Proceedings of the Ohio State Academy of Science 441 



served its function, which was to cool the body. He beheved 

 also that the right ventricle was in communication with the 

 left by means of holes through the septum. Of course Galen 

 never saw these holes, but his belief in the theory of the vital 

 blood and the coarse blood was so strong, as it was for many 

 years afterwards, that he had to see them in theory at least. 

 The vital blood of the left ventricle had to be mixed with the 

 coarser blood of the right ventricle, and the only way it could 

 be done was for a part of the blood to pass through the septum 

 and the remainder to pass to the lungs through the pulmonary 

 artery. This is only an illustration of what happened many 

 times in Galen's time and for many years afterwards and often 

 liappens even today, viz : that men have to account for certain 

 things and to do this they must have a theory and they then 

 have to see things to bear out the theory. But considering 

 the fact that for sixteen centuries from the Alexanderian 

 museum to the establishment of the school at Salermo in 1221 

 A. D., the human body had never been dissected, it is no won- 

 der that we see evidences of the grossest ignorance of anatomy. 

 The difficulties that stood in the way of dissection can be 

 -IBUB JO iossajojd 9i{; 'luipunpv IT^ip jobj aqi uu ).ij pajHiooaddi! 

 omy at Bolona during the latter part of the thirteenth century 

 and the beginning of the fourteenth, dissected only three 

 l)odies in eleven years. The bettering of these conditions can 

 be noticed from the work of DeCarpi. professor of anatomy in 

 the same school a century later in that he dissected over a 

 hundred bodies; and yet DeCarpi had such respect for Galen 

 and his doctrines that he said there must be holes in the sep- 

 tum, but in discussing it he says they are seen with difficulty 

 in man. 



Michael Servetus, a Spaniard, published his Christianismi 

 Restitutio in 1558 which was a short time after DeCarpi's 

 works appeared. Servetus was a unique character in history. 

 He studied for a priest at Saragossa ; studied law at Toulouse; 

 became secretarv to Charles the Fifth at Bolona; soon gave 

 up his diplomatic career for theology; studied medicine al 



