the most famous of the Papal Physicians, though he is known\nmuch more for his work in history and literature than in medicine, is\nPaulus Jovius, another of the physicians to Clement VII. His\n\"Histories of Illustrious Men\" and his \"Eulogies of Men Distinguished\nin Letters and in War,\" as well as his other writings, are well-known\nsources of historical material. He is besides the author of a series\nof volumes on natural history that are not so widely known, but\ndeserve a place in the history of science. They include a book on\nRoman fishes and another on marine fishes and shellfish as well as\ndescriptions of Lake Como, of England, Scotland and Ireland and the\nOrkney Islands that have a niche of their own in natural history. He\nhad been the intimate friend of Pope Leo X, Pope Adrian VI made him a\ncanon of the Cathedral of Como and he was one of the close associates\nand a domestic prelate of Clement VII, who assigned him apartments in\nthe Vatican. Jovius made a magnificent collection of memorials of the\nillustrious men whose lives he wrote, and we owe to him the\npreservation of many historical materials that would otherwise almost\ninevitably have been lost.\n\nStill another of the physicians of Clement VII was Matteo Corti, of\nwhom Aller declares that \"he was as great in speech as with the\nscalpel, read the Greek authors and taught his colleagues to prefer\nthem to the Arabs and recalled Galen into the schools.\" He was\nsummoned from Venice to be physician to Pope Clement because of \"the\ngreat reputation for knowledge of disease and skill in the treatment\nof patients that he had gained.\" He is noted for having modified the\nhabits of the Romans by advising them to take less food in the middle\nof the day and to take a better meal at night. This putting back of\nthe principal meal gradually spread in the cities of the world until\nthe present custom of evening dinner became established. He wrote a\nseries of books, but his constant insistence was on the avoidance of\ndisease by careful attention to diet and mode of living rather than by\nthe cure of it. He made it his special boast that many of those who\nfollowed his directions were either not ill for years or else were\nafflicted with but minor ailments. After the death of Pope Clement he\nwas professor of medicine in Bologna and then the physician of Cosimo\nde Medici in Florence and at the end of his life held a professor's\nchair in medicine at Pisa. Ghilinus in his work The Theatre of\nLiterary Men (_Teatro d'Uomini Letterati_) talks of Matteo Corti (in\nLatin, Matthaeus Curtius), as \"a very celebrated doctor of medicine\nwho as a professor was the peer of all and the superior {446} of most\nof his colleagues and who revived with benefit to his students and\ntheir patients the true manner of treating illness according to\nHippocrates and Galen.\" He was looked upon as one of the distinguished\nphysicians of his time. He wrote concerning the manner of dining and\nsupping, (_De Prandio et Coena_), a commentary on Mondino's anatomy\nand a book On Venesection and another On Dosage.\n\n\nPaul III (1534-49).--One of the distinguished consultant physicians of\nthe mid-sixteenth century was Antonio Musa Brasavola (sometimes\nwritten Brasovola), whose years run with the century. His studies were\nmade with the famous Leonicenus at Ferrara. He became the physician in\nordinary and personal friend of Hercules II, Duke of Este, and\naccompanied him to France when the Duke espoused the daughter of Louis\nXII. He was at various times the physician to four Popes and was\ncalled in consultation to Henry VIII of England and Francis I of\nFrance. He devoted himself particularly to medical botany and\npharmacology and was one of the first to hold a professorship in these\nsubjects. He was well known for his life-saving practice of\ntracheotomy and he restored _paracentesis thoracis_ as a standard\nremedy. He introduced the use of _radix chinae_, a kind of smilax\nrelated to sarsaparilla, and put _lignum guiaci_ into the pharmacology\nof the day. He wrote a series of monographs on botanical subjects\nwhich have given him an enduring place in the history of that time. A\ndistinguished group of men were near the Popes in Rome at this time\nwith whom Brasavola was in close relations. They included Eustachius\nthe great anatomist, Columbus, discoverer of the circulation in the\nlungs, Caesalpinus and Fallopius, who was a professor at the\nUniversity of Bologna, that city being at this time in the Papal\nStates.\n\nOne of the great Renaissance physicians and surgeons well known in our\nhistories of medicine for an important contribution to the treatment\nof gunshot wounds, is Alfonso Ferri, a Neapolitan, who, after some\nyears of professorship in surgery in Naples, became the physician of\nPope Paul III. His book, which is founded on his \"experience at home\nand at war,\" went through a number of editions at Rome, at Antwerp and\nFrankfurt and other places, and he was evidently widely read and\nconsidered an important authority. He invented some instruments for\nthe removal of bullets and has many practical hints with regard to the\ntreatment of gunshot wounds. He was the professor of surgery at the\nSapienza, {447} Rome, and has written a volume on the carunculae, or\nhard multiplex tumors, which arise at the vesical neck.\n\nSilvius Zeffiri, another of the physicians of Pope Paul III, is the\nauthor of a volume on \"Putrefaction or The Best Method of Protracting\nLife,\" which was published at Rome in 1536. Zeffiri seems to have\nanticipated the modern popular notion of the putrefactive conditions\nin the human system as one of the most important factors in shortening\nlife, and he discusses various means of preventing them.\n\n\n\n[Illustration: Ferri's Instruments:--20 a, hollow probe or canula with\nscrew; b, canula with rounded end alone; c, screw; 21, 22, Alphonsinum\nor grasping instrument for the removal of foreign bodies; 23, curved\nneedle.]\n\n\n\nAnother of the physicians of Pope Paul III was Andreas Cibbo, Doctor\nof Arts and Medicine, of whom Caesar Crispoltus in his work on\ndistinguished Perugians called _Perugia Augusta_ (Book III, P. 335)\ntells that having lectured for many years on medicine at the\nUniversity of Perugia and practised his profession with great\nreputation, Andreas was called to Rome by Clement VII as Papal\nPhysician, and also occupied that post under Pope Paul III. He\naccompanied Pope Paul on a journey to Nice on the occasion {448} when\nthe Emperor Charles V and King Francis I of France met, and he was\nchosen by special honor to assist at the banquet given these\nsovereigns.\n\n[Illustration: Maggi's Bullet Extractors and Needles:--10, 11, 12,\nshot borer (canula with screw); 11, screw alone; 12, canula alone; 13,\nprotective tube for the introduction of boring instrument; 14, 15,\nlance needles; 16, 17, fistula scalpels.]\n\nAnother of the physicians of Pope Paul III was Jacobus Bonacossus, of\nwhom Mandosius says that \"he was famous for his wide knowledge not\nonly in science, but on all culture subjects, as well as for his\nmagnanimity, his affability of manners and his careful attention in\nhis professional work to the poor as well as to the rich.\" He came of\na distinguished family of Ferrara and is given an important place in\nthe list of \"Illustrious Men of the City of Ferrara\" published by\nAugustin Superbo.\n\nAnother of the physicians of Pope Paul III was Joannes {449}\nFranciscus Emanuelis, also called Manovelli. He is mentioned in the\nvolume of Statutes of the College of Physicians of Florence and was\nlooked upon by his contemporaries, according to Baldo Baldi, as a very\nlearned man whose knowledge was only surpassed by his cultivation of\nthe social virtues. He was a professor at Florence when he was\nsummoned to Rome to become Papal Physician.\n\n\n\n[Illustration: Maggi's Instruments for Gunshot Wounds:--6 a, b, c,\nseparable bullet forceps; 7, bullet spatula; 8, 9, anserine bullet\nforceps, separable and with a screw-crushing arrangement.]\n\n\n\nA very distinguished man who also occupied the post of physician to\nPope Paul III was Thomas Cadimustus, a Belgian, who, after securing\nthe doctorate in medicine and philosophy with distinction at Louvain,\ncame to Rome and soon secured a place among the {450} teachers there\nand attained a reputation for great learning and successful care of\nhis patients. He became Secretary Apostolic as well as physician to\nthe Pope, and evidently enjoyed the close friendship of the Pontiff.\n\n\n\n[Illustration: Some Instruments of Maggi:--1, surgical hook; 2, double\nhook for the extraction of bullets; 3, concave toothed forceps; 4,\nstraight-toothed forceps; 5, crow-beak forceps.]\n\n\nAnother of the physicians of Pope Paul III was Tiberius Palella,\nfamous for his knowledge of medicine and with a special reputation for\ninformation with regard to plants. He is known for his many\nfriendships with men of learning and left behind {451} him the\nreputation, according to Mandosius, of being \"a physician of the\nhighest integrity interested above all in the health of the poor as\nwell as the rich, without envy for others and a constant diligent\nseeker of the right.\"\n\nAnother of the physicians of Pope Paul III who as the great friend of\nthe Jesuits might possibly be expected by those who misunderstand that\nOrder to be opposed to Science, but proves to have been a great patron\nand friend of a whole series of the most prominent scientists of the\ntime, was Joannes Aquilinus, or John of Aquila, a noted Neapolitan\nphysician, who, after acquiring a great reputation in Naples, was\ncalled to the Professorship of Medicine at Pisa when that University\nwas at the climax of its development. There he achieved so great a\nreputation that his contemporaries referred to him as a \"second\nAEsculapius.\" Lacuna, who published a famous edition of Galen in 1548\nwhich went through a series of editions, dedicated one portion of the\nedition to Aquilinus out of deference to his \"love for good\nliterature.\"\n\nAnother of the physicians to Pope Paul III was Franciscus Frigimelica,\nwho, after having acquired extraordinary fame as a teacher, having\nbeen made professor at the University of Padua at the early age of\ntwenty-eight, received offers from many of the Italian princes to\nbecome their physician. De Renzi in his _Storia della Medicina in\nItalia_ says that he refused them all, but yielded to the solicitation\nof Pope Paul III, and seems to have been tempted by the atmosphere of\nintense medical science that had been created at Rome at this time.\nFrigimelica is famous for his study of baths and his treatise on the\nmaking of artificial baths with metallic salts. _De Balneis Metallicis\nArtificio Parandis_ is an early classic in balneology. He also wrote a\nvolume \"On Various Medical Questions,\" a _Pathologia Parva_, and a\nnumber of his consultations were published.\n\n\n\nJulius III (1550-55).--A very important Papal Physician is Maggi, who\nhad been the professor of anatomy and surgery at Bologna, the uncle\nand teacher of the celebrated anatomist Aranzi. He became physician to\nPope Julius III about 1550. His book on gunshot wounds is dedicated to\nPrince Giovanni Battista De Monte, nephew of Pope Julius and\nGeneral-in-Chief of the Papal Army. Gurlt, in his great History of\nSurgery, declares that Maggi was the first who showed very clearly\nthat shot wounds neither caused burning nor poisoning. To demonstrate\nthis he made a series of carefully planned, most ingenious experiments\nand {452} observations which were repeated hundreds of years\nafterwards, but only to confirm his conclusions. His method of\nhandling gunshot wounds was very simple, and he laid the greatest\nweight on treatment directed to permitting the free exit of pus. He\nwas the inventor of a series of instruments, the pictures of which we\nhave and some of which are here reproduced. They show his ingenuity\nand anticipate a good many ideas that are supposed to be much more\nmodern than his time. Gurlt has devoted more than eight pages of\nrather small type to a summarization of Maggi's work so that there is\nno doubt about its great importance in the history of surgery.\n\nAnother of the physicians of Pope Julius III was Hippolytus Salvianus,\na doctor of medicine and of philosophy, of whom one of his\ncontemporaries said that it was doubtful in which of these sciences he\nwas the more learned and whether Hippolytus deserved more praise for\nhis science or his faith or his diligence in caring for the sick. He\nwrote a volume in folio on fishes, illustrated by copper plate\nengravings (Rome, 1555), a volume On Crises as a commentary on Galen\n(Rome, 1558), and a book on aquatic animals (Venice, 1600). He has the\ndistinction also of having ventured successfully in literature and he\npublished poems and comedies which went through a number of editions.\nOne of his sons became a popular Roman physician, the other a poet.\n\nOne of the great Italian anatomists, a pioneer in the development of\nthe biological sciences, was John Baptist Cananus, who was one of the\nmedical attendants of Pope Julius III. His well-known work\n\"Illustrated Dissections of the Muscles of the Human Body,\"\n_Musculorum Humani Corporis, Picturata Dissectio_, Ferrara, 1572, in\nquarto, is one of the precious bibliographic treasures in medicine. He\nwas the first to discover valves in veins, finding them in the azygos,\nand he made a series of original observations on the sense organs\nwhich gave a great stimulus to the development of the minute anatomy\nof these structures at this time.\n\nAnother of the physicians of Pope Julius III was Augustin Ricchi, one\nof the scholarly medical writers of the sixteenth century, whose\nerudite translations enriched the medicine of that time and of\nsubsequent generations. Van der Linden notes that he translated a\nnumber of the books of Galen, adding annotations. They were published\nin Venice shortly after the middle of the sixteenth century. He had a\nwide acquaintance and friendship with the most learned men of his\ntime.\n\n{453}\n\nPaul IV (1555-59).--One of the physicians to Pope Paul IV, of whom it\nis noted that he was also an intimate friend whom the Pontiff loved\nvery dearly, was Jerome Cessa, doctor of medicine and philosophy, who\nwrote a work on medicine and a treatise on religion, and who is said\nto have refused the dignity of cardinal which was offered him because\nhe felt that others worthier might be chosen.\n\nOne of the distinguished physicians of this time was Professor\nAltamare of Naples, of whom De Renzi in his _Storia della Medicina in\nItalia_ tells that when he was compelled to fly from his native\ncountry by political disturbance, he was given a refuge by Pope Paul\nIV, under whose \"wise and benevolent protection\" he was able to\ncontinue his medical work for a time and through whose patronage he\nwas restored to his professorship at Naples. As a mark of gratitude\nAltamare dedicated to Pope Paul IV his book _De Medendis Humani\nCorporis Malts, Ars Medica._\n\n\nPius IV (1559-65).--Alidosius, in his work on \"The Foreign Doctors Who\nHave Been Professors of Theology, Philosophy, Medicine and The Liberal\nArts in Bologna\" (_Li Dottori Forestieri, che in Bologna hanno Letto\nTeologia, Filosofia, Medicina ed Arti Liberali_), mentions John Andrew\nBianchi, a doctor of medicine and the liberal arts, famous for his\nlearning, who taught in the University of Bologna from 1525 to 1561\nwith great success and then was summoned to Rome to be the physician\nto Pope Pius IV to the satisfaction of everyone, for it was felt that\nhe had achieved the highest place in his profession of medicine.\n\nSimon Pasqua, a physician to Pope Pius IV, was the author of a book On\nThe Gout and of a description of his Embassy to Great Britain from\nGenoa in the time of Queen Mary and Philip, but this, unfortunately,\nwas only in manuscript and seems to have been lost.\n\nPompeius Barba, or dalla Barba, was another of the physicians of Pope\nPius IV. He wrote a volume on \"The Immortality of the Soul according\nto the Peripatetic Philosophers\" which was published at Florence in\n1553. Two years later he wrote a commentary on some of the writings of\nPico della Mirandola and nearly twenty-five years later there appeared\nat Venice a dialogue of his \"On Arms and Letters.\" He left in\nmanuscript a book On Baths as well as some poems.\n\nStill another of the physicians of Pope Pius IV was Franciscus\nGymnasius, described by a contemporary (Caesar Mezamici in his\n_Notizie Istoriche_) as \"so distinguished in the profession of {454}\nmedicine that while he was professor in Bologna many of the princes of\nItaly called him in consultation when they were seriously ill and\nconstantly with a happy issue.\" Pius IV called him to Rome, honored\nhim with one of the principal chairs in the Papal University of the\nSapienza, providing a special stipend for him, and made him his\npersonal physician. Gymnasius added to his fame and obtained universal\nesteem in the Curia. His tomb is in the Church of the Minerva at Rome.\n\nA very interesting character at Rome during the later Renaissance was\nJerome Cardan, who though not a papal physician by formal appointment,\nafter wandering all over the world in various capacities, lived his\nlast years at Rome, enjoying a pension from the Pope. He is a type of\nthe many-sided, many-minded man of the Renaissance. In 1524 he\nreceived his degree of doctor in medicine at Padua, practised for ten\nyears and then became professor of mathematics in Milan, and a few\nyears later taught medicine at Pavia, refused the corresponding\nprofessorship at Copenhagen, spent nearly a year with Archbishop\nHamilton of St. Andrews, the primate of Scotland, returned to Italy to\npractise once more, refusing many offers of professorships in foreign\nuniversities, taught for some years at Pavia and then at Bologna and\nspent the last five years of this varied, and at the end rather stormy\ncareer, at Rome living on the Papal bounty. He is one of the great\ngeniuses of the time whose \"vanity, boastfulness, childish credulity,\nsuperstitiousness was bound up with a genius that opened up many new\npaths in science\" (Gurlt). His work meant more for philosophy and,\nabove all, for mathematics than for medicine, but he has an important\nplace in the history of science.\n\nAnother genius who spent some years in Rome about the same time, and\nevidently found it eminently favorable for his work, was Jerome\nMercurialis, who was sent by his native city to Rome on a mission to\nPope Pius IV, when about 32, and secured opportunities for study in\nRome so much to his desires that he spent seven years in medical and\nphilological studies there. After this he was invited to be\nTrincavella's successor at Padua and from here was summoned by the\nEmperor Maximilian II on a consultation to Vienna and richly rewarded\nfor his services. After seven years of medical professorship at Padua\nhe was for some twelve years in a similar capacity at Bologna, which\nwas then a Papal University, and then accepted the call of the Grand\nDuke Cosimo I to Pisa. The Medici were laboring at this time to make\nPisa an important rival in education of Padua and Bologna and {455}\nwere offering alluring salaries and special inducements to the most\ndistinguished teachers in every department. Mercurialis' books on skin\ndiseases, on women's diseases, on the diseases of children and on\ngymnastics, went through many editions and now sell for good prices in\nauction rooms, for he is considered one of the classics of medicine.\n\n\nPius V (1564-72).--One of the physicians and intimate friends of Pope\nSt. Pius V was Placidus Fuscus, who wrote a volume \"On the Use and\nAbuse of Astrology in Medicine.\" Fuscus, according to the inscription\non his tomb, was \"distinguished for his social service, his work at\nthe hospital of the Santo Spirito and among the poor of Rome and\nespecially those in prison.\"\n\n\n\nGregory XIII (1572-85).--As might be expected, the physician of Pope\nGregory XIII, the Pope to whom we owe the correction of the calendar,\nwas a distinguished medical scientist who had been earlier an intimate\nfriend as well as physician to St. Ignatius Loyola the founder of the\nJesuits. His name was Alessandro Trajano Petronio of Castiglione, and\nhe is often mentioned in the medical literature of the time and wrote\na book, _De Victu Romanorum et de Sanitate Tuenda_, \"On The Diet of\nthe Romans and the Preservation of Health,\" which he dedicated to Pope\nGregory XIII. He also wrote a work on \"The Water of the Tiber\" and a\nseries of dialogues on medicine as well as \"Medical Aphorisms\"\n(Venice, 1535.)\n\n\n\nSixtus V (1585-90).--The principal physician of Pope Sixtus V was\nAndreas Baccius, \"who was famous not only as a physician but as a\nphilosopher and a man of erudite and polished intellect.\" Pope Sixtus\noccupied himself with bringing fresh supplies of water into Rome and\nwe have a series of studies of these waters made by his physician. He\nalso wrote on baths and especially on those in the neighborhood of\nRome. There is also a book by him on \"The Wines of Italy and The\nBanquets of the Ancients.\" He was much more than an amateur as an\nantiquary and wrote a book on \"The Origin of the Old City of Cluana.\"\nThere is also a book of his on \"Gems and Precious Stones,\" a volume on\n\"Poisons and their Antidotes,\" as well as a series of shorter\nwritings.\n\nDe Renzi in his _Storia della Medicina in Italia_ tells the story of\nthe earlier career of Baccio. As a younger man he became so deeply\ninterested in his scientific studies at Rome that he did not succeed\nin practising medicine and was in danger even of starving because he\nhad not practical ways. He was rescued by Cardinal Ascanio Colonna,\nwho became his patron and provided him with the {456} opportunity to\ndevote himself to scientific studies without the necessity of thinking\nabout the obligation of gaining his daily bread. Baccio became\ncelebrated for his learning so that according to De Renzi his\n\"profound erudition passed into a proverb in his time.\" His great\nopportunity came, adds De Renzi, when he was made Papal Physician to\nPope Sixtus V.\n\nCastor Durantes, a skilled physician and poet, was another of the\nmedical attendants of Pope Sixtus V. In Giacobilli's catalogue the\nfollowing works are noted--\"Treasure of Health,\" \"On the Nature of\nFood,\" which ran through many editions, the New Herbarium, and\n_Theatrum Plantarum, Animalium, Piscium, et Petrarum_, Venetiis, 1636.\nHis Herbarium was done in verse and besides he wrote a series of poems\nin Virgilian metre which attracted favorable attention from his\ncontemporaries.\n\n\n\nUrban VII (1590-91).--The physician of Pope Urban VII was Demetrius\nCanevarius, who was in his time, according to contemporary\nauthorities, the leading physician of Genoa when he was called to\nRome. He made a magnificent success at Rome, became very wealthy, but\nwas famous for his hospitality, his many friends and the magnificent\nlibrary which he collected, \"filled with all the best books.\" We have\nfrom him a book on \"The Practice of Medicine,\" another on the\n\"Diagnosis, Prognosis and Cure of Fevers\" and a third on \"The\nProcreation of Man.\" Like most of the physicians of his time he was a\nphilosopher as well as a medical scientist and so we have two\nphilosophic monographs from him, one on \"The Origin and Destruction of\nNatural Things,\" another on \"First Principles.\"\n\nCanevari, to use his more familiar Italian name, is famous as one of\nthe great bibliophiles of history. He had a series of the most\nbeautiful bindings made for his books and these have been the precious\ntreasures of collectors ever since. To own a Canevari binding is a\nmuch-prized distinction in the world of rare books.\n\n\n\nInnocent IX (1591).--Malpighi, one of the Papal Physicians of this\nPope, is one of the greatest of medical scientists. His career is\nsketched earlier in this book. Another of his scarcely less\ndistinguished physicians was Lucas Tozzius, who succeeded Malpighi. It\nwould indeed have been difficult to have filled adequately the room of\nso great a predecessor, but while Tozzi's powers of observation and\nscientific genius were not so penetrating as those of Malpighi, his\nbooks probably influenced his own generation of physicians almost more\nthan those of his great scientific predecessor. He wrote a volume on\nthe theory and another on the practice of {457} medicine, wrote\ncommentaries on the aphorisms of Hippocrates and on the medical art of\nGalen, as well as some volumes on philosophy and even lighter\nsubjects. He was looked upon as one of the most talented men in Italy\nof his time and his scholarly erudition made him the friend of learned\nvisitors to Italy from every country in Europe.\n\n\nClement VIII (1592).--Jerome Provenzalis, \"a philosopher of\ndistinction, most expert physician, theologian of great name and yet a\npractical genius of the highest ability who had scarcely his equal in\nhis generation in Italy\" (Mandosius), was the medical attendant of\nPope Clement VIII. One of his books, a treatise on the senses (Rome,\n1597), attracted wide attention in his time and still has a place in\nthe bibliography of the sensations.\n\nAnother of the physicians of Pope Clement VIII was Jerome Rubeus, who\nwrote books on history as well as medicine. He is well known as the\nauthor of a history of Ravenna and its neighborhood and people which\ncontains an account of the Goths, the Lombards and the Italians of the\nearlier Middle Ages from the materials then at hand. He is best known\nin medicine for his \"Annotations on Cornelius Celsus' De Re Medica.\"\nHe wrote a treatise on Destination and a monograph on The Dietetic\nValue of Melons. His book on Destination appeared in editions at\nVenice, at Basel, at Ravenna and probably also at Rome. Rubeus has a\nplace in most of the histories written at this time.\n\nAnother of the physicians of Pope Clement VIII was Jerome Cordella.