CHAPTER IV.

Previous

Age of Transition (concluded).—The School of Montpellier: Raimond Lulli, 1235-1315. John of Gaddesden, 1305—(?). Arnold of Villanova, 12341313. Establishment of Various Universities. Gerard of Cremona, 1187. William of Salicet, 1280. Lanfranc, 1315. Mondino, 1275-1327. Guy de Chauliac, 1300-1370. Age of Renovation, 1400 to Present Time.—Erudite Period, including Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries. Thomas Linacre, 1461-1524. Sylvius, 1478-1555. Vesalius, 1514-1564. Columbus, 1490-1559. Eustachius, 1500-1574. Fallopius, 1523-1562. Fabricius ab Aquapendente, 1537-1619. Fabricius Hildanus, 1560-1634.

Although I have taken up so much time with an account of the school of Salernum, a few words must be devoted to the school of Montpellier, which was second in time and in importance among the great influences in the culture of western Europe. There was a time when to have studied there lent a special halo of glory, for, being near the sea, and in the vicinity of thermal baths, even so early as A.D. 1153 it was famous as a school of medicine; moreover, those who presided over it did not lapse unconditionally into mediÆval philosophy, with its bewildering subtleties. It is said to have been founded A.D. 738, but first mention of it as a source of medical education occurs in 1137, when Bishop Adelbert II, of Mayence, visited the city to listen to its medical teachers. A faculty of philosophy was added in 1242, and one of law in 1298. Within the walls of the city sojourned both Christians and Jews, the latter being subject directly to the civil authorities, and particularly esteemed as translators. One of the most famous of the sons of Israel was Profatius Judicus, who became a rector of the faculty.

Prior to 1370, when the university became subject to the kings of France, it was under the control of the Pope; and then, as now, the school of medicine was the chief ornament of this ancient seat of learning.

One of the most illustrious and famous pupils of Montpellier was that religious mystic and alchemistic visionary, Raimond Lull, or Lulli, a would-be transmuter of metals and seeker for the philosopher's stone. Born in 1234, at the age of thirty he began to see visions, and was thereby roused from an atheistic tendency to soon become wonderfully pious; ultimately he entered the order of Minorites, studied Arabic, and appeared as a missionary in Africa, seeking to convert the Saracens—who, however, declined the honor, and finally (in 1315) rewarded his zeal by stoning him to death. Beside works on alchemy and theology, he wrote on medical subjects, and, like all great minds of the period, passed among the common people as a sorcerer in league with the devil. Nevertheless, he was a notable figure in his age and country.

Quite celebrated became the compendium of Gilbert of England (1290), which contained the same speculative nonsense, the same polypharmacy, and the same superstition as other works of that time; what little it contained of value was taken largely from other writers. While this Gilbert, often known as Gilbertus Anglicus, was not the first English writer on practical medicine, he was the earliest whose works have been preserved.

Still more famous was John Gaddesden, physician-in-ordinary to the King of England, professor in Merton College, Oxford, who wrote the famous treatise known as Rosa Anglica, which appeared between 1305 and 1315. This treatise was characterized by mysticism and disgusting therapeutic measures, and tainted by medical avarice, superstition, and charlatanry. Gaddesden was, perhaps, the first to formally recommend the "laying on of hands" by the king for the cure of scrofula (first performed by Edward the Confessor—1042-1056), whence comes the ancient name for this disease,—i.e., "king's evil." *

Arnold de Villeneuve (1234-1313) studied seven years at Montpellier, twenty years at Paris, visited all the universities in Italy, then went to Spain to levy on the Arabian authors. He wrote on medicine, theology and especially on chemistry—in which art he obtained great renown both as an author and teacher. To him is due the discovery of spirit of wine, oil of turpentine, aromatic waters, besides several preparations of less note, and the introduction of chemical compounds into therapeutics. His was a very stirring life, for he traveled extensively; he became a teacher at Bologna, and physician to Peter III, of Arragon. Shortly before his demise he went to Paris, having fallen under the ban because of a declaration that papal bulls, far from being sacredly inspired, were human works, and that acts of charity were dearer to God than hecatombs, etc. He finally perished by shipwreck, but the spirit of fanaticism followed him after death, for his volumes were condemned by the Inquisition, because they commended experiments rather than mere speculations. In spite of his general honesty in accordance with the spirit of the times he inculcated deceit in medicine, and one of his declarations is: "If thou canst not find anything in the examination of the renal secretion, declare that an obstruction of the liver exists. Particularly use the word 'obstruction,' since it is not understood, and it is of great importance that people should not understand what thou say est." He was one of the first to administer brandy, which he regarded as the elixir of life—whence the modern Eau de Vie.

