GIFT OF 
 JANE K.SATHER 
 
Fordham University Press Series. 
 
 MAKERS OF MODERN MEDICINE. Lives of the 
 dozen men to whom nineteenth century 
 medical science owes most. Cloth, octavo, 
 362 pp., with portrait of Pasteur. Ford- 
 ham University Press, New York, 1907. 
 $2.00, net. 
 
 MAKERS OF ELECTRICITY. Brother Potamian 
 and Walsh, in press. Issued October, 
 1908. 
 
 OLD-TIME MAKERS OF MEDICINE in prepara- 
 tion, to be issued March, 1909. 
 
 MAKERS OF ASTRONOMY to be .issued Octo- 
 ber, 1909. 
 
 Other Publications. 
 
 THR THIRTEENTH GREATEST OF CENTURIES. 
 The story of the rise of the universities 
 and of the origin of modern art, letters, 
 science, liberty and democracy in a sin- 
 gle century. Cloth, octavo, 450 pp. , fifteen 
 illustrations. Catholic Summer School 
 Press, N. Y., 1907. $2.50, net. 
 
 CATHOLIC CHURCHMEN IN SCIENCE. Lives of 
 seven founders in physical science who 
 were Churchmen. Cloth, gilt top, with 
 portraits. The Dolphin Press, Philadel- 
 phia, 1906. $1.00, net. 
 
 CATHOLIC CHURCHMEN IN SCIENCE, second 
 series, containing the lives of Albertus 
 Magnus, Roger Bacon, St. Thomas Aqui- 
 nas, Pope John XXI., Jesuit Astronomers, 
 Clerical Pioneers in Electricity, Father 
 Piazzi, and Father Wasmann, S. J. (In 
 preparation) . 
 
 In Collaboration. 
 
 O'MALLEY AND WALSH. Essays on Pastoral 
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 1906. $2.50, net. 
 
The Popes and Science 
 
 THE HISTORY OF THE PAPAL, RELATIONS TO 
 
 SCIENCE DURING THE MIDDLE AGES 
 
 AND DOWN TO OUR OWN TIME 
 
 BY 
 
 James J. Walsh, M. D., Ph. D., LL.D. 
 
 PROFESSOR OF THE HISTORY OF MEDICINE AND OF NERVOUS DISEASES AT FORDHAJf 
 UNIVERSITY SCHOOL, OF MEDICINE ; PROFESSOR OF PHYSIOLOGICAL, PSY- 
 CHOLOGY AT ST. FRANCIS XAVIER'S AND CATHEDRAL, COLLEGES, 
 NEW YORK, AND LECTURER ON BIOLOGY AT THB 
 CATHOLIC SUMMER SCHOOL OF AMERICA. 
 
 FORDHAM UNIVERSITY PRESS 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 1908 
 
REMIGIUS IvAFORT, 
 
 Censor deputatus. 
 
 3mpnmatur; 
 
 I* JOHN M. FARLEY, 
 
 Archiepiscopus Neo - Eboracensis . 
 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1908. 
 
 JAMES J. WAI.SH. 
 
 All rights reserved. 
 
DEDICATION 
 
 TO POPE PIUS X. 
 
 YOUR HOLINESS : 
 
 It is with very great pleasure that I avail myself 
 of the permission obtained for me by my good friend 
 Archbishop Farley, of New York, to dedicate this volume 
 to Your Holiness. Four years ago, when I had the 
 privilege of an audience, Your Holiness spoke very 
 earnestly of the Apostolate of the press and of the 
 lecture platform. The words impressed me profoundly 
 and have often recurred to my mind. They led me 
 to devote much of my time during these years to the 
 study and publication of the records of the Papal rela- 
 tions to science and education. I am now very glad to 
 be able to lay at the feet of Your Holiness a volume 
 which sets the attitude of the Popes to Science in an 
 entirely different light from that in which it is usually 
 placed by English-speaking historians at least. I am 
 sorry that the cause of the Church and of the Popes has 
 not fallen to better hands. I willingly assume all the 
 responsibility for any misstatements that may have 
 crept into the treatment for the first time of so large a 
 subject, and only hope that the truth, which I have 
 found so different from what I had been led to believe, 
 may redound to the glory of Holy Mother Church and 
 the universal appreciation of the beneficent mission 
 of the Vicar of Christ upon earth. This shall not be 
 the last volume of this kind, God willing, and I hope 
 always to remain, 
 
 Your Holiness' humble and obedient servant, 
 
 JAMES J. WALSH. 
 OUR LADY'S DAY, 
 
 1908. 
 
" Great additions have of late been made to our 
 knowledge of the past ; the long conspiracy against the 
 revelation of truth has gradually given way, and com- 
 peting historians all over the civilized world have been 
 zealous to take advantage of the change. The printing 
 of archives has kept pace with the admission of en- 
 quirers ; and the total mass of new matter, which the 
 last half-century has accumulated, amounts to many 
 thousands of volumes. In view of changes and of gains 
 such as these, it has become impossible for the histori- 
 cal writer of the present age to trust without reserve 
 even to the most respected secondary authorities. The 
 honest student finds himself continually deserted, re- 
 tarded, misled by the classics of historical literature, 
 and has to hew his own way through multitudinous 
 transactions, periodicals and official publications in order 
 to reach the truth. 
 
 "Ultimate history cannot be obtained in this genera- 
 tion ; but, so far as documentary evidence is at com- 
 mand, conventional history can be discarded, and the 
 point can be shown that has been reached on the road 
 from one to the other." (Preface of Cambridge Mod- 
 ern History.) 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 For years, as a student and physician, I listened to 
 remarks from teachers and professional friends as to 
 the opposition of the Popes to science, until finally, 
 much against my will, I came to believe that there had 
 been many Papal documents issued, which intentionally 
 or otherwise hampered the progress of science. Inter- 
 est in the history of medicine led me to investigate the 
 subject for myself. To my surprise, I found that the 
 supposed Papal opposition to science was practically all 
 founded on an exaggeration of the significance of the 
 Galileo incident. As a matter of history, the Popes 
 were as liberal patrons of science as of art. In the 
 Renaissance period, when their patronage of Raphael 
 and Michel Angelo and other great artists did so much 
 for art, similar relations to Columbus, Eustachius, and 
 Caesalpinus, and later to Steno and Malpighi, our great- 
 est medical discoverers, had like results for science. The 
 Papal Medical School was for centuries the greatest 
 medical school in Europe, and its professors were the 
 most distinguished medical scientists of the time. This 
 is a perfectly simple bit of history that anyone may find 
 for himself in any reliable history of medicine. The 
 medical schools were the scientific departments of the 
 universities practically down to the nineteenth century. 
 In them were studied botany, zoology and the biological 
 sciences generally, chemistry, physics, mineralogy and 
 even astronomy, because of the belief that the stars in- 
 fluenced human constitutions. The Popes in fostering 
 medical schools (there were four of them in the Papal 
 dominions, and two of them, Bologna and Rome, were 
 the greatest medical schools for several centuries) were 
 acting as wise and beneficent patrons of science. Many 
 of the greatest scientists of the Middle Ages were 
 clergymen. Some of the greatest of them were canon- 
 ized as saints. Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas 
 are typical examples. At least one Pope had been a 
 distinguished scientist before being elected to the 
 Papacy. For seven centuries the Popes selected as 
 their physicians the greatest medical scientists of the 
 
vi THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 time, and the list of Papal physicians is the worthiest 
 series of names connected by any bond in the history of 
 medicine, far surpassing in scientific import even the 
 roll of the faculty of any medical school. 
 
 In a word, I failed to find any trace of Papal opposi- 
 tion to true science in any form. On the contrary, I 
 found abundant evidence of their having been just 
 as liberal and judicious patrons of science as they were 
 of art and education in all forms. I found also that 
 those who write most emphatically about Papal opposi- 
 tion to science, know nothing at all of the history 
 of science, and above all of medicine and of surgery, 
 during three very precious centuries. Because they 
 know nothing about it they think there was none, and 
 go out of their way to find a reason for its absence, 
 while all the time there is a wondrous series of chapters 
 of science for those who care to look for them. This is 
 the story that I have tried to tell in this book. 
 
 This material is, I think, gathered into compact form 
 for the first time. No one knows better than I do how 
 many defects are probably in the volume. What I have 
 tried to do is to present a large subject in a popular 
 way, and at the same time with such references to 
 readily available authorities as would make the collec- 
 tion of further information comparatively easy. I am 
 sorry that the book has had to take on a controversial 
 tone. No one feels more than I do that controversy 
 seldom advances truth. There are certain false notions, 
 however, which have the prestige of prominent names 
 behind them, which simply must be flatly contradicted. 
 I did not seek the controversy, for when I began to 
 publish the original documents in the subject I men- 
 tioned no names. Controversy was forced on me, but 
 not until I had made it a point to meet and spend many 
 pleasant hours with the writer whose statements I must 
 impugn, because they so flagrantly contradict the simple 
 facts of medical history. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 May Catholics dissect ? Supposed prohibition of dissection. Twenty 
 medical schools in Catholic Europe. Medieval universities and 
 medical education. Allbutt on medicine down to the sixteenth cen- 
 tury. William of Salicet and Lanfranc, the great medieval surgeons. 
 The nearer to Rome the better the medical school. The state of 
 medical teaching and discovery. The relation of the Popes to medi- 
 cal progress. Supposed Papal prohibitions. Ignorance of medieval 
 medicine the reason for misrepresentation. The Popes did not 
 hamper medicine nor any other science. Galileo's case an incident, 
 not the index of a policy. The Papal Medical School the greatest in 
 the world. The Papal Physicians leaders in science. The Church 
 did for science as much as for art and literature. History a con- 
 spiracy against the truth. (Cambridge Modern History.) 1 
 
 THE SUPPOSED PAPAL PROHIBITION OF DISSECTION. 
 
 A new Catholic medical school and dissection. Supposed Papal 
 prohibitions of anatomy and of chemistry. The bull of Pope Boni- 
 face VIII., De Sepulturis. Reason for the bull. Supposed misinter- 
 pretation. Misuse of word infallibility. Some history of dissection. 
 Date of bull important in history. Mondino's work. Body-snatch- 
 ing. Dissections elsewhere. How Mondino prepared his bodies for 
 dissection. Guy de Chauliac at Bologna sees many dissections. 
 Mondino's assistants, Otto and Alessandra. Papal permissions to 
 dissect. The Church granting anatomical privileges where civil 
 authorities refused. How the tradition of this Papal prohibition 
 originated. M. Daunou as an authority. Reply of Pope Benedict 
 XIV. as to bull. This subject a type of certain kinds of history.. 28 
 
 THE STORY OF ANATOMY DOWN TO THE RENAISSANCE. 
 
 Presumed failure of anatomy during the Middle Ages a myth. 
 Famous Law of Frederick II. Dissections at Salerno. Taddeo and 
 anatomy. Salicet and Lanfranc. A famous medico -legal autopsy. 
 
 vii 
 
v iii THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 Mondino in the history of anatomy. Roth's story of dissection. Guy 
 de Chauliac's experience at Bologna. The story of dissection during 
 the fourteenth century without a break. Continued in next century. 
 The work of Berengar of Carpi, Achillini, Matthew of Gradi. Path- 
 ological anatomy born with Benivieni. Pres. White's attitude to 
 the evidence for dissection at this time 61 
 
 THE GOLDEN AGE OF ANATOMY. VESALIUS. 
 
 The golden age of anatomy as of letters and art in Italy. Not 
 origin, but wonderful development. Great predecessors of Raphael 
 and Michel Angelo, as of Vesalius and Columbus. Legitimate culmi- 
 nation of anatomical development. The pre-Vesalians, Mondino, 
 Bertrucci, Chauliac, Achillini, Berengar and Benivieni. The English 
 students, Linacre, Caius, Phreas. Italy the Mecca of anatomical in- 
 vestigators. Harvey and Steno. Graduate work in Italy then as in 
 Germany now. Vesalius 's career. The University of Louvain. 
 Vesalius in Paris, in Italy. The Father of Modern Anatomy. Royal 
 Physician to Charles V. Some historical misconstructions. What 
 the Popes did for anatomy in the sixteenth century 90 
 
 THE SUPPOSED PAPAL PROHIBITION OF CHEMISTRY. 
 
 False impression prevalent just as in anatomy. Striking similar- 
 ity of history -lie. American writers. The Papal decree. Its pur- 
 pose. The gold -brick industry. Fines to be distributed to the poor. 
 Pope John's bull , Super Illius specula. Appeal to historians of 
 chemistry. Chemistry in later Middle Ages. Albertus Magnus, 
 Thomas Aquinas, Roger Bacon, Raymond Lully, Arnold of Villanova, 
 the two Hollanduses, Basil Valentine, Paracelsus and his ecclesias- 
 tical teachers. Pope John XXII. a patron of science and of 
 education 120 
 
 A PAPAL PATRON OF EDUCATION AND OF SCIENCE. 
 
 Pope John XXII. distinguished for his administrative abilities, his 
 learning and his abstemiousness. Avarice and the Papal revenues. 
 Educational foundations from Papal revenues. Modern educators and 
 this old-time patron of education. All great Popes subject of slander. 
 The personality of Pope John XXII. Pres. White's astonish- 
 ing declarations as to the bull Super Illius specula. Pope John 
 XXII. "a kindly and rational scholar." His bull for the University 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 IX 
 
 of Perugia. Perugia and the history of culture. Standards in edu- 
 cation. Seven years for the doctorate in medicine. Foundation of 
 the University of Cahors. Modern requirements. Why the Pope 
 favored education 138 
 
 THE CHURCH AND SURGERY DURING THE MIDDLE 
 
 AGES. 
 
 Mistaken notions as to medieval surgery. Supposed Church dis- 
 couragement of surgery. Misinterpreted ecclesiastical documents 
 once more. Gurlt on surgery during the Middle Ages. Wonderful 
 developments of surgery, when ignorantly said not to exist. Allbutt 
 and Pagel on the great surgeons of the Middle Ages. Salicet. Lan- 
 franc. Surprising anticipations of modern surgery. Mondeville. 
 Surgical common sense. Yperman. Illustrations of surgical instru- 
 ments. Hydrophobia. Chauliac the Father of Modern Surgery. 
 Place in surgery. Chamberlain of the Pope. Technics of surgery. 
 Chauliac 's career. Ardern, the English surgeon. His works. False 
 impressions with regard to surgical history. Professional jealousy 
 not ecclesiastical persecution. The college of St. C6me and its 
 lessons. False traditions as to the Church and surgery and their 
 meaning 167 
 
 THE POPES AND MEDICAL EDUCATION AND THE PAPAL 
 
 MEDICAL SCHOOL. 
 
 Papal Medical School at Rome since 1300. Supported by revenues 
 from Popes at Avignon. Previous Papal relations to medicine. 
 Monte Cassino and Salerno. Pope Sylvester II. and medicine. 
 Medical schools and the ecclesiastical authorities. A great physician 
 made Pope. The Renaissance and the re-established Papal Medical 
 School. Columbus original discoverer and practical teacher. At- 
 tendance at his lessons. His book dedicated to Pope. Other medical 
 dedications to Popes. Eustachius's work. Piccolomini as a great 
 teacher. Caesalpinus the probable discoverer of the circulation of 
 the blood. Father Kircher's work at Rome. Malpighi the Father 
 of Comparative Anatomy. Tozzi the best teacher of his time. 
 Lancisi as a founder in clinical medicine. On Sudden Death. Mor- 
 gagni's place as an adviser. Bologna in the Papal dominions. 
 Medical schools at Ferrara and Perugia. Protestant traditions with 
 regard to the Popes and medicine 222 
 
THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 PAPAL PHYSICIANS. 
 
 Belief in miracles and progress in medicine. Prayer and healing. 
 The men the Popes chose as their medical advisers. Names greater 
 than those of the medical faculty of any university. Guy of Mont- 
 pelier, Richard the Englishman, Pope John XXI., Simon Januensis 
 and the first medical dictionary. Arnold of Villanova. Guy de 
 Chauliac. Cecco di Ascolo. Joannes de Tornamira. Francis of 
 Siena. Baverius of Imola. John de Vigo. Columbus. Eustachius. 
 Varolius. Piccolomini. Caesalpinus. Malpighi. Tozzi. Lancisi. 
 Morgagni. Contributions to the biological sciences from Papal 
 Physicians 199 
 
 THE FOUNDATION OF CITY HOSPITALS. 
 
 Pope Innocent III., the Father of City Hospitals. Santo Spirito 
 at Rome. Virchow on the effect of this in Germany. French hos- 
 pitals and the Hotel Dieu. English hospitals. The five royal hos- 
 pitals. Virchow 's tribute to Pope Innocent III. Hospital regulation 
 Care for the poor. Longings of patients. Religious nurses and 
 modern nursing. Virchow 's opinion. Contemporaries on hospital 
 accomplishment. Magnificent hospital building. Models for all 
 future time. A modern achitect's opinion. Hospital decoration. 
 Siena Hospital. Hospital abuses. Problem of malingerers. Leper 
 hospitals. The eradication of leprosy. Lesson for our generation as 
 to tuberculosis. Special hospitals for erysipelas. Benefit of segre- 
 gation. The religious dress and its anticipation of aseptic needs. 
 Hospitals ruined when taken from the Church and the religious.. 248 
 
 THE CHURCH AND THE EXPERIMENTAL METHOD. 
 
 The doubting mood so important for science supposed to preclude 
 faith. Most great scientists Catholics. Francis Bacon, the supposed 
 Father of Inductive Science. Only the popular izer of the ex- 
 perimental method. Bacon and Copernicus. Gilbert of Colchester 
 before Bacon. Friar Bacon on the experimental method. Peregrinns 
 and the value of experiments. Bacon's four grounds of human 
 ignorance Bacon's great teacher, Albertus Magnus, and the ex- 
 perimental method. Christian tradition as to scientific inquiry as 
 begun by Augustine. Albert's place in the history of inductive sci- 
 ence. Interest of the Middle Ages in physical science 281 
 
CONTENTS x j 
 
 CHURCHMEN AND PHYSICAL SCIENCE IN THE MEDIEVAL 
 UNIVERSITIES. 
 
 The Popes and the medieval universities. What the scholastic 
 philosophers did for science. Scientific teaching at the early uni- 
 versities. "Foundations of knowledge for Galileo, Harvey, New- 
 ton and Darwin." (Allbutt.) Magnetics. Philosopher's stone and 
 the transmutation of metals. Constitution of matter. Matter and 
 form. Indestructibility of matter. Conservation of energy. Albertus 
 Magnus on the antipodes. Humboldt's appreciation of Albert. Al- 
 bert's scientific accomplishments. Astronomy, botany, geography 
 and biological sciences. Roger Bacon and explosives ; achievements 
 in optics and astronomy. Aquinas and chemistry. The relations 
 of these men to the Popes. Bacon's difficulties. Medieval accom- 
 plishments in applied science. Scientific applications in medieval 
 cities (Kropotkin). Decadence in science after Middle Ages. The 
 place of the reformation so-called. The first encyclopedia. Vincent 
 of Beauvais and interest in his work. Thomas of Cantimprato and 
 Bartholonieus Anglicus. Craving for information in natural 
 science 302 
 
 THE MEDIEVAL UNIVERSITY MAN AND SCIENCE. 
 
 Dante a type of the medieval university student. His knowledge 
 a proof of how he was taught. Dante as a student of nature. Rus- 
 kin's opinion. Trobridge's suggestions. Dante's early education. 
 Azariasand Kropotkin on the public schools of Florence and Nurem- 
 berg. Kuhns on Dante's science. Optics. Astronomy. Humboldt's 
 praise of Dante's scientific knowledge. Dante the observer, phos- 
 phorescence, flies, bees and ants. Dante knew more science than 
 any modern poet. His contribution to the science of education.. 340 
 
 THE CHURCH AND THE MENTALLY AFFLICTED. 
 
 Disease and supernatural agency. Denial of disease. Scientists 
 and spiritualism. Reaction in recent years. Anticipations in 
 psychiatry. Supposed evolution of treatment of the mentally dis- 
 eased. Medieval care of the insane. Psychopathic wards in hos- 
 pitals. The open door treatment. After-care of the insane. The 
 colony system. Religious suggestion and cure ancient and modern. 
 Prayer and mental disease. Care of the insane at Gheel. Neglect 
 
xii THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 of insane not exclusively medieval. Milder measures quite modern. 
 Spiritual agencies in life. Alfred Russell Wallace, Sir William 
 Crookes, Sir Oliver Lodge, Prof. Charles Richet, Lombroso 363 
 
 APPENDIX I. 
 
 OPPOSITION TO SCIENTIFIC PROGRESS. 
 The Popes as patrons of scientific education. Swift on genius and 
 assinine opposition. Allston on truth in unusual form. "Nonsense" 
 and ' 'absurd' ' on scientists' tongues. Jordan on human conservatism. 
 Galileo's letter to Kepler, on "logic" and science. Huxley on Gal- 
 ileo. De Morgan on other cases. Dogmatism and folly. Persecution 
 of scientists. Harvey, Vesalius, Servetus, Steno. Not confined to 
 old times, Tenner, Auenbrugger, Laennec, Thomas Young, Oliver 
 Wendell Holmes, Semmelweiss. Opposition in other sciences. Ohm. 
 Young men and discoveries. Pasteur and rabies. Our universities 
 and economics. Conservatism still active. The lesson 390 
 
 APPENDIX II. 
 LATIN TEXT OF PAPAL BULLS AND DECREES. 
 
 De Sepulturis. De Crimine Falsi. Super films specula. Bulls 
 for erection of Universities of Perugia and Cahors 413 
 
 APPENDIX III. 
 
 Emperor Frederick's Law Regulating the Practice of Medicine 
 (1231) ..419 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 When, some years ago, the announcement of the 
 prospective opening o the medical school at Fordham 
 University, New York City, was made, the preliminary 
 faculty were rather astonished to find that a number of 
 intelligent physicians expressed surprise that there 
 should be any question of the establishment of a med- 
 ical school in connection with a Catholic institution of 
 learning, since, as they understood, the Church forbade 
 the practice of dissection, and in general was distinctly 
 unfavorable to the development of medical science. 
 Most of us had already known of the false persuasion 
 existing in some minds, that by a Papal decree the prac- 
 tice of dissection had been forbidden during the Middle 
 Ages, but it was hard to understand how men should 
 think, in this day of general information, that Catholics 
 were not free to pursue the study of any true science, 
 and above all medical science, without let or hindrance 
 from ecclesiastical authorities. In a word, though we 
 live in what we are pleased to call an enlightened age 
 with the schoolmaster abroad in the land, as is so 
 proudly proclaimed, we encountered the most childish 
 simplicity of belief in a number of old-time prejudices 
 as to the position of the Church with regard to the 
 study of science. 
 
 We found such a curious state of positive ignorance 
 and such an erroneous, pretentious knowledge with re- 
 gard to the supposed attitude of the Church to medicine 
 especially, that we realized that the first thing that the 
 
 (i) 
 
Ir^/r **&!et&<POP&$ AND SCIENCE 
 
 new medical department would have to do would be to 
 set about correcting authoritatively the false notions 
 which existed with regard to the Popes and medical 
 science. Most of the misinformation in this matter in 
 American minds, we soon found, had its origin in Dr. 
 Andrew D. White's volumes, "On the History of the 
 Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom." It 
 is impossible for anyone to read Dr. White's chapter on 
 from Miracles to Medicine in this work without coming 
 to the conclusion that the constant policy of the Church 
 for all the centuries down practically to our own time 
 was to prevent the progress of medicine as far as pos- 
 sible. The reason for this policy, presumably, must be 
 taken to be that it was to the interest of the ecclesias- 
 tics to have people apply to them for healing. Sufferers 
 were to look to miracles rather than to drugs for their 
 relief from ailments of any and every kind. Prayers 
 were to be considered as much more efficacious than 
 powders, and Masses much more likely to do good than 
 the most careful nursing. These ecclesiastical offices 
 had to be paid for. Accordingly, people had to be dis- 
 couraged from applying to physicians, medical schools 
 were kept under an ecclesiastical ban, "dissection was 
 prohibited," anatomy declared "a sin against the Holy 
 Ghost," "chemistry forbidden under the severest pen- 
 alties," "the medieval miracles of healing checked 
 medical science," "the practice of surgery was rele- 
 gated mainly to the lowest orders of practitioners and 
 confined strictly to them," "as the grasp of theology 
 upon education tightened, medicine declined, " and every 
 possible means was employed to keep the popular mind 
 in subjection to the clergy, and to prevent physicians 
 from getting so much knowledge as would enable them 
 
INTRODUCTION' 3 
 
 to help free the people from the bondage of superstition, 
 of which they were the victims and the slaves. 
 
 We do not think that we exaggerate the impression 
 likely to be obtained from Dr. White's book in stating 
 the ordinarily accepted opinions thus baldly, and as a 
 matter of fact, as the quotation marks are intended to 
 show, most of the strongest phrases that we have used 
 are Dr. White's own. For those who can take such 
 statements in good faith, it must be a very genuine sur- 
 prise to learn a few facts from the history of medicine 
 in the Middle Ages. Before the beginning of the six- 
 teenth century, that is, before the religious revolt in 
 Germany, which has been dignified by the name of ref- 
 ormation, altogether some twenty medical schools were 
 founded in various parts of Europe. Of these, the best 
 known in the order of their foundation were Salerno, 
 Bologna, Naples, Montpelier, Paris, Padua and Pisa. 
 Excellent schools, however, were established also at Ox- 
 ford, Rome, Salamanca, Orleans and Coimbra. Even 
 early in the fourteenth century such unimportant towns 
 as Perugia, Cahors and Lerida had medical schools. 
 These schools were usually established in connection 
 with the universities. It was realized that this would 
 make the teaching of medicine more serious and keep 
 the practical side of medicine from obscuring too much 
 the scientific and cultural aspects of the medical train- 
 ing. In modern times in America we made the mistake 
 of having our medical schools independent of universi- 
 ties, but with the advance in education and culture we 
 have come to imitate the custom of the thirteenth and 
 the fourteenth century in this regard. 
 
 The universities, as is well known, were the outgrowth 
 of cathedral schools. Practically all those in authority 
 
4 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 in them, by far the greater number of teachers and 
 most of the pupils, were of the clerical order, that is, 
 had assumed some ecclesiastical obligations and were 
 considered to be churchmen. At these universities, if 
 we can trust the example of England as applicable to 
 the Continent also, there were, according to trust- 
 worthy, conservative statistics, more students in attend- 
 ance in proportion to the population than there has been 
 at any period since, or than there are even at the pres- 
 ent time in the twentieth century in any country of the 
 civilized world. From this we can readily appreciate 
 the enthusiastic ardor of those seeking education. Of 
 these large numbers, the medical schools had their due 
 proportion. 1 
 
 Of course it will be said at once that though there 
 were medical schools and medical professors and stu- 
 dents, what was taught and studied at this time was so 
 far distant from anything like practical knowledge of 
 medicine, that it does not tell against the argument that 
 medical education was practically non-existent. Some 
 people will perhaps harbor the thought, if they do not 
 frankly express it, that very probably these schools 
 were organized under ecclesiastical authority, only in 
 order to enable the Church and the clergy to maintain 
 their control of medical education and keep the people 
 from knowledge that might prove dangerous to Church 
 authority. They were thus able to satisfy some of men's 
 cravings for information in these matters, and yet pre- 
 vent them from making such advances as would endan- 
 ger the Church's policy of having them apply for pray- 
 ers and Masses rather than for more physical remedies, 
 
 1 This subject of the attendance at the universities of the Middle Ages is discussed. 
 and authorities quoted, in my book "The Thirteenth. Greatest of Centuries," pub- 
 lished by the Catholic Summer School Press, N. Y. 
 
INTRODUCTION 5 
 
 except possibly for certain minor ailments. We do not 
 doubt that there are many educated people who would 
 be quite satisfied to accept this as a complete explana- 
 tion of the situation in medical education at the medieval 
 universities. Those who have read Dr. White's "His- 
 tory of the Warfare of Theology with Science " and 
 have placed any faith in his really amusing excursions 
 into a realm of 'which apparently he knows nothing 
 the history of medicine must believe something like 
 this. For them a little glance at even a few of the real- 
 ities of medical teaching in the thirteenth century will 
 show at once what a castle of the imagination they have 
 been living in. 
 
 Only those who are thoroughly and completely igno- 
 rant of the real status of medical teaching in the thir- 
 teenth and fourteenth centuries continue to hold these 
 absurd opinions as to the nullity of medieval medicine 
 and surgery. The reading of a single short recent con- 
 tribution to medical history, the address of Professor 
 Clifford Allbutt, Regius Professor of Physic at the Uni- 
 versity of Cambridge, England, before the Congress of 
 Arts and Sciences at the Exposition held in St. Louis in 
 1904, "On the Historical Relations of Medicine and Sur- 
 gery down to the Sixteenth Century," would suffice to 
 eradicate completely such traditional errors. He pointed 
 out some surprising anticipations of what is most mod- 
 ern in medicine and surgery in the teachings of William 
 of Salicet and his pupil Lanfranc, Professors of Medi- 
 cine and Surgery hi the Italian Universities and in Paris 
 during the thirteenth century. As these two professors 
 were the most distinguished teachers of surgery of the 
 period and the acknowledged leaders of thought in their 
 time, their teaching may fairly be taken as representa- 
 
6 THE POPES AND SCIENCE. 
 
 tive of the curricula of medieval medical schools. Will- 
 iam of Salicet, according to Professor Allbutt, taught 
 that dropsy was due to a hardening of the kidneys ; 
 durities renum are his exact words. He insisted on the 
 danger of wounds of the neck. He taught the suture 
 of divided nerves and gave explicit directions how to 
 find the severed ends. He made a special study of sup- 
 purative disease of the hip and taught many practical 
 things with regard to it. He taught, though this is a 
 bit of knowledge supposed to come three centuries later 
 into medicine and history, the true origin of chancre 
 and phagedena. Most surprising of all, however, re- 
 mains. William substituted the use of the knife for the 
 .abuse of the cautery, which had been introduced by the 
 Arabs because they feared hemorrhage, and he insisted 
 that hemorrhage could be controlled by proper means 
 without searing the tissues, and that the wounds made 
 by the knife healed ever so much more kindly and with 
 less danger to the patient. In the matter of wound 
 healing, he investigated the causes of the failure of 
 healing by first intention, and expressed on this subject 
 some marvelous ideas that are supposed to be of late 
 nineteenth century origin. 
 
 While it is usually said that whatever teaching of 
 science was done at medieval universities, was so en- 
 tirely speculative or purely theoretic and so thoroughly 
 impractical as not to be of any serious use for life and 
 its problems, the utter falsity of such declarations can 
 be seen from the fact that William of Salicet insisted on 
 teaching medicine by clinical methods, always discussed 
 cases with his students, and his medical and surgical 
 works contain many case histories. This is just what 
 pretentiously ignorant historians of medical education 
 
INTRODUCTION J 
 
 have often emphatically declared that medieval teach- 
 ers did not do, but should have done, in the Middle 
 Ages. It is not surprising then to find that William 
 himself, and his great pupil Lanfranc, insisted on the 
 utter inadvisability of separating medicine and surgery 
 in such a way that the physician would not have the op- 
 portunity to be present at operations, and thus gain 
 more definite knowledge about the actual conditions of 
 various organs which he had tried to investigate from 
 the surface of the body. It is a very curious coincidence 
 that both the Regius Professors of Physic in England at 
 the present time, our own Professor Osier, now at Ox- 
 ford, as well as his colleague, Professor Allbutt, of Cam- 
 bridge, have within the last five years emphasized this 
 same idea in almost the very words which were used by 
 William and Lanfranc nearly seven hundred years ago. 
 Lanfranc went even beyond his master in practical 
 applications of important scientific principles to medi- 
 cine and surgery. He added to the means of controlling 
 hemorrhage. In arterial hemorrhage he suggested dig- 
 ital compression for an hour, or in severe cases ligature. 
 His master had studied wounds of the neck. Lanfranc 
 has a magnificent chapter on injuries of the head, which 
 Professor Allbutt does not hesitate to call one of the 
 classics of surgery. Lanfranc was thoroughly appre- 
 ciated by his contemporaries. After years of study and 
 teaching in Italy he was invited to Paris, where he be- 
 came one of the lights of that great university. Both 
 Salicet and Lanfranc did their wonderful work in scien- 
 tific medicine down in Italy where ecclesiastical influ- 
 ence was strongest. Italy continued to be for the next 
 six centuries always the home of the best medical schools 
 in the world, to which the most ardent students from 
 
8 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 all over the continent and even England went for the 
 sake of the magnificent opportunities provided. It was 
 literally true, in spite of the tradition of Church opposi- 
 tion to medical science, that the nearer to Rome the uni- 
 versity the better its medical school ; and as we shall 
 see, Rome itself had the best medical school in the world 
 for two centuries, while its greatest rival, often ahead 
 of it in scientific achievement, always its peer, was the 
 medical school of Bologna in the Papal States, directly 
 under the control of the Popes since the beginning of 
 the sixteenth century. 
 
 Dr. White has said just the opposite of this in a well- 
 known passage of his book, in which he assures his 
 readers that "in proportion as the grasp of theology 
 upon education tightened, medicine declined ; and in 
 proportion as that grasp relaxed, medicine has been de- 
 veloped." The reason for such a statement is that he 
 knew nothing about the history of medicine and surgery 
 in these medieval centuries and thought there was none. 
 This is a characteristic example of his mode of writing 
 the History of the (Supposed) Warfare of Theology with 
 Science in Christendom. This much will give some idea 
 of the value of his book as a work of reference. 
 
 After knowing something of these wonderful develop- 
 ments of medieval medical science, it is to be hoped that 
 no one will listen hereafter to the ignorant assertions of 
 those who talk of the suppression of medical knowledge 
 at this time. William of Salicet and Lanfranc were both 
 of them clerics, that is, they belonged to the ecclesias- 
 tical body and had taken minor orders, though they were 
 not priests, as priests were for obvious reasons not al- 
 lowed to do surgical operations, it being as repugnant 
 to human feelings in the Middle Ages as it is now, that 
 
INTRODUCTION 9 
 
 the messenger of Divine Mercy should handle the knife 
 and spill blood, or that the pastor of souls should come 
 straight from the operating room to bring consolation 
 to the afflicted and the dying. 
 
 Much more might be said about the wonderful med- 
 ical teaching of the thirteenth century. The men who 
 made the universities what they have continued to be 
 down to the present time, had open minds for any great 
 advances that might come. Accordingly, when the his- 
 tories of anesthesia tell us that there was a form of 
 anesthesia introduced during the thirteenth century by 
 Ugo da Lucca, and that even some method of inhalation 
 was employed for this purpose, it will be a surprise only 
 to those who have never properly realized all that our 
 educational forefathers of the early university days suc- 
 ceeded in accomplishing. 
 
 Down at Montpelier, Gilbert the Englishman taught 
 that small-pox patients should be treated in rooms with 
 red hangings, red curtains being especially advised for 
 the doors and windows. This is what Finsen re-discov- 
 ered in the nineteenth century, and for it was given the 
 Nobel prize in the twentieth century. He found that 
 small-pox patients suffered much less, that their fever 
 was shorter, and that the after effects were much less 
 marked when only red light was admitted to them. One 
 may well ask what drugs did they employ, and perhaps 
 conclude that because they knew very little of drugs, 
 therefore they knew little of medicine. It is in the use 
 of drugs, however, that medicine has always been at its 
 weakest, and we scarcely need Oliver Wendel Holmes' s 
 declaration, that if all the drugs men used up to his time 
 had been thrown into the sea, they would be better 
 rather than worse off for it ; nor Professor Osier's many 
 
10 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 emphatic protests with regard to our ignorance of drugs, 
 to make the world of the present day realize that a gen- 
 eration's use of them as a test would tell quite as se- 
 verely against the eighteenth or the nineteenth century, 
 as against the thirteenth or the fourteenth. They did 
 use opium, however, the drug having been introduced 
 into general practice, it is said, by a distinguished Papal 
 physician, Simon Januensis. Mandrake was employed, 
 and has not as yet gone entirely out of use. Various 
 herbal decoctions were employed, and though these were 
 used entirely on empiric grounds, some at least of them 
 have continued in use with no better reason for their 
 employment during most of the centuries since. 
 
 The relation of the Popes to these advances in medi- 
 cine may be best appreciated from the interest which 
 they took in the hospitals. It was only in hospitals that 
 cases could be properly studied, and the medieval hos- 
 pitals were conducted with very nearly the same rela- 
 tions to the universities of that time as those that exist 
 at the present day. In the chapter on the Foundation 
 of City Hospitals we show that these institutions are all, 
 as Virchow, who is surely an authority above suspicion 
 in any matter relating to the Popes has declared, due to 
 one great Pope. This is the best possible demonstration 
 of supreme humanitarian interest in human ills, and 
 their treatment. Innocent III., as we shall see, at the 
 beginning of the thirteenth century summoned Guy from 
 Montpelier, where he had been trained in the care of 
 patients, and where the greatest medical school of the 
 time existed, to come to Rome and organize the Hospital 
 of the Holy Ghost in the Papal City, which was to be a 
 model for hospitals of the same kind in every diocese 
 throughout the Christian world. Literally hundreds of 
 
INTRODUCTION H 
 
 these hospitals were founded during the thirteenth cen- 
 tury as the result of this initiative. Patients were not 
 left to die, with only the hope of prayers to relieve their 
 sufferings, but they were cared for as skilfully as the 
 rising science of the time knew how and with the ten- 
 derness that religious care has always been able to give. 
 For added consolation in the midst of their sufferings 
 and as a fortifier against the thought of death, they had 
 religion and all its beautiful influences, for which even 
 Virchow, himself utterly unbelieving, cannot suppress a 
 tribute. 
 
 At the beginning of the fourteenth century, the Uni- 
 versity of the City of Rome was founded by Pope Boni- 
 face VIII. Only a year or two later the Popes removed 
 their capital to Avignon. It has often been thought 
 that, because of this removal of the Papal capital, this 
 University of the City never came into existence ; but 
 we have definite records of salaries paid out of the Papal 
 revenues to professors of law and medicine about the 
 end of the first quarter of the fourteenth century. 
 
 Down in the South of France, at Avignon itself, the 
 Popes had for one of their chamberlains the famous Guy 
 de Chauliac, who is always spoken of as the Father of 
 Modern Surgery. One of the Popes of the Avignon 
 period founded the College of Twelve Physicians at 
 Montpelier, the foundation being sufficient to support 
 twelve medical students, and by adding the prestige of 
 the Pope's patronage to the reputation of the University, 
 greatly encouraged attendance at it. 
 
 Another of the Popes of the Avignon period, Pope 
 John XXII. , who is said by President White to have been 
 most bitter in opposition to every form of science, actu- 
 ally helped in the foundation of two medical schools. 
 
12 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 One of these was at Cahors, his birthplace, and the 
 other was at Perugia, at that time in the Papal States. 
 In founding the medical school at Perugia, Pope John 
 insisted that its standards must be as high as those of 
 Paris and Bologna, and required that the first teachers 
 there should be graduates from Paris or Bologna, where 
 were the two greatest medical schools of the time. 
 Seven years of study, three in the undergraduate de- 
 partment and four in the graduate schools, were to be 
 required, according to this bull of foundation (given in full 
 in the appendix) , before the degree of Doctor of Medi- 
 cine could be conferred. If it is recalled that this stand- 
 ard of three years of undergraduate work and four in 
 the graduate school, or at least of seven years of Uni- 
 versity work, is the ideal toward which our universities 
 are struggling, and, it must be said, not with the entire 
 success we would like, at the beginning of the twentieth 
 century, then, it is surprising to think that the presi- 
 dent of a modern university, deeply interested in educa- 
 tion in all its features and himself a professor of history, 
 should know so little of, and be so lacking in sympathy 
 with these men who laid the deep foundations of our 
 modern education. 
 
 Perhaps the most striking feature of the relation of 
 the Popes to medicine remains to be mentioned. If they 
 really were the bitter opponents of things medical that 
 Dr. White would have us believe, then we should expect 
 that either there were no such officials as Papal physi- 
 cians, or else that the men who occupied these posts 
 were the veriest charlatans, who knew very little of 
 medicine, and certainly did nothing to develop the 
 science. As a matter of fact, there is no list of physi- 
 cians connected by any common bond in history who are 
 
INTRODUCTION 13 
 
 so gloriously representative of scientific progress in med- 
 icine as the Papal physicians. The faculty of no medical 
 school presents such a list of great names as those of the 
 men who were chosen to be the official medical attend- 
 ants of the Popes, and who were thus given a position 
 of prominence where their discoveries in medicine had a 
 vogue they otherwise could not have attained. The list 
 of the Royal physicians of any reigning house of Europe 
 for the last seven centuries looks trivial beside the roll 
 of Papal physicians. Could the Popes possibly have 
 done anything more than this for medicine, or shown 
 their interest in its progress, or made people realize 
 better, that while prayer might be of service, every pos- 
 sible human means must be taken to secure, maintain 
 and recover health. 
 
 To read even the headings of Dr. White's chapter on 
 from Miracles to Medicine, in which he tells of how 
 "the medieval miracles of healing checked medical 
 science, " how "pastoral medicine held back scientific 
 effort/' how "there was so much theological discourage- 
 ment of medicine, ' ' and finally, how ' ' the study of Anat- 
 omy was considered a sin against the Holy Ghost/' in 
 the light of this plain, matter-of-fact story of the won- 
 derful development of medical science in the ecclesias- 
 tically founded and ruled universities of the thirteenth 
 century, makes one realize into what a farcical state of 
 mind as regards the realities of history such writers 
 have forced themselves, and unfortunately have led 
 many readers, by their excursions into the history of 
 medicine and science. Probably there was never a more 
 pretentious exhibition of ignorance of the facts of his- 
 tory than is displayed by these expressions and by the 
 whole drift of this chapter. Dr. White would have us 
 
14 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 believe that the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries were 
 so backward in medicine and surgery that they practi- 
 cally have no history in these departments, or so little 
 as not to be worth talking about. The simple facts show 
 us that this is one of three or four great periods in hu- 
 man history in which there was the most wonderful de- 
 velopment of medicine and surgery. 
 
 As we shall see in the course of this book, there was 
 no bull or any other document issued by the Popes for- 
 bidding dissection or hampering the development of 
 anatomy in any way. As a matter of fact, the ecclesi- 
 astics, instead of being behind their age in liberality of 
 spirit with regard to the use of the human body after 
 death for anatomical purposes, were always ahead of it. 
 There has always existed a popular horror of dissection, 
 and this has manifested itself from the earliest times in 
 history down to and within the last half century, in re- 
 fusal to enact such secular legislation as would properly 
 provide for the practice of dissection. This was as true 
 in the United States until within the memory of men 
 still alive as it had always been hitherto in European 
 history. Dissection came to be allowed so freely in the 
 medieval universities founded under ecclesiastical influ- 
 ence and ruled by ecclesiastics, as the result of the intel- 
 ligent realization on the part of churchmen that the study 
 of the human body was necessary for a proper recogni- 
 tion and appreciation of the causes of the ills to which 
 flesh is heir. They realized that the only way to lay the 
 foundation of exact medical knowledge was not only to 
 permit, but to encourage the practice of dissection, and 
 accordingly this was done at everyone of a dozen med- 
 ical schools of Italy during the fourteenth, fifteenth and 
 sixteenth centuries, and nowhere more so than at the 
 
INTRODUCTION 15 
 
 Papal University at Rome itself during the sixteenth 
 ceutury, at a time when, if we would believe Dr. White, 
 the Church authorities were doing everything in their 
 power to prevent dissection. 
 
 None of the other sciences allied to medicine were 
 hampered in any way, but, on the contrary, fostered 
 and encouraged ; and the devoted students of science 
 were prominent churchmen, some of whom were hon- 
 ored with the title of saint after their deaths. In spite 
 of declarations to the contrary, chemistry was not for- 
 bidden by a Papal decree or other document, though the 
 practice of certain alchemists of pretending to make gold 
 and silver out of baser metals and thus cheating people 
 was condemned, just as we condemn the corresponding 
 practice of selling " gold bricks" at the present time. 
 As will be made very clear, the Pope who issued the de- 
 cree that forbids such sharp practices was a distin- 
 guished and discriminating patron of medical education 
 at the beginning of the fourteenth century, doing more 
 for it than any ruler for three centuries after his time ; 
 yet in doing so he was only carrying out the policy which 
 had been maintained by the Popes before his time and 
 was to continue ever afterwards. 
 
 Strange as it may appear when we recall how much 
 has been said with regard to Papal, and Church, and 
 theological opposition to science, the story that we have 
 just told with regard to the Papal relations to medicine 
 and medical schools must be retold with regard to science 
 in every department, and the scientific studies at the 
 great medieval universities. Most people will find it 
 even more difficult to accept this than to reach a calm 
 consideration of the Papal relations to the medical sci- 
 ences. Medicine is supposed to be the sort of practical 
 
16 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 subject that, in spite of prejudice, the ecclesiastical au- 
 thorities could not neglect and were not able to suppress. 
 Science in general, however, is supposed to be so dis- 
 tinctly opposed to what was at least considered religious 
 truth, that the Church could not very well do anything 
 else than prevent its development, or at least hamper its 
 progress to such an extent that it was only with the lift- 
 ing of the ecclesiastical incubus in our own day, that any 
 great scientific advances came in the physical sciences. 
 This is an entirely false impression emphasized by the 
 ridiculous intolerance of writers who knew practically 
 nothing of the real history of science in the Middle Ages, 
 wrote their own prejudices large into the story of the 
 times, and did great positive harm to the cause of truth 
 by a pretense of knowledge they did not have, but which 
 so many confidingly believed them to possess. 
 
 But it will at once be said, what of Galileo ? Does not 
 his case show the anti-scientific temper of churchmen ? 
 Nearly half a century ago, Cardinal Newman in his 
 Apologia characteristically observed that this very case 
 sufficed to prove that the Church did not set herself 
 against scientific progress, for this is the "one stock 
 argument" to the contrary, "the exception which 
 proves the rule." Commenting upon the Galileo inci- 
 dent, Professor Augustus de Morgan, in his article on 
 the Motion of the Earth in the English Encyclopedia, 
 has expressed exactly the same conclusion. He is an 
 authority not likely to be suspected of Catholic sym- 
 pathy. He says : 
 
 "The Papal power must upon the whole have been 
 moderately used in matters- of philosophy, if we may 
 judge by the great stress laid on this one case of Galileo. 
 It is the standing proof that an authority which has 
 
INTRODUCTION 17 
 
 lasted a thousand years was all the time occupied in 
 checking the progress of thought (!) There are certainly 
 one or two other instances, but those who make most of 
 the outcry do not know them/' 
 
 There is no doubt that Galileo was prosecuted by the 
 Roman inquisition on account of his astronomical teach- 
 ings. We would be the last to deny that this was a 
 deplorable mistake made by persons in ecclesiastical au- 
 thority, who endeavored to make a Church tribunal the 
 judge of scientific truth, a function altogether alien to 
 its character which it was not competent to exercise. 
 The fact that this was practically the only time that this 
 was done serves to show that it was an unfortunate in- 
 cident, but not a policy. The mistake has been to con- 
 clude that this was a typical case one of many, more 
 flagrant than the others. This single incident has in- 
 deed made it impossible that anything of the same kind 
 should ever occur again. It was rather because of the 
 way in which Galileo urged his truths than because of 
 the truths themselves that he was condemned. Even 
 Professor Huxley, in a letter to Professor St. George 
 Mivart, November 12th, 1885, said: "I gave some at- 
 tention to the case of Galileo when I was in Italy, and I 
 arrived at the conclusion that the Pope and the College 
 of Cardinals had rather the best of it." 
 
 Before as well as after Galileo's time scientific research 
 was carried on ardently in the universities, especially in 
 Italy. In the chapter on Science at the Medieval Uni- 
 versities, we call attention to the many advances then 
 made with regard to scientific questions in which the 
 world is very much interested at the present time. A 
 hundred years before Galileo's time Copernicus went 
 down to Italy to study astronomy and medicine, and 
 
18 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 when his book was published it was dedicated to a Pope. 
 Copernicus himself was a faithful churchman all his life, 
 came near being made a bishop once, and kept the dio- 
 cese in which he lived, and in which his personal friend 
 was bishop, in the fold of the Church in spite of Luther 
 and the religious revolt all around it in Germany. One 
 of the great scientists of the seventeenth century whose 
 name is stamped deeply on the history of science, Father 
 Kircher, the Jesuit, was invited to Rome the very year 
 after Galileo's condemnation, and for thirty years con- 
 tinued to experiment and write in all branches of science, 
 not only with the approbation of his own order, the 
 Jesuits, which helped him in every way by the collection 
 of specimens for his museum, but also with the hearty 
 good will of many cardinals who were his personal 
 friends, and with the constant patronage of the Popes, 
 whose generous liberality enabled him to make Rome 
 the greatest centre of scientific interest during this cen- 
 tury. 
 
 At this time and during the preceding century the 
 Roman University had the greatest medical school in the 
 world. The names of its professors during the preced- 
 ing century need only be mentioned in order to empha- 
 size this. They include such distinguished men as Eus- 
 tachius and Varolius, whose names are forever enshrined 
 in the history of anatomy ; Columbus, who discovered 
 and described the lesser or pulmonary circulation half 
 a century before Harvey's publication with regard to 
 the general circulation ; Caesalpinus, to whom the Ital- 
 ians attribute the discovery of the greater circulation 
 before Harvey. In the next century Malpighi was 
 tempted to come to Rome to teach at the Papal Univer- 
 sity, and the great Father of Comparative Anatomy 
 
INTRODUCTION 19 
 
 ended his days in the Papal capital, amidst the friend- 
 ship of all the high ecclesiastics and with the social in- 
 timacy of the Pope. From the beginning of the six- 
 teenth century Bologna is a Papal city, but its medical 
 school, far from declining after it came under Papal 
 jurisdiction, was even more brilliant than before, and 
 soon came even to outshine its previously successful 
 rival, Padua. 
 
 What we would say then, is that the story of the sup- 
 posed opposition of the Church and the Popes and the 
 ecclesiastical authorities to science in any of its branches, 
 is founded entirely on mistaken notions. Most of it is 
 quite imaginary. Much of it is due to the exaggeration 
 of the significance of the Galileo incident. Only those 
 who know nothing about the history of medicine and of 
 science continue to harbor it. That Dr. White's book, 
 contradicted as it is so directly by all our serious his- 
 tories of medicine and of science, should have been read 
 by so many thousands in this country, and should have 
 been taken seriously by educated men, physicians, teach- 
 ers, and even professors of science who want to know 
 the history of their own sciences, only shows how easily 
 even supposedly educated men may be led to follow their 
 prejudices rather than their mental faculties, and em- 
 phasizes the fact that the tradition that there is no good 
 that can possibly come out of the Nazareth of the times 
 before the reformation, still dominates the intellects of 
 many educated people who think that they are far from 
 prejudice and have minds perfectly open to conviction. 
 
 We would not leave the impression, moreover, that it 
 was in medicine alone that the misunderstood Middle 
 Ages made distinct progress in science. This is true in 
 every department of what we now call natural science. 
 
20 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 The reason for the false impression that science was not 
 studied in the Middle Ages at the universities, is that 
 the supposed historians of education and of science who 
 have made such declarations have never taken the 
 trouble to look into the works of the great writers of 
 this period. Anyone who does so, at once changes his 
 opinion in this matter. Humboldt, for instance, the 
 great German natural philosopher, has given ample 
 credit to these colleagues of his, who lived some six 
 centuries before him, yet did such wonderful work in 
 spite of their inadequate means and the fact that they 
 were as yet only groping in the darkness of the begin- 
 nings of science. Whewell, the English historian of the 
 inductive sciences, has also proved sympathetic to 
 these old philosophers, and especially to Albertus Mag- 
 nus and Roger Bacon. Those who so ignorantly but 
 with a pretense of knowledge make little of the science 
 of the Middle Ages, know nothing of the real accomplish- 
 ments of such men as Bacon, Albertus Magnus, Thomas 
 Aquinas, Arnold of Villanova, nor Vincent of Beauvais, 
 the encyclopedist. As is always the case, however, the 
 ignorance of supposed historians of science and educa- 
 tion in this matter, has only served to emphasize the pre- 
 sumptuous assurance of their declarations as to the in- 
 tolerance of the Middle Ages toward scientific progress. 
 It is ever the ignorant man who has the least doubt 
 about his opinions. 
 
 Unfortunately many students of science followed these 
 writers apparently without a hint of the deception that 
 was being practiced on them. Not infrequently the 
 prestige or institutional position of the writers has been 
 enough to carry their works into a vogue which has been 
 heightened by the existence of religious prejudice and 
 
INTRODUCTION 21 
 
 intolerance. Usually such motives are supposed to be 
 far distant from the scientific mind. In this case they 
 have been, to some degree at least, unconsciously pres- 
 ent. There has unfortunately been a definite persuasion 
 that there could be nothing good in the Middle Ages, 
 and therefore there has been no surprise that evil should 
 be found there. Perhaps there is nothing sadder in present 
 day education, than the fact that serious students and 
 professors of science should thus have been led astray. 
 Nothing shows more clearly the superficialty of our edu- 
 cation than the fact that these unfounded statements 
 with regard to the greatest period of education in his- 
 tory have been so universally accepted with so little 
 question. 
 
 A moment's consideration of the conditions in which the 
 universities developed will show how unreasonable is the 
 thought that the Church or the Popes were opposed to 
 any phase of education. 
 
 It has come to be universally conceded in recent years 
 that the Church was the great patron of art and of let- 
 ters during these centuries. Without the inspiration 
 of her teachings there would have been no sublime 
 subjects for artists ; without the lives of her saints 
 there would have been much less opportunity for 
 artistic expression ; without the patronage of the 
 cathedral builders, the high ecclesiastics, and above 
 all the monastic orders, on whom, with so little 
 reason, so much contempt has been heaped, there 
 would have been none of that great art which developed 
 during the centuries before what is called the Renais- 
 sance. In literature, everyone of the great national 
 poems that lie at the basis of modern literature, is shot 
 through and through with sublime thoughts that owe 
 
22 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 their origin to the Church. We need only mention the 
 Cid in Spain, the Arthur Legends in England, such works 
 of the Meistersingers as Perceval and Arme Heinrich, 
 the Golden Legend, the Romance of the Rose, and Dante, 
 all written during the thirteenth century alone, to il- 
 lustrate Church influence in literature. This is, as we 
 have said, admitted by all. It is supposed, however, 
 that while the Church encouraged this side of human 
 development, it effectually prevented the evolution of 
 man's scientific interests. 
 
 As a matter of fact, however, the Church did quite as 
 much for science as for literature and art and charity. 
 There has never been any question that under her fos- 
 tering care philosophy developed in a very marvelous 
 way. The scholastic philosophers are no longer held in 
 the disrepute so ignorantly accorded them in the last 
 century. It is recognized that scholastic philosophy rep- 
 resents a supremely great development of human think- 
 ing with regard to the relations of man to his Creator, 
 to his fellow man, and to the universe. Even those who 
 do not accept its conclusions now, if themselves edu- 
 cated men, no longer make little of those wonderful 
 thinkers, but sympathize with their magnificent work. 
 Only those who are ignorant of scholastic philosophy en- 
 tirely, still continue to re-echo the expressions of critics 
 whose opinions were founded on second-hand authorities 
 and who confessedly had been unable to make anything 
 out of the scholastics themselves. This field of philos- 
 ophy was the real danger point for faith and the Church, 
 yet its study was encouraged in every way, provided the 
 philosophers kept within the bounds of their subject. 
 
 Just exactly the same thing was true in the realm 
 of natural science. Strange as it may seem to those 
 
INTRODUCTION 23 
 
 who have allowed themselves to be led into thinking 
 that only for the last century or a little more have 
 men made observations on nature, and only com- 
 paratively recently have the conclusions which they 
 reached with regard to natural phenomena been of any 
 real significance, there is no doubt at all that men made 
 great achievements in physical science in the Middle 
 Ages, some of which unfortunately were lost sight of 
 later, but many of which remained to form the basis on 
 which our modern scientific knowledge has been built. 
 In order to obtain a proper appreciation of this, all that 
 is necessary is to study the works of the investigating 
 scholars of the early history of the universities, and see 
 how much that is considered very modern they antici- 
 pated in their writings. They must be read for them- 
 selves, not be judged by excerpts chosen by prejudiced 
 readers, much less by critics who were bent on not find- 
 ing anything good in the Middle Ages. There is need 
 of sympathetic interpretation to replace the ignorant 
 contempt which has so far dominated this period of the 
 history of education. The precious lesson that men may 
 learn from the unfortunate misunderstanding, however, 
 is how much old-time prejudice still dominates the atti- 
 tude even of scholars nay, even of scientists and edu- 
 cators, with regard to certain periods in history. 
 
 To most people it will be utterly uncomprehensible, 
 however, that after all that they have heard about 
 Church opposition to science and Papal discouragement 
 of education as dangerous to faith, there should now be 
 an absolute denial of the supposed grounds for the as- 
 sertions in this matter. Most readers, even among edu- 
 cated people, will be very prone to think that their im- 
 pressions in these matters cannot be entirely wrong, and 
 
24 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 that previous writers on the subject cannot have been 
 either deceiving or deceived. In all that relates to the 
 Roman Catholic Church, however, before the date of the 
 so-called reformation, it is important to remember that 
 there came into existence a definite body of Protestant 
 tradition, the creation of the reformers who wished to 
 blacken the memory of the Old Church as much as pos- 
 sible to justify their own apostasy, and who therefore 
 spared no means to pervert the facts of history or to 
 exaggerate the significance of historical details so as to 
 produce this false impression. Subsequent generations 
 were of tener deceived themselves than deceiving. They 
 were sure that the Church was opposed to education and 
 to science, and consequently it was not hard for them to 
 read in certain incidents and documents a meaning quite 
 other than their actual significance, because this added 
 meaning agreed with their prejudices on these subjects. 
 
