554 ^^^^ POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



set upon if they ventured upon any other than the j^ath which the 

 Church thought sound the insufficient path of Aristotelian investiga- 

 tion. 



AVe have seen that the weapons used against the asti'onomers 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 "Mohamme- 

 dan." 



On the heads of the anatomists and physicians were concentrated 

 all these missiles. The charge of atheism ripened into a proverb : 

 " TIbi sunt tres medici, ibi simt duo athei.''^ ' Magic seemed so com- 

 mon a charge that many of the physicians seemed to believe it them- 

 selves. Mohammedanism and Averroism became almost synonymous 

 with medicine, and Petrarch stigmatized Averroists as "men who 

 deny Genesis and bark at Christ." ^ 



Not to weary you with the details of earlier struggles, I Avill 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.^ 



The old methods were soon exhausted by his early fervor, and he 

 sought to advance science by truly scientific means by patient inves- 

 tigation 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. Befoi-e 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 stibject ; 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 faculte n'aimait pas k avoir affaire aux theologiens qui 

 procedent par anathcjmes beaucoup plus que par analyses." 



2 Kenan, " Averroes et I'Averroisme," Paris, 186*7, 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. 



3 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 Sci. 

 Nat.," tome iii., p. 7 ; also, Sprengel, Fredault, and Hallam; also, Littre, "Medecine et 

 M6decins," chap, on anatomy. For a very full statement of the agency of Mundinus in the 

 progress of anatomy, see Portal, " Hist, de I'Anatomie et de la Chirurgerie," vol. i., pp. 

 209-216. 