Connected with this school, also, or well known as having studied there, were many men whose names became more or less famous—among them John Arden, who settled in London about the middle of the fourteenth century; Vinario, a contemporary of Guy de Cliauliac, and the well-known surgeon and anatomist Henri de Mondeville, who was a teacher of Guy de Chauliac. But an idea of the doctrines prevalent in the medical literature of this part of the world, at this time, may be had from the fact that most writers chose titles for their works after the style of ballad singers: for instance, those describing the plague and venereal diseases were called Flowers and Lilies of Medicine; the Rosa Anglica of John Gaddesden was another example. Matters had arrived at such a pass, indeed, that men of science no longer hesitated to confess superstition and mingle it openly with deceit, to oppose the interests of the most needy, and to extort from their fellow-creatures fees in proportion to their supposed ability to pay.

In the time of Charlemagne each cathedral possessed a school in which were taught arithmetic, theology, singing, and sometimes medicine; the Episcopal College had medical teachers who gave advice and dressed wounds at the doors of the Church of Notre Dame, Paris; but when the medical profession had been divorced from the sacerdotal by councils and popes, many of these cathedral schools closed. In order to preserve the jurisdiction which they for a long time had exercised over the learned professions, many were erected into universities, and thus the clergy gave instruction in philosophy, theology, and later in medicine. During the thirteenth century arose many of the great universities in Europe, notably those of Bologna, Padua, and Naples, in Italy; of Paris, Montpellier, and Toulouse, in France; of Valencia and Tortosa, in Spain; of Oxford, in England. Pope Innocent III by papal bull guaranteed that the professors and students at Paris should be exempt from all excommunications save those which emanated directly from the Holy See; French sovereigns conferred many privileges upon the universities, and soon the members of the University of Paris formed practically a second city, with its own laws, customs, police, citizens, and magistrates. Still, however, all science belonged to the clergy, and its teachers, though removed from the cloister, were none the less Roman Catholic; so that the popes reigned over the people through the parish clergy, and over the latter by the clerical teachers and professors. Nevertheless, in all candor it must be acknowledged that these studious men, thus associated together for mutual instruction and emulation in learning, contributed, in a large measure, to elevate Christian civilization above all others, though several generations were required to secure the results calculated to make men celebrated; hence the early periods of the universities developed very few names. Many were conspicuous by their love of instruction, but not by originality of research. Men undertook expensive and wearisome voyages without encouragement or hope of reward, simply to obtain some rare manuscript or to hear some renowned professor; and they appeal to us of the nineteenth century by their devotion, if not by the results of their work.

Among the somewhat scattered and more or less eminent men of this period was Gerard, of Cremona in Lombardy, a man of great purity and studiousness, who arduously pursued all that Latin authors could teach him, and, not being able to procure in Italy certain manuscripts which dated from the time of Ptolemy, determined to go to Toledo in search of an Arabian translation. At this time he was unacquainted with Arabic, but soon mastered it, and—armed with this powerful resource, which no other physician had possessed since the time of Constantine the African—he could not see so many Arabic works devoted to all branches of science as were gathered at the Spanish University without a desire to translate and transmit the same to his own country; hence he gave the remainder of his life to this work. He rendered into Latin the treatises of Hippocrates and Galen, of Serapion, and of all the famous Arabian authors from the time of Phazes, including the Canon of Avicenna and the work on surgery by Albucassis. He died at the age of seventy-three, in 1187, at Cremona, and left all his books to the monastery of St. Lucy, within whose walls he was buried.

William of Salicet, born at Plaisance in the first years of the thirteenth century, became a professor in the University of Bologna, and later at Verona. He wrote extensively on medicine, and earned a reputation as a surgeon that preserves his fame to the present day. It is claimed that his status in medical literature depends, in large measure, upon the fact that he was, perhaps, the first to refuse slavish obedience to preceding authors, preferring, instead, to draw upon the results of personal study and experience. He died in 1280.

Lanfranc, or Lanfranchi (according to whether one prefers his French or Italian name), studied under William of Salicet. Of his early life very little is known, save that he practiced surgery in Milan at the time of the great dissension between the Guelphs and Ghibellines, and, for attaching himself to the weaker party, was exiled and forced to seek an asylum in France; he resided in Lyons for several years, and here wrote a work on minor surgery; in 1295 he went to Paris on the invitation of the faculty of medicine, opened a course on surgery which met with great success, and then published a second and larger treatise on the subject. It is said of him by Malgaigne that, less from his fault perhaps than that of his age, after his death (about 1315) surgery began to decline. From the time of Brunus, who practiced in Padua in 1250, the barbers had done the scarifying and bleeding. After the time of Lanfranchi there were others who applied leeches and often cauteries, and even the women meddled with surgery and in all operations competed with the barbers; the lay surgeons held themselves rivals to the clergy. Lanfranchi inherited from his old master, William, an aversion for them all, and often had to contend with uneducated and incompetent laymen. Clerical surgeons regarded operations as beneath their dignity; and Lanfranchi, who deplored this condition of affairs, confessed he had sometimes bled with his own hands, but had never operated for ascites, hernia, cataract, or stone.

