16 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



face VIII against those guilty of dissections was simply a devel- 

 opment of this feeling. 



Still further, in spite of the fearful cruelties which the Church, 

 when firmly established, promoted so freely against those sus- 

 pected of witchcraft or heresy, there grew up a theory which took 

 shape in the maxim that " the Church abhors the shedding of 

 blood," and this maxim was used with deadly effect against the 

 progress of surgery. It led to ecclesiastical mandates which with- 

 drew from this branch of the healing art the most thoughtful and 

 cultivated men of the middle ages, and which placed surgery in 

 the hands of the lowest class of nomadic charlatans. So deeply 

 was this idea thus rooted in the universal Church that for over a 

 thousand years surgical practice was considered dishonorable ; the 

 greatest monarchs were often unable to secure an ordinary surgi- 

 cal operation ; and it was only in 1406 that a better beginning was 

 made, when the Emperor Wenzel of Germany ordered that dis- 

 honor should no longer attach to the surgical profession.* 



In spite of all these opposing forces, the evolution of medical 

 science continued, though but slowly. In the second century of 

 the Christian era Galen had made himself a great authority at 

 Rome, and from Rome had swayed the medical science of the 

 world : his genius triumphed over the defects of his method ; but, 

 though he gave a powerful impulse to medicine, his dogmatism 

 stood in the way of it long afterward. 



The places where medicine, such as it thus became, could be 

 applied, were at first mainly the infirmaries of various monasteries, 

 especially the larger ones of the Benedictine Order. These were 

 frequently developed into hospitals : many monks devoted them- 

 selves to such medical studies as were permitted, and sundry 

 churchmen and laymen did much to secure and preserve copies of 

 ancient medical treatises. So, too, in the cathedral schools estab- 

 lished by Charlemagne and others, provision was generally made 

 for medical teaching ; but all this instruction, whether in convents 

 or schools, was wretchedly poor. It consisted not in the develop- 

 ment by individual thoughi.and experiment of the gifts of Hip- 

 pocrates, Aristotle, and Galen, but almost entirely in the parrot- 

 like repetition of their writings. 



But while the inherited ideas of church leaders were thus un- 

 favorable to any proper development of medical science, there 

 were two bodies of men outside the Church who, though largely 

 fettered by superstition, were far less so than the monks and 

 students of ecclesiastical schools: these were the Jews and the 

 Mohammedans. The first of these especially had inherited many 



* As to denunciations of surgery by the Church authorities, see Sprengel, II, 1, 8 ; also, 

 Fort, pp. 452 et scq. ; and for the reasoning which led the Church to forbid surgery to 

 priests, see especially Fredault, Histoire de la Medecine, p. 200. 