\nWhile he is highly praised for his knowledge of philosophy and his\nskill in medicine he is better known for his intimate friendship with\nSt. Philip Neri, of whom Cardinal Newman, in the nineteenth century,\nwas so proud to proclaim himself the spiritual son. Jerome was of\nassistance to St. Philip particularly in the magnificent social work\nwhich meant so much for the correction of social abuses at this time\nand, above all, the occupation of youthful minds with higher thoughts.\n\nAmong Zecchius' books, who was another of the physicians to Pope\nClement VIII, is one on \"The Means of Curing Especially Such Fevers as\nArise from Putrid Humors.\" Another is called \"Medical Consultations or\nThe Whole Practice of Medicine Briefly Treated,\" a third is on \"The\nUse of Italian Waters,\" and then besides there are a series of shorter\npapers on Hippocrates' Aphorisms, on Digestion, on Purgation, on The\nLetting of Blood, on Critical Days and on the Morbus Gallicus.\n\nCaesalpinus the Botanist.--Caesalpinus is mentioned in the {458} text\nof the previous edition of this work as a professor at the Papal\nMedical School, the Sapienza, and physician to Pope Clement VIII. In\nthe history of science, however, he should rather be counted among the\nbotanists than the physicians, though there is no doubt that he was\nthe first fully to describe the systemic circulation. Edward Lee\nGreene, in his Landmarks of Botanical History, which is \"A Study of\nCertain Epochs in the Development of the Science of Botany\" (part of\nvolume 54 of the Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, Washington,\n1909), mentions that \"The Caesalpinus system of plant arrangement\nseemed incomparably superior to every one that had preceded it.\"\nLinnaeus in the warmth of zeal for the great Caesalpino had pronounced\nhim \"first in the order of time among real systematists.\" Caesalpinus\nis then one of the great founders of modern botany and his work _De\nPlantis_ is a foundation stone of the science. Gurlt talks of him as\nthe greatest botanist of his century and his work as director of the\nbotanical garden of Pisa did much both for medicine and botany. A\nlittle practical work of his was a Manual of the Practice of Medicine,\nwhich attracted much attention and is in line with the efforts of\nPapal Physicians as a rule to make knowledge available for the use of\nphysicians generally.\n\nStill another of the physicians of Pope Clement VIII was Michael\nMercatus, an intimate personal friend of the well-known social\nreformer St. Philip Neri, whose profound influence on the social life\nof Rome is a matter of history and to whom such men as Newman and\nFaber and the English Oratorians turned with the loving name of Father\nin the nineteenth century. Mercatus wrote a series of instructions on\nthe Pest and his medical volume contains also articles on antidotes\nagainst poisons, the gout and paralysis. Like many of the physicians\nof his century he was interested in Oriental problems and wrote a\nvolume on the obelisks of Rome which was published in 1589 and\ndedicated to Pope Sixtus V. This led to a controversy with Latino\nLatini during which Mercatus published another volume on the obelisks.\nMercatus came of a well-known scholarly family, for his grandfather\nhad been a close friend of Marsilio Ficino and a member of the famous\nPlatonic Academy.\n\nAnother of the physicians of Pope Clement VIII, at least he received\nthe honor of the appointment as Papal Physician, though he could not\ncome to Rome to fulfil its duties because of the approach of age, was\nNicholas Masinus. He is well known for his work on \"The Abuse of Cold\nDrinks,\" which was published in {459} 1587. The custom of gathering\nsnow on the mountains and using it in their wine and other drinks\nduring the summer time, which had been practised by the ancient\nRomans, was revived at the time of the Renaissance and Masinus was\nsure that it was productive of harm to the digestive system.\n\nStill another of the physicians of Pope Clement VIII who deserves\nmention was Jacobus Bonaventura, to whom Athenius of Brussels\ndedicated his edition of the \"Medical Consultations of Jerome\nMercurialis,\" calling him \"a very distinguished man.\" He was a\nparticular friend of Mercurialis, who expressed his opinion of him in\nthe highest terms. He made a great many friends among the nobility of\nItaly and was very dear to the Sovereign Pontiff.\n\nStill another of the physicians of Pope Clement VIII was Julius De\nAngelis, who came of a well-known academic family with many members\ndistinguished in law and medicine. He was professor at Padua for years\nand afterwards at the Sapienza in Rome and was chosen by the Pope to\ngive special lessons for the benefit of physicians and medical\nattendants at the Santo Spirito Hospital in Saxia as it was called. He\nis mentioned in a number of medical works of the time, and in the book\nof the Statutes of the College of Physicians of the City of Rome.\n\n\nPaul V (1605-21).--One of the physicians of Pope Paul V, though at\nfirst he had refused the honor because it is said that as an\nastrologer he had found the stars unfavorable to his acceptance of it,\nwas Pompeius Caimus, from whom we have a number of medical writings.\nVan der Linden, in _De Scriptis Medicis_, and others furnish the list\nof them. He wrote \"On Congenital Heat,\" on \"The Indications of Putrid\nFevers,\" on \"The Recognition and Cure of Melancholia,\" on \"The Nature\nof Science and Its Acquisition,\" \"On Grief,\" a \"Treatise on Human\nLongevity and the Climacteric Years,\" as well as \"Dissertations on the\nAphorisms of Hippocrates, Galen and Avicenna,\" which had been\ndelivered as lectures at Padua, on \"The Nature and Differences of\nWinds,\" and on \"The Early Recognition and the Lengthening of Old Age,\"\nbesides translating and annotating a number of the works of the old\nGreek philosophers and physicians in Latin. It may seem strange that a\nman of such wide erudition and scholarship should still cling to the\ndelusion of astrology, but about this same time Galileo and Kepler\nwere drawing up horoscopes, and in the middle of the eighteenth\ncentury Mesmer's astrological essay was accepted for the degree of\nDoctor of Medicine at the University of Vienna. Caimus, after refusing\nthe chair of {460} medicine at the University of Pisa, to which a\nmagnificent salary was attached, became the physician to Pope Gregory\nXV.\n\n\n\nGregory XV (1621-23).--Vincentius Crucius was another of the\nphysicians of Pope Gregory XV. He had been a professor at Bologna and\nwe have from him his lectures at Bologna on \"Epilepsy or The Comitial\nDisease,\" published at Venice in 1603. Books of his \"On Catarrh,\"\npublished at Ravenna, on \"The More Frequent Diseases of The Head;\nCatarrh, Phrenitis, Lethargy and Epilepsy,\" published at Rome, 1617,\nand \"The More Frequent Diseases of the Chest; Phthisis, Haemoptysis,\nAsthma, Peri-pneumonia, and Pluritis,\" issued also at Rome, a volume\non \"The Diseases of The Stomach\" and a series of volumes of\nConsultations on Medicine, were well known to his contemporaries and\nto succeeding generations. He wrote besides a commentary on Lucretius,\nanother on Hippocrates, a book on Prophylaxis, a volume on Vesuvius\nand a popular work in Italian, all his other works having been in\nLatin, meant to be of assistance to ordinary people in avoiding\ndisease and especially the infectious diseases.\n\nTwo of the Papal Physicians of Gregory XV are the brothers Giovanni\nand Bernardino Castellani. John is the better known and was for years\nthe director of the Hospital of Santo Spirito and received the much\ncoveted title of Roman Citizen for his work for Roman citizens there.\nHe succeeded Elpidiano as lecturer on anatomy and surgery at the\nUniversity of the Sapienza and left a large anatomical work in\nmanuscript with many copper plate engravings, which were never\npublished. The book of his by which he is known is a volume of\ndirections for venesection from the standpoint of the anatomist. It\nwas the custom then for nearly everyone to have himself let blood\nseveral times a year and especially in the spring, somewhat as in our\ntime many people take purgatives. The practices are about equally\nfoolish unless there is some special indication for them. In many\nfamilies the barber-surgeon was called in almost as regularly for this\nand with quite as little anxiety about it as for the cutting of the\nhair. Naturally there had been many mishaps in this practice because\nthe barbers were expert enough but ignorant, and venesection was done\nfrom blood vessels all over the body because one patient thought his\nhead ought to be relieved, another his foot, another his chest, and\nthe like. Castellani's book then, called _Phylacterium_, which I\nsuppose might be translated The Protective, was meant to indicate the\nanatomical landmarks that should guide the barber-surgeon so as to\navoid the danger points. Like so many other of the works of the {461}\nPapal Physicians it was directed to the correction of popular\npractices that were the source of injury and suffering to the people.\nCastellani's book contained directions for the application of cups,\ndry and wet, which was also a popular practice confided to the\nbarber-surgeons at this time, and like blood-letting had been subject\nto many abuses.\n\n\n\nUrban VIII (1623-44).--One of the scholarly Papal Physicians was\nJulius Mancinus of Siena, who secured the much coveted position of\nphysician to the Santo Spirito Hospital in Rome by competition. He\nobtained a great reputation for his ability to make the prognosis of\ndisease and acquired an extensive practice as a consequence. He\naccumulated a great fortune from his practice but lived very modestly\nand used his income partly for the education of ambitious youths of\ntalent who were without the means of securing an education and partly\nin the collection of works of art. He wrote a book on \"The Pictures of\nRome.\" A number of books were dedicated to him, and Antonio Recchi in\nhis scientific work expresses his gratitude to him for the help\nafforded in the collection of plants, animals, and minerals from\nMexico.\n\nTwo of the Papal Physicians of Pope Urban VIII were the uncle and\nnephew Sylvester and Thaddeus Collicola. Sylvester taught medicine at\nthe Sapienza and was a very popular teacher mentioned in a number of\nbooks of the time. Thaddeus had studied law before taking up medicine,\nbut devoted himself entirely to the second profession and Mandosius\nspeaks of him as \"the greatest physician of his time, dear to all the\nlearned men who knew him and to all the good men who were brought in\ncontact with him.\" Thaddeus was evidently a friend of the literary men\nof his time, for he is often mentioned by poets and writers. Several\nbooks were dedicated to him by scientific and literary admirers.\n\n\n\nInnocent X (1644-55).--One of the copious writers among the Papal\nPhysicians was Baldus Baldi, who was the medical attendant of Innocent\nX. We have a series of books from him, one On Contagious Diseases, a\ntreatise on Hippocrates' Suggestions concerning Air, Water and\nHabitation, a book On Pleurisy, a detailed account of the fatal\nillness and the autopsy on the body of Cardinal Bevilacqua and\nacademic lectures on poisons as well as a book on the Opobalsamo\nOrientate.\n\nA distinguished Papal Physician under Pope Innocent X was Paul\nZacchias, \"a most learned philosopher and physician who had a very\nversatile genius and whose deep interest in every form of intellectual\nwork, not only such serious studies as philosophy, {462} medicine,\ntheology and jurisprudence, but also the lighter arts of poetry,\nmusic, painting and so forth, made him distinguished among his\ncontemporaries.\" Zacchias is best known as the author of a book on\nmedico-legal questions which went through a series of editions, was\npublished originally at Rome and afterwards at Lyons in at least two\neditions there. Zacchias wrote a volume on the keeping of Lent in\nwhich he discussed various questions of the relationship of fasting\nand health, which went through several editions and is often referred\nto by the moralists. He also wrote a book on Hypochondriasis. Some of\nhis writings that were widely circulated in manuscript are On Sudden\nand Unexpected Death, On Macules Contracted from the Foetus _in\nUtero_, on Rest in the Cure of Disease, on Laughter and Grief, on a\nPhysical Consideration of The Miracles of Holy Scriptures, and other\nsubjects that might be expected to interest a medico-legal expert who\nwas occupied particularly with the psychology of many human problems.\n\nThe Papal Physicians were not all Italians, indeed Italian as a\nnational designation was almost unused, men were Neopolitans, Genoese,\nVenetians, Paduans, Bolognese, Sicilians, Milanese quite as distinctly\nas now they are French, English, Spanish or whatever else it may be.\nThe Popes usually chose physicians from their own cities but not to\nthe exclusion of others and not a few Papal Physicians were from\noutside of Italy. Pope Innocent X chose Gabriel Fonseca, a Portuguese,\nwhose father had been a teacher of medicine at Pisa and at Padua, and\nwho himself held chairs in medicine at both of these universities\nbefore he was invited to Rome to be a lecturer at the Sapienza and\nPapal Physician. Van der Linden notes among his writings a work on\nmedical economy, _Medici Oeconomia_, and a series of lectures on\nContagious Fevers, as well as a book on Medical Banquets. Fonseca came\nto be looked upon as one of the most distinguished teachers of\nmedicine in Italy in his time.\n\n\n\nAlexander VII (1655-67).--One of the physicians of Pope Alexander VII\nwas Matthias Naldius, Doctor of Medicine and of Philosophy and a man\nof great erudition, a scholar in Latin and in Greek, who knew Hebrew,\nChaldaic and Arabic. He was sent by the Duke of Etruria on a medical\nmission of consultation to the Prince of Damascus, who was suffering\nfrom what seemed to his attending physicians an incurable disease, and\nNaldius was able to relieve him. The incident called attention to him\nall over Italy and he was sent for in consultations to most of the\nItalian cities. He taught at the medical school of Siena, his\nbirthplace, and wrote {463} a series of volumes on medical subjects.\nOne of these is the rather well-known \"Pamphilia or Friendship of the\nWhole World,\" the subtitle of which is \"The Conciliation of the\nOpinions of Disagreeing Philosophers.\" This was published at Siena in\n1647 in quarto. He issued a small volume of \"Rules for the Cure of\nContagious Diseases,\" Rome, 1656. His great work is the _Rei Medicae\nProdromi_, or introduction to medical science, which has for subtitle\n\"Treatise on the Principal Problems of Physiology.\"\n\nA distinguished scientist of the seventeenth century who found Rome a\nrefuge and place of opportunity for his studies at this time when\nbeset with difficulties elsewhere, was Borelli, the first to apply\nmechanical principles to the explanation of physiological problems in\nhis work _De Motu Animalium_. Borelli had been a professor of science\nin Messina, visited Florence for a time in order to be with Galileo\nshortly before the great astronomer's death, accepted the call of the\nDuke of Tuscany to Pisa, where he had as colleagues Redi and Malpighi,\nwith whom he founded the Accademia del Cimento. He left Pisa, not long\nafter, to return to Messina, whence however he had to flee, having\nfallen under the suspicion of taking part in a conspiracy against the\ngovernment, and now found a refuge in Rome. He was pensioned by Queen\nChristina of Sweden, who was then living in the Papal Capital, but\nafter a time he retired to the monastery of San Pantaleone in Rome,\nwhere two years later he died. Professor Foster, in his Lectures on\nthe History of Physiology, which were delivered at a number of\nuniversities in this country and subsequently published in the\nCambridge Biological Series, devotes a whole lecture, some thirty\npages, to \"Borelli and the Influence of the New Physics.\" He does not\nhesitate to say at the conclusion of the lecture that \"when we\nconsider the effect which a perusal of Borelli's book has upon the\nreader now, we can easily understand how he was the founder of a great\nschool which flourished long after him. He was so successful in his\nmechanical solutions of physiological problems that many coming after\nhim readily rushed to the conclusion that all such problems could be\nsolved by the same method. And as is often the case the less qualified\nalike as regards mechanical as well as physiological knowledge and\ninsight to follow in Borelli's path were the men of succeeding times\nthe more loudly did they often proclaim the might of Borelli's\nmethod.\" It has always been thus and doubtless always will be. The\nsmaller men who come after the great masters are quite sure that they\ncan go farther than the master himself and push his system, as did the\nDarwinians in {464} our time, to silly exaggerations. When the\nquestion of the attitude of the Popes to science is under\nconsideration, however, it is well to recall that Borelli's\nrevolutionary work was completed under the aegis of the Popes and a\nreligious order in Rome and the account of it was not actually\npublished in its completed form until after Borelli's death, and then\nat the expense of ecclesiastics. It is the knowledge of details of\nthis kind that gives us a real insight into the significance of\necclesiastical relations to science.\n\n\nInnocent XI (1676-89).--The Papal Physician of this Pope was Floridus\nSalvatorius, to whom the Provost, the Trustees and his Colleagues of\nthe College of Physicians of Rome dedicated, in an Introductory\nEpistle, a volume of the Statutes of the College of Physicians of the\nCity, in which they praised him very highly. He seems to have been a\ngreat favorite with the members of the medical profession in his time\nat Rome, and other books on medicine were also dedicated to him.\n\nAnother of this Pope's physicians was Lancisi, one of the most\nimportant in the list, whose place in the history of medicine is\npointed out in the body of this book.\n\n\n\nAlexander VIII (1689-91).--The physician to this Pope was Romulus\nSpezioli, doctor of philosophy and of medicine of the University of\nFirmo, who acquired a great reputation at Rome as physician and\nfinally was selected as Papal Physician. He became professor at the\nSapienza, the Roman University, and was very popular as a teacher.\nAfter the death of the Pope he gave up his profession of medicine and,\nlike Linacre a century before, became a priest, but his scientific\nknowledge was taken advantage of to enable him to give lectures on\nsubjects in the borderland between religion and medicine, what has\ncome to be called in our time pastoral medicine, to the theological\nstudents at the Roman University, and his medical experience was used\nin the causes of canonization in order to pass on miracles.\n\n\n\nInnocent XII (1691-1700).--Both of the physicians of Innocent XII,\nMalpighi and Lucas Tozzi, are very well known. Malpighi deserves in\nmedical history a place beside Harvey as one of the greatest of the\ncontributors to the medical sciences and probably even a niche higher\nthan the Englishman because of the number of original observations\nthat he made. I dealt with him earlier in this volume. Lucas Tozzi is\nthe author of a series of books on The Theory and Practice of Medicine\nthat are classics. One of these was issued at Lyons in 1731, another\nat Paris in 1737, and a commentary on the Aphorisms of Hippocrates at\nNaples, 1743. He {465} wrote also a commentary on the _Ars Medicinalis\nGaleni_, besides smaller contributions to medical theory and practice.\nOne of his books, with the title _De Anima Mundi_, The Soul of the\nWorld, in which he brings together a large number of the fallacies of\nphilosophic writers before his time regarding the universe and man and\ntheir origin and destiny, was widely read. He suggests not only how\nlittle there is that we know, but how much there is that we think we\nknow that is not so.\n\n\nPope Innocent XII died in 1700, and with the beginning of the\neighteenth century we feel that we are in our own times. Whatever of\ndirect opposition there has been supposed to be between the Popes and\nscience has always been traced to the older times. It was nearly\nalways shrouded in the mists of medieval history. It does not seem so\nimportant then, to follow out the lives of the Papal Physicians in\ndetail in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. For anyone who\nwishes really to know, the information is readily available. There is\nabundant evidence, moreover, of the favorable attitude of the Popes\ntowards the medical sciences and a number of distinguished men are\namong their physicians. The great Morgagni, who in his time was\nundoubtedly the greatest of living physicians, was the intimate friend\nof a number of Popes and was frequently consulted on all scientific as\nwell as medical matters. Both Pope Benedict XIV (1740-58) and his\nsuccessor Clement XIII (1758-69) insisted, as we have said in the body\nof this volume, on having the great pathologist consider the Papal\nPalace always open to him as a place of residence, whenever he visited\nRome. Almost needless to say this same favorable attitude has\ncontinued during the nineteenth century.\n\n\n\nPius VI (1775-99).--Among the physicians who treated Pius VI during\nthe severe physical trials of a stormy pontificate was Professor\nCotugno of Naples, to whom we owe a number of important discoveries in\nmedicine. He was the first to point out the presence of the\ncerebro-spinal fluid and ably supplemented the investigations of\nValsalva on the ear which did so much to clear up many problems in\nconnection with that organ, most of whose anatomy we owe to Italians.\nHe made a careful study of sciatica, _De Ischiada Nervosa_, Vienna,\n1770, which is the classic foundation of our modern knowledge of that\naffection. He made a series of _post-mortem_ observations on typhoid\nfever in which he demonstrated very clearly the intestinal lesions of\nthat affection and came very near solving the important problem of the\npathological basis of the disease. Like a number of others about the\nmiddle of {466} the eighteenth century, in spite of acute observations\non intestinal lesions, he could not get away from the theory of fevers\nbeing constitutional and so was unable to separate abdominal typhus\nfrom dysentery on the one hand, nor true typhus on the other. The\nconstitutional nature of the disease we have come to recognize to some\nextent again after the pendulum had swung very far in the direction of\nthe declaration of its local character.\n\n\n\nPius VII (1800-23).--One of the physicians of Pope Pius VII was\nProfessor Giambattista Bomba, who was professor of physiology at the\nSapienza or Roman University of that time. One of the surgeons in\nattendance at the Papal Court was Antonio Baccelli, the father of\nProfessor Guido Baccelli, the distinguished Italian scientist and\nstatesman of the modern time.\n\nAnother of the physicians of Pius VII was Flajani, to whom we owe the\nfirst description of the affection known as Graves' Disease in\nEnglish-speaking countries, and often as Basedow's Disease on the\nContinent, though the English physician Parry anticipated both of\nthese in 1822. Graves' description did not come until 1835, Flajani's\nhad been published in 1802; Basedow did not write the more complete\ndescription in which he called attention not only to the goitre and\nthe rapid heart action as his Irish and Italian predecessors had done,\nbut also to the exophthalmos, which is so common an accompaniment,\nuntil 1850. Flajani was distinguished for his ability as a clinical\nobserver as his priority in this matter would well suggest.\n\n\n\nGregory XVI (1831-46).--The two of Gregory XVI's physicians who were\nbest known were Professor Paolo Baroni, the distinguished Professor of\nSurgery, the University of Bologna, and Pier Luigi Valentini,\nProfessor of the Theory and Practice of Medicine at the Roman\nUniversity. At the conclave which followed his death for the election\nof his successor, Professor Giusseppe Constantini, the Professor of\nthe Institutes of Surgery at the Roman University, was in attendance.\n[Footnote 53]\n\n[Footnote 63: When the material of the famous Challenger expedition\nwas being assigned for investigation to those who were expected to use\nit to the best advantage of science, the diatoms were handed over to\nthe study of Francesco Castracane degli Anteminelli. He discovered in\nthe material submitted to him three new genera of diatoms, 225 new\nspecies and some thirty varieties. Altogether he had written some 112\npapers on the biology of his favorite microscopic plants. Castracane\nwas a Catholic priest living at Rome in high favor with the\necclesiastical authorities and directly encouraged by the Pope in his\nwork.]\n\n\n\nLeo XIII (1878-1903) was so situated in his relations to the Italian\ngovernment that it would have been almost impossible for him to have\nselected one of the distinguished professors at the {467} University\nat Rome, which was, after all, a government institution. His physician\nthen was chosen from distant Ancona and proved to be a man of distinct\nintellectual capacity, who impressed himself upon the science of Rome\nin certain ways. This was Dr. Joseph Lapponi, whom those of us who had\nthe privilege of meeting remember with special pleasure. He was\nprofessor of practical anthropology at the Academy of the\nHistorico-Juridical Conferences of Rome and the author of a book on\n\"Hypnotism and Spiritism; A Critical and Medical Study,\" which ran\nthrough two or more editions in the original Italian and was\ntranslated into several foreign languages. The English edition\npublished by Longmans is well known.\n\n\n\nPius X (1903-14).