John Pitard has descended to fame not as a writer, but as the founder of the surgical schools of St. Come and St. Damien, which occupy so eminent a position in the surgical annals of France. In 1306 he was surgeon to the King of France, Philip le Bel, and the sworn surgeon of Chatelet. The College of St. Come, in 1311, was only a little brotherhood of lay-surgeons, who gradually grew in importance as the result of the obstinate struggles sustained,—on the one hand, against the faculty of medicine, and, on the other, against the barber-surgeons. Malgaigne has, with great patience and clearness, shown that the importance of this body of men has been greatly exaggerated by historians; he has traced their various turns of fortune from beginning to end; I shall have occasion to consider them again farther on.

Mondino, sometimes known as Mundinus, born in 1275, became a professor in the University of Bologna, and died in 1327. He was the author of a celebrated treatise on anatomy, said to have reached twenty-five editions, and which was the first of its kind since Galen. This science had been greatly neglected; in Salernum, for instance, they were, for a long time, contented with the treatise of Copho on the anatomy of the hog, and most of the anatomical knowledge of the age was apparently derived from this source; Mondino resurrected the study and pursued it with interest and enthusiasm, though under the greatest difficulties. His works for more than two centuries, along with the writings of Galen and the Arabic authors, served for anatomical demonstration, although very incomplete,—as witness the statement:—

"Beneath the veins of the forearm we see many muscles and many large and strong cords, of which it is not necessary to attempt the anatomy on such a corpse (i.e., a recent one), but on one dried in the sun for three years, as I have shown otherwise, in developing the number and the anatomy of those of the superior and inferior extremity."

On the other hand, he took the opposite course to discover and demonstrate the nerves, and advised maceration in running water. It required almost superhuman boldness to substitute demonstrations on the human cadaver for those upon swine, yet this was done by Mondino; and at the time the prejudice against dissection was so general that for more than a century after Mondino—who died in 1327—no one dared, at least publicly, to emulate his example. It was in the year 1315 that he publicly dissected the bodies of two women in Bologna. Anatomical study was further complicated at this time by certain bulls of Pope Boniface VIII, forbidding evisceration or boiling or cooking any part of the human body; these deliverances were really aimed, not against scientific investigation, but at the absurd custom introduced by the crusaders of cutting up and boiling the bodies of their relatives who died in infidel countries, in order to send them home for burial in holy ground; nevertheless, the papal injunction certainly operated to discourage and prohibit anatomical dissection, since nearly two hundred years later the University of TÜbingen was obliged to apply to Pope Sixtus IV for permission to authorize dissection.

Guy de Chauliac, born in GÉvaudan about 1300. was the most famous physician and surgeon in Christendom during the Arabic period. He studied at the cathedral college of Mende, which at that time was quite celebrated, and was taught medicine at Montpellier under the best masters of his day. It is probable, also, that he studied in Paris, and certain that later, in Bologna, he saw dissections made. Dissatisfaction with the writings of the ancients and the knowledge which he obtained at the schools stimulated his own powers of observation, and he became, in every respect, an original student and acquired a degree of erudition far more extended than that possessed by any of his contemporaries. He practiced in various places, longest at Lyons; and finally entered the service of Pope Clement VI, at Avignon, and probably enjoyed the same honor under Innocent V and Urban V; when the latter was made pope, in 1362, de Chauliac became his chaplain, or chapel-reader. In 1363 he published a work on surgery called The Inventory, upon which his fame chiefly rests, though several other volumes emanated from his pen. None knew better than he how to unite respect for the ancients with justice toward contemporaries, and he cited a large number of Greek, Arabian, and Latin authors, some of whom are now utterly unknown. The sciences, he declared, are "created by successive additions; the same man cannot lay the foundation and perfect the superstructure. We are as children carried on the neck of a giant; aided by the labors of our predecessors we see all that they have seen, and something beside." In tracing the character of a surgeon he recommends that he be "learned, expert, ingenious, bold where he is sure, timid when in doubt, avoiding bad cures and practices, being gracious to the sick, generous and compassionate, wise in prediction, chaste, sober, pitiful, and merciful; not covetous nor extortionate, but receiving moderate fees according to the circumstances of his patients, the character of the case, and his own dignity."

