I 8 THE BIRTH AND GROWTH OF SCIENCE IN MEDICINE. 



But with the revival of Greek in the fifteenth century 

 his original writings became accessible, and manuscripts 

 hitherto unknown came to light. It became the aim of 

 the scholars of the time to translate these works into 

 polished Latin for the benefit of those unacquainted with 

 Greek. Amongst the " Medical Humanists," as they are 

 termed, was the Founder and first President of this 

 College. There is no more honoured name in scholarship 

 than that of Linacre, but it is instructive to note the 

 difference between his mental attitude and that of Harvey 

 little more than a hundred years later. Linacre stands 

 for the revival of learning, Harvey for the intellectual 

 quickening that revival was to engender. The avowed 

 aim of the medical humanists was not the advance of 

 medical science but a return to the uncorrupted knowledge 

 of the Greeks : the thought and science of antiquity were 

 still held so immeasurably superior to anything that 

 modern times could produce that no advance was con- 

 templated. But the seed was sown. Greek literature 

 was the product of an original creative activity and a 

 mental freedom to which Europe had long been vm- 

 accustomed. Men could not study it without at the same 

 time drinking in something of the spirit in which it had 

 been conceived and which animates it for all time. This 

 was our true heritage in the Renaissance, and, once again 

 imbued with this spirit, men felt at liberty to ask whether 

 the ancients were always right, and to criticise and test 

 their statements. The reign of mere authority came to 

 an end and science recommenced that advance which has 

 continued to the present day. 



The first science to bear new fruit was anatomy. It 

 was in Italy that the resurrection began, and the book 

 written by Vesalius on ' The Structure of the Human 

 Body,' published in 1543, set the seal upon the new- 

 method — the appeal to fact instead of to dogma. But 

 the story of the rise of anatomy has been told so often 

 and so well in Harveian orations, especially in relation 

 to the organs of circulation, that I need not dwell on it. 



