Bologna. 7 



was remarkable. He mentions that he dissected over a hundred bodies. 

 He speaks of his long experience in anatomy, and he asserts what no 

 one before him could have done— viz., that all his descriptions have 

 been taken directly from the object. It is clear then that he was no 

 mere copyist— no blind follower of Galen. 



So great was his zeal that some authors have been led to charge 

 him with the vivisection of two Spaniards, who were suffering from 

 small-pox, in order that he might study the peristaltic action of the 

 intestines. This is a vile slander, as Lauth, in his excellent History 

 of Anatomy, shows. The grounds upon which the imputation is based 

 are— (1) that he had a hatred of the Spaniards, and (2) that he was 

 banished from Bologna. But Berengario in his writings reproaches, 

 in the strongest manner, Herophilus and Erisistratus, who are supposed 

 to have dissected living criminals in Alexandria, and he explains that 

 only in the course of a surgical operation has he ever applied a knife 

 to the living subject ^). Portal assures us that his banishment was 

 due to the inquietude which was produced in the Inquisition by the 

 free manner in which he had discussed the anatomy of the organs of 

 generation. 



With the name of Berengario are associated the valvulae conni- 

 ventes, the vermiform appendix, the opening of the biliary duct into 

 the duodenum, the greater relative capacity of the female pelvis, and 

 the arrangement of the arteries at the base of the brain ^). 



In the early part of the sixteenth century Andreas Vesalius ap- 

 peared. No one before and no one since has done so much to place 



^) Fallopius makes the charge, but it is evident he had been misled. The same 

 charge was made against Vesalius at a later date. One thing, however, is perfectly 

 clear, viz., that the early anatomists dissected, in the most ruthless manner, living 

 animals. Tables for the purpose are figured in several of their works. In Helkiah 

 Crooke's work, which may be considered to be the first great treatise on anatomy 

 published in the English language (1615), the author protests against the indis- 

 criminate vivisection of animals. It should be done sparingly, he says, and with the 

 view of elucidating the action of the heart, blood-vessels, intestines, and brain, and 

 by what muscles the different parts are moved. 



^) Portal goes so far as to suppose that he used the method of injection. This 

 is extremely doubtful. Berengario was the first to employ mercurial inunctions for 

 the cure of syphilis. At this period that disease was very prevalent in Europ?. 

 Berengario did much to stem its progress. He consequently amassed a considerable 

 fortune before he was banished to Ferrara. 