"Never since Hippocrates," says Malgaigne, "has medicine learned a language stamped with such nobility and in such few words." Although a follower of Galen, in anatomy he insisted on the necessity of dissection, and proposed to make use of the corpses of executed criminals for this purpose. The drawings made by Henri de Mondeville were known to him; he divided abscesses into hot and cold, although among the latter he included oedcma, tympanites, dropsy, scirrhus, and other conditions. In practice he was more timid, yet more active, than Lan franchi, who never cut for stone, but left that operation to the traveling surgeons. De Ghauliac described it as he had seen it performed; he opened the abdomen for dropsy, did not hesitate to attempt the radical cure of hernia, and operated for cataract. The plague which raged during the fourteenth century and depopulated the known world of one-fourth of its inhabitants, twice appeared in Avignon while Guy de Chauliac was a resident there—and he acknowledges that nothing but shame prevented him from fleeing. He remained at his post, visited the sick, and was himself attacked and left for dead. "In this frightful position he had sufficient presence of mind to follow the peculiarities of his case, analyze his own sufferings, and to give a description of them worthy of Hippocrates" (Renouard). His work soon became the surgical code of Christendom, and was commented upon and translated into all tongues, remaining for a long time a classic, and even at this day it preserves much of its interest as representing the condition of medical science at the close of the Middle Ages; moreover, its literary style was much superior to that of any of his contemporaries, all of whom wrote very barbarous Latin. He died about 1370.

With the death of de Chauliac terminates our interest, not merely in the Arabian physicians and those who were intimately connected with them, but in the so-called Arabic Period. It may be added, in passing, that the followers of Mahomet, like those of Christ, erected by the side of each of their mosques a school, and often a hospital, endowed with more or less generosity by caliphs or the wealthy, who hoped to purchase redemption and eternal happiness by such liberality.

A certain number of religious orders or communities were established during the Middle Ages to give succor to the deserving sick, the most widely known being those of St. Mary; St. Lazarus; St. John, of Jerusalem; and the Daughters of God. To be sure, some, through the endowment of the opulent, became rich beyond all reason, and departed from their primitive purposes, and thus not only excited the covetousness of monarchs, but had even the temerity to resist their authority. This compelled, every now and again, a suppression of some order or institution—partly, perhaps, for laxity of morals, and partly because of their turbulence. Of this period it may be said that charitable zeal for the sick was never more pronounced; princes, bishops, and popes gave examples of devotion by dressing with their own hands the ulcers of lepers—and leprosy was in those days a frightful disease, having been contracted by the crusaders in the Orient, and everywhere spread as they returned, being, moreover, favored by the miserable uncleanliness which was then so common. Ignorance, dread, and fear rendered this disease worse than usual, and it was confounded with other maladies less formidable. It has been estimated that in the fifteenth century Europe harbored no less than nineteen thousand lepers; and that the disease was a great terror is manifest by the excessive caution taken against its spread: its victims were forbidden to enter cities, and on the highway were compelled to stand aside lest they should taint passers-by with their breath; even a healthy person convicted of being touched by a leper was banished from society; any infraction of these rules was punishable by death. It will thus be seen what depth of genuine humanity it required to have anything to do with one of these outcasts.

Another institution prevailed widely during these days,—namely, public baths, which were established in nearly every city and increased to such an extent that in the fifteenth century the bathers of Paris constituted a powerful brotherhood, so powerful, in fact, that Jacque Despars, physician to Charles VII, and one of the most renowned professors of the faculty, for speaking openly against the abuse of public baths, was obliged to leave the capital to avoid persecution.

A study of the general history of the Arabic Period reveals that the Arabs, previously obscure and uncivilized, emerged rapidly from the demi-savage state, and took the first rank among the polished nations of the world. During the earliest portion of this period these people were religious vandals and destructive fanatics, but later embraced with enthusiasm and persistence a study of the humanities, and endeavored to repair their early ravages by collecting the dÉbris of the literary and scientific monuments of Greece; but, though they cultivated medicine with zeal and success, they added little to the Greek treasures. Later, Arabia was overrun by hordes from the deserts of Tartary, a people yet more barbarous and unknown, who established themselves in all parts of the globe then under Saracenic dominion, and by their brutal despotism degraded the Arabians to a condition approaching that from which they had emerged. This seems to have been ever the result of Turkish conquest.

Meanwhile the Greek nation, which was for so many ages at the head of civilization, gradually lost its power, virtue, courage, glory, and independence, and continued to descend, until now it exercises no influence whatever on the course of events. During the course of the Arabic Period only one Grecian physician merits mention on account of his writings, and in these there was nothing-new except what he had borrowed without credit from the Saracens.

