14 HUNTERIAN ORATION. 



minislied, and were assailed on various 

 parts of their frontier. The empire, how- 

 ever, was still superior to these attacks, and 

 according to the simile of a late elegant 

 writer, it seemed like the trunk of an old 

 tree, which still remained vigorous and un-^ 

 shaken by the winds which assaulted it, and 

 had stripped it of its branches. In the 

 territory protected by the last exertion of 

 the Roman power, science and art still 

 survived, though in a state of rapid decline. 

 Here the works of the Grecian and Roman 

 writers on medicine, were chiefly preserved, 

 and their languages were spoken. Here 

 too, when the people in general had become 

 illiterate, ecclesiastical scholars, who had 

 read these authors, took upon themselves to 

 give medical advice, but refused to shed 

 blood, or dress wounds or sores, which task 

 devolved on their servants. It was here, 

 therefore, that surgery first made its public 

 appearance, clothed in the garb of a menial. 



Anatomy was wholly neglected by the 



Arabians, nor was it till the beginning 



of the fourteenth century, that Mondini 



made public dissections in Italy, and by 

 15* 



