242 THE HISTORY OF VETERINARY MEDICINE. 



of an imbecile superstition, and in part demoralized priesthood, 

 Truth was not without her able representatives in many fields of 

 science. Yesalius was following in the path of Luther, and bring- 

 ing things which had been, until then, hidden in an impenetrable 

 darkness, to the light of the world ; the human body was, for the 

 first time, subjected to the analytical power of the human intellect, 

 and the anatomist's scalpel was daily revealing truths before which 

 the superstitions and myths of thousands of years disappeared as the 

 mists before the morning sun. The Church shouted her anathemas, 

 but in vain. In spite of curse, hatred, persecution, and calumny, on 

 went the bark of truth, emphatically testifying to the wisdom of 

 the words of the Eastern sage, " Truth alone is the mightiest of all 

 things, and will live forever." Yesalius was a reformer of the truest 

 type ; but to progress, other elements are also necessary. They seek 

 to pull down, not to build up ; they serve to tear away the cobwebs, 

 which, as superstitions, prevent the new light from gaining entrance 

 into dark corners. The sun of revolution in medicine found its 

 representative in Paracelsus, a wonderful mixture of superstition 

 and common sense himself, but nevertheless a man who did no 

 small work in preparing the way for the truth to enter men's minds. 

 On went the march of investigation. " More ! more ! " was the cry 

 of a hungering humanity ; and the answer came in the great and im- 

 mortal Harvey's unlocking the keys to an unknown fountain, and 

 teaching men how the flowing blood was forced through their or- 

 ganisms. England then denied her child, to honor him in future 

 generations as among the " anointed " of the sons of men. The 

 great Hunter laid the foundation of a new science, and made the 

 world a debtor, by laying the foundation of the first museum for 

 pathological anatomy. Boerhaave was teaching a mighty class of 

 scholars, whose fame was to make his great name still more famous. 

 Yan Zwieten laid the foundation of the first hospital in Yienna. 

 Glisson started the doctrine of the irritability of the tissues, which 

 found its more complete elucidation at the hands of Haller, im- 

 mortal physiologist, poet, philosopher, statesman, and naturalist. 

 Harvey and Haller must be looked upon as the fathers of modern 

 physiology. It is not an uninteresting fact that Harvey freed the 

 world of errors which had been held ever since its beginning, in the 

 same year (1620) that our "Pilgrim fathers" broke the ground in 

 favor of human rights on the Western Continent. Haller, Lancisi, 

 Ramazzini, Bates, and others, did the work that an incompetent vet- 

 erinary profession could not do, by describing the animal plagues, 

 especially pleuro-pneumonia and cattle-plague. Not only did these 