 Every advance in modern history, every modification 
 of view that has been brought about by the critical his- 
 torical method of recent times, has emphasized this point 
 of view almost without exception. The distinguished 
 philosophic and historical writer, the Comte de Maistre, 
 in his Soirees of St. Petersburg about a century ago, de- 
 clared that "History for the last three centuries (1500- 
 1800) has been a conspiracy against the truth. " Just 
 about a century later the editors of the Cambridge Mod- 
 ern History, in the preface to the first volume of their 
 monumental work, re-echoed the words of the Comte de 
 Maistre almost literally in a pregnant paragraph which 
 deserves to be in the note-book of everyone who is try- 
 ing to get at the real truth of history. They said : 
 
 " Great additions have of late been made to our knowl- 
 edge of the past ; the long conspiracy against the revela- 
 
INTRODUCTION 25 
 
 tion of truth has gradually given way, and competing 
 historians all over the civilized world have been zealous to 
 take advantage of the change. The printing of archives 
 has kept pace with the admission of enquirers ; and 
 the total mass of new matter, which the last half -century 
 has accumulated, amounts to many thousands of vol- 
 umes. In view of changes and of gains such as these, 
 it has become impossible for the historical writer of the 
 present age to trust without reserve even to the most 
 respected secondary authorities. The honest student 
 finds himself continually deserted, retarded, misled by 
 the classics of historical literature, and has to hew his 
 own way through multitudinous transactions, periodicals 
 and official publications in order to reach the truth. 
 
 "Ultimate history cannot be obtained in this genera- 
 tion ; but, so far as documentary evidence is at command, 
 conventional history can be discarded, and the point can 
 be shown that has been reached on the road from one to 
 the other." 
 
 The italics in this passage are ours, but the ideas they 
 emphasize will serve to show how necessary it is for 
 most of us to give up the supposed historical truth of 
 the preceding generations and have an open mind for 
 the newer ideas that are coming in as the result of the 
 renewed consultation of original documents and primal 
 sources of information. The present volume is written 
 entirely with the idea of bringing out the facts of the 
 relations of the Popes and the Church and the ecclesias- 
 tics, especially of the centuries before the reformation, 
 to science and to scientific education. My own position 
 as a professor of the history of medicine has necessarily 
 made medical science very prominent in the book. This, 
 however, far from being a disadvantage, is really an 
 
26 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 advantage, since the physical sciences of the medieval 
 times gathered mainly around medicine, and it was 
 chiefly physicians and medical students who devoted 
 most time to them. After a detailed study of the his- 
 tory of medical science in the Middle Ages as well of its 
 allied sciences, it becomes very clear that there was no 
 trace of Papal or Church opposition to science as science, 
 and, on the contrary, liberal patronage, abundant en- 
 couragement, and even pecuniary aid for the develop- 
 ment of scientific education in every way. 
 
 What we have tried to give in this book, then, is the 
 authoritative refutation of the supposed prohibition 
 of the cultivation of certain departments of medi- 
 cal and allied sciences by the Popes, and sufficient 
 information to enable students and teachers of science 
 to realize that the ordinarily accepted notions with 
 regard to opposition to science in the Middle Ages are 
 founded on nothing more substantial than sublime ig- 
 norance of the facts of the history of science at that 
 time. There was no bull against anatomy or dis- 
 section ; no bull against chemistry ; the Popes were the 
 patrons of the great medical scientists and surgeons ; 
 the Papal Medical School was one of the best in the 
 world and was sedulously fostered ; the great scientists 
 of the Middle Ages were clergymen, and many of them 
 when they died were declared saints by the Church. 
 The opposite impression is entirely a deduction from 
 false premises with regard to the supposed attitude of 
 the Church and churchmen. We shall furnish abundant 
 authorities of the first rank and of value as absolute as 
 there can be in present day history as to these ques- 
 tions. The consultation of these will furnish further 
 material for those who desire to have real knowledge of 
 
INTRODUCTION 27 
 
 the history of science in a magnificently original and 
 greatly fruitful period. 
 
THE SUPPOSED PAPAL PROHIBITION OF 
 DISSECTION. 
 
 There is a very general impression that the Roman 
 Catholic Church was, during the Middle Ages, opposed 
 to the practice of dissection, and that various ecclesias- 
 tical regulations and even Papal decrees were issued 
 which prohibited, or at least limited to a very great de- 
 gree, this necessary adjunct of medical teaching. These 
 ecclesiastical censures are supposed to be in force, to 
 some extent at least, even at the present time. The 
 persuasion as to the minatory attitude of the Church in 
 regard to dissection is so widespread among even sup- 
 posedly well-educated professional men, that, as we have 
 said in the introductory chapter, when there was ques- 
 tion some time ago of opening a medical school in New 
 York City under Catholic auspices as a department of 
 Fordham University, a number of more than ordinarily 
 intelligent physicians asked : What would be done about 
 the study of anatomy, since in the circumstances sug- 
 gested dissection would not be allowed ? This false im- 
 pression has been produced by writers in the history of 
 science who have emphasized very strenuously the sup- 
 posed opposition of the Church to science, and as these 
 writers had a certain prestige as scholars their works 
 have been widely read and their assertions have been 
 unquestioned, because it would naturally be presumed 
 that they would not make them without thorough inves- 
 tigation of such important questions. Professional men 
 are not to blame if they have taken such statements se- 
 
 (28) 
 
SUPPOSED PROHIBITION OF DISSECTION 29 
 
 riously, even though they are absolutely without founda- 
 tion. That statements of this kind should have been 
 made by men of distinction in educational circles and 
 should have passed current so long, is only additional 
 evidence of an intolerant spirit in those who least sus- 
 pect it in themselves and are most ready to deprecate 
 intolerance in others. 
 
 Take a single example. Most of what is said as to 
 the opposition of the Church to medicine during the 
 Middle Ages in A History of the Warfare of Science 
 with Theology in Christendom, by Andrew D. White 
 (Appleton's, New York), is founded on a supposed 
 Papal prohibition of anatomy and on a subsequent equal- 
 ly supposed Papal prohibition of chemistry. These two 
 documents are emphasized so much, that most readers 
 cannot but conclude that, even without further evidence, 
 these are quite enough to prove the contention with re- 
 gard to the unfortunate opposition of the Church to 
 medical science. Without these two presumably solid 
 pillars of actual Papal documents, what is said with re- 
 gard to the Church and its relations to medical science 
 in the Middle Ages amounts to very little. Much is 
 made of the existence of superstitions in medicine as 
 characteristic of the Middle Ages and as encouraged by 
 clergymen, but medical superstitions of many kinds con- 
 tinue to have their hold on even the intelligent classes 
 down to the present day in spite of the progress of edu- 
 cation, and in countries where the Church has very little 
 influence over the people. Dr. White quotes with great 
 confidence and absolute assurance a Papal decree issued 
 in the year 1300 by Pope Boniface VIII. , which forbade 
 the mutilation of the human body and consequently 
 hampered all possibility of progress in anatomy for sev- 
 
30 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 eral important centuries in the history of modern science. 
 Indeed, this supposed Papal prohibition of dissection is 
 definitely stated to have precluded all opportunity for the 
 proper acquisition of anatomical knowledge until the first 
 half ot the sixteenth century, when the Golden Age of 
 modern anatomy set in. This date being coincident 
 with the spread of the movement known as the Protes- 
 tant Reformation, many people at once conclude that 
 somehow the liberality of spirit that then came into the 
 world, and is supposed at least to have put an end to all 
 intolerance, must have been the active factor in this de- 
 velopment of anatomy, and that, as Dr. White has in- 
 deed declared, it was only because the Church was forced 
 from her position of opposition that anatomical investi- 
 gation was allowed. 
 
 Since so serious an accusation is founded on a definite 
 Papal document, it cannot but be a matter of surprise 
 that those who have cited it so confidently as forbidding 
 anatomy, and especially dissection, have never given 
 the full text of the document. It is practically impos- 
 sible for the ordinary reader, or even for the serious 
 student of the history of medicine, to obtain a copy of 
 this decree unless he has special library facilities at his 
 command and the help of those who are familiar with 
 this class of documents. Many references have been 
 made to this prohibition by Pope Boniface VIII. , but no 
 one has thought it worth while to give, even in a foot- 
 note, the text of it. The reason for this is easy to un- 
 derstand as soon as one reads the actual text. It has 
 nothing to say at all with regard to dissection. It has 
 absolutely no reference to the cutting up of the human 
 body for teaching purposes. Its purpose is very plain, 
 and is stated so that there can be no possible misappre- 
 
SUPPOSED PROHIBITION OF DISSECTION 31 
 
 hension of its meaning. Here we have an excellent il- 
 lustration of what the editors of the Cambridge Modern 
 History declared to be the breaking up of the long con- 
 spiracy against the truth by the consultation of original 
 documents. 
 
 Through the kindness of the Rev. D. A. Corbett, of 
 the Seminary of St. Charles Borromeo, Overbrook, Pa., 
 I have been able to secure a copy of Pope Boniface's de- 
 cree, and this at once disposes of the assertion that dis- 
 section was forbidden or anatomy in any way hampered 
 by it. Father Corbett writes : 
 
 "The Bull De Sepulturis of Boniface VIII. is not found 
 in the Collectio Bullarum of Coquelines, nor is it incor- 
 porated in the Liber Sextus Decretalium Divi Bonif acii 
 Papae VIII. , though it is from here that it is quoted in 
 the Histoire Litteraire de la France (as referred to by 
 President White). It appears in an appendix to this 
 sixth book among the Extra vagantes, a term that is used 
 to signify that the documents contained under it were 
 issued at a time somewhat apart from the period this 
 special book of decretals was supposed to cover. The 
 Liber Sextus was published in 1298. This ' Bull De Se- 
 pulturis ' was not issued until 1300. It is to be found in 
 the third book of the Extra vagantes, Chapter I." 
 
 Even a glance at the title would seem to be sufficient 
 to show that this document did not refer even distantly 
 to dissection, and this makes it all the harder to under- 
 stand the misapprehension that ensued in the matter, if 
 the document was quoted in good faith, for usually the 
 compression necessary in the title is the source of such 
 errors. The full text of the bull only confirms the abso- 
 lute absence of any suggestion of forbidding dissection 
 or discouraging the study of anatomy. 
 
32 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 "Title Concerning Burials. 1 Boniface VIII. Per- 
 sons cutting up the bodies of the dead, barbarously boil- 
 ing them, in order that the bones, being separated from 
 the flesh, may be carried for burial into their own coun- 
 tries, are by the very act excommunicated. 
 
 ' ' As there exists a certain abuse, which is character- 
 ized by the most abominable savagery, but which never- 
 theless some of the faithful have stupidly adopted, We, 
 prompted by motives of humanity, have decreed that all 
 further mangling of the human body, the very mention 
 of which fills the soul with horror, should be henceforth 
 abolished. 
 
 "The custom referred to is observed with regard to 
 those who happen to be in any way distinguished by 
 birth or position, who, when dying in foreign lands, 
 have expressed a desire to be buried in their own coun- 
 try. The custom consists of disemboweling and dis- 
 membering the corpse, or chopping it into pieces and 
 then boiling it so as to remove the flesh before sending 
 the bones home to be buried all from a distorted re- 
 spect for the dead. Now, this is not only abominable 
 in the sight of God, but extremely revolting under every 
 human aspect. Wishing, therefore, as the duty of our 
 office demands, to provide a remedy for this abuse, by 
 which the custom, which is such an abomination, so in- 
 human and so impious, may be eradicated and no longer 
 be practiced by anyone, We, by our apostolic authority, 
 decree and ordain that no matter of what position or 
 family or dignity they may be, no matter in what cities 
 or lands or places in which the worship of the Catholic 
 faith flourishes, the practice of this or any similar abuse 
 with regard to the bodies of the dead should cease for- 
 
 1 See Latin text in full in appendix. 
 
SUPPOSED PROHIBITION OF DISSECTION 33 
 
 ever, no longer be observed, and that the hands of the 
 faithful should not be stained by such barbarities. 
 
 " And in order that the bodies of the dead should not 
 be thus impiously and barbarously treated and then 
 transported to the places in which, while alive, they had 
 selected to be buried, let them be given sepulture for the 
 time either in the city or the camp or in the place where 
 they have died, or in some neighboring place, so that, 
 when finally their bodies have been reduced to ashes or 
 otherwise, they may be brought to the place where 
 they wish to be buried and there be interred. And, if 
 the executor or executrix of the aforesaid defunct, or 
 those of his household, or anyone else of whatever 
 order, condition, state or grade he may be, even if he 
 should be clothed with episcopal dignity, should presume 
 to attempt anything against the tenor of this our statute 
 and ordination, by inhumanly and barbarously treating 
 the bodies of the dead, as we have described, let him 
 know that by the very fact he incurs the sentence of 
 excommunication, from which he cannot obtain absolu- 
 tion (unless at the moment of death) , except from the 
 Holy See. And besides, the body that has been thus 
 barbarously treated shall be left without Christian 
 burial. Let no one, therefore, etc. (Here follows the 
 usual formula of condemnation for the violation of the 
 prescriptions of a decree. ) Given at the Lateran Palace, 
 on the twelfth of the calends of March, in the sixth year 
 of our pontificate. ' ' 
 
 The reason for the bull is very well known. During 
 the crusades, numbers of the nobility who died at a dis- 
 tance from their homes in infidel countries were pre- 
 pared for transportation and burial in their own lands 
 by dismemberment and boiling. The remains of Louis 
 
34 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 IX., of France, and a number of his relatives who per- 
 ished on the ill-fated crusade in Egypt in 1270, are said 
 to have been brought back to France in this fashion. 
 The body of the famous German Emperor, Frederick 
 Barbarossa, who was drowned in the river Saleph near 
 Jerusalem, was also treated thus in order that the re- 
 mains might be transported to Germany without serious 
 decomposition being allowed to disturb the ceremonials of 
 subsequent obsequies. Such examples were very likely 
 to be imitated by many. The custom, as can be appre- 
 ciated from these instances from different nations, was 
 becoming so widespread as to constitute a serious source 
 of danger to health, and might easily have furnished oc- 
 casion for the conveyance of disease. It is almost need- 
 less to say to our generation that it was eminently un- 
 hygienic. Any modern authority in sanitation would at 
 once declare against it, and the custom would be put an 
 end to without more ado. There can be no doubt at all 
 then that Pope Boniface VIII. accomplished good, not 
 evil, by the publication of this bull. So anyone with 
 modern views as to the danger of disease from the fool- 
 ish custom which it abolished would at once have de- 
 clared, and yet, by a perversion of its signification, it 
 came to be connected with a supposed prohibition of 
 dissection. For this misunderstanding Pope Boniface 
 VIII. has had to suffer all sorts of reproaches and the 
 Church has been branded as opposed to anatomy by his- 
 torians (!) 
 
 Is it possible, however, that this bull was misinter- 
 preted so as to forbid dissection, or at least certain 
 forms of anatomical preparation which were useful for 
 the study and teaching of anatomy ? That is what Dr. 
 White asserts. He shows, moreover, in his History of 
 
SUPPOSED PROHIBITION OF DISSECTION 35 
 
 the Warfare of Science with Theology, that he knew 
 that the document in question was perfectly inoffensive 
 as regards any prohibition of dissection in itself, but in- 
 sists that by a misinterpretation, easy to understand as 
 he considers, because of the supposed opposition of 
 ecclesiastics to medical science, it did actually prevent 
 anatomical development. President White says: "As 
 to the decretal of Pope Boniface VIII. , the usual state- 
 ment is that it forbade all dissections. While it was un- 
 doubtedly construed universally to prohibit dissection 
 for anatomical purposes, its declared intent was as 
 stated in the text ; that it was constantly construed 
 against anatomical investigations cannot for a moment 
 be denied. " 
 
 If a misinterpretation were subsequently made, surely 
 Pope Boniface VIII. must not be held responsible for it ; 
 yet in spite of the fact that Dr. White shows that he 
 knew very well that this bull did not forbid the practice 
 of dissection, he does not hesitate to use over and over 
 again expressions which would imply that some formal 
 decision against dissection itself had been made, though 
 this is the only Papal document he refers to. He even 
 goes so far as to say that ' ' anatomical investigation was 
 made a sin against the Holy Ghost. " He frequently re- 
 peats that for three centuries after the issuance of this 
 bull the development of anatomy was delayed and ham- 
 pered, and insists that only that Vesalius at great per- 
 sonal risk broke through this Church opposition, modern 
 anatomy would never have developed. He proceeds 
 constantly on the theory that it was always this bull 
 that was in fault, though he confesses that if so, it was 
 by a misunderstanding ; and the only fault he can find 
 to attribute to the Pope is a lack of infallibility, as he 
 
36 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 calls it, because he was not able to foresee that his bull 
 would be so misunderstood. 
 
 I suppose we are to understand from this that Dr. 
 White considers that he knows the meaning of the word 
 infallibility. It is not a hard word to understand if one 
 wishes to understand it. The meaning that he gives it 
 in this passage is so entirely different from its accepted 
 meaning among Catholics, that any schoolboy in any of 
 our parochial schools would tell him that the word was 
 never used by Catholics in the sense in which he here 
 employs it. It is so misunderstood popularly outside of 
 the Church, and this Dr. White doubtless knew very well. 
 When a man uses a term in medicine in a different sense 
 to that which is ordinarily accepted, we consider him 
 ignorant ; but when he deliberately uses it in another 
 sense for his own purposes because of a false signifi- 
 cance attached to it in the popular mind, we have a spe- 
 cial name for him. 
 
 The whole matter, however, resolves itself into the 
 simple question, "Was dissection prevented and ana- 
 tomical investigation hampered after the issuance of the 
 bull ? " This is entirely a question* of fact. The history 
 of anatomy will show whether dissection ceased or not 
 at this time. Now if those who so confidently make as- 
 sertions in this matter had ever gone to a genuine his- 
 tory of anatomy, they would have learned at once that, 
 far from this being the time when dissection ceased, the 
 year 1300 is almost exactly the date for which we have 
 the first definite evidence of the making of dissections 
 and the gradual development of anatomical investigation 
 by this means in connection with the Italian universities. 
 This is such a curious coincidence that I always call it to the 
 attention of medical students in lecturing on this subject. 
 
SUPPOSED PROHIBITION OF DISSECTION 37 
 
 The first dissection of which we have definite record, 
 Roth tells us in his life of Vesalius, was a so-called pri- 
 vate anatomy or dissection made for medico-legal pur- 
 poses. Its date is the year 1302, within two years after 
 the bull. A nobleman had died and there was a sus- 
 picion that he had been poisoned. The judge ordered 
 that an autopsy be made in order to determine this ques- 
 tion. Unfortunately we do not know what the decision 
 of the doctors in the case was. We know only that the 
 case was referred to them. Now it seems very clear 
 that if this had not been a common practice before, the 
 court would not have adopted this measure, apparently 
 as a matter of judicial routine, as seems to have been 
 the case in this instance. Had it been the first time that 
 it was done instead of having the record of the trans- 
 action preserved only by chance, any mention of it at all 
 would have appeared so striking to the narrator, that he 
 would have been careful to tell the whole story, and 
 especially the decision reached in the matter. 
 
 After this, evidence of dissection accumulates rapidly. 
 During the second decade of the century Mondino, the 
 first writer on anatomy, was working at Bologna. We 
 have the records of his having made some dissections in 
 connection with his university teaching there, and event- 
 ually he published a text-book on dissection which be- 
 came the guide for dissectors for the next two centuries. 
 Within five years after this we have a story of students 
 being haled to court for body-snatching for anatomical 
 purposes, and about this time there was, according to 
 Rashdall in his History of the Universities, a statute of 
 the University of Bologna which required the teacher in 
 anatomy to dissect a body, if the students brought it to 
 him. More than ten years earlier than this, that is, 
 
38 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 within ten years after the supposed Papal prohibition, 
 there are records of dissections having been made at 
 Venice in public, for the benefit of the doctors of the 
 city, at the expense of the municipal treasury. During 
 the first half of this century money was allowed at Bo- 
 logna for wine, to be given to those who attended the 
 public dissections, and if we recall the state in which 
 the bodies must have been at a time when the use of 
 preservatives was unknown, we can well understand the 
 need for it. All this shows, as I have said, that the date 
 of Boniface's bull (1300), far from representing the 
 eclipse of anatomy, actually fixes the date of the dawn 
 of modern practical anatomical study. 
 
 The most interesting question in this whole discussion 
 is as to how much dissection Mondino actually did during 
 the second decade of the fourteenth century. His book 
 became the manual of dissection that was in practically 
 every dissector's hands for several centuries after. 
 Probably no book of its kind has ever been more used, 
 and none maintained its place as the standard work in 
 this department for so long. No less than 25 printed 
 editions of it appeared altogether. It would seem to be 
 utterly improbable that the author of a text-book of this 
 kind could have made only a few dissections. There are 
 a number of historians who have claimed, nevertheless, 
 that at most he did not dissect more than three or four 
 bodies. This is all that we have absolute evidence for, 
 that is to say, only these dissections are recorded. It is 
 easy to understand, however, that a professor of anatomy 
 might make even hundreds of dissections, and yet have 
 something to say only about a very few which happened 
 to present some special peculiarities. The absence of 
 further records may readily be accounted for also in 
 
SUPPOSED PROHIBITION OF DISSECTION 39 
 
 other ways. The art of printing was not yet invented; 
 paper had only just been discovered and was extremely 
 expensive, and many factors conspired to destroy any 
 records that may have been made. 
 
 Outsiders dipping into the history of medicine have 
 made much of our paucity of documentary evidence with 
 regard to what Mondino actually did, and have, when it 
 suited their purpose, insisted that this first author of a 
 dissector's manual did but the three or four dissections 
 explicitly mentioned. Those who are more familiar with 
 the history of medicine, and especially of anatomy, are 
 persuaded that he must have done many. In the first 
 class of writers is Prof. White, for instance, who de- 
 clares positively that Mondino did not dissect more 
 bodies than those of which we have absolute records. 
 According to his emphatically expressed opinion, the 
 reason why the father of dissection did not dissect more 
 was because of ecclesiastical opposition. Even these 
 few dissections were due to some favoring chance or the 
 laxity of the ecclesiastical authorities, or Mondino might 
 have paid dear for his audacity. No one else, according 
 to Prof. White, dared to encounter the awful penalties that 
 might have been inflicted on Mondino un til Vesalius, more 
 than two centuries later, broke through "the ecclesias- 
 tical barrier" and gave liberty to anatomists. Prof. 
 Lewis S. Pilcher, of Brooklyn, who has made a special 
 study of Mondino and his times, who has consulted that 
 author's original editions, who has searched out the tradi- 
 tions with regard to him in the very scene of his labors in 
 Bologna, thinks quite differently. Prof. White has a pur- 
 pose, that of minimizing the work done in anatomy dur- 
 ing the fourteenth century ; Prof. Pilcher 's only purpose 
 is to bring out the truth with regard to the history of 
 
40 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 anatomy. In the Medical Library and Historical Jour- 
 nal for December, 1906, Prof. Pilcher has an article en- 
 titled The Mondino Myth, by which term he designates 
 the idea that Mondino dissected but a few bodies. He 
 says with regard to this subject : 
 
 "The changes have been rung by medical historians 
 upon a casual reference in Mondino' s chapter on the 
 uterus to the bodies of two women and one sow which 
 he had dissected, as if these were the first and the only 
 cadavers dissected by him. The context involved no 
 such construction. He is enforcing a statement that the 
 size of the uterus may vary, and to illustrate it remarks 
 that, ' a woman whom I anatomized in the month of 
 January last year (1315 Anno Christi), had a larger 
 uterus than one whom I anatomized in the month of 
 March of the same year. ' And further, he says, ' the 
 uterus of a sow which I dissected in 1316 (the year in 
 which he was writing) was a hundred times greater 
 than any I had seen in the human female, for she was 
 pregnant, and contained thirteen pigs. ' These happen 
 to be the only references to specific bodies that he makes 
 in his treatise. But it is a far cry to wring out of these 
 references the conclusions that these are the only dissec- 
 tions he made. It is quite true that if we incline to en- 
 shroud his work in a cloud of mystery, and to figure it 
 as an unprecedented, awe-inspiring feature to break 
 down the prejudices of the ages, it is easy to think of 
 him as having timidly profaned the human body in his 
 anatomizing zeal in but one or two instances. His own 
 language, however, throughout his book is that of a man 
 who was familiar with the differing conditions of the 
 organs found in many different bodies a man who was 
 habitually dissecting. " 
 
SUPPOSED PROHIBITION OF DISSECTION 41 
 
 As I think must be clear to any one who knows Mon- 
 dino' s book, no other conclusion than this suggested by 
 Prof. Pilcher can be drawn. This opinion has been 
 frankly stated by every historian of anatomy in recent 
 years. Puschmann says it very clearly. Von Toply is 
 evidently of the same opinion. These are the latest au- 
 thorities in the history of anatomy. No other conclu- 
 sion than this could well be reached by anyone who has 
 studied the question seriously. Pilcher confirms this in 
 the article already quoted in the following paragraph : 
 
 " Salernum was not alone in its legalization of the dis- 
 section of human bodies before the first public work of 
 Mondino, for, according to a document of the Maggiore 
 Consiglio of Venice of 1308, it appears that there was a 
 college of medicine in Venice, which was even then au- 
 thorized to dissect a body once every year. Common 
 experience tells us that the embodiment of such regula- 
 tions into formal law would occur only after a consider- 
 able preceding period of discussion, and in this particular 
 field, of clandestine practice. It is too much to ask us 
 to believe that in all this period, from the date of the 
 promulgation of Frederick's decree of 1241 to the first 
 public demonstration by Mondino at Bologna in 1315, 
 the decree had been a dead letter and no human body 
 had been anatomized. It is true there is not, as far as 
 I am aware, any record of any such work, and com- 
 mentators and historians of a later date have, without 
 exception, accepted the view that none was done, and 
 thereby heightened the halo assigned to Mondino as the 
 one who ushered a new era. Such a view seems to me 
 to be incredible. Be that as it may, it is undeniable that 
 at the beginning of the fourteenth century the idea of 
 dissecting the human body was not a novel one; the im- 
 
42 THE POPES AND SCIENCE ' 
 
 portance of a knowledge of the intimate structure of the 
 body had already been appreciated by divers ruling 
 bodies, and specific regulations prescribing its practice 
 had been enacted. It is more reasonable to believe that 
 in the era preceding immediately that of Mondino, human 
 bodies were being opened and after a fashion anatomized. 
 All that we know of the work of Mondino suggests that it 
 was not a new enterprise in which he was a pioneer, but 
 rather that he brought to an old practice a new enthus- 
 iasm and, better methods, which, caught on the rising 
 wave of interest in medical teaching at Bologna, and 
 preserved by his own energy as a writer in the first orig- 
 inal systematic treatise written since the time of Galen, 
 created for him in subsequent uncritical times the repu- 
 tation of being the restorer of the practice of anatomiz- 
 ing the human body, the first one to demonstrate and 
 teach such knowledge since the time of the Ptolemaic 
 anatomists, Erasistratus and Herophilus." 
 
 In order to show that Mondino did not perform only 
 the two or three dissections which he himself for special 
 reasons mentions, but many more, Professor Pilcher has 
 made a series of quotations from the Bolognese anatom- 
 ist's manual of dissection. It is after all quite easy to 
 understand that if dissections were common, there would 
 be no records of most of them, as they would be too 
 commonplace for chroniclers to mention. Only those 
 that have some special feature are by chance mentioned 
 in some accounts of doings at the university. The rec- 
 ords of the actual number of dissections at most medical 
 schools, even a century ago, are not now available in 
 most cases. On the other hand, no one can read these 
 quotations from Mondino 's book without realizing that 
 the man who wrote these passages had made many dis- 
 
SUPPOSED PROHIBITION OF DISSECTION 43 
 
 sections, and that it was a common practice for him to 
 make anatomical preparations in many different ways, 
 under many different circumstances and for many dif- 
 ferent purposes. 
 
 The second quotation shows, in fact, that Mondino had 
 the custom sometimes of boiling his bodies before dis- 
 secting them when he wished to demonstrate special 
 features, and he promises to make such an anatomy for 
 his students at another time. If the bull of Pope Boni- 
 face VIII. was misinterpreted in any way to prohibit 
 dissection, this would surely be the practice supposed to 
 fall under its provisions. Here we find Mondino, less 
 than twenty years after the promulgation of the bull, 
 writing about this very practice, however, and calmly 
 suggesting that he follows it as a routine, in a book that 
 was published without let or hindrance from the eccles- 
 iastical authorities, and that became for the next two 
 centuries the most used book in the teaching of anatomy 
 in educational institutions that were directly under ec- 
 clesiastical authorities. If the bull was misinterpreted 
 so as to forbid dissection, as has been said, surely this 
 flagrant violation of it would not have been permitted. 
 It is clear that, if there was a misinterpretation, it must 
 have come later in the history of anatomy. But of that 
 we shall find no trace any more than at this time. 
 
 Here are the quotations from the Anatomy of Mon- 
 dino which show that he practiced not one but many 
 methods of making dissections, according to the pur- 
 poses he had in view. The leaf and line references are 
 to the Dryander Edition, Marburg, 1541. (Taken from 
 Prof. Pilcher.) 
 
 " I do not consider separately here the anatomy of 
 component parts, because their anatomy does not appear 
 
44 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 clearly in the fresh subject, but rather in those macer- 
 ated in water. ' ' (Leaf 2, lines 8-13. ) 
 
 " ... < these differences are more noticeable 
 in the cooked or perfectly dried body, and so you need 
 not be concerned about them, as perhaps / will make an 
 anatomy upon such a one at another time and will write 
 what I observe with my own senses, as I have proposed 
 from the beginning/' (Leaf 60, lines 14-17.) 
 
 ''What the members are to which these nerves come 
 cannot well be seen in such dissection as this, but it 
 should be liquified with rain water, and this is not con- 
 templated in the present body." (Leaf 60, lines 31-33.) 
 
 "After the veins you will note many muscles and 
 many large and strong cords, the complete anatomy of 
 which you will not endeavor to find in such a body, but 
 in a body dried in the sun for three years, as I have de- 
 monstrated at another time ; I also declared completely 
 their number, and wrote the anatomy of the muscles of 
 the arms, hands and feet in a lecture which I gave over 
 the first, second, third and fourth subjects." 
 
 As must be clear to anyone, many of these expressions 
 are, as Professor Pilcher insists, intelligible only if we 
 accept the conclusion that their author had done many 
 dissections, under many and varying circumstances, dur- 
 ing his career as an anatomist before writing this vol- 
 ume. We have other evidence, of a much more direct 
 character, for this fact. Mondino uses the expression, 
 that he had demonstrated many times a certain anatom- 
 ical feature which could only be the subject of demon- 
 stration after dissection. The expression occurs in a 
 description of the hypo-gastric region which he calls the 
 sumen. Through this region, he says, there pass to the 
 surface certain veins which transmit fluid in the fetus 
 
SUPPOSED PROHIBITION OF DISSECTION 45 
 
 during the time of its life in utero. For this reason they 
 are better studied in the unborn than in the fully devel- 
 oped, since they lose their function as soon as complete 
 development is reached. In this description Mondino 
 uses the words "ego hoc modo multitotiens monstravi." 
 
 As with regard to this, so as to another bit of evidence 
 of Mondino's frequency of dissection, Professor Pilcher 
 has supplied the material. He says in his article on the 
 Mondino Myth, already cited : 
 
 "Shortly after his (Mondino's) death, the young Guy 
 de Chauliac, of Montpelier, came to Bologna to study 
 anatomy under the tuition of Mondino' s successor, Ber- 
 trucius. When he wrote his own treatise, ' La Grande 
 Chirurgie, ' thirty years later, he prefaced it with an ap- 
 preciation of the study of anatomy, saying : ' It is nec- 
 essary and useful to every physician to know first of all 
 anatomy ' ; and that a knowledge of anatomy was to be 
 acquired by two means ; ' these are, ' he says, ' the study 
 of books, a means useful indeed, but not sufficient to ex- 
 plain those things which can only be appreciated by the 
 senses ; the other, experimentally on the dead body, ac- 
 cording to the treatise of Mondinus, of Bologna, which 
 he has written, and which (experimental anatomy on 
 the cadaver) he (Mondinus) has done many times' 
 * et ipsam fecit multitoties. ' ' 
 
 Besides this evidence we have details of the lives of 
 two of Mondino's assistants which furnish further proofs 
 of the frequency of dissection at the University of Bo- 
 logna during these first two decades of the fourteenth 
 century, which, it will be recalled, are also the first two 
 decades after the promulgation of Pope Boniface's bull. 
 Curiously enough, one of these assistants was a young 
 woman who, as was not infrequently the custom at this 
 
46 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 time in the Italian universities, was matriculated as a 
 student at Bologna. She took up first philosophy and 
 afterwards anatomy under Mondino. While it is not 
 generally realized, co-education was quite common at 
 the Italian universities of the thirteenth and fourteenth 
 centuries, and at no time since the foundation of the 
 universities has a century passed in Italy without distin- 
 guished women occupying professors' chairs at some of 
 the Italian universities. This young woman, Alessandra 
 Giliani, of Persiceto, a country district not far from Bo- 
 logna, took up the study of anatomy with ardor and, 
 strange as it may appear, became especially enthusiastic 
 about dissection. She became so skilful that she was 
 made the prosector of anatomy, that is, one who pre- 
 pares bodies for demonstration by the professor. 
 
 According to the Cronaca Persicetana, quoted by Med- 
 ici in his History of the Anatomical School of Bologna : 
 
 " She became most valuable to Mondino because she 
 would cleanse most skilfully the smallest vein, the ar- 
 teries, all ramifications of the vessels, without lacerating 
 or dividing them, and to prepare them for demonstration 
 she would fill them with various colored liquids, which, 
 after having been driven into the vessels, would harden 
 without destroying the vessels. Again, she would paint 
 these same vessels to their minute branches so perfectly 
 and color them so naturally that, added to the wonderful 
 explanations and teachings of the master, they brought 
 him great fame and credit." This whole passage shows 
 a wonderful anticipation of all our most modern methods 
 injection, painting, hardening of making anatomical 
 preparations for class and demonstration purposes. 
 
 Some of the details of the story have been doubted, 
 but her memorial tablet, erected at the time of her death 
 
SUPPOSED PROHIBITION OF DISSECTION 47 
 
 in the Church of San Pietro e Marcellino of the Hospital 
 of Santa Maria de Mareto, gives all the important facts, 
 and tells also the story of the grief of her fiance, who was 
 himself Mondino' s other assistant. This was Otto Agen- 
 ius, who had made for himself a name as an assistant 
 to the chair of Anatomy in Bologna, and of whom there 
 were great hopes entertained because he had already 
 shown signs of genius as an investigator in anatomy. 
 These hopes were destined to grievous disappointment, 
 however, for Otto died suddenly, before he had reached 
 his thirtieth year. The fact that both these assistants 
 of Mondino died young and suddenly, would seem to 
 point to the fact that probably dissection wounds in those 
 early days proved even more fatal than they occasionally 
 did a century or more ago, when the proper precautions 
 against them were not so well understood. The death 
 of Mondino 's two prosectors in early years would seem 
 to hint at some such unfortunate occurrence. 
 
 As regards the evidence of what the young man had 
 accomplished before his untimely death, probably the 
 following quotation, which Medici has taken from one 
 of the old chroniclers, will give the best idea. He said : 
 What advantage indeed might not Bologna have had 
 from Otto Agenius Lustrolanus, whom Mondino had used 
 as an assiduous prosector, if he had not been taken away 
 by a swift and lamentable death before he had com- 
 pleted the sixth lustrum of his life ! " 
 
 Further absolute proof that dissections were very com- 
 mon about the time that Mondino made those which are 
 recorded, and the mention of which has led to the false 
 assumption as to the rarity of dissection, is to be found 
 in the legal prosecution for body-snatching, which I have 
 already mentioned and which took place within five 
 
48 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 years after Mondino made the public demonstrations in 
 dissection that are the subject of discussion. It will 
 be conceded by everyone that such prosecutions for body- 
 snatching are not likely to occur when only one or two 
 graves are violated a year, but are usually the result of 
 a series of such outrages, which arouse the community 
 against them. We prefer to give this bit of history once 
 more in the words of Professor Pilcher, who has argued 
 this whole case for the frequency of dissection within 
 twenty years after the bull that is supposed to have for- 
 bidden it better than anyone else, and whose knowledge 
 of Mondino and his times is such as to make him an au- 
 thority on the subject. He has no interest in them, as 
 I have said, either for or against the Popes. His only 
 idea is to bring out the real meaning of whatever data 
 we possess for the history of anatomy and dissection at 
 this time. 
 
 "An instructive and interesting side-light on the con- 
 ditions attending the study of practical anatomy in the 
 days of Mondino may be found in a record, still extant, 
 ot a legal procedure which occurred in Bologna in the 
 year 1319, four years after Mondino had begun his pub- 
 lic demonstrations and at a time when Otto and Aless- 
 andra were doubtless enthusiastically working with him. 
 According to the record, four students, three from Milan 
 and one from Piacenza, were accused of having gone at 
 night time to the cemetery of the church of San Bar- 
 nada, outside the San Felice gate, and to have sacrileg- 
 iously violated the grave in which was buried the body 
 of a certain Pasino who had been hung on the gallows 
 near the Ponte di Reno. It was charged that the stu- 
 dents had taken up the body and carried it to the school 
 of the parish of San Salvatore, near the pharmacy of 
 
SUPPOSED PROHIBITION OF DISSECTION 49 
 
 Giacomo de Guido, where Master Alberto (Zancari) was 
 teaching. There were witnesses who affirmed that they 
 had seen the body of Pasino in the school and the stu- 
 dents and others intent upon dissecting it. It was the 
 sixth of December when the arrests were made, but the 
 final outcome of the trial is not stated." 
 
 Surely all this must be considered sufficient evidence 
 to show that Pope Boniface's bull neither forbade dis- 
 section, nor was misinterpreted as prohibiting any prac- 
 tice in connection with anatomical investigation. It is 
 not enough for President White, however, for after the 
 publication of my original article in the Medical Library 
 and Historical Journal on The Popes and Anatomy, and 
 another article on Pope John XXII. and the Supposed 
 Bull against Chemistry, President White wrote thus in 
 reply: "Dr. Walsh takes up the decretal of Boniface 
 VIII. , in 1300, and endeavors to show that, so far from 
 forbidding dissection, it had quite a different tenor, and 
 that at sundry universities in Italy and at the University 
 at Montpelier, in France, dissection was permitted and 
 most openly practiced. This seems to me very disin- 
 genuous. The decretal of Boniface was construed uni- 
 versally as prohibiting dissections for any purpose what- 
 ever." 
 
 For President White, then, the publication of the text 
 of the bull is only an endeavor to show that, so far from 
 forbidding dissection, it had quite a different tenor. 
 This endeavor seems to him very disingenuous (!) It 
 matters not what evidence there may be for dissection, 
 or lack of evidence as to ecclesiastical opposition, the 
 decretal ot Boniface was construed universally as prohib- 
 iting any dissections for any purpose whatever. All 
 history must yield before the reiteration of the assertion 
 
50 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 that the Popes did forbid dissection, and that there was 
 no anatomy during the thirteenth, fourteenth and fif- 
 teenth centuries, except such as by chance, in some way 
 or other, succeeded in evading the Church regulations. 
 It simply must have been so. President White has said it. 
 For anyone to deny it is to question his historical infal- 
 libility. Only those who are disingenuous will dare to 
 do so. 
 
 It is true, he grants there were some permits to dissect 
 given, but these were wrung from the unwilling hands 
 of the ecclesiastical authorities, and are only proofs of 
 their opposition, not at all of their toleration of dissec- 
 tion. There is no limit to which Professor White will 
 not go in order to maintain his proposition that the Popes 
 did forbid anatomy, and that there was no anatomical 
 investigation during the thirteenth, fourteenth and fif- 
 teenth centuries. Here, for instance, is a paragraph 
 from Professor White's answer which shows very strik- 
 ingly one method of arguing with regard to a question 
 of major significance in the history of education as well 
 as of science, and especially of medicine, during the 
 Middle Ages. Comments on it are entirely unnecessary : 
 
 "And now, as to Dr. Walsh's statement that dissec- 
 tion was permitted by Popes and ecclesiastical author- 
 ities in universities. His argument in the matter is an 
 excellent example of Jesuitism. It is true that under 
 the pressure of the developing science of medicine, sun- 
 dry civil and ecclesiastical authorities did, from time to 
 time, issue permits allowing an occasional dissection, at 
 rare intervals, here and there ; as, for example, the per- 
 mission given to the University of Lerida, in 1391, to 
 dissect one dead criminal every three years, and to 
 sundry other universities to dissect one or two human 
 
SUPPOSED PROHIBITION OF DISSECTION 51 
 
 bodies each year. It is a fact of which we have ample 
 testimony, that Mundinus, the great anatomist preced- 
 ing Vesalius, only dissected three human bodies with his 
 classes during his entire career. So far from effectually 
 helping anatomy, these permissions served really to 
 fasten the idea upon the European mind that dissection 
 to any considerable extent by anatomical investigators 
 ought not to be allowed, and, as a matter of fact, it was 
 not until Vesalius, in spite of theological opposition, 
 braved calumny, persecution, and possibly death, that 
 this ecclesiastical barrier to investigation was broken 
 through. ' ' (Italics ours. ) 
 
 Since Professor White has insisted so much on the sig- 
 nificance of these permissions, a discussion of them will 
 not be out of place. There are records of a certain small 
 number of permissions to dissect having been granted 
 by the Popes to various universities during the four- 
 teenth and fifteenth centuries. These are so few, how- 
 ever, that it would seem that if they represented the 
 only opportunities afforded for dissection, then the de- 
 velopment of anatomy must have been much hampered. 
 
 With regard to this, it may be said that if the Popes 
 gave permission for dissection, then this practice was 
 not forbidden by them. Here is the proof of it out of 
 the mouths of those who say the opposite. Why should 
 a permission be necessary, however, will be asked ? 
 
 At the present moment such formal permissions are 
 required quite as much in all civilized countries as they 
 were during the Middle Ages. In certain parts of the 
 United States a bond has to be filed by applicants before 
 permission to dissect will be given. Dissection is recog- 
 nized generally as a practice that needs definite regu- 
 lation. Without such regulation all sorts of abuses 
 
52 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 would creep in. During the Middle Ages popular feel- 
 ing was all against dissection. It was difficult, in many 
 places, for the university authorities to obtain permis- 
 sion for dissection from their immediate political rulers. 
 As a consequence of this they reverted to the theory, 
 very generally accepted at that time, that the university 
 was independent of the political authorities of the place 
 in which it was situated, in educational matters, and an 
 appeal was made directly to the ecclesiastical authorities 
 for permission to dissect, as coming under their juris- 
 diction in education. They had thus obtained many 
 other educational privileges that would not have been 
 allowed them by municipalities, and they were success- 
 ful also in this. Anyone who knows the details of the 
 struggle of the universities to maintain the rights of 
 their students and faculties against the encroachments 
 of municipal and state authorities, will appreciate how 
 much this possibility of appeal to the Pope meant for the 
 universities of that time. 
 
 The permission to dissect was only another, but a very 
 striking example, of ecclesiastical authority granting 
 privileges to universities beyond those which they could 
 have obtained from the local governments under which 
 they existed. Such permissions, far from showing that 
 the Popes were hampering or prohibiting dissection, 
 prove, on the contrary, that they were securing for edu- 
 cational institutions what local popular prejudice would 
 not have allowed them. That this is the proper way to 
 view this question will be best appreciated by a review 
 of the history of anatomy during the two centuries and 
 a half in which ecclesiastical authorities are said to have 
 prevented or discouraged its development. From this it 
 will be seen very clearly that the nearer to Rome the 
 
SUPPOSED PROHIBITION OF DISSECTION 53 
 
 medical schools were, the more dissection was done in 
 them ; that dissection was most common in Rome, at 
 least during the latter part of this period ; that the 
 golden age of anatomy developed most luxuriantly in 
 Bologna when that was a Papal city, and in Rome itself ; 
 and that in general the Popes must be looked upon as 
 having fostered and patronized the medical sciences and 
 anatomy in every possible way, while there is not the 
 slightest hint anywhere to be found of the ecclesiastical 
 opposition that is supposed to have dominated these cen- 
 turies of medical history. 
 
 In concluding this chapter it has seemed worth while 
 to trace the origin of the misinterpretation of Pope Boni- 
 face's decretal, which makes it forbid dissection for ana- 
 tomical purposes as well as the cutting up and boiling of 
 bodies in order to facilitate their removal for long dis- 
 tances for burial. Prof. White quotes with great confi- 
 dence in the matter the Benedictine Literary History of 
 France as his authority, which he declares to be a Cath- 
 olic authority. Under ordinary circumstances, this 
 would be quite sufficient to establish the fact that such 
 a misinterpretation must have taken place, for the Bene- 
 dictines were extremely careful in such matters and 
 were not likely to admit an assertion of this kind, unless 
 they had good foundation for it. The quotation on 
 which Prof. White depends for his declarations in the 
 matter is found in the Sixteenth Volume of the Histoire 
 Litteraire de la France, which runs as follows : 
 
 ' ' But what was to retard still more (than the prohib- 
 ition of surgery to the clergy mentioned in the preceding 
 paragraph) was the very ancient prejudice which op- 
 posed anatomical dissection as sacrilegious. By a decree 
 inserted in Le Sexte, Boniface VIII. forbade the boiling 
 
54 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 of bodies in order to obtain skeletons. Anatomists were 
 obliged to go back to Galen for information, and could 
 not study the human body directly, and consequently 
 could not advance the human science of bodily health 
 and therapeutics." 
 
 Had this been written by the Benedictines, there 
 would have been every reason to think that though 
 Boniface's decretal itself did not forbid dissection it had 
 unfortunately been so misinterpreted. While the His- 
 toire Litteraire de la France, however, was begun by the 
 Benedictine Congregation of St. Maur, their work, like 
 many another magnificent undertaking of the monks, 
 was interrupted by the French Revolution. What they 
 had accomplished up to this time showed the necessity 
 for such work, and accordingly in the early part of the 
 nineteenth century a continuation of it was undertaken 
 by the members of the Institute of France. The Six- 
 teenth Volume from which the quotation just cited comes 
 was mainly written by Pierre Claude Francois Daunou, 
 the French historian and politician. His life had not 
 been such as to make him a sympathetic student of the 
 Middle Ages. He had been a deputy to the Convention, 
 1792-1795, was elected the first President of the Council 
 of 500 in this latter year, and became a member of the 
 Tribunate in 1800. His contributions to history were 
 made near the close of his life. While he is usually con- 
 sidered an authority in the political details of these cen- 
 turies, it is easy to understand that he was not favor- 
 ably situated for familiarity with the medical history of 
 these times. 
 
 Once it is understood that the paragraph in question 
 was written by M. Daunou and not by the Benedictines, 
 its adventitious prestige as a Catholic historical author- 
 
SUPPOSED PROHIBITION OF DISSECTION 55 
 
 ity, to which we shall see presently it has absolutely no 
 right, vanishes. A word about M. Daunou will serve to 
 show how carefully any declaration of his with regard 
 to the Popes must be weighed. He belonged to that 
 French school of Catholics who try to minimize in every 
 way the influence of the Papacy in the Church, and who, 
 as students of history know very well, do not hesitate 
 even to twist historical events to suit their prejudices 
 and give them a significance detrimental to the Popes. 
 This was the principal purpose of Daunou' s historical 
 writing. There is a little volume called Outlines of a 
 History of the Court of Rome and of the Temporal Power 
 of the Popes, declared by the translator to be by Daunou, 
 which was published in Philadelphia in 1837. The Amer- 
 ican edition was issued as a Protestant tract, and the 
 translator states frankly that M. Daunou' s purpose in 
 composing it was to prove that "the temporal power of 
 the Roman Pontiffs originated in fraud and usurpation ; 
 that its influence upon their pastoral ministry has been 
 to mar and degrade it, and its continuation is dangerous 
 to the peace and the liberties of Europe ; and that its 
 constant influence to these effects is to retard the ad- 
 vancement of civilization and knowledge. ' ' M. Daunou' s 
 title for the work as issued originally in French was An 
 Historical Essay on the Temporal Power of the Popes 
 and on the Abuses which they have made of their Spir- 
 itual Ministry. 1 
 
 Everything that M. Daunou has to say with regard to 
 the Popes is tinged by his political and Gallican preju- 
 
 1 The time at which this little book was published furnishes the best possible com- 
 mentary on its purpose. It was originally issued in 1810, the year after Pope Pius 
 VII. had been carried off from Rome, and when Napoleon was using every effort 
 to discredit the Pope and bring about a state of affairs in which the Pontiff 
 would be compelled to accept a Concordat that would deprive the Church of many of 
 
56 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 dices. This is why he states so definitely in the Histoire 
 Litteraire de la France that the bull of Pope Boniface 
 VIII. , if it did not actually forbid dissection, at least was 
 responsible for hampering the practice for two centur- 
 ies. That M. Daunou's expressions on this subject have 
 been taken so seriously, however, is to me at least a 
 never-ending source of surprise. He himself must have 
 known nothing at all of the history of dissection, while 
 those who accepted his opinion must have carefully 
 avoided consulting authorities on the history of anatomy, 
 for it is actually just after this bull that the history of 
 public dissection begins. It is clear to me, then, that 
 this absurd assertion of M. Daunou never would have 
 been swallowed so readily only that writers were over- 
 anxious to find material to use against the Popes and the 
 Church. 
 
 Daunou found this bull of Boniface an excellent op- 
 portunity to discredit the Popes in their relations to 
 science. It is true, the bull itself says nothing about 
 dissection, nor is there anything in it that would tend to 
 create even a distant impression that it was directed 
 against anatomical preparations of any kind. We might 
 expect, then, that his assertion in this matter would 
 have been contradicted at once by some one who would 
 read the bull. The bull is, however, not easy to find for 
 consultation purposes. It does not occur, as we have 
 said, in Le Sexte itself, that is, in the ordinary Sixth 
 Book of Papal Decretals, published by Boniface VIII. , 
 though Daunou quotes it as from there and without a 
 
 her former rights. It was then really a political pamphlet meant to curry favor with 
 Napoleon, and issued anonymously, because even Daunou did not care to put hi- name 
 to it under the circumstances. This will give a better idea of how much credence may 
 be given to Daunou's assertions with regard to the Popes of the Middle Ages, than 
 any reflections that we could make. 
 
SUPPOSED PROHIBITION OF DISSECTION 57 
 
 hint as to where it may be really found. It is in an ap- 
 pendix to this work, added after Boniface's death. It 
 would be rather difficult, then, and would require some 
 special knowledge and no little patience on the part of a 
 subsequent collator of historical sources to find the bull, 
 unless he were determined on getting at the bottom of 
 this whole question. As a consequence Daunou's asser- 
 tion has remained practically unchallenged for the better 
 part of a century, though many scholars who were famil- 
 iar with Boniface's sixth book have doubtless realized 
 its falsity, but owing to the fact that they would not or- 
 dinarily come across the bull in their direct reading of 
 Boniface's famous volume, would not be in a position to 
 contradict its misquotation. If looked at in this way, 
 Daunou's passage in the Histoire Litteraire would seem 
 to be a deliberate and very clever and, unfortunately, 
 successful perversion of history. 
 
 Daunou, who was a deep student of Papal affairs and 
 whose knowledge of the history of the Papacy would 
 not be likely to have missed so important a detail, might 
 very well have known, that about a half a century be- 
 fore the time when he wrote asserting that this bull of 
 Boniface VIII. had prevented dissection, someone who 
 had a doubt on the subject asked the ecclesiastical au- 
 thorities at Rome, whether this Papal document was to 
 be considered as referring in any way to the practice of 
 dissection, or the cutting up of human bodies for ana- 
 tomical purposes. In reply to this question Pope Benedict 
 XIV. made a very direct answer, absolutely in the neg- 
 ative. This is the only hint that I know o in serious 
 history that Pope Boniface's bull was ever considered to 
 have any reference to dissection for anatomical pur- 
 poses. At the time when Pope Benedict XIV.'s answer 
 
58 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 was published the Papal Medical School had been in ex- 
 istence for some five centuries and a half. For about 
 two centuries and a half it had been distinguished in the 
 annals of medicine, and as we shall see in the chapter 
 on The Papal Medical School, some of the most distin- 
 guished anatomists of their time had been investigating 
 and teaching by means of dissections, and their demon- 
 strations had been attended by many of the high eccles- 
 iastics, even many autopsies had been made on Cardinals. 
 
 Pope Benedict's reply is quoted in full in Puschmann's 
 Handbuch der Geschichte der Medizin,Vol. II., page 227, 
 in Robert Ritter Von Toply's article on the History of 
 Anatomy. It occurs in the midst of an abundance of 
 material of great historical importance which shows the 
 place that the Popes occupy as patrons of anatomy for 
 several centuries. Von Toply has no illusions with re- 
 gard to any supposed opposition of the Popes to medical 
 science. He even says, that while the older writers 
 have always told the story of the development of anat- 
 omy as if the Popes tried to prevent the study of it, as 
 a matter of fact, there is scarcely any evidence for this, 
 and copious evidence for their having done much to fos- 
 ter this branch of medical science which they consider 
 so important for the healing of the ills of mankind. His 
 reference to Boniface's answer with regard to the rela- 
 tion of Boniface's bull to dissection runs as follows : 
 
 "Under the heading, Concerning the Dissection of 
 Bodies in Public Institutions of Learning, and in reply 
 to the question whether the bull of Boniface VIII. for- 
 bids the dissection of human bodies, Benedict XIV. said 
 (Institute 64) : 
 
 "By the singular beneficence of God the study of 
 medicine flourished in a very wonderful manner in this 
 
SUPPOSED PROHIBITION OF DISSECTION 59 
 
 city (Rome). Its professors are known for their su- 
 preme talents to the remotest parts of the earth. There 
 is no doubt that they have greatly benefi tted by the dili- 
 gent labor which they have devoted to dissection. From 
 this practice beyond doubt they "have gained a profound 
 knowledge of their art and a proficiency that has en- 
 abled them to give advice for the benefit of the ailing as 
 well as a skill in the curing of disease. Now such dis- 
 section of bodies is in no way contrary to the bull of Pope 
 Boniface. He indeed imposed the penalty of excommu- 
 nication, to be remitted only by the Sovereign Pontiff 
 himself, upon all those who would dare to disembowel 
 the body of any dead person and either dismember it or 
 horribly cut it up, separating the flesh from the bones. 
 From the rest of his bull, however, it is clear that this 
 penalty was only to be inflicted upon those who took 
 bodies already buried out of their graves and by an act 
 horrible in itself, cut them in pieces in order that they 
 might carry them elsewhere and place them in another 
 tomb. It is very clear, however, that by this, the dis- 
 section of bodies, which has proved so necessary for 
 those exercising the profession of medicine, is by no 
 means forbidden. " l 
 
 This whole subject of the Supposed Papal Prohibition 
 of Anatomy is typical of a certain form of controversial 
 writing against the Church. A document of some time 
 or other from the Middle Ages is taken, twisted from its 
 
 1 The original Latin taken from Puschmann runs thus: "De cadaverum sectione 
 facienda in publicis Academiis, utrum constitutio Bonif acii VIII. sectioni humanorum 
 cadaverum adversetur. Singulari dei beneficio medicinse studium in hac civitate 
 (Roma) magnopere floret cujus etiam prof essores ob eximiam virtutem in remotissi- 
 mis terras partibus commendantur. Ipsis sane maxime prof uit, quod incidendis mor- 
 tuis corporibus diligentem operam contulerint, ex qua procul dubio praeclaram artis 
 scientiam, in consultationibus obeundis pro segrotorum salute praestantiam, morbisque 
 curandis peritiam consecuti sunt Porro haec membrorum incisio nullo 
 
60 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 original meaning and set up as a serious stumbling block 
 to the development of science or education in some way. 
 It is quoted confidently by some one without much au- 
 thority. Others who are glad of the opportunity to have 
 such an objection to urge against the Papacy, take it up 
 eagerly, do not look it up in the original, absolutely fail 
 to consider the circumstances in which it was issued, 
 and then spread it broadcast. Of course it is accepted 
 by unthinking readers, whose prejudices lead them to 
 believe that this is what was to be expected anyhow. It 
 maybe that history, as is the case in anatomy, absolutely 
 contradicts the assertion. That makes no difference. 
 History is ignored and treatises are written showing 
 how much science would have developed only for Papal 
 opposition, by people who know nothing at all about the 
 real story of the development of science. The real his- 
 tory of anatomy, showing very clearly how much was 
 done for the science by the Popes and ecclesiastics, will 
 be told in the following chapters. 
 
 modo adversatur Bonifacii Institution!. . . . Die quidem poenam excommunica- 
 tionis indicit Pontifici solo remittendam, iis omnibus qui audeant cuiuscumque de- 
 f uncti corpus exenterare, ac illud membratim vel in f rustra immaniter concidere ab 
 ossibus tegumentum carnis excutere. Tamen ex reliquis ejusdem constitutionis parti- 
 bus clare deprehenditur, hanc poenam illis infligi qui sepulta corpora e tumulis eru- 
 entes ipsa nefario scelere in frustra secabant ut alio def errent, alioque sepulchro col- 
 locarent. Quamobrem membrorum incisio minime interdicitur, quae adeo necessaria 
 est medicinae facultatem exercentibus." 
 
THE STORY OF ANATOMY DOWN TO THE 
 RENAISSANCE. 
 
 We have seen that the supposed prohibition of anat- 
 omy by the Popes has no existence in reality. In spite 
 of this fact, which it was easy for anyone to ascertain 
 who wished to consult the documents asserted to forbid, 
 a number of historical writers have insisted on finding 
 religious or ecclesiastical, or theological, opposition to 
 anatomical studies. Professor White has been most 
 emphatic in his assertions in this regard. He admits 
 that the supposed bull of prohibition had quite a differ- 
 ent purport, yet he still continued to assert its connec- 
 tion with the failure of anatomy to develop during the 
 Middle Ages. This presumed failure of anatomy during 
 the Middle Ages is a myth. It continues to secure cre- 
 dence only in the minds of those who know nothing of 
 the history of medical science during the thirteenth, 
 fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries and who have not 
 consulted the serious histories of medicine that treat of 
 this time, but flourishes vigorously in the minds of those 
 who have a definite purpose in making out a story of 
 theological or Church opposition to science in general. 
 
 To counteract the false impression that has gained 
 such wide acceptance in this matter, it has seemed ad- 
 visable, in order to settle the question definitely once 
 and for all, to trace the history of anatomical science 
 from its beginning in the Middle Ages down to modern 
 
 (61) 
 
62 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 times. It will not be hard to show that there was a con- 
 stant development and an unfailing interest in this sub- 
 ject. This can be understood even more clearly from the 
 story of the development of surgery in the Middle Ages 
 and its relations to anatomy than from the history of 
 anatomy itself. As is well known, materials with re- 
 gard to practical and applied science interest men more 
 at all times, and documents with regard to them are 
 more likely to be preserved, and so the history of sur- 
 gery is very full, while the history of anatomy may prove 
 not quite so satisfactory. It is true of all sciences, that 
 there are periods when they have much less attraction 
 than at other times, and the success of investigators and 
 original workers is not always the same. As in nearly 
 everything else, the real advances in all science come 
 when genius makes its mark, and not merely because a 
 large number of men happen to be interested in the 
 subject. This will be found as true in anatomy as in 
 other sciences, and so there are periods when not much 
 is doing, but nowhere is there a trace of ecclesiastical 
 opposition to account for these variations of interest. 
 
