DEVELOPMENT OF BIOLOGY 449 



improved and worked over into a system, and also a large amount 

 of original investigation. Galen was at once a practical anatomist 

 and also an experimental physiologist, inasmuch as he described 

 from dissections and insisted on the importance of vivisection and 

 experiment. Galen gave to medicine its standard 'anatomy' and 

 'physiology' for fifteen centuries. 



Any consideration of the biological science of Rome would be 

 incomplete without a reference to the vast compilation of mingled 

 fact and fancy made by Pliny the Elder (23-79.) It was aside 

 from the path of biological advance, but long the recognized 

 Natural History, passing through some eighty editions after the 

 invention of printing. 



B. Medieval and Renaissance Science 



For all practical purposes we may consider that biology at the 

 decline of the Roman Empire was represented by the works of 

 Aristotle, Theophrastus, Dioscorides, Galen, and Pliny. Even 

 these exerted little influence during the Middle Ages. Dioscorides, 

 Galen, and Pliny were in the hands of the scholars, but in so far 

 as science reached the people in general it was chiefly by collec- 

 tions of quotations from corrupt texts of these authors interspersed 

 with anecdotes and fables. From diverse sources gradually devel- 

 oped the oft-quoted Physiologus, found in many forms and lan- 

 guages, which is at once a collection of natural history stories, and 

 a treatise on symbolism and the medicinal use of animals. Here, 

 for instance, the mythical centaur and phoenix take their place 

 with the Frog and Lion in affording illustrations of theological 

 texts and in pointing out more or less far-fetched morals. Allu- 

 sions from the Physiologus are readily found in Dante, Cervantes, 

 and Shakespeare, while its illustrations are immortalized in the 

 gargoyles of medieval cathedrals. 



Indeed, science was submerged to such an extent that the scien- 

 tific Renaissance owes its origin largely to the revival of classical 

 learning: in particular to the translation of Aristotle and Theo- 

 phrastus, and renewed study of Dioscorides and Galen. Their 

 works were so superior to the current science that, in accord with 

 the spirit of the times, to question their authority became almost 

 sacrilegious. The first studies were merely commentaries on the 

 writings of these authors, but as time went on more and more new 

 observations were interspersed with the old. In short, the climax 



