60 HUMAN DISSECTION. ITS DRAMA AND STRUGGLE 



became necessary for science to become primarily monastic 

 where certain medically inclined men and other intellectuals 

 took asylum in the Church. Here, they became compilers of the 

 medical science of the past, especially that of the Greeks. 



In the 4th Century, the influence of the stars on human be- 

 havior, began to play an important part in medicine and some of 

 the anatomical figures of the period were decorated with the signs 

 of the zodiac. The early Christian authorities were frightened and 

 puzzled by the whole phenomenon of mental illness which ap- 

 peared to be increasing and were inclined to assign it to the mach- 

 inations of the devil. 



Hostility to science, in all its forms, became more open, in- 

 tense and crystallized at the beginning of the 7th Century. Exor- 

 cism and incantations became an indispensable adjunct to even 

 the legitimate practice of medicine. The fragments of what posi- 

 tive knowledge existed became further buried by a fusion of the 

 animistic past of the prehistorics, the mysticism of the early races 

 and the theurgic ceremonialism of an expiring empire. Man be- 

 came lost as an individual and had to constantly struggle with 

 temptation. It came to be believed that the past contained every- 

 thing. 



By the 13th Century, almost all medical writers and physi- 

 cians were clerics. Dietetics, herbs and drugs were the chief topics 

 of interest. Scholars were not investigators. Anxiety of the popula- 

 tion increased, passions were aroused and soon instruments of 

 torture and burning fagots were introduced. Astrology had defi- 

 nitely become an approach to the problems of medicine. 



The man in the street grew more frightened during the 14th . 

 Century. Prevailing were an ecstatic religious tradition, a uni- 

 versal faith in miracles and a cultural monotony. The sorcerer, 

 the heretic and the psychotic began to be perceived as one; psyc ho- 

 pathological epidemics increased in number and severity toward 

 the close of this period necessitating re( ognition by the powers of 

 government. 



With this state of affairs existing in the Middle Ages, it is 

 ea.sy to see why human anatomical science became stagnant and 

 failed to progress; everything was against it. Some light, however, 



