524 ARCHEOLOGY 



proves once more that the progress of humanity does not always 

 march in accordance with justice. 



With regard to the sciences of practical utility, as they are chiefly 

 based on recently acquired knowledge, as for example those rela- 

 tive to steam and electricity, it would not be an easy task to dis- 

 cover in what their relation to archeology consisted. I shall, 

 however, mention medicine. Modern science cannot afford to look 

 with disdain on the medical knowledge of the ancient Indians, 

 seeing that to them it owes quinine and coca, two remedies em- 

 ployed universally with great success. 



The Mexicans had a real curative science, which constituted 

 one of the professions of their society. Let it serve my purpose 

 to state here that in the fifteenth century they already employed 

 anesthetics, and had a military medical corps which accompanied 

 their armies into action. 



A study, therefore, of those ancient medicines, still used to the 

 present day by the Indians in the fields, will undoubtedly be bene- 

 ficial: and with this end in view, the Mexican Government has 

 already founded a Medical Institute, the good results accruing 

 from which will soon be seen by us all, as soon as the processes of 

 experimentation shall be sufficiently advanced. 



The Indian medicine was based on botany. Messrs. Gerste and 

 Troncoso have written valuable treatises on this important sub- 

 ject, and their very classification itself is based on the diverse 

 curative power of the plants. 



Let us pass on to the arts. No one can deny that archeology 

 has been a powerful factor in their development and perfection- 

 ing. A mere glance at the epoch of the Renaissance will suffice to 

 establish the fact. Architecture was inspired by the ruins of the 

 Greek and Roman monuments. The basilica of St. Peter's is not 

 the evolution of the ideas of the Middle Ages; it is a return to the 

 ancient Roman architecture, it is a Caesarian building crowned with 

 the dome of Michael Angelo, as with the Emperor's crown. The 

 Moses of San Pietro in Vinculo is not an expression of sentiment 

 of the Christian idea: from its majesty and the grandeur of its 

 expression and lines, it rather resembles an Olympic Jupiter, the 

 Zeus of Homer. Raphael abandoned the mystical Madonnas of 

 Botticelli and Perugino, and, deriving his inspiration from the pagan 

 statues, painted his peerless virgins, whose most perfect type was 

 that "of the Chair." All the arts from the Old World formed a New; 

 and the Renaissance was its golden age, not hitherto attained to, 

 not excelled in after time, perhaps never even equaled. Arche- 

 ology contributed to convert the Rome of Leo X into the capital 

 of the world of arts, as it was of Christianity. That same Rome 

 was already bedecking herself with Egyptian obelisks. Not only the 



