Middle Ages and Modern History. 13 



are chiefly indebted to the monks, working as copyists in the 

 monasteries. Technical medical skill made scarcely any note- 

 worthy progress. With the founding of the universities in the 

 thirteenth to fifteenth centuries, when a resumption of anatomical 

 investigations gradually became possible, and with the discovery 

 of the printing art, which stimulated the translation and wide 

 'dissemination of the works of Grecian and Roman authors, there 

 began a new epoch. The luminous works of the human anato- 

 mists like Vesalius, FaJlopius and Eustachius, the experimental 

 researches of Serv^etus and Columbus Cesalpinus. and particularly 

 William Harvey's (1578-1658) discovery of the true conception 

 of the circulation of the blood, led directly to the recognition of 

 the errors in Galen's system and to a reorganization of medical 

 science.* As usual pathology again fell into errojr, ascribing, un- 

 der the influence of prevailing views in natural science, the 

 various processes of disease and their causation now to this, ndw 

 to that physical or chemical factor. Speculative hypotheses took 

 precedence of actual experiment, and attempts at proper explana- 

 tion were quite lost in the fancies of the individuals. Some were 

 followers of the "chemical school" founded by Sylvius, and en- 

 deavored to explain every fault by chemical changes in the com- 

 position of the bod\-, as the introduction of "sharps" (Boer- 

 haave) ; others, the "neuropathologists," when the importance of 

 the nervous system became .recognized, laid stress upon the in- 

 fluence of the nerves (William Cullen), or upon the eflrect of 

 "stimuli" and the irritability of the tissues (the theory of ex- 

 citability of Haller and Erown). Others, basing their views upon 

 mechanics, believed the vital phenomena of morbid disturbances 

 depended upon mechanical faults of relationship ("mechanical 

 school," founded by Santoro, 1 561-1635, Borelli, 1608-1677). 

 Still others spoke of "vital spirits" circulating in the body, of 

 "forces," of the power of the "entities" (Paracelsusf). or made 

 some injury to the immortal soul the real principle of disease 

 (G. E. Stahl. 1660-1734). These doctrines were denominated wVa/- 

 ism and airiiiiism. Such ideas have found adherents even as late 

 as within the nineteenth century, clothed usually in high-sounding 

 foreign verbiage to make the greater impression. 



Along with these speculative theories, however, exact clinical 



•Compare Eichbaum, GachicMe df HcilJ;undc: Berlin. Pareys' Verl.. 1SS5. 



tTheophrastus Bombastus, whose proper name was Paracelsus, distinguished 

 different forces, an ens astrale (power of the stars), an ens naturale, spirituale, 

 venerd, etc., as factors in life and disease. 