 There is no doubt at all that there was much popular 
 opposition to the practice of dissection in the Middle 
 Ages ; that has existed at all times in the world's his- 
 tory. It was very pronounced among the old Pagans in 
 Rome as well as in Greece, and it prevented anatomical 
 study to a very great degree. It continued to exist in 
 modern times until almost the present generation. In- 
 deed, it has not yet entirely disappeared, as any physi- 
 cian who has tried to secure autopsies on interesting 
 cases knows very well. The New York Academy of 
 Medicine is only a little over a half century old, and yet 
 nearly every one of its early presidents had thrilling ex- 
 
ANATOMY TO THE RENAISSANCE gg 
 
 periences in body-snatching as a young man, because no 
 proper provision for the supplying of anatomical mate- 
 rial had as yet been made by law, and bodies had to be 
 obtained. The feeling of objection to having the bodies 
 of friends anatomized is natural and not due to religion. 
 It exists quite as strongly among the ignorant who have 
 no religion as among the religiously inclined. It has not 
 disappeared among the educated classes of our own 
 time, religious or irreligious. If this is borne in mind, 
 the history of the development of anatomy will be easier 
 to understand. 
 
 The first definite evidence in modern history for the 
 existence of the practice of dissection is a famous law 
 of the German Emperor, Frederick II., from the first 
 half of the thirteenth century. This law was promul- 
 gated for the two Sicilies, that is, for Southern Italy and 
 Sicily proper, very probably in the year 1240. It has 
 often been vaguely referred to, but its actual signifi- 
 cance can only be understood from the terms of the law 
 itself, which has been literally translated by Von Toply 
 in his Studien Zur Geschichte der Anatomie in Im Mit- 
 telalter. 1 The paragraph with regard to dissection runs 
 as follows : 
 
 "As an enactment that will surely prove beneficial to 
 health, we decree that no surgeon will be allowed to 
 practice, in case he has not a written testimonial, which 
 he must present to the teachers in the medical faculty, 
 that he has for at least a year applied himself to that 
 department of medicine which is concerned with the 
 teaching and practice of surgery, and that he has, above 
 all, learned the anatomy of the human body in this man- 
 ner, and that he is fully competent in this department 
 
 iDeuticke Leipzig und Wien. 1898. 
 
4 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 of medicine, without which neither surgery can be un- 
 dertaken with success nor sufferers cured." 1 
 
 Such a regulation, as pointed out by Professor Pilcher 
 in an article on the early history of dissection, 2 and as 
 we know by modern experience, does not come into force 
 as a rule before the actual practice of what is prescribed, 
 has been for some time the custom and its usefulness 
 proved by the results attained. It seems very probable, 
 then, that even at this early day the Emperor Frederick 
 was only making into a law what had been at least a 
 custom before this time. Lest anyone should think that 
 this is a far-fetched assumption, certain other para- 
 graphs of this law, which show very definitely the high 
 degree 'to which the development of medical teaching 
 had reached, must be recalled. Frederick declared that 
 medicine could only be learned if there was a proper 
 groundwork of logic. Only after three years devoted to 
 logic, then, under which term is included the grammar 
 and philosophy of an ordinary undergraduate course, 
 could a man take up the study of medicine. After three 
 years devoted to medicine, to which it is again specific- 
 ally declared another year must be added if surgery 
 were to be practiced, a man might be given his degree 
 in medicine, but must spend a subsequent full year in 
 the practical study of medicine under the supervision of 
 an experienced physician. 
 
 The law further decreed definite punishments for the 
 practice of medicine without due warrant and violation 
 of its regulations, and also regulated the practice of 
 apothecaries. It is rather interesting to find that these 
 
 1 The complete text of this law, which is a marvelous anticipation of all our efforts 
 for the regulation of the practice of medicine down even to the present day, will be 
 found in the appendix. 
 
 2 The Mondino Myth, Medical Library and Historical Journal, 1906. 
 
ANATOMY TO THE RENAISSANCE 65 
 
 were forbidden to share their profits with physicians, 
 and the physicians themselves were not allowed to dis- 
 tribute their own medicines. In a word, practically every 
 one of the problems in the practice of medicine which 
 medical societies are trying to solve at the present mo- 
 ment, were also occupying the attention of the civil au- 
 thorities about seven centuries ago. Anyone who reads 
 this law will not be loath to believe that it represents 
 the culmination of a series of efforts to regulate medical 
 practice, and especially medical education, and that it 
 was not merely a chance legal utterance that happened 
 to touch a single important question for the first time. 
 One of the paragraphs of the law even contains some 
 clauses that would prevent fake medical schools and 
 that establishes a board of medical examiners. This 
 consisted of certain state officials and some professors of 
 the art of medicine. In a word, medical education had 
 reached a high grade of development, and medical prac- 
 tice was legally established on a high plane of profes- 
 sional dignity. 
 
 Salerno had already enjoyed a high reputation as a 
 medical school for more than two centuries when Fred- 
 erick 's law was promulgated. It is true that we have 
 no definite records of dissections done in the school. If 
 these were not an uncommon occurrence, however, but 
 came as did dissections later on, quite as a matter of 
 course, the absence of such records, when we recall how 
 liable to destruction were the meagre accounts of the 
 university transactions of the time during the long 
 period that has intervened and because of the many 
 vicissitudes they were liable to, is not surprising. Dur- 
 ing the century following this decree there seems to be 
 no doubt that dissections were done regularly, though 
 
66 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 perhaps not very frequently from our modern stand- 
 point, at Salerno. Salerno, as we shall see in the chap- 
 ter on The Papal Medical School, was always closely in 
 touch with the ecclesiastical authorities, and especially 
 with the Papacy. There was no hint of friction of any 
 kind, either before or after this law of Frederick's. The 
 question of ecclesiastical interference with dissection 
 does not seem to have arisen at all, much less to have 
 proved an obstacle to the development of medical sci- 
 ence. 
 
 At the beginning of the fourteenth century the center 
 of interest in anatomy and the matter of dissections 
 shifts to Bologna. We have already discussed the ques- 
 tion whether Mondino was the first to do public anato- 
 mies, and as to whether he performed only the few that 
 by a narrow misunderstanding of certain of his own 
 words have sometimes been ascribed to him. Professor 
 Pilcher, in the article The Mondino Myth, already cited, 
 is of the opinion, and gives excellent reasons for it, that 
 Taddeo, the great Bolognese physician of the thirteenth 
 century, who was Mondino' s master, had done at least 
 some dissections in Bologna. Personally I have long felt 
 sure that Taddeo or Thaddeus, as he is sometimes called 
 in the Latin form of his name, did not a few, but a num- 
 ber of dissections. 
 
 Professor Pilcher 's account of him does not exaggerate 
 his merits. I may say that he was one of the great Papal 
 physicians of whom we shall have more to tell hereafter. 
 
 " Any comprehensive attempt to trace the real influ- 
 ences to which was due so great a step as a return to 
 the practice of dissections of the human body, seems to 
 me must be very defective if it failed to take into con- 
 sideration the influence of such a man as Thaddeus (Ital- 
 
ANATOMY TO THE RENAISSANCE 57 
 
 ian Taddeo) . That he was able to impress himself in the 
 way in which history records that he did, both upon the 
 general public and upon the scholastic foundations of 
 Bologna, shows a strength of character and a mastery 
 of the peculiar conditions of the moment in the fields of 
 science and philosophy which made him a master and an 
 inspirer. If he is to be considered in his proper histori- 
 cal light, as one who declares that the knowledge of 
 the structure of the human body to a most minute de- 
 gree is the foundation upon which all rational medicine 
 and surgery must be built, then it is impossible to exag- 
 gerate the importance of the pivotal moment when, in 
 the development of science, the human body began to 
 be anatomized. Nor is any fault to be found with the 
 custom which has crowned with the laurels of universal 
 appreciation the names of those men who began and 
 who continued anatomical study, who vulgarized the 
 practice of dissection. 
 
 ' ' In my own investigations and reflections upon the 
 conditions which led up to this happy renewal of scien- 
 tific search into the composition of the body of man, it 
 has seemed to me that writers have hitherto fallen short 
 of tracing through to its ultimate source, the earlier 
 spirit of enthusiasm for knowledge, of insight into the 
 problems of disease, and of contempt for traditionary 
 shackles, to the influence of which, as shown by the 
 master, Taddeo, the latter work of the pupil, Mondino, 
 was in great measure due." 
 
 Medici, in his History of the School of Anatomy at 
 Bologna, 1 quotes Sarti on The Distinguished Professors 
 of the University of Bologna for proof of Taddeo 's fam- 
 iliarity with dissection. Von Toply does not think that 
 
 1 Medici Compendio Storico Delia Scuola Anatomica de Bolog^ia, Bologna, 1857. 
 
68 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 i 
 
 this quotation is enough absolutely to prove that Taddeo 
 had done dissections, yet it would be hard to understand 
 it unless some such interpretation is made. Taddeo was 
 asked to decide a medico-legal question with regard to 
 a pregnant woman. He refused, however, with a mod- 
 esty that might well be commended to medico-legal ex- 
 perts of more modern times, to answer the question 
 decisively, because he had never made a dissection of a 
 pregnant woman. Sarti argues that it is evident from 
 this that he had dissected other bodies more easy to ob- 
 tain than those of pregnant women, or else that he had 
 had the opportunity to make observations on them when 
 dissected by others. 
 
 Certain of Taddeo' s contemporaries must have had the 
 incentive of his example to help them to a knowledge of 
 human anatomy, for they surely could not have accom- 
 plished all that they did in surgery without experience 
 in dissection, yet Taddeo was looked up to as a master 
 by all of them. 
 
 Anyone who has read the contributions to surgery of 
 William of Salicet and his great pupil Lanfranc, even if 
 only what we give with regard to them in our chapter 
 on Surgery during the Middle Ages, cannot but be im- 
 pressed with the idea that they must have done human 
 dissections. They do not mention this fact explicitly, 
 but portions of their surgical works are taken up with 
 the consideration of applied anatomy. They discuss the 
 relations of various structures to one another, especially 
 with reference to the surgery of them. Von Toply, in 
 his Studies on the History of Anatomy in the Middle 
 Ages, says that the anatomies written before William's 
 chapters on applied anatomy, were most of them purely 
 theoretic discussions meant to be guides for internal 
 
ANATOMY TO THE RENAISSANCE 59 
 
 medicine, or else they were very short directions for 
 those who undertook the practical work of the dismem- 
 berment of bodies, usually, however, with reference to 
 animals rather than to human bodies. In William of 
 Salicet we encounter, he says, for the first time a treat- 
 ise on anatomy made with the deliberate purpose of its 
 application to practical surgery. Everywhere William 
 gives hints for surgical operations with special reference 
 to the anatomical relations. 
 
 Puccinotti quotes from William of Salicet' s surgery, 
 written about 1270, a passage that shows how familiar 
 this surgeon must have been with dissection. The 
 nephew of Count Pallavicini received an arrow wound 
 in the jugular vein and died within an hour. During his 
 death agony he suffered from a peculiar form of rattle 
 in his throat. It was thought that this might be due to 
 the fact that the arrow had been poisoned. William was 
 called in to decide this question, and found that there 
 was nothing responsible for his death except the wound 
 itself. He describes how he found the blood in the lungs 
 and in the heart, and considers that the conditions that 
 were present were due to the wound. Von Toply has 
 suggested that William would have given more details 
 had he actually examined these organs, but when the 
 autopsy report is negative, such descriptive details are 
 not usual even at the present time. If he had found 
 reason for thinking that there was poison in the case, a 
 careful description of the other organs would be neces- 
 sary. The fact, however, that he was asked to decide 
 such a question, would seem to indicate that he was sup- 
 posed to have a knowledge of the normal appearances of 
 human tissues when examined by dissection. 
 
 In everything else Lanfranc went farther than his 
 
70 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 master William, and he did so also in anatomy. Some 
 of the details of his work will be found in our chapter 
 on Surgery in the Middle Ages. He could not have been 
 able to give the detailed instructions that he has for the 
 treatment of every portion of the .body only that he knew 
 them by actual contact in the cadaver as well as the pa- 
 tient. His outlook upon scientific medicine and surgery 
 would satisfy even the most exacting of modern experi- 
 mental scientists. The famous aphorism of his runs as 
 follows : " Every science which depends on operation is 
 greatly strengthened by experience. " More than any- 
 thing else, however, surgery owes to Lanf ranc the dis- 
 tinct advantage that he carried into the West as far as 
 Paris, the methods which had come into existence in 
 Italy, and were ever after to prove a precious heritage 
 in the great French University. As Salicet's work was 
 carried on by Lanfranc, at least as well was Lanfranc's 
 work further advanced by his pupil and successor in the 
 chair of surgery, Henri de Monde ville. This subject of 
 surgical development will be treated in the chapter on 
 Surgery in the Middle Ages. Here it is introduced only 
 to emphasize the opportunity there must have been for 
 anatomical study through dissection in the thirteenth 
 century, or these men would not have made the marvel- 
 ous progress they actually accomplished in this depart- 
 ment. 
 
 With regard to Mondino, Taddeo's successor at Bo- 
 logna, enough has been said already in the preceding 
 chapter. About this time, however, very definite evi- 
 dence begins to accumulate of the frequent practice of 
 dissection. Roth, whose life of Vesalius is a standard 
 work in the history of anatomy, has summed up most of 
 what we know with regard to dissections in the early 
 
ANATOMY TO THE RENAISSANCE 71 
 
 part of the fourteenth century, in his chapter on Dissec- 
 tion Before Vesalius's Time. Roth's work is well known 
 and is frequently referred to in Dr. White's History of 
 the Warfare of Science with Theology. There can be 
 no question, then, but that in taking what Roth has to 
 say I shall be quoting from a work with regard to which 
 there can be no hint even of partiality. Roth himself 
 was a Swiss, with no leaning toward the Church. There 
 are certain portions of his book, indeed, in which he is 
 inclined not to allow that the Church did as much for 
 education in these times as she actually did. His study 
 of the rise of anatomy can be accepted with absolute as- 
 surance, that it is at least not written from the stand- 
 point of one who wants to make the situation with re- 
 gard to anatomy more favorable than it actually was 
 during the fourteenth century, for the sake of showing 
 any lack of opposition on the part of ecclesiastics. 
 
 Some of the material that Roth has made use of has 
 already been referred to in the preceding chapter, but it 
 has seemed proper to repeat it here because this gives a 
 connected account from a definite authority in the his- 
 tory of medicine, and especially of anatomy, with regard 
 to the century immediately following the promulgation of 
 Boniface's bull. Besides, it gives an opportunity for such 
 comments on various features of the history of anatomy, 
 as he details it, as will bring out the significance of his 
 remarks. His account will make it very clear that, far 
 from the Papal bull in question having been universally 
 construed as prohibiting dissections, as Dr. White says 
 it was, it never entered into the minds of medieval anat- 
 omists to consider it as having any such signification. 
 The bull was never thought of in that sense at all. It 
 does not refer to anatomy or dissection and it never had 
 
72 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 any place in the history of anatomy until dragged into 
 it without warrant by Daunou and other nineteenth cen- 
 tury writers. Roth says : 
 
 "In the pre-Vesalian period the dissection of the hu- 
 man body was practiced, according to the terms of Fred- 
 erick's law, for the instruction of those about to become 
 physicians and surgeons. The natural place for this 
 school anatomy for a dissection was called anatomia, 
 or, erroneously, anatomia publica was at the universities 
 and the medical schools. Apart from teaching institu- 
 tions, however, public anatomies were held in Strasburg 
 and in Venice. Their purpose was the instruction of the 
 practicing medical personnel of these towns. Dissections 
 which were not made for general instruction were called 
 private anatomies. They were performed for the benefit 
 of a few physicians, or students, or magistrates, or art- 
 ists. Private anatomies began to have special impor- 
 tance only toward the end of the pre-Vesalian period 
 (this would be about the end of the fifteenth and the 
 first quarter of the sixteenth century) . It is a play of 
 chance that the first historical reference to a dissection 
 concerns a private anatomy, one undertaken for the pur- 
 pose of making a legal autopsy. This was made in Bo- 
 logna in the year 1302 (two years after the decretal sup- 
 posed to forbid dissection). A certain Azzelino died 
 with unexpected suddenness, after his physicians had 
 visited him once. A magistrate suspected poison and 
 commissioned two physicians and three surgeons to de- 
 termine the cause of death. It was found that death 
 resulted from natural causes. (As I have said, it 
 would appear that this was not an unusual procedure, 
 for unless medical autopsies had been done before, it 
 does not seem probable that this method of deter- 
 
ANATOMY TO THE RENAISSANCE 73 
 
 mining the cause of death would have been so readily 
 taken up. ) 
 
 ' * Thirteen years later there is an account of the dis- 
 section of two female bodies, in January and March of 
 the year 1315, performed by Mundinus." (We have al- 
 ready seen that the fact that the two female bodies 
 should be especially mentioned, though taken by some 
 historians of medicine to indicate that Mundinus had 
 done but few dissections, will not stand such an inter- 
 pretation, in the light of the evidence that he had dis- 
 sected many male bodies at least, as his text-book of 
 anatomy indeed makes very clear. These two dissec- 
 tions of females happened only to have special features 
 that made them noteworthy.) "A few years later 
 (1319) there is a remarkable document which tells the 
 story of body-snatching for dissecting purposes. " (This 
 would seem to be sufficient of itself to show that a 
 number of dissections were being done, and, indeed, 
 as I have already said, Rashdall, in his History of the 
 Universities, states that, according to the University 
 statutes teachers were bound to dissect such bodies as 
 students brought to them. ) Roth concludes with the 
 words (italics are mine) : " These are a few, but weighty 
 testimonies for the zeal with which Bologna pursued anat- 
 omy in the fourteenth century." (I may 'add that all of 
 these concern the twenty years immediately following 
 Pope Boniface's supposed prohibition.) 
 
 Nor was the custom of making dissections any less 
 active during the rest of the half century after the time 
 when, if we are to believe Professor White, the decree of 
 Boniface had been universally interpreted to forbid it. 
 In a note to his history of dissection during this period 
 in Bologna, Roth says : "Without doubt the passage in 
 
74 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 Guy de Chauliac which tells of having very often (mul- 
 titoties, many times, is the exact word) seen dissections 
 must be considered as referring to Bologna. " This pas- 
 sage runs as follows : ' ' My master, Bertruccius, con- 
 ducted the dissection very often after the following man- 
 ner : The dead body having been placed upon a bench, 
 he used to make four lessons on it. First, the nutri- 
 tional portions were treated, because they are so likely 
 to become putrified. In the second, he demonstrated 
 the spiritual members ; in the third, the animate mem- 
 bers ; in the fourth, the extremities. " (Guy de Chauliac 
 was at Bologna studying under Bertruccius just before 
 the middle of the fourteenth century. It is evident 
 beyond all doubt, from what he says, that dissections 
 were quite common. This is during the first fifty years 
 after the decree. I shall show a little later that there 
 are records of dissections during the second half of this 
 century. Roth, however, goes on to tell next of the fif- 
 teenth century.) 
 
 Roth says nothing about the decree of Boniface VIII. , 
 nor of any possible effect that it had upon anatomy. 
 The real historian, of course, does not mention things 
 that have not happened. Roth confesses, as I have said, 
 that he takes the material for his sketch of anatomy be- 
 fore Vesalius's time from Corradi. 1 Corradi being an 
 Italian, and knowing of the slander with regard to the 
 Papal decree, explicitly denies it. Surely, here is ma- 
 terial enough to convince anyone that all that Professor 
 White has said with regard to the supposed effect of the 
 misinterpretation of Boniface's decree is without foun- 
 dation in the history of anatomy. Within twenty years 
 
 1 Corradi Dello Studio e dell' Insegnamento dell' Anatomia in Italia nel Medio Evo 
 ed in parte del Cinquecento, Padova, 1873. 
 
ANATOMY TO THE RENAISSANCE 75 
 
 after the bull was issued dissection was practiced to such 
 an extent, that body-snatching became so common that 
 there were prosecutions for it, and public dissections 
 seem to have been held every year in the universities of 
 of Italy during most of the fourteenth century. 
 
 De Renzi l gives an interesting account of the methods 
 by which material was obtained for dissection purposes 
 before governments made any special provision for this 
 purpose. Naturally, the rifling of graves was resorted to 
 by students intensely interested in the subject of anat- 
 omy. The first criminal prosecution for body-snatching 
 on record is in 1319, when some students brought a body 
 to one Master Albert, a lecturer in medicine at the Uni- 
 versity at Bologna, and he dissected it for them. At 
 this time, according to the statutes of the university, 
 teachers of anatomy were bound to make a dissection if 
 the students supplied the body. The whole party were 
 brought to trial for this offence, though they do not seem 
 to have suffered any severe penalty for their violation of 
 the laws. At this time, according to De Renzi, there 
 was a rage for dissection and many bodies were yearly 
 obtained surreptitiously for the purpose. 
 
 With regard to the bodies of condemned criminals, 
 people began to countenance the procedure, and while 
 unwilling as yet to give them freely, allowed the bodies 
 to be taken. Corradi, quoted by Puschmann, says "that 
 laws against the desecration of graves, without being 
 abolished, became a dead letter. The authorities inter- 
 fered only if decided violence had been used or a great 
 scandal raised. Such consequences were likely to follow 
 only if, in the ardor of their enthusiasm for anatomical 
 knowledge, students rifled the graves of well-known 
 
 !De Renzi Storia della Medicina in Italia, Napoli. 1845-49, Vol. II., p. 247. 
 
76 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 persons or took the bodies of those whose relatives dis- 
 covered the desecration and proceeded against the ma- 
 rauders by legal measures. " 
 
 At the Italian universities after the middle of the four- 
 teenth century there is abundant evidence for perfect 
 freedom with regard to dissection. We have already 
 shown by our quotation from Roth that Bertrucci was 
 very active in dissection work and did many public dis- 
 sections. He was followed by Pietro di Argelata, who 
 died toward the end of the fourteenth century. These 
 men followed Mondino in the chair of anatomy at Bo- 
 logna, and Julius Pagel, in his chapter on Anatomy and 
 Physiology in Puschmann's Handbuch der Geschichte 
 der Medizin (Vol. L, p. 707), says that "the successors 
 of Mondino were in a position, owing to the gradual en- 
 lightenment of the spirit of the time and the general 
 realization of the importance of anatomy as well as the 
 fostering liberality of the authorities, to make regular, 
 systematic dissections of the human body." This would 
 bring us down, then, to the end of the fourteenth cen- 
 tury. 
 
 To return now to Roth, who takes up the next century. 
 He says : 
 
 " For the fifteenth century, the university statutes of 
 Bologna for the year 1405 furnish many sources of in- 
 formation. There is a special division which is concerned 
 with the annual anatomy or dissection that had to be 
 made and the selection of the persons to be present, the 
 payment of the expenses and other details. An addition 
 to the statutes, made in the year 1442, determines the 
 arrangement of the delivery of the body from the city 
 to the university authorities. Every year two bodies, 
 one male and one female, must be provided for the med- 
 
ANATOMY TO THE RENAISSANCE 77 
 
 ical school dissections. In default of a female body, a 
 second male body was to be provided. In the presence 
 of such detailed regulations, the absence almost entirely 
 of details as to the actual performance of dissections can 
 mean very little. Bologna reached its highest develop- 
 ment as a medical school at the beginning of the six- 
 teenth century when Alexander Achillinus and Jacob 
 Berengarius had charge of the public dissections there. 
 Of these I shall speak later." (All this is at the Uni- 
 versity of Bologna, where ecclesiastical influence was 
 supreme and where the Popes exercised their jurisdic- 
 tion as the ultimate authority to be appealed to in all 
 disputed educational questions.) 
 
 Roth continues : ' * Padua had, like Bologna, dissection 
 in the fourteenth century. There is the record of a dis- 
 section made in the year 1341, in which Gentilis made 
 the discovery of a gall-stone. " (It is evidently not be- 
 cause the dissection was unusual, but because the dis- 
 covery was unusual, that this incident is mentioned. 
 The dissections were such ordinary occurrences as not 
 to deserve special mention except for some particular 
 reason.) 
 
 "Much more is known about dissection at Padua in 
 the fifteenth century, when the city had become Vene- 
 tian. J>1 (It is significant to note that the previous oc- 
 currence was in pre- Venetian days, for Professor White 
 insists that it was the Venetian authorities, in opposition 
 to the Pope, who allowed dissection at Padua. Here is 
 the rebuttal of any such theory.) ' * Bertapaglia, in his 
 Surgery, has the record of the dissection of a criminal 
 made under the direction of Master Hugo De Senis, on 
 
 1 Note that this is a full century before Vesalius's time, who, Professor White in- 
 sists, reintroduced dissection. 
 
78 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 the 8th of February, 1429. On the 4th of April, 1430, 
 the dissection of a woman was made. In 1444 Professor 
 Montagnana speaks of fourteen dissections at which he 
 had been present." (This would seem to indicate that 
 dissections were quite common and that the occasional rec- 
 ords of them give no proper idea of their actual number. ) 
 I would not wish to produce the impression, however, 
 that Italy was the only place in Europe in which dissec- 
 tions were freely done during the fourteenth and fifteenth 
 centuries. There is no doubt that anatomy and surgery 
 and every branch of medicine was cultivated much more 
 assiduously and with much better opportunities pro- 
 vided for students down in Italy, than anywhere else in 
 the world. This of itself alone shows the utter absurd- 
 ity of the declarations that the Church was opposed to 
 medical progress in any way, since the nearer the center 
 of Christendom, the more ardor there was for investiga- 
 tion and the more liberty to pursue original researches. 
 Other countries also began to wake up to the spirit of pro- 
 gress in medical education that was abroad. In France 
 there were two centers of interest in anatomy. One of 
 these was at Montpelier, the other at Paris. It is inter- 
 esting to note, however, that the men to whom anatom- 
 ical progress is due at these universities obtained their 
 training, or at least had taken advantage of the special 
 opportunities provided for anatomical investigation to be 
 had, in the Italian cities. Guy de Chauliac I have 
 already mentioned. He is spoken of as the Father of 
 Modern Surgery, and there is no doubt that he did much to 
 set surgery on a very practical basis and to make anat- 
 omy a fundamental feature of the training for it. He 
 declared that it was absurd to think that surgeons could 
 do good work unless they knew their anatomy. 
 
ANATOMY TO THE RENAISSANCE 79 
 
 Under his fostering care the study of anatomy flourished 
 to a remarkable degree at the University of Montpelier. 
 The difficulty hitherto had been that it was very hard to 
 procure bodies for dissecting purposes. It is easy to 
 understand that friends of the dead would always pre- 
 vent dissections as far as they could. They do so even 
 at the present moment, and there are not many of us 
 who find it in our hearts to blame them over much for 
 it. Few of us are ready to make the sacrifice of our 
 own dead. Even the poor in those days had friends 
 who prevented the cutting up of their remains ; for 
 large alms-houses were not presided over by paid offi- 
 cials, but by religious, to whom their poor in their 
 friendlessness appealed as kindred. There were not 
 many prisons, and they were not needed because all 
 felonies were punished by death. Guy de Chauliac real- 
 ized that here was the best opportunity to procure bodies. 
 Accordingly it was mainly through his instrumentality 
 that a regulation was made handing over the dead 
 bodies of malefactors to the medical school for dissect- 
 ing purposes. It must be recalled that when he did this 
 the Papal court was at Avignon, in the South of France, 
 and exerted great influence over the University of Mont- 
 pelier, situate not far away. 
 
 The reputation of the University of Paris is such that 
 we should not expect her to be backward in this im- 
 portant department of education. As a matter of fact, 
 there is abundant evidence of dissection having been 
 carried on here at the end of the thirteenth century, and 
 the practice was not interrupted at the beginning of the 
 fourteenth century. Lanf ranc, the famous surgeon who 
 had studied with William of Salicet in Italy (we have 
 already mentioned both of them and we shall have much 
 
80 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 to say of them hereafter) , taught surgery from a very 
 practical standpoint in Paris, and illustrated his teach- 
 ings by means of dissections. Lanf ranc was succeeded in 
 Paris by Mondeville, whose name is also associated with 
 the practice of dissection by most historians of medicine, 
 and whose teaching was of such a practical character 
 that there can be no doubt that he must have employed 
 this valuable adjunct in his surgical training of students. 
 In general, however, the records of dissecting work and 
 of anatomical development are not near so satisfactory 
 at Paris as in the Italian universities. As is the case 
 in our own day and has always been true, universities 
 were inclined to specialties in the Middle Ages, and the 
 specialty of Paris was Philosophy and Theology. This 
 was choice, however, not compulsion, any more than 
 similar conditions in our own time. The medical school 
 continued to be in spite of this one of the best in the 
 world, though it was not famous for its original work, 
 except in surgery, which is, however, the subject most 
 nearly related to anatomy and the one whose develop- 
 ment would seem necessarily to demand attention to 
 anatomy. 
 
 With the Renaissance, which is usually said to begin 
 after the fall of Constantinople in 1453, and the con- 
 sequent dispersion of Greek scholars throughout Italy, a 
 new spirit entered into anatomy as into every other de- 
 partment of intellectual life at this time. The reason 
 for it is not easy to explain. Perhaps the spread of 
 Greek texts with regard to medicine inspired students 
 and teachers to try out their problems for themselves, 
 and so a new impetus was given to anatomical investiga- 
 tion. Whatever it was that caused it, the new move- 
 ment came unhampered by the Church, and Italy con- 
 
ANATOMY TO THE RENAISSANCE SI 
 
 tinued to be even to a greater degree than before the 
 Mecca for medical students who wished to do original 
 work in anatomy. During the last fifty years of the 
 fifteenth century anatomy began its modern phase, and 
 original work of a very high order was accomplished. 
 There are five names that deserve to be mentioned in 
 this period. They are Gabriele Zerbi, Achillini, Beren- 
 gar of Carpi, Matthew of Gradi and Benivieni. Each 
 of these men did work that was epoch-making in anat- 
 omy, and each has a place in the history of the science 
 that will never be lost. 
 
 Zrbi, who did his work at Verona, traced the olfac- 
 tory nerves and describes the nerve supply of the special 
 senses more completely than it had ever been done 
 before. After his time it was only a question of filling 
 in the details of this subject. Achillini added much to 
 our knowledge of the anatomy of the head, being the 
 first to describe the small bones of the ear and also to 
 recognize the orifices of Wharton's ducts. Besides this, 
 which would have been quite enough to have given him 
 a place in the history of anatomy, he added important 
 details to what had been previously known with regard 
 to the intestines, and described very clearly the ileo- 
 cecal valve and suggested its function. Matthew of 
 Gradi, or De Gradibus, was the first, according to Pro- 
 fessor Turner in his article on Anatomy in the Encyclo- 
 paedia Britannica, who represented the ovaries in the 
 correct light as regards their anatomical relations and 
 their function. 
 
 The most important of these fifteenth century investi- 
 gators in pure anatomy, however, is Berengarius or Ber- 
 engar of Carpi, who did his work at Bologna at the end 
 of the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth cen- 
 
82 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 tury. His commentaries on Mondino's work show how 
 much he added to that great teacher's instruction. If 
 he had no other distinction than that of having been the 
 first to undertake a systematic view of the several tex- 
 tures of which the body is composed, it would have been 
 sufficient to stamp him as a great original worker in anat- 
 omy. He treats successively of the anatomical characters 
 and properties of fat, of membrane in general, of flesh, of 
 nerve, of villus or fibre, of ligament, of sinew or tendon, 
 and of muscle in general. Almost needless to say, he 
 must have made many dissections to obtain such clear 
 details of information, and, as we shall see, he probably 
 did make many hundreds. If he had done nothing else 
 but be the first to mention the vermiform appendix, it 
 would have been quite sufficient to give him a distinction 
 in our day. Everything that he touched, however, he 
 illuminated. His anatomy of the fetus was excellent. 
 He was the first to note that the chest of the male was 
 larger than in the female, while the capacity of the 
 female pelvis was in the opposite ratio. In the larynx 
 he discovered the two arytenoid cartilages. He recog- 
 nized the opening of the common biliary duct, and was 
 the first to give a good description of the thymus gland. 
 All this, it must be remembered, before the end of the 
 second decade of the sixteenth century, that is, almost 
 before Vesalius was born. 
 
 Berengar's work was done at Bologna. Some five 
 years before his death Bologna became a Papal city. 
 There is no sign, however, that this change in the 
 political fortunes of the city made any difference in 
 Berengar's application to his favorite studies in anatomy. 
 As we shall see in the chapter on The Papal Medical 
 School, already the Popes were laying the foundations 
 
ANATOMY TO THE RENAISSANCE 33 
 
 of their own great medical school in Rome, in which 
 anatomy was to be cultivated above all the other sciences, 
 so that there would be no reason to expect from other 
 sources of historical knowledge any interruption of 
 Berengar's work, and it did not come. 
 
 A fifth great student of anatomy during the fifteenth 
 century was Benivieni, who has been neglected in the 
 ordinary histories of anatomy because his work con- 
 cerned itself almost exclusively with pathological, not 
 with normal anatomy. In our increasing interest in 
 pathology during the nineteenth century, he has very 
 properly come in for his due share of attention. Profes- 
 sor Allbutt, in his address on the Historical Relations of 
 Medicine and Surgery down to the Sixteenth Century, 
 declares that Benivieni should be revered as the fore- 
 runner of Morgagni and as one of the greatest physicians 
 of the late Middle Ages. Benivieni's life occupies almost 
 exactly the second half of the fifteenth century, as he 
 was born probably in 1448, and died in 1502. Allbutt 
 says : 
 
 ' ' He was not a professor, but an eminent practitioner 
 in Florence, at a period when, in spite of its Platonism, 
 Florence on the whole was doing most for science ; for 
 as Bologna turned to law, Padua turned to humanism 
 and philosophy. He was one of those fresh and inde- 
 pendent observers who, like Mondeville, was oppressed 
 by the authority neither of Arab nor Greek. " 
 
 We are not interested, however, at the present time in 
 what he accomplished for surgery, though there are a 
 number of features of his work, including the crushing 
 of stone in the bladder and his puncture of the hymen 
 for retained menses, as well as his methods of division 
 and slow extension of the cicatricial contractions result- 
 
84 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 ing from burns near the elbow, which place him among 
 the most ingenious and original of surgical thinkers. It 
 is his interest in dissection that commends him to us 
 here. He must have done a very great number of 
 autopsies. 
 
 His interest in the causes of disease was so great that 
 he seems to have taken every possible opportunity to 
 search out changes in organs which would account for 
 symptoms that he had observed. His place in anatomy 
 and the history of pathology has not been properly ap- 
 preciated in this matter, and Professor Allbutt claims 
 for him the title of Father of Pathology, rather than for 
 those to whom it has been given, and demands for his 
 work done in Florence during the second half of the fif- 
 teenth century the credit of laying the real foundation- 
 stones of the great science of pathological anatomy. 
 Unfortunately, he died comparatively young and with- 
 out having had time properly to publish his own contribu- 
 tions to medical science. Professor Allbutt says : 
 
 "The little book De abditis causis morborum (brief 
 title), was not published in any form by Antony Beni- 
 vieni himself, but posthumously by his brother Jerome, 
 who found these precious notes in Antony's desk after 
 his death, and with the hearty cooperation of a friend 
 competent in the subject, published them in 1506 in a 
 form which no doubt justly merits our admiration. 
 Benivieni's chief fame for us is far more than all 
 this ; it is that he was the founder of pathological anat- 
 omy. So far as I know, he was the first to make the 
 custom and to declare the need of necropsy to reveal 
 what he called not exactly "the secret causes," but the 
 hidden causes of diseases. Before Vesalius, before 
 Eustachius, he opened the bodies of the dead as deliber- 
 
ANATOMY TO THE RENAISSANCE 35 
 
 ately and clear-sightedly as any pathologist in the 
 spacious time of Baillie, Bright and Addison. Virchow, 
 in his address at Rome, said Morgagni was the first 
 pathological anatomist who, instead of asking What is 
 disease ? asked Where is it ? 
 
 But Benivieni asked this question plainly before Mor- 
 gagni : "Not only," says he,*' must we observe the 
 disease, but also with more diligence search out the seat 
 of it." The precept is so important, I will quote the 
 original words: "Oportet igitur medicum non solum 
 morbum cognoscere, sed et locum in quo fit, diligentius 
 perscrutari. " 
 
 Among the pathological reports are morbus coxaB (two 
 cases) ; biliary calculus (two cases) ; abscess of the me- 
 sentery, thrombosis of the mesenteric vessels ; stenosis 
 of the intestine ; some remarkable cardiac cases, several 
 of "polypus" (clot, which was a will-of -the- wisp to the 
 elder pathologists) ; scirrhus of the pylorus, and proba- 
 bly another case in the colon ; ruptured bowel (two 
 cases) ; caries of ribs with exposure of the heart. He 
 gives a good description of senile gangrene which even 
 Pare did not discriminate. He seems to have had re- 
 markable success in obtaining necropsies ; concerning 
 one fatal case he says plaintively, "Sed nescio qua su- 
 perstitione versi negantibus cognatis," etc. Of another 
 he says, "cadavere publicse utilitatis gratia inciso " (the 
 case of cancer of the stomach). With this admirable 
 and original leader, Italian medicine of the fifteenth 
 century closes gloriously, to slumber for some fifty 
 years, till the dayspring of the new learning. Of his 
 work Malpighi says, and apparently with truth, "up to 
 now it is the only work in pathology which owes nothing 
 to anyone. ' ' 
 
86 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 This should be enough, it seems to me, to settle the 
 question that anatomy was permitted very freely before 
 Versalius's time. I have said it in other places, but it 
 may be well to recall here, that Berengar did his dissec- 
 tion at Bologna just before and after the time it became 
 a Papal city and when Papal influence was very strong. 
 In spite of the fact that in 1512 Bologna passed under 
 the dominion of the Popes, there is no question of any 
 interruption or hampering of Berengar 's work in anat- 
 omy, and as a matter of fact, this great anatomist did 
 not succeed to the professorship of anatomy, which had 
 been held up to this time by Achillini, until in the very 
 year when Bologna came under Papal sway, and had his 
 opportunity to do his independent work only after this. 
 Professor Turner can scarcely find words strong enough 
 to set down his admiration for Berengar and his work. 
 Besides what we have already quoted he says that, " the 
 science of anatomy boasts in Berengar of one of its most 
 distinguished founders." 
 
 The distinguished Edinburgh anatomist harbors no 
 illusions with regard to any supposed opposition of the 
 Church to dissection or to the development of anatomy. 
 As a life-long student of anatomy who knew the history 
 of his favorite science, he appreciated very well just 
 who had been the great workers in it and where their work 
 had been done. He says that "Italy long retained the 
 distinction of giving birth to the first eminent anatomists 
 in Europe, and the glory she acquired in the names of 
 Mondino, Achillini, Berengar of Carpi, and Massa was 
 destined to become more conspicuous in the labors of 
 Columbus, Fallopius and Eustachius." These are the 
 greatest names in the history of anatomy down to the 
 beginning of the seventeenth century, with the single 
 exception of Vesalius. 
 
ANATOMY TO THE RENAISSANCE 87 
 
 All this of anatomical development in Italy at universi- 
 ites that were directly under the ecclesiastical authorities 
 would seem to settle all question of interference by the 
 Popes or the Church with any phase of anatomical de- 
 velopment. It does not seem sufficient for Dr. White, 
 however. When I called attention to all these details of 
 the history of anatomy, long before the reformation and 
 before Vesalius, Dr. White's response was the following 
 paragraph in which he explains how dissection came to be 
 practiced at all, and reiterates not only his belief that Pope 
 Boniface's bull prevented dissection, but even insists on 
 what cannot but seem utterly absurd to any one who has 
 read even the brief account I have given here, that ex- 
 cept at one or two places, and then only to a very limited 
 degree, dissection was not practiced at all. Here is how 
 the history of dissection must be viewed according to 
 Dr. White : - 
 
 " But Dr. Walsh elsewhere falls back on the fact that 
 shortly after the decree of Pope Boniface VIII. , which 
 struck so severe a blow at dissection, the Venetian 
 Senate passed a decree ordaining that a dissection of the 
 human body should be made every year in the city of 
 Venice, and he leaves his readers to conclude that this 
 effectually proves that dissection had not really been 
 discouraged by the Pope. The very opposite conclusion 
 would be deduced by anyone familiar with the relations 
 between the Republic of Venice and the Papacy. These 
 two powers were always struggling against each other ; 
 again and again the Venetian Republic, in maintaining 
 its rights, braved the Papal interdicts. The fact that it 
 allowed dissections, so far from proving that the Pope 
 allowed them, would seem to prove that in this case, 
 and in so many other cases, and especially that of Vesa- 
 
88 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 lius of Padua, the Venetian Senate sought to show the 
 Vatican that it would yield none of its rights to clerical 
 control. This very fact that Venice refused to be 
 bound with regard to anatomical investigation by an 
 order from the Vatican seems to be entirely in the line 
 with all the other facts in the case, which show that the 
 Roman court had committed itself, most unfortunately, 
 against the main means of progress in anatomy and 
 medicine." 
 
 Here then is the answer that a modern historian 
 and educator makes to all the representations with re- 
 gard to the development of anatomy and the practice of 
 dissection during the Middle Ages. If the practice of 
 dissection was permitted it was in spite of the Popes. 
 The fact that there were a dozen of medical schools in 
 Italy at which dissection was carried on is ignored. The 
 great anatomists of the fourteenth and fifteenth cen- 
 turies simply did not exist Dr. White knows nothing 
 about them. There must be no admission that the Popes 
 permitted dissection or any other form of science. Dr. 
 White makes his last stand by a really marvelous tour 
 d'esprit. It was Venice defying the Vatican that per- 
 mitted dissection. This, he supposes, may help him, for 
 anatomy did develop very wonderfully at Padua when 
 it was Venetian territory. But, as pointed out by Roth, 
 dissection was practiced very successfully, and the an- 
 atomical tradition established at Padua, before it came 
 under the dominion of Venice. At all the other impor- 
 tant cities of Italy dissection was carried on. We have 
 given some of the evidence for Verona, for Pisa, for 
 Naples, for Bologna, for Florence, and, be it remem- 
 bered, even for Rome. Padua was the rival of Bologna 
 in anatomy only for a comparatively short time. Bologna 
 
ANATOMY TO THE RENAISSANCE 39 
 
 always maintained a primacy in the field of anatomy, 
 and never more so than after she became a Papal city 
 at the beginning 1 of the sixteenth century. Vesalius 
 taught and demonstrated not at Padua alone, but also 
 at Bologna and at Pisa. For two centuries Rome was 
 the most successful rival of Bologna, and hundreds of 
 dissections were done in the Papal Medical School. 
 
 Of course, the appeal to Venetian opposition to the 
 Papacy as an explanation for dissection being carried on 
 in Italy in spite of ecclesiastical regulations to the contrary 
 is only a subterfuge. It can only be found in histories 
 written by those who refuse to see facts as they were, 
 because those facts do not accord with pet theories as 
 to Papal Opposition to Science, and the Warfare Between 
 Theology and Science, which must be maintained at all 
 costs, though with an air of apology always for having 
 to tell such unpleasant truths of these old-time religious 
 authorities. 
 
THE GOLDEN AGE OP ANATOMY 
 VESALIUS. 
 
 The Golden Age of discovery in anatomy culminated 
 during the first half of the sixteenth century. This will 
 not be surprising if it is but recalled that this period 
 represents the culmination also of that larger golden age 
 ot achievement in art and letters, which has been called 
 the Renaissance. Columbus and Copernicus were giving 
 men a new world and a new universe. Raphael, Michael 
 Angelo, Lionardo da Vinci, the Bellinis and Titian were 
 creating a new world of art. Most of these artists were 
 deeply interested in anatomy. Every phase of human 
 thought was being born anew. Unfortunately, this 
 word Renaissance has given rise to many misunder- 
 standings. Many people have taken its significance of 
 re-birth to mean that art and letters, and with them 
 education and thinking, were born again into the mod- 
 ern world at this time with the coming in of the New 
 Learning, just as if there had been nothing worth while 
 talking about in these lines of human accomplishment 
 in the preceding centuries. Taken in this sense, the 
 word Renaissance is entirely a misnomer. Magnificent 
 achievements in art and letters and every form of edu- 
 cation preceded the Renaissance by at least three or four 
 centuries. The Gothic cathedrals and the enduring ar- 
 tistic development that took place in their making, the 
 magnificent organization of technical education in the 
 training of artist artisans by the guilds of the time (we 
 would be glad if our technical schools could accomplish 
 
 (90) 
 
THE GOLDEN AGE OF ANATOMY 91 
 
 anything like the same results, for evidently, though 
 the name technical education is our invention, these 
 medieval peoples had the reality to a high degree) , and 
 finally the universities, which have remained essentially 
 the same down to our own day all these serve to show 
 how much was done for every form of education many 
 centuries before the beginning of the Renaissance so- 
 called. 
 
 It is not surprising that with this much of education 
 abroad in the land men succeeded in making enduring lit- 
 erature in every form and in every country in Europe, 
 and in setting examples of style in prose and verse that 
 succeeding generations have nearly always gone back to 
 admire lovingly. Such an amount of education and de- 
 velopment of thinking could not have come without pro- 
 found attention to science, and, as a matter of fact, there 
 was much more anticipation of even what is most modern 
 in our scientific thinking than most scholars seem to 
 have any idea of. Personally, I have found, in writing 
 the history of The Thirteenth the Greatest of Centuries, 
 more that interested me in the science of this century 
 than in almost any other department of its wonderful 
 educational development. 
 
 We have already seen that while anatomy had during 
 preceding centuries only the beginning of the develop- 
 ment that it was destined to reach during the sixteenth 
 century, it would be a serious mistake to thin'k that the 
 study of anatomy, having died in the old classical days, 
 was not re-born until the sixteenth century. This would 
 be to commit the error that many ardent devotees of the 
 Renaissance make with regard to all the accomplish- 
 ments of this period. In spite of the contrary almost 
 universal impression, the Renaissance was not original 
 
92 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 to any marked degree. With the touch of the Greek 
 spirit that had come again into the world, 1 it only carried 
 the preceding work of great original thinkers to a high 
 order of perfection. This happened as well in anatomy 
 as in art and architecture and literature. Anatomical 
 science was a lusty infant of great promise when Vesa- 
 lius, the Father of Anatomy, came on the scene. The 
 great painters, Raphael and Lionardo and Michael An- 
 gelo, owed much to Giotto and Fra Angelico, who had 
 preceded them, but not more than Vesalius and his con- 
 temporaries, who did such magnificent work in original 
 anatomical investigation, owed to Mondino, Bertrucci, 
 Zerbi, Achillini, and above all to Berengar of Carpi and 
 Benivieni, who did their work before and just after the 
 sixteenth century opened. There is never a sudden de- 
 velopment in the history of any department of man's 
 knowledge or achievement, as there is nothing absolute- 
 ly new under the sun, though it is still the custom of the 
 young man in his graduation essay to talk of such things, 
 and older men sometimes fail to realize the truth that in 
 history as in biology, life always comes from preceding 
 life omne vivum ex vivo and there is no such thing as 
 spontaneous generation. 
 
 If the achievements of this earlier period of scientific 
 work, which affected anatomy even more than any of 
 the other sciences, be kept in mind, the discussion of 
 the Golden Age of Anatomy will find its proper place in 
 the history of the relation of the Popes to science. 
 Though the date 'of the Golden Age in Anatomy follows 
 that of the so-called reformation, there is absolutely no 
 connection between the two series of events, for the one 
 took place in Germany and the other in Italy. The 
 Golden Age of Anatomy was indeed a perfectly legiti- 
 
THE GOLDEN AGE OF ANATOMY 93 
 
 mate and quite to be expected culmination of the ana- 
 tomical interest which had been gradually rising to a 
 climax in the Italian universities during the preceding 
 century. It has a definite place in the evolution of sci- 
 ence, and is not a sudden or unlocked for phenomenon. 
 
 If there was any place in the world at the beginning 
 of the sixteenth century in which the ecclesiastical au- 
 thorities had much to say with regard to what should 
 not be taught and what should not be studied in the uni- 
 versities, it was Italy. In spite of this fact, all medical 
 men who wanted to do post-graduate work in medicine 
 went down into Italy. This was especially true for those 
 who desired to obtain ampler opportunities for anatom- 
 ical study than were afforded by the rest of Europe. In 
 his maturer years as a student of medicine, Vesalius 
 went down to Italy in order to avail himself of the mag- 
 nificent field for investigation that was provided there. 
 This favorable state of affairs as regards research in 
 anatomy had existed for more than a century before his 
 time. It continued to be true for at least two centuries 
 after his time. As a matter of fact, Italy was to the 
 rest of the world of the fifteenth and sixteenth and sev- 
 enteenth centuries the home of post-graduate opportun- 
 ities in all sciences as well as in medicine. 
 
 These are not idle words, but are fully substantiated 
 by the lives of the men who stand at the head of our 
 modern medicine. More than a decade before Vesalius 
 was born, Linacre, the distinguished English physician 
 and founder of the Royal College of Physicians, went to 
 Italy to complete his medical studies and incidentally 
 also to round out his education in the midst of the new 
 learning which was so thoroughly cultivated there. 
 When Linacre was leaving Italy, with true classic spirit 
 
94 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 he set up a little altar on the top of the Alps whence he 
 could get his last view of the Italian plains, and greeted 
 the charming country that he was leaving so reluctantly 
 with the beautiful name of Alma Mater Studiorum. To 
 him, after his return to England, English-speaking med- 
 ical men owe the establishment of the institution which 
 above all others has helped to uplift the dignity of the 
 medical profession and make the practice of the healing 
 art something more than a mere trade the Royal Col- 
 lege of Physicians. 
 
 One of Vesalius's most distinguished fellow students 
 at Padua was Dr. John Caius, who was later to become 
 the worthy president of the Royal College of Physicians 
 of England and the author of certain important medical 
 works. Dr. Caius was the first to introduce the practice 
 of public dissections into England. Caius and Vesalius 
 were roommates, though at the time Vesalius was an in- 
 structor at the University, and the inspiration of his 
 originality seems to have had a great effect upon young 
 Caius. They were nearly of the same age, though Vesa- 
 lius was a precocious genius, and Caius 's greatness only 
 showed itself in maturity. Caius was studying in Italy 
 partly because the religious disturbances in England had 
 made it uncomfortable for him to remain in his native 
 country, for he was a firm adherent of the old Church 
 and he hoped they would pass over, but mainly because 
 he coveted the opportunities afforded by that country. 
 Later in life, out of the revenues of his position as Royal 
 Physician to Queen Mary and subsequently for some time 
 to Queen Elizabeth, he founded the famous Caius Col- 
 lege at Cambridge, usually called Key's College by Can- 
 tabrigians. 
 
 Before either of these men there had been a third dis- 
 
THE GOLDEN AGE OF ANATOMY 95 
 
 tinguished English physician who had gone down to 
 Italy for his education. This was the celebrated and 
 learned John Phreas, who was born about the commence- 
 ment of the fifteenth century. Very little is known 
 of his career, but what we do know is of great interest. 
 He was educated at Oxford and obtained a fellowship on 
 the foundation of Balliol College. Afterward he seems 
 to have studied medicine with a physician in England, 
 but was not satisfied with the medical education thus 
 obtained. He set the fashion for going down into Italy 
 sometime during the first half of the fifteenth century, 
 and after some years spent at Padua received the degree 
 of doctor in medicine, which in those days carried with 
 it, as the name implies, the right to teach. As not in- 
 frequently happens to the brilliant medical student, he 
 settled down for practice in the university town in which 
 he graduated, to take up both occupations, that of 
 teacher and practitioner. He is said to have made a 
 large fortune in the practice of physic. 1 The best proof 
 of his scholarship is to be found in some letters still 
 preserved in the Bodleian and in the Library of Balliol 
 College. Personally, I have considered that his career 
 was interesting from another standpoint. I have often 
 looked in history for the cases of appendicitis which oc- 
 cur so frequently in our day and with regard to which 
 people ask how is it they did not occur in the past. The 
 fact is, they did occur, but were unrecognized. People 
 were taken suddenly ill, not infrequently a short time 
 after a meal, and after considerable pain and fever, 
 swelling and great tenderness in the abdomen devel- 
 
 1 Like the other distinguished physicians of this time, John Phreas did not devote 
 himself to medicine alone. He had a taste for literature, and besides being an accom- 
 plished scholar he was a poet. 
 
96 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 oped, and they died with all the signs of poisoning. 
 They were actually poisoned, not by some extraneous 
 material, but by the putrid contents of their own intes- 
 tines which found a way out through the ruptured ap- 
 pendix. These cases were set down as poisoning cases, 
 and usually some interested person was the subject of 
 suspicion. Dr. Phreas's learning had obtained for him 
 an appointment to a bishopric in England, a curious bit 
 of evidence of the absence of opposition between med- 
 ical science and religion in his time. He died shortly 
 after this, under circumstances that raised a suspicion 
 of poisoning in the minds of some of his contemporaries 
 but raises the thought of appendicitis in mine, and one 
 of his rivals was blamed for it. 
 
 Nor did the custom for English medical students to go 
 down to Italy to complete their education cease with the 
 so-called reformation. Some two generations after Vesa- 
 lius's time another distinguished Englishman, Harvey, 
 went down to Italy to complete the studies he had al- 
 ready made and eventually to lay the foundation of that 
 knowledge on which he was twenty years later to con- 
 struct his doctrine of the circulation of the blood. This 
 doctrine, however, remained merely a theory until the 
 distinguished Italian anatomist, Malpighi, after another 
 half century, demonstrated the existence of the capillar- 
 ies, the little blood vessels which connect the veins and 
 arteries, and by thus showing the continuity of both the 
 blood systems, proved beyond all doubt the certainty of 
 the teaching that the blood does circulate. 
 
 Students came, moreover, from even the distant North 
 of Europe to the Italian schools of medicine during these 
 centuries. Neil Stensen, or as he is perhaps better 
 known by his Latin name, Nicholas Steno, the discov- 
 
THE GOLDEN AGE OF ANATOMY 97 
 
 erer of the duct of the parotid gland, which has been 
 named after him, and of many other anatomical details, 
 especially of the fact that the heart is a muscle, which 
 stamp him as an original investigator of the highest or- 
 der, after having made extensive studies in the Nether- 
 lands and in France to complete the medical education 
 which he had begun in his native city of Copenhagen, 
 went down into Italy to secure freer opportunities for 
 original research than he could obtain anywhere else in 
 Europe. 1 
 
 We have mentioned that it was while he was pursuing 
 his special investigations in various Italian universities 
 that Stensen was honored with the invitation to become 
 professor of anatomy at the University of Copenhagen. 
 This was not a chance event, but a type of the point of 
 view in university education at the time. Just as at the 
 present time the prestige of research in a German uni- 
 versity counts for much as a recommendation for pro- 
 fessorships in our American universities, so in the six- 
 teenth and seventeenth centuries was it with regard to 
 study in Italy. It was felt that men who had spent sev- 
 
 1 It may perhaps be of interest to say that while doing investigation in anatomy and 
 certain other sciences allied to medicine, Steno became a convert to the Catholic 
 Church and after some years became a priest. Before his ordination, however, 
 though after his conversion, he received the call to the chair of anatomy at Copen- 
 hagen. He accepted this and worked for several years at the Danish University, but 
 was dissatisfied with the state of affairs around him as regards religion and went 
 back to Italy. Eventually he was made a bishop hence the curious picture of him 
 in a Roman Catholic Bishop's robes in the collection of pictures of professors of anat- 
 omy at the University of Copenhagen. Not long after, at his own request, he was 
 sent up to the Northern part of Germany in order to try to bring back to the Church 
 as many of the Germans as might be won by his gentleness of disposition, his saintly 
 character, his wonderful scientific knowledge, and his winning ways. He is the 
 Father of Modern Geology as well as a great anatomist, and his little book on geology 
 was published after he became a priest, yet did not hamper in any way his ecclesias- 
 tical preferment nor alienate him from his friends in the hierarchy. He was honored 
 especially by the Popes. In a word, his career is the best possible disproof of any 
 Papal or ecclesiastical opposition to science in his time. 
 
98 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 eral years there could be reasonably expected to know all 
 that there was to be known in the rising sciences of anat- 
 omy and physiology ; at the same time there was a very 
 general impression, quite justified by the results ob- 
 served, that those who did their post-graduate work in 
 Italy were nearly always sure to make discoveries that 
 would add to the prestige of their universities later, and 
 that would be a stimulus to students and to the other 
 teachers around them such as could be provided in no 
 other way. If read in the proper spirit, the history of 
 the universities of those times is quite like our own, only 
 for influence, the name of Italy must always be substi- 
 tuted for that of Germany. Yet Italy, if we were to 
 believe some of the writers on the history of education 
 and science, was at this time laboring under the incubus 
 of ecclesiastical intolerance with regard to anatomy and 
 an almost complete suppression of opportunities for dis- 
 section. Those who write thus know nothing at all of 
 the actual facts of the history of science, or else they 
 are blinding themselves for some reason to the real situ- 
 ation. 
 
 Fortunately students of the facts of history, especially 
 those who have devoted any serious attention to the his- 
 tory of medicine, make no such mistake. For them it is 
 perfectly clear that there was a wonderful development in 
 anatomy which took place down in Italy, beginning about 
 the middle of the fifteenth century or even earlier, and 
 which led to the provision of such opportunities for dis- 
 section and original research in medicine, that students 
 from all over the world were attracted there. For in- 
 stance, Professor Clifford Allbutt, in the address on the 
 Historical Relations of Medicine and Surgery to the end 
 of the Sixteenth Century, already quoted, has a passage 
 
THE GOLDEN AGE OF ANATOMY 99 
 
 in which, as an introduction to what he has to say about 
 Galen, he sums up the history of anatomy from the return 
 of the Popes from Avignon to Rome, which took place 
 just about the beginning of the last quarter of the four- 
 teenth century, down to the time of Vesalius. This ex- 
 presses so well what I have been trying to say with 
 regard to the gradual development that led up to the 
 Golden Age of Anatomy and to Vesalius' s work, that I 
 quote it. 
 