--Dr. Lapponi continued as the Papal Physician of Leo\nXIII's successor until his death. Political conditions in Rome having\nbeen modified somewhat Professor Marchiafava of the Roman University,\nnow in the hands of the Italian government, became the consultant\nPapal Physician, the latest of a long line of distinguished men.\nMarchiafava has done some excellent work with regard to malaria,\nworking out the life cycle of the malarial parasite and demonstrating\nthat the organisms of pernicious malaria and the tertian and quartan\nmalarial fevers are quite different. In recent years Marchiafava has\nbeen particularly interested in the pathology of alcoholism, being a\nprominent factor in that movement in Europe which during our time has\nmade it very clear that alcohol is never a stimulant but only a\nnarcotic and that in practically all cases where it is used regularly,\neven though not consumed to excess, it produces definite pathological\nchanges in human tissues.\n\nWith this list before him, the reader will have all the material\nnecessary to understand the declaration that there is no series of men\nwhose names are connected together by any bond in the history of\nmedicine, even as members of the faculty of our oldest medical\nschools, that represent so much achievement and original investigation\nin medical matters as the Papal Physicians. With these men beside them\nas advisers and very often as intimate friends, it would have been\nquite impossible for the Popes to have been deliberate opponents of\nscientific progress. We all know that by a curious irony of fate\nphysicians are sometimes found ranged against the line of advance in\nmedical science, but this is inevitable with human frailty and the\nincidents of opposition have not done nearly so much harm as their\nconservative refusal to listen to enthusiastic discoverers, whose\ndiscovery was of no significance, has done of {468} good. No medical\nsociety in the world has an unblemished record of constant readiness\nto accept genuine new discoveries and all of them have sometime or\nother been in opposition to what proved eventually to be significant\nscientific progress. There are no striking incidents in the lives of\nthe Papal Physicians in this regard though their admiration for\nAristotle, Hippocrates and Galen sometimes kept them over\nconservative. As a rule, however, they were ready to welcome every new\nstep in medical advance that was made.\n\nWe all know how much a man's physician usually means in influencing\nhim with regard to the attitude that he shall assume towards\nscientific advances generally and particularly announced progress in\nthe biological sciences. The Popes could scarcely have had better\nadvisers in this matter than the men who were actually chosen as Papal\nPhysicians. They came from every part of Italy and sometimes even from\nother countries. A library consisting of their works alone would\ncontain an extremely valuable collection of books illustrating nearly\nevery phase of advance in medicine.\n\n\n{469}\n\nAPPENDIX VI.\n\nASTRONOMY AND THE CHURCH.\n\n_Some Roman Astronomers_.\n\nA formal list of Papal Astronomers in any way comparable to that of\nthe Papal Physicians cannot be given. Astronomy is not so compelling\nin its interests as medicine and while man's first serious scientific\ninterest is his body, and the first modern university, that of\nSalerno, was founded around a medical school, the development of\nastronomy as a science was practically delayed until the Renaissance.\nThough a formal list of Papal Astronomers is not available, there is,\nhowever, a long series of names of workers in astronomy at Rome, some\nof whom occupied positions in the Papal capital actually called by\nthat name, with many others who merited it for the work they did with\nPapal aid and encouragement. A large number of astronomical\ninvestigators conducted their researches under the patronage of the\nPopes, often dedicated their books, with permission, to them, were\nfrequently supported by Papal revenues and had their observatories\nsupplied by the Papal government, or else they were in intimate\nrelations with the Papacy and received every stimulus for their\nresearches.\n\nFor special purposes, as the correction of the calendar, distinguished\nastronomers were summoned from long distances to Rome. At the Sapienza\nPapal University and later at the Roman College directly under the\ncontrol of the Jesuits, but with the entire approval and constant\neffective good-will of the Popes, men of great distinction in\nastronomy and mathematics have frequently been professors. Some of the\nvery greatest contributions to the science of astronomy have been\nissued not only with dedications to the Popes, as I have said, but not\ninfrequently have been printed at the expense of the Holy See.\n\nIn the chapter on Papal Physicians I have suggested that no list of\nmen connected by any bond in the history of medicine are so\ndistinguished as the roll of the Papal Physicians. The faculty of no\nmedical school, for instance, no matter how long it may be able to\ntrace its history, contains so many distinguished names. This same\nthing might well be said of the list of men who have done\ndistinguished work in astronomy whose names are in some way {470}\nconnected with the Papacy and whose relations to the Popes make it\nvery clear that far from a determined course of opposition there was,\non the contrary, a definite policy of encouragement and patronage for\nastronomical workers and that this greatly helped the diffusion of\nvaluable scientific information with regard to the heavens and made\nthe ecclesiastics of the world particularly interested in these\nimportant advances in human knowledge. In this appendix, then, as a\ncomplement to the appendix on the Papal Physicians, I have brought\ntogether some of the names and the achievements of astronomers who\nworked at Rome or were in some way connected with the Popes. I know\nthat it is incomplete, but even as it stands it is a strong\nconfirmation of that principle so surprising to many presumably\nwell-informed people that the Popes were, as far as conditions\npermitted, always the patrons, not the persecutors, of scientists in\nall departments of the purely physical as well as biological,\ntheoretic and applied sciences.\n\nIt is sometimes assumed in the modern time, and it used to be the\ncustom a generation ago for nearly everyone in English-speaking\ncountries to assume, that because we knew very little about science in\nthe medieval period it must be because there was very little to know.\nWe have learned the fallacy of that supposition to our cost, by the\nrepublication of the great text-books of medicine and surgery of the\nmedieval period and by the deeper study of such great scholars as\nRoger Bacon, Albertus Magnus and St. Thomas Aquinas. Even the scanty\nrecords that we have show us the Popes following the same sort of\npolicy with regard to education and science as at the present time.\nMen who collected scientific information for academic or popular\ndiffusion, as Isidore of Seville, Albertus Magnus, Thomas of Aquin,\nwere not infrequently raised to ecclesiastical dignities during life\nand placed among the saints after death. Occasionally a distinguished\nscientist like Gerbert, who became Pope Sylvester II, or Petrus\nHispanus the well-known physician, who became Pope John XXI, were even\nmade Popes. It is easy to understand that their attitude as Supreme\nPontiffs towards science would be not only not one of opposition but\nof sympathy and helpful patronage.\n\nWhile as I have said astronomy as a formal science practically did not\ndevelop until the Renaissance, there were a series of important\ndiscussions of the relations of the earth to the other heavenly bodies\nand of the size and shape of the earth itself among the professors of\nthe medieval universities, and the perfect freedom with which these\ndiscussions were carried on shows how unshackled {471} was human\nthought. Albertus Magnus discussed the antipodes, dismissed the notion\nthat if there were men on the other side of the earth they would\nsurely fall off by the thoroughly Socratic remark that we ourselves\nwere on the other side from them yet did not fall off, and understood\nand taught very definitely the rotundity of the earth and other\ndoctrines that are usually supposed to be much more recent, and that\nare often said to have brought their holders into ecclesiastical\nodium. Far from this, Albert was always in high favor and was made a\nbishop and canonized as a saint after his death.\n\nRoger Bacon studied light, declared that it moved with a definite\nvelocity and gathered and made good use in his teaching of an immense\namount of information in the departments of knowledge that we now call\nastronomy and geography. Humboldt declared that it was a passage from\nRoger Bacon which more than anything else, even the Toscanelli\nletters, roused Columbus to his life purpose of sailing westwards.\nRoger Bacon's books, the one with the paragraph now famous because of\nits connection with Columbus among the number, were issued at the\nrequest of the Pope and it seems very probable that we would have had\nno idea of his marvellous anticipation of many modern scientific\ntruths only for the definitely expressed wish of the Pope to know the\nEnglish Franciscan's thought. We have just celebrated the seventh\ncentenary of Roger Bacon's birth, and this has brought home to us how\nmuch of a loss to the history of human culture would have been the\nmissing of Bacon's works. Bacon's difficulties in life were with his\nOrder and were personal matters not directly connected with his\nscience.\n\nWith the beginning of the Renaissance the stimulating effect of the\nstudy of Greek science on the men of the fifteenth century was exerted\nand one of those who was most deeply touched by the Greek spirit was\nCardinal Nicholas of Cusa, or Cusanus, as he is called from the Latin\nname of his birthplace. He wrote a series of books touching many\nmatters in science and treating various phases of mathematics. He\ndwelt particularly on certain problems relating to geography and\nastronomy. I have summed up his scientific career in a chapter of \"Old\nTime Makers of Medicine\" (N. Y., 1911). He taught the rotundity of the\nearth and that the earth was the same sort of a body as the other\nstars in the heavens, that it was not and could not be the centre of\nthe universe and that it had a movement of its own. Far from such\nrevolutionary teaching leading to his persecution or bringing him\nunder the suspicion {472} of the ecclesiastical authorities he was, on\nthe contrary, looked up to for his scholarship, received successive\necclesiastical preferments, became Bishop of Brixen and then Papal\nLegate to Germany for the reform of abuses, and finally a Cardinal. He\ndid much to encourage interest in mathematical, geographical and\nastronomical science, provided opportunities for students, encouraged\nPuerbach and Regiomontanus in their significant pioneer work in\nmathematics and astronomy, and generally showed himself the\nenlightened patron of every movement related to the physical sciences,\nand all the workers with the experimental method.\n\nThe first epoch-making astronomer who was brought into intimate\nrelations with the Pope of whom we have definite knowledge was\nRegiomontanus. He is deservedly known as the Father of Modern\nAstronomy for his initiation of series of calculations and\npublications with regard to the heavens and his establishment at\nNuremburg of a regular observatory. He was summoned to Rome to direct\nthe calculations for the correction of the calendar, but unfortunately\ndied there at the early age of forty. His invitation to Rome for this\npurpose came within the same decade when, if we were to trust certain\nmodern historians of the relations of the Popes to science, Pope\nCalixtus III issued his supposed bull against Halley's comet. The bull\nhas never been found. The attitude of the Popes towards science is\nmuch better illustrated by the invitation to Regiomontanus and the\nencouragement of astronomical research thus afforded than by the\nfictitious bull against the comet. The supposed bull has, however,\nplayed a large role in convincing a number of people of Church\nopposition to science, some of them being professors of science who\nknew nothing about the almost simultaneous appointment of\nRegiomontanus as Papal Astronomer.\n\nToscanelli, over the question of whose influence on Columbus an as yet\nunsettled controversy is waged, was a lifelong friend of Nicholas of\nCusa, they had been schoolmates at College and undoubtedly the great\ncardinal doctor of laws or of decrees as they said at that time, owed\nmuch of his progressive advanced views on scientific subjects to his\nFlorentine friend \"the doctor of physic, Paul Toscanelli.\" Cusanus at\nthe height of his fame dedicated his book on Geometrical\nTransformations \"to Paul the Florentine physician.\" Regiomontanus, as\nwell as Cusa, often sought Toscanelli's opinion on abstruse questions\nof mathematics and quoted him with confidence. The intimate relations\nof Cusanus and Regiomontanus with the Popes of the middle of the\nfifteenth century are very well known. Toscanelli's services to\nastronomy are only {473} less famous than those to cosmography. A\nseries of his careful and painstaking observations and calculations of\nthe orbits of the comets of 1433, 1449-50, of Halley's comet of 1456\nand of the comets of 1457 and 1472 are preserved in manuscript. They\ndemonstrate his profound and successful interest in astronomical\nsubject and it is easy to see that they must have cost him, as indeed\nhe tells in his letters, many a night's watching of the stars. The\nrelations between the ecclesiastical authorities and Toscanelli are\nvery well illustrated by that well-known monument to his astronomical\nskill which still interests visitors so much in the Cathedral of Santa\nMaria del Fiore at Florence. This is the gnomon arranged in the dome\nof the Cathedral by the shadow of which it is said that he could\ndetermine midday to within half a second. The use of the Cathedral for\nthis purpose is interesting testimony to the cordial relations of\nscience and religion at this time. It may be said in passing that\nToscanelli's gnomon was later improved by Cardinal Ximenes of Spain,\nshowing that these cordial ecclesiastical relations with science were\nnot confined to Italy.\n\nWhile Toscanelli was making his observations Antoninus of Florence was\nfor some thirteen years the Archbishop of the city and was one of the\nlearned members of the Dominican Order at this time, who had made his\nnovitiate among the Dominicans with Fra Angelico and Fra Bartholomeo\nthe great Renaissance painters. Antoninus was greatly influenced\nevidently by his associations with Toscanelli and formed one of a\ngroup of men containing the Florentine physician astronomer, Cardinal\nCusanus and Regiomontanus, himself afterwards a bishop, who were on\nterms of intimate relationship at least in scholarly matters at this\nperiod. Archbishop Antoninus, who is the author of a _Summa Theologica\nMoralis_ of which no less than fifteen editions were printed after his\ndeath, wrote also a series of histories in which he shows this\ninfluence by insisting that comets are celestial bodies like the\nothers in the heavens and had no effect on the physical or moral\nconditions of the world and, quite contrary to popular beliefs, were\nnot responsible for war or pestilence nor prophetic of evil to\nmankind. There had been a number of brilliant comets in the heavens\nabout this time and there was consequently a widespread interest in\nthem and much popular superstition with regard to them. Antoninus was\non terms of familiar intimacy with Pope Eugene IV, who insisted on his\nbecoming Archbishop of Florence, though Antoninus would have preferred\nto have remained a simple Dominican and keep his leisure for his\nscholarly work. When the Pope felt his end {474} approaching he called\nAntoninus to Rome to administer the last rites of the Church to him\nand be by his side during his last hours. Antoninus was frequently\nconsulted by Pope Eugene's successors, Nicholas V and Pius II, both of\nwhom were among the scholarly patrons of learning and art at this\ntime. Some fifty years after his death Antoninus was canonized by Pope\nHadrian VI, the scholarly Pope from Utrecht in Holland. His whole\ncareer then shows clearly the relations of the ecclesiastics and\nparticularly the Popes of the time to science in a most favorable\nlight.\n\nThe relationship with the rising science of the Renaissance period\nthus initiated was continued during the following century. At the end\nof the fifteenth century Copernicus studied for ten years in Italy and\nfelt so thoroughly the interest of Italians in advances in science as\nwell as scholarship that when some years later he came to formulate\nhis great new hypothesis of the heavens, he sent an abstract of his\ntheory to some of the Roman teachers with whom he had become intimate\nduring his stay and it was taught publicly in the city to crowded\naudiences. This may well seem surprising to many whose only knowledge\nof the relations of the Popes to astronomy is the Galileo incident,\nbut it must not be forgotten that Copernicus' great work in which he\nelaborated his theory, was dedicated, with permission, to the Pope,\nand not only received no censure until Galileo's time, nearly a\ncentury later, but was welcomed as a great contribution to science and\nthought. It was looked upon as a theory, to be discussed as any other.\nWhen Galileo, at the end of the first quarter of the seventeenth\ncentury, insisted on teaching it as absolute science, it must not be\nforgotten that there were no astronomers in Europe who looked upon\nCopernicanism as an accepted scientific doctrine. Even the reasons\nadvanced by Galileo for its acceptance have all since been rejected.\nOwing to the discussions of it far and wide in the time of Galileo,\ncertain expressions in Copernicus' great work were required by the\nChurch authorities to be corrected so that his explanation of the\nheavens should be presented as the theory that it was and not as an\nabsolute doctrine of science.\n\nToward the end of the sixteenth century the necessity for the\ncorrection of the calendar became more urgently manifest and Pope\nGregory XIII invited Father Clavius, S.J., to take up the subject. At\nthis time also, as is described by Pope Leo XIII in his _Motu Proprio_\nof 1891, \"Gregory XIII [nearly half a century before the condemnation\nof Galileo] ordered a tower to be erected in a convenient part of the\nVatican buildings and to be fitted out with {475} the greatest and\nbest instruments of the time. There he held the meetings of the\nlearned men to whom the reform of the calendar had been entrusted. The\ntower stands to this day a witness to the munificence of its founder.\nIt contains a meridian line by Ignazio Danti of Perugia, with a round\nmarble plate in the centre, adorned with scientific designs. When\ntouched by the rays of the sun that are allowed to enter from above,\nthe designs demonstrate the error of the old reckoning and the\ncorrectness of the reform.\" It was evidently the intention of the Pope\nthat there should be, as a permanent institution in Rome, an\nastronomical observatory fully equipped and supported by the revenues\nof the Holy See and with a prominent scientist at its head. This\npurpose has been constantly kept in mind by the Popes ever since,\nthough not long after Gregory's time, but not at all because of any\nopposition to science, the observatory founded by him came for more\nthan a century not to be used for the purpose intended because its\nplace was supplied by another Roman institution directly under the\npatronage of the Popes.\n\nThis was the Roman College, the great central school of the Jesuits,\nin the capital of Christendom. That Order was scarcely fifty years in\nexistence in Pope Gregory XIII's time, yet it was to a member of it\nthat the Pope turned for expert scientific direction in the correction\nof the calendar. During the next three centuries science as patronized\nby the Popes in Rome was mainly in the hands of the Jesuits. When it\nis recalled that this Order is directly under the control of the Pope,\nthe professed members taking a special vow of obedience to him, it\nwill be understood that the Jesuit policy with regard to science must\nbe taken as representing the Papal position in its regard. If it is\nfurther recalled that Poggendorff in his Biographical Lexicon of Men\nEminent in Science gives the names of some 500 Jesuits, though the\nOrder was not in a position to do any work in science until 1550, it\nwill be readily appreciated that the Popes acted wisely to encourage\nan institute so prolific in _eminent_ scientists in its scientific\nwork at the Roman College, rather than maintain a separate scientific\ndepartment at the Vatican. The second institution would only have been\nunnecessary duplication of staffs and the connection between teaching\nand research at the Roman College was better for both functions.\n\nFather Christopher Clavius, to whom more than to any other is due the\nGregorian reform of the calendar, a magnificent practical application\nof astronomy and mathematics, is an excellent example {476} of the men\nwho were near the Popes as counsellors and scientific advisers just\nbefore Galileo's time. Indeed Galileo and he were on the most friendly\nterms until his death in 1612. The circle of his friends included such\nmen as Kepler, Tycho-Brahe and other great scientists of his time and\nhe was called \"the Euclid of the sixteenth century.\" His works were\npublished at Mainz, in five huge folio volumes in a collective\nedition. The third of these is a commentary upon the _Sphaera_ of John\nHolywood (Joannes de Sacro Bosco, the great medieval mathematician)\nand a dissertation upon the Astrolabe. The fourth volume contains a\nvery full discussion of Gnomonics, that is, the art of constructing\ninstruments of all kinds for determining the time by means of the sun.\nThe fifth volume contains his papers with regard to the reform of the\ncalendar. Most of these books were issued in many editions before and\nafter his death, and their publication over and over again shows very\nclearly how much the men of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries\nwere interested in scientific subjects and how often and quite\nproperly they looked to great clerical teachers as their leaders in\nscience.\n\nJust about the time that the Galileo matter was disturbing scientific\nand ecclesiastical circles at Rome, Father Scheiner, the Jesuit\nmathematician and astronomer became Professor of Mathematics in the\nRoman College. He is the inventor of the pantograph or copying\ninstrument for drawings, and, being of an ingenious inventive\ndisposition, constructed a number of instruments for astronomical\ninvestigation. He studied the sun carefully through colored glasses in\na helioscope and then conceived the idea of projecting the sun's image\non a screen in order to study its surface. Kepler used this same\nmethod, but Scheiner is said to have the right of priority in it. In\nMarch, 1611, he discovered by this method spots on the sun and while\nthe priority of discovery was disputed by Galileo, three men,\nFabricius, Galileo and Scheiner, seem all to have done their work\nindependently in this matter, Fabricius being probably the first in\ntime. For nearly a score of years Father Scheiner continued his\nobservations on the sun and published his great work, which in the\nfashion of the day was called by the somewhat fantastic title, _Rosa\nUrsina_. He had the true scientific spirit and devoted himself to\nother subjects besides astronomy. He made important researches on the\neye, showing that the retina is the seat of vision, and devised the\noptical experiment which bears his name.\n\nOne of Clavius' pupils was Father Matteo Ricci, S.J., founder of the\nCatholic missions of China, who in the midst of his successful {477}\nstudies of mathematics and astronomy at the Roman College asked, at\nthe age of twenty-five, to be sent on the missions in farthest Asia\nand was allowed to go the following year. He was selected to found\nmissions in China and succeeded in breaking through the Oriental\nreserve and contempt for everything Occidental of the Chinese, and\nthus gained a foothold for Christianity in the country. It was Father\nRicci's learning, particularly in cosmology, mathematics, astronomy\nand geography, that attracted the attention of the Chinese. He\nintroduced astronomical studies at Pekin and brought over a series of\ninstruments for an observatory which were so well thought of that they\nwere preserved until our own time and some of them are said to have\nbeen taken from the Chinese capital by the allied troops, after the\ncapture of the city following the Boxer Rebellion. He not only taught\nthe Chinese European science, but he sent back to Europe true accounts\nof China and, above all, encouraged scientific studies among the\nmissionaries. The example he thus set has always been followed and\nthere has scarcely been a generation since when some Christian\nmissionary has not been making original observations in natural\nhistory and collecting curious specimens to be sent home to scientists\nin Europe, while at the same time faithfully pursuing his missionary\nwork.\n\nEarly in the seventeenth century, indeed just at the time when the\nGalileo case was most prominent at Rome, Father Athanasius Kircher was\nsummoned to Rome and began his scientific work there, which included\ncontributions to every department of physical and even some of the\nbiological sciences. For some five years about the middle of the\nseventeenth century Father Kircher devoted himself to astronomy and\nthe result was the publication, in 1656, of an astronomical treatise\ncalled _Iter Celeste_. A second volume on astronomy appeared in 1660.