12 



THE GROWTH OF SCIENCE 



of the structure mentioned in the text. It was not until the time 

 of Vesalius (1514-1564) who lived in the Middle Ages, that surgery 

 was put on a professional basis rather than a menial one performed 

 by barbers and bath keepers. The study of the structure of the 

 human body was now both permitted and encouraged. No longer 

 was medical science purely speculative. It began to be based on 

 observation. In lecturing, Vesalius pushed aside the clumsy 

 surgeon barber and he himself demonstrated the parts of the dis- 

 sected body in a proper way. He began to draw pictures of the 

 dissections as he actually saw them. He disproved the old idea 

 that man differed from woman by having one less rib on one side. 

 He demonstrated by dissection that man and woman realty have 

 the same number of ribs on each side. Gradually, teaching came 

 to be based on direct observation rather than opinion. As instruc- 

 tors acquired more and more knowledge of the human body, they 

 insisted on making their own dissections, instead of depending 

 upon the unscientific efforts of barbers. They realized the value 

 of careful dissections in order to show the structure of the body. 



The efforts of physicians to look 'for 

 natural causes of disease rather than super- 

 natural was the beginning of science, but 

 they did not go far enough. While scien- 

 tists were dissecting the human body and 

 disproving fallacies in regard to it, they 

 were not yet checking, experimentally, ob- 

 servations in the treatment of disease. For 

 example, when a patient's cure seemingly 

 followed the administration of some unusual 

 i remedy or drug, without further experi- 

 mentation, doctors jumped to the conclusion that they had dis- 

 covered the cure. During an epidemic of typhus fever, a Turkish 

 upholsterer, having become ill with the disease, drank some liquid 

 from a pail containing pickled cabbage, and recovered. Irnme- 



Before human dissections 

 were made, skeletons were 

 drawn very inaccurately. 