The Empire of the West,—that is the western part of the ancient Roman Empire,—after subjugation by barbarians from Germany and Scandinavia, fell under a cloud whose darkness overwhelmed it. Its people, however, gradually received new life by commingling their blood with that of the invaders. Later they were able to repulse the Saracens who poured in upon them from Spain; then they turned their armies against each other, and wrought mutual havoc and ruin for several centuries. Again, roused by religious fanaticism, as had been the Mohammedans previously, they rushed by thousands upon the plains of Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt, which had been for centuries occupied by the Arabs; and their adventures and enterprises, and the new and varied scenes through which they passed, gave rise among the "Francs" to some taste for poetry and works of imagination During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries governments became more stable, liberal institutions were created, the rust of ignorance gradually disappeared, and by the end of the Arabic Period there were really apparent brilliant streaks of mentality in the horizon of the nations of Europe. In this progressive movement the study of medicine shared. In the thirteenth century it was worthily represented in Italy, in Paris, and became established in Montpellier. Notwithstanding, up to this time physicians apparently only knew how to timidly follow in the track of the Arabians, and approached little, or not at all, in their studies, the purer lore of the Greeks.

THE AGE OF RENOVATION.

This Age of Renovation (extending from the commencement of the fifteenth century to the present time, according to Renouard's classification) is divided into the Erudite Period, comprising the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and the Reform Period, comprising the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and one should add, in fact, the nineteenth. In general literature this age is known as that of the Renaissance, and is one of whose beginning a great deal has been written, and so much better than I can put it in this brief work, that to general sources I should perhaps refer those who are interested in knowing how and why there came about such a tremendous change in methods and habits of thought and in acquirement of knowledge. But it is the history of medicine that at this time we particularly desire, and our minds must be, in some slight degree, prepared for the great changes to be recounted by some, with the conditions which brought about this revolution. It was truly an awakening in every department of knowledge and along every line of study; it was as if the minds of men had been dormant and lost their power of receptivity, and, after a long period of torpor, awakened in a new atmosphere amid new surroundings; as if there had burst upon them a sudden appreciation of ability to do things hitherto undreamed of, and to acquire knowledge such as hitherto had been possessed by none. Once free from the shackles imposed by authority of the past, these minds severed their Gothic bonds, and started forth in every direction with the ardor of youth and the interest of novelty, all engaging in the general enterprise of erecting from the dÉbris of antique science a new temple to the mind in which to worship. While some delved among the records of the past, others sought to bind the past and present, and others, bolder yet, cut entirely loose from it, rejected all tradition, and would fain have built this temple with entirely new materials.

Now, what led to this sudden awakening? Was it chance, or the effect of certain causes which had long been operating'? It has been seen that hospitals and various institutions, whose foundations were dedicated to humanity, were erected in all parts of Europe; that gradually there had come about a better social organization; that there had been a diminution of conflicts between princes and their vassals, and the relations between the two were more nearly at an equilibrium. Moreover, the invention of the compass, which rendered long voyages less dangerous and more frequent, opened up to trade regions hitherto inaccessible or unknown, and attracted interest toward commerce as a means of pecuniary gain. The telescope had been invented, and astronomy was able to seize upon some of the facts by it revealed, and thereby to make more interesting calculations concerning the motions of celestial bodies, and attain a knowledge of our solar system and its laws. Gradually the microscope shed light upon the hitherto unseen; engraving on copper had added its power of illustration to the works of the great writers as they appeared; but above all, that which brought about this condition of affairs was the discovery of the art of printing. The first attempts in this direction were made between the years 1435 and 1440, and by the united efforts of three men, whose names deserve mention so long as their art persists,—namely, Guttenberg, Faust, and Shoeffer. Thanks to them, the same information could be multiplied in manifold form and transmitted to all parts of the civilized globe. In this way intelligence and reason become triumphant; thenceforward the dominion of brute force was broken, and knowledge, because capable of dissemination, became imperishable.

At the commencement of the Erudite Period Arabic literature still predominated in medicine. Rhazes, Haly-Abbas, and Avicenna were universally invoked and explained. But a taste for Greek literature began to prevail in the universities of Italy, and was finally extended to every part of Europe, especially after the taking of Constantinople by Mahomet II, Emperor of the Turks, in 1453. This disaster, which at first bade fair to be a mortal blow to Greek literature and language, strange to say, served only to hasten their resurrection in the Occident. Constantinople having been given over to pillage at this time, most of its learned men escaped, carrying with them all manuscripts that could be seized; most of these found refuge in Italy, and enlightened protectors in the allpowerful prince of the house of Medici, in Florence, in the popes at Rome, and in Alphonso, of Arragon, King of Naples and Sicily. Everywhere these fugitives spread the knowledge of the masterpieces of Greek literature and art, and in this way a taste for books, libraries, and sound erudition was diffused, while the Greek and Latin classics were hunted up and published with great patience and ardor; thus the works of the old writers were edited, translated, commented upon, and everywhere disseminated throughout Europe.