\nAnyone who is inclined to think that these contributions of the great\nprofessor of science at the Roman College were only reviews of the\npassing scientific opinions of the time, is not fully acquainted with\nFather Kircher's work. He never failed to illuminate anything that he\nset himself to study. His book on astronomy is of course a text-book,\nbut it is magnificently illustrated; it is a very large work which\nshows the author's familiarity with the scientific literature of the\ntime, but at the same time reveals his own scientific genius. Father\nKircher was encouraged in every way by the Popes and high\necclesiastics of Rome and by his own Order, and his great text-books\nare among the bibliographic treasures of the history of science. Some\nidea of {478} his industry may be gathered from the fact that he wrote\naltogether some forty volumes folio on scientific subjects. He made\nmany original observations, invented a number of valuable scientific\ninstruments that are still in use, among others the vernier and magic\nlantern, and was productively occupied with nearly every branch of\nscience in his time.\n\nDuring the eighteenth century, before the suppression of the Jesuits,\nanother distinguished mathematician and astronomer, famous throughout\nEurope, was working at the Roman College. This was Father Boscovitch,\nto whom we owe the plans for the erection of an observatory above the\ngreat pillars of the Church of the Gesu at Rome, which were not\ndestined to be executed until the middle of the nineteenth century.\nBoscovitch is famous for a series of important works in mathematics\nand astronomy. He wrote books on Sun Spots, the Transit of Mercury,\nthe Aurora Borealis, the Figure of the Earth, the Various Effects of\nGravity, the Aberration of the Fixed Stars, and other astronomical\nproblems. Pope Benedict XIV commissioned him and his brother Jesuit,\nFather Le Maire, to carry out several precise meridian arc\nmeasurements. He is the inventor of the rock crystal prismatic\nmicrometer, the ring micrometer. After the suppression of the Jesuits\nFather Boscovitch was made Director of Optics for the Marine, a post\ncreated for him in order to secure his services for France.\n\nDuring the second period of the history of the Vatican Observatory at\nthe end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century,\nthe upper story of the Gregorian tower was fitted up with\nmeteorological and magnetic instruments with a seismograph, a Dolland\ntelescope, a small transit instrument and a pendulum clock and a\nseries of very careful observations on a number of subjects made. From\n1800 to 1821 Gilii made an uninterrupted series of meteorological\nobservations, reading the instruments twice a day, at 6 a.m. and 2\np.m. The observations are published for seven years and the rest are\npreserved as manuscripts in the Vatican Library. There are also\ndeposited astronomical observations of eclipses, comets, Jupiter's\nsatellites and of a transit of Mercury. Gilii laid down the meridian\nline in front of St. Peter's with the obelisk as a gnomon and the\nreadings of the seasons by the length of the shadow. To him are due\nalso the bronze marks on the floor of St. Peters, giving the\ncomparative lengths of the greatest churches of the world. It was he\nwho placed the first lightning rod on the cupola of St. Peter's. The\n{479} heavens, the weather, the lightning are supposed often to be set\nby religiously inclined persons particularly under the care of\nProvidence, to be influenced by prayer, yet these are exactly the\nthree departments of science that were faithfully followed in their\ndetailed scientific aspects during all the centuries by the Papal\nAstronomers under the patronage and with the approval of the Popes,\nwith the avowed purpose of discovering the natural laws under which\nthey occur.\n\nTwo of the distinguished teachers of mathematics and astronomy of the\nend of the eighteenth century at Rome were Father Thomas Leseur,\nprofessor at the Sapienza, and Professor Franz Jacquier, professor at\nthe Roman College, who wrote a commentary on Isaac Newton's\n_Principia_ which did much to popularize Newton's work.\n\nWhen, because political influence was brought to bear very strongly on\nthe Pope, the Jesuits were suppressed in 1773, the Roman College\npassed from their hands and the real reason for allowing the Vatican\nObservatory on the Papal grounds to fall into disuse was manifest, for\nthe Popes at once took up the question of re-establishing their own\nobservatory. Not long after the suppression we find Monsignor Filippo\nLuigi Gilii placed in charge of the reorganized Roman Observatory by\nCardinal Zelada, who had been appointed Vatican Librarian in 1780, and\nwho found the old Gregorian tower available as a centre of\nastronomical observation and investigation of which Rome had been\ndeprived since the suppression of the Roman College. After the\nrestoration of the Jesuits early in the nineteenth century, the Roman\nCollege was opened once more and distinguished Jesuits, some of them\nwith world-wide reputations, did their work there. With the occupation\nof Rome by the Italian government in 1870 the Jesuits were banished,\nthe Roman College with its observatory was once more deprived of the\nlearned expert direction of the Fathers of the Order, and once more\nefforts were made for the re-establishment of a Vatican observatory\nwhich is now in existence and under the direction of a Jesuit.\n\nAnother of the distinguished scientists of the eighteenth century who\ntaught for a time at Rome was Father Beccaria, whose name is well\nknown in the history of electricity. When not yet forty years of age\nhe was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of London, always a much\nenvied distinction, and as a consequence of his election some of his\nimportant papers relating to electricity and various astronomical\nsubjects were sent to the Royal Society {480} and published by them.\nWhile no great discovery in physical science is attached to his name,\nfew men did as much as he to awaken enthusiasm and experimental\ninvestigation into science in his time. He was one of the pioneers of\nthe great scientific movement of the nineteenth century. Priestley\ncalled him one of the most eminent of all the workers in electricity\non the Continent, and Professor Chrystal, in his article on\nelectricity, in the Encyclopedia Britannica (ninth edition), gives him\nan important place. He had been trained to be a professor of\nexperimental physics for his Order, and at this time every one of the\nteaching orders with colleges at Rome had distinguished men among\ntheir faculties.\n\nThe well-known astronomer, Father Piazzi, whose discovery of Ceres,\nthe first of the planetoids found in the space between Mars and\nJupiter, caused great excitement among astronomers, and whose\nsubsequent work in astronomy brought him membership in many of the\nscientific academies of Europe, had been for some time a student and a\nteacher in Rome. While there he was a colleague of Professor\nChiaramonti, who later became Pope Pius VII. During all his subsequent\nbrilliant scientific career his special friendship with the Pope\ncontinued, and with all his many memberships in scientific bodies he\nremained a member also of the Theatine religious order which he had\nentered at a very early age.\n\nAfter the restoration of the Jesuits the work in the sciences reverted\nonce more to the Jesuits at the Roman College and the Vatican\nObservatory was discontinued. The interest of the Popes in science,\nhowever, was very well illustrated by the apostolic letter of Leo XII,\n_Quod divina sapientia_, which gave instructions to all Catholic\neducational institutions, as to observatories, publications and\nintercourse with foreign scientists.\n\nThe Jesuits at the Roman College reached noteworthy distinction for\ntheir astronomical work during the nineteenth century. Father Secchi\ncame to be looked upon as probably one of the most distinguished\nastronomers in Europe. He received many prizes for his observations,\nfor his invention of instruments and for important discoveries. His\nwork on the sun, published in his book, _Le Soleil_, represents some\nof the most important contributions ever made to this department. It\nwas translated into most modern languages. His observations on the\ncorona of the sun during eclipses and especially photographs of the\ncorona, place him among the great original contributors to modern\nastronomical knowledge. He made a critical examination and\nclassification of the spectra of four thousand stars entailing an\nenormous amount of {481} work. He believed firmly that it was no use\nmaking observations unless they were thoroughly recorded and made\navailable for others. His literary work in astronomy is almost\nincredible. He sent nearly 700 communications to 42 scientific\njournals, over 300 of which appeared in the _Comptes Rendues_ and in\nthe _Astronomische Nachrichten_, the French and German journals of\nastronomy that are the authoritative records of contemporary\nscientific work. In this country Newcomb and Langley quote from Secchi\nfrequently and use his illustrations. He was the founder of a new\nbranch of astronomy, Stellar Spectroscopy, and Secchi's types of solar\nspectra will probably ever remain an essential illustration in\nastronomical text-books.\n\nAnother of the astronomers who did excellent work among the Jesuits at\nthe Roman College during the nineteenth century was Father De Vico,\nwhose determination of the rotation period of Venus and the\ninclination of its axis was considered so exhaustive that it was not\nquestioned for half a century. He also measured the eccentric position\nof Saturn in his rings and observed the motions of the two inner moons\nof this planet which had not been seen before this time except by\nHerschel. Father De Vico also discovered eight comets, one of them\nbeing the well-known comet with a period of rotation of five and a\nhalf years which bears his name. Father De Vico and Father Secchi were\ndriven from Rome by the Revolution of 1848, but were brought back to\ncontinue their work just as soon as it was possible. In the meantime\nthey continued to be personal friends of successive Popes, encouraged\nin every way, aided in their work and looked upon as ornaments of the\nChurch. They were thoroughly respected by their Order and there was\nnever the slightest question of any possibility of all their studies\nin science and all their profound investigation of the deepest\nscientific subjects disturbing their faith in any way.\n\nOne of the well-known contributors to astronomy during the nineteenth\ncentury was Father Benedict Sestini, who for his mathematical ability\nwas appointed assistant to Father De Vico of the Roman Observatory. He\nwas banished from Rome with his brother Jesuits by the Revolution of\n1848, and taught at Georgetown College, Washington, D. C, for many\nyears. His principal work is his catalogue of star colors, published\nin the Memoirs of the Roman College, 1845-47. He had very keen vision\nand fine skill with the brush, so that his catalogue, which embodies\nthe entire B.A.C. Star Catalogue, from the North Pole to thirty\ndegrees south of the equator, will be invaluable for deciding the\nquestion {482} whether there are stars variable in color. He made a\nseries of sunspot drawings which were engraved and published as\nappendix A of the United States Naval Observatory volume for 1847,\nprinted in 1853. He was the teacher of mathematics and astronomy to\nthe American Jesuit students and wrote a series of text-books for that\npurpose.\n\nAs we have said, the Italian government suppressed the Roman College,\ndeclaring it State property and this prevented further work in the\nobservatory there, which had been for nearly half a century under\nFather Secchi and Father De Vico, one of the most important centres in\nthe world of astronomical advance. Beggared by the Roman confiscations\nwhich compelled the Popes to cut off all their support of scientific\nand educational work except what related closely to clerical\neducation, it was not until 1888 that Pope Leo XIII found himself in a\nposition to re-establish a Roman observatory in connection with the\nVatican. In 1888 the Italian clergy, for the celebration of the Golden\nJubilee of Pope Leo XIII, presented to him, knowing from his interest\nin science how agreeable such a gift would be to him, a collection of\nastronomical instruments and the Gregorian tower was selected once\nmore for its former purposes and the Barnabite, Father Denza, the\nwell-known founder of the Italian Meteorological Society, became the\nofficial head. Pope Leo XIII ceded to the Vatican Observatory a second\ntower more than 400 metres distant from the Gregorian. As this was of\nimmense strength, the lower walls being some five yards in thickness,\nit seemed strong and firm enough to support the thirteen-inch\nphotographic refractor which was ordered from Gauthier. Seven volumes\nof observations were published during the next fifteen years, four\nunder Father Denza, a fifth under Father Lais and the last two under\nFather Rodriguez, an Augustinian, who was a specialist in meteorology.\n\nThe last Pope, Pius X, encouraged the Vatican Observatory in every\nway. The Gregorian tower being near the Vatican Library and too\ndistant from the observatory was restored to its original library\npurpose and given over to the housing of the collection of Historical\nArchives. The second round tower of the old Leonine Fortress, together\nwith the adjoining summer residence of Leo XIII, was devoted to\nastronomical work. Father Hagan, S.J., who had been distinguished for\nmathematical studies in connection with astronomy here in America, was\nchosen as the director, and there has been a magnificent development\nof the astronomical work. There is a new sixteen-inch visual telescope\nin the second tower, {483} called the _Torre Pio X_. There are four\nrotary domes covering the astrographic refractor in the Leonine Tower,\nand some excellent work is being accomplished. Every encouragement is\ngiven to it as far as the limited means of the Pope will permit, and a\nfine library is being collected for future workers.\n\n\n{484}\n\nAPPENDIX VII.\n\nTHE FATHERS OF THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE.\n\nThere is a very general impression in many minds in our time that from\nthe very beginning of Christianity the interest of Church men in the\nother world was so great that human attention was diverted just as far\nas possible from concerns of all kinds with the stage of existence\nthrough which man is passing here and now. As a consequence, there has\nbeen the feeling that from the earliest time the Church was opposed to\nscience and scientific education, partly because this represented a\nrather compelling diversion from other-worldly interests, but mainly\nbecause it gave men control over natural forces which made life more\ncomfortable, raised men up in their own estimation and was opposed to\nthe spirit of humble faith best suited to the adherents of\nChristianity. Hence it is concluded that there was always a Church\npolicy of deliberate opposition to science and indeed to all\nintellectual development. This attitude is often declared to be best\nrepresented by the expression attributed to one of the Fathers of the\nChurch, \"Heaven lies open to the simple of mind, the little ones of\nthe earth, and the ignorant bear it away better than those who are\nproud of intellect.\"\n\nAny such impression with regard to the Fathers of the Church as to the\nestablishment of a policy of opposition to science and education is\nquite erroneous and entirely contrary to the general trend of their\nwritings, even though it may be apparently substantiated by\nexpressions taken at random from the writings of the Fathers at\nmoments when they were emphasizing the truth that has always been so\nmanifest, that from the knowing ones of earth,--and our use of the\nword knowing in the phrase is not complimentary,--especially from\nthose who are conceited in their knowingness, many things are\nconcealed that are revealed to those who are simple of heart and mind.\nIt has seemed worth while, however, to devote an appendix to this\nsubject of the real attitude of the Fathers to science. As Father\nLeahy, in his \"Astronomical Essays,\" Boston (Washington Press, 1910),\nhas answered Professor White's assumptions on this subject with a\nknowledge of the Fathers I could not hope to emulate, I have preferred\nto avail myself of his permission to quote him at length.\n\n{485}\n\n  \"By the Fathers we understand in general the Christian writers in\n  the Church's early history. In the West the period may be held to\n  have terminated with Isidore of Seville of the seventh century, and\n  in the East with John of Damascus of the eighth. The important\n  writers of this epoch number between fifty and a hundred, and their\n  works constitute, as may be imagined, a body of literature of vast\n  extent.\n\n  Our only present concern is to learn, if possible, what was the\n  general attitude of this army of ecclesiastical writers towards the\n  physical sciences, especially the science of astronomy. Explicit\n  treatises on astronomy we shall not, indeed, expect them to supply.\n  For their works when massed are seen to constitute a library of\n  theology, and in such a collection we should no more look for\n  scientific treatises than in a modern library for law. But inasmuch\n  as the Fathers of the Church have been accused, by Andrew D. White\n  and others, of having stayed and even thwarted the advance of\n  science, it becomes the interest and the duty of the apologist to\n  hunt up their scientific allusions that we may learn to what extent\n  the charges made are true.\n\n\n  _The Standstill of Science_.--It has often been alleged as\n  derogatory to the accomplishments of the Fathers, that they\n  contributed nothing to the progress of scientific knowledge. From\n  our modern standpoint we may be tempted to esteem this failure of\n  theirs as a cardinal sin. But it would be wrong in this instance, as\n  in every other, to render a verdict of guilt too hastily. We of the\n  twentieth century are prone to forget that there are other fields of\n  profitable intellectual exploration besides the physical, and that\n  there may be objects of research and thought worthier of study than\n  the material world.\n\n  The Fathers of the Church were philosophers and theologians occupied\n  with the problems of the world's origin and destiny, higher themes,\n  surely, than any with which physical science is concerned. It is the\n  fashion of the day to praise the ancient Greeks at the expense of\n  the patristic and medieval theologians. But the distinction is to a\n  large extent inconsistent, since both bodies of writers were at work\n  upon the selfsame themes. Philosophers like the Greeks, the Fathers\n  were like them moralists as well, engaged in the elaboration of\n  right rules of conduct. Finally, unlike the Greeks, the Fathers were\n  Scriptural scholars, many of them of extensive erudition, in homily\n  and commentary expounding with wonderful assiduity the Sacred Books\n  in which they believed that God had given His revelation to man.\n\n\n  _Analogous Examples_.--Should we be surprised, then, if men so\n  occupied failed to add much to the world's store of scientific\n  knowledge? Though it were admitted, as it cannot be in its entirety,\n  that they left physical science just where they found it, could not\n  an explanation be discovered that would exonerate them from all\n  blame? To justify such an apology, we do not even need to transport\n  ourselves in spirit back to their time, a process which, however,\n  strict fairness would demand. But in our own era we can think easily\n  of dozens and hundreds of men of highest respectability and most\n  beneficent accomplishment, men of books and men of affairs, jurists,\n  statesmen, historians and others, who have {486} themselves done\n  little or nothing for the onward march of Science. That the careers\n  of these men are profitless, who shall allege?\n\n  Again, the present writer has often thought of the almost parallel\n  example of the ancient Romans. It makes their history but little\n  less illustrious to learn that this conquering people did nothing\n  for Science's advance. Till Pliny of the first century after Christ,\n  what Roman was a scientist? They were a nation of soldiers,\n  statesmen, orators and jurists, and for seven hundred years they\n  pursued through such avenues their triumphant course. Yet what\n  writer of to-day rises to charge them with a cardinal sin, because\n  Science remained at a standstill among them for seven full\n  centuries? With these seven centuries can we not properly compare\n  the later seven in which the Christian Fathers were the teachers of\n  the civilized world?\n\n\n  _Heritage from the Greeks_.--Objection will be made, no doubt, that\n  the Fathers began their career with fairer start than the Romans,\n  forasmuch as they were the direct heirs of the astronomy and physics\n  of ancient Hellas. And they will be incriminated with having abused\n  their precious heritage, by not merely letting it lie fallow but by\n  raising every possible obstruction to its further cultivation. Such\n  is the tenor of Andrew D. White's accusations against them.\n\n  This well-known writer smiles at the puerilities of patristic\n  science. He cites from among them Cosmas of Egypt as having\n  propounded a perfectly childish theory of the structure of the earth\n  and grafted it on the science of theology. The ready answer to this\n  particular charge is that Cosmas' conception of the universe\n  belonged to cosmogony and not theology, and further that it had no\n  influence on subsequent thought. Returning to the general\n  arraignment, White rebukes the Fathers for having clung so\n  tenaciously to false opinions regarding the shape of the earth, the\n  motion of the heavens, and the nature of the firmament. And, most\n  seriously of all, he charges the Fathers with indifference and even\n  hostility to the study of science itself.\n\n  In a few short paragraphs it is impossible to give an adequate\n  rejoinder to these damaging complaints. But they demand some sort of\n  reply, however inadequate it be, as emanating from an American\n  scholar and statesman of high rank, and embodied in a work that has\n  free and wide circulation among our college students.\n\n\n  _Defence of Their Doctrine_.--The first palliation for the reputed\n  offence of the Fathers is that whatever false science they retail,\n  was practically all of it derived from the very sources which it is\n  the fashion of the day to laud in the highest degree. As far as was\n  consistent with their faith, the Christian Fathers were the pupils\n  of the Greeks. It was the latter and not the patristic writers who\n  invented the false theories of a solid firmament and a motionless\n  earth. If Europe and Arabia down to the Renaissance believed in the\n  Geocentric system, it was because they trusted Ptolemy the Greek,\n  till then admittedly the greatest of astronomers. And a similar\n  ancestry could be traced, we venture to say, for all or the major\n  part of their scientific errors as far as these may have extended.\n\n\n  _Restrictions Made by the Fathers_.--But if the Fathers were in\n  {487} general the heirs of the Greeks, they were not guilty of the\n  mistake of accepting the inheritance in its entirety. To a large\n  extent they could discern the chaff from the wheat, and were\n  actually at pains to make the separation. It ought to be known that\n  the scientific literature of the Grecians is teeming with the\n  wildest and vainest of speculations regarding all matters within the\n  scope of astronomical science. Here as elsewhere, the Greeks\n  speculated endlessly, contradictorily, emptily, and almost\n  aimlessly. In unfounded speculation they discoursed on all manner of\n  astronomical subjects, the shape and size and distance of the sun,\n  its nature and that of the moon and stars, and so on almost\n  indefinitely, with scarcely any agreement or concomitance of\n  opinion. There were almost as many diverse opinions as there were\n  men.\n\n  To this motley assemblage of groundless and conflicting theories the\n  Fathers had full access through the medium of Plutarch, the Greek\n  compiler. Eusebius, for example, the Father of Church History,\n  quotes Plutarch on just these topics for over thirty pages. If\n  Eusebius and the other Fathers grew impatient with all this\n  ill-assorted mass of _soi-disant_ science, shall we charge them as\n  Dr. White does with having been false to the interest of science?\n  Should we not rather maintain that they helped save science from its\n  enemies?\n\n\n  _Opposition to Science_.--It is only in the light of these\n  indisputable facts that we can understand the sayings of the Fathers\n  in which, as quoted by White, they upbraid science for its\n  inutility. Be it noted in passing that White is wont to quote them\n  not literally but freely, and apart from their context. Lactantius,\n  Eusebius, Augustine, and Basil, these are the four whom he selects\n  as representative. They are truly representative, and indeed any one\n  of them might stand for all.\n\n  Let Eusebius be our particular choice, for he discusses astronomy\n  more completely than the others. White alleges (_Warfare_, Vol. I,\n  p. 91) that Eusebius endeavored to bring scientific studies into\n  contempt, and quotes him as saying, \"It is not through ignorance of\n  the things admired by them [scientific investigators], but through\n  contempt of their useless labor, that we think little of these\n  matters, turning our souls to better things.\"\n\n  Who would guess from this brief epitome of Eusebius' views that the\n  latter had devoted to the subject more than thirty pages? Who could\n  possibly surmise that he had taken pains to write out, under the\n  guidance of Plutarch, all the known opinions of the Greeks on some\n  thirty-nine problems, all but two or three of them astronomical? Let\n  the curious read Eusebius for themselves in the fifteenth book of\n  his _Praelectio Evangelica_. They will there discover what White\n  might have well acknowledged, that on not one of the problems are\n  the Greek philosophers in agreement. On the nature of the sun there\n  are nine opinions, on its size four, on its shape an equal number,\n  on the moon's nature seven. And this discrepancy of judgment\n  continues to the end. Moreover a large proportion of the theories\n  are of the most fantastic sort.