ANATOMY IN THE MIDDLE AGES-A.D. 400 TO HOG 59 



The majority of historians have felt that the Church was in 

 a chronic, anti-dissective mood for many centuries; Walsh ('04) 

 attempted to refute this. Medicine was practiced by religious 

 orders. Ills were regarded as being of divine origin; the human 

 body itself had no standing and was regarded with contempt; it 

 ^vas man's soul, which was considered the highest endowment and 

 its salvation was the priest's main function. If anatomy was studied 

 at all, it was done to understand and interpret the writings in the 

 Bible; it ranked as a pagan science and there was no need to com- 

 prehend it. Life itself was judged to be a way station between two 

 eternities, a mere, transitory event. There were some people who 

 primitively believed that after death, sensations disappeared 

 slowly; thus there was no difference in cutting the living or dead. 

 Nevertheless, it was in the last part of this period that the first 

 great step forward was taken in the field of human anatomy 

 (Cruikshank, '06). 



B. Psychology of the Times 



Zilborg and Henry ('41) cited the psychological atmosphere 

 of the people during the Dark Age. The inhabitants of Rome, 

 they said, were leading an extremely tense and emotional life. 

 Barbarians were moving in from the north and east which pre- 

 cipitated a sense of doom. A consciousness of spiritual infirmity 

 grew deeper and the goal became a personal and mystic salva- 

 tion. The human mind turned to occult philosophy and religious 

 experiences. Original work and thinking almost ceased. 



An outstanding characteristic of the Dark Age apparently 

 was the acceptance of magic by many members of the populace. 

 The "possessed" and "witches" came in for considerable atten- 

 tion. The Theodosian Code of A.D. 420 officially prohibited sor- 

 cery, classifying it as a crime. Punishing the magician by death 

 became a reality which constituted a marked change from that 

 of the classical period. 



The period of the Middle Ages is further described by Zil- 

 borg and Henry ('41) as being one in which the people were rest- 

 less, anxiously groping and bewildered, with the cultured begin- 

 ning to feel out of place. It was an interval of remarkable psycho- 

 logical reactions in which the sword and not the pen reigned; it 



