set upon if they ventured upon any other than the path which the Church thought sound—the insufficient path of Aristotelian investigation.
We have seen that the weapons used against the astronomers were mainly the epithets infidel and atheist. We have also seen that the missiles used against the chemists' and physicians were the epithets "sorcerer" and "leaguer with the devil," and we have picked up on various battle-fields another effective weapon, the epithet "Mohammedan."
On the heads of the anatomists and physicians were concentrated all these missiles. The charge of atheism ripened into a proverb: "Ubi sunt tres medici, ibi sunt duo athei."[1] Magic seemed so common a charge that many of the physicians seemed to believe it themselves. Mohammedanism and Averroism became almost synonymous with medicine, and Petrarch stigmatized Averroists as "men who deny Genesis and bark at Christ."[2]
Not to weary you with the details of earlier struggles, I will select a great benefactor of mankind and champion of scientific truth at the period of the Revival of Learning and the Reformation—Andreas Vesalius, the founder of the modern science of anatomy. The battle waged by this man is one of the glories of our race.[3]
The old methods were soon exhausted by his early fervor, and he sought to advance science by truly scientific means—by patient investigation and by careful recording of results.
From the outset Vesalius proved himself a master. In the search for real knowledge he braved the most terrible dangers. Before his time the dissection of the human subject was thought akin to sacrilege. Occasionally some anatomist, like Mundinus, had given some little display with such a subject; but, for purposes of investigation, such dissection was forbidden. Even such men in the early Church as Ter-
- ↑ Honorius III. forbade medicine to be practised by archdeacons, deacons, priests, etc. Innocent III. forbade surgical operations by priests, deacons, or sub-deacons. In 1243 Dominicans banished books on medicine from their monasteries. See Daunou cited by Buckle, "Posthumous Works," vol. ii., p. 567. For thoughtful and witty remarks on the struggle at a recent period, see Maury, "L'Ancienne Academic des Sciences," Paris, 1864, p. 148. Maury says: "La faculté n'aimait pas à avoir affaire aux théologiens qui procèdent par anathèmes beaucoup plus que par analyses."
- ↑ Renan, "Averroés et l'Averroisme," Paris, 1867, pp. 327, 333, 335. For a perfectly just statement of the only circumstances which can justify the charge of "atheism," see Dr. Deems's article in Popular Science Monthly, February, 1876.
- ↑ Whewell, vol. iii., p. 328, says, rather loosely, that Mundinus "dissected at Bologna in 1315." How different his idea of dissection was from that introduced by Vesalius, may be seen by Cuvier's careful statement that the entire number of dissections by Mundinus was three. The usual statement is that it is two. See Cuvier, "Hist. des Sei. Nat.," tome iii., p. 7; also, Sprengel, Frédault, and Hallam; also, Littré, "Médécine et Médecins," chap, on anatomy. For a very full statement of the agency of Mundinus in the progress of anatomy, see Portal, "Hist. de l'Anatomie et de la Chirurgérie," vol. i., pp. 209-216.