\n\n  In the face of this chaotic wilderness of diverse, fluctuating and\n  contradictory teachings, what could Eusebius do but turn away in\n  impatience, and take up in their stead the only truth of which he\n  {488} felt certain, the truth of the Gospel? Such was his actual\n  procedure. \"Does it not seem to you that we have rightly and\n  deservedly departed from the curiosity of all these men, so idle and\n  so full of error?\" He confesses frankly that he can see no fruit or\n  utility for man in the teachings he has quoted. And he appeals for\n  his complete justification to Socrates, the wisest of the Greeks,\n  who in his day had adopted precisely the same stand. This and no\n  other is the argument and spirit of Eusebius.\n\n\n  _No Opposition to True Science_.--This was the temper, also, that\n  actuated the other Fathers named, Lactantius, Basil, and Augustine.\n  No doubt these men valued spiritual knowledge above material. But it\n  by no means follows from this that they undervalued Science. They\n  were scholars of extensive culture, Basil a graduate of Athens,\n  Augustine of Carthage, and Lactantius styled because of his\n  proficiency the Christian Cicero. They were well acquainted with the\n  learning of the Greeks. That they rebelled against the scientific\n  fantasies of the latter, is not a proof that they were hostile to\n  the advance of Science itself.\n\n  In the Imitation of Christ, Thomas a Kempis expresses a sentiment\n  quite similar to theirs. \"Surely a humble husbandman that serveth\n  God, is better than a proud philosopher who, neglecting himself, is\n  occupied in studying the course of the heavens.\" Like the Fathers, a\n  Kempis had reason to be disgusted with the astronomy of his time,\n  for it was beginning to be impregnated again with the virus of\n  Astrology. By refusing to follow such pseudo-scientific teachings,\n  both a Kempis and the Fathers did a real if seemingly negative\n  service to the science of astronomy.\n\n  \"He was born under a lucky star.\" Language of this sort, used now\n  only in pleasantry, recalls a form of superstition which was once\n  accepted seriously by all men throughout the civilized world. In\n  many a period, mankind has believed literally that the stars and\n  planets exercised a real influence in shaping human lives. And there\n  have been many epochs, ancient, medieval, and even modern, when\n  astrology, the telling of fortunes by the stars, was given a rank\n  among the learned professions.\n\n  Even now there occur occasional sporadic outbreaks of the same\n  superstition. Along with other quacks and necromancers, astrologers\n  are still occasionally in evidence, advertising their trade through\n  the columns of the press. Indeed it is affirmed by the Catholic\n  Encyclopedia that the growth of occultistic ideas is reintroducing\n  astrology into society.\n\n\n  _Errors of Astrology_.--Whatever the popularity of this practice in\n  the past, and whatever its prospective vogue in the near future, it\n  is to be set down without qualification or hesitation as a delusion\n  and a snare. To suppose that the heavenly bodies have an influence\n  on human conduct is in its origin a pagan error, closely allied with\n  the pagan myth that the sun, moon and stars are presided over by as\n  many separate deities. Only thus could have originated the delusion\n  that Jupiter and Venus would procure a blessed destiny, and Mars and\n  Saturn a troubled one, for the children born at the time of their\n  rising.\n\n  Nor can the cult be justified by an array of the names of those who\n  have been its votaries. It is true that many astronomers in the\n  {489} past, including the great Kepler himself, have practised the\n  astrological art, casting horoscopes for their clients. But in most\n  cases it would be found, at least in the modern period, that these\n  scientists merely yielded through tolerance to the weakness of their\n  age. In true astronomy there is no place whatever for astrology.\n\n  Besides being groundless the practice is to be condemned for its\n  perilous moral tendencies. Distracting the soul from the worship of\n  the spiritual God, who alone governs the universe, it substitutes\n  for His action that of mere material objects, stars and planets,\n  which it thus elevates to the rank of lesser gods or demons.\n  Pretending to forecast from birth what each man's course in life\n  shall be, it robs the will of its proper share in moulding human\n  conduct.\n\n\n  _The Christian Fathers_.--An interesting testimony to the former\n  prevalence of this erroneous belief is found in one of Sir Walter\n  Scott's novels, \"Guy Mannering,\" whose whole plot turns upon the\n  fulfilment of an astrological prediction. Reading the history at\n  hand the novelist had learned what complete sway the cult had\n  formerly exercised, almost down to the time of his writing. It would\n  have interested the celebrated author to know that there was,\n  however, one long period in which astrology was absolutely and\n  effectually excluded from Christian Europe. For over a thousand\n  years Christendom remained free from this blight, thanks to the\n  teachings of the Fathers of the Church.\n\n  In discussing the relations of the Fathers towards the astral\n  science, we have already shown how they purged it of some of its\n  grossest errors. But their principal service to the science remains\n  now to be told. For amongst all the vagaries of the science of the\n  heavens, astrology is both in theory and in practice the most\n  deplorable. That the Fathers placed the weight of their great\n  authority in the scale against this superstition, is one of the most\n  praiseworthy of their achievements.\n\n\n  _First Efforts at Reform_.--At the time that the Fathers began to\n  write, in the century just following the labors of the Apostles,\n  astrology formed everywhere an integral part of the science of\n  astronomy. It was taught in all the schools, Chaldean, Jewish,\n  Grecian and Roman. Almost from the beginning the defenders of the\n  Christian faith proceeded to attack this pernicious error, realizing\n  how inimical it was to the spread of truth which Christ had come to\n  impart. Already in his address to the Greeks, Tatian was heard\n  denouncing the absurdities of Grecian astronomy and astrology. This\n  was in the middle of the second century, just at the close of what\n  is called the Apostolic Period.\n\n  A little later, Tertullian, the famed apologist of the then\n  flourishing African Church, placed himself on record as the\n  uncompromising enemy of astrology. With his usual vehemence of\n  language he declared that \"of astrologers there should be no\n  speaking even\" among Christians; and went to the length of saying\n  that \"he cannot hope for heaven whose finger or wand abuses the\n  heavens.\" These and many similar utterances may be found in his\n  Treatise on Idolatry.\n\n\n  _Respect for True Astrology_.--With this denunciation of magic and\n  idolatry there went hand in hand, however, a genuine respect {490}\n  for the proper science of the heavens. Contemporary with Tertullian,\n  and like him one of the great Christian masters of the period, was\n  Clement Alexandria. To the Catholic astronomer of to-day it is\n  gratifying to find this Father of the Egyptian Church giving\n  generous testimony to the worth of astronomical science. With just\n  discrimination he praises astronomy as \"leading the soul nearer to\n  the creative power, as helpful to navigation and husbandry, and as\n  making the soul in the highest degree observant, capable of\n  perceiving the true and detecting the false.\"\n\n  Another contemporary, Hippolytus, was indeed unsparing in his\n  denunciation of astrology. In a treatise of eleven quarto pages,\n  contained in his \"Refutation of All Heresies,\" he riddled with\n  merciless logic the vain pretensions of the Greek astrologers. But\n  he showed that he had no quarrel with a well ordered study of the\n  heavens, by giving liberal praise to Ptolemy, the ablest of the\n  astronomers.\n\n\n  _A Universal Teaching_.--In far distant Syria, then a choice realm\n  in the Church's patrimony, there was at the beginning of the third\n  century another school of Christian philosophers who joined with\n  their brethren in West and East in waging war on the same dread\n  enemy. A Syrian work, called the Book of the Astrologers, has two\n  quarto pages of excellent quality recounting and scoring the\n  absurdities of current astrological practices. It is so like\n  Hippolytus' work that one seems an echo of the other.\n\n  Perhaps the most interesting of all these concordant denunciations\n  is that found in the \"Recognitions of Clement,\" a patristic writing\n  probably of the third century. Here the treatises on astrology run\n  to full ten chapters, a sign that the author had abundant knowledge\n  of the subject. In this work astrology is refuted particularly from\n  the moral point of view. It is convicted of the double charge of\n  being fatalistic in its tendency and subversive of all morality.\n  \"Men's conduct,\" says the author's thesis, \"is due to their own free\n  will and not to the configuration of the planets.\"\n\n\n  _Golden Age of Patristic Literature_.--So ran on in perfect unity\n  and harmony the steady flow of patristic teaching. It reached its\n  climax, as we should expect to find, in the heroic writers of the\n  fourth century, the golden era of patrology. Lactantius, the\n  Christian Cicero, re-echoed the voices of the past in pronouncing\n  astrology the work of demons. An Augustine, the greatest of the\n  Fathers, confirmed the decision of his predecessors by protesting\n  against the amalgamation of astrology with the true science of\n  nature.\n\n  So effectual indeed was the opposition to astrology of the earlier\n  Christian writers, confirmed by the masters of the post-Nicene\n  period, that the practice came to be regarded by all the faithful as\n  a superstition and a danger, and continued to be so esteemed down to\n  the time of the Crusades. For a full millennium, Christian Europe\n  midst all its vicissitudes was spared the absurdities of\n  astrological belief and practice, thanks to the patristic school of\n  writers.\n\n\n  _A Surprising Omission_.--We have thought it well to bring to light\n  these none too well-known facts regarding one important part of the\n  astronomical teachings of the Fathers. How they could have {491}\n  escaped the attention of Andrew D. White, or how he could have\n  failed to find place for them in his voluminous work, it is\n  difficult to understand.\n\n  His book bristles with accounts of superstitions, always telling\n  against the theologians, and in favor of the scientists. But\n  astrology is absent even from the index of his work. Had he allotted\n  it a chapter, his numerous readers would have learned that one great\n  school of theological writers, enduring for a thousand years, did\n  wage war on a certain sort of science, to wit, the pseudo-science of\n  astrology.\n\n\n{492}\n\nAPPENDIX VIII.\n\nSCIENCE IN AMERICA.\n\nFor Americans it is very probable that the chapter in the history of\nscience which will demonstrate most clearly that there was not only no\nopposition on the part of the Popes or the Church authorities to the\nteachings of science or its development, but on the contrary\nencouragement and patronage, in spite of our English traditions to the\ncontrary, is that which gives even very briefly the story of the\nevolution of science and its teaching on the American continent.\nNotwithstanding the very prevalent impression, indeed we might say the\npractically universal persuasion, that there was nothing worth while\ntalking about in any department of education in America before the\nnineteenth century, except what little there was in the English\ncolonies, and while it is confidently assumed that above all science\nreceived no attention from our Southern neighbors, Spanish America not\nonly surpassed English America in education, but far outdistanced\nEnglish America in what was accomplished for scientific research and\nthe evolution of the knowledge of a large number of scientific\nsubjects in a great many ways.\n\nEven those among us who thought themselves well read in American\nhistory have, as a rule, known almost nothing of this until\ncomparatively recent years. Professor Bourne of Yale, whose untimely\ndeath deprived the United States of a distinguished historical\nscholar, was the first to point out emphatically how far ahead of the\nEnglish were the Spanish colonies in every mode of education, but\nparticularly in the cultivation of science. In many places Prescott\nhad more than hinted at this, but the materials for the whole story\nwere not available until our time.\n\nSome of Bourne's paragraphs represent a severe arraignment of the\nignorance that has characterized so much of our supposed knowledge of\nthe Spanish Americans and their culture in the past. After reading\nthem it is easy to realize the truth of the expression that another\ndistinguished university man from the United States made use of not\nlong ago, after having visited the South American countries. He\ndeclared that it was time for North Americans to wake up and\n_discover_ South America. Literally we have known almost nothing about\nit, indeed in a certain sense we have known much less than nothing,\nsince we were quite sure that we knew {493} practically all there was\nto know while failing to know much that as Americans we ought to have\nknown.\n\nTwo Spanish-American universities were founded under Papal charters\nalmost a full century before Harvard as our first small college in\nEnglish America began its career. Harvard was not to be a university\nin any proper sense of the term for a full century and a half after\nits foundation, while the universities of Mexico and Peru, largely\nunder the influence of the ecclesiastical authorities and owing nearly\neverything to Church patronage under the Spanish Crown, had all the\nessential university faculties before the close of the sixteenth\ncentury. In spite of the predominant Church influence, which, if we\nwere to credit former English traditions, must have been fatal to the\nevolution of science, Professor Bourne's researches show that in _the\nsixteenth century_ the Spanish-American universities were already\ndoing such scientific work as the students in English America became\ninterested in only during the _nineteenth century_. Obviously I prefer\nto quote Professor Bourne's own words for such startling assertions.\nHe said in his chapter on \"The Transmission of Culture\" in his volume\nin The American Nation Series, \"Spain in America\":\n\n  \"Not all the institutions of learning founded in Mexico in the\n  _sixteenth century_ can be enumerated here, but it is not too much\n  to say that in number, range of studies and standard of attainments\n  by the officers _they surpassed anything existing in English America\n  until the nineteenth century_. Mexican scholars made distinguished\n  achievements in some branches of science, particularly medicine and\n  surgery, but pre-eminently linguistics, history and anthropology.\n  Dictionaries and grammars of the native languages and histories of\n  the Mexican institutions are an imposing proof of their scholarly\n  devotion and intellectual activity. Conspicuous are Toribio de\n  Motolinia's '_Historia de las Indias de Nueva Espana,_' Duran's\n  '_Historia de las Indias de Nueva Espana_' but most important of all\n  Sahagun's great work on Mexican life and religion.\"\n\nIndeed, it is with regard to science in various forms that one finds\nthe most surprising contributions from these old-time scholars. While\nthe English in America were paying practically no attention to\nscience, the Spaniards were deeply interested in it. Dr. Chanca, a\nphysician who had been for several years physician-in-ordinary to the\nKing and Queen (Ferdinand and Isabella) and was looked upon as one of\nthe leaders of his profession in Spain, was appointed by the Crown to\naccompany Columbus on his second expedition, partly for the sake of\nthe health of those who went, but also in order to make scientific\nnotes on American subjects. The report {494} of this scientific\nexcursion is a valuable contribution to our knowledge of the state of\nscience of the time and furnishes precious information with regard to\nIndian medicine, Indian customs, Spanish knowledge of and interest in\nbotany and metallurgy, as well as certain phases of zoology and other\nscientific departments, which serves to show how wide was the training\nin science of this Spanish physician of over four hundred years ago.\nDr. Chanca's epistle was republished as one of the Miscellaneous\nPublications of the Smithsonian Institution and a series of articles\nwith regard to him from the pen of Dr. Fernandez de Ybarra has\nappeared in medical and other journals of the United States. Chanca is\nthe author of a medical work on the Treatment of Pleurisy, published\nafter his return in 1506, and a commentary on Arnold of Villanova's\n_De conservanda juventute et retardanda senectute_, \"The Conservation\nof Youth and the Retardation of Old Age.\" Such a work is all the more\ninteresting at this time because we know of De Soto's search for a\n\"Fountain of Youth\" in Florida and the popular belief in the\nexistence of some such fabled miracle-worker for the old. Indeed most\npeople seem inclined to think that such an idea represented very\ncharacteristically the naive medical science of the time. The Fountain\nof Youth was only like the many wonderful remedies--nearly always they\nare announced to have come from long distances--that are supposed to\nrenew youthful vigor and which are sold so plentifully in our time. To\ntake such popular notions as an index of the medical science of either\nthat time or our own is quite absurd. The genuine medical science of\nthis period is, as I have shown in my volume \"The Century of\nColumbus,\" a never-ending source of surprise by its anticipation of\nmany ideas that are usually supposed to be much later in origin and\nnot a few of which are fondly supposed to be original discoveries of\nour time.\n\nEvidently Spanish interest in science was broad and deep and this is\nconfirmed by the story of the medical schools in connection with these\nSpanish-American universities which is of special significance. My own\nmedical _alma mater_, the University of Pennsylvania, whose medical\nschool was the first in the United States, erected a tablet some years\nago in which it was at least hinted that this was the oldest medical\nschool in America. A few years later, on the erection of a second\ntablet to the earliest medical faculty, additional knowledge having\ncome in the meantime, the inscription on this was worded so as to\nrefer to the first school of medicine in North America.\n\n\n[Illustration: HOSPITAL, MEXICO (ANOTHER VIEW) This hospital, as was\nnoted in the caption to the other view of it (opp. page 272), is the\noldest foundation of this kind in America (1524) and is still in\nexistence supported by the original endowment. The second oldest\nhospital in America was that of Santa Fe (in Mexico) founded in 1531\nby a remarkable man who became Bishop of Michoacan, and who supported\nit at his own expense, besides forming at Santa Fe a community of\nthirty thousand Indians who lived like monks, practising hospitality\nand all the works of charity (_A History of Nursing, Nutting and\nDock, New York_).]\n\n\n{495}\n\nThe medical school of the University of Lima, founded before the end\nof the sixteenth century, had meanwhile been discovered. Subsequently\nthe medical school of the University of Mexico came to be known and\nthe next tablet will have to be worded with due reference to that. The\nfirst chair in medicine was founded at the University of Mexico about\n1580, almost two centuries before our first formal academic medical\nteaching in the United States was organized about 1770. During the\ncourse of a generation altogether seven chairs in medicine were\nfounded in Mexico, including a chair of anatomy and surgery, a special\nchair of dissection, a chair of therapeutics and one of prognostics.\nThe medical school of the University of Lima was organized about the\nsame time.\n\nWith our rather complacent modern method of belittling the past and\nour disinclination to admit that the Spaniards were doing anything in\nscience that the English Americans were not to think of for nearly two\ncenturies, it would be easy to conclude that the teaching at these\nmedical schools must have been altogether trivial and of no\nsignificance. When it is learned that most of the teaching was founded\non Hippocrates and Galen some of our generation might think it\nhopelessly backward, but it would be well for those who think so, to\nbe reminded that during the century following the sixteenth, Sydenham\nin England, and Boerhaave in Holland, the most distinguished medical\nmen of their time who are deservedly looked up to with great reverence\nby most of the distinguished teachers of ours, were both of them\npleading for a return to the broad, sane views and insistence on\nclinical observation of Hippocrates and Galen. As a matter of fact the\nmedical schools of both the University of Mexico and of Lima were\nfurnishing quite as good a medical training as the average medical\nschool of Europe at that time. They were modelled closely after the\nSpanish universities and were in intimate relations with them, even\nexchanging professors and students, and at the middle of the\nseventeenth century at least maintaining excellent standards.\n\nFrom the very beginning, then, the Spanish Americans made a definite\nattempt to develop scientific knowledge in America. In medicine, in\nbotany, in pharmacology, as well as in geography, philology,\nethnology, and anthropology, there are magnificent contributions made\nby Spanish scholars. Many a Spanish university student and teacher\nspent time in this country investigating the properties of plants,\nespecially their relations to medicine, and laying precious\nfoundations in botany. Besides there were university scholars at home\nin Spain taking advantage of these field investigations to {496}\ncompile works of serious character which are well known by those who\nare familiar with the history of botany and pharmacology. What the\nSpaniards were doing in America the Portuguese were doing in India and\nSouth Africa, and a very serious attempt was made during the sixteenth\nand seventeenth centuries to bring to Europe every possible material,\nplant or mineral, that might be of value for human health and at the\nsame time to increase the bounds of human knowledge by careful\ninvestigation.\n\nNor was this thoroughly scientific and practical education confined\nonly to the upper classes nor exclusively to those of Spanish birth\nand blood. Even \"the wild Indians,\" as Bourne tells us, \"were\nsuccessfully gathered together in a village called a Mission where,\nunder the increasing supervision of the friars, they were taught the\nelements of letters and trained to peaceful, industrious and religious\nlives. In fact every mission was an industrial school, where the\nsimple arts were taught by the friars, themselves in origin plain\nSpanish peasants.\" He continues, \"Spanish America, from California and\nTexas, to Paraguay and Chili, was fringed with such establishments,\nthe outposts of civilization, where many thousands of Indians went\nthrough a schooling which ended only with their lives.\" Bourne goes so\nfar as to say \"every town, Indian as well, as Spanish, was by law\nrequired to have its church, hospital, and school for teaching Indian\nchildren Spanish and the elements of religion.\" The Spaniards were\nactually anticipating for the young Indians some of the modes of\nvocational education, interest in which is only just being aroused\namong us at the present time.\n\nNo wonder that the work of conversion in Mexico followed hard upon the\nheels of conquest, and to quote Bourne's words farther, \"The Aztec\npriesthood relaxed its bonds and the masses were relieved from the\nearlier burdens of the faith. In the old world the progress from\nactual to vicarious sacrifice for sin had been slow and painful\nthrough the ages; in the new it was accomplished in but a single\ngeneration. The old religion had inculcated a relatively high\nmorality, but its dreadful rites overhung the present life like a\nblack cloud and for the future it offered little consolation.\" ...\"The\nwork of the Church was rapidly adapted to the new field of labor.\" The\ntriumph of the Church's influence was the preservation of the natives\nand their gradual uplift. This was a slow process and required almost\ndivine patience, but it was infinitely better than the method by which\nthe English-speaking colonies, in a chapter of history that is almost\nuntellable in its {497} completeness, brought the natives of the\ncountry that they had invaded to ruin and practically obliteration.\nThis experiment in applied sociology so successfully accomplished must\nbe placed to the credit of the Spaniards also, and it stands out with\nall the more interest by contrast with English neglect of duty.