 ' ' Meanwhile, however, the return of the Popes to 
 Rome (1374) and the displacement of the Albucasis and 
 Avicenna by the Greek texts renewed the shriveling 
 body of medicine, and with the help of anatomy, Italian 
 medicine awoke again ; though until the days of Vesa- 
 lius and Harvey the renascence came rather from men 
 of letters than of medicine. The Arabs and Paris said : 
 ' ' Why dissect if you trust Galen ? But the Italian phy- 
 sicians insisted on verification; and therefore back to 
 Italy again the earnest and clear-sighted students flocked 
 from all regions. Vesalius was a young man when he 
 professed in Padua, yet, young or venerable, where but 
 in Italy would he have won, I would not say renown, but 
 even sufferance ! If normal anatomy was not directly a 
 reformer of medicine, by way of anatomy came morbid 
 anatomy, as conceived by the genius of Benivieni, of 
 Morgagni, and of Valsalva ; the galenical or humoral 
 doctrine of pathology was sapped, and soaring in excel- 
 sis for the essence of disease gave place to grubbing for 
 its roots. " 
 
 A sketch of Vesalius 's career will give the best pos- 
 sible idea of the influences at work in science during this 
 Golden Age of anatomical discovery, and will at the 
 same time serve to show better than anything else, how 
 
100 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 utterly unfounded is the opinion that there was opposi- 
 tion between religion, or theology and science, and above 
 all medical science, at this time. On the other hand, it 
 will demonstrate that the educational factors at work in 
 Vesalius's time were not different from those of the pre- 
 ceding century, nor indeed from those that had existed 
 for two or three centuries before his time ; and though 
 his magnificent original research introduced the new 
 initiative which always comes after a genius has left his 
 mark upon a scientific department, the spirit in which 
 science was pursued after his time did not differ essen- 
 tially from that which had prevailed before. He repre- 
 sents not a revolution in medical science, as has so often 
 been said, though always with the purpose of demon- 
 strating how much the so-called reformation accom- 
 plished in bringing about this great progress in anat- 
 omy, but only a striking epoch in that gradual evolution 
 which had already advanced so far that his work was 
 rendered easy and some such climax of progress as came 
 in his time was inevitable. 
 
 Vesalius's earlier education was received entirely in 
 his native town of Lou vain. There were certain pre- 
 paratory schools in connection with the university at 
 Louvain, and to one of these, called Paedagogium Castri 
 because of the sign over the door, which was that of a 
 fort, Vesalius was sent. Here he learned Latin and 
 Greek and some Hebrew. How well he learned his 
 Latin can be realized from the fact that at twenty-two 
 he was ready to lecture in that language on anatomy in 
 Italy. His knowledge of Greek can be estimated from 
 the tradition that he could translate Galen at sight, and 
 he was known to have corrected a number of errors in 
 translations from that author made by preceding trans- 
 
THE GOLDEN AGE OF ANATOMY ; '-, 
 
 lators. To those who know the traditions of that time 
 in the teaching of the classic languages along the Rhine 
 and in the Low Countries, these accomplishments of 
 Vesalius will not be surprising. They knew how to 
 teach in those pre-ref ormation days, and probably Latin 
 and Greek have never been better taught than by the 
 Brethren of the Common Life, whose schools for nearly 
 a hundred years had been open in the Low Countries 
 and Rhenish Germany for the children of all classes, but 
 especially of the poor. Other schools in the same region 
 could scarcely fail to be uplifted by such educational tra- 
 ditions. Altogether, Vesalius spent some nine years in 
 the Pa3dagogium. 
 
 As illustrating how men will find what interests them 
 in spite of supposed lack of opportunities, it may be said 
 that from his earliest years Vesalius was noted for his ten- 
 dency to be inquisitive with regard to natural objects, 
 and while still a mere boy his anatomical curiosity man- 
 ifested itself in a very practical way. He recalls him- 
 self in later years, that the bladders with which he 
 learned to swim, and which were also used by the 
 children of the time as play-toys for making all sorts of 
 noises, became in his hands objects of anatomical inves- 
 tigation. Anatomy means the cutting up of things, and 
 this Vesalius literally did with the bladders. He noted 
 particularly that they were composed of layers and 
 fibres of various kinds, and later on when he was study- 
 ing the veins in human and animal bodies he was re- 
 minded of these early observations, and pointed out that 
 the vein walls were made up of structures not unlike 
 those, though more delicate, of which the bladders of 
 his childhood days had proven to be composed. 
 
 His preparatory studies over, Vesalius entered the 
 
102 
 
 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 University of Louvain, at that time one of the most im- 
 portant universities of Europe. At the end of the fif- 
 teenth and the beginning of the sixteenth century, 
 Louvain probably had more students than any other 
 university in Europe except that of Paris, and possibly 
 Bologna. There are good grounds for saying that the 
 number in attendance here during the first half of the 
 sixteenth century was always in excess of 5,000. The 
 university was especially famous for its teaching of 
 jurisprudence and philology. The faculty of theology, 
 however, was considered to be one of the strongest in 
 Europe, and Louvain, as might be expected from its 
 position in the heart of Catholic Belgium, was generally 
 acknowledged to be one of the great intellectual bul- 
 warks of Catholicity against the progress of Lutheran- 
 ism in the Teutonic countries at this time. Vesalius's 
 parents were, and his family always had been, ardent 
 Catholics, so that, quite apart from his dwelling not far 
 away, it was very natural that he should have been sent 
 here. He seems to have spent five years in the university 
 mainly engaged in the study of philosophy and philology, 
 but also of the classics and languages so far as they 
 were taught at that time. 
 
 It may be noted as another instance in his life of how 
 a student will find that which appeals to him even in the 
 most unexpected sources, that Vesalius took special in- 
 terest in certain treatises of Albertus Magnus and 
 Michael Scotus, which treated of the human body in the 
 vague, curious way of the medieval scholars, and yet 
 with a precious amount of information, that this inquisi- 
 tive youth eagerly drank in. More interesting for Vesa- 
 lius himself were certain studies undertaken entirely inde- 
 pendently of his university course. One of his biog- 
 
THE GOLDEN AGE OF ANATOMY 1Q3 
 
 raphers tells that he dissected small animals, rats and 
 mice, and occasionally even dogs and cats, in his eager- 
 ness to learn the details of anatomy for himself and at 
 first hand. 
 
 After graduating at Louvain in philosophy and philol- 
 ogy, Vesalius went to Paris to study medicine. At this 
 time at Paris, Sylvius, after whom one of the most im- 
 portant fissures of the brain, the sylvian, is named, was 
 not only teaching anatomy in a very interesting way, but 
 was also providing opportunities for original research in 
 anatomy in connection with his own investigations. The 
 interest that his teaching excited may be gathered from 
 the fact that over 400 students were in attendance at his 
 lectures. Besides Sylvius, Gunther of Andernach in 
 Switzerland was also teaching in Paris, and with both 
 of these distinguished professors Vesalius became inti- 
 mately associated. His deep interest in the subject of 
 anatomy would of itself be quite sufficient to attract the 
 attention of professors, but he had besides the added 
 advantage of being known as the descendant of a family 
 which had occupied prominent posts as medical attend- 
 ants to the greatest ruling family of Europe. 
 
 It was at Paris, then, that Vesalius first was able to 
 devote himself with the intense ardor of his character 
 to the study of anatomy. Nothing less than original 
 research at first hand would satisfy his ardent desire for 
 information and his thirst for accurate knowledge. His 
 practical temper of mind was demonstrated by a revolu- 
 tion that he worked in the method of doing dissections 
 at the time. The dissections in Paris used to be per- 
 formed by the barber-surgeons, as a rule rather ignorant 
 men, who knew little of their work beyond the barest 
 outline of the technics of dissection. Teachers in anat- 
 
104 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 omy used to stand by and direct the operation and dem- 
 onstrate the various parts. These teachers, however, 
 considered it quite beneath them to use the knife them- 
 selves. The faultiness of this method can be readily 
 understood. Vesalius began a new era in the history of 
 anatomy by insisting on doing the dissections himself. 
 It was not long, however, before he realized that Paris 
 could not afford him such opportunities as he desired. 
 Altogether he did not remain there more than a year, 
 and then returned to the Low Countries. 
 
 At Louvain he continued his anatomical work, finding 
 it difficult enough to procure human material, but using 
 such as might come to hand. The story is told of his 
 first attempt to get a complete skeleton. A felon 
 had been executed just outside the walls of Louvain, and 
 his remains were, as was the custom at that time, 
 allowed to swing on the gibbet until the birds of the air 
 had eaten his flesh and the wind and rain had bleached 
 his bones. As might be thought, these bones were a 
 great temptation to Vesalius. Finally, one night he and 
 a fellow student stole out of the town and robbed the 
 gibbet of its treasure. In order to accomplish their 
 task no easy one, because the skeleton was fastened to 
 the beams of the scaffold by iron shackles they had to 
 remain out all night. They buried it and later removed 
 it piecemeal, and when they had finally assembled the 
 parts again it was exhibited as a skeleton brought from 
 Paris. 
 
 Even this story has been made to do duty as show- 
 ing the ecclesiastical opposition to dissection and the 
 advancement of anatomical knowledge. It is hard to 
 understand, however, why men will not look at such an 
 incident from the standpoint of our own experience in 
 
THE GOLDEN AGE OF ANATOMY 1Q5 
 
 the modern time. There are men still alive in certain 
 states of the Union who recall how much trouble they 
 had to go to as medical students in order to procure a 
 skeleton. If we go back fifty years, nearly every skele- 
 ton that physicians had in their offices was obtained in 
 some way almost as surreptitious as that just described, 
 or was purchased through some underhand channel. 
 They were dug up from potter's field, or sometimes pro- 
 cured from complacent prison officials, or occasionally 
 stolen from respectable cemeteries. In this respect Ve- 
 salius was not much worse off than were his medical 
 colleagues for nearly three centuries and a half after his 
 time in the northern countries. It was easier to procure 
 such material in Italy. 
 
 Vesalius had that precious quality that makes the 
 investigator desire to see and know things for himself. 
 He could not get opportunities for definite anatomical 
 knowledge in the western part of Europe, so he gave up 
 his practice, though Lou vain, his native town, was a most 
 promising place, having nearly 200,000 inhabitants and 
 business relations with all the world at the moment, and 
 went down into Italy where he knew that he could pursue 
 his anatomical studies to his heart's content. The tra- 
 dition of the work that Zerbi and Achillini had done, 
 and especially what Benivieni and Berengar had accom- 
 plished within a few decades before this time, was com- 
 monly known in all the medical schools of Europe, and 
 many an ardent young anatomist in the West yearned 
 for the opportunities and the incentive that he could 
 obtain down there. Church influence was predominant ; 
 the ecclesiastics were the actual rulers of the universi- 
 ties, but medical science, and above all anatomy, was 
 being studied very ardently. Vesalius thus prompted, 
 
106 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 came and found what he looked for. At the end of ten 
 short years of work down there, he had completed his 
 text-book of anatomy which was to earn for him deserv- 
 edly the title of Father of Anatomy. 
 
 At first Vesalius seems to have spent some time in 
 Venice, where he attracted considerable attention by his 
 thorough, practical anatomical knowledge and independ- 
 ent mode of thinking. After only a short period in 
 Venice, however, he proceeded to Padua, where he 
 spent some months in preparation for his doctor's exam- 
 ination. It is known that, having completed his exam- 
 ination in the early part of December, 1537, he was 
 allowed within a few days to begin the teaching of 
 anatomy, and, indeed, was given the title of professor 
 by the university authorities. 
 
 The next six years were spent in teaching at Padua, 
 Bologna and Pisa, and in fruitful investigation. Every 
 opportunity to make dissections was gladly seized, and 
 Vesalius's influence enabled him to obtain a large amount 
 of excellent anatomical material. He began at once the 
 preparations for the publication of an important work 
 on the anatomy of the human body. This was published 
 in 1543 at Basel, at a time when its author was not yet 
 thirty years of age. It is one of the classics of anatomi- 
 cal literature. Even at the present day it is often con- 
 sulted by those who wish to see the illustrative details 
 of Vesalius 's wonderful dissections as given in the mag- 
 nificent plates that the work contains. It has become 
 one of the most precious of medical books, and is eagerly 
 sought for by collectors. 
 
 For ten years more Vesalius devoted himself to his 
 favorite studies in anatomy and physiology, for it must 
 not be forgotten that he was constantly applying his 
 
THE GOLDEN AGE OF ANATOMY 1Q7 
 
 / , 
 
 knowledge of form and tissue to function, and came to 
 
 be looked upon as the leading medical investigator of the 
 world. It is apparently sometimes not realized, how- 
 ever, that Vesalius was no mere laboratory or dissecting 
 room investigator. After the publication of his great 
 work on anatomy he set himself seriously to the applica- 
 tion of what he had discovered to practical medicine and 
 surgery. He was an intensely practical man. As a 
 consequence, it was not long before consultations began 
 to pour in on him, and he came to be considered as one 
 of the greatest medical practitioners of his time. Ruling 
 princes in Italy, visitors of distinction, high ecclesias- 
 ticsall wished to have Vesalius 's opinion when their 
 cases became puzzling. This is a side of his character 
 that many of his modern biographers have missed. 
 Even Sir Michael Foster, whose knowledge of the his- 
 tory of medicine, and especially of physiology, makes 
 one hesitate to disagree with him, seems not to have 
 appreciated Vesalius 's interest in practical medicine. A 
 laboratory man himself, he was apparently not able to 
 appreciate why Vesalius should have given up his scien- 
 tific research in Italy to accept the post of Royal Phy- 
 sician to the Emperor Charles V. 
 
 Professor Foster thinks it necessary, then, to find 
 some other reason than the temptation of the import- 
 ance of the position to account for Vesalius' s acceptance 
 of it. He concludes that it was because of discourage- 
 ment in his purely scientific studies as a consequence of 
 the opposition of the Galenists. Opposition on the part 
 of the old conservative school of medicine there was, 
 and some of it was rather serious. This was not enough, 
 however, to have discouraged Vesalius. Professor Fos- 
 ter goes so far as to wax almost sentimental over the 
 
108 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 fact that the acceptance of the post of physician to 
 Charles V. ended Vesalius's scientific career; "for 
 though in the years which followed the Father of Anato- 
 my from time to time produced something original, and 
 in 1555 brought out a new edition of his Fabrica, differ- 
 ing chiefly from the first one, so far as the circulation of 
 the blood is concerned, in its bolder enunciation of its 
 doubts about the Galenic doctrines touching the heart, 
 he made no further solid addition to the advancement 
 of knowledge. Henceforward his life was that of a 
 court physician much sought after and much esteemed 
 a life lucrative and honorable and in many ways useful, 
 but not a life conducive to original inquiry and thought. 
 The change was a great and a strange one. At Padua 
 he had lived amid dissections ; not content with the public 
 dissections in the theatre, he took parts, at least, of 
 corpses to his own lodgings and continued his labors 
 there. No wonder that he makes in his Fabrica some 
 biting remarks to the effect that he who espouses 
 science must not marry a wife ; he cannot be true to 
 both. A year after his arrival at the Court he sealed 
 his divorce from science by marrying a wife ; no more 
 dissections at home, no more dissections indeed at all ; 
 at most, some few post-mortem examinations of pa- 
 tients whose lives his skill had failed to save. Hence- 
 forth his days were to be spent in courtly duties, 
 in soothing the temporary ailments, the repeated gouty 
 attacks of his imperial master, in healing the maladies 
 of the nobles and others round his throne, and doubt- 
 less in giving advice to more humble folk, who were 
 from time to time allowed to seek his aid. Whither 
 his master went, he went too, and we may well imagine 
 that in leisure moments he entertained the Emperor and 
 
THE GOLDEN AGE OF ANATOMY 1Q9 
 
 the Court with his intellectual talk, telling them some 
 of the fairy tales of that realm of science which he had 
 left, and of the later achievements of which news came 
 to him, scantily, fitfully and from afar." 
 
 Professor White has gone much farther than Sir 
 Michael Foster. The English physiologist knew too 
 much about the history of medicine in Italy even to hint 
 at any ecclesiastical opposition with regard to Vesalius. 
 President White, however, has no scruples in the mat- 
 ter. This makes an excellent opportunity to write the 
 kind of history that is to be found in his book. Appar- 
 ently forgetful of the thought that the Emperor Charles 
 V. was not at all likely to take as his body physician a 
 man who had been in trouble with the ecclesiastical au- 
 thorities in Italy, he insists that the reason why Vesalius 
 dedicated his great work on anatomy to the Emperor 
 Charles V. was ' ' to shield himself as far as possible in the 
 battle which he foresaw must come. ' ' Later he suggests 
 that it was only the favor of the Emperor saved him 
 from the ecclesiastical authorities. 
 
 All that has been said by historians with regard to the 
 reasons for Vesalius's acceptance of the post of physi- 
 cian to the Emperor Charles V. can only have come from 
 men who either did not know or had for the moment for- 
 gotten the story of Vesalius's ancestry. The family 
 tradition of having one of its members as physician to 
 the Court of the German Emperor was four generations 
 old when Vesalius accepted the position. 
 
 Vesalius 's great-grandfather occupied the position of 
 physician-in-ordinary to Marie of Burgundy, the wife of 
 the German Emperor Maximilian L, the distinguished 
 patron of letters in the Renaissance period. He lived to 
 an advanced age as a professor of medicine at Louvain. 
 
HO THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 From this time on Vesalius' s family always continued in 
 official medical relation to the Austrian-Burgundy ruling 
 family. His grandfather took his father's place as phy- 
 sician to Mary of Burgundy, and wrote a series of com- 
 mentaries on the aphorisms of Hippocrates. Vesalius' s 
 father was the physician and apothecary to Charles V. 
 for a while, and accompanied the Emperor on journeys 
 and campaigns. What more natural than that his son, 
 having reached the distinction of being the greatest 
 medical scientist alive, should be offered, and as a mat- 
 ter of course accept the post of imperial physician ! 
 
 The simple facts of the matter are that Vesalius came 
 down into Italy in order to study anatomy, because in 
 that priest-ridden and ecclesiastically-ruled country he 
 could get better opportunities for anatomical study and 
 investigation than anywhere else in Europe. He spent 
 ten years there and then wrote his classical work on 
 anatomy. After that he spent some years applying 
 anatomy to medicine. Then when he had come to be 
 the acknowledged leader of the medical profession of 
 the world, the Emperor Charles V., at that time the 
 greatest ruler in Europe, asked him to become his court 
 physician. Vesalius accepted, as would any other medi- 
 cal investigator that I have ever known, under the same 
 circumstances. His position with Charles V. gave him 
 opportunities to act -as consultant for many of the most 
 important personages of Europe, and it must not be 
 forgotten that when the King of France was injured in 
 a tournament Vesalius was summoned all the way from 
 Madrid, and gave a bad prognosis in the case. 
 
 In the light of this simple story of Vesalius's life in 
 Italy, and of the reasons for his going there and his de- 
 parture, it is intensely amusing to read the accounts of 
 
THE GOLDEN AGE OF ANATOMY 
 
 this portion of Vesalius 's life, written by those who must 
 maintain at all costs the historical tradition that the 
 Church was opposed to anatomy, that the Popes had 
 forbidden dissection, and that the ecclesiastical authorities 
 were constantly on the watch to hamper, as far as pos- 
 sible at least, if not absolutely to prevent, all anatomical 
 investigation, and were even ready to put to death those 
 who violated the ecclesiastical regulations in this matter. 
 Dr. White, for instance, has made a great hero of 
 Vesalius for daring to do dissection. He was only doing 
 what hundreds of others were doing and had been doing 
 in Italy for hundreds of years ; but to confess this would 
 be to admit that the Church was not opposed to anat- 
 omy or the practice of dissection, and so perforce Vesa- 
 lius must be a hero as well as the Father of Anatomy. 
 To read Dr. White's paragraph in the History of the 
 Warfare of Science with Theology, one cannot but feel 
 sure that Vesalius must practically have risked death 
 over and over again in order to pursue his favorite prac- 
 tice of dissection and his original researches in anatomy. 
 I would be the last one in the world to wish to mini- 
 mize in any way Vesalius's merits. He was a genius, a 
 great discoverer above all an inspiration to methods of 
 study that have been most fruitful in their results, and 
 withal a devout Christian and firm adherent of the 
 Roman Catholic Church. He was not a hero in the mat- 
 ter of dissection, however, for there was no necessity 
 for heroism. Dissection had been practiced very assid- 
 uously before his time in all the universities of Italy, 
 especially in Bologna, which was a Papal city from the 
 beginning of the sixteenth century, and also in Rome at 
 the medical college of the Roman University under the 
 very eye of the Popes. 
 
112 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 In the light of this knowledge read President White's 
 paragraph with regard to Vesalius : 
 
 "From the outset Vesalius proved himself a master. 
 In the search for real knowledge he risked the most ter- 
 rible dangers, and especially the charge of sacrilege, found- 
 ed upon the teachings of the Church for ages. As we 
 have seen, even such men in the early Church as Tertul- 
 lian and St. Augustine held anatomy in abhorrence, and 
 the decretal of Pope Boniface VIII. was universally con- 
 strued as forbidding all dissection, and as threatening ex- 
 communication against those practicing it. Through this 
 sacred conventionalism Vesalius broke without fear ; des- 
 pite ecclesiastical censure, great opposition in his own 
 profession and popular fury, he studied his science by 
 the only method that could give useful results. No peril 
 daunted him. To secure material for his investigations, 
 he haunted gibbets and charnel-houses, braving the fires 
 of the Inquisition and the virus of the^ plague/' (The 
 italics are mine. ) 
 
 A very interesting commentary on the expressions of 
 Professor White with regard to Vesalius is to be found 
 in a paragraph of Von Toply's article on the History of 
 Anatomy in the second volume of Puschmann's History 
 of Medicine, already quoted. "Out of the fruitful soil 
 so well cultivated in the two preceding centuries, there 
 developed at the beginning of the sixteenth century the 
 Renaissance of anatomy, with all the great and also with 
 all the unpleasant features which belong to the impor- 
 tant works of art of that period. One has only to think 
 of Donatello, Mantegna, Michel Angelo, and Verochio to 
 realize these. The Renaissance of anatomy developed 
 in a field of human endeavor which, if it did not owe all, 
 at least owed very much to the art-loving and culture- 
 
THE GOLDEN AGE OF ANATOMY H3 
 
 / 
 
 fostering rulers, Popes and cardinals of the time. Older 
 historians have told the story of the rise of anatomy in 
 such a way that it seemed that the Papal Curia had set 
 itself ever in utter hostility to the development of anat- 
 omy. As a matter of fact, the Papal Court placed 
 scarcely any hindrances in its path. On the contrary, 
 the Popes encouraged anatomy in every way." 
 
 In the page and a half following this quotation Von 
 Toply has condensed into brief form most of what the 
 Popes did for medicine and the medical sciences, though 
 more especially for anatomy, during the centuries from 
 the sixteenth down to the beginning of the nineteenth. 
 Some excerpts from this, with a running commentary, 
 will form the best compendium of the history of the 
 Papal relations to medical education and will show that 
 they are strikingly different from what has usually been 
 said. Von Toply begins with Paul III., who is known 
 in history more especially for his issuance of the Bull 
 founding the Jesuits. It might ordinarily be presumed 
 by those who knew nothing of this Pope, that the Head 
 of the Church, to whom is due an institution such as the 
 Jesuits are supposed to be, would not be interested to 
 the slightest degree in modern sciences, and would be 
 one of the last ecclesiastical authorities from whom pat- 
 ronage of science could possibly be expected. It was 
 he, however, who founded special departments for anat- 
 omy and botany and provided the funds for a salary for 
 a prosector of anatomy at Rome. 
 
 After this practically every Pope in this century has 
 some special benefaction for anatomy to his credit. Pope 
 Paul IV. (1555-59) called Columbus to Rome and gave 
 him every opportunity for the development of his orig- 
 inal genius in anatomical research. Columbus had sue- 
 
114 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 ceeded Vesalius at Padua and had been tempted from 
 there to Pisa by the duke who wished to create in that 
 city a university with the most prominent teachers in 
 every department that there was in Italy, yet it was 
 from this lucrative post that Pope Paul IV. succeeded in 
 winning Columbus. Quite apart from what we know of 
 Columbus' s career at Rome and his successful investiga- 
 tion on the cadaver of many anatomical problems, per- 
 haps the best evidence of the friendly relations of the 
 Popes to him and to his work is to be found in the fact 
 that, first Columbus himself, and then after his death 
 his sons, in issuing their father's magnificent work De 
 Re Anatomica, dedicated it to the successor of Pope 
 Paul IV., the reigning Pope Pius IV. In the meantime 
 Cardinal Delia Rovere had brought Eustachius to Rome 
 to succeed Columbus. 
 
 Under Sixtus V., who was Pope from 1585 to 1590, 
 the distinguished writer on medicine, and especially on 
 anatomy, Piccolomini, published his lectures on anatomy 
 with a dedication to that Pope. It is well known that 
 the relations between the professor of anatomy at the 
 Papal Medical School and the Pope were very friendly. 
 As was the case with regard to Colombo or Columbus, so 
 also with Caesalpinus. Columbus was the first to de- 
 scribe the pulmonary circulation. Csesalpinus is gener- 
 ally claimed by the Italians to have made the discovery 
 of the circulation of the blood throughout the body 
 before Harvey. Columbus had been at Pisa and was 
 tempted to come to Rome. Csesalpinus had also been 
 at Pisa until Clement VIII. held out inducements that 
 brought him to Rome. Clement is the last Pope of 
 the century, but Von Toply mentions five Popes in the 
 next century who were in intimate relations with dis- 
 
THE GOLDEN AGE OF ANATOMY H5 
 
 tinguished investigators into medical subjects and whose 
 
 names are in some way connected with some of the most 
 noteworthy teaching and writing in medical matters 
 
 during the seventeenth century. 
 It will be readily seen what a caricature of the life of 
 
 Vesalius is Prof. White's paragraph, if one compares it 
 with the following paragraph taken from so readily 
 available an historical source as the article on the His- 
 tory of Anatomy, by Prof. Turner, of Edinburgh, in the 
 first volume of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. The dis- 
 tinguished Scotch anatomist who so worthily filled the 
 chair of anatomy at the University of Edinburgh says 
 with regard to Berengar of Carpi, who was the professor 
 of anatomy at Bologna thirty-five years before Vesalius' s 
 time, that, " In the annals of medicine Berengar 's name 
 will be remembered as one of the most zealous and emi- 
 nent in cultivating the anatomy of the human body. It 
 was long before the anatomists of the following age 
 could boast of equalling him. His assiduity was inde- 
 fatigable, and he declares that he dissected above one 
 hundred human bodies." This should be enough, it 
 seems to me, to settle the question that anatomy was 
 permitted very freely before Vesalius 's time. Professor 
 Turner's authority in such a matter is above all suspi- 
 cion. He knew the history of anatomy. 
 
 If more evidence be needed, compare with President 
 White's fantastic sketch of Vesalius the following sketch 
 of his great contemporary, Columbus or Colombo, to 
 whose anatomical investigations we owe the discovery 
 of the pulmonary circulation : 
 
 ' ' The fame of Columbus as an anatomical teacher was 
 exceedingly great and widespread. Students were at- 
 tracted to the universities where he professed, from all 
 
116 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 quarters and in large numbers. He was an ardent stu- 
 dent of his favorite science and was imbued with the 
 genius and enthusiasm of an original investigator. He 
 was not satisfied with the critical examination of mere 
 structure, but extended his researches into the more 
 subtle, difficult and important investigation of the phys- 
 iological function. He has been most aptly styled the 
 Claude Bernard of the sixteenth century. The work of 
 Columbus is a masterpiece of method and purity of 
 style, as well as on account of its richness in facts and 
 observations. He spent over forty years in these studies 
 and researches. He dissected an extraordinary number 
 of human bodies. It must have been an age of remark- 
 able tolerance for scientific investigation, for in a single 
 year he dissected no less than fourteen bodies. He also 
 entered the crypts and catacombs of ancient churches, 
 where the bones of the dead had been preserved and 
 had accumulated century after century, and there, with 
 unwearied care, he handled and compared over a half 
 million of human skulls/ 7 
 
 This account was written by Dr. George Jackson 
 Fisher in his "Historical and Bibliographical Notes" 
 for the Annals of Anatomy and Surgery (Brooklyn, 1878- 
 1880). All the material that Dr. Fisher used in his 
 sketch is to be found in Roth's "Life of Vesalius," p. 
 256. Now, Columbus was a contemporary of Vesalius, 
 and worked with him at Bologna. The years of their 
 lives correspond almost exactly. When Vesalius left 
 Padua to become the royal physician to Charles V., it 
 was Columbus who succeeded him. Later he taught 
 also at Pisa. Then, strange as it may seem for those 
 who have put any faith in Dr. White's excursion into 
 medical science, he was invited to become Professor of 
 
THE GOLDEN AGE OF ANATOMY 
 
 Anatomy at the Papal University at Rome, and it was 
 while there that he had as many as three hundred stu- 
 dents present at his demonstrations in anatomy and there 
 that he did fourteen dissections in one year. The pre- 
 tense that there was any ecclesiastical objection to dis- 
 section becomes absolutely farcical when one compares 
 the life of Vesalius sketched by President White with a 
 motive, and the life of his contemporary and successor, 
 Columbus, by an unbiased physician, whose only idea 
 was to bring out the facts. 
 
 According to Prof. White's opinion, Vesalius dedicated 
 his work to Charles V. to shield himself as far as pos- 
 sible, and after this gave up his anatomical studies in 
 Italy to put himself under the protection of Charles V. 
 
 Vesalius's successor, Columbus, did not have to do 
 any such thing. Instead, he went down to Rome, and 
 under the protection of the Popes continued to carry on 
 his anatomical work there. 
 
 When Charles V. died, however, according to Presi- 
 dent White, a new weapon was forged against Vesalius. 
 Vesalius was charged with dissecting a living man. 
 President White hints that "the forces of ecclesiasti- 
 cism united against the innovators of anatomy, and either 
 from direct persecution or from indirect influences Vesa- 
 lius became a wanderer." Just what that means I do 
 not know. President White does not say that he was 
 exiled, though that idea is implied. There is a great 
 deal of doubt about this charge of Vesalius having made 
 an autopsy on a living person. Roth discusses various 
 versions. The whole thing seems to be a trumped-up 
 story ; but supposing it true, would it not be only proper 
 that a man who made an autopsy on a living person 
 should be brought before the court ? He certainly would 
 
118 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 in our day in any civilized country. Professor Foster, 
 of the University of Cambridge in England, following 
 the lead of President White in this matter, blames the 
 Inquisition for instituting the prosecution. If this were 
 true, no more proof would be needed that the Inquisi- 
 tion was a civil and not a religious institution, since after 
 all the killing of a man by a premature autopsy is a plain 
 case of homicide. 
 
 The fact of the matter seems to be that Vesalius, who 
 had not been very well in the unsuitable climate of Ma- 
 drid, made the trip to the Holy Land, partly for reasons 
 of health, but partly also for reasons of piety. While 
 returning he was shipwrecked on the island of Zante 
 and died from exposure. Vesalius had been born in 
 Brabant, at that time one of the most faithful Catholic 
 countries in Europe. Like most of the other great men 
 of his time, the reformation utterly failed to tempt him 
 from his adhesion to the Catholic Church. His greatest 
 colleagues in anatomy and in medicine were Italians, 
 most of whom were in intimate relations with the Cath- 
 olic ecclesiastics of the time and continued this intimacy 
 in spite of the disturbing influences that were abroad. 
 Many of these men will be mentioned in our account of 
 the Papal Medical School and of the Papal Physicians 
 during the next two or three centuries. The distin- 
 guished anatomists and physicians of France in Vesa- 
 lius' s time were quite as faithful Catholics as he was. 
 Even Paracelsus, the Swiss, whose thorough-going in- 
 dependence of mind would, it might naturally seem, 
 have tempted him to take up with the reformed doc- 
 trines, had no sympathy with them at all. He recog- 
 nized the abuses in the Church, but said that Luther 
 and the so-called reformers were doing much more harm 
 
THE GOLDEN AGE OF ANATOMY H9 
 
 than good, and that until they were gotten rid of no im- 
 provement in ecclesiastical matters could be looked for. 
 When Paracelsus came to die he left his money mainly 
 to the Shrine of the Blessed Virgin in his native town 
 of Einsiedeln and for masses for his soul. Since their 
 time most of the distinguished medical scientists have 
 been quite as faithful in their Catholicity as these two 
 great medical colleagues of the Renaissance period. 
 While medicine is supposed to be unorthodox in its ten- 
 dencies, the really great thinkers in medicine, the men 
 to whose names important discoveries in the science 
 were attached, were not only faithful believers in the 
 doctrines of Christianity, but were much more often 
 than has been thought even devout Catholics. 
 
 At the death of Vesalius the Golden Age of the devel- 
 opment of anatomy was not at its close, but was just 
 beginning. Eustachius, Csesalpinus, Harvey and Mal- 
 pighi were during the course of the next century to 
 make anatomy a science in the strict sense of that word. 
 After Vesalius' s time the history of anatomy in Italy 
 centers around the Papal Medical School to a great ex- 
 tent. During Vesalius 's lifetime his greatest rival be- 
 came the professor of anatomy there. The anatomical 
 school of Bologna, in connection with that city, became 
 an important focus of anatomical investigation. At this 
 time Bologna was a Papal city. It was in the dominions 
 of the Popes, then, as we shall see, that anatomy was 
 carried on with the most success and with the most 
 ardor. Far from there being any opposition to the de- 
 velopment of the science, every encouragement was 
 given to it, and it was the patronage of the Popes and 
 of the higher ecclesiastics that to a great degree made 
 possible the glorious evolution of the science during the 
 next century. 
 
SUPPOSED PAPAL PROHIBITION OF CHEMISTRY. 
 
 A false impression, exactly corresponding to that with 
 regard to anatomy, has been created and fostered by 
 just the same class of writers as exploited the anatomy 
 question, with reference to the attitude of the Popes and 
 the Church of the Middle Ages toward the study of 
 chemistry. This is founded on a similar misrepresenta- 
 tion of a Papal document. When it was pointed out that 
 this Papal document, like Pope Boniface's bull, had no 
 such purport as was suggested, just the same subterfuge 
 as with regard to anatomy was indulged in. If the Papal 
 document did not forbid chemistry directly, as was said, 
 at least it was so misinterpreted, and chemistry failed 
 to develop because of the supposed Papal opposition. 
 These expressions were used, in spite of the fact that, 
 just as in the case of anatomy, it is not hard to trace the 
 rise and development of chemistry, or its predecessor, 
 alchemy, during the years when it is supposed to be in 
 abeyance. Certainly there was no interruption of the 
 progress of chemical science at the date of the supposed 
 Papal prohibition, nor at any other time, as a conse- 
 quence of Church opposition. 
 
 The similarity of these two history lies is so striking 
 as to indicate that they had their birth in the same de- 
 sire to discredit the Popes at all cost, and to make out a 
 case of opposition on the part of ecclesiastical authorities 
 to scientific development, whether it actually existed or 
 not. The surprise is, however, that the same form of 
 invention should have been used in both cases. One 
 
 (120) 
 
SUPPOSED PROHIBITION OF CHEMISTRY 121 
 
 might reasonably have expected that the ingenuity of 
 writers would have enabled them to find another basis 
 for the story on the second occasion. Still more might 
 it have been expected that when the error with regard 
 to the tenor of the Papal document was pointed out to 
 them, a different form of response would be made in the 
 latter instance. The whole subject indicates a dearth 
 of originality that would be amusing if it were on a less 
 serious matter, and does very little credit either to those 
 who are responsible for the first draft of the story, but 
 still less to those who have swallowed it so readily and 
 given it currency. 
 
 The story of the Supposed Papal Prohibition of Chem- 
 istry was characteristically told by William J. Cruik- 
 shank, M. D. , of Brooklyn, New York, in an address 
 bearing the title, ' ' Some Relations of the Church and 
 Scientific Progress, " published in The Medical Library 
 and Historical Journal of Brooklyn for July, 1905. The 
 writer called emphatic attention to the fact that chem- 
 istry, during the Middle Ages, had come under the par- 
 ticular ban of the ecclesiastical authorities, who effect- 
 ually prevented its cultivation or development. "The 
 chemist/' Dr. Cruikshank says, "was called a mis- 
 creant, a sorcerer, and was feared because of his sup- 
 posed partnership with the devil. He was denounced 
 by Pope and priest and was persecuted to the full extent 
 of Papal power. Pope John XXII. was especially ener- 
 getic in this direction, and in the year 1317 A.D., issued 
 a bull calling on all rulers, secular and ecclesiastical, to 
 hunt down the miscreants who were afflicting the faith- 
 ful, and he thereupon increased the power of the Inqui- 
 sition in various parts of Europe for this purpose." 
 
 At the suggestion of the editor of the Medical Library 
 
122 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 and Historical Journal, I answered these assertions of 
 Dr. Cruikshank, pointing out that the Papal document 
 which he mentioned had no such purport as he declared, 
 and that the history of chemistry or alchemy presented 
 no such break as his assertions would demand. Dr. 
 Cruikshank immediately appealed by letter to his au- 
 thority on the subject, whose words, in the History of 
 the Warfare of Theology with Science in Christendom, 
 though I did not realize it at the time, he had repeated 
 almost literally. In his chapter on From Magic to Chem- 
 istry and Physics, Dr. Andrew D. White says : "In 1317, 
 Pope John XXII. issued his bull Spondent pariter, lev- 
 elled at the alchemists, but really dealing a terrible blow 
 at the beginning of chemical science. He therefore 
 called on all rulers, secular and ecclesiastical, to hunt 
 down the miscreants who thus afflicted the faithful, and 
 he especially increased the power of inquisitors in vari- 
 ous parts of Europe for this purpose. " It will be seen 
 that, as I have said, Dr. Cruikshank's words are al- 
 most a verbatim quotation from this paragraph. It is 
 true that he has strengthened the expressions quite a 
 little and added some trimmings of his own, still I sup- 
 pose his expressions could be justified if those of Presi- 
 dent White had a foundation in fact. A little compari- 
 son of the two sets of phrases will show how a history 
 lie grows as it passes from pen to pen. Crescit eundo 
 like rumor, it increases in size as it goes. 
 
 In defense of this passage in the History of the War- 
 fare of Science with Theology in Christendom, Dr. White 
 wrote a letter of reply to Dr. Cruikshank, which was in- 
 corporated into Dr. Cruikshank's response to my article 
 in the Medical Library and Historical Journal. I pre- 
 sume that this was done with Dr. White's permission. 
 
SUPPOSED PROHIBITION OF CHEMISTRY 123 
 
 / 
 
 In this letter he admitted that Pope John's decretal had 
 no such significance as he originally claimed for it, but 
 he still maintained his previous opinion, that this de- 
 cretal, like Boniface's bull for anatomy, had actually 
 prevented, or at least greatly hampered the study of 
 chemistry. To this I replied with a brief story of 
 chemistry in the fourteenth century, and though that 
 article was published more than a year ago, no admis- 
 sion has been made and nothing further has been pub- 
 lished on the subject. The material of the reply to Dr. 
 White, to which as yet there has been no answer, is com- 
 prised in this chapter. 
 
 As I have already hinted, the most surprising thing 
 about this citation of a Papal decree forbidding chem- 
 istry, is that it proves on investigation to be founded on 
 just exactly the same sort of misinterpretation of a 
 Papal document as happened with regard to anatomy. 
 The bull of Pope Boniface VIII. forbidding the boiling 
 of bodies and their dismemberment for burial in distant 
 lands, did nothing to hinder the progress of anatomy, 
 had no reference to any preparations required for dis- 
 section, and was not misinterpreted in any such sense 
 until the nineteenth century, and then only for the pur- 
 pose of discrediting the Popes and their relations to sci- 
 ence. Pope Boniface's bull, far from being harmful in 
 any way to education or to the people, was really bene- 
 ficial, and constituted an excellent sanitary regulation 
 which doubtless prevented, on a number of occasions, 
 the carriage of disease from place to place. 
 
 The decree of Pope John XXII. , which has been falsely 
 claimed to forbid chemistry, was another example of 
 Papal care for Christendom, and not at all the obscur- 
 antist document it has been so loudly proclaimed. Pope 
 
124 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 John learned how much imposition was being practiced 
 on the people by certain so-called alchemists who claimed 
 to be able to make silver and gold out of baser metals. 
 In order to prevent this, within a year after his eleva- 
 tion to the pontificate he issued not a bull, but a very 
 different form of document a decretal forbidding any 
 "alchemies" of this kind. The punishment to be in- 
 flicted, however, instead of being the penalty of death, 
 as Dr. Cruikshank, Dr. White and many others have de- 
 clared, or at least let it be understood from their mode 
 of expression, was that the person convicted of pretend- 
 ing to make gold and silver and selling it to other people,, 
 should pay into the public treasury an amount equal to 
 the supposed amount of gold and silver that he had 
 made. The money thus paid into the public treasury was 
 to be given to the poor. 
 
 The best way to show exactly what Pope John in- 
 tended by his decree is to quote the decree. It does not 
 occur in the ordinary collection of the bulls of John 
 XXII. , for it was not, as we have said, a bull in the 
 canonical sense of the term, but a Papal document of 
 minor importance. There is an important distinction 
 between a decree and a bull, the former being but of 
 lesser significance, usually referring only to passing 
 matters of discipline. The decretal may be found in the 
 Corpus Juris Canonica, Tome II., which was published 
 at Lyons in 1779. It is among the decrees or constitu- 
 tions known as Extra vagantes. 1 
 
 1 The meaning of this term we discussed in the previous chapter on Anatomy in 
 relation to the bull of Boniface and Liber VI. The motto of the publisher of the 
 volume in which it occurs deserves quotation because of its apt application in the 
 present circumstance. It is in Latin : "Quod tibi fieri non vis, alteri ne feceris" 
 " What you would not have done to yourself, don't do to another." If writers about 
 the Popes were as careful to substantiate accusations against them as fully as they 
 would like any accusations against themselves to be corroborated before beinj? 
 
. * 
 
 SUPPOSED PROHIBITION OF CHEMISTRY 125 
 
 We quote the decree as it is found in Canon Law: 
 
 " THE CRIME OF FALSIFICATION. 
 
 " Alchemies are here prohibited and those who prac- 
 tise them or procure their being done are punished. 
 " They must forfeit to the public treasury for the bene- 
 "fit of the poor as much genuine gold and silver as 
 1 'they have manufactured of the false or adulterate 
 " metal. If they have not sufficient means for this, the 
 "penalty may be changed to another at the discretion 
 "of the judge, and they shall be considered criminals. 
 " If they are clerics, they shall be deprived of any bene- 
 " fices that they hold and be declared incapable of hold- 
 ing others. (See also the Extravagant of the same 
 John which begins with the word ' Providens ' and 
 " is placed under the same title.) 1 
 
 Poor themselves, the alchemists promise riches 
 "which are not forthcoming; wise also in their own 
 " conceit they fall into the ditch which they themselves 
 4 'have digged. For there is no doubt that the profes- 
 "sors of this art of alchemy make fun of each other 
 "because, conscious of their own ignorance, they are 
 " surprised at those who say anything of this kind about 
 " themselves ; when the truth sought does not come to 
 "them they fix on a day [for their experiment] and 
 "exhaust all their arts; then they dissimulate [their 
 " failure] so that finally, though there is no such thing 
 " in nature, they pretend to make genuine gold and sil- 
 "ver by a sophistic transmutation; to such an extent 
 "does their damned and damnable temerity go that 
 "they stamp upon the base metal the characters of 
 
 accepted and circulated, we should hear much less of Papal intolerance and of Church 
 opposition to science. Even a dead Pope must be considered as a man whose reputa- 
 tion one should not malign without good reason and substantial proof. I must add 
 that, as with regard to the other Papal documents mentioned, I owe the copy of this 
 decree to Father Corbett, of St. Charles Borromeo Seminary, Overbrook, Pennsyl- 
 vania, and am indebted to him besides for many helpful suggestions. 
 
 1 The decree referred to here was issued by John XXII. against the counterfeiting: 
 of the money of France. The fact that the two decrees should be considered by 
 canonists as connected in subject shows just what was thought to be the purport of 
 the first, namely, to prevent the debasement of the currency by the admixture of 
 adulterate gold as well as to protect the ignorant from imposition. 
 
126 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 " public money for believing eyes, and it is only in this 
 ' ' way that they deceive the ignorant populace as to the 
 ' ' alchemic fire of their furnace. Wishing to banish such 
 ' ' practices for all time, we have determined by this 
 ' ' formal edict that whoever shall make gold or silver of 
 ' ' this kind or shall order it made, provided the attempt 
 "actually follows, or whoever shall knowingly assist 
 "those engaged (actually) in such a process, or who- 
 " ever shall knowingly make use of such gold or silver 
 " either by selling it or giving it for debt, shall be com- 
 " pelled as a penalty to pay into the public treasury, to 
 1 ' be used for the poor, as much by weight of genuine 
 "gold and silver as there may be of alchemic metal, 
 "provided it be proved lawfully that they have been 
 "guilty in any of the aforesaid ways; for those who 
 " persist in making alchemic gold, or, as has been said, 
 ' ' in using it knowingly, let them be branded with the 
 "mark of perpetual infamy. But if the means of the 
 "delinquents are not sufficient for the payment of the 
 ' ' amount stated, then the good judgment of the justice 
 "may commute this penalty into some other (as, for 
 ' ' example, imprisonment, or another punishment, ac- 
 " cording to the nature of the case, the difference of 
 "individuals, and other circumstances.) Those, how- 
 "ever, who in their regrettable folly go so far as not 
 ' ' only to sell moneys thus made but even despise the 
 ' ' precepts of the natural law, pass the bounds of their 
 "art and violate the laws by deliberately coining or 
 " casting or haying others coin or cast counterfeit money 
 ' ' from alchemic gold or silver, we proclaim as coming 
 "under this animadversion, and their goods shall be 
 1 * confiscate, and they shall be considered as criminals. 
 "And if the delinquents are clerics, besides the afore- 
 " said penalties they shall be deprived of any benefices 
 " they shall hold and shall be declared incapable of hold- 
 " ing any further benefices/' a 
 
 It is evident that John's decree against "The Crime 
 of Falsification " did not directly forbid chemistry, nor 
 alchemy in the proper sense of the word, nor did it in 
 any way interfere with the study of substances to de- 
 
 1 The Latin text of this decretal will be found entire in the appendix. 
 
SUPPOSED PROHIBITION OF CHEMISTRY 127 
 
 termine their composition, or the synthesis of materials 
 to produce others, provided there was no pretense of 
 making gold and silver in order to obtain genuine gold 
 and silver from ignorant dupes. There seems to be no 
 doubt that had the famous scheme to obtain gold from 
 sea water, which caused serious loss to so many foolish 
 and even poor people a few years ago, come up during 
 the time of John XXII. , he would have prevented it 
 from being so lucrative to its promoters, by publicly 
 denouncing them and promulgating a law for their 
 punishment. 
 
 It may be considered that excommunication was not a 
 very severe penalty for such dishonest practices, and 
 that the sharpers who gave themselves to such a profes- 
 sion, which would be about that of the confidence or 
 green goods men of our time, were not likely to be 
 affected much by this merely religious deprivation. It 
 must not be forgotten, however, that in those ages of 
 faith, excommunication became an extremely telling 
 social punishment. It was forbidden that anyone, even 
 nearest and dearest friends, should have anything to do 
 with the one excommunicated until the ban was re- 
 moved. It was bad enough in a town where everyone 
 belonged to the same church, and all went to church 
 frequently, to be forbidden to go there ; it was infinitely 
 worse, however, to have everybody who passed refuse 
 to greet you or have relations of any kind with you. 
 President Hadley, of Yale, said, not long since, that 
 social ostracism is the only effective punishment for 
 such manifest extra legal irregularities, which are 
 yet not so essentially criminal as to bring those guilty 
 of them under legal punishment. The sentence of ex- 
 communication was an effective social ostracism the 
 
128 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 completest possible. This is an aspect of excommunica- 
 tions usually missed, but well deserving of study by 
 those who resent the use of such an instrument by 
 ecclesiastical authorities. Just as soon as the man re- 
 pented of what he had done and promised to do so no 
 more, he was received back into the Church, and the 
 ostracism ceased, so long as he did not relapse into his 
 forbidden ways. 
 
 When the eminently beneficial character of this Papal 
 document is thus appreciated, it is indeed painful to 
 have to realize, that for its issuance John has been held 
 up more to scorn and ridicule than perhaps has ever 
 been the case for any other single formal document that 
 has ever been issued by an ecclesiastical or political 
 authority. He was simply correcting an abuse in his 
 day, the existence of which we recognize and would like 
 to be able to correct in ours. For this eminently proper 
 exercise of the Papal power, however, his whole charac- 
 ter has been called into question, and a distinguished 
 modern educator has used every effort to place him in 
 the pillory of history, as one of the men who have done 
 most to hamper progress in science and education in all 
 world history. The amusing thing is the utter inequal- 
 ity between the document itself and its supposed effects. 
 Of course it had no such effect as President White 
 claims for it, and, indeed, he seems never to have seen 
 the document in its entirety before it was called for- 
 cibly to his attention long after his declarations with 
 regard to it were published. The real attitude of Pope 
 John XXII. with regard to education and the sciences, 
 which was exactly the reverse of that predicated of him 
 by his modern colleague in education, will be the subject 
 of the next chapter. 
 
SUPPOSED PROHIBITION OF CHEMISTRY 129 
 
 There is another document of John XXII. , the bull 
 Super Ulius Specula, that has been sometimes quoted, 
 or rather misquoted, and which indeed at first I was in- 
 clined to think was the bull referred to by Dr. Cruik- 
 shank. This second Papal document, however, was not 
 issued until 1326. It is concerned entirely with the 
 practice of magic. The Pope knew that many people, 
 by pretended intercourse with the devil or with spirits 
 of various kinds, claimed to be able to injure, to obtain 
 precious information, to interpret the future and the 
 past, and to clear up most of the mysteries that bother 
 mankind. We have them still with us the palmist, the 
 fortune-teller, the fake-spiritist. In order to prevent 
 such impostures, John issued a bull forbidding such 
 practices under pain of excommunication. It is almost 
 needless to say that this Papal document must have 
 effected quite as much good for the people at large as 
 did the previous one forbidding ' ' alchemies, " which 
 must have prevented the robbing of foolish dupes who 
 were taken with the idea that the alchemists whom they 
 employed could make gold and silver. Of this second 
 Papal document, this time really a bull, we shall, be- 
 cause President White has give"n it an even falser con- 
 struction than the one we have just been discussing, 
 have more to say in the next chapter. 
 
 We must return, however, to the decretal Spondent 
 pariter, the decree supposed to have forbidden chem- 
 istry ; for as with regard to the bull of Boniface VIII. , 
 previously discussed, it seems that it is necessary not 
 only to show that the decree was not actually intended by 
 the Popes to prohibit chemistry, but also it will have to 
 be made clear that it was not misinterpreted so as to 
 hamper chemical investigation. This is indeed a very 
 
130 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 curious state of affairs in history. First, it is solemnly 
 declared, that certain bulls and Papal documents were 
 directed deliberately against the sciences of anatomy and 
 chemistry by the Head of the Church, who wished to 
 prevent the development of these sciences lest they 
 should lessen his power over his people. Then, when it 
 is shown that the documents in question have no such 
 tenor, but are simple Papal regulations for the preven- 
 tion of abuses which had arisen, and that they actually 
 did accomplish much good for generations for which 
 they were issued, the reply is not an acknowledgement 
 of error, but an insistence on the previous declaration, 
 somewhat in this form : ' ' Well, the Popes may not have 
 intended it, but these sciences, as a consequence of 
 their decrees, did not develop, and the Popes must be 
 considered as to blame for that." Then, instead of 
 showing that these sciences did not develop, this part is 
 assumed and the whole case is supposed to be proved. 
 Could anything well be more preposterous. And this is 
 history ! Nay, it is even the history of science. 
 
 When I called attention to the fact that this decretal 
 contained none of the things it was said to, and pub- 
 lished the text of it, Dr. White very calmly replied : 
 ' ' Dr. Walsh has indeed correctly printed it, and I notice 
 no flaw in his translation. " Instead of conceding, how- 
 ever, that he had been mistaken, he seemed to consider 
 it quite sufficient to add, ' ' I have followed what I found 
 to be the unanimous opinion of the standard historians 
 of chemistry. " He did not mention any of the histo- 
 rians, however. I asked him by letter to name some of 
 the standard historians of chemistry who made this 
 declaration, but though I received a courteous reply, it 
 contained no names, and, indeed, avoided the question 
 
SUPPOSED PROHIBITION OF CHEMISTRY 
 
 of chemistry entirely. It is not too much to expect 
 that an historian shall quote his authorities. Dr. White 
 seems to be above this. Some documents that he quotes 
 are distorted, and prove on examination, as we have 
 seen, to have quite a different meaning to that which he 
 gives them. As might be expected, his supposed facts 
 prove to have as little foundation. It will be remem- 
 bered that he completely ignored or was ignorant of the 
 history of anatomy. He seems to have been just as ig- 
 norant of the history of chemistry, in spite of his confi- 
 dent assurance in making far-reaching statements with 
 regard to it. In order to satisfy myself, I went through 
 all of the standard histories of chemistry in German, 
 English and French that are available in the libraries of 
 New York City, and I failed to find a single one of them 
 which contains anything that might be supposed even 
 distantly to confirm President White's assertion. 
 
 I may have missed it, and shall be glad to know if I 
 have. I cannot do more than cite certain of them that 
 should have it very prominently, if Dr. White's asser- 
 tion is to be taken at its face value. Here are some 
 standard historians whom I have searched in vain for 
 the declaration that all of them should have. 
 
 Kopp, who is the German historian of chemistry, 
 mentions the fact that there was much less cultivation 
 of chemistry during the fourteenth century than during 
 the thirteenth, but makes no mention of the "bull of 
 Pope John as being responsible for it. There are curious 
 cycles of interest in particular departments of science, 
 with intervals of comparative lack of interest that can 
 only be explained by the diversion of human mind to other 
 departments of study. This seems to have happened 
 with regard to chemistry in the fourteenth century. 
 
132 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 Hoefer, the French historian of chemistry, mentions 
 the fact that Pope John XXII. took severe measures 
 against the alchemists who then wandered throughout 
 the country, seeking to enrich themselves at the expense 
 of the credulity of the people. He evidently knew of 
 this decree then, but he says nothing of its forbidding 
 or being misinterpreted, so as to seem to forbid chemi- 
 cal investigation. Thomson, the English historian of 
 chemistry, has no mention of any break in the develop- 
 ment of chemical science, caused by any action of the 
 Popes, though, to the surprise doubtless of most readers, 
 he devotes considerable space to the history of chemical 
 investigation during the thirteenth and fourteenth cen- 
 turies. Ernst von Meyer mentions the fact that alchemy 
 was abused by charlatans, in order to make pretended 
 gold and silver, and notes that there was not so much 
 interest in chemistry in the fourteenth as in the thir- 
 teenth century, but does not ascribe this fact to the bull 
 of Pope John. 
 
 I expected at least that I should find something with 
 regard to the question of the possible influence of the 
 bull in Berthelot's ''History of Chemistry in the Middle 
 Ages." 1 But though there are various historical topics 
 treated that would seem to imply the necessity for say- 
 ing something about the bull, if it had any such effect 
 as described, yet there is no mention of it. He men- 
 tions the Franciscan alchemists of northern Italy, who 
 lived about this time, and discusses the "Rosarium," 
 written very probably after the date of the bull by a 
 Franciscan monk, but there is no suggestion as to any 
 hampering of alchemy by Papal or other ecclesiastical 
 restrictions. 
 
 1 Berthelot's Histoire de la Chimie au Moyen Age. Paris, 1893. 
 
SUPPOSED PROHIBITION OF CHEMISTRY 133 
 
 The French Grande Encyclopedie does not mention it, 
 nor does a German encyclopaedia, also consulted. Even 
 the Encyclopaedia Britannica, in its article on alchemy, 
 makes no mention of the prohibition of alchemy by Pope 
 John XXII. , and when the Encyclopaedia Britannica 
 does not mention any scandal with regard to the Popes, 
 then the scandal in question must have an extremely 
 slight or no foundation. 
 
 Of course this is what might be expected. Anyone 
 who reads the Papal decree can see at once that it has 
 nothing to do with, or say about, chemistry or chemical 
 investigation. Since, however, an aspersion has been 
 cast upon the progress of chemistry during the Middle 
 Ages, and since it will surely be thought by many people 
 that, if chemistry did not happen to interest mankind at 
 that time, it must have been because the Pope was 
 opposed to it (for such seems to be the curious chain of 
 reasoning of certain scholars) , it has seemed well to re- 
 view briefly the story of chemistry during the thir- 
 teenth, fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. More will 
 be said about it in the chapter on Science at the Medie- 
 val Universities, and here the only idea is to bring out 
 the fact that men were interested in what we now call 
 chemical problems ; that whatever interest they had 
 was absolutely unhampered by ecclesiastical opposition ; 
 that indeed the very men who did the best work in this 
 line, and their work is by no means without significance 
 in the history of science, were all clergymen ; and that 
 most of them were in high favor with the Popes, and 
 some of them have since received the honor of being 
 canonized as saints. 
 
