98 ARTHUR E. SHIPLEY 



them, were slowly but surely separating them- 

 selves out from the general mass of learning, 

 segregating into secondary units; and, from 

 a general amalgam of scientific knowledge, 

 mathematics, astronomy, physics, chemistry, 

 geology, mineralogy, zoology, botany, agricul- 

 ture, even physiology (the offspring of anat- 

 omy and chemistry) were beginning to assert 

 claims to individual and distinct existence. It 

 was in the Stewart reigns that, in England at 

 any rate, the specialist began to emerge from 

 those who hitherto had "taken all knowledge 

 to be" their "province." 



Certain of the sciences, such as anatomy, 

 physiology and, to a great extent, zoology and 

 botany, had their inception in the art of medi- 

 cine. But the last two owed much to the 

 huntsman and the agriculturist. During the 

 preceding century, the great Belgian anatom- 

 ist Vesalius had broken loose from the bond of 

 the written word which had strangled research 

 for a thousand years, and had looked at the 

 structure of the human body for himself; he 

 taught what he could himself see and what he 

 could show to his pupils. Under him, anatomy 