\n\nWhile seeing so clearly all that was accomplished in Mexico under the\ninfluence of the Church for education and social progress and\nscientific teaching and training in the arts and crafts and trades,\nProfessor Bourne cannot quite bring himself to condemn entirely the\nalmost complete failure that characterized all the relations of the\nEnglish-speaking peoples to the natives here in America and he even\nseems to find some justification for their harsh treatment of the\nIndians. I think that our point of view generally has changed a great\ndeal in this matter even in the last ten or fifteen years since we\nhave come to recognize our social obligations more clearly and, above\nall, have come to appreciate better what is meant by \"the white man's\nburden\" in his relations to the dark-skinned peoples who are lower in\nthe scale of civilization than we are. The Civil War did much to\ncorrect American notions on this point, but our attention to problems\nin the Philippines has done even more. I shall leave Professor\nBourne's paragraph to speak for itself and each reader to say for\nhimself whether the English method of dealing with the Indian is\njustified by comparison with the ruthless processes of nature as\nProfessor Bourne would hint.\n\n  \"Far different was the advancing frontier in English America with\n  its clean sweep, its clash of elemental human forces. Our own method\n  prepared a home for a more advanced civilization and a less variously\n  mixed population and its present fruits seem to justify it as the\n  ruthless processes of nature are justified; but a comparison of the\n  two systems does not warrant self-righteousness on the part of the\n  English in America.\"\n\nIndeed we might well say far from it, for the almost literal\nobliteration of the Indian in North America as of the natives in\nAustralia and New Zealand, only so much more complete there,\nrepresents ever to be regretted blots on the history of civilization\nfor which there can be no possible justification.\n\nProfessor Bourne does not hesitate to continue the comparison of\nSpanish and English America down even to our own time and in doing so\npoints out that our advances which have for the time being put us so\nfar ahead of the Spanish Americans are mostly the gains of the age of\nsteam and are due to the fact that it was hard for their mixed\npopulation with so many barbarous elements {498} in them to keep up\nwith our comparatively homogeneous population, homogeneous at least in\nthe sense of coming from the same strata and civilization in Europe.\nWhile our Indians have been almost entirely obliterated there are more\nIndians alive in Mexico and in South America to-day than there were\nwhen Columbus landed. With this fact in mind Professor Bourne's\ncomparison and contrast takes on renewed interest and his apology for\nthe Spanish Americans is all the more telling.\n\n  \"If we compare Spanish America with the United States a hundred\n  years ago we must recognize that while in the North there was a\n  sounder body politic, a purer social life and a more general\n  dissemination of elementary education, yet in Spanish America there\n  were both vastly greater wealth and greater poverty, _more imposing\n  monuments of civilization, such as public buildings, institutions of\n  learning and hospitals, more populous and richer cities, a higher\n  attainment in certain branches of science_. No one can read\n  Humboldt's account of the City of Mexico and its establishments for\n  the promotion of science and the fine arts without realizing that\n  whatever may be the superiorities of the United States over Mexico\n  in these respects, they have been mostly the gains of the age of\n  steam.\"\n\nIf one reads Champlain's account of the City of Mexico as he saw it at\nthe very beginning of the seventeenth century, as I have quoted it in\nthe chapter \"America in Columbus' Century,\" in \"The Century of\nColumbus\" (_Catholic Summer School Press. New York, 1914_), it will be\nquite clear that Humboldt was only seeing the natural development of\nculture and artistic progress that was already in evidence in the\nearly sixteenth century.\n\n  \"During the first half-century,\" Bourne continues, \"after the\n  application of steam to transportation Mexico weltered in domestic\n  turmoils arising out of the crash of the old regime. If the rule of\n  Spain could have lasted half a century longer, being progressively\n  as it was during the reign of Charles III; if a succession of such\n  viceroys as Revilla Gigedo, in Mexico, and De Croix and De Taboaday\n  Lemos, in Peru, could have borne sway in America until railroads\n  could have been built, intercolonial intercourse ramified, a\n  distinctly Spanish-American federal State might possibly have been\n  created, capable of self-defence against Europe, and inviting\n  cooperation rather than aggression from the neighbor in the North.\"\n\nIf the effort to understand Spanish America now so manifest will only\ngo to the extent of having our people realize the full truth that\nuntil the nineteenth century English America was far behind Spanish\nAmerica in facilities for higher education, in culture and literature,\nin the application of the arts to municipal life and, above {499} all,\nin interest in science, then the prevalent impression that the Popes\nand the Catholic Church are opposed to genuine progress and true\nscience will disappear. Catholic America was far ahead of Protestant\nAmerica in scientific education and research until the untimely break\nfrom Spain left the Spanish-American countries the prey of political\ndisturbances.\n\n\n{500}\n\nAPPENDIX IX.\n\nTHE DANGER OF A LITTLE KNOWLEDGE.\n\n_Professor Draper's \"The History of the Conflict between Religion\nand Science.\"_\n\nWhat I have tried to emphasize in this volume is that the arguments\nadvanced to show the opposition of the Catholic Church to science are\nfounded on actual ignorance of the history of science or\nmisunderstandings of particular incidents of that history. Not only\nwas there no policy of opposition to science, but on the contrary\nencouragement of interest in scientific subjects, patronage of\nscientific workers and even definite endowment of scientific research\nby the ecclesiastical authorities. The tradition of Church opposition\nto science is founded especially on lack of knowledge of what was done\nfor science in the medieval period and a misunderstanding of the\nmedieval universities. This tradition owed its origin partly to the\nRenaissance, which, having rediscovered Greek, despised whatever\nWestern Europe had accomplished during the preceding centuries and\nspoke of all that was done as Gothic, as if only worthy of barbarous\nGothic ancestors.\n\nAnother large factor, however, in the creation of this tradition and\none which meant more for us here in America than the Renaissance, was\nthe religious revolt of the sixteenth century in Germany which has\nbeen called the Reformation. The reformers made it a point to\nminimize, if not actually to misrepresent, what had been accomplished\nunder the old Church regime, and this Protestant tradition lived on\nhere in America with much more vitality even than in Europe.\n\nThe consequence was the bringing up of a series of generations, who,\nif not actually believing as so many absurdly did, that the Pope of\nRome was the Scarlet Woman and the Church the Babylon of the\nApocalypse, were quite sure at least that no good could possibly have\ncome out of the Nazareth of pre-Reformation times. It is only in\nrecent years that we have come to recognize that all the talk about\nthe Dark Ages is, as John Fiske said, simply due to ignorance of the\ntime and its accomplishment. The later medieval period might well be\ncalled the \"Bright Ages\" for its art and architecture, its magnificent\nliterature, its interest in education and {501} in scholarship, its\ndevelopment of democracy and its formulation of the great laws and\nconstitutions by which the rights of men were guaranteed in\npractically every country in Europe. Just as soon as this true state\nof affairs with regard to the medieval period is recognized, then all\nquestion of any policy of Church opposition to education and science\ndisappears.\n\nI have illustrated the lack of knowledge of the true history of\nscience as the basis of the arguments for the thesis of Church\nopposition to science in the present volume by impugning what\nPresident White advances as facts. It can be illustrated still better,\nhowever, from another book written twenty years before President\nWhite's, even a little consideration of which shows how the whole\nstatus of the arguments with regard to the relations of Church and\nscience has changed during a single generation. Our growing knowledge\nof history has literally taken away all the ground on which the older\ncontroversialists used to stand. This is the \"History of the Conflict\nBetween Religion and Science\" by Professor John W. Draper, which was\nissued in 1874, just forty years ago, and already in 1875 had entered\nits third edition, so that the book sold almost as a popular novel at\nthat time and evidently attracted wide attention. The volume was\naccorded the privilege of publication in the International Scientific\nSeries, and as this set is among the recognized serious books of the\ntime, some of them classics in science and most of them representing\nimportant contributions to knowledge, no wonder most readers never\nthought of doubting its authority or above all questioning its\n\"facts.\"\n\nSome of Dr. Draper's work made him deservedly one of the best-known\nbiological scientists of the United States in his time. He had had a\nvery striking career. As a medical student at the University of\nPennsylvania he reported in his thesis for the doctorate in medicine,\nwhich had become at this time usually such a commonplace statement of\nconventional science that it was shortly after given up as a\nrequirement, a series of observations on absorption through membranes,\nusing bubbles for his experimental work, that attracted the special\ncommendation of the faculty and the attention of the scientific world.\nHe was not yet thirty years of age when he made the first photograph\nof a human being--that of his sister--ever made and in 1840\nsuccessfully secured the first photographs of the moon. During the\nnext ten years he made a series of observations on the spectrum which\nattracted deserved attention and anticipated not a little of\nKirchoff's work. Melloni, himself a distinguished Italian physicist,\nreported these observations {502} to the academy of Naples. Draper's\ntext-book of physiology was without doubt the best medical text-book\nissued in America up to that time and deservedly held its place for\nmany years in our medical schools.\n\nIt was no wonder then that Draper received many distinctions in the\nshape of membership in foreign scientific societies, honorable\nmentions, and prizes. His works were translated into many of the\nEuropean languages. Late in life he gave up his experimental and\nscientific work to devote himself to the writing of history. His\nhistory of the Civil War was widely read both in Europe and America.\nHis \"History of the Intellectual Development of Europe,\" which only a\nlittle reading now in the light of recent knowledge of the Middle Ages\nshows us to be a caricature of the philosophy of history, was\ntranslated into several foreign languages and was probably more widely\nread than any serious work by an American author up to that time. What\nwas very rare for an American book at that period it was read by a\ngreat many European teachers and students. All this gave added\ndistinction to his writing on the subject of the relations of science\nand religion, and so it is easy to understand that he was considered\nby many to have made an almost final summary of this important\ncontroversy.\n\nProfessor Draper's book then became a sort of bible, that is a book of\nbooks, for a great many American teachers of science and, above all,\nfor the younger generation of university lecturers who were to have\nthe shaping of opinions among the students of scientific departments\nof our colleges and universities during the last quarter of the\nnineteenth century. It does not seem too much to assume that most of\nthe maturer scientists who are now teaching in the university\nscientific departments of this country, read Professor Draper's book\nand were led by it to an almost unshakeable conviction that religion\nand, above all, the Catholic Church, fearful lest science should take\nmen away from her influence, had been constantly opposed to all true\nscientific progress, and what was more unpardonable, that religion as\nrepresented by the Church had been for the same reason a bitter enemy\nof any and every social progress that might lead to the real\ndevelopment of mankind. For them under Draper's inspiration it seemed\nthat the deliberate Church policy was that if men were not happy here\nthey would look with all the more eagerness to happiness hereafter and\ntake all the means offered by the Church to secure it. That such a\nconclusion impugned the motives of millions of men whom their own\ngeneration had thoroughly respected and yielded to the most {503}\ndangerous of human ideas, suspicion, made no difference. No good could\ncome out of the Nazareth of the Catholic Church.\n\nIt is quite certain that a great many of the younger teachers of\nscience of that time who are still alive, even when not entirely\nconscious of the source of their opinions as to the relations of\nscience and religion and the Church and education, have at the back of\ntheir minds certain prejudices, founded on the influence produced on\nthem during their plastic, formative state of mind by the reading of\nProfessor Draper's book. Indeed, so firm is the feeling in many of\nthese men, that this whole subject is settled for them beyond the\npossibility of any modification, that they have insulated their minds\nfrom any further currents of information.\n\nControversy is distasteful at best; to find out that one has been\ncherishing a mistaken notion for years, is always disturbing as one\ngrows older, and so it is not surprising that many of these men\nfrequently use expressions with regard to the supposed relations of\nChurch and science that are quite incompatible with what is now very\ngenerally known of the history of science. Their minds are made up,\nand they simply refuse to bring for a second time any of these\nsubjects before the bar of judgment. Besides, though they would resent\nany such imputation as to their own state of mind, they have the\nfeeling that people with religious convictions are prone to see only\none side, and, therefore, anything that may be said on the other side\nis only a bit of special pleading for a conviction that no reasoning\nand no argument would change. They argue, as a consequence, that it\nwould be quite useless for them to read the other side with any\nreasonable hope of getting at the real facts. This attitude of\nscientists is very different from the open-mindedness that is supposed\nto be characteristic of the devotees of science; but it is very human.\n\nNow the interesting fact with regard to Professor Draper's books is\nthat Professor Draper, a scientist, did not know the history of\nscience at all. He was entirely ignorant of the great advances that\nwere even then being made, with regard to our knowledge of the growth\nof science during the medieval period. He thought that there was very\nlittle, indeed practically no science, during that period. Looking\nabout for a reason, he made the Church a scapegoat. The publication\nduring the past generation of many German volumes on the history of\nthe different sciences--and these German students went straight to the\noriginal documents--has shown us that there were magnificent\ndevelopments of science during the medieval and early Renaissance\nperiods, when the Church was in control of the educational\ninstitutions and of every phase of {504} academic work. The story of\nthe opposition between religion and science falls to the ground at\nonce when these facts are known. Some of them were already in process\nof publication even in Draper's time, but he knew nothing of them. He\nwas so sure that there was nothing to know in this matter, that he\nprobably did not bother his head very much about trying to get the\nlatest results of scholarship in the matter.\n\nProfessor Draper's summary of the relations of the Church to science\nor learning, and his declaration of her absolute refusal to recognize\nanything as scholarship, except what was deduced from the Scriptures,\nshows how far a man can go in his assumption of knowledge when he\nknows literally nothing about a subject. For him the Dark Ages knew\nnothing because he knows nothing about them. If they knew anything, he\nwould know it, but he does not. Of one or two men he knows something,\nbut they are exceptions to the general rule of absolute negation of\nintellectual interests and developments. Draper said: [Footnote 64]\n\n[Footnote 64: Page 250.]\n\n  \"In the annals of Christianity, the most ill-omened day is that in\n  which she separated herself from science. She compelled Origen, at\n  that time (A.D. 231) its chief representative and supporter in the\n  Church, to abandon his charge in Alexandria, and retire to Caesarea.\n  In vain through many subsequent centuries did her leading men spend\n  themselves in--as the phrase then went--drawing forth the internal\n  juice and marrow of the Scriptures for the explaining of things.\n  Universal history from the third to the sixteenth century shows with\n  what result. The Dark Ages owe their darkness to this fatal policy.\n  Here and there, it is true, there were great men, such as Frederick\n  II and Alphonso X, who, standing at a very elevated and general\n  point of view, had detected the value of learning to civilization,\n  and, in the midst of the dreary prospect that ecclesiasticism had\n  created around them, had recognized that science alone can improve\n  the social condition of man.\"\n\nOf course the man who wrote that either knew nothing at all about a\nwhole series of triumphs of human intelligence, or else he\ndeliberately put them out of his mind. One wonders if he had ever even\nheard of Dante, of whom more has been written than of any man who ever\nlived. Those triumphs of art, architecture, the arts and crafts,\nengineering, construction work of the highest genius, the Gothic\ncathedrals and the great public buildings, town halls, hospitals,\nuniversity buildings, would surely have appeared to him as\nrepresenting magnificent intellectual--and social--accomplishments,\nhad he appreciated anything of their real significance or allowed\nhimself for a moment to get out of the narrow circle of {505}\ninterests in which he was unfortunately placed. Our architecture in\nhis time was cheap; our art absent; our crafts lacked development; our\ncivic and university architecture of the quarter century before he\nwrote was literally a disgrace, and of course Professor Draper could\nnot be expected to appreciate the achievements of the Middle Ages in\nthose departments in which his own generation lacked so much.\n\nIt is especially striking to take a paragraph of Professor Draper's,\nin which he sums up a whole movement, and place beside it a paragraph\nof a serious and informed student of the same subject. Professor\nDraper inherited the old traditions of lazy monks, living in idleness,\na drain on the country, of absolutely no benefit to themselves or to\nothers. Professor Draper wrote: [Footnote 65]\n\n[Footnote 65: Page 267.]\n\n  \"While thus the higher clergy secured every political appointment\n  worth having, and abbots vied with counts, in the herds of slaves\n  they possessed--some, it is said, owned not fewer than twenty\n  thousand--begging friars pervaded society in all directions, picking\n  up a share of what still remained to the poor. There was a vast body\n  of non-producers, living in idleness and owning a foreign\n  allegiance, who were subsisting on the fruits of the toil of the\n  laborers. It could not be otherwise than that small farms should be\n  unceasingly merged into the larger estates; that the poor should\n  steadily become poorer; that society far from improving, should\n  exhibit a continually increasing demoralization.\"\n\nAs a commentary on this, read the following paragraph from Mr. Ralph\nAdams Cram's book on \"The Ruined Abbeys of Great Britain,\" in which he\ndescribes what the monasteries actually did for the people. Mr. Cram\nhas made a special study of the subject in connection with the\nmagnificent architecture which these medieval monks developed, and\nwhich he would like to have our people appreciate and emulate.\nProfessor Draper is much more positive, but Mr. Cram is much more\nconvincing. [Footnote 66]\n\n[Footnote 66: _The Ruined Abbeys of Great Britain_. New York: The\nChurchman Co., 1905, p. 458.]\n\n  \"At the height of monastic glory the religious houses were actually\n  the chief centres of industry and civilization, and around them grew\n  up the eager villages, many of which now exist, even though their\n  impulse and original inspiration have long since departed. Of\n  course, the possessions of the abbey reached far away from the walls\n  in every direction, including many farms even at a great distance,\n  for the abbeys were then the great landowners, and beneficent\n  landlords they were as well; even in their last days, for we have\n  many records of the cruelty and hardships that came to {506} the\n  tenants the moment the stolen lands came into the hands of laymen.\"\n\nOr, almost better still, read the following paragraph from an address\nat the summer meeting of the State Board of Agriculture of\nMassachusetts, delivered by Dr. Henry Goodell, the President of the\nMassachusetts Agricultural College, on the general subject of the\ninfluence of the monks in agriculture:\n\n  \"Agriculture was sunk to a low ebb at the decadence of the Roman\n  Empire. Marshes covered once fertile fields, and the men who should\n  have tilled the land spurned the plow as degrading. The monks left\n  their cells and their prayers to dig ditches and plow fields. The\n  effort was magical. Men once more turned back to a noble but\n  despised industry, and peace and plenty supplanted war and poverty.\n  So well recognized were the blessings they brought, that an old\n  German proverb among the peasants runs, 'It is good to live under\n  the crozier.' They ennobled manual labor, which, in a degenerate\n  Roman world, had been performed exclusively by slaves, and among the\n  barbarians by women. For the monks it is no exaggeration to say that\n  the cultivation of the soil was like an immense alms spread over a\n  whole country. The abbots and superiors set the example, and\n  stripping off their sacerdotal robes, toiled as common laborers.\n  Like the good parson whom Chaucer portrays in the prologue to the\n  \"Canterbury Tales\":\n\n    \"'This noble ensample unto his scheep he gaf\n    That first he wroughte and after that he taughte.'\n\n  \"When a Papal messenger came in haste to consult the Abbot Equutius\n  on important matters of the Church, he was not to be found anywhere,\n  but was finally discovered in the valley cutting hay. Under such\n  guidance and such example the monks upheld and taught everywhere the\n  dignity of labor, first, by consecrating to agriculture the energy\n  and intelligent activity of freemen often of high birth, and clothed\n  with the double authority of the priesthood and of hereditary\n  nobility, and, second, by associating under the Benedictine habit\n  sons of kings, princes, and nobles with the rudest labors of\n  peasants and serfs.\"\n\nPresident Goodell has told the story of how the monks cleared\nand reclaimed the land, transformed fens into forests, marshes\ninto gardens, and swamps into beautiful domains. As he says:\n\n  \"A swamp was of no value. It was a source of pestilence. But it was\n  just the place for a monastery because it made life especially hard,\n  and so the monks carried in earth and stone and made a foundation,\n  and built their convent, and then set to work to dyke and drain and\n  fill up the swamp, till they had turned it into fertile plow land\n  and the pestilence had ceased.\"\n\n{507}\n\nPresident Goodell did not hesitate to proclaim that the monasteries\nwere the early representatives of our agricultural colleges. They\ntaught the peasantry of the surrounding country how best to grow their\ncrops and what to grow. Because of their wide affiliations they were\nenabled to secure seeds of various kinds, and stock for breeding\npurposes, and so were able to teach the people what was best for\nparticular neighborhoods, and not only show them how to raise it, but\nactually supply them with the necessary initial materials. It became a\nproverb that the monks and their people were the best farmers. When we\nourselves were ignorant of scientific farming, we did not appreciate\nwhat the monks had done for agriculture. Now that our soil is becoming\nexhausted by unscientific and wasteful farming, the foundation of\nagricultural colleges leads the men who have studied the subject to\nappreciate what the monks really accomplished. Professor Draper not\nonly cannot find anything good to say of the monks, but he can\nscarcely find anything bitter enough to say of them. On the other hand\nPresident Goodell, who has studied the situation from his point of\nview very carefully, can scarcely find words strong enough to praise\nthem. He concluded his address as follows:\n\n  \"My friends, I have outlined to you in briefest manner to-day the\n  work of these grand old monks during the period of 1500 years. They\n  saved agriculture when no one else would save it, they practised it\n  under a new life and new conditions when no one else dared undertake\n  it. They advanced it along every line of theory and practice, and\n  when they perished they left a void which generations have not\n  filled.\"\n\nIn the light of these few quotations even it is easy to see that\nProfessor Draper's book is really quite an amazing work to have come\nfrom the hand of a man widely read, acknowledged as an authority in\ncertain subjects by his contemporaries and, above all, because the\nauthor seems to have thought that he had quite exhausted his subject.\nHere, for instance, is a portion of the paragraph in which he\nsummarizes the beginnings of science in modern Europe (page 298).