 Take for a moment the example of the great English 
 medieval scientist who wrote near the end of the thir- 
 
134 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 teenth century a work on science', which was undertaken 
 at the command of the Pope of his time, to show him 
 the character of the teaching of science at the Univer- 
 sity of Oxford. Roger Bacon defined the limits of 
 chemistry very accurately and showed that he under- 
 stood exactly what the subject and methods of investi- 
 gation must be, in order that advance should be made 
 in it. Of chemistry he speaks in his " Opus Tertium " 
 in the following words: " There is a science which 
 treats of the generation of things from , their elements 
 and of all inanimate things, as of the elements and 
 liquids, simple and compound, common stones, gems and 
 marble, gold and other metals, sulphur, salts, pigments, 
 lapis lazuli, minium and other colors, oils, bitumen, and 
 infinite more of which we find nothing in the books of 
 Aristotle ; nor are the natural philosophers nor any of 
 the Latins acquainted with these things. " 
 
 The thirteenth century saw the rise of a number of 
 great physical scientists, who made observations that 
 anticipated much more of our modern views on scientific 
 problems than is usually thought. One of the greatest 
 of the chemists of the thirteenth century was Albert 
 the Great, or Albertus Magnus, as he is more familiarly 
 called, who taught for many years at the University of 
 Paris. He was a theologian as well as a physician and 
 a scientist. His works have been published in twenty- 
 one folio volumes, which will give some idea of the im- 
 mense industry of the man. Those relating to chemistry 
 are as follows : Concerning Metals and Minerals ; Con- 
 cerning Alchemy ; A Treatise on the Secrets of Chem- 
 istry ; A Brief Compend on the Origin of the Metals ; 
 A Concordance, that is, a Collection, of Observations 
 from Many Sources, with Regard to the Philosopher's 
 
SUPPOSED PROHIBITION OF CHEMISTRY 135 
 
 Stone ; A Treatise on Compounds ; a book of eight chap- 
 ters on the Philosopher's Stone. Most of these are to be 
 found in his works under the general heading " Theat- 
 rum Chemicum." Thomson, in his " History of Chem- 
 istry/' says, that they are, in general, plain and intel- 
 ligible. Albertus Magnus's most famous pupil was the 
 celebrated Thomas Aquinas. Three of his works are on 
 chemistry : The Intimate Secrets of Alchemy ; on the 
 Essence and Substance of Minerals ; and finally, later 
 in life, the Wonders of Alchemy. It is in this last work, 
 it is said, that the word amalgam occurs for the first 
 time. While Thomas Aquinas and Albertus Magnus 
 were working in France and Germany, Roger Bacon 
 was doing work of similar nature at Oxford in England. 
 Altogether, he has eighteen treatises on chemical prob- 
 lems. Some of these contain wonderful anticipations of 
 modern chemistry. After Roger Bacon came Raymond 
 Lully, who wrote, in all, sixteen treatises on chemical 
 subjects. At about the same time, Arnold of Villanova 
 was teaching medicine at Paris and paying special atten- 
 tion to chemistry. From him there are twenty-one 
 treatises on chemical subjects still extant. Arnold of 
 Villanova died on the way to visit Pope Clement V., 
 the immediate predecessor of John, who lay sick unto 
 death at Avignon. 
 
 It is evident, then, that there was no spirit of opposi- 
 tion to chemistry gradually forming itself in ecclesiasti- 
 cal circles, and about to be expressed in a decree by 
 John. The chemists of the thirteenth century had been 
 among the most distinguished churchmen of the period. 
 One of them at least, Thomas Aquinas, had been de- 
 clared a saint. Another, Albertus Magnus, has been 
 given the title of Blessed, signifying that his life and 
 
136 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 works are worthy of all veneration. Pope John XXII. 
 had as a young man been a student of these men at the 
 University of Paris, and would surely have imbibed the 
 tradition of their interest in the physical sciences. That 
 he should have unlearned all their lessons seems out of 
 the question. 
 
 It remains, then, to see whether there was any dimi- 
 nution of the interest in chemistry after the issue of this 
 decree by John. In the fourteenth century we find the 
 two Hollanduses, probably father and son, whose lives 
 run during most of the century, doing excellent work in 
 science. They frequently refer to the writings of Ar- 
 nold of Villanova, so that they certainly post-date him. 
 From them altogether, we have some eleven treatises 
 on various chemical subjects. Some of these, especially 
 with regard to minerals, have very clear descriptions of 
 processes of treatment which serve to show that their 
 knowledge was by no means merely theoretical or ac- 
 quired only from books. 
 
 Probably before the end of the fourteenth century 
 there was born a man who must be considered the 
 father of modern pharmaceutical chemistry. This was 
 Basil Valentine, the German Benedictine monk, whose 
 best known work is the "The Triumphal Chariot of An- 
 timony/' Its influence can be best appreciated from 
 the fact that it introduced the use of antimony into 
 medicine definitely, and that substance continued to be 
 used for centuries, so that it was not until practically 
 our own generation that the true limitations of its use- 
 fulness were found. Valentine described the process of 
 making muriatic acid, which he called the spirit of salt, 
 and taught how to obtain alcohol in concentrated form. 
 Altogether, this monk-alchemist, who was really the 
 
SUPPOSED PROHIBITION OF CHEMISTRY 137 
 
 first of the chemists, left twenty-three treatises, some of 
 them good-sized books, on various subjects in chemistry. 1 
 It does not look, then, as though chemistry was much 
 neglected during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. 
 
 One step more in the history remains to be taken, 
 which brings us down to a man who is more familiar to 
 modern physicians Paracelsus. Paracelsus received 
 his education just at the beginning of the sixteenth cen- 
 tury, before the Reformation began. He was not a 
 man, as those who know his character will thoroughly 
 appreciate, to confess that he had received much assist- 
 ance from others. He does mention, however, that he 
 was helped in his chemical studies by the Abbot Trit- 
 hemius, of Spanheim ; by Bishop Scheit, of Stettbach ; 
 by Bishop Erhardt, of Lavanthol ; by Bishop Nicholas, 
 of Hippon ; and by Bishop Matthew Schacht. 
 
 We have been able to follow, then, the development 
 of chemistry during the fourteenth and fifteenth centu- 
 ries down to the time of the Reformation, and find no- 
 where any lessening of the ardor for chemical studies, 
 though most of the great names in the science continue 
 to be, as they were before the decree was issued, those 
 of distinguished ecclesiastics. John's decree, then, was 
 neither intended to hamper the development of chem- 
 istry, nor did it accidentally prevent those who were 
 most closely in touch with the ecclesiastical authorities 
 from pursuing their studies. Those, of course, who 
 knew anything of the character of the author, would 
 not expect it to interfere with the true progress of 
 science. As we shall see in the next chapter, Pope 
 John XXII. was really one of the most liberal patrons 
 of education and of science in history. 
 
 1 For a brief sketch of his career see my Catholic Churchmen in Science, Dolphin 
 Press, Philadelphia, 1906. 
 
A PAPAL PATRON OF EDUCATION AND 
 SCIENCE. 
 
 The question of the Papal bull supposed to forbid 
 chemistry, or at least its mother science, alchemy, has 
 necessarily brought into prominence in this volume the 
 name of Pope John XXII. Few Popes in history have 
 been the subject of more bitter denunciation than John. 
 Writers on the history of the Papacy who were them- 
 selves not members of the Catholic Church, have been 
 almost a unit in condemning him for many abuses of 
 Papal power, especially such as were associated with the 
 employment of Church privileges for the accumulation 
 of money. Certain Catholic historians even have not 
 found themselves able to rid their appreciation of the 
 character of Pope John from similar objections. It is 
 acknowledged that he was one of the most learned men 
 of his time. It is confessed that he was one of the most 
 abstemious of men. Indeed, in this respect he has been 
 very appropriately compared with Pope Leo XIII. He 
 did succeed in setting the Papacy on a firm foundation 
 in Avignon, and did arrange the financial economy of 
 the Church in such a way that large amounts of money 
 were bound to accumulate in the Papal treasury. 
 
 This has been the main element of the accusations 
 against him. A prominent American encyclopaedia 
 summed up his character very trenchantly as follows : 
 1 ' He was learned in Canon Law and was remarkable 
 for avarice. " Many have not hesitated to say that even 
 his condemnation of alchemy had for its main purpose 
 
 (138) 
 
PAPAL PATRON OF SCIENCE 139 
 
 the idea of added revenues for the Papal See, by the 
 fines inflicted, and by the confiscation of the goods of 
 those condemned as well as by the Court fees in the 
 matter, though there is nothing in the decree to justify 
 such an opinion, and we have pointed out that the fines 
 collected were, according to the document itself, to be 
 given to the poor. 
 
 With the ecclesiastical aspects of Pope John's charac- 
 ter we have nothing to do here. It would require a 
 large volume by itself properly to tell the story of his 
 life, for he was one of the most influential men of an 
 important time, and though he ascended the Papal 
 throne when he was past seventy, he lived to be ninety, 
 and his pontificate is filled with evidence of his strenuous 
 activity till the end of his life. There is no doubt that 
 the regulations for which he is responsible with regard 
 to the Papal finances eventually led to very serious 
 abuses in the Church. It is easy to understand, how- 
 ever, how special arrangements had to be made for the 
 support of the Holy See at Avignon. Pope John XXII. 's 
 predecessor, Clement, was the first Pope who, because 
 of the unsettled state of affairs in Italy and the influ- 
 ence of the French King, resolved to live at Avignon 
 instead of Rome. Under these circumstances, the ordi- 
 nary sources of revenue for the support of the Papal 
 Court, which required comparatively as expensive an 
 establishment then as now, were more or less cut off. 
 During the first pontificate at Avignon, this proved a 
 serious drawback to ecclesiastical efficiency. In Pope 
 John's time the necessity for providing revenues became 
 acute. Besides, he wished to make the new Papal City 
 as worthy of the Holy See as the old one had been. To 
 him is largely due the development of Avignon, which 
 
140 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 occurred during the fourteenth century. The abuses 
 which his regulations in this matter led to did not cul- 
 minate in his time, but came later. The revenues 
 obtained by him were, as we shall see, used to excellent 
 purpose, and were applied to such educational and mis- 
 sionary uses as would eminently meet the approval of 
 the most demanding of critics in modern times. 
 
 John was a liberal and discriminating patron of learn- 
 ing and of education in his time. He helped colleges in 
 various parts of the world, established a college in the 
 East, and sent out many missionaries at his own ex- 
 pense. These missionaries proved as efficient as modern 
 travelers in adding to the knowledge of the East at that 
 time, and practically laid the foundations of the science 
 of geography. 1 
 
 What is of special interest to us here, however, in 
 this volume, is the fact that Pope John gave all the 
 weight of the Papal authority, the most important in- 
 fluence of the time in Europe, to the encouragement of 
 medical schools, the maintenance of a high standard 
 in them, and the development of scientific medicine. 
 At this time medicine included many of the physical 
 sciences as we know them at the present time. Botany, 
 mineralogy, climatology, even astrology, as astronomy 
 was then called, were the subjects of study by physi- 
 cians, the last named because of the supposed influence 
 of the stars on the human constitution. Because of his 
 encouragement of medical schools and his emphatic in- 
 sistence on their maintaining high standards, Pope John 
 must be commended as a patron of science and as prob- 
 
 1 Those who are interested in the wonderful things accomplished for geography by 
 these missionary travelers of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, will find a 
 brief account of them in the chapter on Geography and Exploration in my book on 
 The Thirteenth, Greatest of Centuries. 
 
PAPAL PATRON OF SCIENCE 141 
 
 ably having exerted the most beneficial influence in his 
 time on education. 
 
 This is of course very different from what is usually 
 said of this Pope. Prof. White can scarcely find words 
 harsh enough to apply to him, because of his supposed 
 superstition and the influence which he had upon his 
 time in leading men's minds away from science and into 
 the foolish absurdities of superstitious practices. Pope 
 John XXII. is one of the special betes noires of the some- 
 time President of Cornell. Yet, I am sure that when the 
 formal documents which Pope John has left relating to 
 education and science are read by modern educators, 
 they cannot help but consider him as one of their most 
 enterprising colleagues in the realm of education. In- 
 deed, a number of his bulls read very much like the 
 documents that issue occasionally from college presidents 
 with regard to the maintenance of standards in educa- 
 tion, and his encouragement of the giving of the best 
 possible opportunities for scientific and literary studies, 
 and especially that the smaller colleges shall be equal as 
 far as possible to the greater institutions of learning, 
 will arouse the sympathetic interest of every educator 
 of the modern day. 
 
 The documents that I shall quote in translations (the 
 originals may be found in the appendix) will show that 
 the Pope wanted the doctorates in philosophy and in 
 medicine to be given only after seven years of study, at 
 least four of which were to be devoted to the post- 
 graduate work in the special branch selected. He 
 wished, moreover, to insist on the necessity for pre- 
 liminary education. He wanted the permission to teach 
 these branches, which in that day was equivalent to 
 our term of doctorate, to be given in all institutions for 
 
142 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 the same amount of work and after similar tests. These 
 are just the matters that have occupied the thoughts of 
 university presidents for the last quarter of a century, 
 and have been the subjects of discussion in the meetings 
 of various college and university associations. Pope 
 John's bulls would be interesting documents to have 
 read before such associations even at the present time, 
 and would form excellent suggestive material on which 
 the discussion of the necessity for maintaining college 
 standards might well be founded. This is so different 
 from what is usually thought in the matter, that person- 
 ally I have found it even rather amusing. It is not 
 amusing, however, to think that this great progressive, 
 yet conservative educator should have been so mis- 
 represented by modern educators and historians, simply 
 because they did not study the man in his own writings, 
 but knew him only at second hand from those who 
 judged his character from another standpoint. 
 
 All this will show John as really one of the greatest 
 Popes not only in the century in which he lived, but as 
 distinguished as only a comparatively small number 
 have been among the successors of Peter. Though he 
 ascended the Papal throne at the age of seventy, the 
 next twenty years were full of work of all kinds, and 
 John's wonderful capacity for work stamps him as one 
 of the great men of all time. It is a well-known rule, 
 constantly kept in mind by Catholic students of history, 
 that the Popes against whom the most objections are 
 urged by non-Catholic historians are practically always 
 found, on close and sympathetic study, to be striking ex- 
 amples of men who at least labored to accomplish much. 
 As a rule, they strove to correct abuses, and as a con- 
 sequence made bitter enemies, who left behind them 
 
PAPAL PATRON OF SCIENCE 143 
 
 many contemporary expressions of disapproval. Any 
 contemporary authority is somehow supposed to be in- 
 fallible. We forget, when a man tries to do good he is 
 likely to meet with bitter opposition from many. If 
 their expressions are taken seriously by historians who 
 write with the purpose of finding just as little good and 
 just as much evil as possible in a particular character, 
 the resulting appreciation is likely to be rather far from 
 the truth. If some of the criticisms of our present Pres- 
 ident are only preserved long enough, how easy it will 
 be for a future historian who may have the purpose of 
 showing how much of evil began as the result of his 
 policy, to find material on which to build up his thesis. 
 Men who do nothing make no enemies and also make no 
 mistakes. Fortunately, however, doing things is its own 
 justification. 
 
 John XXII. had had eminent opportunities for the 
 acquisition of an education as thorough, and a culture as 
 broad, as any that might be afforded even by our educa- 
 tional opportunities at the present time. He had been 
 many years at the University of Paris ; he had traveled 
 in England, a rare occurrence in those days, and had 
 spent most of his time while there at Oxford ; he had 
 also passed several years in Italy and was familiar with 
 educational conditions down there. He certainly did 
 more for education than any man of his generation. 
 He had the greatest of opportunities, but it cannot but 
 be said that he took them, very wonderfully. There are 
 very few in all the history of education who have insisted 
 as he on the important principles of the necessity for care- 
 ful training, for the maintenance of high standards in 
 examination and degree-giving, and for the endeavor to 
 bring the large universities in intimate contact with the 
 
144 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 small ones, to the benefit especially of the latter, though, 
 as we know now, always also to the reactionary advan- 
 tage of the important institutions. All this is to be found 
 in the documentary history of a man who has been, set 
 up as an object of scorn and derision by modern educa- 
 tors, who surely, if they knew the actual facts, would 
 be sympathetic, and not antipathetic as they have been. 
 
 It seems too bad that it was just this man that should 
 have been picked out for the slander that he had pre- 
 vented the development of chemistry by a Papal decree, 
 which proves on examination to be only an added evi- 
 dence of his beneficent care for his people. But this is 
 not the only charge that has been brought against Pope 
 John XXII. President White has painted his character 
 in the worst possible colors. Even after his attention was 
 called to the fact that the document supposed to prohibit 
 chemistry did not have any of the meaning which he 
 attributed to it in his History of the Warfare of Science 
 With Theology in Christendom, he still could find terms 
 scarcely black enough in which to paint Pope John, and 
 recurs to other documents issued by that Pope to prove 
 his assertions. Strangely enough, especially after the 
 warning of having had to acknowledge that one quota- 
 tion from him was entirely wrong, he proceeds to quote 
 another bull by the same Pope, that he has evidently 
 never read, and his remarks with regard to it show that 
 he never took the trouble to learn anything about this 
 Pope by reading any of the original documents that he 
 issued, but depends entirely on second-hand authorities. 
 He says : 
 
 "It is a pity that Dr. Walsh does not quote in full 
 Pope John's other and much more interesting bull, Super 
 illius specula, of 1326. One would suppose from the 
 
PAPAL PATRON OF SCIENCE 145 
 
 doctor's account that this Pontiff was a kindly and ra- 
 tional scholar seeking to save the people from the clutch 
 of superstition. The bull of 1326 shows Pope John him- 
 self, in spite of his infallibility, sunk in superstition, the 
 most abject and debasing ; for, in this bull, supposed to 
 be inspired from wisdom from on high, Pope John com- 
 plains that both he and his flock are in danger of their 
 lives by the arts of the sorcerers. He declares that such 
 sorcerers can shut up devils in mirrors, finger-rings and 
 phials, and kill men and women by a magic word ; that 
 they had tried to kill him by piercing a waxen image of 
 him with needles, in the name of the devil. He there- 
 fore, not only in this bull, but in brief after brief, urged 
 bishops, inquisitors and other authorities, sacred and 
 secular, to hunt down the miscreants who thus afflicted 
 the faithful, and he especially increased the power of 
 the inquisitors in various parts of Europe for this pur- 
 pose. This bull it was indeed, and others to the same 
 purpose, which stimulated that childish fear and hatred 
 against the investigation of nature which was felt for 
 centuries and which caused chemistry to be known more 
 and more as one of the ' seven devilish arts. ' ' 
 
 There can be no doubt that this is an awful arraign- 
 ment of a Pope. The bull in question is quoted so con- 
 fidently under its Latin title that anyone who reads this 
 paragraph must necessarily conclude that it contains all 
 that President White says, and that he was fresh from 
 the reading of it. I may say that, though I had already 
 found that two other Papal documents had been utterly 
 misrepresented in President White's references, I could 
 not bring myself to think that the same thing might be 
 true with regard to this third Papal document cited by 
 him. After having had two lessons in the necessity for 
 
146 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 careful collation of his references to his authorities, I 
 did not think it possible for him to make another mis- 
 quotation, if possible, more serious than the preceding 
 examples. Though I had by me, thanks to my good 
 friend Father Corbett, of St. Charles Seminary, Over- 
 brook, Pa., a copy of this bull at the time I wrote 
 an answer to some of President White's curious wan- 
 derings into the history of anatomy and chemistry, 
 I did not consult it, for I felt sure that it must contain 
 the expressions which were so confidently quoted. My 
 surprise can be better imagined than described when on 
 reading the bull I found that it contained practically no 
 foundation for the awful charges made by President 
 White. I had been given another lesson in the differ- 
 ence between traditional and documentary history, the 
 significance of which will, I hope, be appreciated by 
 others. It led me to consult further bulls of John XXII. , 
 which bring out his character better than any modern 
 historian possibly can, and which serve to show that, far 
 from being an obscurantist in any sense of the word, he 
 was deeply interested in education, expressed his appre- 
 ciation for it on many occasions in the highest terms, 
 encouraged his people to seek it, in any and every form, 
 scientific as well as literary and philosophic, and stated 
 confidently that education would surely redound to 
 the benefit of the Church and deserved to be the special 
 object of ecclesiastical favor. 
 
 First, however, let me quote the bull Super Ulius spe- 
 cula, of which President White has said so much. I 
 present a close, almost literal, translation of the docu- 
 ment as it is to be found in the collections of Thomas- 
 setti and Coquelines. As President White conceded that 
 my translation of the previous document of Pope John 
 
PAPAL PATRON OF SCIENCE 147 
 
 with regard to alchemy was flawless, I shall be careful 
 not to undo his compliment. 1 
 
 " Seeking to discover how the sons of men know and 
 serve God by the practice of the Christian religion, we 
 look down from the watch-tower where, though un- 
 worthy, we have been placed by the favoring clemency 
 of Him who made the first man after His own image 
 and likeness ; setting him over earthly things ; adorning 
 him with heavenly virtues ; recalling him when a wan- 
 derer ; bestowing on him a law ; freeing him from 
 slavery ; finding him when he was lost ; and finally ran- 
 soming him from captivity by the merit of His passion. 
 With grief we discover, and the very thought of it 
 wrings our soul with anguish, that there are many 
 Christians only in name ; many who turn away from 
 the light which once was theirs, and allow their minds 
 to be so clouded with the darkness of error as to enter 
 into a league with death and a compact with hell. They 
 sacrifice to demons and adore them, they make or cause 
 to be made images, rings, mirrors, phials or some such 
 things in which by the art of magic evil spirits are to be 
 enclosed. From them they seek and receive replies, and 
 ask aid in satisfying their evil desires. For a foul pur- 
 pose they submit to the foulest slavery. Alas ! this 
 deadly malady is increasing more than usual in the world 
 and inflicting greater and greater ravages on the flock 
 of Christ. 
 
 "SECTION L Since, therefore, we are bound by the 
 duty of our pastoral office to bring back to the fold of 
 Christ the sheep who are wandering through devious 
 ways and to exclude from the Lord's flock those who are 
 diseased lest they should infect the rest, We, by this 
 edict, which, in accordance with the counsel of our 
 brother bishops, is to remain in perpetual vigor, warn 
 all and in virtue of holy obedience and under pain of 
 anathema enjoin on all those who have been regenerated 
 in the waters of baptism not to inculcate or study any 
 of the perverse teachings we have mentioned, or, what 
 is more to be condemned, practise them in any manner 
 upon any one. 
 
 1 The full Latin text of this bull will be found in the appendix. 
 
148 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 "SECTION II. And because it is just that those who 
 by their deeds make mockery of the Most High should 
 meet with punishments worthy of their transgressions 
 we pronounce the sentence of excommunication which it 
 is our will they shall ipso facto incur, who shall presume 
 to act contrary to our salutary warnings and commands. 
 And we firmly decree that in addition to the above pen- 
 alties a process shall be begun before competent judges 
 for the infliction of all and every penalty which heretics 
 are subject to according to law, except confiscation of 
 goods, against such as being duly admonished of the 
 foregoing or any of the foregoing practices, have not 
 within eight days from the time when the admoni- 
 tion was given amended their lives in the aforesaid 
 matters. 
 
 "SECTION III. Moreover, since it is proper that no 
 opportunity or occasion should be given for such flagi- 
 tious practices, We, in conformity with the advice of our 
 brother bishops, ordain and command that no one shall 
 presume to have or to hold books or writing of any kind 
 containing any of the before-mentioned errors or to 
 make a study of them. On the contrary, we desire and 
 in virtue of holy obedience we impose the precept upon 
 all, that whoever shall have any of the aforesaid writ- 
 ings or books shall, within the space of eight days from 
 their knowledge of our edict in this matter, destroy and 
 burn them and every part thereof absolutely and com- 
 pletely ; otherwise, we decree that they incur the sen- 
 tence of excommunication ipso facto and, when the evi- 
 dence is clear, that other and greater penalties shall be 
 inflicted upon culprits of this kind/' 
 
 Now here is a Papal document that, far from contain- 
 ing any of the superstitions that President White so out- 
 spokenly declares it to contain, is a worthy expression 
 of the fatherly feelings of the head of Christendom that 
 might well have been issued at even the most enlight- 
 ened period of the world's history. The two sentences 
 on which all of President White's serious accusation is 
 founded are simple expressions of the Pope's solicitude 
 for his flock on hearing of some of the practices that 
 
PAPAL PATRON OF SCIENCE 149 
 
 some are said to give themselves up to. He does not 
 say even that sorcerers can shut up devils in mirrors, 
 finger-rings and phials, but uses the hypothetical ex- 
 pression that in these things, by magic art, evil spirits 
 are to be enclosed. The bull has no reference at all to 
 the killing of men and women by a magic word, and 
 where President White found that Pope John declares 
 in this bull that sorcerers had tried to kill him by pierc- 
 ing a waxen image of him with needles in the name of the 
 devil, it is impossible to understand ; I should like very 
 much to know what his authority is, because then it 
 could be refuted in its source. As it is, Dr. White said 
 it was in the bull, and now every one can see for him- 
 self that it is not. 
 
 Let us go a step further and take President White's 
 single sentence, "One would suppose from the doctor's 
 (Dr. Walsh's) account that this Pontiff was a kindly and 
 rational scholar seeking to save the people from the 
 clutch of superstition," and let us illustrate the phrase 
 "a kindly and rational scholar " by some documents is- 
 sued by Pope John XXII. Take for instance the special 
 bull issued by him for the confirmation of the establish- 
 ment of chairs in canon and civil law, and the founding 
 of masterships in medicine and in arts in the University 
 of Perugia by which he also conveyed the authority to 
 confer the degrees of doctor and bachelor in all these 
 faculties on those who were found worthy after careful 
 examinations. In the preamble of this bull we shall find 
 abundant evidence of Pope John's kindly and rational 
 scholarship, of his eminent desire to encourage educa- 
 tion in all its forms, literary and scientific, and to make 
 the people of his time understand how valuable he con- 
 sidered education, not only for the sake of the individ- 
 
150 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 uals who might acquire it, but also for the Church and 
 for the cause of religion. 
 This bull was issued Feb. 18, 1321 : 
 
 "While with deep feelings of solicitous consideration 
 we mentally resolve how precious the gift of science is 
 and how desirable and glorious is its possession, since 
 through it the darkness of ignorance is put to flight and 
 the clouds of error completely done away with so that 
 the trained intelligence of students disposes and orders 
 their acts and modes of life in the light of truth, we are 
 moved by a very great desire that the study of letters 
 in which the priceless pearl of knowledge is found 
 should everywhere make praiseworthy progress, and 
 should especially flourish more abundantly in such places 
 as are considered to be more suitable and fitting for the 
 multiplication of the seeds and salutary germs of right 
 teaching. Whereas some time ago, Pope Clement of 
 pious memory, our predecessor, considering the purity 
 of faith and the excelling devotion which the city of 
 Perugia belonging to our Papal states is recognized to 
 have maintained for a long period towards the church, 
 wishing that these might increase from good to better 
 in the course of time, deemed it fitting and equitable 
 that this same city, which had been endowed by Divine 
 Grace with the prerogatives of many special favors, should 
 be distinguished by the granting of university powers, 
 in order that by the goodness of God men might be 
 raised up in the city itself pre-eminent for their learn- 
 ing, decreed by the Apostolic authority that a university 
 should be situated in the city and that it should flourish 
 there for all future time with all those faculties that may 
 be found more fully set forth in the letter of that same 
 predecessor aforesaid. And whereas we subsequently, 
 though unworthy, having been raised to the dignity of 
 the Apostolic primacy, are desirous to reward with a 
 still richer gift the same city of Perugia for the proofs 
 of its devotion by which it has proven itself worthy of 
 the favor of the Apostolic See, by our Apostolic author- 
 ity and in accordance with the council of our brother 
 bishops, we grant to our venerable brother the Bishop 
 of Perugia and to those who may be his successors in 
 
PAPAL PATRON OF SCIENCE 151 
 
 that diocese the right of conferring on persons who are 
 worthy of it the license to teach (the Doctorate) in canon 
 and civil law, according to that fixed method which is 
 more fully described and regulated more at length in this 
 our letter. 
 
 " Considering, therefore, that this same city, because 
 of its conveniences and its many favoring conditions, is 
 altogether suitable for students and wishing on that 
 account to amplify the educational concessions hitherto 
 made because of the public benefits which we hope will 
 flow from them, we decree by Apostolic authority that 
 if there are any who in the course of time shall in that 
 same university attain the goal of knowledge in medical 
 science and the liberal arts and should ask for license to 
 teach in order that they may be able to train others with 
 more freedom, that they may be examined in that uni- 
 versity in the aforesaid medical sciences and in the arts 
 and be decorated with the title of Master in these same 
 faculties. We further decree that as often as any are 
 to receive the degree of Doctor in medicine and arts as 
 aforesaid, they must be presented to the Bishop of Pe- 
 rugia, who rules the diocese at the time or to him whom 
 the bishop shall have appointed for this purpose, who 
 having selected teachers of the same faculty in which 
 the examinations are to be made, who are at that time 
 present in the university to the number of at least four, 
 they shall come together without any charge to the can- 
 didate and, every difficulty being removed, should dili- 
 gently endeavor that the candidate be examined in 
 science, in eloquence, in his mode of lecturing, and any- 
 thing else which is required for promotion to the degree 
 of doctor or master. With regard to those who are 
 found worthy their teachers should be further consulted 
 privately, and any revelation of information obtained 
 at such consultations as might redound to the disadvan- 
 tage or injury of the consultors is strictly forbidden. If 
 all is satisfactory the candidate should be approved and 
 admitted and the license to teach granted. Those who 
 are found unfit must not be admitted to the degree of 
 doctor, all leniency or prejudice or favor being set 
 aside. 
 
 ' ' In order that the said university may in the afore- 
 said studies of medicine and the arts so much more fully 
 
152 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 grow in strength, according as the professors who ac- 
 tually begin the work and teaching there are more skill- 
 ful, we have decided that until four or five years have 
 passed some professors, two at least, who have secured 
 their degree in the medical sciences at the University of 
 Paris, under the auspices of the Cathedral of Paris, and 
 who shall have taught or acted as masters in the before- 
 mentioned University of Paris, shall be selected for the 
 duties of the masterships and the professional chairs 
 in said department in the University of Perugia and 
 they shall continue their work in this last-mentioned 
 university until noteworthy progress in the formation of 
 good students shall have been made. 
 
 " With regard to those who are to receive the degree 
 of doctor in medical science, it must be especially ob- 
 served that all those seeking the degree shall have heard 
 lectures in all the books of this same science which are 
 usually required to be heard by similar students at the 
 universities of Bologna or of Paris and that this shall 
 continue for seven years. Those, however, who have 
 elsewhere received sufficient instruction in logic or phil- 
 osophy having applied themselves to these studies for 
 five years in the aforesaid universities, with the provi- 
 sion, however, that at least three years of the aforesaid 
 five or seven-year term shall have been devoted to hear- 
 ing lectures in medical science in some university, and 
 according to custom, shall have been examined under 
 duly authorized teachers and shall have, besides, read 
 such books outside the regular course as may be re- 
 quired may, with due observation of all the regulations 
 which are demanded for the taking of degrees in Paris 
 or Bologna, also be allowed to take the examination at 
 Perugia. " 
 
 Here is a bull issued within five years after the bull 
 which President White so falsely impugns and which 
 tells a very different story with regard to the relation- 
 ship of the Popes to education in general, and especially 
 to scientific education, from that which unfortunate mis- 
 representations have accorded to them. Perugia was a 
 city of the Papal States, though really scarcely more 
 
PAPAL PATRON OF SCIENCE 153 
 
 than under the dominion of the Popes in name. The 
 citizens exercised a large freedom not only in all civic 
 matters, but even in regard to their relationships with 
 neighboring cities and political powers. One of the 
 things which Pope John seems to have been especially 
 solicitous about, however, as we shall see in a subse- 
 quent bull, was that the educational institutions in the 
 Papal States should be maintained at a high standard. 
 A university had been established at Perugia by his pred- 
 ecessor, and Pope John not only confirmed this estab- 
 lishment, but gave the additional privilege of conferring 
 degrees in Canon and Civil Law as well as in Medicine 
 and the Arts. 
 
 Lest there should be any thought that the fact that 
 the conferring of such privileges by the Pope might 
 seem to be a limitation of university privilege, it may be 
 said at once that pra tically all universities have at all 
 times been under the supervision of Government and 
 have derived their privileges from the political author- 
 ities. During the Middle Ages the universities were 
 really developments of Cathedral schools, and as such 
 were usually under the authority of the Chancellor of 
 the Cathedral. As an ecclesiastical person he looked 
 to the Pope as the source of his authority, and in 
 order that uniformity of requirement for various degrees . 
 and of educational methods might be maintained, there 
 was practically universal agreement that such central- 
 ization of the power to grant privileges for the erection 
 of universities and the conferring of degrees was the 
 most practical way. With regard to Perugia besides 
 there was the additional reason that the Pope repre- 
 sented the political as well as the ecclesiastical authority 
 in the matter, and that very naturally the encourage- 
 
154 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 ment for the good educational work already being done 
 in the Umbrian City should come from him. 
 
 This premised, certain features of this bull are espec- 
 ially noteworthy in the light of modern educational ex- 
 periences. The Pope was confirming the establishment 
 of a new university. It was to be as he realized, a 
 smaller university in size, but he did not want its stand- 
 ard of education to be lower than that of the great uni- 
 versities. For this reason he insists specifically in the 
 bull that the license to teach the equivalent of our 
 modern doctorate in law, letters and science, shall not be 
 given except after the completion of a course equivalent 
 to those given in these subjects in Paris or Bologna, the 
 great universities of the time, and that the examination 
 shall be quite as rigid and shall be conducted under con- 
 ditions that, as far as human foresight can arrange, 
 shall preclude all possibility of favoritism of any kind 
 entering into the promotion of candidates for these de- 
 grees. The fact that oaths were required in the hope 
 that standards would be thus maintained shows how 
 seriously the subject of education was taken at this 
 time, when, if we would believe some of those who de- 
 preciate the Middle Ages, ecclesiastical efforts were 
 mainly occupied with the attempt to keep the people as 
 ignorant as possible. 
 
 This phase of the Papal decree is all the more inter- 
 esting when it is viewed in the light of some modern 
 educational developments. A few years ago there was 
 a very general complaint that the doctorate in philosophy 
 was conferred too easily, especially by the minor uni- 
 versities, and that as a consequence this degree had 
 come to mean very little. It required a distinct crusade 
 of effort to raise standards in this matter, and even at 
 
PAPAL PATRON OF SCIENCE 155 
 
 the present time the situation is not entirely satisfac- 
 tory. A very curious element in the situation lies in 
 the fact that, in comparison to the number of students, 
 certain of the smaller universities confer this distinction 
 much more frequently than the larger universities. This 
 was found to be true even among the German univer- 
 sities, where I believe that according to statistics the 
 little University of Rostock, in Mecklenberg, confers the 
 degree proportionately of tener than any other German 
 university. Pope John XXII. was evidently endeavor- 
 ing to prevent any such development as this, or perhaps 
 he was trying to remedy an abuse which he knew had 
 already crept in, for all of his bulls on educational mat- 
 ters insist with no little emphasis on the necessity for 
 the maintenance of a high standard of educational re- 
 quirements as regards the length of time in years and 
 the books to be read and lectures attended, as well as 
 on the rigor, yet absolute fairness of examinations. 
 
 I am sure that the bulls of John XXII. must never 
 have come under President White's eyes, or he, as an ex- 
 perienced educator who has had to meet most of these 
 problems in our time, would have been more sympathetic 
 with this medieval ecclesiastic, who did all in his power 
 to maintain university standards. Pope John's career 
 deserves study by all modern educators for this reason, 
 and the surprise of it will be that in education, as prac- 
 tically in everything else, in spite of our present-day 
 self-complacency in the matter of educational progress, 
 there is nothing new under the sun, certainly nothing 
 new in the problems university authorities have to meet 
 in order to maintain their standards. 
 
 The best possible proof that Pope John XXII. was not 
 opposed in any way to the development of science nor 
 
156 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 to the study of sciences at the universities is to be found 
 in his establishment of this medical school at Perugia, 
 We may say at once that this is not the only medical 
 school with whose encouragement he was concerned since 
 the erection of the University of Cahors, his birthplace, 
 and the establishment of a medical school there, as well 
 as the provision of funds for certain medical chairs in 
 the University at Rome, shows the reality and the 
 breadth of his interest in medicine. It must be remem- 
 bered that under the term medicine at this time most of 
 the physical sciences as we know them now were in- 
 cluded. It is the custom sometimes to think that the 
 students of medicine in the Middle Ages knew very little 
 about medicine itself or the sciences related to medi- 
 cine. This thought was excusable some years ago when 
 the old medical text-books of the thirteenth and four- 
 teenth centuries had not as yet been printed. 
 
 At the present time, such a mistake would be un- 
 pardonable for any scholar who pretends to first-hand 
 knowledge of this period. In the chapter on Science at 
 the Medieval Universities I call special attention to the 
 fact that medicine and surgery developed in such a 
 wonderful way at the medical schools of the universities 
 of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, that many 
 presumed discoveries of much later times were marvel- 
 ously anticipated. A short catalogue of them here may 
 not be out of place, though the reader is referred to 
 other chapters for further details. v In the medical 
 schools which Pope John XXII. was then fostering, they 
 taught the ligature of arteries, the prevention of bleed- 
 ing by pressure, the danger of wounds of the neck, the 
 relation of dropsy to hardening of the kidneys, the true 
 origins of the venereal diseases, the methods of treating 
 
PAPAL PATRON OF SCIENCE 157 
 
 joint diseases, the suture of divided nerves, the use of 
 the knife rather than the cautery because it made a 
 cleaner wound which healed more readily, and even, 
 wonder of wonders, healing by first intention. Anyone 
 who was fostering this kind of education in medicine 
 was advancing the cause of one of the applied sciences 
 in a very wonderful way. 
 
 If we add that, at this same time the proper use of 
 opium in medicine was a feature of medical teaching 
 which had just been introduced by a Papal physician, 
 while a form of anaesthesia was being practically devel- 
 oped and very generally employed, the question will 
 be why we, in the twentieth century, do not know 
 ever so much more than we actually do, rather than 
 why these earnest students of the thirteenth century 
 knew so little, which is the absurd thought that most 
 authorities in education seem to entertain at the present 
 time with regard to our forbears of early university 
 history. The student of medicine during the thirteenth 
 century had to devote himself very nearly to the same 
 department of science as those which occupy his col- 
 leagues of the present century. 
 
 The prospectus of a medical school of the time would 
 announce very probably some such program of studies 
 as this. Besides learning something of astrology (the 
 astronomy of the day) the student would be expected to 
 know much about climate and its influence on disease, 
 and about soil in its relation to pathology (these were 
 supposed to be fruitful causes of disease) . Certain min- 
 erals, among them very probably antimony, were begin- 
 ning to be used in medical practice, and so mineralogy was 
 a special subject of study. Of plants they were expected 
 to know in a general way much more than the modern 
 
158 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 medical student, to whom botany is not considered of 
 much importance, and of zoology they probably had at 
 least as great practical knowledge, since many of their 
 dissections were made on animals, and the differences in 
 structure between them and man were pointed out when 
 the annual anatomies or human dissections at the uni- 
 versities were made. Of pharmacology and the- allied 
 subject, chemistry, they had to know all that would 
 enable them to use properly the several hundred vege- 
 table remedies then used in medicine. This will give 
 an idea, then, what were in general the studies which 
 Pope John was trying to foster with so much care in the 
 University of Perugia. 
 
 There is another phase of his regulations with regard 
 to medical schools which cannot but prove of the greatest 
 interest to members of our present-day medical faculties. 
 It has been realized for some time, that what is needed 
 more than anything else to make good physicians for the 
 present generation is that medical students should have 
 a better preliminary education than has been the case in 
 the past. In order to secure this, various states have 
 required evidence of a certain number of years spent at 
 high school or college before a medical student's certifi- 
 cate allowing entrance into a medical school will be 
 granted. Some of the most prominent medical schools 
 have gone even farther than this, and have required 
 that a degree in arts should be obtained in the under- 
 graduate department before medical studies may be 
 taken up. Something of this same kind was manifestly 
 in Pope John's mind when he required that seven 
 years should have been spent at a university, at least 
 three years of which should have been entirely de- 
 voted to medical studies, before the candidate might 
 
PAPAL PATRON OF SCIENCE 159 
 
 be allowed to go up for his examination for the doctor's 
 degree. 
 
 As we begin the twentieth century, we note that the 
 presidents of our American universities are trying to se- 
 cure just exactly the same number of years of study for 
 candidates for the degree of Doctor of Medicine, as this 
 medieval Pope insisted on as a prerequisite for the same 
 degree in a university founded in the Papal States at the 
 beginning of the fourteenth century. After the year 
 1910 most of the large universities in this country will 
 not admit further students to their medical departments 
 unless they have a college degree or its equivalent, that 
 is, unless they have devoted four years to college under- 
 graduate work. It is generally understood, that in the 
 last year of his undergraduate course the student who 
 intends to take up medicine may elect such scientific 
 studies in the college department as will obtain for him 
 an allowance of a year's work in the medical school. He 
 will then be able to complete his medical course in three 
 years, so that our modern institutions will, if our plans 
 succeed, require just exactly the same amount of time for 
 the doctorate in Medicine as Pope John demanded, and 
 not only demanded, but required by legal regulation, for 
 this bull was a law in the Papal States, just six centuries 
 ago. The coincidence is so striking that, only that it is 
 supported by documentary evidence of the best kind, we 
 could scarcely believe it. 
 
 Yet it is the Pope who encouraged devotion to science 
 in all forms as it was studied in his day, who insisted 
 that the standards of education in the universities of the 
 Papal States, over which he had direct control, should 
 be equal to those of Paris and Bologna, who suggested 
 that teachers should be brought from the famous uni- 
 
160 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 versities for the purpose of introducing the best educa- 
 tional methods, who is now declared by President White 
 to have " stimulated the childish fear and hatred against 
 the investigation of nature which was felt for centuries, 
 and whose decrees and briefs are said to have caused 
 chemistry to be known more and more as one of the 
 'seven devilish arts/ " Here is the striking difference 
 between traditional and documentary history. 
 
 There are other bulls of Pope John which serve to 
 bring out his interest in education quite as clearly as this, 
 one, and show that the ecclesiastics of the time were 
 encouraged to think and act up to the thought, that edu- 
 cation of all kinds was sure to be of benefit to the Church 
 and her members. In extending the privileges of the 
 University of Perugia on another occasion by the bull 
 Inter ceteras euros, John declared that among the other 
 cares which were enjoined on him from on high by his 
 Apostolic office and amongst the many projects which 
 were constantly in his mind for the betterment of re- 
 ligion, his thoughts were directed more frequently and 
 more ardently to this conclusion than to any other, that 
 the professors of the Catholic faith whom the true light 
 of the true faith illuminates should be imbued with the 
 deepest wisdom and should become erudite in all the 
 studies that bring profitable knowledge. For, he adds, 
 this gift cannot be bought by any price, but is divinely 
 granted to minds that are of good will. For the posses- 
 sion of knowledge is evidently desirable, since by it the 
 darkness of ignorance and the gloom of error are entirely 
 done away with and the intelligence of students is in- 
 creased so as to direct all their acts and deeds in the 
 light of truth. " It is for this reason (and no wonder) , " 
 he adds, "that I am led to encourage the study of 
 
PAPAL PATRON OF SCIENCE 
 
 letters in which the priceless pearl of knowledge is to be 
 found, and especially in such places as may bear worthy 
 fruit for the Church itself and for its members." 
 
 The expressions that he here uses are almost word for 
 word, though not quite the same as occur in other bulls, 
 showing that a sort of formula was constantly used to 
 express the opinion of the Holy See with regard to the 
 desirableness of knowledge and the benefit that might 
 be expected to flow from education. Not all of the bull, 
 however, is a formula, since in the rest of it Pope John 
 insists that at least five years must be required at the 
 university for the study of Canon and Civil Law, and de- 
 tailed injunctions are set forth as to the method of ex- 
 amination so as to secure two things, first that a proper 
 standard shall be maintained and that those who have 
 completed the course shall have the right to examina- 
 tions without further payment of fees, and secondly, 
 that such examinations shall be absolutely fair, without 
 any favor being shown to the applicant in any way, and 
 at the same time without any prejudice being allowed to 
 influence his examiners against him. 
 
 Lest readers should be tempted to think of Perugia as 
 a town of very slight importance from a political and 
 civil standpoint, and therefore consider anything done 
 for it as amounting to very little in the culture or in- 
 fluence of the period, a short sketch of it will not be 
 out of place. This little town has had the distinction of 
 being the center of interest in at least four marvelous 
 epochs of human development. Long before Roman 
 civilization in Italy arose, the Etruscans did some of their 
 greatest art-work in the country around Perugia, the 
 remains of which have been unearthed in recent years. 
 Seven centuries later, the Romans left some magnificent 
 
162 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 Architectural monuments of their occupation of this 
 neighborhood. Somewhat more than a thousand years 
 passed, and St. Francis breathed his profound spirit of 
 love for nature in all its forms into the world almost 
 within sight of its walls, and with him the Renaissance 
 began. The great Umbrian school of painters in the 
 Renaissance period came from this district, and they in- 
 clude such names as Raphael and his great master Peru- 
 gino, who received his name from his birthplace. Before 
 John XXII. did so much to make it a center of culture 
 and education for this portion of Italy, it had been noted 
 in the early part of the thirteenth century for possessing 
 a library of Canon and Civil Law to which scholars often 
 traveled from great distances for consultation purposes. 
 The Pope, then, though in distant Avignon, was greatly 
 helping on that movement which was to culminate and 
 mean so much for Umbria, that great center of culture 
 and influence in the Renaissance time. 
 
 In erecting the University of Cahors, Pope John took 
 occasion to say that he did so because the city promised 
 to provide facilities and proper conditions for the uni- 
 versity and he believed that the existence of such an in- 
 stitution would in very many ways be of benefit to the 
 commonwealth. He wished, therefore, that in Cahors, 
 "a copious, refreshing fountain of science should spring 
 up and continue to flow, from whose abundance all the 
 citizens might drink, and where those desirous of educa- 
 tion might become imbued with knowledge so that the 
 cultivators of wisdom might sow seed with success and 
 all the student body become learned and eloquent and in 
 every way distinguished, bearing abundant fruit which 
 the Lord in His own good time would give them if they 
 applied themselves with good will." He wished that 
 
PAPAL PATRON OF SCIENCE 153 
 
 f~- 
 
 the erection of the university should be considered as a 
 special reward for their devotion to the Holy See and 
 should always stand as a memorial of that. 
 
 The thought may possibly occur to some that Pope 
 John, after having issued these noteworthy documents 
 in the cause of education in the early years of his pon- 
 tificate, might subsequently have changed his mind and 
 considered with advancing years that the repression of 
 the enthusiasm for learning would be better for his 
 people from a spiritual standpoint. There is, however, 
 no sign of this to be found in the important documents 
 of his pontificate, nor would anyone think of it who real- 
 ized that John became Pope at the age of 72, after hav- 
 ing a very wide personal experience in political affairs as 
 well as ecclesiastical matters, an experience which took 
 him over many parts of Europe and must have greatly 
 broadened his intellectual horizon, and that he remained 
 in full possession of his wonderful intellectual powers 
 until he was well past 90. Within two years before his 
 death he issued the bull which laid the foundation of the 
 University of Cahors, his native place. This he did at 
 the request of the citizens of the town, who pleaded that 
 no better memorial of their great fellow citizen who had 
 become Pope could be raised among them than a uni- 
 versity. 
 
 In the light of these other bulls it is not surprising 
 to find that John should also have endeavored to main- 
 tain the standard of the University of the City of Rome. 
 It must be remembered that at this time the Popes were 
 at Avignon, and that as a consequence the population of 
 the city of Rome had greatly decreased and there were 
 so many civic dissensions that very little attention could 
 be given to educational matters. Pope John issued a 
 
164 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 bull, however, from Avignon, confirming the erection of 
 the University of the City of Rome by his predecessor 
 of happy memory, Boniface VIII. (the same who is 
 said, though falsely, to have hampered the development 
 of anatomy) , and further laying down regulations for 
 the maintenance of the standard of education in the 
 Roman University. In this bull John says that he con- 
 siders that a Pope could confer no greater favor on the 
 City of Cities so closely attached to the Roman Church, 
 than to bring about the re-establishment of the univer- 
 sity there, so that the inhabitants and the visitors to 
 Rome might all have the opportunity and also the in- 
 citement to seek after wisdom, for this is a gift which 
 comes from on high, which cannot be bought for a price, 
 but which is only granted to those who seek it with good 
 will. 
 
 John proceeds to say that he hopes that the city of 
 Rome shall, under the favor of Providence, produce men of 
 pre-eminent worth in science, and that in order that the 
 wishes of Pope Boniface VIII. in this matter may be ful- 
 filled he confirms and extends all the privileges which 
 had been originally granted. In the University at Rome 
 there were also professors of medicine, and there is good 
 historical authority for the assertion that John himself 
 offered to pay out of the Papal revenues the salary of the 
 professor of physic, in order that this department of the 
 university might become established as firmly as were 
 the other departments. In a word, in the documentary 
 evidence so readily available to any one who wishes to 
 consult it, we find John manifesting that he was "a 
 kindly and rational scholar/' to use President White's 
 expression, " seeking," surely if education shall have 
 any such effect, and in modern times we have been led 
 
PAPAL PATRON OF SCIENCE 165 
 
 to believe that it can, "to save the people from the 
 clutch of superstition." President White has employed 
 the expression satirically. I think that any one who 
 reads the contemporary documents in the case must 
 acknowledge that it is literally true. 
 
 The life of Pope John XXII. is a striking example of the 
 difference between traditional and documentary history. 
 According to the traditions that have gathered around 
 his name, John has been declared by many to be one of 
 the banes of civilization and education in the Middle 
 Ages. A little study of the documents issued by him 
 shows him in quite a different light. He was not only 
 interested in educational matters of every kind, but he 
 was deeply intent, and as far as the Papal power en- 
 abled him he succeeded in carrying out his intention, 
 of making education thoroughly effective in every de- 
 partment. It is by a man's intentions that he must be 
 judged. John meant to do everything for the best. 
 Unfortunately, some of his actions in the matter of the 
 provision of revenues T3ecame subject later to abuse. 
 For this it is hard to understand how he should be held 
 responsible. In the meantime, for educators, the study 
 of the actual documents issued by him and their utterly 
 different significance from what might be expected ac- 
 cording to the usually accepted notion of his character, 
 cannot but prove a lesson in historical values. It illus- 
 trates very well a phase of history that has recently been 
 called to attention. 
 
 As we have said, one hundred years ago De Maistre 
 declared that history had been a conspiracy against the 
 truth. At last a universal recognition is coming of the 
 fact that history has been written entirely too much 
 from the personal standpoint of the historian without 
 
166 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 due reference to contemporary documents and authori- 
 ties, or with the citation of only such references from 
 these as would support the special contention of the 
 writer. Even the writers of history whose reputation 
 has been highest have suffered from this fault, and the 
 consequence is that on disputed points it is more impor- 
 tant to know what party a historian belongs to than 
 what he writes. 
 
 Is it not time that at least our educators should cease 
 accepting this old traditional opinion with regard to the 
 times before the reformation so-called, and get at the 
 truth in the matter, or as near it as possible. These 
 educators of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries 
 were zealous and earnest beyond cavil. That everyone 
 admits. It is supposed, however, that they were ridic- 
 ulously ignorant and superstitious. Only those who are 
 themselves ridiculously ignorant and superstitious, for 
 the real meaning of superstition is persistence in accept- 
 ing a supposed truth that is a survival (superstes) from 
 a previous state of knowledge, after the reasons for its 
 acceptance have been shown to be groundless, will con- 
 tinue to believe this absurd proposition. If the educator 
 of the modern day will only study with the sympathy they 
 deserve, the lives of the earliest educators of modern 
 times, the professors, the officials, and the ecclesiastical 
 authorities as well as the Papal patrons of the universi- 
 ties of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, we shall 
 hear no more of the Church during the Middle Ages 
 having been opposed to education, nor to science, nor to 
 any other department of human knowledge. 
 
THE CHURCH AND SURGERY DURING THE 
 MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 It is with regard to surgery that the opposition of the 
 Church is sometimes supposed to have been most serious 
 in its effects upon the progress of medical science and 
 its applications for the relief of human suffering. Pres- 
 ident White has stated this, as usual, very emphatically 
 in certain paragraphs of his chapter on From Miracles 
 to Medicine, especially under the caption of Theological 
 Discouragement of Medicine. He says, for instance : 
 
 " As to surgery, this same amalgamation of theology 
 with survivals of pagan beliefs continued to check 
 the evolution of medical science down to the modern 
 epoch. The nominal hostility of the Church to the 
 shedding of blood withdrew, as we have seen, from 
 surgical practice the great body of her educated men ; 
 hence surgery remained down to the fifteenth century 
 a despised profession, its practice continued largely in 
 the hands of charlatans, and down to a very recent 
 period the name ' barber-surgeon ' was a survival of this. 
 In such surgery, the application of various ordures re- 
 lieved fractures ; the touch of the hangman cured 
 sprains ; the breath of a donkey expelled poison ; friction 
 with a dead man's tooth cured toothache." 
 
 In another and earlier portion of the same chapter, 
 under the heading " Theological Opposition to Anatomi- 
 cal Studies," he states the reason's why this low state of 
 surgical practice existed. Once more it is declared to be 
 
 (167) 
 
168 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 because of a prohibitory decree, or several of them, di- 
 rected against the practice of surgery by ecclesiastical 
 authorities,, These decrees, we shall find, as was true of 
 previous supposed prohibitions, are entirely perverted 
 from their real meaning by President White, who has the 
 happy faculty of lighting upon mares' nests of Papal 
 decrees and decrees of councils and neglecting to pay 
 any attention to the real history of the science of which 
 he writes. President White says : 
 
 1 ' To those arguments against dissection was now added 
 another one which may well fill us with amazement. It 
 is the remark of the foremost of recent English philoso- 
 phical historians, that of all organizations in human his- 
 tory, the Church of Rome has caused the greatest spilling 
 of innocent blood. No one conversant with history, even 
 though he admit all possible extenuating circumstances 
 and honor the older Church for the great circumstances 
 which can undoubtedly be claimed for her, can deny this 
 statement. Strange is it, then, to note that one of the 
 main objections developed in the Middle Ages against 
 anatomical studies was the maxim that ' The Church ab- 
 hors the shedding of blood. ' ' 
 
 "On this ground, in 1248, the Council of Le Mans for- 
 bade surgery to monks. Many other councils did the 
 same, and at the end of the thirteenth century came the 
 most serious blow of all : for it was then that Pope Boni- 
 face VIII. , without any of that foresight of consequences 
 which might well have been expected in an infallible 
 teacher, issued a decretal forbidding a practice which 
 had come into use during the Crusades, namely, the 
 separation of the flesh from the bones of the dead whose 
 remains it was desired to carry back to their own 
 country." Note always the return to Pope Boniface's 
 
CHURCH AND SURGERY 169 
 
 bull and always the perversion of the meaning of the 
 word infallibility. 
 
 I have already stated the real significance of Boniface's 
 bull. It neither forbade, nor did its interpretation in 
 any way hamper, the development of anatomy. Just 
 exactly the same thing is true with regard to the Papal 
 regulations or decrees of councils that are claimed to have 
 hampered surgery. President White and others have in- 
 sisted that the prohibition of surgery to monks and 
 priests prevented the development of surgery or was 
 responsible for the low state of surgical practice. Here 
 once more we are in the presence of a deduction, and not 
 of an induction that represents the actual facts in the 
 case. Most students at the universities were clerks, that 
 is, had the privileges of clergymen, and were, as a rule, 
 in minor orders. All the great surgeons of this time, 
 and they were many, were ecclesiastics. 
 
 The climax of President White's treatment of the re- 
 lationship of the Church to surgery and of the intense 
 opposition manifested by ecclesiastics to surgical progress, 
 and, I may add, the climax of absurdity as far as the real 
 history of surgery is concerned, comes in the last para- 
 graph of this portion of his chapter on From Miracles to 
 Medicine, which President White has placed under the title 
 Theological Opposition to Anatomical Studies. He says : 
 
 ''So deeply was the idea rooted in the mind of the 
 Universal Church that for over a thousand years surgery 
 was considered dishonorable ; the greatest monarchs 
 were often unable to secure an ordinary surgical opera- 
 tion ; and it was only in 1406 that a better beginning 
 was made, when the Emperor Wenzel of Germany or- 
 dered that dishonor should no longer attach to the surgi- 
 cal profession." 
 
170 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 President White insists over and over again that what- 
 ever surgery there was, and especially whatever progress 
 was made in surgery, was due to the Arabs, or at least 
 to Arabian initiative. Gurlt, in his History of Surgery, 1 
 which we have referred to elsewhere, is very far from 
 sharing this view. I need scarcely say that Gurlt is one 
 of our best authorities in the history of surgery. In his 
 sketch of Roger, the first of the great Italian surgeons 
 of the thirteenth century who came after the foundation 
 of the universities, Gurlt says that, " though Arabian 
 writings on surgery had been brought over to Italy by 
 Constantine Africanus a hundred years before Roger's 
 time, those exercised no influence over Italian surgery in 
 the next century, and there is not a trace of the surgical 
 knowledge of the Arabs to be found in Roger's work." 
 His writing depends almost entirely upon the surgical 
 traditions of his time, the experience of his teachers and 
 colleagues, to whom in two places he has given due 
 credit, and on the Greek writers. There are no traces of 
 Arabisms to be found in Roger's writing, while they are 
 full of Grecisms. Roger represents the first important 
 writer on surgery in modern times, and his works have 
 been printed several times because of their value as 
 original documents. 
 
 It is wonderfully amusing to anyone who knows Gurlt 's 
 History of Surgery, 2 that the distinguished old professor 
 of the University of Berlin, looked up to as so well in- 
 formed as to the history of the branch of medical science 
 to which he had devoted a long life, should have wasted 
 some three hundred pages of his first volume on the His- 
 
 1 Geschichte der Chirurgie und ihrer Ausiibung. Von Dr. E. Gurlt, Vol. I., p. 701. 
 
 2 Geschichte der Chirurgie und ihrer Ausiibung. Von Dr. E. Gurlt, Geh. Med. Rath, 
 Prof, der Chirurgie an der Koniglichen Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universitat zu Berlin. 
 Berlin, 1898. 
 
CHURCH AND SURGERY 171 
 
 tory of Surgery in Middle and West Europe during the 
 Middle Ages, for they are mainly taken up with the con- 
 sideration of the period when President White asserts 
 that there was no surgery in Europe. Gurlt even pro- 
 tests that he has not as much space as he would like to 
 devote to these old-time masters of surgery, who did so 
 much to lay the foundation of modern surgical practices. 
 Those who have paid any attention to President White's 
 assertion with regard to surgery at this time, should 
 at least look over Gurlt. They will thus realize what 
 a dangerous thing it is to attempt large conclusions 
 in the history of a department of knowledge of which 
 one knows nothing. They will also realize how easy 
 it is for a writer with some prestige, to lead others 
 astray in a matter of history, by simply making asser- 
 tions without taking the trouble to see whether they are 
 supported by the facts in the case or not. 
 
