4o8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



ference with science, this nineteenth century would, without doubt, 

 be enjoying discoveries which will not be reached before the twenti- 

 eth century. Thousands of precious lives shall be lost in this cen- 

 tury, tens of thousands shall suffer discomfort, privation, sickness, 

 poverty, ignorance, for lack of discoveries and methods which, but 

 for this mistaken religious fight against Bacon and his compeers, 

 would now be blessing the earth. 



In 1868 and 1869, sixty thousand children died in England and in 

 Wales of scarlet fever; probably nearly as many died in this coun- 

 try. Had not Bacon been hindered we should have had in our hands, 

 by this time, the means to save two-thirds of these victims, and the 

 same is true of typhoid, typhus, and that great class of diseases of 

 whose physical causes Science is just beginning to get an inkling. 

 Put together all the efforts of all the atheists who have ever lived, and 

 they have not done so much harm to Christianity and the world as 

 has been done by the narrow-minded, conscientious men who perse- 

 cuted Roger Bacon.' 



Roger Bacon was vanquished. For ages the champions of science 

 were crippled ; but the " good fight " was carried on. The Church 

 itself furnishes heroes of science. Antonio de Dominis relinquishes 

 his archbishopric of Spalatro, investigates the phenomena of light, 

 and dies in the clutches of the Inquisition.^ 



Pierre de la Ramee stands up against Aristotelianism at Paris. A 

 royal edict, sought by the Church, stopped his teaching, and the mas- 

 sacre of St. Bartholomew ended his life. 



Somewhat later, John Baptist Porta began his investigations. 

 Despite many absurdities, his work was most fruitful. His book on 

 meteorology was the first in which sound ideas were broached. His 

 researches in optics gave the world the camera obscura, and, possibly, 

 the telescope. He encountered the same old policy of conscientious 

 men. The society founded by him for physical research, " I Secreti," 

 was broken up, and he was summoned to Rome and censured.' 



In 1624, some young chemists of Paris having taught the experi- 

 mental method, and cut loose from Aristotle, the Faculty of Theology 

 besets the Parliament of Paris, and the Parliament prohibits this new 

 chemical teaching under penalty of death.* 



The war went on in Italy. In 1657 occurred the first sitting of 



' For proofs that the world is steadily working toward great discoveries as to the 

 cause and prevention of zymotic diseases and of tlieir propagation, sec Beale's " Disease 

 Germs," Baldwin Latham's " Sanitary Engineering," Michel Levy, " Traite d'Hygiene 

 Publique et Privee," Paris, 1869. And for very thorough summaries, we President Bar- 

 nard's paper read before Sanitary Congress in New York, 18'74, and Dr. J. C. Dalton's 

 "Anniversary Discourse, on the Origin and Propagation of Disease," New York, 18'74. 



"Antonio de Dominis, see Montucla, "Hist, des Mathematiques," vol. i., p. 705. 

 Humboldt, "Cosmos." Libri, vol. iv., pp. 145, et seq. 



3 Sprengel, " Hist, de la Medecine, iii., p. 239. Also Musset-Parthay. 



* Henri Martin, "Histolre de France," vol. xii., pp. 14, 15. 