Among those who devoted themselves to the thankless task of editing, and purifying from interpolations, the works of the classic writers was Nicholas LÉonicenus, born near Vincenza in the year 1428, who studied medicine at Padua and taught it for more than sixty years at Ferrara. He possessed great vigor of mind, with purity of manners and serenity of soul, and was the first to translate directly from Greek into Latin the aphorisms of Hippocrates and portions of the writings of Galen. He combated in every way the infatuation of his contemporaries for the Arabians and their lore, and called attention to many of the errors of men who, like Pliny the naturalist, had fallen for lack of fully understanding the Greek authors they compiled. At the ripe age of ninety-six he died, regretted by all.

Thomas Linacre, of Canterbury, a contemporary of LÉonicenus, though younger (1461-1524), studied first at the University of Oxford, went to Italy in 1484, and in Florence attracted the attention of Lorenzo de Medici, who made him the companion of his own children, to whom he gave the best possible advantages. In due time he returned to England, where his talents speedily won him high station, and he became physician to King Henry VIII, and later to Queen Mary. Linacre was the first Englishman, it is said, who spoke purely the language of the Romans. He translated several books of Galen that are still esteemed; and caused the founding of two chairs, one at Oxford, the other at Cambridge, whose incumbents were charged with the duty of explaining the works of Hippocrates and Galen. But he is most entitled to the gratitude of his countrymen for his influence in founding the College of London. To appreciate properly its importance and his merits, we must remember the obstacles that had to be surmounted; for at that time bishops alone had the right to accord, in their own dioceses, permission to practice medicine, and, consequently, the healing art was abandoned entirely to monks and illiterate empirics. It was well that Linacre had influence at court, else he could never have obtained the reform of such overwhelming abuses; but he triumphed in spite of powerful opposition, and secured the issue of letters patent which prohibited the practice of medicine by any one who had not received a degree in one of the two universities in the kingdom, and been examined by the President of the College of London assisted by three others. This was the achievement which gave this learned man the title of "Restorer of Medicine" in England.

LÉonicenus and Linacre, who were of the early Erudite Period, also merit mention not merely because of literary talents, but because they were the first eminent physicians to embrace the study of Greek classics, and to propagate the knowledge therein contained. Subsequently others followed the same course,—too many, in fact, to be enumerated; but it was easy to follow after such leaders. From the time when men began to realize the superiority of Greek models over prolix Arabian commentaries, they were anxious to seek the light at its source, and applied themselves with avidity to the study of the originals. At this time copies of Greek authors were few in number and in a deplorable condition, owing to neglect. To rediscover them, to purify, to eliminate what was not original, to rearrange, and finally to multiply by the aid of the printing-press was an extended labor requiring great knowledge, rare sagacity, and commendable patience. One of the greatest publications in medical literature belonging to this epoch was a complete edition of the Hippocratic writings, translated into Latin by Anuce Foes,—a poor, but learned, practitioner, who lived on the products of his business as pension physician in the city of Metz,—and issued from Frankfort-on-the-Main in 1495. To this master-work Foes consecrated forty years of his life. Another treatise belonging to this same time, less important, perhaps, from a medical point of view, but nevertheless showing great erudition, was a treatise on the gymnastics of the ancients, by Jerome Mercurial is, a work said to be not less precious to historians than antiquarians. It was by such intense zeal and hard labor that true erudition was restored in Europe.

Following now some of the special branches of medical learning and their development, let us look first at anatomy and physiology. I have already related the salient points of the life and labors of Mondino, of whom it is said that, about the year 1315, while professor at Bologna, he dissected the bodies of two women, and shortly after published an epitome of anatomy illustrated with wood-cuts. Also has been mentioned the prohibition of anatomical study pronounced by Pope Boniface VIII, in 1300. It was only toward the close of the fifteenth and the early years of the sixteenth century that this prejudice began to abate; the popes, who then stood at the head of scientific movements, withdrew their interdictions, and the universities of Italy gave public dissections. Achillini, Benedetti, and Jacques Berenger dissected at Bologna, Padua, and Pavia, previous to the year 1500; soon afterward their example was generally followed.