\n\n  \"The science of the Arabians followed the invading track of their\n  literature, which had come into Christendom by two routes--the south\n  of France and Sicily. Favored by the exile of the Popes to Avignon,\n  and by the Great Schism, it made good its foothold in upper Italy.\n  The Aristotelian or Inductive philosophy, clad in the Saracenic\n  costume that Averroes had given it, made many secret and not a few\n  open friends. It found many minds eager to receive {508} and able to\n  appreciate it. Among these were Leonardo da Vinci, who proclaimed\n  the fundamental principle that experiment and observation are the\n  only reliable foundations of reasoning in science, that experiment\n  is the only trustworthy interpreter of Nature, and is essential to\n  the ascertainment of laws. He showed that the action of two\n  perpendicular forces upon a point is the same as that denoted by the\n  diagonal of a rectangle, of which they represent the sides, etc.\"\n\nWe must suppose that the scientific readers of this book, for they\nwere mainly scientists, and it had a place in the International\nScientific Series, agreed with this marvellous exhibition of\nignorance. Here is a man summarizing modern European science and\nleaving out all mention of Albertus Magnus, Roger Bacon, the great\nmedical school of Salerno in the twelfth century, and the great\nmedical schools of Italy farther north during the thirteenth,\nfourteenth, and fifteenth centuries. This lack of knowledge of the\nhistory of medicine deserves, above all, to be emphasized because\nDraper as a professor in a medical school would naturally be supposed\nto know something about his own branch of science.\n\nHe attributes all the initiative of modern science to the impulse\nderived from the Arabs. This used to be a favorite way of looking at\nthe history of culture for those who wanted to minimize just as far as\npossible all Christian influence. The facts of history are in constant\ncontradiction with this. Modern European science began at the\nUniversity of Salerno. It has often been stated that Arabian influence\nmust have largely impelled Salerno's work, situated as it was in the\nsouthern part of Italy, but the use of any such expression means that\nthe writer must forget that this southern part of Italy had been a\nGreek colony, was indeed called Magna Graecia and that Greek influence\npersisted there, and when the revival came after the Barbarians who\nhad invaded Italy had gradually been brought by religious influence\ninto a state where culture and science and civilization were to mean\nsomething for them, the influence of the old Greek authors was first\nfelt here. Gurlt, in his History of Surgery, emphasizes the fact, for\ninstance, that the first important modern (or medieval) writers on\nsurgery, the Four Masters of Salerno, were not influenced by the\nArabs. Their books contain no Arabisms but many Graecisms. They\nobtained their inspiration from the old Greeks and carried on the\ntorch of learning in their own department magnificently as recent\nstudies of the School of Salerno have shown. They corrected the\npolypharmacy of the Arabs and restored natural modes of cure to their\nproper place.\n\n{509}\n\nFor Professor Draper, until after the Reformation there was\npractically no development of medicine. \"It had always been the policy\nof the Church to discourage the physician and his arts; he interfered\ntoo much with the gifts and profits of the shrines.\" Professor Draper\neither knew nothing of the great series of Papal physicians and\nsurgeons or else he ignored what they had done deliberately. It seems\nreasonably certain that he knew nothing about them, for if he had done\nso he would surely have mentioned them in order to minimize the\nsignificance of their work--for that is his way. He is emphatic in his\ndeclaration of the medieval neglect of sanitation and care for the\nailing, and sets it down to the deliberate purpose to secure more\nmoney for prayers. \"From cities wreaking with putrefying filth it was\nthought that the plague might be staid by the prayers of the priests.\"\nHe knows nothing apparently of the well-directed attempts to organize\nsanitary control, of the appointment of archiaters or medical\ndirectors in Italian cities, of the recognition of the contagiousness\nof tuberculosis, and the effort to control it, and seems even to have\nmissed the significance of the successful obliteration of leprosy by\nsegregation methods, for that was one of the greatest triumphs of\npreventive medicine ever attained. Leprosy was probably as common in\nthe thirteenth century in Europe as consumption is now with us or very\nnearly so, and yet in two centuries it had been practically\neradicated. Well for us if we shall accomplish as much for our folk\nscourge of disease--the White Plague.\n\nAbove all, Professor Draper seems to know nothing of the magnificent\nhospitals of the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries,\nbeautiful architecturally, well planned for ventilation and the\ndisposal of waste material, with abundant water supply, with large\nopen wards, windows high in the wall, tiled floors that could be\nthoroughly cleansed and which, alas! were to be replaced hundreds of\nyears later by the awful hospitals of the first half of the nineteenth\ncentury, which with their small windows, narrow corridors, cell-like\napartments and little doors, were to be more like jails than refuges.\nSome of the worst hospitals ever built in modern history had been\nerected in Professor Draper's own lifetime. Some of the most beautiful\nhospitals in the world had been erected in Italy and other countries\nduring the later medieval and Renaissance period, before the\nReformation, under religious influence,--but Professor Draper knows\nnothing of them. The history of hospitals here in America is as\nlargely religious as it was in other countries and times.\n\n{510}\n\nProfessor Draper seems to have known nothing of the fine hospitals and\nfoundling institutions and the great surgery of the later Middle Ages,\nbut he thinks he knows enough to be quite sure that any such\ndevelopments were impossible. Certain incidents that he accepts as\nhistorical showed him what fools the Popes and all near them were in\nmatters of science, and, therefore, it would be quite impossible that\nthey could have any sympathy for scientific progress and quite easy to\nunderstand their opposition. It is from conclusions and assumptions in\nhistory that we need to be saved. A hundred years ago it used to be\nsaid with pride that if you gave a zoologist a single bone he could\nreconstruct the entire animal for you. We know that such\nreconstruction worked much harm to science. Many of the animals\npossess structures that even important portions of their anatomy in\nother parts of the body would give no hint of. History that is built\nup from single incidents is likely to be even more false because human\nconduct is much more complex than any animal body. What could be\nexpected of the zoologist's reconstruction, however, if the original\nbone handed to him was factitious, what a curious result might be\nexpected from his deduced skeleton.\n\nThis is what happened with Professor Draper's reconstruction of\nhistory from certain incidents that he accepted. The story of the\nPapal Bull against Halley's comet seemed enough to him to make it\nquite clear that for centuries the Popes must have been buried in the\nprofoundest ignorance of science,--but then the story of the Papal\nBull against Halley's comet is all a modern invention. Draper said:\n\"But when Halley's comet came in 1456 so tremendous was its apparition\nthat it was necessary for the Pope himself to interfere. He exorcised\nand expelled it from the skies. It slunk away into the abysses of\nspace terror-stricken by the maledictions of Calixtus III, and did not\nventure back again for seventy-five years!\" Of course this bit of\nsupposed information is all nonsense; Calixtus did no such thing, and\njust at that time the Popes were encouraging Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa\nin his great mathematical work and astronomical speculations, were\ninviting Regiomontanus, \"the Father of modern astronomy,\" down to Rome\nto do his work there and help in the correction of the calendar, while\nCardinal Bessarion, one of the most intimate friends of the Pope at\nthis time, was encouraging Purbach at Vienna and Regiomontanus to\ntranslate Ptolemy and providing them with manuscripts and putting them\nin touch with Greek science in every way.\n\n{511}\n\nHalley's comet is a favorite reference with Professor Draper. How well\nhis readers must have remembered all about it! He says, for instance,\non page 320:\n\n  \"The step that European intellect had made between 1456 and 1759 was\n  illustrated by Halley's comet. When it appeared in the former year,\n  it was considered as the harbinger of the vengeance of God, the\n  dispenser of the most dreadful of his retributions, war, pestilence,\n  famine. By order of the Pope, all the church-bells in Europe were\n  rung to scare it away, the faithful were commanded to add each day\n  another prayer; and, as their prayers had often in so marked a\n  manner been answered in eclipses and droughts and rains, so on this\n  occasion it was declared that a victory over the comet had been\n  vouchsafed to the Pope. But, in the meantime, Halley, guided by\n  revelations of Kepler and Newton, had discovered that its motions,\n  so far from being controlled by the supplications of Christendom,\n  were guided in an elliptic orbit by destiny. Knowing that Nature had\n  denied to him an opportunity of witnessing the fulfilment of his\n  daring prophecy, he besought the astronomers of the succeeding\n  generation to watch for its return in 1759, and in that year it\n  came.\"\n\nAll this is of course mere persiflage once it is known that the story\nof the Papal Bull against the comet has no foundation in history. It\nis the sort of nonsense that a great many serious men permit\nthemselves to indulge in when they think they are convicting some past\ncentury of sublime foolishness. Not infrequently they make themselves\nout just as absurd as they would like to present the men of former\ngenerations, because they show how credulous a modern scholar can be\nwhen his prejudices influence him. Unfortunately such passages have a\nparticularly lamentable effect upon young minds. For them ridicule\nmeans much more than argument. For a young man to be ridiculous seems\nthe worst thing that can possibly happen and when anything is made\nridiculous for him he loses his respect for it. Ridicule is, as is\nwell known, an extremely dangerous argument, however. Professor Draper\nand, indeed, many another teacher of history and, above all, lecturer\nand writer on the history of science, have made themselves supremely\nridiculous by their ready acceptance of a legend for which there is\nnot the slightest authority. It was made up to serve the purpose of\nexhibiting Papal ignorance and superstition, but it so happens that in\nserious history the Popes of the time when this is supposed to have\noccurred are among the most intelligent and scholarly men of history.\n\nIt seems worth while to go over the list of Popes who came during the\ntwenty years just before and after the date given for the issuance of\nthis supposed bull. Eugene IV, elected Pope in 1431, {512} whatever\nmay have been his faults of lack of tact, was scholarly and unselfish.\nAt an early age he distributed what was really an immense fortune in\nhis time to the poor, and entered the monastery. When political\ntroubles drove him from Rome he resided at Florence and the presence\nof the Papal Court there did much to foster the humanistic movement\nwhich was just then beginning. It was he who consecrated the beautiful\nchurch just finished by Brunelleschi. His successor in 1447 was Pope\nNicholas V, a man of wide education and deep interest in the revival\nof classical literature and Christian antiquities. He was the founder\nof the Vatican Library and brought Fra Angelico to Rome for the great\ndecorative work at the Vatican. Pope Calixtus III, who succeeded\nNicholas in 1455, was a man of cultivated mind, scholarly tastes and\nshared with his predecessor the honor of having founded the Vatican\nLibrary. He encouraged the Greek scholars in Italy and added greatly\nto the collections of precious manuscripts. His desire to prevent the\nfurther destruction of Greek culture by the Turks who had just\ncaptured Constantinople, led him to devote himself mainly to the\nfulfilment of a vow that he had made to wrest Constantinople from the\nMoslem. To his influence is largely due the victory gained by the\nChristians at Belgrade at this time which prevented the further spread\nof Mohammedan power. Pope Calixtus had the Angelus Bell rung every day\nat noon to implore the aid of the heavenly powers against the Turks.\nThere is absolutely no question of any reference in this matter to the\ncomet, but here is where the story comes in.\n\nPope Calixtus' successor was the famous Renaissance scholar AEneas\nSylvius Piccolomini. He was just beginning some of the reforms, the\nneed of which had been pointed out by his friend, the scholarly\nNicholas of Cusa, when his death occurred as a consequence of his\nfatigue in journeys undertaken to rouse the Christians of the West\nagainst the Turks so as to preserve Christian civilization. His\nsuccessor was Pope Paul II. He found it necessary to suppress some of\nthe academies of Rome whose privileges were being abused by fostering\na pagan attitude toward philosophy and religion, and in revenge\nPlatina wrote a bitter biography of him, but no one has ever doubted\nof his scholarliness. He built the Palace of St. Marco in Rome, now\nknown as the Venezia, and organized relief work among the poor while\nencouraging printing, protecting universities, and showing himself a\njudicious collector of works of ancient art.\n\nProfessor Draper's summaries of periods of history are amusing {513}\ncaricatures of the reality. I know no easier way to make a comic\nhistory of progress in Europe, so-called, than to take a series of\nexcerpts from Draper's book and string them together. He ignores\ncompletely the wonderful work done for scholarship, he knows nothing\napparently of the great series of books printed for us during the\nRenaissance, usually in magnificent editions, which preserve scholarly\nworks of the Middle Ages, he utterly neglects the painting, the\narchitecture, the sculpture, even the great engineering feats in the\nmaking of bridges and constructive work of all kinds, and then in\norder to explain why there was nothing done by mankind puts all the\nblame on the Church. As I have said before, in a period in which even\nwell-read men knew nothing about the Middle Ages, self-complacency\ntempted them to conclude that such a gap in their knowledge could only\nbe because there was nothing to know about them. They looked for some\nreason for the absence of accomplishment that made this blank in human\nhistory. With their feelings, the Church was just the one that must be\nresponsible. Progress would surely have been made only that some\nfactor was keeping it back.\n\nProfessor Draper makes an especially strong appeal to American readers\nby contrasting all the accomplishments of our material civilization\nhere in the United States, with the results in Mexico and in South\nAmerica. Our progress has been all beneficent, while the influence of\nthe Spaniard was everywhere absolutely maleficent. He seems to forget\nall about our treatment of the Indian, with its awful injustice. He\nproclaims our increase in wealth as the surest sign of our\nintellectual superiority. He says: [Footnote 67]\n\n[Footnote 67: Page 289.]\n\n  \"Let us contrast with this the results of the invasion of Mexico and\n  Peru by the Spaniards, who in those countries overthrew a wonderful\n  civilization, in many respects superior to their own, a civilization\n  that had been accomplished without iron and gunpowder--a\n  civilization resting on an agriculture that had neither horse, nor\n  ox, nor plow. The Spaniards had a clear base to start from, and no\n  obstruction whatever in their advance. They ruined all that the\n  aboriginal children of America had accomplished. Millions of those\n  unfortunates were destroyed by their cruelty. Nations that for many\n  centuries had been living in contentment and prosperity, under\n  institutions shown by their history to be suitable to them, were\n  plunged into anarchy; the people fell into a baneful superstition,\n  and a greater part of their land and other property found its way\n  into the possession of the Roman Church.\"\n\nPlace beside that a paragraph from the late lamented Professor Bourne\nof Yale, who having made special studies in {514} Spanish-American\nculture and education, as well as in its intellectual life, contrasts\nit quite unfavorably with what was accomplished in the English\ncolonies. Professor Bourne was, like Draper, a professor at an\nAmerican university, but he had made special studies in the subject,\nand knew something about it. Professor Draper talked out of the depths\nof his assumption of knowledge; Professor Bourne out of an intimate\nacquaintance that had been obtained by years of serious research work.\nProfessor Bourne said:\n\n  \"Both the Crown and the Church were solicitous for education in the\n  Spanish colonies, and provisions were made for its promotion on a\n  far greater scale than was possible or even attempted in the English\n  colonies. The early Franciscan missionaries built a school beside\n  each church, and in their teaching abundant use was made of signs,\n  drawings, and paintings. The native languages were reduced to\n  writing, and in a few years Indians were learning to read and write.\n  Pedro de Gante, a Flemish lay brother, and a relative of Charles V,\n  founded and conducted in the Indian quarter in Mexico a great\n  school, attended by over a thousand Indian boys, which combined\n  instruction in elementary and higher branches, the mechanical and\n  fine arts. In its workshops the boys were taught to be tailors,\n  carpenters, blacksmiths, shoemakers, and painters.\"\n\nSir Sidney Lee, the editor of the \"National Dictionary of Biography of\nEngland,\" and the author of a series of works on Shakespeare, which\nhas gained for him recognition as probably the best living authority\non the history of the Elizabethan times, without deliberate intent,\nanswered Draper almost directly, in the following paragraphs from his\nwork, \"The Call of The West,\" which appeared originally in _Scribner's\nMagazine_, but has since been published in book form. Since Mr. Lee\ncannot be suspected of national or creed affinities with the\nSpaniards, and his knowledge of the subject is unquestionable, his\ndirect contradictions of Draper are all the more weighty:\n\n  \"Especially has theological bias justified neglect or facilitated\n  misconception of Spain's role in the sixteenth century drama of\n  American history. Spain's initial adventures in the New World are\n  often consciously or unconsciously overlooked or underrated, in\n  order that she may figure on the stage of history as the benighted\n  champion of a false and obsolete faith, which was vanquished under a\n  divine protecting Providence by English defenders of the true\n  religion. Many are the hostile critics who have painted sixteenth\n  century Spain as the avaricious accumulator of American gold and\n  silver, to which she had no right, as the monopolist of American\n  trade, of which she robbed others, and as the oppressor and\n  exterminator of the weak and innocent aborigines of the new\n  continent, who deplored her presence among {515} them. Cruelty in\n  all its hideous forms is, indeed, commonly set forth as Spain's only\n  instrument of rule in her sixteenth century empire. On the other\n  hand, the English adventurer has been credited by the same pens with\n  a touching humanity, with the purest religious aspirations, with a\n  romantic courage which was always at the disposal of the oppressed\n  native.\n\n  \"No such picture is recognized when we apply the touchstone of the\n  oral traditions, printed books, maps, and manuscripts concerning\n  America which circulated in Shakespeare's England. There a\n  predilection for romantic adventure is found to sway the Spaniards\n  in even greater degree than it swayed the Elizabethan Englishman.\n  Religious zeal is seen to inspirit the Spaniards more constantly and\n  conspicuously than it stimulated his English contemporary. The\n  motives of each nation are barely distinguishable one from another.\n  Neither deserves to be credited with any monopoly of virtue or vice.\n  Above all, the study of contemporary authorities brings into a\n  dazzling light, which illumes every corner of the picture, the\n  commanding facts of the Spaniard's priority as explorer, as\n  scientific navigator, as conqueror, as settler.\"\n\nWhen an Englishman will admit this much in a comparison of his own\ncountrymen with the Spaniards, it is easy to understand how great must\nbe the actual historical contrast between the settlers of Spanish and\nEnglish America.\n\nProfessor Draper's philosophy of history is, indeed, something to make\none pause. He says on page 291, \"The result of the Crusades had shaken\nthe faith of all Christendom.\" As a matter of easily ascertainable\nhistory, the faith of Christendom was never so strong as during the\ncentury immediately following the Crusades. This was the thirteenth\ncentury, with the glorious Gothic cathedrals; the great Latin hymns;\nthe magnificent musical development; the wondrous tribute of painting\nto religion, from Cimabue and Duccio to Giotto and Orcagna, and of\nsculpture from the Pisani to the great designers of some of the doors\nof the baptistry of Florence, of the finest arts and crafts in gold\nand silver, in woodwork, in needle-work, in illuminated books--all\nprecious tributes to religious belief. In the hundred years after the\nCrusades, the Popes secured a position of influence in Europe greater\nthan they had ever had before or have ever enjoyed since, which they\nused to secure the foundation of hospitals everywhere throughout\nEurope, the establishment of universities, the organization of\nreligious orders for teaching and nursing purposes, and the finest\ndevelopment of social life and social happiness that the world had\never known.\n\nAccording to Professor Draper, the removal of the Papal Court to\nAvignon in France gave opportunity for \"the memorable intellectual\nmovement that soon manifested itself in the great commercial {516}\ncities of Upper Italy.\" For him the earlier Renaissance begins with\nthe fourteenth century, the thirteenth is entirely neglected, and a\nperiod that is really one of decadence is proclaimed a triumphant era\nof progress, because forsooth the removal from Rome of the Papacy and\nthe abandonment by some of Christianity itself, gives him an\nopportunity to explain, thus from his prejudiced point of view, how\nthe first stirrings of the Renaissance began. Verily indeed Professor\nDraper has written a joke book of history. Everything is along the\nsame line. It is very rare, indeed, that by some chance he states a\ngenuine historical truth, and when he does he usually disfigures it in\nsome way or other. For him the Moors are the source of chivalry, of\nrespect for women(!), and of the noble sentiment of personal honor.\nEverything else that is of any value in Christendom, must be referred\nto some source not Christian, lest by any chance religion should seem\nto have done any good in the world. _And let us not forget that this\nbook was taken seriously, and not by the ignorant, but by university\nmen, college graduates, professors, and teachers in many parts of the\ncountry._\n\nAbove all Professor Draper can scarcely be too bitter in his\ndenunciation of the way that the poor were imposed upon, their\nignorance encouraged, their rights refused, and all opportunities\ndenied them. All this was due, according to Professor Draper, to the\ntyranny of the Church. President Woodrow Wilson, after making a\nspecial study of that subject, suggested in a passage in his book,\nwhich may be found in \"The New Freedom,\" exactly the opposite of this.\nHe knew something of the subject. Professor Draper was quite sure that\nhe knew all about it, and that no good could have possibly come out of\nthe Church. President Wilson's expressions are interesting to those\nwho do not know them:\n\n  \"The only reason why government did not suffer dry rot in the Middle\n  Ages under the aristocratic systems which then prevailed, was that\n  the men who were efficient instruments of government were drawn from\n  the Church--from that great Church, that body we now distinguish\n  from other Church bodies as the Roman Catholic Church. The Roman\n  Catholic Church then, as now, was a great democracy. There was no\n  peasant so humble that he might not become a priest, and no priest\n  so obscure that he might not become a Pope of Christendom, and every\n  chancellory in Europe was ruled by those learned, trained and\n  accomplished men--the priesthood of that great and then dominant\n  Church; and so, what kept government alive in the Middle Ages was\n  this constant rise of the sap from the bottom, from the rank and\n  file of the great body of the people through the open channels of\n  the Roman Catholic priesthood.\"\n\n{517}\n\nThe greatest surprise is to be found in Professor Draper's ignorance\nof the history of his own profession. He says, \"It had always been the\npolicy of the Church to discourage the physician and his art; he\ninterfered too much with the gifts and profits of the shrines.