 The modern American historian of Theology and 
 Science says, ' ' for over a thousand years surgery was 
 considered dishonorable. ' ' For the sake of contrast with 
 this opinion of President White's, read for a moment the 
 following remarks which constitute the opening sentences 
 of Pagel 's paragraphs on Surgery from 1200 to 1500, in 
 Puschmann's Handbuch of the History of Medicine, al- 
 ready referred to. Before making the quotation, let me 
 recall attention to the fact that Professor Pagel is the 
 best informed living writer on the history of medicine. 
 This book was issued in 1902. It is universally conceded 
 to contain the last words on the history of medical 
 development. There is no doubt at all about its absolute 
 authoritativeness. President White has been calling on 
 his imagination ; Professor Pagel has consulted original 
 documents in the history of surgery. He says : 
 
172 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 "A more favorable star shone during the whole Middle 
 Ages over surgery than over practical medicine. The 
 representatives of this specialty succeeded earlier than 
 did the practical physicians in freeing themselves from 
 the ban of scholasticism. In its development a more 
 constant and more even progress cannot fail to be seen. 
 The stream of literary works on surgery flows richer 
 during this period. While the surgeons are far from 
 being able to emancipate themselves from the ruling 
 pathological theories, there is no doubt that in one de- 
 partment, that of manual technics, free observation came 
 to occupy the first place in the effort for scientific pro- 
 gress. Investigation is less hampered and concerns it- 
 self with practical things and not with artificial theories. 
 Experimental observation was in this not repressed by 
 an unfortunate and iron-bound appeal to reasoning." I 
 am tempted to add as a reflection, deduction was not 
 allowed to replace attention to facts, though it has in 
 some supposed surgical history of this period. 
 
 Pagel continues : ' ' Indeed, the lack of so-called scholar- 
 ship, the freshness of view free from all prejudice with 
 which surgery, uninfluenced by scholastic presumption, 
 was forced to enter upon the objective consideration of 
 things, while most of the surgeons brought with them 
 to their calling an earnest vocation in union with great 
 technical facility, caused surgery to enter upon ways in 
 which it secured, as I have said, greater relative success 
 than did practical medicine." 
 
 President White has evidently never bothered to look 
 into a history of surgery at all, or he would not have 
 fallen into the egregious error of saying that the period 
 from 1200 to 1400 was barren of surgery, for it is really 
 one of the most important periods in the development of 
 
CHURCH AND SURGERY 173 
 
 modern surgery. Further evidence as to this is rather 
 easy to obtain. 
 
 I have cited two German authorities in the history of 
 medicine and surgery. Here is an English writer who 
 is quite as authoritative. In the address on The Histori- 
 cal Relations of Medicine and Surgery to the end of the 
 Sixteenth Century, which Professor Clifford Allbutt, the 
 Regius Professor of Physic at the University of Cam- 
 bridge, delivered by special invitation at the Congress of 
 Arts and Sciences of St. Louis in 1904, this distinguished 
 authority in the history of medicine had much to say 
 with regard to the wonderful development of surgery in 
 the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, that is, during 
 the period when, if we were to accept President White's 
 declarations, surgery either did not exist, or else had 
 been relegated to such mere handicraftsmen that no real 
 scientific progress in it could possibly be expected. As 
 Professor Allbutt was trying only to give a twentieth 
 century audience some idea of the magnificent work that 
 had been accomplished by fellow members of his profes- 
 sion of medicine seven centuries before, and had no idea 
 of discussing the influence, favorable or otherwise, of 
 the Church upon the progress of medical science, I have 
 preferred to quote directly from this address for evi- 
 dence of the surgery of these centuries, than to gather 
 the details from many sources, when it might perhaps 
 be thought that I was making out a more favorable case 
 than actually existed, for the sake of the Church and 
 the Popes. 
 
 "Both for his own great merits as an original and in- 
 dependent observer and as the master of Lanf ranc, Wil- 
 liam Salicet (Gugliemo Salicetti of Piacenza, in Latin G. 
 Placentinus or de Saliceto now Cadeo) was eminent 
 
174 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 among the great Italian physicians of the latter half of 
 the thirteenth century. Now, these great Italians were 
 as distinguished in surgery as in medicine, and William 
 was one of the protestants of the period against the di- 
 vision of surgery from inner medicine a division which 
 he regarded as a separation of medicine from intimate 
 touch with nature. Like Lanfranc and the other great 
 surgeons of the Italian tradition, and unlike Franco and 
 Pare, he had the advantage of the liberal university edu- 
 cation of Italy ; but, like Pare and Wtirtz, he had large 
 practical experience in hospital and in the battlefield. 
 He practiced first at Bologna, afterwards in Verona. 
 William fully recognized that surgery cannot be learned 
 from books only. His surgery contains many case his- 
 tories, for he rightly opined that good notes of cases are 
 the soundest foundation of good practice ; and in this 
 opinion and method Lanfranc followed him. William 
 discovered that dropsy may be due to a "durities 
 renum "; he substituted the knife for the Arabist abuse 
 of the cautery ; he investigated the causes of the failure 
 of healing by first intention ; he described the danger of 
 wounds of the neck ; he sutured divided nerves ; he for- 
 warded the diagnosis of suppurative disease of the hip ; 
 and he referred chancre and phagedaena to "their proper 
 causes. " 
 
 Anyone who knows the history of surgery and of sup- 
 posed modern progress in medicine will recognize at 
 once that many of these ideas of Salicet are anticipations 
 of discoveries supposed to have been made in the nine- 
 teenth century. The connection between dropsy and 
 hardening of the kidneys is a typical example of this. 
 The fact that William should have insisted that surgery 
 cannot be learned from books is an open contradiction 
 
CHURCH AND SURGERY 175 
 
 of what is so frequently said about scholasticism having- 
 invaded the realm of medicine, and the study of books 
 having replaced the study of patients. It is not sur- 
 prising that with his study of cases William should have 
 recognized the danger of wounds of the neck, nor that 
 he should have taught the suture of divided nerves. It 
 cannot fail to be a matter of surprise, however, that he 
 should have any hint of the possibility of union by first 
 intention, for that is supposed to be quite recent, and 
 the knowledge he displays of venereal diseases is sup- 
 posed to have come into medicine and surgery at least 
 two centuries later. 
 
 Allbutt next takes up Salicet's great pupil Lanfranc. 
 " Lanfranc 's 'Chirurgia Magna' was a great work, 
 written by a reverent but independent follower of Sali- 
 cet. He distinguished between venous and arterial 
 hemorrhage, and used styptics (rabbit's fur, aloes, and 
 white of egg was a popular styptic in older surgery), 
 digital compression for an hour, or in severe cases liga- 
 ture. His chapter on injuries of the head is one of the 
 classics of medieval surgery. Clerk as he was, Lanfranc 
 nevertheless saw but the more clearly the danger of 
 separating surgery from medicine. ' Good God ! ' he 
 exclaims, ' why this abandoning of operations by phy- 
 sicians to lay persons, disdaining surgery, as I perceive, 
 because they do not know how to operate ... an abuse 
 which has reached such a point that the vulgar begin to 
 think that the same man cannot know medicine and sur- 
 gery ... I say, however, that no man can be a 
 good physician who has no knowledge of operative sur- 
 gery ; a knowledge of both branches is essential. ' 
 (Chir. Magna.) Is it not strange that this ancient was 
 wiser than most of us are even yet." 
 
176 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 Striking as all this is, much more that is of interest 
 might be added to it from PagePs account of Lanfranc 's 
 work. Pagel says that he has excellent chapters on the 
 affections of the eyes, the ears and mouth, the nose, 
 even the teeth, and treats of hernia in a very practical, 
 common sense way. He warns against the radical oper- 
 tion, and says in phrases that have often been repeated 
 even in our own time, that many surgeons decide on 
 operations too easily, not for the sake of the patient, but 
 for the sake of the money there is in them. He believes 
 that most of the danger and inconvenience of the hernia 
 can be removed by means of a properly fitting truss. He 
 treats of stone in the kidney, but insists that the main 
 thing for this affection is prophylaxis. He suggests that 
 stone in the bladder should first be treated by internal 
 remedies ; but in severe cases advises extraction. Lan- 
 franc's discussion of cystotomy, Pagel characterizes "as 
 prudent, yet rational/' for he considers that the opera- 
 tion should not be feared too much nor delayed too long. 
 In patients suffering from the inconvenience which comes 
 from large quantities of fluid in the abdomen, he advises 
 paracentesis abdominis. He warns, however, against 
 putting the patient in danger from such an operation 
 without due consideration and only when symptoms ab- 
 solutely demand it. 
 
 Pagel says that Lanfranc must be considered as one 
 of the greatest of the surgeons of the Middle Ages and 
 the real founder of the French School of Surgery which 
 continued to be the most prominent in the world down 
 to the nineteenth century. Lanfranc had equalled, if 
 not surpassed, his great master William Salicet. His own 
 disciple, Mondeville, accomplished almost as much for 
 surgery as his master, however. Both of them were 
 
CHURCH AND SURGERY 177 
 
 destined to be thrown into the shade for succeeding 
 generations by another great French surgeon of the next 
 half-century, Guy de Chauliac. Pagel can scarcely say 
 enough of the capacity as a teacher of Lanfranc. The 
 seeds of surgical doctrine which he sowed bore fruit 
 richly. His important successors in French surgery 
 walked for the most part in his tracks and thus fur- 
 nished the best proof of the enduring character of his 
 capacity as a teacher. 
 
 The next great name in thirteenth century surgery, 
 for we are not yet out of that fruitful period, is Henri 
 de Mondeville. He was known by his contemporaries 
 and immediate successors as the most cultured of the 
 surgeons. Whatever he wrote bears the traces of his 
 wide reading and of his respect for authority, yet shows 
 also his power to make observations for himself, and his 
 name is due much more to his independent work both in 
 the technics and the diagnostics of surgery, than to his 
 reputation for scholarship or the depth of his culture. 
 Lanfranc (whose name was Lanfranchi) had been an 
 Italian. Mondeville was- born in Normandy sometime 
 about the beginning of the last quarter of the thirteenth 
 century. The place of his education is not absolutely 
 sure, but there is good authority for saying that he was, 
 for a time at least, in Bologna. On his return from 
 Italy he passed some time, just at the beginning of the 
 fourteenth century, in Montpelier. He seems to have 
 looked for a professorship at Montpelier, but instead re- 
 ceived the appointment as surgeon to the French king, 
 Philip Le Bel. This brought him to Paris, where the 
 first portion of his book on surgery was written about 
 1306. This was not completed until 1312. His work was 
 interrupted by several campaigns on which he attended 
 
178 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 the king along the Northern coast. When he again took 
 up his work of writing, he revised what he had written 
 at first by the light of the experience that he had ac- 
 quired in the campaign. Pagel says that his style is 
 lively and clear and often full of meat. Many of his own 
 opinions and experiences are incorporated in his work, 
 and in spite of his tendency to display his erudition by 
 quotations, his originality is not seriously interfered 
 with. 
 
 Some of his remarks are very curiously interesting to 
 the modern. He seems to have had the idea that por- 
 tions of metal which had penetrated the body as the re- 
 sult of explosions, for gun-powder was already being 
 used, might be removed by means of a magnet. He 
 would not have been a distinguished surgeon without in- 
 venting a needle-holder, and accordingly we find that he 
 was one of the first of a long line of such inventors. He 
 invented certain instruments also for the removal of 
 arrow-heads, which because of their form and hooks be- 
 come firmly imbedded in the tissues. Mondeville had 
 no such fear of trephining as Lanf ranc had, though he 
 did not hesitate to emphasize the value of expectant 
 treatment in most of these cases of injury to the head 
 that might seem at first to demand the trephine. 
 
 Pagel notes the fact that when he prescribed drinks 
 for his patients this medieval surgeon suggested that 
 certain verses of the psalms which were usually recited, 
 according to the custom of the times, whenever anything 
 was administered to a patient, should be said. Pagel 
 considers it quite natural that as a believing physician 
 he should have realized how much his believing patients 
 would be influenced for the better by such a procedure. 
 He did not place any supreme faith in its efficacy, but 
 
CHURCH AND SURGERY 179 
 
 knew that it could do no harm, and had probably seen, 
 as has many a physician and surgeon of the modern 
 time, that such a practice does good, if not by the direct 
 interference of Providence, then at least by the calm- 
 ness of mind which it superinduces in the patient. In 
 the same way Mondeville was not averse to his patients 
 going on pilgrimages. He did not expect that they would 
 all be cured miraculously, but according to Pagel, his 
 discussion of this subject is quite modern. Travel and 
 change of scene would do good anyhow in many cases, 
 expectancy would help the patient's condition, and the 
 hope aroused was also good. The best merit, however, 
 of this French surgeon is undoubtedly the immense in- 
 fluence which he exerted over his great successor, Guy 
 de Chauliac. 
 
 We are really only beginning to accumulate knowledge 
 with regard to the surgery of the thirteenth and four- 
 teenth centuries. Pagel has devoted three very full 
 pages, in his compressed account of surgery, to John 
 Yperman, a surgeon of the early fourteenth century of 
 whom practically nothing was known until about twenty- 
 five years ago, when the Belgian historian Broeck 
 brought to light his works and gathered some details of 
 his life. He was a pupil of Lanfranc's, and at the end 
 of the thirteenth century studied at Paris on a scholar- 
 ship provided by his native town of Ypres, which delib- 
 erately sent him in order that he might become expert 
 in surgery. This may seem a strange thing for a me- 
 dieval town to do, at least it may seem so to those who 
 have been accustomed to think little of the Middle Ages, 
 but it will not to anyone who knows anything about the 
 wonderful civic spirit of the Free Towns. In the chapter 
 on Science at the Medieval Universities I have quoted 
 
180 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 from Prince Kropotkin's work on Mutual Aid in the Me- 
 dieval Towns, and further consultation of that as a ready 
 reference, would make all cause for ignorant surprise 
 with regard to the culture and the enterprise of medieval 
 towns disappear. Ypres, while a town of only fifteen 
 thousand inhabitants now, was one of the most impor- 
 tant towns of Flanders in the Middle Ages, noted for its 
 manufacture of linens and fine laces, and has a hand- 
 some cathedral dating from the thirteenth century and 
 a town hall, the famous Cloth Hall, from the same pe- 
 riod, which is one of the most beautiful architectural 
 monuments in Europe and one of the finest municipal 
 buildings in the world. 
 
 After his return Yperman settled down in his native 
 town and practiced surgery until his death, which prob- 
 ably took place about 1330. He obtained a great renown, 
 and this has been maintained so that in that part of the 
 country even yet, an expert surgeon is spoken of as an 
 Yperman. He is the author of two works in Flemish. 
 One of these is what Pagel calls an unimportant compi- 
 lation on internal medicine, but the headings of the chap- 
 ters as he gives them can scarcely fail to attract the 
 attention of the modern physician. He treats of dropsy, 
 rheumatism, under which occur the terms coryza and 
 catarrh, icterus, phthisis (he calls the tuberculous, 
 tysiken), apoplexy, epilepsy, frenzy, lethargy, fallen 
 palate, cough, shortness of breath, lung abscess, hem- 
 orrhage, blood-spitting, liver abscess, hardening of the 
 spleen, affections of the kidney, bloody urine, diabetes, 
 incontinence of urine, dysuria, strangury, gonorrhrea 
 and involuntary seminal emissions all these terms are 
 quoted directly from Pagel. 
 
 All this would seem to show that Yperman was a 
 
CHURCH AND SURGERY 181 
 
 thoroughly representative medical man. When I add that 
 Pagel says he shows a well marked striving to free him- 
 self from the bondage of authority and that most of his 
 therapeutic prescriptions rest upon his own experience, 
 it will be seen that he deserves the greatest possible 
 credit. His work in medicine, however, Pagel considers 
 as nothing compared to his work in surgery. A special 
 feature of this is the presence of seventy illustrations of 
 instruments of the most various kinds, together with a 
 plate showing the anatomical features of the stitching 
 of a wound of the head. The work as we have it is 
 only a fragment. The last part of it which treated of 
 the extremities is defective. If anyone thinks for a 
 moment that surgery was a neglected specialty at the 
 end of the thirteenth and the beginning of the four- 
 teenth century, he should consult the text of this, or 
 even PageF s brief account of its contents. Some of the 
 features of it are noteworthy. There is a chapter de- 
 voted to intoxications, which includes the effects of can- 
 tharides as well as alcohol, and treats of the bites of 
 snakes, scorpions, and of hydrophobia due to the bites 
 of mad hounds. There is scarcely a feature of modern 
 surgery of the head that is not touched upon very sen- 
 sibly in this work. 
 
 The best proof, however, at once of the flourishing state 
 of surgery during the fourteenth century and of the 
 utter absurdity of saying that surgery did not develop 
 because of the opposition of the Church or of ecclesias- 
 tics, and above all of the Popes, is to be found in the 
 life of Guy de Chauliac, who has been deservedly called 
 the Father of Modern Surgery and whose contributions 
 to surgery occupy a prominent place in every history of 
 medicine that one picks up. While the works of other 
 
182 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 great writers in surgery of the thirteenth and four- 
 teenth centuries have as a rule only come to be com- 
 monly known during the latter part of the nineteenth 
 century, Guy de Chauliac's position -and the significance 
 of his work and his writings have been a commonplace 
 in the history of medicine for as long as it has been 
 written seriously. We have already stated in several 
 places in this volume his relations to the Popes. He 
 was a chamberlain of the Papal Court while it was at 
 Avignon, and while he was teaching and developing sur- 
 gery at the University of Montpelier he was also body 
 physician to three of the Popes, and the intimate friend 
 and influential adviser to whom they turned for consul- 
 tation in matters relating to medical education and to 
 science generally. 
 
 In the present chapter, then, we shall only discuss the 
 contributions to surgery of this surgeon of the Popes, 
 at a time when, according to President White, because 
 of Church opposition, surgery was considered dishonor- 
 able ; "when the greatest monarchs were often unable to 
 secure an ordinary surgical operation, and when it re- 
 quired an edict of the German Emperor in order that 
 dishonor should no longer attach to the surgical profes- 
 sion." This is what Chauliac accomplished, according to 
 Professor Allbutt : 
 
 "Of his substantial advances in surgery no sufficient 
 account is possible ; but some chief points, with the aid 
 of Haeser, Malgaigne, and Nicaise, I may briefly sum 
 up thus : He pointed out the dangers of surgery of the 
 neck, among them that of injuring the voice by section 
 of the recurrent laryngeal nerve, a precaution he prob- 
 ably learned from Paul. He urges a low diet for the 
 wounded, as did Mondeville and many others. He uses 
 
CHURCH AND SURGERY 183 
 
 sutures well and discreetly (p. 9) , but with far too many 
 salves. On fractures of the skull he is at his best ; he 
 noted the escape of cerebro-spinal fluid, and the effect 
 of pressure on the respiration. It is somewhat strange 
 that in days of war the study of chest wounds had 
 been rather neglected by Galen, Haly, and Avicenna ; 
 their practice, however, was to leave them open, lest 
 pus should gather about the heart. Theodoric and 
 Henry ordered chest wounds to be closed ' lest the vital 
 spirits escape/ Guy also closed these wounds, unless 
 there were any effusion to be removed. In empyema he 
 objects to caustics and prefers the knife. For haem- 
 orrhages he used sutures a little too closely perhaps 
 styptics, cautery or ligature. Sinuses he dilated with 
 tents of gentian root, or he incised them upon a director. 
 On ulcers his large experience is fully manifest. He 
 describes the carcinomatous kind as hopeless, unless the 
 mass can be excised at a very early stage and the inci- 
 sion followed by caustics. If in fractures and disloca- 
 tions he tells us nothing new, these sections testify to 
 a remarkable fulness of knowledge at a period when 
 the Hippocratic treatises were unknown. Haeser says 
 that in respect of position in fractured femur he was the 
 best physician in the Middle Ages." 
 
 This is the period, it must not be forgotten, when, ac- 
 cording to President White, surgery was in such a state 
 that the application of various ordures relieved fractures ; 
 the touch of the hangman cured sprains ; the breath of a 
 donkey expelled poison ; friction with a dead man's tooth 
 cured a toothache. 1 
 
 1 Quite as curious notions as these which President White mentions still exist in 
 popular medicine in our own day. I have myself known a man to blow the dried ex- 
 crement of the dog into the throat of his child suffering from diphtheria, and he as- 
 sured me that it cured him. In the country districts they still use ordure poultices 
 
184 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 Lest it should be thought that possibly Professor All- 
 butt had been rather partial to the great Father of Mod- 
 ern Surgery in his enthusiasm for these medieval sur- 
 geons, it seems worth while to compress here some- 
 thing of what Pagel has to say with regard to this great 
 man, who represents in himself a full hundred years of 
 progress in surgery. He wrote an immense text-book 
 of surgery, from which his teaching may be learned with 
 absolute authenticity. The great significance attached 
 to Guy's writings by his contemporaries and successors 
 will be readily appreciated from the immense number of 
 manuscript copies, original editions in print, and the 
 many translations which are extant. This monument 
 of scientific surgery has for dedication a sentence that 
 would alone and of itself obliterate all the nonsense that 
 has been talked about Papal opposition to the develop- 
 ment of surgery. It runs as follows : 
 
 (I dedicate this work) "To you my masters, physi- 
 cians of Montpelier, Bologna, Paris, and Avignon, es- 
 pecially you of the Papal Court with whom I have been 
 associated in the service of the Roman Pontiffs. The 
 exact words as given by Pagel are " Vobis dominis meis 
 medicis Montispessulani, Bononia9, Parisiis atque Avini- 
 onis, praecipue papalibus, quibus me in servitio Roma- 
 norum pontificum associavi." 
 
 Pagel has three closely printed pages in small type of 
 titles alone of subjects which Chauliac treated with dis- 
 
 f or sprains of various kinds, and I have known doctors prescribe them. I have seen an 
 intelligent woman smoking dried angleworms in a pipe for toothache. I sincerely 
 hope, however, that no serious (!) historian of the twenty-fifth century will gather up 
 side remarks like the present with regard to such curious customs real superstitions 
 that have nothing to do with religion, as most supersititions have not and state them 
 as showing the ignorance of our generation, and above all as indicating the low state 
 of medicine in our time. 
 
CHURCH AND SURGERY 185 
 
 tinction. His description of instruments and methods of 
 operation is especially full and suggestive. He knew 
 how to prescribe manipulations and set forth the princi- 
 ples on which they were founded. Scarcely anything 
 was added to his method of taxis for hernia for five cen- 
 turies after his time. He describes the passage of a 
 catheter with the accuracy and complete technic of a 
 man who knew all the difficulties of it in complicated 
 conditions. He recognizes the dangers that arise for 
 the surgeon from the presence of anatomical anomalies 
 of various kinds, and describes certain of the more im- 
 portant of them. He did not hesitate to suggest some 
 very serious operations. For instance, for empyema he 
 advises opening of the chest. He has very exact indi- 
 cations for trephining. He recognizes the absolute fa- 
 tality of wounds of the abdomen, in which the intestines 
 were opened, if they were left untreated, and describes 
 a method of suturing wounds of the intestines in order 
 to save the patient's life. In a word, there is nothing 
 that has been attempted in these modern times, with our 
 aseptic precautions and the advantage of anaesthesia, 
 which this father of surgery did not discuss very practi- 
 cally and with excellent common sense as well as surgi- 
 cal acumen. 
 
 Chauliac's career is interesting because it is that of a 
 self-made man of the Middle Ages, which brings out the 
 fact that men do not differ so much as might be thought 
 at this distance of time, and shows that there were 
 chances for a man to rise by his own genius from a lowly 
 to a lofty position at this time of the Middle Ages, when 
 it is usually supposed that men were excluded from such 
 opportunities. Allbutt says of him : 
 
 " Still, Guy of Chauliac, who flourished in the second 
 
186 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 half of the fourteenth century, was enabled to feed his 
 virile and inquisitive spirit on rich sources of learning. 
 While he succeeded to the stores of Arnold (of Villanova) 
 and Gordon with his just and cautious reason and wealth 
 of experience, he cast out of them much of the sorcery, 
 jugglery, astrology and mysticism which were their 
 reproach. Chauliac is a village in the Auvergne, and 
 Guy was but a farmer's lad. It was by the aid of pow- 
 erful friends that he studied at Toulouse and Montpelier, 
 took orders and the degree of Master of Medicine; in his 
 time there was no degree of Doctor of Medicine in 
 France. Then he studied anatomy at Bologna under 
 Bertruccio, the successor of Mondino, a study which, 
 with Henry (de Mondeville) he regarded as the founda- 
 tion of surgery. The surgeon ignorant of anatomy, he 
 says, "carves the human body as a blind man carves 
 wood." 1 
 
 "Thence he paid a brief visit to Paris, where for a mo- 
 ment, by the renown of Lanfranc, Jean Pitard, and 
 Henry of Mondeville, surgery was in the ascendant. For 
 the moment the Church and the faculty had not suc- 
 ceeded in paralyzing the scientific arm of medicine. 2 
 
 1 This is a very striking reflection on the necessity for the study of anatomy for 
 the practice of surgery to have been made within a half century after the supposed 
 prohibition of dissection by the Popes, and at a time when, according to President 
 White, " even such serious matters as fractures, calculi and difficult parturition, in 
 which modern science has achieved some of its greatest triumphs, were dealt with by 
 relics," and when "there were religious scruples against dissection," and surgery 
 "was denounced by the Church," and when "pastoral medicine had checked all 
 scientific effort in medical science." And the reflection was made by a chamberlain 
 of the Papal household. 
 
 2 It is worthy of remark, how even Prof. Allbutt, in a passage like this, where he 13 
 providing abundant material for the contradiction of the English Protestant tradition 
 of the supposed opposition of the Church to science, and especially to surgery, yet 
 cannot break away from the influence of that tradition entirely. It has been bred in 
 him, and even while showing its falsity he is not entirely convinced himself, because; 
 
CHURCH AND SURGERY 187 
 
 Guy began practice in Lyons, whence he was called to 
 Avignon by Clement VI. as ' venerabilis et circumspec- 
 tus vir, dominus Guido de Cauliaco, canonicus et prsepo- 
 situs ecclesiae Sancti Justi Lugduni, medicusque domini 
 nostri Papae. ' In Avignon he stayed, while other phy- 
 sicians fled, to minister to the victims of the plague (A. D. , 
 1348) , and he may have attended Laura in spite of Pe- 
 trarch's tirades against all physicians and even against 
 Guy himself. His description of this epidemic is terri- 
 ble in its naked simplicity. He did not, indeed, himself 
 escape, for he had an attack with bubo, and was ill for 
 six weeks. He gave succor also in a later epidemic in 
 Avignon, in 1360. His ' Chirurgia Magna ' or Inventa- 
 rium seu Collectorium Artis Chirurgicalis Medicinaa so 
 called in distinction to the meagre little handbooks or 
 Chirurgiae Parvae compiled from the larger treatises 
 was in preparation in 1363. This great work I have 
 studied carefully, and not without prejudice ; and yet I 
 cannot wonder that Fallopius compared the author to 
 Hippocrates, or that John Freind calls him the Prince of 
 Surgeons. It is rich, aphoristic, orderly and precise. 
 As a clerk he wrote in Latin, in the awkward hybrid 
 tongue that medical Latin then was, containing many 
 Arabian, Provencal and French words, but very little 
 Greek. " 
 
 We have seen that there was great surgery in Italy, 
 in France, and in the Netherlands, but it had also crossed 
 the channel into England. 
 
 There was a famous English surgeon during the four- 
 
 the old mode of view has so firm a hold on him that he is not open to conviction. A 
 little later in this same passage he speaks of taking up the study of Chauliac, pre- 
 judiced against him, and being convinced of his greatness against his will. Verily 
 history has been a conspiracy against the truth, in which many people have joined 
 almost unconsciously, led astray by feeling, not intellect. 
 
188 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 teenth century by the name of John Ardern. He was 
 educated at Montpelier and practiced surgery for a time 
 in France. About the middle of the century, however, 
 according to Pagel, he went back to his native land and 
 settled for some twenty years at Newark, in Notting- 
 hamshire, and then for nearly thirty years longer, until 
 nearly the end of the century, was in London. He is 
 the chief representative of English surgery during the 
 Middle Ages. His Practice, as yet unprinted, contains, 
 according to Pagel, a short sketch of internal medicine, 
 but is mainly devoted to surgery. Contrary to the usual 
 impression with regard to works in medicine and surgery 
 at this time, the book abounds in references to case his- 
 tories which Ardern had gathered, partly from his own 
 and partly from others' experience. The therapeutic 
 measures that he suggests are usually very simple, in 
 the majority of cases quite rational, though, of course, 
 there are many superstitions among them ; but Ardern 
 always furnished a number of suggestions from which 
 to choose. He must have been an expert operator, and 
 had excellent success in the treatment of diseases of the 
 rectum. He seems to have been the first operator who 
 made statistics of his cases, and was quite as proud as 
 any modern surgeon, of the large numbers that he had 
 operated on, which he gives very exactly. He was the 
 inventor of a new clyster apparatus. 
 
 Daremberg, the medical historian, who saw a copy of 
 Ardern' s manuscript in St. John's College, Oxford, says 
 that it contains numerous illustrations of instruments 
 and operations. His work seems really to be a series of 
 monographs or collection of special articles on different 
 subjects, which Ardern had made at various times, 
 rather than a connected work. Pagel bewails the fact 
 
CHURCH AND SURGERY 139 
 
 that a more thorough consideration of Ardern's work is 
 impossible, because the greater part of what he wrote 
 remains as yet unprinted. 
 
 In general, when we consider how difficult was the 
 task of making copies of works on surgery by hand, and 
 especially such as contain numerous illustrations, the 
 wonder grows that we should have so much about the 
 surgery of these centuries rather than so little. Some of 
 these works have been preserved for us by the merest 
 chance. There have been many centuries since their 
 time, when what these surgeons wrote would have been 
 thought of very little value because physicians were not 
 educated up to them. In spite of this liability to loss, 
 which must have caused the destruction of many valu- 
 able works, we still have enough to show us what won- 
 derful men were these surgeons of the thirteenth and 
 fourteenth centuries, who anticipated our best thinking 
 of the modern times in many of the most difficult 
 problems. It is only during the last twenty-five years 
 that anything like justice has been done them. The only 
 way to know what these men did and taught is to read 
 their own works, and these have been buried in manu- 
 script or hidden away in large folio volumes, printed very 
 early in the history of printing, and considered so valu- 
 able that consultation of them was almost resented by 
 librarians. Anyone who talks about the lack of surgery 
 in Europe during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries 
 is supremely ignorant of the real course of history at 
 this time, and when in addition he attributes the failure 
 of surgery to develop to a trumped-up opposition of the 
 Church or ecclesiastics, he is simply making a ridiculous 
 exhibition of intolerance and of foolish readiness to 
 accept anything, however groundless, that may en- 
 
190 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 able him to make out a case against the ecclesiastical 
 authorities. 
 
 It is curious to reflect that in spite of all this wonder- 
 ful progress in surgery, somehow there has crept in the 
 tradition which has been very generally accepted by his- 
 torians not acquainted with the details of medical his- 
 tory, that surgery was neglected during the thirteenth 
 and fourteenth centuries. The existence of this tradition, 
 and its acceptance by men who had no idea that they 
 were being influenced by that peculiar state of mind 
 which considers that nothing good can come out of the 
 Nazareth of the times before the reformation so-called, 
 is of itself a warning with regard to the way history has 
 been written, especially for the Teutonic and English- 
 speaking peoples, that should carry weight in other de- 
 partments of history beside medicine and surgery. 
 
 Even Pagel could not get entirely away from the old 
 tradition which has existed for so long, that the Church, 
 if she did not oppose, at least hampered the progress of 
 surgery. While his first paragraph shows that he 
 recognized the important advances that were made in 
 the Middle Ages, he cannot rid himself of the prejudice 
 that has existed so long and has tinged so much of the 
 historical writing of the last four centuries. He fur- 
 nishes an abundance of material himself to disprove the 
 old opinion, and evidently has been influenced by this 
 evidence, but cannot give up notions that have been part 
 and parcel of his education from his earliest days in 
 Protestant Germany. He says : 
 
 ''A set-back must also be recognized to some extent 
 in surgery, especially attributable to the fact that as 
 a consequence of the pressure of the Church upon 
 scientific medicine, the representatives of medical 
 
CHURCH AND SURGERY 191 
 
 science felt themselves bound to neglect the practical 
 art of surgical operation. Church regulations forbade 
 the shedding of blood to churchmen, and not a few phy- 
 sicians were more than inclined to accept this prohibi- 
 tion as in accordance with their own feelings. For this 
 reason the practice of surgery was left for the most part 
 to the lower orders of those engaged in healing. This 
 went to such an extent, that physicians even came to 
 look upon surgery as an unworthy occupation. Even 
 venesection, which was so commonly employed and which 
 came to be indispensable to the practice of internal 
 medicine, made it necessary to call for the services of a 
 barber-surgeon. ' ' 
 
 As we shall see, there were many other and much 
 more important factors at work in the degradation of 
 surgery than the supposed repression of the Church. 
 The time to which Pagel refers is in the earlier centuries 
 of the Middle Ages, and not the later ones ; yet it is 
 from these later centuries that the supposed prohibitory 
 decrees are all quoted. The contempt for surgery was 
 due rather to the general lack of culture before the 
 foundation of the universities than to any ecclesiastical 
 repression. Just as soon as the great medical schools 
 were opened and that at Salerno came into existence in 
 the early part of the tenth century if not earlier sur- 
 gery began to be in honor. Pagel himself confesses this 
 in the very next paragraph of this brief conspectus of 
 surgery, and shows how generally was the uplift of 
 surgery made possible by university education, though 
 there still remained many drawbacks to progress because 
 of the jealousy of physicians. 
 
 ' ' Gradually, however, a beneficial transformation of 
 customs in this matter began to be manifest. Physicians 
 
192 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 who were scientifically trained began to take up surgery 
 with enthusiasm, and from that time (end of twelfth 
 century) dates the visible uplift of this specialty. 
 Eventually the most noteworthy literary events and re- 
 mains of the representatives of the great schools of the 
 Middle Ages Salerno, Bologna, Paris and Montpelier 
 concern quite as much the department of surgery as of 
 practical medicine. These medieval literary contributions 
 constitute the principal steps in the historical develop- 
 ment of scientific surgery. The Crusades represent an 
 extremely important influence upon the perfecting of 
 the surgery of wounds. Italian surgeons in large num- 
 bers took prominent parts therein. They took the abun- 
 dant opportunities afforded them to gather experience, 
 which they used to great advantage in their practice and 
 in their teaching after their return home. From Roger, 
 the first and most important of the representatives of 
 the Salernitan school (whose life occupies the end of the 
 twelfth and the beginning of the thirteenth century) , 
 and down to Guy de Chauliac (who died toward the end 
 of the fourteenth century) , in a space therefore of not 
 quite two hundred years, a complete breach with the 
 blood-fearing traditions of the Arabs was made. In no 
 European land does one fail to find evidence of intense 
 as well as successful scientific occupation with surgery. " 
 As a reflection that throws a brilliant light on the true 
 conditions that brought about the diminished estimation 
 in which surgery came to be held, Guy de Chauliac has 
 an interesting passage in which he suggests an explana- 
 tion for it, which is surely much nearer the truth than 
 any modern explanation is likely to be. He says that, 
 after the time of the Arabs, who were all both physicians 
 and surgeons, either because of the lack of interest of 
 
CHURCH AND SURGERY 193 
 
 physicians or their laziness, for the practice of surgery 
 is a difficult matter, or because they came to be too 
 much occupied with the ills which they might hope to 
 cure by medicines alone, surgery became separated from 
 medicine and passed down into the hands of mere 
 mechanics. This is a complaint not infrequently heard 
 even at the present day, that medicine and surgery are 
 drawing too much apart for the good of either specialty. 
 Both the Regius Professors of medicine in England have 
 recently insisted that physicians must of tener be present 
 at operations if they would really appreciate the value 
 of diagnosis, while there has been for many years a 
 feeling that surgery would be benefitted if surgeons did 
 not always wish to have recourse to the knife, but ap- 
 preciated how much good might be accomplished by other 
 remedial measures. The great French Father of Surgery, 
 then, was only expressing what was to be a perennial 
 complaint in the domain of medicine and surgery when 
 he explained the separation of the two departments of 
 healing. He has nothing whatever to say of the evil 
 influence upon surgery of any Church regulations, though 
 he must have been in a position to realize their signifi- 
 cance very well in this respect if they actually had any. 
 He was himself, as we have said, a member of the Papal 
 household ; he was even a cleric, and seems to have en- 
 countered no difficulty at all not only in devoting himself 
 to surgery, but even in lifting up that department of 
 medicine from the slough of neglect into which it had 
 fallen because of the lack of initiative of preceding 
 generations in his native land. 
 
 It may be wondered, then, how the tradition of oppo- 
 sition to surgery, which is so common in history, had its 
 origin. Nearly always for these exaggerated stories 
 
194 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 there is some basis of truth. For instance, with regard 
 to the opposition to Vesalius, the origin of the stories 
 of persecution by the Church and ecclesiastical authori- 
 ties is evidently the fact that he was very much opposed 
 by the old-time physicians and surgeons, who believed 
 in Galen and thought it worse than heresy to break with 
 him. It is the opposition of scientists, or pseudo-scien- 
 tists, to scientific progress that constitutes the real bar 
 to advance, and has over and over again been attributed 
 to religious motives, when it is really due to that very 
 human overconservatism, which so constantly places 
 men in the position of opponents to novelties of any kind, 
 no matter how much of value they may eventually prove 
 to have. There has always existed a certain prejudice 
 against surgery on the part of physicians meaning by 
 that term, for the moment, those who devote themselves 
 to internal medicine. This feeling has never quite died 
 out. There were times in the Middle Ages when it was 
 very marked. Not a little of the feeling is due to pro- 
 fessional jealousy, and that, it is to be feared, like the 
 poor, we shall have always with us. 
 
 Professor Allbutt has in the address at St. Louis, al- 
 ready quoted from, a very interesting passage with re- 
 gard to the College of St. Come at Paris, in which this 
 jealousy between physicians and surgeons is very well 
 brought out. I quote it here in order to illustrate once 
 more that opposition of scientists to scientific advance, 
 for personal reasons, which has always existed, is still 
 one of the features of the history of science, and will 
 probably always continue to be a noteworthy phase of 
 scientific progress. It will serve at the same time to 
 furnish to those who cannot think that these stories with 
 regard to the hampering of surgical development are en- 
 
CHURCH AND SURGERY 195 
 
 tirely without foundation, some basis for them that will 
 account for their universality, but will only render clear- 
 er the intolerance of those who have constantly perverted 
 the meaning of this opposition to persecution on the part 
 of Church authorities. Ecclesiastics not only had noth- 
 ing to do with this, but more often than not were the 
 active factors in such amelioration of the conditions it 
 brought about as very much to lessen its effects. 
 
 Allbutt's story of the College of Surgeons of St. Come 
 at Paris is, as we have said, interesting from this stand- 
 point. " Some of my readers may wonder how it is that 
 in discoursing of medieval surgery I have not dwelt upon 
 the Surgical College of St. Come of Paris. Well, St. 
 Come did no great things for surgery. The truth is that, 
 infected with the exclusiveness and dialectical conceits 
 of all the schools of Paris, St. Come was almost ready 
 to sacrifice surgery itself if thereby it might choke off its 
 parasites, the barbers. Lest they should be suspected 
 of mixing their philosophy with facts, its members went 
 about with their hands ostentatiously tied behind them. 
 If perhaps Malgaigne speaks too contemptuously of St. 
 Come, it must be admitted that the college was in a false 
 position throughout. In aping the Faculty of Medicine, 
 it lost the touch of mother earth without gaining any 
 harbourage in the deep waters of the proud. Nay, such 
 is the Nemesis of pride, the barbers came to command 
 the position. It did not suit the Faculty to see the bar- 
 bers weakened ; for in their weakness lay the strength 
 of the surgeons of St. Come, who sought incessantly to 
 appear as lettered clerks, to attach their college to the 
 university, and even to claim a place beside the Faculty 
 itself. To bring St. Come to its knees, and to check the 
 presumptuous claims of this corporation on the privi- 
 
196 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 leges of the Faculty of Medicine, on a liberal education 
 in arts and medicine, on a place in the university, on the 
 suppression of unqualified surgical practice, and less, 
 honourably, on relief from handicraft and urgent calls, 
 the Faculty had to coquette with the barbers. Medicine, 
 proclaimed the Faculty when it suited its purpose, con- 
 tains the theoretical and the practical side of surgery ; 
 a surgeon is therefore but the servant of a physician. If 
 St. Come sought to provide lectures in surgery, the Fac- 
 ulty, which kept possession of teaching licenses and de- 
 sired in the surgeon a docile assistant, took the teaching 
 from the college and invited the barbers to lectures of its 
 own. In their duplicity and conceit of caste, physicians 
 of the Faculty condescended even to publish books on 
 surgery, books as arid and as insincere as their lectures. 
 On the other hand, in the person of the King's Barber, 
 the barbers had a secret and potent influence at Court. 
 The Faculty persisted in denying to St. Come all ' eso- 
 teric ' teaching, all diagnosis, and all use of medical thera- 
 peutics. Aristotle was pronounced to be unfavorable to 
 the ' vulgarizing of science. ' Joubert was attacked for 
 editing Guy, but replied with dignity (in the notes of his 
 edition) . While the Faculty thus tried to prevent the 
 access to letters of a presumptuous body of artisans, St. 
 Come in mimic arrogance disdained the barbers, sought 
 to deny them the name of surgeon, and was jealous of 
 the diffusion of technical knowledge among them in the 
 vernacular tongue. ' n 
 
 1 As showing how professional jealously may exist in such ways in the modern times 
 as to hinder progress, the following paragraph, which is the opening portion of Pro- 
 fessor Allbutt's address, has seemed to me to deserve quotation here. It will illustrate 
 a phase of the subject that is probably utterly unexpected by those unfamiliar with 
 the inner history of medicine in our time, but which is not so surprising to physicians 
 who know the jealousy with which men guard their specialties from what they con- 
 
CHURCH AND SURGERY 197 
 
 In conclusion, we may say that, in the Middle Ages, 
 once men had lifted themselves up from the condition 
 into which they had been plunged by the incursions of 
 the barbarians, there was nothing like the neglect of 
 surgery which is sometimes said to have existed. Sur- 
 gery had its normal development, and reached as high a 
 stage as medicine in that beginning Renaissance, which 
 is the characteristic feature of the twelfth, thirteenth, 
 and fourteenth centuries. The traditions of a low 
 state of surgery at this time are all false and founded 
 on insufficient knowledge of the real conditions, which 
 have been so clearly revealed to us by the investigation 
 of original documents in the last twenty-five years. 
 This was, in fact, one of the greatest periods in the his- 
 tory of surgery that the world has ever known. What- 
 ever of difficulty in development surgery encountered was 
 due not to any Church opposition, but to unfortunate 
 conditions that arose in the practice of medicine. Pro- 
 fessional jealousy and shortsightedness was the main 
 element in it. Even this, however, did not prevent the 
 very wonderful development of surgery that came dur- 
 
 sider the interference of others, in hospital work and in teaching, though this exclu- 
 siveness often proves detrimental both to the breadth of development of the student 
 and to the good health of the patient. 
 
 " It was, I think, in the year 1864, when I was a novice on the Honorary Staff of the 
 Leeds General Infirmary, that the unsurgical division of us was summoned in great 
 solemnity to discuss a method of administration of drugs by means of a needle. This 
 method having obtained some vogue, it behooved those who practiced ' pure ' medicine 
 to decide whether the operation were consistent with the traditions of purity. For 
 my part, I answered that the method had come up early, if not originally, in St. 
 George's Hospital, and in the hands of a house physician Dr. C. Hunter; that I had 
 accustomed myself already to the practice and proposed to continue it ; moreover, 
 that I had recently come from the classes of Professor Trousseau, who, when his cases 
 demanded such treatment, did not hesitate himself to perform paracentesis of the 
 pleura, or even incision of this sac, or of the pericardium. As, for lack not of will 
 but of skill and nerve, I did not intend myself to perform even minor operations, my 
 heresy, as one in thought only, was indulgently ignored, and we were set free to ma- 
 nipulate the drug needle if we felt disposed to this humble service." 
 
198 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 ing the Middle Ages, and that made this department of 
 human knowledge quite as progressive and successful 
 as any other, in that marvelous period when the univer- 
 sities came into existence in the form which they have 
 maintained ever since. 
 
PAPAL PHYSICIANS. 
 
 Most of what historical writers generally, who follow 
 the old traditions of the medieval eclipse of medicine, 
 have to say with regard to the supposed Papal opposition 
 to the development of medical science, is founded on the 
 assumption that men who believed in miracles and in the 
 efficacy of prayer for the relief of disease could not pos- 
 sibly be interested to any serious degree in scientific 
 medicine. As Dr. White says, ' ' out of all these inquir- 
 ies came inevitably that question whose logical answer 
 was especially injurious to the development of medical 
 science : why should men seek to build up scientific 
 medicine and surgery, when relics, pilgrimages, and 
 sacred observances, according to an overwhelming mass 
 of concurrent testimony, have cured and are curing hosts 
 of sick folk in all parts of Europe. " He goes even 
 farther than this, however, when he suggests that * ' it 
 would be expecting too much from human nature to 
 imagine that Pontiffs who derived large revenues from 
 the sale of the Agnus Dei, or priests who derived both 
 wealth and honors from cures wrought at shrines under 
 their care, or lay dignitaries who had invested heavily in 
 relics, should favor the development of any science 
 which undermined their interests." 
 
 On the strength of assumptions such as these, that 
 "medieval belief in miracles of healing must have 
 checked medical science/' and that therefore it did 
 actually prevent the development of scientific medicine, 
 statements are made with regard to the history of medi- 
 
 (199) 
 
200 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 cine that are utterly at variance with the plain facts of 
 history. Once more, as in the case of the supposed 
 failure of surgery to develop during the Middle Ages, it 
 is a deduction that has been made from certain supposed 
 principles, and not an induction from the actual facts as 
 we know them. Such historians would be the first to 
 emphasize the narrowness of the schoolmen for their 
 supposed dependence on deduction, but what they have 
 to say on medical history is entirely deductive, and un- 
 fortunately from premises that will not stand in the 
 presence of the story of the wonderful rise and develop- 
 ment of medical science and medical education, mainly 
 under the patronage of ecclesiastics, in the Middle Ages. 
 
 The argument may be stated formally with perfect 
 fairness as follows : When men believe in miracles they 
 cannot build up scientific medicine and surgery; but men 
 believed in miracles in the Middle Ages, therefore they 
 did not build up scientific medicine and surgery. When 
 stated thus baldly in formal scholastic form, the argu- 
 ment loses most of the glamor 'that has been thrown 
 around it. This is one of the advantages of the old 
 scholastic method it strips argument to its naked signif- 
 icance. Logic asserts herself and rhetoric loses its 
 force. 
 
 With regard to the major premise that when men be- 
 lieve in miracles they will not successfully pursue in- 
 vestigations in the medical science, there are two an- 
 swers. One of these concerns the actual attitude of 
 mind towards scientific medicine of men who believe in 
 miracles, for we have such men still with us, and have 
 always had them all during the past seven centuries. 
 The other portion of the answer concerns what men who 
 were distinguished scientific investigators thought of 
 
PAPAL PHYSICIANS 201 
 
 miracles, and how much they accomplished for the medi- 
 cal sciences while all the time maintaining their belief 
 in the possibility of miraculous intervention for the 
 cure of disease. 
 
 Apparently the writers who insist on the incompati- 
 bility of the belief in miracles with devotion to scien- 
 tific medicine do not realize that the greater number of 
 thinking physicians during the last seven centuries, and 
 quite down to our own day, have been ready to confess 
 their belief in the possibility of miraculous healing, yet 
 have tried to do everything in their power to relieve suf- 
 fering and cure human ills by the natural means at their 
 command. Their attitude has been very much that at- 
 tributed to Ignatius of Loyola, who said to the members' 
 of his order : ''Do everything that you can with the idea 
 that everything depends on you, and then hope for re- 
 sults just as if everything depended on God." There is 
 no lack of logic in this ; and the physician of the present 
 day who realizes his impotency in the presence of so 
 many of the serious ailments of mankind is not a scoffer 
 at the attitude of mind that looks for help from prayer ; 
 but if he is sensible, welcomes the placidity of mind this 
 will give his patient, even if he does not, as many actu- 
 ally do, however, believe in the possible interposition of 
 supernatural forces. 
 
 If Prof. White knew anything about the lives of the 
 men whose names are most distinguished in the history 
 of medicine during the thirteenth, fourteenth and fif- 
 teenth centuries, we would have heard nothing of his 
 almost incomprehensible negation of the existence of 
 scientific medicine, during centuries when so many men 
 who have stamped their names indelibly on the history 
 of the medical sciences were doing their work and writ- 
 
202 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 ing. If he had taken any pains to learn even a few de- 
 tails of the personal relations of these old-time makers 
 of medicine to the Popes, we would have heard none of 
 this utter absurdity of Papal opposition to medicine or 
 ecclesiastical hampering of medical science. To answer 
 Prof. White's argument, that "it would be expecting 
 too much from human nature to imagine that Pontiffs 
 should favor the development of any science which un- 
 dermined their interests/' the simple story of the men 
 the Popes choose as their own medical advisers, and 
 who because of the prestige of their appointment as 
 Papal Physicians helped to raise up in the eyes of the 
 people the dignity of the medical profession which they 
 represented, will be quite enough. It will also serve to 
 show how different is history founded on an assumption 
 from history founded on actual facts. 
 
 The best, most easily obtainable, and most impressive 
 data for the inductive method of reaching the truth as 
 regards. the relation of the Popes to medical science and 
 (because of the fact that physicians were the scientists 
 par excellence of the Middle Ages) to all science, will 
 be found in a brief consideration of the lives of the men 
 who occupied the position of Papal Physician during 
 the last seven centuries. I do not think that this group 
 of men has ever been treated together before ; at least 
 I have been unable to find any work on the subject. 
 While I am able to present a considerable amount of in- 
 teresting material in brief form with regard to them, I 
 am sure that there are many of them whom I have 
 omitted. Practically up to the day of going to press I 
 have been finding new references that led to further 
 precious information with regard to this most wonderful 
 group of men in medical history. It will be well under- 
 

 PAPAL PHYSICIANS 203 
 
 stood, then, that impressive as the consideration of the 
 work and character of the men whose names I have 
 found must be, this does not represent all the truth in 
 the matter, but can be supplemented without much diffi- 
 culty from other sources. 
 
 If the Popes had been interested only in the miraculous 
 healing of disease, and had wished to teach the lesson 
 that men should depend solely for their recovery from 
 serious symptoms and ailments of all kinds on prayers 
 and relics and pilgrimages, then they would either have 
 had no physicians at all in regular attendance on them, 
 or at least their physicians would not have been selected 
 from among the men who were doing most to advance 
 the cause of practical and scientific medicine and of 
 medical education. The very opposite of this is the case. 
 The Papal physicians were as a rule the most scientific 
 medical men of their time. This is not a pious exaggera- 
 tion, but is literally true for seven centuries of history, 
 as we shall see presently. The wonder of it is that there 
 were not some charlatans among them. The physicians 
 whom educated people select are not, as physicians well 
 know, always worthy examples of progressive medical 
 men. Literary folk particularly seem to have a distinct ten- 
 dency to want to be different from other people, and 
 their physicians are often the veriest theorizers. A 
 medical friend who occasionally quotes, but perverts the 
 old line, ' ' the people people have for friends are often very 
 queer, " says, half in jest of course, but alas ! more than 
 half in earnest, that ''the people literary folk and the 
 clergy have for doctors are the queerest ducks (docs. ) 
 of all/' 
 
 It is only too true that clergymen are especially prone 
 to be erratic in the choice of their medical advisers and 
 
204 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 lacking in a critical judgment as to the remedies and 
 methods of treatment of which they become the willing 
 recipients, and occasionally even the sponsors as regards 
 other people, who look up to their judgment for other 
 reasons with confidence. Prof. Osier once said that the 
 nearer to the Council of Trent the clergyman, the nearer 
 he was likely to be to truth and common sense in medi- 
 cal matters ; but then perhaps all would not agree with 
 him. It is all the more surprising under the circum- 
 stances, and very greatly to their credit, that the Popes 
 should have had as their physicians a list of men whose 
 names are the brightest on the roll of great contributors 
 to medical literature and some of the most distinguished 
 among the great discoverers in medical science. 
 
 This fact alone constitutes the most absolute contradic- 
 tion of the declarations as to supposed Church opposition 
 to medicine that could possibly be .given. No better 
 means of encouraging, fostering, and patronizing medical 
 science could be thought of than to give the prestige and 
 the emoluments of physician to the head of the Church 
 to important makers of medicine in every generation. 
 The physicians to the rulers of Europe have not always 
 been selected with as good judgment, and, as I have al- 
 ready said, there is no list of physicians to any European 
 Court, nor indeed any list of names of medical men con- 
 nected together by any bond in history no list, for in- 
 stance, of any medical faculty of a university which 
 can be compared for prestige in scientific medicine with 
 the Papal Physicians. 
 
 Before the beginning of the thirteenth century very 
 little is known of the medical attendants of the Popes. 
 We point out in the following chapter that the Papacy 
 was closely in touch with the medical school at Salernum. 
 
PAPAL PHYSICIANS 205 
 
 It seems not unlikely, and indeed there are some tradi- 
 tions to that effect, that in cases of severe illnesses of 
 the Popes, important members of the medical faculty 
 were sometimes summoned from the South of Italy to 
 Rome. The relations of the Popes to the neighboring 
 abbey of Monte Cassino might, as we have said, suggest 
 this. We have, however, very few details in this 
 matter. With the beginning of the great thirteenth 
 century, however, the records of human achievement in 
 every line are better kept, and at once we begin to know 
 something definite about Papal Physicians. The first 
 one of decided prominence was Guy or Guido of Mont- 
 pelier, who was summoned to Rome by Pope Innocent 
 III. in order that he might re-establish the hospital of 
 the Santo Spirito at Rome, in accordance with what were 
 considered to be the latest ideas in the matter of hospital 
 building and the enlightened care of the sick. How well 
 he accomplished this work, and how well he deserves to 
 head the glorious roll of Papal Physicians, will be seen 
 in the chapter on The Popes and City Hospitals. 
 
 The next of the Papal Physicians of whom much is 
 known in the history of medicine was Richard the Eng- 
 lishman, usually spoken of as Ricardus Anglicus. He 
 was the physician to the famous Pope Gregory IX. 
 (1237-1241). Richard, who was born in England not 
 long before the beginning of the thirteenth century, died 
 shortly after the middle of that century. For a time he 
 was at Paris, and accordingly is sometimes spoken of as 
 Ricardus Parisiensis. According to Gabriel Naude he 
 was at Paris after the death of his patient, Gregory IX. , 
 and towards the end of his life retired to the Abbey of St. 
 Victor, to spend his last days in recollection and prayer. 
 In this he anticipated another great English physician 
 
206 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 with a European reputation Linacre who, three cen- 
 turies later, after having been the royal physician for 
 many years to King Henry VIII. , became a clergyman. 
 It is interesting to realize that, early in history as Rich- 
 ard's life occurs, some works attributed to him contain 
 definite information with regard to anatomy. Most of 
 this, it is true, is taken from Hippocrates, Galen, and the 
 Arabs, but some of it seems to be the result of his own 
 personal experience, on the living, if not on the dead. 
 
 After Richard, the next of the physicians to the Popes 
 who has an important place in the history of medicine is 
 the famous Thaddeus Alderotti, who lived for more than 
 eighty years during the thirteenth century. He has the 
 added interest for this generation of having been a self- 
 made man, for he was the son of very poor parents of 
 the lowest rank. Up to his thirtieth year he remained 
 without any special education. He made his living, it is 
 said, by selling candles. Having acquired a little com- 
 petency, at the age of thirty he began with great zeal 
 the study of philosophy and of medicine, two sciences 
 which in the old days were supposed to go very well to- 
 gether, though, unfortunately, they are often rigidly 
 separated from each other in later times. Fifteen years 
 after he began the study of medicine we hear of him as 
 a medical teacher, and then ten years later he began to 
 be famous as a writer on all sorts of medical topics. 
 He became the physician of Pope Honorius IV., himself 
 one of the most liberal and broadly educated of men, 
 and as the result of the confidence awakened by his oc- 
 cupancy of this honorable position, he secured an im- 
 mense success in practice and made an enormous for- 
 tune. Alderotti 's work represents what is best in medi- 
 cine for the whole of the thirteenth century. 
 
PAPAL PHYSICIANS 207 
 
 A curiously interesting episode that deserves a place in 
 the history of Papal Physicians occurred during Alderot- 
 ti's life. One of the Popes elected to fill the Papal chair had 
 been earlier in life a physician. This was the famous Peter 
 of Spain, though he was really a Portuguese, who, under 
 the name of John XXI. , occupied the Papal throne dur- 
 ing the years 1276-1277. Peter of Spain had been one 
 of the most distinguished natural scientists of this inter- 
 esting century. Dr. J. B. Petella, in an article published 
 in Janus about ten years ago, entitled A Critical and His- 
 torical Study of the Knowledge of Ophthalmology of a 
 Philosopher Physician who became Pope, gives an excel- 
 lent account of the life of Pope John XXI. 1 
 
 Petella does not hesitate to say of him that he was 
 ' ' one of the most renowned personages of Europe dur- 
 ing the thirteenth century, from the point of view of the 
 triple evolution of his extraordinary mind, which caused 
 him to make his mark in the physical sciences, in the met- 
 aphysical sciences, and in the religious world. In him 
 there was an incarnation of the savant of the time, and 
 he must be considered the most perfect encyclopedist of 
 the Middle Ages in their first renascence. " 
 
 Anyone who reads Dr. Petella 's account of this book 
 by Pope John XXI. will be surprised at how much was 
 known about diseases of the eye at the middle of the 
 thirteenth century. For instance, hardening of the eye 
 is spoken of as a very serious affection, so that there 
 seems to be no doubt that the condition now known as 
 glaucoma was recognized and its bad prognosis appreci- 
 ated. His account of the external anatomy of the eye, 
 eight coats of which he describes, beginning with the 
 
 1 Janus, Archives International es pour 1'histoire de la Medicine et pour la Geogra- 
 phic Medicale, paraissant tous les deux mois. Amsterdam, 1897-1898. 
 
