THE TRAINING OF A PHYSICIAN. 305 



of the great physician, Galen, became the court of final appeal, and his 

 ignorance marked the limit of all medical knowledge. 



Yet there were great physicians in those days, martyrs and saints 

 who should rank with the noblest, men who tried to know the truth 

 and to act in accord with it. Eoger Bacon was on the verge of dis- 

 covering the secret of contagious disease and its prevention by inocula- 

 tion and sanitation. Fourteen years in prison prevented all this. 



Vesalius in these days was the founder of anatomy. Dissection of 

 human bodies was prohibited as sacrilegious, the work of sorcerers and 

 dangerous, as the supposed resurrection bone, the nucleus of the rising 

 body, might be injured or destroyed by careless handling. "Vesalius 

 haunted gibbets and charnel houses, for the waste of human bodies. 

 He hoped especially to find through dissection the secret of the Black 

 Death. The personal physician of Charles V., he had powerful pro- 

 tection in his early work, but he fell at last under the mean bigotry of 

 Philip II. ''He was not lost," says President White. "In this cen- 

 tury a great painter has again given him to us. By the magic of 

 Hamann's pencil Vesalius again stands on earth and we look once 

 more into his cell. Its windows and doors, bolted and barred within, 

 betoken the storm of bigotry which rages without; the crucifix, tow^ard 

 which he turns his eyes, symbolizes the spirit in which he labours; the 

 corpse of the plague-stricken beneath his hand ceases to be repulsive; 

 his very soul seems to send forth rays from the canvas, which 

 strengthen us for the good fight in this age." 



Those who destroyed Vesalius did so in the name of religion. It 

 was believed that 'diseases are sent as punisliment; who interferes 

 with them breaks God's commandment and is God's enemy.' 



This belief checked the growth of medicine even so late as fifty 

 years ago when Simpson first used anaesthetics in obstetrics. This was 

 held to violate the command : ' In sorrow shalt thou bring forth chil- 

 dren.' To doubt the prevalent theory of disease was to doubt all 

 religion and to be a foe to Christianity. No wonder there were physi- 

 cians who doubted; no wonder that it was declared on high authority: 

 'When three physicians meet, there are two atheists,' if by atheist was 

 meant all who believe that diseases are produced by natural causes. 



So long as medicine rested on a basis of mystery, symbolism and 

 philosophy, its limits set by the words of Galen, so long its progress 

 was marked by martyrs, not by its successful practitioners. Even a 

 hundred years ago success in medicine was largely quackery. Imagi- 

 nary diseases were treated and in fantastic ways. In Napoleon's time, 

 the itch was a prevalent disease in the higher classes, a disease which 

 they did not know how to cure. At this time, most internal ills 

 were diagnosed as 'Gale repercutee,' 'Itch struck-in,' and the arch 



VOL. LXIII. — 20. 



