HISTORY OF MEDICINE. 393 



physic, blended with most extravagant and visionary doctrines, 

 supported and covered by a great deal of new and meaningless 

 jargon of his own. His lectures were chiefly employed in recom- 

 mending his own chemical remedies, and declaiming in the most 

 outrageous manner against the established schools of physic. 



He had the books of Galen and Avicenna brought into 

 his school, and publicly burnt as useless lumber. He thus 

 formed a sect which soon became considerable, in so much that 

 from that time to the middle of the seventeenth century, phy- 

 sicians were divided between the two sects of Chemists and 

 Galenists ; and, as they adhered to one party or the other, they 

 exhibited a different state of the practice of physic. The che- 

 mical sect was founded upon an attachment to particular reme- 

 dies, supposed to be of uncommon power and efficacy. This made 

 them neglect the study and discernment of diseases, and ren- 

 dered them pure empirics ; employing the remedies at random, 

 and solely intent upon multiplying these, they introduced a 

 great number of the inert and purely superstitious kind. On 

 the other hand, the Galenists were more attached to the study 

 of their system than to the invention of remedies ; they prac- 

 tised, therefore, with more discernment, and made some pro- 

 gress in the knowledge of diseases ; but, while they oppos- 

 ed the new remedies of the chemists, their practice, as far 

 as it depended upon pharmaceutical remedies, was feeble and 

 inert. 



It was indeed a symptom of the most absolute languor in the 

 pursuit of science, that the system of Galen had now subsisted 

 for 1400 years, unrivalled and undisturbed, and it was a lucky 

 incident, that the noise and bustling of Paracelsus occurred to 

 rouse the schools of physic from the lethargy they were then 

 under, and to shake off that exclusive attachment to one sys- 

 tem, which is always a check to the progress of science. It 

 happened fortunately, at the same time, that the study of ana- 

 tomy was revived, and that its chief improver, Vesalius, was 

 industrious in marking the errors of Galen, and thereby lessen- 

 ing his general credit and authority. Galen however was still 

 supported by the slavish attachment that is liable to prevail 

 among men with regard to those opinions, with which they have 



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