208 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 conjunctiva and ending with the retina, is quite complete. 
 The eye is said to have eight muscles, the levator of 
 the upper eyelid and the sphincter muscle of the eye be- 
 ing counted among them. The other muscles are pictur- 
 esquely described as reins, that is, guiding ribbons for 
 the eye. Cataract is described as water descending 
 into the eye, and two forms of it are distinguished one 
 traumatic, due to external causes, and the other due to 
 internal causes. Lachrimal fistula is described and its 
 causes discussed. Various forms of blepharitis are 
 touched upon. Many suggestions are made for the treat- 
 ment of trichiasis. That a man who was as distinguished 
 in medicine as Peter of Spain should have been elected 
 Pope, is the best possible proof that there was no oppo- 
 sition between science and religion during the thirteenth 
 century. 
 
 But to return to the Papal Physicians in our original 
 meaning of the term. Alderotti's successor as physician 
 to the Papal Court was scarcely, if any, less distinguish- 
 ed. This was Simon Januensis, the medical attendant 
 to Pope Nicholas IV., whose pontificate lasted from 
 1288-1292. Simon did much to make the use of opium 
 more scientific than it had been, and he established defi- 
 nite rules for its administration. Before this the ano- 
 dyne effects of the drug had been well known, but the 
 difficulty had been to regulate its dosage properly and 
 prevent the use of too large quantities, while at the same 
 time securing the administration of sufficient of the drug 
 to relieve pain. At the beginning there was much pre- 
 judice with regard to opium. Indeed, as every physi- 
 cian knows, this prejudice has not entirely died out even 
 in our own day. How much of good, then, Simon was 
 able to accomplish because the prestige of his position as 
 
PAPAL PHYSICIANS 209 
 
 Papal Physician helped to break down this prejudice, and 
 how much human suffering he saved as a consequence, 
 it is easy to understand. 
 
 Simon is best known in the history of medical science 
 as the author of what was probably the first important 
 dictionary of medicine. This was called the Synonyma 
 Medicine or Clavis Sanationis, the Key of Health. Stein- 
 schneider has declared this book to be one of the most 
 important works in the field of Synonymies. Julius Pa- 
 gel, in his chapter on Therapeutics in the Middle Ages, 
 in Puschmann's Handbook of the History of Medicine, 
 already quoted, says that this Papal Physician succeed- 
 ed in solving very happily the problem which he set him- 
 self, of gathering together the information that had been 
 collected during past centuries with regard to medical 
 words, and especially those relating to the use of various 
 remedial measures. The industry of the writer may be 
 very well appreciated from the fact that his glossary 
 contains some six thousand articles. Its place in the his- 
 tory of science, as given by Meyer, the German historian 
 of botany, is that for the understanding of the older 
 words in natural science, no better aid than this can be 
 found. He considers it the best work of its kind until 
 Caspar Bauhin's similar volume came to replace it, but 
 that was not until well on in the seventeenth century. 
 Simon was greatly encouraged in this work by Popes 
 Nicholas IV. and Boniface VIII. , to both of whom he was 
 body physician and at the same time an intimate friend. 
 
 The custom of having for medical attendant one of the 
 leading physicians of the day, if not actually the most 
 prominent medical scientist of the time, which had ob- 
 tained ''at Rome during the thirteenth century, was 
 maintained at Avignon during the three-quarters of a 
 
210 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 century in which the Papal See had its seat there. Just 
 who the regular medical attendant of Clement V., the 
 first of the Avignon Popes, was is not very sure. When 
 he became seriously ill toward the end of his life, how- 
 ever, Arnold of Villanova, one of the professors of 
 physic at Paris and probably the most distinguished 
 living physician of the time, was summoned in consulta- 
 tion, and began his journey down to Avignon. This 
 summons attracted widespread attention, which was still 
 further emphasized by the fact that Arnold of Villanova 
 died on the journey. It is not difficult to appreciate even 
 at this distance of time how much weight the summon- 
 ing of a physician from a long distance to attend His 
 Holiness would have on the minds of the people, and 
 how much it would tend to call their attention to the 
 important medical school from which the great man 
 came. People generally, who heard the facts, would 
 want at least to have in attendance on them, if possible, 
 a physician who had been graduated at the school from 
 which Arnold of Villanova was summoned on his im- 
 portant medical mission. How much this would mean 
 for the encouragement of scientific medicine as it was 
 developing at the University of Paris can scarcely be 
 overestimated. 
 
 The distinct tendency of the Popes to keep in touch 
 with the best men in medicine and surgery in their time 
 is well illustrated by the case of Guy de Chauliac. This 
 great French surgeon and professor at the University of 
 Montpelier is hailed by the modern medical world as the 
 Father of Modern Surgery. There is no doubt at all of 
 his intensely modern character as a teacher, nor of his 
 enterprise as a progressive surgeon. Few men have 
 done more for advance in medicine, and his name is 
 
PAPAL PHYSICIANS 211 
 
 stamped on a number of original ideas that have never 
 been eclipsed in surgery. After studying anatomy very 
 faithfully, especially by means of dissections, in Italy, 
 where he tells us that his master at Bologna, Bertrucci, 
 made a larger number of dissections scarcely more than 
 thirty years after the supposed Papal decree of prohibi- 
 tion, he returned to Montpelier to become the professor 
 of surgery there, and introduced the Italian methods of 
 investigation into the famous old university. 
 
 At this time the Popes were at Avignon, not far 
 distant from Montpelier. From them Guy received every 
 encouragement in his scientific work. He insisted that 
 no one could practice surgery with any hope of success 
 unless he devoted himself to careful dissection of the 
 human body. If we were to believe some of the things 
 that have been said with regard to the Popes forbidding 
 dissection, this should have been enough to keep the 
 French surgeon from the favor of the Popes, but it did 
 not. On the contrary, he was the intimate friend and 
 consultant medical attendant of two of the Avignon 
 Popes, and was the chamberlain to one of them. The 
 good influence of Chauliac on the minds of the Popes is 
 reflected in their interest in the medical department of 
 the University of Montpelier. About this time Pope Ur- 
 ban VI. founded the College of Twelve Physicians at 
 Montpelier. He was an alumnus of the university, and 
 had been appealed to to enlarge the opportunities of his 
 Alma Mater. He did so in the manner just related. 
 
 One of the Papal Physicians of the Avignon times was 
 unfortunate. This was the ill-fated Cecco di Ascolo, 
 who was distinguished as a poet and a philosopher as 
 well as a physician. But for his sad end, one might be 
 tempted to say, that he had so many irons in the fire 
 
212 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 that it was scarce to be wondered at that he suffered the 
 fate of many another tender of too many irons, and 
 eventually got his fingers burnt. He was body physician 
 of Pope John XXII. during a good part of the long pon- 
 tificate of that strenuous old man, who became Pope 
 when over seventy, lived to be ninety, yet accomplished 
 important work in every year of his career. After leav- 
 ing Avignon Cecco went to Italy and became the Profes- 
 sor of Astrology at Bologna. The term astrology had 
 none of the unfortunate or derisory signification that it 
 has at the present time. It was, as the etymology of 
 the word implies, the science of the stars, though it was 
 cultivated with due reference to the influence of these 
 heavenly bodies on human fate and human constitutions. 
 Hence a physician's interest in it. This continued to be 
 a characteristic of astrology down to the time of Tycho- 
 Brahe, the Danish astronomer, at the beginning of the 
 seventeenth century. Cecco and another distinguished 
 physician of the time, Dino de Garbo, became involved 
 in a public controversy, as the result of which Cecco was 
 denounced to the public authorities as undermining the 
 basis of government and virtually teaching anarchy, 
 though it was called heresy, and as a result of the bitter 
 feud he suffered the penalty of death by fire. 
 
 The last of the Papal Physicians connected with the 
 Pontifical Court at Avignon was almost as illustrious as 
 any of his predecessors. He was the well-known Joan- 
 nes de Tornamira, who was the body physician to Greg- 
 ory XL until that Pontiff brought the Papal Court back 
 to Rome. Then Tornamira became the chancellor of the 
 University of Montpelier. He wrote an introduction to 
 the study of medicine, meant for the use of students and 
 young physicians, called a Clarificatorium, which, accord- 
 
PAPAL PHYSICIANS 213 
 
 ing to Puschmann's History of Medicine, was the most 
 used text-book of medicine during the fourteenth and 
 fifteenth centuries. Besides this he wrote a long and 
 important work On Fevers and the Accidents of Fevers, 
 in which he sums up all the medical knowledge of the 
 time on these subjects. 
 
 That the policy of the Popes did not change as regards 
 the selection of their physicians on their return from 
 Avignon to Rome, is to be seen from the physician of 
 the Popes whose See was in both places. This was the 
 famous Francis of Siena, who is known best in history 
 as the intimate friend of Petrarch, and who was physi- 
 cian' to Pope Gregory XL and to his successor, Urban VI. 
 He had been a professor of medicine at the University 
 of Pisa, and by special invitation went to fill the same 
 position in the University of the Papal City, and became 
 at the same time the medical adviser of the Popes. His 
 influence on medicine was not very important, but he oc- 
 cupied a very prominent position among the learned men 
 of the time, and his personal prestige did much to add 
 to the dignity of the profession. In our own time, the 
 medical men who have been best known and whose mem- 
 bership in the profession has added greatly to its popu- 
 lar estimation, have at times not been distinguished for 
 great things in medicine. Francis of Siena was such a 
 man, and the fact that he was medical adviser to the 
 Popes at the same time must be counted as an important 
 factor in the evolution of medical dignity. 
 
 One of the first writers on medical cases who did not 
 indulge much in theory was Baverius de Baveriis, of 
 Imola, who died about 1480, and who was the physician 
 to Pope Nicholas V. shortly before and after the middle of 
 the fifteenth century. In the light of the fact that a re- 
 
214 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 cent Papal physician, Dr. Lapponi, has written a book on 
 hypnotism and spiritism, it is interesting to find that his 
 predecessor in the post of Papal Physician four centuries 
 and a half ago, discussed the differential diagnosis of 
 hysteria, catalepsy, epilepsy and syncope. He also dis- 
 cusses certain interesting cases of vertigo due to stomach 
 trouble, and in general anticipates very unexpectedly 
 neurotic conditions that are supposed to have been recog- 
 nized in medicine much later than his time. Perhaps the 
 most startling thing to be found in his works is his rec- 
 ommendation of iron for chlorosis, which he claimed 
 to have treated with the greatest success by means of 
 this remedy. Of course, there was no idea at the time 
 that chlorosis was due in any sense to a lack of iron in the 
 system, and its value as a therapeutic agent must have 
 come entirely from empiric considerations ; but then 
 most of our advances in drug therapeutics have come by 
 no better way. 
 
 Another of the distinguished Papal Physicians of the 
 fifteenth century was John of Vigo (1460-1520) , who, as 
 Professor Allbutt notes, was attached to the court of the 
 fighting Pontiff, Julius II., and as a consequence saw 
 much of field surgery. His text-book of surgery, printed 
 at Rome in the early part of the sixteenth century, went 
 through an enormous number of editions. No standard 
 surgical treatise had appeared since that of Guy de 
 Chauliac, and Vigo's continued to be the standard for the 
 next full century. lie was a shrewd and skilful as well 
 as a learned physician. Efis surgical acumen deserves 
 to be noted. He recognized that fracture of the inner 
 table of the skull might take place without that of the 
 outer, and made some very practical remarks with re- 
 gard to gangrene and its causes. He attributed gan- 
 
PAPAL PHYSICIANS 215 
 
 grene in certain cases to faulty bandaging in fractures, 
 and discussed its origin also as the result of severe cold. 
 He treated syphilis with mercurial inunctions, a practice 
 still followed by the best specialists in this line. His 
 greatest claim to fame, however, is founded on the fact 
 that he was the first to write a surgical treatise on 
 wounds made by firearms. 
 
 At this time, during the first half of the sixteenth 
 century, the Papal Medical School begins to- assume an 
 importance in the history of medicine which it was to 
 continue to hold for the next two centuries. After the 
 refoundation of the Sapienza by Pope Alexander VI. , and 
 its development under Pope Leo X., special care was 
 taken and no expense spared by their successors, to se- 
 cure the greatest teachers in anatomy in the world for 
 the medical department of the Papal University. At this 
 time all the great physicians were distinguished for their 
 attainments in anatomy, somewhat as in the nineteenth 
 century great physicians obtained their prestige by orig- 
 inal work in pathology. The situations in the two cen- 
 turies had much more in common than the casual reader 
 of history or even the ordinary student of medicine would 
 appreciate. The list of Papal Physicians, then, becomes 
 to a great extent the roll of the professors of anatomy 
 at the Papal University Medical School. The Popes of 
 this period were wise enough in their generation to real- 
 ize that the men who devoted themselves to original re- 
 search in increasing the knowledge of the human body, 
 were also those likely to know most about the diseases 
 of the body and their treatment. These scientific anat- 
 omists, with the chastening knowledge of the complexity 
 of the human body before them, probably made less 
 claims to power to cure diseases than many an enthusi- 
 
216 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 astic therapeutist of the time, who thought, as have rep- 
 resentatives of this specialty in every generation, that 
 he has many infallible remedies for the cure of disease, 
 though subsequent generations have not agreed with 
 him. 
 
 The true significance of the lives of the men who occu- 
 pied the post of Papal Physician after this time will be 
 best appreciated from our treatment of them in the chap- 
 ter on The Papal Medical School. It will be sufficient 
 here simply to recall the names of the distinguished men 
 who, besides being professors in the Papal Medical 
 School, were the medical advisers of the Popes. 
 
 The first and most important of the great Renaissance 
 professors of anatomy of the Roman Medical School who 
 were also Papal Physicians was Columbus. He had been 
 Vesalius 's assistant at Padua and later his successor. 
 He had lectured also at Bologna. When a special effort 
 was made to give prestige to the University of Pisa, he 
 was tempted by particularly liberal offers to become the 
 professor of anatomy in that city. It was from here, by 
 still more generous patronage, that the Popes obtained 
 him for their medical school. On treating of the Papal 
 Medical School, we shall have more to say of him and his 
 successor in the professorship of anatomy and medicine 
 as well as in the post of Papal Physician, who was the 
 third of the first anatomists of the time Eustachius. 
 He with Columbus and Vesalius constitute the trinity of 
 great original investigators in anatomy about the middle 
 of the sixteenth century. It is extremely interesting, 
 with the traditions that exist in the matter, to find that 
 the Popes secured two of these great anatomists for 
 their personal physicians as well as for their medical 
 school. The third one, Vesalius, became the body phy- 
 
PAPAL PHYSICIANS 217 
 
 sician first to the Emperor Charles V. and then to his son 
 Philip II. , whom many would declare to be as Catholic as 
 the Popes themselves in religious tendencies. 
 
 After Eustachius came Varolius, whose name is en- 
 graved in the history of medicine because the Pons Va- 
 rolii or bridge of Varolius, an important structure in the 
 brain now often simply called the pons, was named after 
 him. To Varolius we owe one of the earliest detailed 
 descriptions of the anatomy of the brain. He was the 
 Papal Physician to Gregory XIII. , who will be remem- 
 bered as the Pope under whom the reform of the calendar 
 was made by the great Jesuit mathematician and astron- 
 omer, Father Clavius. Pope Gregory's enlightened pat- 
 ronage of medicine in the person of Varolius will be bet- 
 ter appreciated if we add that he was chosen as Papal 
 Physician when he was not yet thirty years of age, 
 though he had already given abundant evidence of his 
 talent for original investigation in anatomy. He died at 
 the early age of thirty-two, but not until after he had 
 accomplished a life's work sufficient to give him an en- 
 during place in the history of anatomy. After Varolius 
 as Papal Physician came Piccolomini and then Caesalpi- 
 nus, whom the Italians hail as the discoverer of the cir- 
 culation of the blood before Harvey, and of whom we 
 shall have much to say in the next chapter. Piccolomini 
 was not as great an original thinker and worker as many 
 of his predecessors and successors, but he was a man 
 whose prestige in medicine was scarcely less than theirs. 
 
 That this same liberal patronage of distinguished phy- 
 sicians was continued in the next century may be real- 
 ized from the fact that Malpighi, the great founder of 
 comparative anatomy, became one of the Papal Physi- 
 cians. His intimate friend, Borelli, to whom we owe the 
 
218 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 introduction of physics into medicine, had spent some 
 years in Rome, where, having been robbed by his ser- 
 vants, with the consent of the Pope he took up his abode 
 with the Society of the Pious Schools of San Pantaleone. 
 Here he finished his important work De Motu Animal- 
 ium, in which the principles of mechanics were first defi- 
 nitely introduced into anatomy and physiology. The 
 preface to this book was written by an ecclesiastic, who 
 praises the piety of Borelli during his stay in Rome and 
 chronicles his encouragement by the Popes in his medi- 
 cal work. Malpighi was succeeded as Papal Physician 
 by Tozzi, who is famous for his commentaries on the 
 ancients rather than for original observation, but who 
 was looked upon in his time as one of the most promi- 
 nent physicians in Italy, and at this period that meant 
 one of the most prominent physicians in the world. At 
 the beginning of the next century, the eighteenth, Lan- 
 cisi, by many considered the Father of Modern Clinical 
 Medicine, became the Papal Physician. 
 
 Among the consultant physicians to the Popes of the 
 eighteenth century, though he never occupied the post 
 of regular medical attendant, was Morgagni. His ad- 
 vice was often sought by a succession of Popes not only 
 with regard to their personal health, but also with regard 
 to the teaching of medicine and other questions of like 
 nature. Virchow has called Morgagni the Father of 
 Modern Pathology, because he was the first to point out, 
 that for a knowledge of disease it is quite as important 
 to know where the disease has been as to try to learn 
 what it has been. All of the Popes, five in number, of 
 the latter part of Morgagni 's life were on terms of inti- 
 macy with him. Pope Benedict XIV. , one of the very 
 great Popes of the century, a native of Bologna, was 
 
PAPAL PHYSICIANS 219 
 
 an intimate friend of Morgagni. His scarcely less fa- 
 mous successor, Pope Clement XIII. , had known Mor- 
 gagni before his elevation to the Papacy, and after his 
 election he wrote assuring Morgagni of his continued 
 esteem and friendship, and asks him to consider the 
 Papal palace always open to him on his visits to Rome. 
 In an extant letter Clement praises his wisdom, his cul- 
 ture, his courtesy, his piety toward God, his charity to- 
 ward men, and holds him up as an example to all 
 others for the special reason that, notwithstanding all 
 his qualities, he had not aroused the enmity or envy of 
 those around him, thus showing what a depth of hu- 
 manity there was in him in addition to his scientific 
 attainments. 
 
 At this time Morgagni was looked upon by all the 
 medical world as probably the greatest of living medical 
 scientists. Visitors who came to Italy who were at all 
 interested in science, always considered that their jour- 
 ney had not been quite complete unless they had had an 
 opportunity of meeting Morgagni. He had more per- 
 sonal friends among the scientists of all the countries of 
 Europe than any other man of his time. The fact that 
 this leader in science should be at the same time a great 
 personal friend of the Popes of his time is the best pos- 
 sible evidence of the more than amicable relations which 
 existed between the Church and medicine during this 
 century. Morgagni's life of nearly ninety years indeed, 
 covers most of the eighteenth century, and is of itself, 
 without more ado, an absolute proof that there was not 
 only no friction between religion and medicine, but shows 
 on the contrary that medical science encountered patron- 
 age and encouragement as far as ecclesiastics were con- 
 cerned, while success in it brought honor and emolument. 
 
220 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 Morgagni's personal relations to the Church are best 
 brought out by the fact that, of his fifteen children, ten 
 of whom lived to adult life, eight daughters became 
 members of religious orders and one of his two surviving 
 sons became a Jesuit. The great physician was very 
 proud and very glad that his children should have chosen 
 what he did not hesitate to call the better part. 
 
 After Morgagni's time, the days of the French Revo- 
 lution bring a cloud over the Papacy. There were 
 political disturbances in Italy and the Popes were shorn 
 of their temporal power. As a consequence their medi- 
 cal school loses in prestige and finally disappears. The 
 Papal Physicians after this, while distinguished among 
 their fellow members of the Roman medical profession, 
 were no longer the world-known discoverers in medicine 
 that had so often been the case before. So long as the 
 Popes had the power and possessed the means, they 
 used both to encourage medicine in every way, as the 
 list of Papal Physicians shows better than anything else, 
 and a study of this chapter of their history will undo all 
 the false assertions with regard to the supposed opposi- 
 tion between the Church and science. 
 
 We have already said, and it seems to deserve repe- 
 tition here, that during most of these centuries in which 
 the Papal Physicians were among the most distinguished 
 discoverers in medicine, the term medicine included 
 within itself most of what we now know as physical 
 science. Botany was studied as a branch of medicine, 
 and as we have seen, one of the Papal Physicians, 
 Simon Januensis, compiled a dictionary that a modern 
 German Historian of Botany finds excellent. Astrology, 
 under which term astronomy was included, was studied 
 for the sake of the supposed influence of the stars on 
 
PAPAL PHYSICIANS 221 
 
 men's constitutions. Chemistry was a branch of medi- 
 cal study. Mineralogy was considered a science allied 
 to medicine, and the use of antimony and other metals 
 in medicine originated with physicians trying to extend 
 the domain of knowledge to minerals. Comparative 
 anatomy was founded by a Papal Physician. These 
 were the principal physical sciences. To talk of oppo- 
 sition between science and religion, then, with the most 
 distinguished scientists of these centuries in friendly 
 personal and official relations with the Popes, is to 
 indulge in one of those absurdities common enough 
 among those who must find matter for their condemnation 
 of the Popes and the Church, but that every advance in 
 modern history has pushed farther back into the rubbish 
 chamber of outlived traditions. 
 
THE POPES AND MEDICAL EDUCATION AND 
 THE PAPAL MEDICAL SCHOOL. 
 
 After the story of the Papal Physicians, the most im- 
 portant phase of the relations of the Popes to the med- 
 ical sciences is to be found in the story of the Papal 
 Medical School. While it seems to be generally ignored 
 by those who are not especially familiar with the history 
 of medical education, a medical school existed in connec- 
 tion with the Papal University at Rome during many 
 centuries according to excellent authorities, from the 
 beginning of the fourteenth century and this medical 
 school had, as we have said elsewhere, during nearly 
 two centuries some of the most distinguished professors 
 of medicine in its ranks, and boasts among its faculty 
 some of the greatest discoverers in the medical sciences, 
 and especially in anatomy. For these two centuries it 
 had but two important rivals, Padua and Bologna. Both 
 of these were in Italy, and one, that of the University of 
 Bologna, was in a Papal city, that is, was under the 
 political dominion of the Popes. The best medical 
 teaching, then, was to be found in the Papal States and 
 under conditions such, that if there had been the slight- 
 est opposition, or indeed anything but the most cordial 
 encouragement for medical study, the medical schools of 
 Rome and Bologna would surely have languished instead 
 of flourishing beyond all others. 
 
 Just about the beginning of the fourteenth century 
 
 (222) 
 
PAPAL MEDICAL SCHOOL 223 
 
 Pope Boniface VIII. , who was himself one of the dis- 
 tinguished scholars of his time, determined that, besides 
 the university of the Papal Court, which had existed for 
 nearly a century at Rome, but which was mainly occu- 
 pied with philosophy and theology and mainly attended 
 by ecclesiastics, there should also be a university of the 
 City of Rome for the people of his capital. This deter- 
 mination was reached only a short time before the cul- 
 mination of the difficulty between Pope Boniface and 
 the King of France, which eventually resulted in what 
 has been called the outrage of Anagni and the subse- 
 quent death of the Pope within a short time. It has 
 usually been thought, then, that in spite of certain ex- 
 tant Papal documents creating the University of the 
 City of Rome, this university had not been organized 
 before Pope Boniface's death, and as his successor did 
 not take his seat at Rome, but at Avignon, it has usually 
 been assumed that the University of the City came into 
 existence at most only in an abortive form. Denifle, 
 whose History of the Universities of the Middle Ages 
 is looked upon as the best authority in such matters, 
 however, insists that a complete university of the City 
 of Rome did come into existence as a result of Boniface's 
 decree. 
 
 All during the time when the Popes were at Avignon 
 this university continued to exist, and in spite of the 
 fact that at one time, as a consequence of a great 
 earthquake followed by a pestilence, and then serious 
 political troubles because of the absence of the Popes, 
 Rome had only something less than ten thousand inhabi- 
 tants, the university continued its work. Denifle calls 
 attention to the fact that there are letters of Pope John 
 XXII. which show that he paid out of the Papal revenues 
 
224 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 the salary of a teacher of physic at the University of the 
 City of Rome while the Papal Court was at Avignon. 
 It is rather interesting to find the names of the two 
 Popes, Boniface VIII. and John XXII. , whose Papal de- 
 crees are supposed to have prevented the study of 
 anatomy and chemistry, thus cropping up on unques- 
 tionable authority as the founder and the patron of 
 medical teaching in the City of Rome. Pope Boniface 
 VIII. is now generally credited with having been the 
 founder of the Sapienza, the medical school of which, 
 at the beginning of the sixteenth century, was to de- 
 velop into one of the most important schools of its kind 
 in Europe, and to have on its faculty list the greatest 
 teachers of their time, who had been tempted to come 
 to Rome because the Popes wished to enhance the pres- 
 tige of the medical school of their capital. 
 
 While it may be a surprise for those who have been 
 accustomed to think of the Popes as inalterably opposed 
 to all science, and especially to medical science, thus to 
 find them encouraging and fostering medical teaching, 
 it will only be what would naturally be expected by 
 those who know anything of the real history of medi- 
 cine in the earlier Middle Ages. There is no doubt at 
 all, that during the so-called "dark ages," that is, when 
 the invasion of the barbarians had put out the lights of 
 the older civilizations, it was mainly ecclesiastics who 
 preserved whatever traditions there were of the old 
 medical learning and carried on whatever serious teach- 
 ing of medicine, in the sense of medical science, that 
 existed during this time. The monks were the most 
 prominent in this; and the Benedictines, after their 
 foundation in the sixth century, added to their duties of 
 caring for the other temporal needs of the poor, who so 
 
PAPAL MEDICAL SCHOOL 225 
 
 often appealed to them, that of helping them as far as 
 they could in any bodily ailments with which they might 
 be afflicted. There are even definite traditions that 
 a certain amount of training in medicine, or at least in 
 the care of the sick, was one of the features of the Bene- 
 dictine monasteries. 
 
 Dr. Payne in his article on the History of Medicine in 
 the Encyclopaedia Brittanica said : "In civil history 
 there is no real break. A continuous thread of learning 
 and practice must have connected the last period of 
 Roman medicine with the dawn of science in the Middle 
 Ages. But the intellectual thread is naturally traced 
 with greater difficulty than that which is the theme of 
 civil history ; and in periods such as that from the fifth 
 to the tenth century in Europe, it is almost lost. The 
 chief homes of medical as of other learning in these dis- 
 turbed times were the monasteries. Though the science 
 was certainly not advanced by their labors, it was saved 
 from total oblivion, and many ]? r cient medical works 
 were preserved in Latin or the vernacular versions. It 
 was among the Benedictines that the monastic studies 
 of medicine first received a new direction and aimed at 
 a higher standard. The study of Hippocrates, Galen, 
 and other classics was recommended by Cassiodorus 
 (sixth century), and in the original mother abbey of 
 Monte Cassino medicine was studied, though there was 
 probably not what could be called a medical school there ; 
 nor had this foundation any connection (as has been 
 supposed) with the famous school of Salerno/' 
 
 A review of some of the interesting features of the 
 early history of medical education will serve to show 
 that, not only was there no ecclesiastical interference 
 with the new developing science, but, on the contrary, 
 
226 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 without the personal aid and the intelligent patronage 
 of ecclesiastics of all degree, and especially of arch- 
 bishops and Popes, the development of medical teaching 
 that took place at Salerno would probably not have had 
 the significance in history that it now enjoys. While 
 there was no institutional connection between the medi- 
 cal school of Salerno and the Benedictine Monastery at 
 Monte Cassino, it is known that at the end of the seventh 
 century there was a branch Benedictine monastery at 
 Salerno, and some of the prelates and higher clergy oc- 
 cupied posts as teachers in the school, and even became 
 distinguished for medical acquirements. 
 
 Though the Salernitan medical school proper was a 
 secular institution, there is no doubt that the Benedic- 
 tines had great influence in it and had fostered its forma- 
 tion. How close the monks of Monte Cassino were allied 
 to the Popes, everyone knows. The Benedictines con- 
 sidered themselves the social wards of the Papacy, and 
 a number of the Abbot of Monte Cassino, or monks be- 
 longing to the community, and of men who had been 
 educated in the monastery, had been raised to the 
 Papacy during the Middle Ages. The origin of modern 
 medical teaching is thus closely associated not only with 
 the Benedictines, but through them with the Popes, 
 without whose encouragement and sanction the work 
 would not have flourished as it did. 
 
 In advance of the formal establishment of medical 
 schools, in the modern sense of the word, two topes 
 were distinguished before their elevation to the Papacy 
 for their attainments in all the sciences, and especially 
 in medicine, one of whom actually founded an important 
 school of thought in medicine, while the other was a 
 professor at Salerno. The first of these is the famous 
 
PAPAL MEDICAL SCHOOL 227 
 
 Gerbert, who, under the name of Sylvester II. , was Pope 
 at the end of the millenium and carried Christianity over 
 what was supposed to be the perilous period of the com- 
 pletion of the first thousand years, when the end of the 
 world was so universally looked for. Gerbert was fa- 
 mous for his attainments in every branch of science, and 
 indeed so many wonderful traditions have collected 
 around his name in this matter that one hesitates to ac- 
 cept most of them. There seems to be no doubt, how- 
 ever, that he was the beloved master of Fulbert of 
 Chartres, who did much for medicine in France at the 
 beginning of the eleventh century and who was the 
 founder of the so-called school of Chartres and himself 
 the teacher of John of Chartres, who became the physi- 
 cian to King Henry L, of France, and of Peter of Char- 
 tres and Hildier and Goisbert. 
 
 Before the end of the eleventh century Pope Victor 
 III., who had been the Abbot of Monte Cassino, was 
 elected Pope much against his will. He occupied the 
 Papal throne only for about a year and a half. He had 
 been especially recommended by Pope Gregory VII., the 
 famous Hildebrand, as a very suitable successor. Desi- 
 derius, as he was called before becoming Pope, was one 
 of the best scholars of his time, and had taught for some 
 years with great distinction at Salerno. It is not known 
 absolutely that he taught medicine, but, as the univer- 
 sity of Salerno is usually considered not to have been 
 founded until the middle of the next century, and as be- 
 fore that time the main teaching faculty was that of the 
 medical school and all other teaching was subordinated 
 to it, Desiderius must surely be considered as a teacher 
 at least of medical students. At that time a physician 
 was expected to know something more than merely his 
 
228 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 profession. Mathematics and philosophy were the two 
 favorite subjects to which, besides medicine, they de- 
 voted themselves. The presence of the future Pope at 
 Salerno is, moreover, the best possible index of the sym- 
 pathy between the ecclesiastical authorities and the 
 medical school. 
 
 Besides there are definite records of the friendship 
 which existed between Alphanus, Archbishop of Salerno, 
 and Desiderius, while they were both members of the 
 Benedictine Community of Monte Cassino. Alphanus 
 subsequently taught medicine at Salerno, and some of 
 his writings on medicine have been preserved for us. 
 He was the author of a work bearing the title De Quat- 
 uor Elementis Corpcrris Humani, a treatise on the four 
 elements of the human body, which is a compendium of 
 most of the knowledge of anatomy and physiology of 
 the time, though it also contains much more than the in- 
 formation with regard to the merely physical side of 
 man's being. The fact that Alphanus should have been 
 promoted from the professorship in the medical faculty 
 to the Archbishopric of Salerno is only another proof of 
 the entire sympathy which existed between the Church 
 and the professors of medical science at that time. 
 
 During the thirteenth century universities were 
 founded in some twenty important cities in Europe, and 
 in connection with most of them a medical school was 
 established. These educational institutions were the re- 
 sult of the initiative of ecclesiastics ; their officials all 
 belonged to the clerical body, most of their students 
 were considered as clerics and indeed this was the one 
 way to secure them against the calls for military service 
 which would otherwise have disturbed the enthusiasm 
 for study and the Popes were considered the supreme 
 
PAPAL MEDICAL SCHOOL 229 
 
 authority over all the universities. In spite of this thor- 
 oughly ecclesiastical character of the universities aTid 
 educational institutions, there is not a hint of interference 
 with the teaching of medical science and abundant evi- 
 dence of its encouragement. Indeed, for anyone who 
 knows the story of the universities of the thirteenth 
 century, it is practically impossible to understand how 
 there could have arisen any tradition of ecclesiastical 
 opposition to education in any form, and there is not a 
 trace of foundation for the stories with regard to eccle- 
 siastical intolerance of science, which are supposed to 
 be supported by certain Papal decrees. 
 
 The best possible demonstration of the maintenance of 
 the most amicable relations between churchmen and 
 physicians during the century in which these decrees 
 were issued is also the most interesting fact in the his- 
 tory of medicine during the thirteenth century. It is 
 not generally known that one of the most distinguished 
 physicians of the thirteenth century, one who wrote a 
 book on the special subject of eye diseases that is still 
 a classic, afterwards became Pope under the name of 
 John. He is variously known as John XIX., John XX., 
 or John XXL, according as certain occupants of the 
 Papal throne are considered to be of authority or not. 
 He was educated at Paris, and probably spent some 
 time at Montpelier. Under the name of Peter of Spain, 
 though he was what we should now call a Portuguese, 
 he subsequently taught physic . at the University of 
 Sienna. Here he wrote the famous little work on the 
 Diseases of the Eye, which was reviewed by Dr. Petella, 
 physician-in-chief of the Royal Italian Marine, in Janus, 
 the International Archives for the History of Medicine 
 and for Medical Geography in 1898. Petella does not 
 
230 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 hesitate to proclaim him one of the greatest men of his 
 time. Daunou, one of the continuators of the Benedic- 
 tines* literary history of France, 1 says that this Peter of 
 Spain was one of the most notable persons in Europe in 
 his generation. 
 
 Pope John XXL, before his accession to the Papacy, 
 had certainly accomplished remarkable work in medicine, 
 and of a kind that makes his writings of great interest 
 even at the present day. There is scarcely an important 
 pathological condition of the eye which does not receive 
 some consideration in this little book, and it is a constant 
 source of surprise in reading it to find, with their limited 
 knowledge and lack of instruments, what good diagnos- 
 ticians the ophthalmologists of the thirteenth century 
 were. Cataract is described, for instance, under the 
 name of "water that descends into the eye," and a 
 distinction is made between cataract from internal and 
 external causes. Hardening of the eye is mentioned 
 and is declared to be very serious in its effects. There 
 seems no doubt that this was glaucoma. Conditions of 
 the lids, particularly, were differentiated and treated by 
 rational measures, some of them quite modern in sub- 
 stance. A curious anticipation of modern therapeu- 
 tics is the frequent recommendation of extracts of the 
 livers of various fishes for external and internal use, 
 that is a reminder of the present employment of cod- 
 liver oil. The book is acknowledged to be a classic in 
 medicine. The fact that its author should have become 
 Pope later, is the best proof that instead of opposition 
 there was the greatest sympathy between medicine and 
 ecclesiasticism in his time. 
 
 1 Histoire Litteraire de la France, Vol. XVI. This is the famous work begrun by 
 the Benedictines of St. Maur. 
 
PAPAL MEDICAL SCHOOL 231 
 
 With these thoroughly amicable relations between the 
 Church and the medical schools during the thirteenth 
 and preceeding centuries, it will not be so much of a 
 surprise as it might otherwise be, to learn of the foun- 
 dation of the Medical School of Rome and of the con- 
 tinuation of Papal patronage of it even while the Popes 
 were absent at Avignon. University records do not say 
 much about it during the next two centuries. With the 
 coming of the Renaissance, however, and the entrance 
 of a new spirit into education, the Popes also were 
 touched by the educational time-spirit, and there came 
 a rejuvenation of the University of the City, which now 
 acquired a new name, that of the Sapienza, and became 
 the home of some of the most distinguished teaching in 
 Europe in every department. Early in the sixteenth 
 century the medical department of the Sapienza, or 
 Papal University at Rome, became one of the most note- 
 worthy institutions of Europe because of the work in 
 medicine accomplished there, and had among its faculty 
 the most distinguished investigators in medical science, 
 and especially in that department of medicine anatomy 
 which by an unfortunate tradition the Popes are said 
 to have hampered. 
 
 The most important event in the history of the insti- 
 tution, after its foundation, was its establishment in the 
 home which it was to occupy down to our own time. Its 
 new habitation was prepared for it by the Pope who has 
 probably been the most maligned in history Alexander 
 VI. A magnificent site was appropriated for it, and the 
 construction of suitable buildings begun. A little more 
 than a decade later, Leo X. , another one of the misunder- 
 stood Popes, came to the conclusion that the two uni- 
 versities in Rome, that of the Papal Court and that of 
 
232 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 the City, would do better work if combined into one, 
 and accordingly this combination was effected. This 
 made provision for one very strong teaching faculty in 
 Rome. The final steps for the completion of the union 
 of the two universities were taken by Pope Alexander 
 VII. , and the buildings which the new university was 
 to occupy were finished in a manner worthy of the 
 great institution of learning which it was hoped to 
 create in Rome. 
 
 The first of the great professors who made the Papal 
 Medical School famous was Realdo Colombo, often 
 spoken of as Columbus simply, who was invited to teach 
 in Rome by Pope Paul III., the same Pope who issued 
 the bull founding the Jesuits. Some people might con- 
 sider the two actions as representing contrary tenden- 
 cies in education, but they are not such as know either 
 the history of the Jesuits, or of the constant endeavor 
 of the Popes to foster education. Columbus came to 
 Rome, as we have said, with the prestige of having suc- 
 ceeded Vesalius at Padua, and later having been spe- 
 cially tempted by the reigning prince in Pisa, who 
 wanted to create a great medical school in connection 
 with his university in that city, which he was at that 
 moment trying to raise to distinction, to accept the pro- 
 fessorship of anatomy there. 
 
 Vesalius was still alive at this time, and the period 
 when, if we would credit certain historians who em- 
 phasize the opposition between the Church and science, 
 it was dangerous to dissect human bodies had not yet 
 passed. It is interesting to read the account of Colum- 
 bus' s reception in Rome, and the interest manifested in 
 his work by all classes in the Roman University at this 
 time. His course in anatomy was so enthusiastically 
 
PAPAL MEDICAL SCHOOL 233 
 
 attended that, as he himself tells in a letter to a friend, 
 he often had several hundred persons in his audience 
 when he gave his anatomical demonstrations on the 
 cadaver. These were not all medical students, but many 
 of them were ecclesiastics, and some of them important 
 members of the hierarchy. Even cardinals manifested 
 their interest in anatomy, and occasionally attended the 
 public dissections public, that is, as far as the Uni- 
 versity is concerned which were made by Columbus. 
 
 Columbus 's enthusiasm for anatomy was such that, as 
 Dr. Fisher said of him in the Annals of Anatomy and 
 Surgery, Brooklyn, 1878-1880, "he dissected an extra- 
 ordinary number of human bodies, and so devoted him- 
 self to the solution of problems in anatomy and physi- 
 ology that he has been most aptly styled the Claude 
 Bernard of the sixteenth century. " In one year, for in- 
 stance, he is said to have dissected no less than fourteen 
 bodies, demonstrating, as Dr. Fisher has said, that "it 
 was an age of remarkable tolerance for scientific in- 
 vestigation. " 
 
 Besides being an investigator, Columbus was a great 
 teacher, and many of our modern methods of instruction 
 in medical schools had their origin in the system of de- 
 monstrations introduced by him. His descriptions of 
 the demonstrations for students upon living animals, 
 show that some of the most recent ideas in medical 
 teaching were anticipated by this Roman professor of 
 anatomy and medicine in the Renaissance period. His 
 demonstrations of the heart and blood-vessels and of 
 the actions of the lungs are particularly complete, and 
 must have given his students a very practical working 
 knowledge of these important physiological functions. 
 In a word, the medical teaching of the Roman Uni- 
 
234 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 versity, under him at this time, far from being merely 
 theoretic and distant from actual experience and de- 
 monstration, was thoroughly modern in its methods. 
 
 It is no wonder, then, that practically all the ecclesi- 
 astical visitors who came in such numbers to Rome, 
 made it a custom at this time to attend one or more of 
 Columbus' s anatomical lectures. They were looked upon 
 as one of the features of the Roman university life of 
 the time. How much good was accomplished by this 
 can scarcely be estimated. The example must have had 
 great influence especially on members of faculties of 
 various educational institutions who came to the Papal 
 See. To some degree at least these interesting teaching 
 methods must have aroused in such men the desire to 
 see them emulated in their own teaching institutions, 
 and therefore must have done much to advance medical 
 education. The fact that these things were done in the 
 Papal Medical School only emphasized the significance 
 of them for ecclesiastics, and made them more ready 
 to bring about their imitation in other teaching 
 centers. 
 
 How well the Popes were justified in their estimation 
 of Columbus 's genius as an anatomical investigator will 
 be best appreciated from his discovery of the pulmonary 
 circulation, which formed, as Harvey confesses at the 
 beginning of his work on the circulation, the foundation 
 on which Harvey's great discovery naturally arose. It 
 is probable that Columbus would not have come to 
 Rome, in spite of the flattering offers held out to him, 
 only that he was already the personal friend of a num- 
 ber of high ecclesiastics, and even of the Pope who ex- 
 tended the invitation. How well the Popes continued 
 to think of Columbus after his years of work in the 
 
PAPAL MEDICAL SCHOOL 235 
 
 Roman Medical School will be well understood from the 
 fact that, when his great work De Re Anatomica was 
 published after his death by his sons, Pope Pius IV. ac- 
 cepted the dedication of it. This was of course not an 
 unusual thing, for many books on other sciences were 
 dedicated to the Popes, and the example thus set was sub- 
 sequently imitated. Twenty-five years later, Professor 
 Piccolomini dedicated his Anatomical Lectures to Pope 
 Sixtus V. Subsequent anatomical publications of the 
 Papal Medical School were issued under like patronage. 
 The famous edition of Eustachius's anatomical sketches, 
 published under the editorship of Lancisi, is a notable 
 example of this, and went to press mainly at the ex- 
 pense of Pope Clement XL , who realized how valuable 
 they were likely to be for the teaching of anatomy. 
 
 These two great discoverers in anatomy, Columbus 
 and Eustachius, were succeeded, as is so often the case 
 in the history of university faculties, by a man more ca- 
 pable of writing about great discoveries than of making 
 them himself. This was Piccolomini, who devoted him- 
 self to showing how much the ancients had taught about 
 anatomy, though at the same time he also made clear the 
 place occupied by modern anatomical discoveries. While 
 his name is not attached to any great discovery in the 
 science of anatomy, he is generally acknowledged to 
 have been one of the great teachers of his time and one 
 who was needed just then in order to make people re- 
 alize how the old and the new in anatomy must be co- 
 ordinated. Piccolomini 's successor in the chair of anat- 
 omy at Rome was another original genius and investigator 
 whose name, however, and fame has never been as great 
 among English-speaking people as in Italy, or among 
 the Latin races generally. The fact that he was a rival 
 
236 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 of Harvey's in the matter of the discovery of the circu- 
 lation of the blood has always made the Italians exag- 
 gerate his position in medical history, while it has 
 undoubtedly made English writers of medical history 
 diminish the importance of his work. 
 
 Historians of science consider him worthy to be called 
 the greatest living scientist of his time the end of the 
 sixteenth century. He was not only a scientific physician, 
 but he was an authority in all the sciences related to med- 
 icine, and indeed had profound interests in every branch 
 of physical science. His contemporaries looked up to 
 him as a leader in scientific thought. To anyone who 
 examines the question of the discovery of the circulation 
 of the blood with freedom from bias, there can be no 
 doubt but that the honor for this discovery has been 
 unduly taken away from Caesalpinus in English-speaking 
 countries, to be conferred solely on Harvey. Not that there 
 is any wish to lessen the value of Harvey's magnificent 
 original work, nor make little of his wonderful powers 
 of observation, nor of the marvelous experimental and 
 logical method by which he followed out his thoughts to 
 their legitimate conclusion, but that I would insist on 
 giving honor where honor is due, though most writers in 
 English refuse to give Caesalpinus 's claims a proper 
 share of attention. 
 
 The Italians have always declared that Caesalpinus 
 was the real discoverer of the circulation, and there is 
 no doubt that his career occurs just at that point in the 
 evolution of the medical sciences, and especially anatomy 
 and physiology in Italy, where this discovery would 
 naturally come. Lest it should be thought, however, 
 that my interest in the Popes and the Papal Medical 
 School has led me to exaggerate the claims of Caes- 
 
PAPAL MEDICAL SCHOOL 237 
 
 alpinus as a great naturalist and medical scientist,! prefer 
 to quote the description of him given by Professor 
 Michael Foster in his lectures on the History of Physi- 
 ology, delivered in this country as the Lane Lectures, at 
 the Cooper Medical College in San Francisco, and pub- 
 lished by the Cambridge University Press, 1901. Pro- 
 fessor Foster was not one to exaggerate the claims of any 
 Italian, and least of all of any Italian who might be sup- 
 posed to have a claim that would stand against Harvey's. 
 The soupcon of Chauvinism in his treatment of Servetus 
 and Columbus in this regard is indeed rather amusing. 
 He said: 
 
 " Of a very different stamp to Columbus was Andreas 
 Caesalpinus. Born at Arezzo in 1519, he was for many 
 years Professor of Medicine at Pisa, namely, from 1567 to 
 1592, when he passed to Rome, where he became Professor 
 at the Sapienza University and Physician to Pope Clem- 
 ent VIII. , and where at a ripe old age he died in 1603. 
 
 "If Columbus lacked general culture, Caesalpinus was 
 drowned in it. Learned in all the learning of the ancients 
 and an enthusiastic Aristotelian, he also early laid hold of 
 all the new learning of the time. Naturalist as well as 
 physician, he taught at Pisa botany as well as medicine, 
 being from 1555 to 1575 Professor of Botany, with charge 
 of the Botanic garden founded there in 1543, the first of 
 its kind one remaining until the present day." 
 
 Professor Foster admits that Caesalpinus had a won- 
 derful power of synthetising knowledge already in hand 
 and anticipating conclusions in science that were to be 
 confirmed subsequently. In his Medical Questions, 
 though the work is written in rambling, discursive vein, 
 he enunciated views which, however he arrived at them, 
 certainly foreshadowed or even anticipated those which 
 
238 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 were later to be established on a sound basis. Foster 
 quotes a passage in which Caesalpinus made it very clear 
 that he thoroughly understood the mechanism of the 
 circulation and grasped every detail essential to it. After 
 quoting this passage, which it must be confessed is 
 rambling, Foster thus sums up what Caesalpinus has to 
 say with regard to the circulation: 
 
 ' ' He thus appears to have grasped the important truth, 
 hidden, it would seem, from all before him, that the 
 heart, at its systole, discharges its contents into the 
 aorta (and pulmonary artery), and at its diastole receives 
 blood from the vena cava (and pulmonary vein)/' 
 
 " Again, in his Medical Questions he seems to have 
 grasped the facts of the flow from the arteries to the 
 veins, and of the flow along the veins to the heart." 
 
 That there was no change of Papal policy in the next 
 century can be gathered from an interesting phase of 
 Papal interest in science which, though not directly 
 concerned with medicine, eventually resulted in impor- 
 tant theoretic advances in medical science. This was 
 the encouragement of Father Kircher 's work at Rome. 
 Father Kircher was the Jesuit who made the first 
 scientific museum. As the result of his general interest 
 in things scientific he wrote a little book on the pest. 
 In this book he stated in very clear terms the modern 
 doctrine of the origin of disease from little living things, 
 which he called corpuscles. Because of this Tyndall 
 attributes to Father Kircher the first realization of the 
 role that bacteria play in disease. Even more won- 
 derful than this, however, was Father Kircher 's antic- 
 ipation of modern ideas with regard to the conveyance 
 of disease. He insisted that contagious diseases, as a rule, 
 were not carried, as had been thought, by the air, but 
 
PAPAL MEDICAL SCHOOL 239 
 
 were conveyed from one person to another, either directly, 
 or by the intermediation of some living thing. He consid- 
 ered that cats and dogs were surely active in conveying 
 diseases, and he even reached the conclusion that insects 
 were also important in this matter. His expressions with 
 regard to this are not of the indefinite character which 
 one often encounters in the supposed anticipation of im- 
 portant principles in medicine, but are very precise and 
 definite. Father Kircher is quoted by Dr. Howard Kelly, 
 of Baltimore, in his life of Major Walter Reed, whose 
 work in showing that yellow fever is transmitted by mos- 
 quitoes is well known, as saying in one place, " Flies carry 
 the plague, ' ' and in another place, ' ' There can be no doubt 
 that flies feed on the internal secretions of the diseased 
 dying, then flying away they deposit their excretions 
 on the food in neighboring dwellings, and persons who 
 eat it are thus infected." It is interesting to find that 
 the Professor of the Practice of Medicine in the Papal 
 University at Rome when this book was published, far 
 from resenting, as many professors of medicine might, 
 the excursion of an outsider into his science, said Father 
 Kircher 's book "not only contains an excellent resume 
 of all that is known about the pest or plague, but also 
 many valuable hints and suggestions on the regional 
 spread of the disease which had never before been 
 made." He did not hesitate to add that it was marvel- 
 ous for a man, not educated as a physician, to have 
 reached such surprising conclusions, which seemed 
 worthy of general acceptance. All this, it may be said in 
 passing, was within a few years after the trial of Galileo. 
 In this next century the Popes continued their special 
 efforts to secure the greatest teachers of anatomy and 
 physiology for their Roman medical school. One of the 
 
240 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 results was the appointment of Malpighi, whose name 
 has deservedly become attached to more structures in 
 the human body because of tissues which he first studied 
 in detail, than any other man in the history of medicine. 
 Malpighi represents the beginning of most of the com- 
 parative biological sciences, and his original observations 
 upon plants, upon the lower animals, on fishes and then 
 on the anatomical structure of man and the higher ani- 
 mals, stamp him as an investigating genius of the highest 
 order. He was the personal friend of Innocent XL , who 
 wished to have him near him at Rome as his own medi- 
 cal adviser, and besides desired the prestige of his fame 
 and the stimulating example of his investigating spirit 
 for the students of the medical school of the Sapienza. 
 The closing years of Malpighi 's life were rendered hap- 
 pier, and his wonderful researches were as well re- 
 warded as such work can be, by the estimation in which 
 he was held at Rome. 
 
 Malpighi was succeeded as Papal Physician and Pro- 
 fessor in Rome by Tozzi, who is distinguished in the his- 
 tory of medicine for his commentaries on the ancients 
 rather than for original observation, but who was looked 
 upon in his time as one of the most prominent physicians 
 in Italy. Tozzi had been the Professor of Medicine and 
 Mathematics at the University of Naples, where he be- 
 came famous. From here he received a flattering invi- 
 tation to the chair of physic at Padua. In order that he 
 might not desert Naples, his salary was raised and he 
 was given the post of Protomedicus or Chief Physician 
 to the Court. It was after this that the death of Mal- 
 pighi left an important chair vacant in Rome, and there 
 being no one apparently more worthy than this man for 
 whom other important universities were contending, he 
 
PAPAL MEDICAL SCHOOL 241 
 
 was offered the chair on such excellent conditions that 
 he accepted it. It is another case of the Popes being- 
 not only willing and even anxious, but also able because 
 of their position, to secure the best talent available for 
 their medical school at the Roman University. 
 
 Undoubtedly one of the greatest members of the 
 faculty that the Papal Medical School ever had is Lan- 
 cisi, one of the supreme medical teachers of history, 
 who is usually considered one of the founders of modern 
 clinical medicine. When at the beginning of the eigh- 
 teenth century Boerhaave attracted the attention of the 
 world by his bedside teaching of medicine at Leyden, 
 there were two occupants of thrones in Europe who 
 proved to have particular interest in this new departure. 
 They were perhaps the last two who might ordinarily be 
 expected to have much use for such improvements in 
 medical education. One of them was the Empress Ma- 
 ria Theresa, of Austria, whose patronage of Boerhaave 's 
 pupil, Van Swieten, secured the establishment of that 
 system of clinical teaching which has since made the 
 Vienna Medical School famous. The other was the Pope. 
 With his approbation Lancisi established clinical teach- 
 ing at Rome, and thus did much to maintain at Rome 
 a great center of medical progress during the eighteenth 
 century. 
 
 Lancisi was graduated at the Sapienza, the Roman 
 University, at the early age of eighteen. When only 
 twenty-two he became assistant physician at the Santo 
 Spirito Hospital and began to show the first hint of the 
 brilliant genius he was to display later in life. 
 
 Some ten years later, as the result of a competitive 
 examination which still further demonstrated his talents, 
 he was chosen Professor of Anatomy in his Alma Mater, 
 
242 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 the Sapienza. He was only thirty-three at the time, and 
 the fact that he should be chosen shows that the Papal 
 University was ready to take advantage of talent where- 
 ever it found it and did not allow itself to be won only 
 by notoriety at a distance. The excellence of the choice 
 was demonstrated before long by Lancisi 's brilliant 
 career as a teacher and an original investigator. Some 
 of the most distinguished medical men from all over 
 the world came to listen to his lectures (according to 
 Hirsch's Biographical Lexicon of the Most Prominent 
 Physicians of All Times and Peoples), and even Mal- 
 pighi and Tozzi, the Papal physicians during the time, 
 were among his auditors. 1 
 
 After the departure of Tozzi from Rome Lancisi be- 
 came the Papal physician. He continued to be the 
 medical adviser of Popes Innocent XL and XII. and of 
 Clement XL until his death in 1720. It was under 
 Clement that he had the new clinic built, in which 
 teaching after the manner of Boerhaave was to be 
 established. At his death Lancisi left his fortune and 
 his library to Santo Spirito Hospital, on condition that a 
 new portion of the hospital should be erected for women. 
 There is no doubt that he belongs among the most 
 distinguished of contributors to medical science, and 
 Hirsch declares that anatomy, practical medicine, and 
 hygiene are indebted to him for notable achievements. 
 His books are still classics. The one on Sudden Death 
 worked a revolution in the medical diseases of the brain 
 and heart. His work De Motu Cordis et Aneurysmati- 
 bus has been pronounced epoch-making, and his sug- 
 gestion of percussion over the sternum in order to deter- 
 
 1 Most of these details are taken from Hirsch's Biographisches Lexicon der hervor- 
 ragenden Aertzte aller Zeiten und Volker. Wien und Leipzig:, 1886. 
 
PAPAL MEDICAL SCHOOL 243 
 
 mine the presence of an aneurysm, made him almost an 
 anticipator of Auenbrugger and prompted Morgagni's 
 famous book De Sedibus et Causis Morborum, which ap- 
 peared after his death. Lancisi's work on Aneurysms 
 was not published until after his death. 
 
 Two others of his books deserve mention because they 
 show how broad were the interests of the man in many 
 phases of progress in medicine. Their titles are Dis- 
 eases and Infections of Domestic Animals and The Climate 
 of Rome. 
 
 The next great name in Italian medicine is that of 
 Morgagni. He was not a regular Papal physician, nor 
 a member of the faculty of the Papal Medical School, 
 but he was often consulted, as we told in the chapter 
 on Papal Physicians, both as to the health of the Popes 
 and the methods of teaching at the Roman Medical 
 School. His life brings us down almost to the nine- 
 teenth century, and the cordial relations of the Popes to 
 him, far from being an exception in the history of 
 medicine, are only typical of the attitude of the Roman 
 Pontiffs to medical and all other scientists from the 
 dawn of the history of science in modern times. 
 
 While the Papal Medical School at Rome, attached to 
 the university of the city and directly under the control 
 of the Papal Curia, more especially deserves the name 
 thus given it, it must not be forgotten that there was in 
 the Papal States a series of medical schools in various 
 cities. One of these, at Perugia, founded by a bull of 
 Pope John XXII., has come under consideration in the 
 chapter on A Papal Patron of Medical Education. An- 
 other medical school, that of Ferrara, which also was in 
 the Papal States, had considerable prestige. Some dis- 
 tinguished professors taught there before going to 
 
244 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 Padua or Bologna. At the beginning of the sixteenth 
 century, Bologna, after having been during the preced- 
 ing three centuries under the domination of one power- 
 ful family or another, from the Pepoli to the Bentivogli, 
 and then to the Visconti and back again to the Benti- 
 vogli, was incorporated in the Papal States under Pope 
 Julius II. At this time the Medical School of Bologna 
 was at the height of its reputation and was one of the 
 two greatest medical schools in Italy. Padua was its 
 only rival. Shortly after this Rome became a serious 
 competitor in medical education. Practically, then, this 
 was a second Papal medical school, almost as directly 
 under the control of the Popes as the Roman Medical 
 School. Far from there being any diminution in the 
 glory or the efficiency of the Bolognese Medical School, 
 its reputation even became enhanced after the city came 
 under the control of the Popes. 
 
 This is all the more surprising because, as we have 
 shown, just about this time the Popes began the work 
 of making their Medical School at Rome the most im- 
 portant center for medical education, especially in the 
 scientific phases of medicine anatomy, physiology, and 
 comparative anatomy that there was at that time in 
 the world. In spite of this rivalry, however, nothing 
 was done directly to hurt the prestige of the school of 
 Bologna, and indeed the rivalry seems to have been more 
 of an encouraging competition than in any sense a de- 
 structive struggle for existence. When the Popes took 
 possession of Bologna, Alexander Achillini was professor 
 of anatomy and medicine in the Bolognese school, and 
 his discoveries and methods of investigation attracted 
 the attention of students from all over the world. 
 His assistant for many years and his successor in the 
 
PAPAL MEDICAL SCHOOL 245 
 
 post was Berengar of Carpi, of whom we have already 
 said much in the chapter Anatomy Down to the Renais- 
 sance. For some time Vesalius lectured on medicine and 
 anatomy at Bologna, and one of Berengar 's most distin- 
 guished successors in the sixteenth century was Aranzi, 
 who occupied the post of anatomical professor for 
 thirty-two years and who corrected a number of errors 
 in anatomical detail that had been made by Vesalius and 
 others of the preceding generation. He confirmed 
 Columbus 's discoveries at Rome with regard to the 
 course which the blood follows in passing from the right 
 to the left side of the heart, and made many important 
 additions to the knowledge of the anatomical relations 
 of the cavities of the heart, the valves, and the great 
 blood vessels. There are a number of important struc- 
 tures in the brain which owe their names to him, and 
 his descriptions of them are better, according to Prof. 
 Turner, than those of other anatomists for a century 
 after his time. 
 