Jacques Dubois, whose name was Latinized into Jacobus Sylvius, was born in 1478, in a village near Amiens; he studied in Paris, where he worked most industriously at anatomy, which later he was so successful in teaching. He was the first to arrange all the muscles of the human body, to determine their functions, and to give names to those of them which had not yet been so designated. He discovered the valves of the large veins, and was the first to study the blood-vessels by means of colored injections. He gave the same careful attention to pharmacy, and in Paris, before a large class of students, began lectures, on anatomy, physiology, hygiene, pathology, and therapeutics; these he continued until the faculty, on account of jealousy, interrupted them. He then, in 1529, went to Montpellier, but returned two years later to become a member of the faculty, and once more lectured with the greatest eclat. Later yet he became a successor to Vidius in the Royal College,—a position he retained up to his death in 1555. His medical writings were extensive and marked by great accuracy, while for anatomy he did a great deal, contributing much to popularize it. He dissected a great number of animals and as many human cadavers as he could procure, the number, however, being small. Unfortunately, he subordinated all his own research to the authority of Galen, being himself among those anatomists who permitted themselves to be so far misled.

0125m

Original

The man of genius and courage, who accepted the truth of what his eyes revealed to him, and who was the true reformer in anatomy, was Andreas Vesalius, born at Brussels, in 1514, of a family already illustrious in medicine. He studied at the University of Louvain, where he early revealed the inclinations of the anatomist, since in his leisure moments he was wont to amuse himself in dissecting small animals. Near Louvain was a place where criminals were executed; and Vesalius, having observed the body of one from which the soft parts had all been cleaned away by ravenous birds, only the bones and ligaments remaining, detached the extremities separately, and then carried off the trunk by night, thus possessing himself of his first skeleton. Attracted by the fame of Sylvius, lie afterward went to Paris to become his pupil, but, not content with the lessons of his master, continued to observe for himself. On the hill MontfauÇon, where executions took place, he disputed with dogs and vultures for the remains of criminals, or by stealth disinterred bodies from the cemeteries at the greatest personal risk. So great was his application that his progress became rapid, and at the age of twenty he gave instruction to fellow-students; at twenty-two he became Professor of Anatomy at Padua, being appointed by the Senate of Venice; at twenty-nine he issued his great work on anatomy, which showed a completeness that left far in the rear all that had hitherto been published on this subject. The following year he was called by the Emperor Charles V to the court of Madrid, then the most brilliant in Europe, where he became the first physictan, and from this time abandoned his anatomical labors.

0126m

Original

He was the first who dared to dispute the words of Galen and point out his errors,—to ascertain that the greater part of Galen's descriptions, having been made from monkeys, did not correctly represent human anatomy. This audacity raised a crowd of vehement opponents, the least reasonable and most fanatic being his old master, Sylvius; but even these onslaughts could not conceal the truth. The minds of men generally were ripe for the revolution whose signal-fire was thus lighted, and no sooner did Vesalius appeal from the decision of Galen to observation of nature than a crowd of anatomists were ready to follow his method. He died in 1564.

One who, at Padua, had been first his pupil, then his co-laborer,—namely, Columbus, born at Cremona in 1490,—succeeded him. Columbus criticised, in some respects, the statements of his eminent predecessor, which he could better do, since he is said to have dissected fourteen bodies every year, as well as to have practiced venesection. He came so near to discovering the mystery of the circulation that it is strange how he could have missed it. He even appreciated the systole and diastole of the heart and the connection thereof with dilatation and contraction of the arteries. He knew, also, that the pulmonary veins conducted arterial blood, and that the pericardium was a shut sac. He even appreciated the lesser circulation, since he described how the blood left the right side of the heart and passed into the lungs, and came back through the veins into the left ventricle; because of this discovery, and in spite of his utter failure to appreciate the greater circulation, he has been by some regarded as entitled to the credit which is universally given to Harvey. From his position as teacher in Padua Columbus was called to Pisa, and from Pisa to Rome, where he died in 1559.

0128m

Original

Another of the great anatomists of this period, second only in fame to Vesalius, was Eustachius, born about the beginning of the sixteenth century. He became physician to the Duke of Urbino, and in Rome a city physician and professor of anatomy, continuing to teach in the latter city until overtaken by his final sickness. He was a defender of Galen rather than an opponent, and sought to shelter his reputation from the attacks of Vesalius. In his praise it must be said that, for his day, he was a great anatomist; his chief discoveries were in the domain of comparative anatomy. He brought to bear upon his work a knowledge of embryology which enabled him, for instance, to describe the kidneys and the teeth much more accurately than would otherwise have been possible; he noted, also the pathological changes in bodies dissected, and is brought daily to our minds as we think of the connecting channel between the pharynx and the middle ear, to which his name has been given.

He died in 1574.

8129
Original

Fallopius, born in Modena, in 1523, was professor successively at Ferrara, Pisa, and Padua. He cultivated anatomy with the greatest ardor, and, in consequence, his name is also linked with that of Vesalius, as are those of Herophilus and Erasistratus in the history of ancient anatomy. His anatomical researches included all parts of the human body, and his name has been given to the tube through which the ovum enters the cavity of the uterus. Death overtook him in the year 1562.

