70 



cuts, published in 1491 ; they advanced to the 

 Aphorisms, the Diet in Acute Diseases and the 

 Prognostics of Hippocrates, overlaid with Syriac, 

 Arabic and Spanish apparatus and glosses ; to the 

 Ars Parva of Galen ; to the first and fifth Canons of 

 Avicenna, with glosses ; to the ixth Book of Rhazes, 

 Honein, Aegidius Corboliensis, and perhaps some of 

 the translations of Constantinus Africanus 1 ; this 

 was the lore that ruled the medical schools even to 

 the birth of Harvey. Disputations among the stu- 

 dents were incessant, both "inter se" and "sub cathe- 

 dra"; but it is doubtful whether these did more than 

 V sharpen their dialectical wits. Botany, regarded 

 by the galenists as the secret of the divine dispen- 

 sary, was always more forward ; every medical 

 school had its physic garden, professors carried 

 their students abroad to gather herbs, and Herbals, 

 Dispensatoriums and Krauterbiicher were much in 



1 I may venture to quote again the " locus classicus " : 



"Wei knew he the olde Esculapius, 

 And Deiscorides, and eek Rut'us, 

 Old Ypocras, Haly, and Galien ; 

 Serapion, Razis, and Avicen ; 

 Averrois, Damascien, and Constantyn; 

 Bernard, and Gatesden, and Gilbertyn." 



Chaucer, C. T. Prol. 429434 (Skeat's Ed.). 



