MODERN METHODS OF MEDICAL SCIENCE 27 



to nerve physiology by observing the paralysis of certain muscles 

 after section of the nerves. A voluminous writer as well as investi- 

 gator, Galen created a complete system of medicine which remained 

 as authority until men became bold enough to throw over authority 

 when it did not conform with what could be learned from investi- 

 gation. The stagnation and decline in medicine which followed 

 Galen and continued during the Middle Ages was due to the dom- 

 inance of a dogmatic religion in lands in which the general culture 

 of the people should have given the conditions for knowledge to 

 increase. The Church regarded its dogma as sufficient, and all 

 inquiry, all free activity of men's minds were prohibited. Dogma 

 based on supposed revelation sufficed. There was some attempt at 

 progress made by the Arabians, but their most important contri- 

 bution was the preservation of the old learning. Even the period 

 of the Renaissance passed with little or no influence on medicine, 

 for mental activity was turned exclusively into channels in which 

 dogma could not be disturbed. 



Three circumstances served to bring about a new era in the pro- 

 gress of knowledge in which medicine shared. The discovery of the 

 art of printing by which knowledge became more diffused and more 

 exact by the substitution of record for tradition, the discovery of 

 America, with the stimulation which this gave to thought and 

 imagination, and the Reformation, which gave freedom to thought, 

 removed the weight of authority, and allowed investigation. The 

 reform in medicine was introduced in Europe by Paracelsus, whose 

 work was chiefly the overthrow of the Galen system, which had 

 sufficed and under which investigation was not possible. Progress 

 in the new reform was more active in England than in the land of 

 its birth. This was due to the freedom from war, the greater freedom 

 of the people in all ways, and to the work of Francis Bacon, who for 

 the first time showed clearly the methods by which knowledge 

 must be sought. With few exceptions, English medicine has remained 

 true to the precept of Bacon, that knowledge increases by the 

 observations of things with the proper utilization of past observa- 

 tions. There has been -an almost continuous line of great physicians 

 in England who have enriched medical knowledge by investigation 

 and who remained free from speculation. The contributions which 

 such men as Harvey, Sydenham, Hunter, and Bright have made, 

 remain and have served as bases from which knowledge has grown. 

 The theories which were founded upon their work have passed with- 

 out influence. That there came a time in England when medical 

 investigation was greatly surpassed in other countries, is to be attri- 

 buted to the introduction of methods of investigation which could 

 not be utilized in England. It was the introduction of the labora- 

 tory with the facilities for and the systematization of medical investi- 