\"\nProfessor Draper apparently knew nothing of the magnificent medical\nschools attached to the universities in the medieval period, whose\nprofessors wrote great medical and surgical text-books, which have\ncome down to us, and whose faculties required a far higher standard of\nmedical education than was demanded in America in Professor Draper's\nown day. For about 1871 anyone who wished might enter an American\nmedical school practically anywhere in the country, without any\npreliminary education, and having taken two terms of ungraded\nlectures, that is, having listened to the same set of lectures two\nyears in succession, might receive his degree of doctor of medicine.\nIn the Middle Ages he could enter the medical school only after having\ncompleted three years of preliminary work in the undergraduate\ndepartment, and then he was required to give four years to the study\nof medicine, and spend a year as assistant with another physician\nbefore he was allowed to practise for himself. This is the standard to\nwhich our university medical schools gradually climbed back at the\nbeginning of the twentieth century--a full generation after Draper's\ntime.\n\nWe know now that in those earlier centuries they had thorough clinical\nteaching in the hospitals, that is, physicians learned to practise\nmedicine at the bedside of the patient, and not merely out of books\nand by theoretic lectures. Clinical teaching had not developed in\nProfessor Draper's day to any extent. The medieval hospitals had\ntrained nurses and magnificent quarters, while the trained nurse was\nonly introduced into America in 1871, and our hospitals at that time\nwere almost without exception a disgrace to civilization, according to\nour present standards of hospital construction. Our surgery was most\ndiscouraging, because there were so many deaths in the unclean\nhospital conditions. The medieval hospital surgeons operating under\nanesthesia, boasted of getting union by first intention, and were in\nmany ways doing better work than their colleagues of 1870, Professor\nDraper's own time, before Lister's great discovery. Of all this\nProfessor Draper had no inkling.\n\nDraper's position is very like that of the specialist at all times.\nDean West of Princeton once said, I believe, that a specialist is a\nman who knows so much more about one thing than he knows about\nanything else that he is inclined to think that he knows more about\nthat than anyone else does. To which I once ventured {518} to add that\nthe specialist is also a man who thinks because of his recognized\nattainments in one line, that if, for any reason, he should pay any\nserious attention to any other subject he would know more about that\nthan anyone else does. Draper's views on universal history correspond\nexactly to such a definition. He jumped to conclusions in a way that\nhe would surely have resented most bitterly and quite properly in\nanyone who attempted after slight acquaintance with his own department\nof science to express ultimate conclusions with regard to it, but he\nhimself with the most scanty information gleaned only for the purpose\nof confirming some preconceived ideas, gathered entirely from\nsecondary authorities without even an attempt to confirm his views by\nconsultation of original documents, proceeded to tell the world just\nwhat it ought to think about questions of all kinds that have\nsometimes occupied historians for centuries and are by no means clear\neven yet.\n\nAbove all, he failed to realize the relations of whatever knowledge he\nhad to the other facts of history. Deeply interested in science\nhimself to the exclusion of nearly everything else, he could not\nunderstand how any generation and scarcely how any individual could\nlive a deeply intellectual life without an absorbing interest in\nphysical science. He seems to have had no conception of the fact that\nphysical science is only a passing phase of man's interest, and that\ninterests in philosophy, in art, in poetry, in literature are not only\nquite equal to science as a mental discipline, but must probably be\nconsidered to surpass it. Nothing can be so narrow as physical science\npursued alone,--as Draper himself furnishes the best possible proof,\nbut of this he seems to have had no hint. Fortunately humanity has\ndrawn away from that exaggerated idea of the value of physical science\nas ultimate truth and we are able to judge a little more\ndispassionately.\n\nProfessor Draper's prestige, and the fact that his book was published\nin the International Scientific Series, led a great many people to\nread it, and it found its way into many of the public libraries of the\ncountry, on whose shelves it may still be found. Many of its readers\nthought it could never be effectively answered. Scientists were\naffected by it, or at least those interested in science, and it\nrepresented one phase of that pronounced opposition to religion which\ncharacterized what has been so well called the \"silly seventies.\"\n\nAnd if the seriously educated were willing to accept the ignorant and\nprejudiced views of Professor Draper, what was to be expected of the\ngeneral reader? What has helped the position of the Church {519} in\nthis country during the past generations is knowledge, and ever more\nknowledge. When those who are not of the fold know even a little of\nthe history of the Church, know a reasonable amount of the other side\nof controversial problems, and, above all, when they have been brought\ninto personal touch with the Church itself, her pastors and the\nhierarchy and religious men and women, prejudice disappears and\nunderstanding grows. We still have the monks and nuns of the olden\ntime with us, but no one who knows them personally ever thinks for a\nmoment of lazy monks and idle nuns. After a man has met scholarly\nCatholic clergymen, he has quite a different view of the relations of\nthe Church to education. That is all that the Church has ever\nneeded--to be known in order to be appreciated. Nothing emphasizes\nthis so much as the change that has come over the opinions of those\noutside the Church as a result of growth in knowledge of the Church\nand her institutions during the generation that separates us from the\nwriting of Professor Draper's book.\n\n\n{520}\n\n{521}\n\nINDEX\n\nA\n\nA.A.A.S. 311\n\n_Abditis de causis morborum_ 84\n\nAccident of fevers 213\n\nAchievement, human 306\n\nAchillini 76, 86, 92, 105, 244\n\nAchillinus (see above)\n\nAddison 85\n\nAfter-care of insane 371\n\nAgenius, Otto 47\n\nAgnostic 262\n\nAgnus Dei 199\n\nAlbert (see Albertus)\n\nAlbertus Magnus 102, 134, 287, 295, 305, 324;\n  botany 318;\n  physical geography 318;\n  science 299;\n  scientific treatises 319;\n  scientific works 319\n\nAlbigenses 257\n\nAlbucasis 99\n\nAlchemy 134, 135\n\nAlderotti, Thaddeus 206\n\nAlexander VI. 215, 231\n\nAllbutt 83, 173, 185, 194, 196, 214, 506\n\nAllston, Washington 391\n\nAlma Mater Studiorum 94\n\nAlphanus 228\n\nAmerica, discovery of 316\n\nAmerigo Vespucci 283\n\nAmalgam 135\n\nAmpere 281\n\nAnatomical preparations 46;\n  work at Rome 117\n\nAnatomy,\n  history of 114, 62;\n  Father of 111;\n  Golden Age 30;\n  myths 61;\n  Renaissance of 112;\n  supposed prohibition 28\n\nAnaxagoras 351\n\nAneurysms 243\n\nAngelico 92\n\nAngelo 90, 112\n\nAngel butterfly 358\n\nAngleworms dried 184\n\nAnnals of Anatomy and Surgery 116, 233\n\nAnnihilation 313\n\nAnomalies 185\n\nAntimony, Triumphal Chariot of 136\n\nAntipodes 316\n\nAnts 358\n\nApplied science 329\n\nAquinas 135, 305, 323, 325\n\nArabisms 170\n\nArabs, surgical knowledge of 170, 192\n\nAranzi 245\n\nArchives, Hospitalieres 253\n\nArdern, John 188\n\nArgelata 76\n\nAristotle 218, 292;\n  a man 298;\n  errors of 298\n\nArnold of Villanova 135, 186, 210\n\nArts and architecture 329;\n  seven devilish 145\n\nArts and Sciences, Congress of 173\n\nAstrology 158, 212\n\nAstronomy 140\n\nAuenbrugger 243, 403\n\nAugsburg 251\n\nAugustine, St. 112, 296, 327\n\nAuthors, second-rate 315\n\nAutopsy\n  on a living person 117;\n  on Cardinals 58\n\nAutopsy, legal 72\n\nAvicenna 99, 183\n\nAvignon 79, 164, 182, 211;\n  development of 139\n\nAzarias, Brother 344\n\n\n      B\n\nB. A. A. S. 311\n\nBacon, Francis 283, 332, 360\n\nBacon, Roger 134, 305, 321, 323, 327, 332\n\nBaillie 85\n\nBalliol College 95\n\nBartholomaeus Anglicus 338\n\nBartholomew the Englishman 336\n\nBartolo 270\n\nBasel 105\n\nBasil, Valentine 136\n\nBauhin 209\n\nBaunette 308\n\nBaverius de Baveriis 213\n\nBede 315\n\nBedlam 255, 372;\n  visitors' fees 373\n\nBedlamites 374\n\nBedlams 374\n\nBees 358\n\nBelgium, Catholic 102\n\nBellinis 90\n\nBenedict XIV. 218, 223\n\nBenedictines and medicine 224;\n  of St. Maur 53, 54\n\nBenivieni 83, 85, 99, 105\n\nBerengar of Carpi 82, 86, 105, 115, 245, 399\n\nBerengarius 77\n\nBertapaglia 77\n\nBerthelot 132\n\nBertrand, M. 394\n\nBertrucci 92, 186\n\nBesancon 254\n\nBethlehem Hospital 369, 372\n\nBlack Death 272\n\nBlepharitis 208\n\nBlood, shedding of 168, 191\n\n{522}\n\nBodleian 95\n\nBody-snatching 37, 75\n\nBoerhaave 244\n\nBologna 19, 119, 152, 158, 174, 192, 222;\n  a Papal City 82\n\nBolognese Medical School 244\n\nBoniface VIII. 56, 112\n\nBoniface's, Pope,\n  Bull 29;\n  Bull, meaning of 59;\n  misinterpretation 35;\n  reason for 32;\n  text 31;\n  where found 31\n\nBooks, medical, dedicated to Popes 235\n\nBorelli 217\n\nBotany 140, 158;\n  medieval 318\n\nBrethren of the Common Life 97\n\nBridewell 255\n\nBright 85\n\nBroeck 178\n\nBrother Potamian 288\n\nBrothers 254\n\nButterfly 358\n\n\n     C\n\nCaesalpino 319\n\nCaesalpinus 18, 113, 119, 217, 236\n\nCahors 156, 162, appendix\n\nCaius,\n  John 94;\n  College 94\n\nCalendar, correction of 323\n\nCambridge Modern History 24\n\nCantharides 181\n\nCarlyle 347\n\nCassiodorus 225\n\nCatalepsy 214\n\nCataract 208, 230\n\nCatarrh 180\n\nCatherei 185\n\nCatherine of Siena 272\n\nCecco di Ascolo 211\n\nCharles V. 108, 116, 217\n\nChartres 228\n\nChauliac 45, 74, 176, 180, 181, 210;\n  self-made man 210\n\nChauvinism 237\n\nChemicum Theatrum 135\n\nChemistry, story of 134\n\nChildren attending schools 344\n\nChirurgia Magna 175, 187\n\nChirurgia Parva 187\n\nChlorosis, iron for 214\n\nChrist's Hospital 255\n\nChurch and\n  art 21;\n  education 21;\n  letters 22;\n  science 22\n\nChurch, pressure of 190\n\nCirculation of the blood 238\n\nCity Hospitals 248, 370\n\nClassic histories misleading 25\n\nClaude Bernard 233\n\nClavis Sanationis 209\n\nClavius, S. J., Father 217, 360\n\nCleanliness, surgical 279\n\nClement\n  V. 135, 150, 210;\n  VIII. 237;\n  XI. 242;\n  XIII. 219\n\nClimate at Rome 243\n\nClimatology 140\n\nCod liver oil 230\n\nCologne 251, 318, 325\n\nColony system 367, 372\n\nColumbus 86, 90, 113, 216, 232\n\nSt. Come College 195\n\nCommittee\n  of inspection 373;\n  of investigation 378\n\nConcordance 134\n\nConflict, supposed, between religion and science 393\n\nCongregation of St. Maur 54\n\nConspiracy against the Truth 24\n\nConstantine Africanus 170\n\nConservation of energy 312\n\nConsultation, Vesalius's 107\n\nConstanz 251\n\nContact, without human 386\n\nContent of medieval teaching 314\n\nCopenhagen, University of 97\n\nCopper and gold 309\n\nCoquelines 146\n\nCoro Anatomico 246\n\nCorpus Juris Canonici 124\n\nCorradi 74\n\nCoryza 180\n\nCosmos 355\n\nCoulomb 282\n\nCruikshank 121\n\nCrusades of surgery 192\n\nCycles of interest 131\n\n\n     D\n\n\nDante 341;\n  as a nature student 343;\n  architect 342;\n  like Goethe 348;\n  on education 361;\n  treatment of nature 347\n\nDaremberg 188\n\nDarwin 396\n\nDaunou 54, 230;\n  Protestant tract 55\n\nDecretals, sixth book of 56\n\nDeduction 169, 200\n\nDeductions in history 26\n\n_De Magnete_ 285\n\nDeMaistre 24, 165, 284\n\nDemocritus 351\n\nDemonical possession 366\n\n_De Motu Cordis_ 242\n\n_De Natura rerum_ 338\n\nDenifle 305\n\n_De Re Anatomica_ 235\n\nDesiderata for insane 371\n\nDesiderius 227\n\nDevelopment of anatomy 63\n\nDiabetes 180\n\nDillon, Arthur 266\n\nDino de Garbo 212\n\nDirector, surgical 183\n\nDisease,\n  eradication 275;\n  What, Where 85\n  nothing 364\n\nDisinterested scholars 302\n\nDissection\n  at Rome 59;\n  at Venice 38;\n  first 1302 37;\n  numerous 77;\n  hero of 111;\n  in public 58;\n  permissions 51;\n  practice of 63;\n  Rashdall on 37;\n  supposed prohibition 29;\n  systematic 76;\n  was it hampered? 36;\n  wounds 47\n\nDocumentary evidence 25\n\nDoctorates 154\n\nDogmatism 395\n\nDonatello 112\n\nDonatus 305\n\nDonkey, breath of 167, 183\n\nDraper, Dr. 284\n\nDropsy, cause 174\n\nDucks, queerest 203\n\n_Durities renum_ 174\n\n{523}\n\nDungeon era 368\n\nDympna, St. 376\n\nDysuria 180\n\n\n     E\n\nEarth, shape-size 315\n\nEcclesiastical institutions 339\n\nEconomics 412\n\nEddyism 364\n\nEducation\n  and Popes 19;\n  medical 65;\n  preliminary 141, 158;\n  Pope John XXII. and  141\n\nEdward VI. 256\n\n_Elementis, De Quatuor_ 208\n\nElizabeth, Queen 94, 285\n\nEmpyema 185\n\nEncyclopedia,\n  first 334;\n  Britannica 133\n\nEnergy, conservation 314\n\nEngineering, mechanical 330\n\nEpilepsy 214\n\nEpochs, four marvelous 161\n\nEra of asylums 368\n\nErhardt 137\n\nErysipelas 276\n\nEssays, educational 344\n\nEtruscans 151\n\nEugenie, Empress 289\n\nEustachius 18, 86, 114, 119, 216\n\nEvolution,\n  footsteps of 390;\n  in human affairs 332;\n  of science 93\n\nExaggeration, pious 203\n\nExperimentalism 297\n\nExperiment in optics 348\n\nExorcism 368, 374\n\nExtravagantes 31, 124\n\nEye diseases 229\n\n\n     F\n\nFabrica, corporis humani 108\n\nFallopius 187\n\nFalsification, crime of 125\n\nFaraday 285\n\nFather of electricity 265\n\nFerrara 243\n\nFevers 213\n\nFinance 412\n\nFirearms, wounds made by 215\n\nFisher, Dr. 233\n\nFlies carry the plague 239\n\nFlorence 83\n\nFordham University Medical School 28, 267\n\nForm 311\n\nFortune-teller 129\n\nFoster, Sir Michael 107;\n  Prof. Med. 237\n\nFouarre, rue de 362\n\nFoundation for modern thought 305\n\nFoundling House 258\n\nFracassate 245\n\nFrance 174\n\nFranciscans 132, 287, 288, 290, 292, 327, 328, 369, 471, 514\n\nFrancis of Siena 213\n\nFrancis, Saint 328\n\nFrancis Speretis 381\n\nFrankfort 251\n\nFrederick II., body 34, 63\n\nFree cities 333\n\nFreind 187\n\nFulbert of Chartres 227\n\n\n     G\n\nGairdner 256\n\nGalen 183, 194\n\nGalileo 16, 19, 239, 306, 332, 385\n\nGalvani 282\n\nGardner 270\n\nGeneration, spontaneous 92\n\nGentilis 77\n\nGeography 140\n\nGeology, foundation 401\n\nGerbert 227\n\nGesner 319\n\nGheel 367\n\nGhent 273\n\nGilbert 305;\n  of Colchester 285\n\nGiordano Bruno 393\n\nGiliani, Alessandra 46\n\nGiotto 92\n\nGladstone 393\n\nGlaucoma 230\n\nGod's hostelry 260\n\nGoisbert 227\n\nGold, bricks 15;\n  from sea water 127\n\nGonorrhoea 180\n\nGordon 185\n\nGould, Dr. Geo. M. 405\n\nGovernment interfered 279\n\nGrandfather of Vesalius 110\n\nGraves rifled 75\n\nGrecisms 170\n\nGregory\n  VII. 227;\n  IX. 205;\n  XI. 212\n\nGuido, or Guy of Montpelier 250\n\nGuinicelli 308\n\nGuyot de Provins 308\n\nGuenther of Andernach 103\n\n\n     H\n\nHabits,\n  religious 278;\n  of prayer 376\n\nHaeckel 393\n\nHaeser 182\n\nHaly 183\n\nHangman, touch of 183\n\nHarvey 96, 119, 234, 306, 396, 397\n\nHealth, Key of 209\n\nHeart as a muscle 400\n\nHildebrand 227\n\nHildier 227\n\nHirsch's Biographical Lexicon 242\n\nHistoire Litteraire de la France 31, 53, 54\n\nHistory lies 120, 122, 286\n\nHistory\n  of Science 16;\n  of the Court of Rome 55\n\nHoefer 132\n\nHolmes, Oliver Wendell 277, 405\n\nHoly Ghost, sin against 35\n\nHonorius\n  III. 273;\n  IV. 274\n\nHooke, Robert 405\n\nHospital\n  organization 248;\n  of Holy Spirit 250;\n  nursing 262;\n  community 273;\n  Siena 269;\n  for erysipelas 277\n\nHounds, bites of mad 181\n\nHouse of God 266\n\nHouse signs 253\n\nHugo De Senis 77\n\nHumanitarian institutions 264\n\nHumboldt 316;\n  on medical science 20, 355\n\nHuxley on Galileo 17;\n  Prof. 394\n\nHydrophobia 181\n\nHypodermics 197\n\nHysteria 214\n\n\n{524}\n\n\n     I\n\nIcterus 180\n\nIgnatius Loyola 201\n\nIgnorance,\n  sublime 26;\n  four grounds of 290\n\nIl Convito 362\n\nImage, waxen 145, 169\n\nIndestructibility of matter 312\n\nInduction 169\n\nInfallibility 35, 143, 169\n\nIonization 311\n\nInnocent\n  III. 249, 273, 276, 370;\n  XI. 240;\n  XII. 242\n\nInquisition 112, 118\n\nInsane\n  colony 377;\n  non-violent 377;\n  brutally treated 378;\n  in the poor houses 378;\n  harmless 379\n\nInsanity in Middle Ages 363\n\n_Inter ceteras curas_ 160\n\nInterference, spiritual 380, 385\n\nIntestines 185\n\nInstitutions, large 367\n\nInstitutional system 377\n\nInstruments, illustrations of 181, 185\n\nIntuition 384\n\nInunctions, mercurial 215\n\nInvestigations by experiment 296\n\nItaly, post-graduate work in 96\n\n\n     J\n\nJackson, Dr. Geo. 116\n\nJacques de Vitry 265\n\nJanus 207, 228\n\nJelliffe 367\n\nJenner 402\n\nJesuitism 50\n\nJesuits 232\n\nJoannes de Tornamira 212\n\nJohn XXII. 121;\n  and education 143, 207, 223\n\nJohn of Chartres 227\n\nJohn of Vigo 214\n\nJordan, David Starr 390\n\nJordan, Pres. 395\n\nJoubert 197\n\nJulius II. 214\n\n\n     K\n\nKelly, Dr. Howard 239\n\nKen, Bishop 359\n\nKepler 385\n\nKircher 18, 238\n\nKnights Hospitalers 261\n\nKnowledge, advance 306\n\nKopp 131\n\nKropotkin 180, 332\n\nKuhns, Prof. L. Oscar 347\n\n\n     L\n\nLachrimal fistula 208\n\nLaennec 403\n\nLancisi 241\n\nLane lectures 237\n\nLanfranc 68, 79, 173, 175\n\nLa Place 405\n\nLapponi, Dr. 214\n\nLatin Empire 258\n\nLavoisier 393\n\nLead into silver 309\n\nLeo\n  XIII. 138, 327;\n  X. 215\n\nLeproseries 274\n\nLe Sexte 56\n\nLeyden 241\n\nLiber Cosmographicus 317\n\nLibrary of Canon and Civil Law 162\n\nLinacre 93\n\nLionardo da Vinci 90\n\nLithium into copper 310\n\nLivers, extracts 230\n\nLodge, Sir Oliver 383\n\nLogic, groundwork of 64\n\nLombroso 383\n\nLords the Poor 260\n\nLouis IX. 334;\n  body 34\n\nLouvain 100;\n  University of 102\n\nLubbock, Sir John 359\n\nLucan 358\n\nLucretius 358\n\nLully, Raymond 308\n\nLunar rainbows 318\n\nLung Abscess 180\n\nLutheranism 102\n\nLyons Council 326\n\n\n     M\n\nMacaulay 284\n\nMagnet in surgery 178\n\nMail and Express 266\n\nMaison Dieu 260\n\nMalgaigne 182, 194\n\nMalingerers 273\n\nMalpighi 18, 85, 96, 119, 217, 240\n\nManipulations, surgical 185\n\nMantegna 112\n\nMarguerite of Burgogne 266\n\nMarie of Burgundy 109\n\nMary, Queen 94\n\nMassa 86\n\nMassari 246\n\nMaximilian I. 109\n\nMedical Library and Hist. Journal 40, 121\n\nMedical Schools of Rome 222\n\nMedieval scientific books 23\n\nMental and nervous diseases 363\n\nMethod,\n  deductive 281;\n  inductive 283\n\nMeyer, Ernest von 132\n\nMeyer 209\n\nMichel Angelo 90\n\nMilan's magnificent hospital 269\n\nMineralogy 140, 157\n\nMinerals 135\n\nMiracles\n  to medicine 167;\n  belief in 199\n\nMitchell 405\n\nMivart, St. George 394\n\nMondino 37\n\nMontagnano 78\n\nMonte Cassino 205, 225\n\nMontpelier, University of 79, 177, 182, 192\n\nMorgagni 99, 219;\n  forerunner of 83;\n  eighth daughter of 222;\n  son a Jesuit 221\n\nMorgan, Augustus de, on Galileo 16\n\nMorley, Henry 291\n\nMuenchen 251\n\n\n{525}\n\n     N\n\nNaples 325\n\nNatural\n  phenomena 340;\n  science 340\n\nNature,\n  interest in 335;\n  laws of 387\n\nNaude 205\n\nNeckam, Abbot 308\n\nNecropsies 85\n\nNewark 188\n\nNewman, Cardinal, on Galileo 16\n\nNewton 306\n\nNicaise 182\n\nNicholas,\n  Pope 137;\n  IV. 208;\n  V. 213\n\nNothingness 313\n\nNovelty 392\n\nNovum Organum 284, 293\n\nNueremberg 332\n\n\n     O\n\nObservation, powers of 300\n\nOhm 282, 408\n\nOpen door 367, 371, 374\n\nOpposition,\n  ecclesiastical 62;\n  popular 62\n\nOpposition to the progress of science 396\n\nOpus Tertium 134, 288;\n  Majus 292\n\nOrdures 183\n\nOvid 358\n\nOxford 324\n\n\n     P\n\nPadua 77, 83, 106;\n  University at 394\n\nPalmist 129\n\nPagel 171, 177, 190, 319\n\nPapal Medical School 26, 66, 89, 119, 222\n\nPapal\n  bulls 26;\n  Curia 113;\n  Physicians 118, 202\n\nParacelsus 118, 137\n\nPare 174\n\nParis 152, 158, 192, 317, 325\n\nPasteur 289, 409\n\nPathology, father of 84\n\nPatients scourged 375\n\nPatron of students 331\n\nPaul\n  III. 113, 232;\n  IV. 113, 114\n\nPeregrinus 307\n\nPermissions to dissect 51\n\nPerugia University 149, 156, 161\n\nPerugino 162, 243\n\nPetella 207, 229\n\nPeter of Chartres 227\n\nPeter of Spain 207, 208\n\nPharmacology 158\n\nPhenomena,\n  psychic 381;\n  occult 381\n\nPhilip Le Bel 177\n\nPhilip II. 217\n\nPhilosopher's stone 135, 308\n\nPhilosophy encouraged 22\n\nPhosphorescence 355\n\nPhreas, John 95\n\nPhthisis 180\n\nPhysicians, Royal College of 93\n\nPhysicians,\n  thinking 201;\n  of educated people 203\n\nPhysical geography 317\n\nPhysics, treatise on 298\n\nPiccolomini 216, 235\n\nPilcher, Prof., on Mondino 89, 45, 48, 64, 66\n\nPilgrimage for insane 375, 376\n\nPious Schools, Society of 218\n\nPius IV. 235\n\nPoggendorf 286\n\nPoissin 405\n\nPolypus 85\n\nPope Clement 327\n\nPopes encouraged anatomy and medical sciences 113\n  (For separate Popes see names)\n\nPope John and education 141\n\nPopularizers in science 283\n\nPossessed 368\n\nPossession 380\n\nPotamian, Brother 307\n\nPractice of medicine 65\n\nPrayer for mental diseases 376\n\nPrerequisite for degree 159\n\nPresident, our 143\n\nPriestley 286\n\nPrime matter 311\n\nPrince Kropotkin 330, 345\n\nProspectus of Medical School 157\n\nProtestant tradition 24\n\nPsalms 178\n\nPsychopathic wards 368\n\nPtolemaic 353\n\nPublic buildings 269\n\nPuccinotti 69, 75\n\nPuschmann 41, 58, 75, 171, 298, 819\n\nPythagoras 351\n\n\n     Q\n\nQuestions, medical 237\n\n\n     R\n\nRabies, treatment for 409\n\nRamsay, Sir Wm. 310\n\nRaphael 90, 162\n\nRashdall 73;\n  History of Universities 37\n\nRatisbon, Bishop of 324\n\nReason for false tradition 24\n\nReed, Major Walter 239\n\nReformation, so-called 166, 190\n\nReform of philosophizing 293\n\nRegius professors 193\n\nRegulation of medical practice 65\n\nReligious care for the sick 263\n\nRenaissance 80\n\nRenaissance of science 91\n\nResurrection of 91\n\nRicardus Anglicus 205\n\nRicardus Paresiensis 205\n\nRichard the Englishman 205\n\nRichet 383\n\nRoger 170, 192\n\nRome 325;\n  Roman University 164\n\nRosarium 132\n\nRostock, University of 155\n\nRoth 70, 76\n\nRovere, Cardinal Della 14\n\nRuskin 342\n\n\n     S\n\nSaintsbury 303\n\nSaladin 261\n\nSalerno 65;\n  history of 130\n\n{526}\n\nSalicet 173, 221\n\nSanitarium 371\n\nSapienza 215\n\nSarti 67\n\nSchacht 137\n\nScheit 137\n\nScholasticism 302, 303\n\nScholarship, profound 299\n\nSchool street in Oxford 362\n\nScience, Medieval 301, 335\n\nScience\n  in modern universities 304;\n  chemical 120\n\nScientia Experimentalis 292\n\nScientists believers 282\n\nScirrhus 85\n\nScotus, Michael 102\n\nSegregation, leprosy 275\n\nSemmelweiss 407\n\nServetus 393, 399, 400\n\nShrines 375\n\nSicilies, dissection in 63\n\nSiena, story of 270\n\nSighart 317\n\nSimon Januensis 203\n\nSir Wm. Crookes 382\n\nSister of Holy Ghost 254\n\nSkeleton of felon 104\n\nSkeletons 105\n\nSnake, bite of 181\n\nSocial ostracism 127\n\nSociology 412\n\nSouth Pole 315\n\nSpeakman, Eliz. 259\n\nSpeculum Naturale 334\n\nSphericity of the earth 316\n\nSpirit interference 385\n\nSpiritist 129\n\nSpiritual manifestations 381\n\nSpiritual interference 366\n\nSpiritual interference in human life 366\n\nSpiritual world 380\n\nSpondent pariter 122\n\nSt. Anthony's fire 272\n\nSt. Bartholomew's 255\n\nSt. Catherine of Siena 272\n\nSt. Charles Seminary 146\n\nSt. Come 194\n\nSt. Dympna 376\n\nSt. Francis 162, 328\n\nSt. Francis's fire 276\n\nSt. Gallen 251\n\nSt. Thomas's Hospital 256\n\nSt. Victor 205\n\nStagirite 292\n\nStars,\n  shooting 351;\n  fixed 352\n\nSteinschneider 209\n\nSteno 96, 400\n\nStensen 96\n\nStenosis 85\n\nStone, philosopher's 125\n\nStrangury 180\n\nStrasburg 72\n\nStructural work 330\n\nStudents\n  clerics 339;\n  of medicine 157\n\nSturdy vagrants 274\n\nSudden Death 242\n\nSuggestions, strong 375\n\nSumma Theologiae 298\n\nSuper Illius specula 128\n\nSuperficiality of our education 21\n\nSuperstition 184\n\nSurgeons\n  ecclesiastics 169;\n  dishonorable 171\n\nSurgeons, Middle Ages 172\n\nSurgery,\n  history of 68;\n  prohibition of 169\n\nSurgery,\n  father of 193;\n  prejudice against 194\n\nSwift, Dean 391\n\nSylvester II. 227\n\nSyncope 214\n\nSynonyma Medicinae 209\n\nSynonymies 209\n\n\n     T\n\nTaxes 185\n\nTelepathy 384\n\nTemporal power 55\n\nTents 183\n\nTertullian 112\n\nThaddeus 206\n\nTheobald V., King 335\n\nTheodoric 183\n\nTheological discouragement 167\n\nTheological opposition 167\n\nTheophastus 319\n\nThirteenth Greatest of Centuries 322\n\nThomas of Cantimprato 336\n\nThomson 132, 135, 405\n\nThrombosis of the mesenteric vein 85\n\nThule 315\n\nTolerance for scientific investigation 116\n\nThomassetti 146\n\nTooth, dead man's 167, 183\n\nToeply 58, 67;\n  von 41\n\nTozzi 218, 240\n\nTraditions, blood-fearing 192\n\nTramp 274\n\nTransmutation of metals 309\n\nTrent, Council of 204\n\nTrephining 185\n\nTrithemius 137\n\nTrowbridge 343\n\nTuberculosis, crusade against 276\n\nTurner 86, 115, 245, 304\n\nTwelve, College of, Physicians 211\n\nTycho-Brahe 360\n\nTyndall 238\n\n\n     U\n\nUlcers, carcinomatous 183\n\nUmbrian School 162\n\nUniversity curriculus, medieval 301, 303\n\nUniversity\n  books 304;\n  teaching 329\n\nUniversity, Papal 15\n\nUniversity of the City of Rome 223\n\nUrban VI. 211\n\n\n     V\n\nValentine 136\n\nValsalva 99, 194\n\nVan Swieten 241\n\nVarolius 217\n\nVatican 88\n\nVecchetta 271\n\nVenice 72, 88, 106\n\nVerocchio 112\n\nVerona 174\n\n{527}\n\nVesalius 35, 51, 100;\n  great-grandfather 109;\n  inquisitive 101;\n  ancestry 109;\n  father 110;\n  as consultant 112;\n  life of 116, 216\n\nVibrations in the ether 384\n\nVienna Medical School 241\n\nVillani 345\n\nVillanova, Arnold of 210\n\nVincent of Beauvais 334\n\nVirchow 251, 256\n\nVirgil 407\n\nVisitor's fees, Bedlam 373\n\nVitry 308\n\n\n     W\n\nWallace, Alfred Russell 386\n\nWalsh 144\n\nWards, cheerless, white 268\n\nWard for psychic cases 367\n\nWarfare, Theology, Science 29\n\nWeismann 393\n\nWenzel, Emperor 169\n\nWhewell 293\n\nWhite, Andrew D. 29;\n  on dissection 49;\n  universal prohibition 20, 112, 122, 128, 130, 171, 199, 369\n\nWilliam of Salicet 68, 79\n\nWorkmen of Lyons 326\n\nWorld, immaterial 383\n\nWurz 174\n\n\n    Y\n\nYoung, Dr. Thomas 404\n\nYperman 178\n\nYpres 178\n\n\n     Z\n\nZerbi 105\n\nZoology 158\n\nZurich 251","title":"The Popes and Science: The History of the Papal Relations to Science During the Middle Ages and Down to Our Own Time","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":177478}