226 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCIENCE 



Of Galileo's still more remarkable services to physics and 

 dynamics, something will be added in a later chapter. 



MEDICAL AND CHEMICAL SCIENCES. These were still at the 

 low medieval level. There was as yet no scientific medicine, and 

 no chemistry but alchemy, which was now in its final stage, 

 iatro (medical) chemistry. Here one great name is that of 

 Paracelsus (1493-1541), erratic and radical Swiss physician and 

 alchemist, whose chief merit is his courage in opposing mere 

 authority in science, and whose influence long after caused 

 "salt, sulphur, and mercury" to be highly regarded and carefully 

 studied. He also introduced and insisted upon the importance 

 of antimony as a remedy, and is said to have been the first to 

 use that tincture of opium which is still known by his name for 

 it ; viz. laudanum. Paracelsus, on the other hand, in spite of 

 the fact that he was a popular surgeon, rejected the study of 

 anatomy, taught medical knowledge through scanning of the 

 heavens, and considered diseases as spiritual in origin. 'The 

 true use of chemistry," he said, "is not to make gold but to 

 prepare medicines." 



Another name worthy of remembrance in the chemistry of the 

 sixteenth century is that of Landmann (Latin, Agricola) whose 

 great work on Metallurgy (De Re Metallica, 1546] is the most im- 

 portant of this period, and who must also be regarded as the 

 first mineralogist of modern times. 



ANATOMY. VESALIUS. Hardly less important, meantime, than 

 the studies of Copernicus, Tycho Brahe, Galileo and Kepler upon 

 the heavenly bodies were those of the Belgian anatomist, Andreas 

 Vesalius, upon the human body. For more than 1000 years there 

 had been almost no progress in anatomy or medicine, Hippocrates 

 and Galen being still regarded as the final authorities in these 

 matters up to the middle of the sixteenth century. Vesalius 

 (1514-1564), born in Brussels and educated in Paris, was the first 

 in modern times to dissect the human body, and to publish excel- 

 lent drawings of his dissections. It was said that he opened the 

 body of a nobleman before the heart had entirely ceased beating, 

 and thereby incurring the displeasure of the Inquisition, was sen- 