Jerome Fabricius, better known as Fabricius ab Aquapendente, was born in the town of the latter name, near the southern end of the Apennines, in 1537, received his no early education in Padua, and studied anatomy under Fallopius, whose assistant he also was. After the death of the latter he succeeded to the professorship of anatomy, and later built, at his own expense, a large anatomical theater, in which he lectured and demonstrated to students from all parts of the world. Toward the end of his life he had accumulated a large number of specimens, and published extensively on anatomy, embryology, physiology, and surgery. Though often accredited with discovering the valves of the veins, he is not entitled to that honor, since Erasistratus, Sylvius, Vesalius, and others had previously described them, Estiennes had seen them in the azygos veins, and Canano in other veins. His true claim to glory rests upon embryological researches, which he was the first to undertake in a comparative way. In De Formato Foetu he elucidated the development of the embryo and its membranes by a long list of observations on lower animals of many species. He was probably the first to describe the uterine decidua. Fabricius died in 1619.

This Fabricius must not be confused with the almost-as-renowned Fabricius Hildanus, who was born in Hilden, near DÜsseldorf, in 1560. Under the German name of Wilhelm Fabry he became widely known as a surgeon, and, after traveling through France, settled in Hilden, but later moved to Cologne, where he founded an academy. His first treatise—on gangrene and sphacelus—quickly made him known, and went through eleven editions. From Cologne he went successively to Genf, Lausanne, and Polen; returned to Cologne; and finally, after several other visits, settled in Bern, where he died of gout and asthma (in 1634.). His frequent changes of location were, perhaps, less the result of instability than a testimony to his reputation, inasmuch as he was invited from one place to another. He has been, with propriety, named the "German ParÉ," since he rendered such great service to German surgery, and was not only an expert therein, but likewise a cultivated physician and polished humanitarian; in fact he was ahead of his time, by many years, in these regards, as is shown by his recommending amputation in cases of gangrene, and his writings concerning gunshot wounds. He enjoyed a ripe experience also in obstetrics, and even instructed his wife in the obstetric art and praised her ability most highly. His most important contributions to literature were in the field of surgery, and these passed through numerous editions, while his opinions and practice are quoted even to-day.

8131
Original

During this epoch many modifications were introduced and improvements made in the teaching of medicine. Permanent amphitheaters were established for dissection, and chairs of anatomy created, their incumbents being paid out of the public treasury. The popes, appear to have taken the initiative in this respect, which accounts for the great number of subjects with which Eustachius was supplied, as compared with Vesalius, who obtained only two or three in a year. Up to this time the razor had been the sole instrument of dissection, but was now replaced by the scalpel, which remains in use to-day. By the labors of the few men mentioned anatomy acquired a degree of perfection which it had never attained under the Greeks. Skillful artists put their labors upon paper, and plates and descriptions made from anatomical preparations represented the various parts of the human body with more fidelity than had been supposed possible. Nerves, tendons, and ligaments were no longer confused, but traced so far as possible from origin to ramifications. Ancient errors generally were corrected. It was proven that there was no bony structure in the tissue of the heart, that the partition between its cavities was not porous; and attentive examination of its valves led to the discovery of the lesser circulation by Columbus. Michael Servetus, whom John Calvin burned at the stake, was perhaps the first to note this phenomenon. He saw that the blood could not penetrate directly from the right into the left cavity of the heart, but that it was necessary for the whole fluid to pass through the lungs, where it became impregnated with the vital spirit of the atmosphere, and reached afterward the left auricle; the position of the valves in the pulmonary arteries and veins clearly confirmed his conjecture. Moreover the size of the pulmonary arteries was enormous, and disproportionate to the quantity of blood necessary for the nutrition of the lungs, which seemed to prove that this was not, as had been believed, the sole purpose of those vessels. It was about this time that Fabricius ab Aquapendente pointed out valves in veins in various parts of the body, and that Columbus and Andreas Cesalpinus explained more fully the mechanism of the lesser circulation; in fact, the former so closely approached an appreciation of the purpose of the vascular system that some have thought he really knew it, but the passages in his writings thought to sustain this opinion are not at all conclusive. He seems to have confused the action of the heart during sleep with that during the waking hours; and although he realized that the blood could not flow backward through the arteries, that the vena cava was the only vessel which permitted the entrance of blood into the heart, and though he spoke of anastomosis between arteries and veins and remarked that if a band be applied around a limb the veins swell below the ligature, he contented himself with comparing the motion of the blood with the flux and reflux of Euripus, as Aristotle had done. It is even thus that he tortured his mind in trying to reconcile two irreconcilable theories,—i.e., the opinion of the ancients on the motion of the blood and recent discoveries in the anatomy of the vascular system.


                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

Clyx.com


Top of Page
Top of Page