 The tradition of great teachers thus carried on during 
 the first century after the absorption of Bologna into 
 the Papal States, continued uninterruptedly in the next 
 century, when we find on the list of professors at Bol- 
 ogna such names as those of Malpighi, the greatest 
 mind in the medical sciences of the seventeenth cen- 
 tury, and his colleague Fracassati, who, though over- 
 shrouded by Malpighi, still claims a prominent place in 
 the history of medicine. Bologna has a special feature 
 of medical development to its credit which, because of its 
 importance for science in general as well as for medicine, 
 deserves to be mentioned here. During the century 
 after the Popes became the rulers of the city scientific 
 societies were founded here, and as the professors and 
 
246 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 students of the medical school were also the most inter- 
 ested in science in general, the membership of these 
 societies was largely made up of individuals connected 
 with the medical school. A special society for the cul- 
 tivation of anatomical knowledge, the first of its kind 
 ever founded, was established in Bologna scarcely more 
 than a century after the city came under the Papal 
 dominion. It was called the Coro Anatomico, or anatom- 
 ical choir, and had at first only nine members. Among 
 these, however, were such distinguished men as Mal- 
 pighi, Fracassati, Capponi, and Massari, to the last of 
 whom the initiative of the foundation of the society is 
 said to have been due. Bologna was noted during the 
 sixteenth and seventeenth centuries for the number of 
 foreign students of medicine who were attracted to its 
 hospitable medical school and who carried the tradition 
 of science for its own sake, so characteristic of this Papal 
 Medical School, to all parts of the world. 
 
 After this consideration of the relation of the Popes 
 to medical science during many centuries when medicine 
 practically included all the physical sciences, it may 
 seem utterly inexplicable to any fair-minded person that 
 the tradition of the opposition of the Popes to science 
 and scientific educational development should have ap- 
 parently become a commonplace in history. This will 
 not be a surprise, however, to those who know how per- 
 versive and influential has been the Protestant tradition 
 which from the beginning of the sixteenth century has 
 devoted itself to blackening the reputation of the Church, 
 the Popes, and Catholic ecclesiastics generally. No- 
 where is this more true than in history as written for 
 English-speaking people. Those who left the old Church 
 and their immediate descendants, justified their with- 
 
PAPAL MEDICAL SCHOOL 247 
 
 drawal to themselves as well as others, by taking every 
 possible excuse and inventing every possible pretext, to 
 show how unworthy of their continued allegiance the 
 old Church had been. The point of view thus assumed 
 was taken quite seriously by succeeding generations, 
 until at length a whole body of historical traditions, 
 utterly unfounded in fact, accumulated, especially in 
 England, where it must be remembered that for several 
 centuries Catholics were not in a position to impugn and 
 eradicate it. This unfortunate state of affairs, and not 
 real opposition on the part of the Popes to science, is the 
 source of the tradition with regard to the supposed op- 
 position between the Church and science. 
 
THE FOUNDATION OF CITY HOSPITALS. 
 
 Probably the most important work that the Popes did 
 for medical science in the Middle Ages was their en- 
 couragement of the development of a hospital system 
 throughout Christianity. The story of this movement is 
 not only interesting because it represents a coordination 
 of social effort for the relief of suffering humanity, but 
 also because it represents the provision of opportunities 
 for the study of disease and the skilled care of the ail- 
 ing such as can come in no other way. Those who are 
 familiar with the history of medicine, and especially of 
 surgery, know that a great period of progress in these 
 departments came during the thirteenth century. The 
 next two centuries indeed represent an epoch of surgical 
 advance such as was probably never surpassed and only 
 equalled by the last century. This seems much to say 
 of a medieval century 700 years ago, but our chapter on 
 surgery will, I think, amply justify the assertion. The 
 reasons for this great development in surgical knowl- 
 edge are properly understood only when we come to 
 realize that there was a corresponding development in 
 hospital organization. These two features of medicine 
 always go hand in hand. The hospitals, as might be 
 expected, preceded the surgical development, and owed 
 their great progress at this time mainly to the Popes. 
 
 The city hospital as we have it at the present time, 
 that is, the public institution meant for the reception of 
 those suffering from accidents, from acute diseases of 
 various kinds, and also for providing shelter for those 
 
 (248) 
 
THE FOUNDATION OF CITY HOSPITALS 249 
 
 who have become ill and have no friends to take care of 
 them, is an establishment dating from the beginning of 
 the thirteenth century. It will doubtless be a surprise 
 to most people to be told that the modern world owes 
 this beneficent institution to the fatherly watchfulness, 
 the kindly foresight, and the very practical charity of 
 one of the greatest of the Popes, whose name is usually 
 associated with ambitious schemes for making the Pa- 
 pacy a great political power in Europe, rather than as 
 the prime mover in what was probably the most far- 
 reaching good work of supreme social significance that 
 was ever accomplished. 
 
 At the beginning of the thirteenth century, mainly as 
 the result of those much abused sources of many bene- 
 fits to mankind in the Middle Ages, the Crusades, the 
 people of Europe had begun to dwell together in towns 
 much more than before. It is closeness of population 
 that gives rise to the social needs. While people were 
 scattered throughout the country diseases were not so 
 prevalent, epidemics were not likely to spread, and the 
 charitable spirit of the rural people themselves was quite 
 sufficient to enable them to care for the few ailing per- 
 sons to be found. With the advent of even small city 
 life, however, came the demand for hospitals in the true 
 sense of the word, and this need did not long escape the 
 watchful eye of Innocent III. He recognized the neces- 
 sity for a city hospital in Rome, and in accordance with 
 his very practical character and wonderful activity, at 
 once set about its foundation. 
 
 As was to be expected from his wise foresight, he did 
 not do so without due consideration. He consulted many 
 visitors to Rome and many distinguished medical author- 
 ities as to what they considered to be the best conducted 
 
250 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 and most ably managed institution for the care of the 
 sick in Europe at that time. Almost by common con- 
 sent he was assured that the most successful hospital 
 management was to be found at Montpelier. This 
 French town near the shores of the Mediterranean had 
 succeeded to the medical prestige formerly held by Sa- 
 lerno, and was now the favorite place of pilgrimage 
 for the nobility and reigning sovereigns of Europe, 
 whenever they became so ill that their ordinary medical 
 attendants seemed to be able to do nothing for them. 
 Pope Innocent was further told that the institution at 
 Montpelier which was best conducted was undoubtedly 
 the Hospital of the Fathers of the Holy Spirit. 
 
 Accordingly, the Pope extended an invitation which, 
 under the circumstances, must have been practically a 
 command, to Guy or Guido of Montpelier, the adminis- 
 trative head to whom the hospital there owed its suc- 
 cessful organization, to come to Rome and establish a 
 hospital of his order in the Papal capital. He provided 
 the order with a sufficient foundation in what is now 
 known as the Borgo, not far from the present Vatican. 
 On this was erected, at the beginning of the thirteenth 
 century, a hospital of the Holy Spirit, which still exists 
 there, though, of course, the building has been many 
 times renewed since the original foundation. This hos- 
 pital of the Holy Spirit soon attained a world- wide repu- 
 tation for careful nursing and medical attendance and 
 for the discretion with which its surgical cases were 
 treated. It was understood that all the ailing picked up 
 on the streets should be brought to the hospital, and 
 that all the wounded and injured would be welcomed 
 there. Besides, certain of the attendants of the hospital 
 went out every day to look for any patients who might 
 
THE FOUNDATION OF CITY HOSPITALS 251 
 
 be neglected or be without sufficient care, especially in 
 the poorer quarters of the city, and these were also 
 transported to the hospital. This old Santo-Spirito hos- 
 pital then was exactly the model of our modern city 
 hospitals. 
 
 Pope Innocent's idea, however, was not to establish a 
 hospital at Rome alone, but his fatherly solicitude went 
 out to every city in Christendom. In accordance with 
 this pre-determined plan, by personal persuasion, by the 
 display of an interest in hospital work, and by official 
 Papal encouragement he succeeded in having, during his 
 own pontificate, a number of hospitals established in all 
 parts of the then civilized world on the model of this 
 hospital of the Holy Ghost at Rome. The initiative thus 
 given proved lasting, and even after the Pontiff's death 
 hospitals of the Holy Ghost continued to multiply in 
 various parts of Europe, until scarcely a city of any 
 importance was without one. 
 
 It is no less a person than Virchow, the greatest of 
 modern medical scientists, who has traced the origins of 
 the modern German city hospitals back to Innocent and 
 given us a list of those which were established during 
 the century following his pontificate. Here are the 
 names of those towns from Virchow 's list in which hos- 
 pitals were founded during the thirteenth century in 
 Germany alone, which will show very convincingly how 
 widespread the hospital establishment movement was : 
 Zurich, St. Gallen, Bern, Basel, Constanz, Villingen, 
 Pfullendorf, Freiburg, Breisch, Stephansfelden, Oppen- 
 heim, Mainz, Speyer, Coblenz (an der Leer), Cologne, 
 Crefeld, Ulm, Biberach, Rothenburg, Kirchheim, Mer- 
 gentheim, Wimpfen, Reutlingen, Memmingen, Augsburg, 
 Rothenburg a. Dauber, Miinchen, Frankfort a. M., Hox- 
 
252 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 ter, Dortmund, Brandenburg, Spandau, Salzwedel, Sten- 
 dal, Berlin, Perleberg, Pritzwalk, Halberstadt, Halle, 
 Quedlinburg, Helmstedt, Magdeburg, Sangerhauson, 
 Eisenach, Naumburg, Hanover, Gottingen, Northeim, 
 Bremen, Hamburg, Liibeck, Parchim, Wismar, Rostock, 
 Schwerin, Mollen, Oldeslo, Ratzelburg, Ribnitz, Stettin, 
 Stralsund, Greifswald, Demmin. Anclam, Breslau, Bunz- 
 lau, Gorlitz, Brieg, Glatz, Sagan, Steinau, Glogau, In- 
 owraclaw, Wien, Meran, Brixen, Sterzing, Elbing, 
 Thorn, Konigsberg, Danzig, Marienburg, Riga. 
 
 Many of these towns were comparatively small. In 
 fact, there were no cities that we moderns would call 
 large in the thirteenth century. London had probably 
 not more than some twenty thousand ; Paris, even at 
 the most flourishing period of the university, under fifty 
 thousand. Most of the German towns had less than ten 
 thousand, and of these which are the sites of hospital 
 foundations mentioned by Virchow, probably not more 
 than a dozen, if that many, had more than five thousand 
 inhabitants. Since the movement spread even to such 
 small towns, it can be readily understood how far-reach- 
 ing in its effects was the policy initiated by Innocent 
 III. and how thoroughly he laid the secure foundations 
 of a great Christian hospital system. 
 
 Since the Papal example and recommendations pro- 
 duced so much effect upon Germany, which was not so 
 closely united to the Holy See as were the Latin nations, 
 it is easy to understand what an impetus to the hospital 
 movement must have been given in the southern coun- 
 tries, even though we have not had the advantage of so 
 patient a collector of information as Virchow to give us 
 all the details. In the larger cities hospitals were already 
 in existence, and these took on a new life because of the 
 
THE FOUNDATION OF CITY HOSPITALS 253 
 
 hospital movement. In Paris, for instance, the Hotel 
 Dieu, which had been in existence for some time, be- 
 came so cramped for room in its original location, just 
 beyond the Petit Pont, that at this time it had to be 
 transferred to its present commodious quarters next to 
 the Cathedral, on the square of Notre Dame. The hos- 
 pital became a city hospital in the genuine sense of the 
 word, and the citizens became interested in it to a note- 
 worthy degree. It began to be the subject of bequests 
 and benefactions of all kinds on the part of the clergy 
 and laity, and many interesting details of these benefac- 
 tions are still at hand in documents contained in the hos- 
 pital archives of Paris. 1 
 
 There are some curious historical details in these old 
 documents, since they serve to show the method in use 
 for designating houses at that time when, it must be re- 
 called, street numbers had not as yet been invented. 
 Most of the houses had on their facades some image or 
 figure by which they were known. The Hotel Dieu, for 
 instance, acquired during the thirteenth century the 
 houses with the image of St. Louis, with the sign of the 
 golden lion of Flanders, with the image of the butterfly 
 with that of the wolf, with the images of the three 
 monkeys, with the image of the iron lion, with the cross 
 of gold, with the three chimneys, etc. A certain amount 
 for the support of the hospital was allowed out of the 
 city revenues, and a favorite method was to permit, in 
 times of special stress upon the hospital, the collection 
 of a tax on all of a certain commodity that came into the 
 city. For a time, for instance, during an epidemic or 
 other period of necessity, a hospital would obtain per- 
 
 1 Bordier, Archives Hospitalieres De Paris, Paris ; Champion, Publications for the 
 Society of the History of Paris, 1877. 
 
254 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 mission to collect a tax on all the salt, or, occasionally, 
 on all the wheat that entered Paris. This serves to show 
 the renewed interest in city hospital affairs that had 
 arisen mainly as the result of Papal initiative and en- 
 couragement. 
 
 In the smaller towns in France there was the same 
 hospital movement as characterized the situation in Ger- 
 many. In the south, the closeness of Montpelier made 
 the example of the hospital qf the Holy Ghost of that 
 city especially forceful. In other portions of France it 
 is well known that the Sisters of the Holy Ghost very 
 early established separate hospitals from those founded 
 by the Brothers of the Holy Ghost. There are records 
 of such separate hospitals entirely under the control of 
 Sisters in Bar-Sur-Aube, in Neuf-Chateau, and, accord- 
 ing to Virchow, at many other places. At the same time, 
 however, there still continued to be hospitals of the Holy 
 Ghost as at Besancon, where the Brothers and Sisters of 
 the Holy Ghost had their institutions in common, though 
 there was a distinct separation of the communities and 
 allotment of tasks. The Brothers cared rather for the 
 surgical cases, while the care of the children and the 
 pregnant women was confided to the Sisters. This of 
 itself was rather an advantage, since the separation of 
 the women and the children from the ordinary hospital 
 patients, must have proved an important preventive of 
 infection and an ameliorating factor as regards that hos- 
 pital atmosphere especially likely to be unfavorable to 
 these delicate, sensitive cases. We know now what hos- 
 pitalism means for them. 
 
 That the influence of the movement initiated by Inno- 
 cent III. was felt even in distant England is very clear, 
 from the fact that practically all of the famous old Brit- 
 
THE FOUNDATION OF CITY HOSPITALS 255 
 
 ish hospitals date their existence as institutions for the 
 care of the ailing from the thirteenth century. The 
 famous St. Bartholomew's Hospital in London had been 
 a priory founded at the beginning of the twelfth cen- 
 tury, which took care of the poor and the destitute sick, 
 but at the beginning of the thirteenth century it became, 
 in imitation of the Hospital of the Holy Spirit at Rome, 
 frankly a hospital in the modern sense of the word. St. 
 Thomas's Hospital, which continues to be down to the 
 present time one of the great medical institutions of 
 London, was founded by Richard, Prior of Bermondsey, 
 in 1213. Bethlehem, or as the name was softened in the 
 English speech of the people, Bedlam, was founded 
 about the middle of the thirteenth century. Originally 
 it was a general hospital for the care of the sick of all 
 kinds, though in later times it became, as its name has 
 come to signify in modern English, a place exclusively 
 for the care of the insane. Bedlam, in the fourteenth 
 century, and probably also in the later years of the thir- 
 teenth, made provision for a certain number of the in- 
 sane in addition to other patients, so that it presented 
 the accomplishment of that desideratum for which we 
 are striving in the twentieth century a city general 
 hospital with psychopathic wards. This arrangement, 
 as we have said in the chapter on the Church and the 
 Mentally Afflicted, has many advantages over the special 
 hospital for the insane, entrance to which, as a rule, re- 
 quires tedious formalities. 
 
 Bridewell and Christ's Hospital, the other two of the 
 institutions long known as the five royal hospitals of 
 London, were either actually founded or received a great 
 stimulus and a thorough reorganization during the thir- 
 teenth century. In the succeeding centuries Bridewell 
 
256 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 ceased to be a hospital and became a prison, while 
 Christ's Hospital, though retaining its name, became a 
 school. With some of these institutions the name of 
 Edward VI. has become associated, but, as pointed out 
 by Gairdner, the English historical writer, without any 
 due warrant. Gairdner says in his History of the Eng- 
 lish Church in the Sixteenth Century, " Edward has left 
 a name in connection with charities and education which 
 critical scholars find to be little justified by fact." The 
 supposed foundation of St. Thomas's Hospital, as he 
 points out, was only the re-establishment of this insti- 
 tution, "and even when it was granted by Edward to 
 the citizens of London, it was not without their paying 
 for it." Many institutions, charitable and educational, 
 had been destroyed by Henry VIII. , and the crying need 
 for them became so great under Edward's reign that 
 the government was compelled to provide for their re- 
 establishment. 
 
 It is no wonder, with all this activity of the hospital 
 foundation movement, that Virchow should have been 
 unstinted in his praise of the Pontiff and of the Church 
 responsible for the great charity. He said : " It may be 
 recognized and admitted that it was reserved for the 
 Roman Catholic Church, and above all for Innocent III. , 
 not only to open the bourse of Christian charity and 
 mercy in all its fulness, but also to guide the life-giving 
 stream into every branch of human life in an ordered 
 manner. For this reason alone the interest in this man 
 and in this time will never die out." 
 
 Even this was not all that he felt bound to say, and in 
 his admiration he quite forgot the constant opposition he 
 manifested toward the Papacy on all other occasions. 
 This happened to be the one feature of Papal influence 
 
THE FOUNDATION OF CITY HOSPITALS 257 
 
 and endeavor that he had investigated most thoroughly, 
 and one is tempted to wonder if like investigation in 
 other directions would not have shown him the error of 
 prejudiced views he harbored with regard to other 
 phases of the beneficent influence of the Popes in his- 
 tory. More knowledge is all that is needed, as a rule, 
 to overcome all the anti-Papal prejudices founded on 
 supposed historical grounds. 
 
 Indeed, Virchow's tribute to Pope Innocent III. as the 
 initiator of all this humanitarian work is so frank and 
 outspoken that, coming as it does from a man whose 
 sympathies with the Papacy were well known to be the 
 slightest, it deserves to be recalled in its completeness, 
 in order that another factor for the vindication of Inno- 
 cent's character may be better known. The great pa- 
 thologist said : "The beginning of the history of all of 
 these German hospitals is connected with the name of 
 that Pope who made the boldest and farthest-reaching 
 attempt to gather the sum of human interests into the 
 organization of the Catholic Church. The hospitals of 
 the Holy Ghost were one of the many means by which 
 Innocent III. thought to hold humanity to the Holy See. 
 And surely it was one of the most effective. Was it not 
 calculated to create the most profound impression to see 
 how the mighty Pope, who humbled emperors and de- 
 posed kings, who was the unrelenting adversary of the 
 Albigenses, turned his eyes sympathetically upon the 
 poor and sick, sought the helpless and the neglected 
 upon the streets, and saved the illegitimate children 
 from death in the waters ! There is something at once 
 conciliating and fascinating in the fact, that at the very 
 time when the fourth crusade was inaugurated through 
 his influence, the thought of founding a great organiza- 
 
258 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 tion of an essentially humane character, which was 
 eventually to extend throughout all Christendom, was 
 also taking form in his soul ; and that in the same year 
 (1204) in which the new Latin Empire was founded in 
 Constantinople, the newly erected hospital of the Holy 
 Spirit, by the old bridge on the other side of the Tiber, 
 was blessed and dedicated as the future centre of this 
 organization/' l 
 
 The quotation from Virchow gives a good and quite 
 comprehensive idea of the scope of these institutions. 
 The ailing of all kinds were received beneath their hos- 
 pitable roof. In many cases the regulations for the re- 
 ception of pregnant women and for the care of the 
 foundlings are still extant, besides the hospital rules for 
 the care of the various kinds of patients. The depart- 
 ment set aside for the foundlings was in most places 
 rather an allied institution than an integral part of the 
 hospital itself. While these were called findel or found- 
 ling houses in Germany, in Italy this harsh name was 
 not used, but the institutions were termed hospitals for 
 the innocents, thus emphasizing the most pitiable feat- 
 ure of the cases of the little patients, and not branding 
 them for life with a name that suggested their having 
 been abandoned by those who should have cared for 
 them. 
 
 The regulations for the admission and care of patients 
 are interesting as showing how much these medieval in- 
 stitutions tried to fulfill the ideal of hospital work. The 
 people of the Middle Ages had not as yet suffered all 
 
 1 Virchow's article on the German hospitals is to be found in the second volume of 
 his collection of essays on Public Medicine and the History of Epidemics, which is, un. 
 fortunately, not translated into English, so far as 1 know, but will have to be con- 
 sulted in the original Gesammelte Abhandlungen aus dem Gebiete der Oeffentlichen 
 Medicin und der Seuchenlehre von Rudolf Virchow, Berlin, 1879. August Hirschwald. 
 
THE FOUNDATION OF CITY HOSPITALS 259 
 
 the disillusionments that come from the abuse of charity 
 at the hands of those who least deserve help, and be- 
 sides, the attendants at the hospitals were expected to 
 do their work for its own sake and from the highest 
 motives of Christian benevolence rather than for any 
 lesser reward. At the beginning, at least, there seems 
 to be no doubt that this lofty purpose was accomplished 
 very satisfactorily ; but men and women are only human, 
 and after a time there was deterioration. Even Virchow, 
 however, was so struck by the ideal conditions that ex- 
 isted in these early hospitals that he discussed the ne- 
 cessity for having in modern times hospital attendants 
 with as unselfish motives as those of the medieval period. 
 It seems worth while then to give some of the details of 
 this supremely Christian management of hospital work. 
 
 In an article on the medieval hospitals in the Dublin 
 Review for October, 1903, Elizabeth Speakman quotes 
 from the statutes of various hospitals sufficient to show 
 how the internal government of these charitable institu- 
 tions was regulated. There was always a porter at the 
 main door, usually one of the Brothers or Sisters, who 
 had the power to receive patients applying for admis- 
 sion. At certain places, however, it seems to have been 
 necessary to inform the superior; and the statutes of 
 the French Hospital at Angers say, that the prioress is 
 to go herself without delay to receive patients or to send 
 one of the Sisters for that purpose, "not severe or hard, 
 but kind of countenance." At the same place the stat- 
 utes say, "the number of the sick is not to be defined, 
 for the house is theirs, and so all indifferently shall be 
 received as far as the resources of the house allow. " 
 
 From many of the hospitals members of the commun- 
 ity were sent out from day to day to find out if there 
 
260 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 were any lying sick who needed care and who should 
 be sent to the hospital. They were expected also to pick 
 up any of the infirm whom they might find along the 
 streets and bring them to the hospital. The attitude 
 which the religious attendants at the hospitals were to 
 assume toward the patients upon whom they wait is 
 clearly stated. In nearly all of the French hospitals of 
 the thirteenth century, at least, the statutes in this 
 matter do not differ much from this specimen : 
 #- ' ' When the patient arrives he shall be received thus : 
 First, having confessed his sins to the priest, he shall 
 be communicated religiously and afterward be carried 
 to bed and treated there as our Lord, according to the 
 resources of the house ; each day, before the repast of 
 the brethren, he shall be given food with charity, and 
 each Sunday the epistle and gospel shall be read and 
 aspersion with holy water made with procession/' 
 
 As is noted by Miss Speakman, all through the hos- 
 pital statutes of these times the name of Masters or 
 Lords is applied to the patients. The expression in Old 
 French is Les Seignors Malades. The ordinary name 
 for hospital was Maison Dieu, which has been well trans- 
 lated " God's Hostelry/' It is evident, then, though 
 the origin of the phrase ''Our Lords the Poor," as ap- 
 plied to hospital patients, has been said to be obscure, 
 that it is only a re-echo of the scriptural expression, 
 " Whatsoever ye shall do, even to the least of these, be- 
 hold ye do it unto Me. " A quotation which was empha- 
 sized in the old rule of St. Benedict, promulgated for the 
 treatment of those received into the "hospitality of the 
 Benedictine monasteries, ' ' All guests shall be received 
 as Christ, who Himself has said, ' I was a stranger and 
 ye took Me in.'" 
 
THE FOUNDATION OF CITY HOSPITALS 261 
 
 In modern times, the necessity for providing for pa- 
 tients whatever within reason they may long for has 
 often been insisted on. It is curiously interesting to find 
 a striking anticipation of this very modern rule in the 
 customs of these old-time hospitals. As a result of the 
 attitude of supreme good will toward patients, there is 
 an injunction in many hospital statutes, that whatever 
 the patient may desire, if it can be obtained and is not 
 bad for him, shall be given to him until he is restored to 
 health. The Knights Hospitalers of St. John of Jerusa- 
 lem followed the injunction so carefully and endeavored 
 to satisfy even whims of their patients that might seem 
 unreasonable to such an extent, that their conduct in 
 the matter became proverbial and gave rise to at least 
 one pretty legend, the hero of which is no less a person- 
 age than the famous Eastern Sultan of the later Crusade 
 period. 
 
 "Saladin desiring to prove for himself this reputed 
 indulgence of the knights to their patients, disguised 
 himself as a pilgrim and was received among the sick in 
 the hospital in Jerusalem. He refused all food, declar- 
 ing that there was only one thing that he fancied, and 
 that he knew they would not give him. On being 
 pressed, he confessed that it was one of the feet of the 
 horse of the Grand Master. The latter, on being ac- 
 quainted with this fact, ordered that the noble animal 
 should be killed and the sick stranger's desire satisfied. 
 Saladin at this point, thinking the experiment had gone 
 far enough, declared himself taken with a repugnance to 
 it, so the animal was spared. ' ' 
 
 Virchow studied very faithfully the management of 
 these medieval hospitals, and was evidently quite im- 
 pressed with the success with which difficulties had been 
 
262 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 met and overcome. None knew better than he all the 
 difficulties there were in hospital management, for dur- 
 ing nearly fifty years he had been identified with many 
 hospitals, from city charity institutions to the various 
 kinds needed for war and those erected in connection 
 with universities for teaching purposes. He had very 
 little patience with religious formula, and was indeed a 
 typical agnostic. Notwithstanding this, he has been 
 perfectly frank in confessing how much is accomplished 
 by the religious management of the hospitals, and even 
 did not hesitate to declare that if hospitals for the poor 
 particularly, are to be successfully managed, there must 
 be a change in the view-point of those who take up the 
 work of hospital nursing, and the attendants must come 
 from better social classes than is at present the custom. 
 (This is of course for Germany. ) 
 
 The question as to whether secular or religious man- 
 agement of hospitals shall prevail has not been as yet 
 absolutely decided, and this adds to the value of Vir- 
 chow's opinion. No one knew better than he of the 
 many sacrifices required if the patients are to be prop- 
 erly cared for. Himself, as I have said, utterly without 
 religion, it is curious to see how he recognizes the bene- 
 fit that religious motives confer upon the management 
 of a hospital, and how much better the work is likely to 
 be done by those who give themselves up to the care of 
 the sick as a Christian duty. He says : 
 
 "The general hospital is the real purpose of our time, 
 and anyone who takes up service in it must give himself 
 up to it from the purest of humanitarian motives. The 
 hospital attendant must, at least morally and spiritually, 
 see in the patient only the helpless and suffering man, 
 his brother and his neighbor ; and in order to be able to 
 
THE FOUNDATION OF CITY HOSPITALS 263 
 
 do this he must have a warm heart, an earnest devotion, 
 and a true sense of duty. There is in reality scarcely 
 any human occupation that brings so immediately with 
 it its own reward, or in which the feeling of personal 
 contentment comes from thorough accomplishment of 
 purpose. 
 
 " But so far as the accomplishment of the task set one 
 is concerned, the attendant in the hospital has ever and 
 anon new demands made upon him and a new task im- 
 posed. One patient lies next the other, and when one 
 departs another comes in his place. 
 
 "From day to day, from week to week, from year to 
 year, always the same work, over and over again, only 
 forever for new patients. This tires out the hospital at- 
 tendant. Then the custom of seeing suffering weakens 
 the enthusiasm and lessens the sense of duty. There is 
 need of a special stimulus in order to reawaken the old 
 sympathy. Whence shall this be obtained from relig- 
 ion or from some temporal reward ? In trying to solve 
 this problem we are standing before the most difficult 
 problem of modern hospital management. Before us lie 
 the paths of religious and simple care for the sick. We 
 may say at once that the proper solution has not yet 
 been found. 
 
 ' * It may be easy, from an impartial but one-sided view 
 of the subject, to say that the feeling of duty, of devo- 
 tion, even of sacrifice, is by no means necessarily de- 
 pendent on the hope of religious reward, nor the expec- 
 tation of material remuneration. Such a point of view, 
 however, I may say at once, such a freedom of good 
 will, such a warmth of sympathy from purely human 
 motives as would be expected in these conditions, are 
 only to be found in very unaccustomed goodness of dis- 
 
264 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 position, or an extent of ethical education such as cannot 
 be found in most of those who give themselves at the 
 present time to the services of, the sick in the hospitals. 
 If pure humanity is to be a motive, then other circles of 
 society must be induced to take part in the care of the 
 sick. Our training schools for nurses must teach very 
 differently to what they do at present, if the care of the 
 sick in municipal hospitals shall compare favorably with 
 that given them in religious institutions. Our hospitals 
 must become transformed into true humanitarian insti- 
 tutions/' 
 
 While some of this striking opinion of Virchow's was 
 derived from personal experience with hospitals man- 
 aged by religious, it must not be forgotten that such 
 hospitals are rarer in Germany, at least in the north, 
 than almost anywhere else in the world. His opportun- 
 ities then were limited, and undoubtedly much of his 
 favorable persuasions in this regard was founded on his 
 investigation of conditions as he had learned to know 
 them in the old-time hospitals of the later Middle Ages. 
 The traditions as to the treatment of patients in these 
 early times are such as to make us believe that hospital 
 attendants did take their work seriously from a very 
 lofty motive, and that while medicine and surgery were 
 much less effective than in more modern times, the ten- 
 der care of patients did as much as was possible to make 
 inevitable suffering more bearable, and to keep the sight 
 of painfully approaching death from being a source of 
 discouragement and even of despair. 
 
 We have the best evidence, that of a contemporary, as 
 to the conditions which obtained in these medieval hos- 
 pitals, and the dispositions of the attendants as regards 
 their religious duties would seem to be an unmistakable 
 
THE FOUNDATION OF CITY HOSPITALS 265 
 
 index as to their willingness to sacrifice their own com- 
 fort for the sake of the patients. The well known 
 Jacques de Vitry, who had been Bishop of Acre and 
 afterwards Cardinal, and whose wide travel had given 
 him many opportunities to judge for himself, said : 
 
 ' ' There are innumerable congregations, both of men 
 and women, renouncing the world and living regularly 
 in leper houses and hospitals of the poor, humbly and de- 
 voutly ministering to the poor and the infirm. They live 
 according to the rule of St. Augustine, without property 
 and in community and under obedience to one above 
 them ; and having assumed the regular habit, they prom- 
 ise to God perpetual continence. The men and women, 
 with all reverence and chastity, eat and sleep apart. 
 The canonical hours, as far as hospitality and the care 
 of the poor of Christ allow, by day and night they at- 
 tend. In houses where there is a large congregation of 
 brethren and sisters, they congregate frequently in 
 chapter for the correction of faults and other causes. 
 Readings from Holy Scriptures are frequently made 
 during meals, and silence is maintained during meals in 
 the refectory and other fixed places and at certain times, 
 i . . . Their chaplains, ministering in spiritual mat- 
 ters with all humility and devotion to the infirm, instruct 
 the ignorant in the word of divine preaching, console 
 the faint-hearted and weak, and exhort them to patience 
 and to correspond to the action of grace. They celebrate 
 divine office in the common chapel assiduously by day 
 and night, so that the sick can hear from their beds. 
 Confession and extreme unction and the other sacra- 
 ments they administer diligently and solicitously to the 
 sick, and to the dead they give due burial. These min- 
 isters of Christ, sober and sparing to themselves and 
 
266 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 very strict and severe to their bodies, overflowing with 
 charity to the poor and infirm and ministering with ten- 
 der heart to their necessities according to their powers, 
 are all the more lowly in the House of God as they were 
 of high rank in the world. They bear for Christ's sake 
 such unclean and almost intolerable things, that I do not 
 think any other can be compared to this martyrdom, 
 holy and precious in the sight of God." 
 
 It might perhaps be thought that these hospitals of 
 the Middle Ages would be of very little interest to the 
 modern student of things social and medical except for 
 the fact, surprising enough in itself at this time of sup- 
 posed neglect of social duties, when the paternal spirit 
 of the municipality is presumed, scarcely to have devel- 
 oped as yet, that such institutions were provided. It 
 would ordinarily be assumed that they were, in accord- 
 ance with the lack of knowledge of the time as regards 
 the influence of light and air on the ailing, dingy and 
 unventilated, lacking most of the qualities that distin- 
 guish our modern hospital. As a matter of fact, how- 
 ever, just as our architects go back to the Middle Ages 
 to get models for our churches and municipal buildings, 
 and even our millionaires' palaces and public institutions, 
 they also find that in the matter of hospitals much valu- 
 able guidance is to be obtained from what was accom- 
 plished by these people of the Middle Ages, of whom we 
 ordinarily think so little. Mr. Arthur Dillon, an archi- 
 tect, writing in the "Mail and Express" for May 7th, 
 1904, described the hospital founded by Marguerite of 
 Bourgogne, the sister of St. Louis, at Tanierre in France 
 in 1293. It consisted of a ward, a building attached to 
 it by a covered passage in which Marguerite herself 
 lived for many years, and separate buildings for kitch- 
 
THE FOUNDATION OF CITY HOSPITALS 267 
 
 ens, for storage of provisions and for the lodging of the 
 twenty monks and nuns who had charge of the sick. A 
 feature that perhaps we would not admire very much, 
 was that adjacent to the buildings there was a cemetery. 
 They were not so fearful about death in the Middle Ages, 
 however, as we are apt to be ; and who shall say that the 
 contemplation of it did not often give that restful sense 
 of submission to whatever would come, that sometimes 
 means so much in serious illness, and keeps the patient 
 from still further exhausting vitality by worrying as to 
 the outcome ? The medicine was stronger than our de- 
 generate generation might be able to bear, but then all 
 their medicines were apt to be stronger in that time. 
 
 The situation of the hospital might well be thought 
 ideal. . The princess had gardens about her lodging, and 
 the whole property was surrounded by a high wall, along 
 which flowed the branches of a small stream, which 
 doubtless tempered the atmosphere and served as a car- 
 rier off of much undesirable material. The hospital 
 ward itself was 55 feet wide and 270 feet long and had 
 a high arched ceiling of wood. It was lighted by large 
 pointed windows high up in the walls. At the level of 
 the window-sills, some twelve feet from the floor, a nar- 
 row gallery ran along the wall, from which the ventila- 
 tion through the windows might be readily regulated 
 and on which convalescent patients might walk or be 
 seated in the sunshine. The beds were placed each in a 
 little room formed by low partitions. Privacy was thus 
 secured much better than in the modern hospital wards, 
 and as there were only forty beds, the ventilation was 
 abundant. 
 
 Mr. Dillon, from the standpoint of the architect, says 
 of it: 
 
268 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 "It was an admirable hospital in every way, and it is 
 doubtful if we to-day surpass it. It was isolated, the 
 ward was separated from the other buildings, it had the 
 advantage we so often lose of being but one story high, 
 and more space was given to each patient than we can 
 now afford. 
 
 "The ventilation by the great windows and ventila- 
 tors in the ceiling was excellent ; is was cheerfully 
 lighted, and the arrangement of the gallery shielded 
 the patients from dazzling light and from draughts from 
 the windows and afforded an easy means of supervision, 
 while the division by the roofless, low partitions isolated 
 the sick and obviated the depression that comes from 
 the sight of others in pain. . 
 
 "It was, moreover, in great contrast to the cheerless 
 white wards of to-day. The vaulted ceiling was very 
 beautiful ; the woodwork was richly carved, and the 
 great windows over the altars were filled with colored 
 glass. Altogether, it was one of the best examples of 
 the best period of Gothic architecture." 
 
 Probably the most interesting feature of the early his- 
 tory of the hospital movement is the spirit of evolution 
 to meet growing needs and developing ideals which it 
 manifested. In spite of the judicious consideration de- 
 voted to the establishment of the original hospital of the 
 Holy Ghost at Rome, it was not long before it proved 
 inadequate for its purpose. One of the eminently note- 
 worthy things that constantly repeat themselves in his- 
 tory is that where a social need is discovered and a 
 remedy found for it, it is not long before the need in- 
 creases to such a degree as to outstrip the original rem- 
 edy. Before half a century had passed Innocent's suc- 
 cessors declared in unmistakable terms that the original 
 
THE FOUNDATION OF CITY HOSPITALS 269 
 
 hospital was entirely too cramped and crowded. Ac- 
 cordingly, a much larger and handsomer building was 
 erected. Visitors to Rome admired the new building, 
 and it proved an incentive for larger plans for hospitals 
 in other important cities. At the end of the thirteenth 
 and the beginning of the fourteenth centuries some 
 really imposing edifices were erected as hospitals, espe- 
 cially in towns of Italy. It was at this time that the 
 artistic Italian mind seems to have realized the truth, 
 which has only come to be recognized again in quite re- 
 cent times, that a hospital building should be as fine a 
 structure as the finances of a city will permit. It was 
 felt that nothing was too good for the ailing citizens and 
 that the city honored itself by making its public build- 
 ings a^ monument of artistic purpose. The earliest ex- 
 ample of how well this was accomplished is to be found 
 at Siena, whose hospital continues to be down to the 
 present time one of the most interesting objects of ad- 
 miration for the visitor. Portions of this Siena hospital 
 as it now exists were built as early as the last decade of 
 the thirteenth and the first decade of the fourteenth 
 century. It was during the first half of the fourteenth 
 century that it was resolved to make the building as 
 beautiful in the interior by means of great artistic dec- 
 oration and frescoes as it was imposing on the exterior. 
 It was not for a century and a half later that Milan's 
 magnificent hospital took on its modern shape, though 
 the city had been always famous for its care of the sick. 
 The hospital movement of the thirteenth century, how- 
 ever, culminated in monuments as famous and as archi- 
 tecturally beautiful as any that have been built in recent 
 years. 
 To take, for example, that of Siena, a goo0 descrip- 
 
270 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 tion of which may be found in The Story of Siena, by G. 
 Gardner. (Dent, London, 1902. ) The buildings occupy 
 the whole side of the Piazzo del Duomo, directly opposite 
 the facade. They constitute almost as striking a bit of 
 architecture as any edifice of the period, and contain a 
 magnificent set of frescoes, some of them of the four- 
 teenth century, many others of later centuries. The 
 Siena school of painting in the fourteenth century was 
 doing some of the best art work of the time, and as a 
 consequence the hospital has been of perennial inter- 
 est. Artists and amateurs and dilettante visitors have 
 gladly spent time in studying and admiring its artistic 
 treasures at nearly all times, but more especially in re- 
 cent years. The sympathetic admiration for its art has 
 led to a better appreciation of the motives of the gener- 
 ation that built it, than even the sublime humanitarian 
 purpose which dictated it or the work for suffering hu- 
 manity which it accomplished. 
 
 It is typical of the times in many ways. We have only 
 just begun again in very modern times, as we have al- 
 ready said, to consider that some of the best of our 
 buildings in any large city should be those intended for 
 the sick and the poor of the community. The city must 
 respond nobly to its civic duties. The idea, however, 
 came so naturally to the medieval mind that apparently 
 there was no question about it. Only in very recent 
 years has come the additional thought that these build- 
 ings must be appropriately decorated, and that the work 
 of the greatest artists of the time can have no better 
 place for its display than the walls of a hospital or a 
 great charitable institution. Bartolo's frescoes, on the 
 walls of the hospital at Siena, tell the story of the work 
 that was done for foundlings and pilgrims as well as for 
 
THE FOUNDATION OF CITY HOSPITALS 271 
 
 the sick in the early days of its establishment. The 
 first picture of the series represents the baptism of the 
 children that had been picked up and brought to the 
 hospital. 
 
 It is characteristic of the times, too, that one of the 
 greatest pictures on the hospital walls is not something 
 that makes for the glory of the trustees or the founders, 
 nor that is some fancy of the painter, some study of 
 myth or landscape, in which he might have been es- 
 pecially interested. Probably the masterpiece of the 
 old painters is the Scala del Paradiso (the stairs to 
 heaven), by Vecchietta. The picture was evidently 
 painted for the department of the foundlings, and its 
 subject is the ascent of these little children to heaven 
 and their welcome by the angels and saints and by the 
 Heavenly Father. A more inspiring vision to be im- 
 pressed upon the minds of these growing children who 
 had been abandoned by their own, and who must have 
 felt all of their loneliness in spite of their favorable sur- 
 roundings, could scarcely have been imagined. 
 
 The dedication of the hospital is expressed in terms 
 very typical of the Middle Ages, or as they might better 
 be called, "The Ages of Faith. " It reminds one of the 
 formal terms of wills, as they used to be worded in 
 olden times: "In the Name of God, Amen. To the 
 honor, praise and reverence of God and of His Mother, 
 Madonna, Holy Mary Virgin, and of all the saints of 
 God, and to the honor and exaltation of Holy Mother 
 Church and of the Commune and of the people of the 
 city of Siena, and to its good and pacific state, and to 
 the increase of the Hospital of Madonna, Holy Mary 
 Virgin, of Siena, which is placed in front of the chief 
 church of the city, and to the recreation of the sick and 
 
272 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 the foundlings of the said hospital." This dedication is 
 to be found at the beginning of the statutes of the hos- 
 pital as they were formulated in 1305. 
 
 The hospital did excellent service, and most of the 
 original building has remained down to our own day. It 
 has seen many times of trial for the citizens of Siena, 
 and has proved its usefulness. Twice during the four- 
 teenth century it saw the coming of the Black Death, 
 and its wards and corridors and every room were filled 
 with the dead and the dying. During the fourteenth 
 century St. Catherine of Siena spent much of her time 
 in the hospital, and it was her work here that gave her 
 the glorious prestige that came so unlocked for. The 
 special confraternity with which she was associated met 
 in one of the smaller rooms of the hospital. Attached 
 to the hospital there was a special house for lepers, and 
 this was one of the favorite places for St. Catherine's 
 visitations. It is not surprising to find that she was, at 
 the beginning at least, very much opposed by her family 
 in her choice of such an occupation as this personal de- 
 votion to the poor and the sick. In reading the story, 
 one is reminded of the opposition that is sometimes 
 evoked at the present time when young women feel the 
 necessity for some occupation other than so-called social 
 duties, and take to slum visiting, or the care of the cancer 
 poor, or some other form of practical aid for the needy, 
 apart from the giving of money, or of doing a little sew- 
 ing in a Lenten class, supposed to be the limit of their 
 charitable work in their special social circle. 
 
 It is of curious interest, though not surprising, to find 
 that in the midst of the organization of new hospitals 
 and reorganization of old hospital foundations in the 
 thirteenth century, attempts were made to correct 
 
THE FOUNDATION OF CITY HOSPITALS 273 
 
 abuses which still continue to be some of the thorny 
 problems of hospital management. For instance, the 
 danger was recognized of having the expenses of ad- 
 ministration outrun those of the hospital proper, and of 
 having the number of attendants, or at least of persons 
 living upon the hospital revenues, greater than was ab- 
 solutely needed for the care of patients. There are 
 various Papal decrees and decisions of diocesan synods 
 in this matter. Pope Honorius III., who occupied the 
 Papal See from 1216 to 1227, and must be considered as 
 a very worthy successor of the first great Pope of the 
 century, Innocent III., in approving the union of two 
 hospital foundations at Ghent, required that only a cer- 
 tain limited number of Brothers and Sisters for nursing 
 purposes should be received, in order that the commun- 
 ity expenses proper might not impair to too great a de- 
 gree the resources of the hospital for its real purpose of 
 taking care of patients. Previously, he had insisted by 
 a decree that the number of Brothers and Sisters in the 
 hospital community at Louvain should not exceed the 
 proportion of more than one to nine of the patients. 
 Synodal decrees in various bishoprics allowed only board 
 and clothing, but nothing more, to attendants in hos- 
 pitals. In the thirteenth century the personal satisfac- 
 tion of accomplishing a charitable work in attendance 
 upon the sick was expected to make up for any further 
 remuneration. 
 
 The other serious problem of hospital management 
 was to keep those not really suffering from serious dis- 
 ease, malingerers of various kinds, from occupying beds 
 and claiming attention, to the deprivation of those who 
 were genuinely ill. Various regulations were made 
 looking to the careful examinations of such persons, 
 
274 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 though in most places with the affirmation of a standing 
 rule, that all those complaining of illness were to be re- 
 ceived into the hospital for at least one day, until their 
 cases could be examined with sufficient care to decide 
 how much of reality and how much of simulation there 
 might be in their pretended symptoms. The tramp, of 
 course, has always been in the world, and probably al- 
 ways will be, and so what are called the sturdy va- 
 grants (validi vagrantes) received the special attention 
 of those wishing to eliminate hospital abuses, and vari- 
 ous decrees were made in order to prevent them from re- 
 ceiving sustenance from the hospitals, or in any other way 
 abusing the privileges of these charitable institutions. 
 
 A hospital movement, quite distinct from that of In- 
 nocent III., which attracted so much attention shortly 
 after the general hospital became common as to deserve 
 particular consideration, was the erection of the lepro- 
 series or special institutions for the care of lepers. 
 Leprosy had become quite common in Europe during the 
 Middle Ages, and the continued contact of the West 
 with the East during the crusades had brought about a 
 notable increase of the disease. It is not definitely 
 known how much of what was called leprosy at that time, 
 really belonged to the specific disease now known as 
 lepra. There is no doubt that many affections, which 
 have since come to be considered as quite harmless and 
 non-contagious, were included under the designation 
 leprosy by the populace and even physicians incapable 
 as yet of making a proper differential diagnosis. Prob- 
 ably severe cases of eczema and other chronic skin dis- 
 eases, especially when complicated by the results of 
 wrongly directed treatment or of lack of cleansing, were 
 not infrequently pronounced to be true leprosy. 
 
THE FOUNDATION OF CITY HOSPITALS 275 
 
 There is no doubt at all, however, of the occurrence 
 of real leprosy in many of the towns of the West from 
 the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries, and the erection 
 of these hospitals proved the best possible prophylatic 
 against the further spread of the disease. Leprosy is 
 contagious, but only mildly so. Years of intimate asso- 
 ciation with a leper may, and usually do, bring about the 
 communication of the disease to those around them, 
 especially if they do not exercise rather carefully, cer- 
 tain precise precautions as to cleanliness after personal 
 contact or after the handling of things which have previ- 
 ously been in the leper's possession. As the result of 
 the existence of these houses of segregation, leprosy 
 disappeared during the course of the next three centur- 
 ies, and thus a great hygienic triumph was obtained by 
 sanitary regulation. 
 
 This successful sanitary and hygienic work, which 
 brought about practically the complete obliteration of 
 leprosy in the Middle Ages, furnished the first example 
 of the possibility of eradicating a disease that has once 
 become a serious scourge to mankind. That this should 
 have been accomplished by a movement that had its 
 greatest source in the thirteenth century is all the more 
 surprising, since we are usually accustomed to think of 
 the people of the times as sadly lacking in any interest 
 in sanitary matters. The role of the Popes in the mat- 
 ter is another striking feature well worthy of note. The 
 significance of the success of this segregation method 
 was lost upon men down almost to our own time. This 
 was unfortunately because it was considered that most 
 of the epidemic diseases were conveyed by the air. They 
 were thought infectious and due to a climatic condition 
 rather than contagious, that is, conveyed by actual con- 
 
276 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 tact with the person having the disease or something 
 that had touched him, which is the view now held. 
 With the beginning of the crusade against tuberculosis 
 in the later nineteenth century, however, the most en- 
 couraging factor for those engaged in it was the history 
 of the success of segregation methods and careful pre- 
 vention of the spread of the disease, which had been 
 pursued against leprosy. In a word, the lessons in 
 sanitation and prophylaxis of the thirteenth century are 
 only now bearing fruit because the intervening centuries 
 did not have sufficient knowledge to realize their import 
 and take advantage of them. 
 
 Pope Innocent III. was not the only occupant of the 
 Papal throne whose name deserves to be remembered 
 with benedictions in connection with the hospital move- 
 ment of the thirteenth century. His successor took up 
 the work of encouragement where Innocent had left it 
 at his death, and did much to bring about the successful 
 accomplishment of his intentions in the ever wider 
 spheres. Honorius III. is distinguished by having made 
 into an order the Antonine Congregation of Vienna, 
 which was especially devoted to the care of patients 
 suffering from the ''holy fire " and from various mutila- 
 tions. The disease known as the holy fire seems to have 
 been what is called in modern times erysipelas. During 
 the Middle Ages it received various titles, such as St. 
 Anthony's fire, St. Francis's fire, and the like, the latter 
 part of the designation evidently being due to the strik- 
 ing redness which characterizes the disease, and which 
 can be compared to nothing better than the intense ery- 
 thema consequent upon a rather severe burn. This af- 
 fection was much more common in the Middle Ages than 
 in later times, though it must not be forgotten that its 
 
THE FOUNDATION OF CITY HOSPITALS 277 
 
 disappearance has come mainly in the last twenty-five 
 years. It is now known to be a contagious disease, and 
 indeed, as Oliver Wendell Holmes pointed out over half 
 a. century ago, may readily be carried from place to 
 place by the physician in attendance. It does not al- 
 ways manifest itself as erysipelas when thus carried, 
 however, and the merit of Dr. Holmes' s work was in 
 pointing out the fact that physicians who attended pa- 
 tients suffering from erysipelas and then waited on ob- 
 stetrical cases, were especially likely to carry the affec- 
 tion, which manifested itself as puerperal fever. A 
 number of cases of this kind were reported and dis- 
 cussed by him, and there is no doubt that his warning 
 served to save many precious lives. 
 
 Of course nothing of this was known in the thirteenth 
 century ; yet the encouragement given to this religious 
 order which devoted itself practically exclusively to the 
 care in special hospitals of erysipelas, must have had 
 no little effect in bringing about a limitation of the 
 spread of the disease. In such hospitals patients were 
 not likely to come in contact with many persons, and 
 consequently the contagion-radius of the disease was 
 limited. In our own time, immediate segregation of 
 cases when discovered has practically eradicated it, so 
 that many a young physician, even though ten years in 
 practice, has never seen a case of it. It was so common 
 during the Civil War and for half a century before that 
 here in America, that there were frequent epidemics of 
 it in hospitals, and it was generally recognized that the 
 disease was so contagious, that when it once gained a 
 foothold in a hospital ward nearly every patient suffer- 
 ing from an open wound was likely to be affected by it. 
 
 It is interesting then to learn that these people of the 
 
278 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 Middle Ages attempted to control the disease by erect- 
 ing special hospitals for it, though unfortunately we are 
 not in a position to know just how much was accom- 
 plished by these means. A congregation devoted to the 
 special care of the disease had been organized, as we 
 have said, early in the thirteenth century. At the end 
 of this century this was given the full weight of his 
 amplest approval by Pope Boniface VIII. , who conferred 
 on it the privilege of having priests among its members 
 It will be remembered that Pope Boniface VIII. is said 
 to have issued the bull which forbade the practice of 
 dissection. That bull only regulated, as I have shown, 
 the abuse which had sprung up of dismembering bodies 
 and boiling them in order to be able to carry them to a 
 distance for burial, which was in itself an excellent 
 hygienic measure. His encouragement of the special re- 
 ligious order for the care of erysipelas must be set down 
 to his credit as another sanitary benefit conferred on his 
 generation. 
 
 Many orders for the care of special needs of humanity 
 were established during the thirteenth century. It is 
 from this period that most of the religious habits worn 
 by women originate. They used to be considered rather 
 cumbersome for such a serious work as the nursing and 
 care of the sick, but in recent years quite a different view 
 has been taken. The covering of the head, for instance, 
 and the shearing of the hair must have been of distinct 
 value in preventing the communication of contagious dis- 
 eases. There has been a curious assimilation in the last 
 few years of the dress required to be worn by nurses in 
 operating rooms to that worn by most of the religious 
 communities. The head must be completely covered and 
 the garments worn are of material that can be washed. 
 
THE FOUNDATION OF CITY HOSPITALS 279 
 
 It will be recalled that the head-dress of religious being 1 , 
 as a rule, of white, on which the slightest speck shows, 
 must be renewed frequently, and therefore must be kept 
 in a condition of what is practically surgical cleanliness. 
 While this was not at all the intention of those who 
 adopted the particular style of head-dress worn by re- 
 ligious, yet their choice has proved, in what may well 
 be considered a Providential way, an excellent protec- 
 tive for the patients on whom they waited, against cer- 
 tain dangers that would inevitably have been present, 
 if their dress had been the ordinary one of the women 
 of their class, during these many centuries of hospital 
 nursing by religious women. 
 
 In a word, then, all the features which characterize 
 our modern hospitals, found a place in the old-time in- 
 stitutions for the care of the ailing, which we owe to the 
 initiative of the Church and religious orders, and above 
 all, the Popes. While we are accustomed to hear these 
 old-time institutions spoken of slightingly, that is be- 
 cause our knowledge of them was not as detailed as it 
 should be, until the recent interest in things medieval 
 revealed many details previously misunderstood. The 
 hospitals of the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth 
 centuries were much better than those of subsequent 
 centuries down practically to our own time. The reason 
 for this decadence is rather complex, but it evidently oc- 
 curred in spite of the Church and the Popes. Much of 
 it was due to the fact that, particularly in the sixteenth 
 and seventeenth centuries, the political governments in- 
 terfered in the work of charity and hospital manage- 
 ment, and always to the detriment of it. The greatest 
 triumph of the Church during the earlier centuries is 
 to be found in the magnificent organization of the hos- 
 
280 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 pital system and the anticipation of so many things in 
 the organization of hospital work, the care of patients 
 and even the prevention of contagious disease, that we 
 are apt to think of as essentially modern. 
 
THE CHURCH AND THE EXPERIMENTAL 
 METHOD. 
 
 There is a very generally accepted false impression 
 with regard to the attitude maintained by the Church 
 during the Middle Ages, especially toward what is known 
 as the experimental method in the gaining of knowledge, 
 or as we would now say, in the study of science. It is 
 commonly supposed that at least before the sixteenth 
 century, though of course in modern times it has had to 
 change its attitude to accord with the advances of modern 
 science, the Church was decidedly opposed to the experi- 
 mental method, and that the great ecclesiastical schol- 
 ars of the wonderful period of the rise of the univer- 
 sities were all absolute in their confidence in authority 
 and their dependence on the deductive method as the 
 only means of arriving at truth. This widespread false 
 impression owes its existence and persistence to many 
 causes. 
 
 It is supposed by many of those outside the Church that 
 there is a distinct incompatibility between the state of 
 mind which accepts things on faith and that other in- 
 tellectual attitude which leads man to doubt about his 
 knowledge and consequently to inquire. This doubting 
 frame of mind, which is readily recognized to be abso- 
 lutely necessary for the proper pursuit of experimental 
 science, is supposed quite to preclude the idea of the 
 peaceful settlement of the doubts that assail men's minds 
 as to the significance of life, of the relation of man to 
 man and to his Creator, and the hereafter, which comes 
 
 (281) 
 
282 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 with the acceptance of what revelation has to say on 
 these subjects. Somehow, it is assumed by many 
 people that there is something mutually and essentially 
 repellent in these two forms of assent. If a man is 
 ready to accept certain propositions on authority and 
 without being able to understand them, and still more, 
 if he accept them, realizing that he cannot understand 
 them, it is considered to be impossible for him to be 
 able to assume such a mental attitude towards science 
 as would make him an original investigator. 
 
 It is almost needless to say to anyone who knows any- 
 thing about the history of modern science even nine- 
 teenth century science, that there is absolutely no foun- 
 dation for this prejudice. Most of our greatest investi- 
 gators even in nineteenth century science have been 
 faithful believers not only in the ordinary religious 
 truths, in a Providence, in a hereafter, and in this life 
 as a preparation for another, but also in the great mys- 
 teries of revelation. I have shown this amply even with 
 regard to what is usually considered so unorthodox a 
 science as medicine, in my volume on the Makers of 
 Modern Medicine. Most of the men who did the great 
 original, work in last century medicine were Catholics. 
 The same thing is true for electricity, for example. All 
 the men after whom modes and units of electricity are 
 named Gal vani, Volta, Coulomb, Ampere, Ohm were 
 not only members of the Church, but what would be 
 even called devout Catholics. 
 
 A second and almost as important a reason for the 
 superstition for it is a supposed truth accepted without 
 good reasons therefor that somehow the Church was 
 opposed to the inductive or experimental method, is the 
 persistent belief which, in spite of frequent contradic- 
 
EXPERIMENTAL METHOD 283 
 
 tions, remains in the minds of so many scientists, that 
 the inductive or experimental method was introduced to 
 the world by Francis Bacon, the English philosopher, 
 at the beginning of the seventeenth century. Bacon 
 himself was a Protestant ; he did not do his writing 
 until the reformation so-called had been at work in 
 Europe for nearly a century, and somehow it is supposed 
 that these facts are linked together as causes and effects. 
 The reason why such a formulation of the inductive 
 method had not come before was because this was for- 
 bidden ground ! Nothing could be less true than that 
 Lord Bacon had any serious influence in bringing about 
 the introduction of the inductive method into science. 
 At most he was a chronicler of tendencies that he saw 
 in the science of his day. It is true that his writings 
 served to give a certain popular vogue to the inductive 
 method, or rather a certain exaggerated notion of the 
 import of experiment to those who were not themselves 
 scientists. Bacon was a popular writer on science, not 
 an original thinker or worker in the experimental 
 sciences. Popularizers in science, alas ! have from 
 Amerigo Vespucci down reaped the rewards due to the 
 real discoverers. 
 
 Induction in the genuine significance of the word had 
 been recognized in the world long before Bacon's time 
 and been used to much better effect than he was able to 
 apply it. Personally, I have always felt that he has 
 almost less right to all the praise that has been bestowed 
 on him for what he is supposed to have done for science, 
 than he has for any addition to his reputation because of 
 the attribution to him by so many fanatics of the author- 
 ship of Shakespeare's plays. It is rather difficult to 
 understand how his reputation ever came about. Lord 
 
284 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 Macaulay is much more responsible for it than is usually 
 thought ; his brilliancy often overreached itself or went 
 far beyond truth ; his favorite geese were nearly always 
 swans, in his eyes. 
 
 De Maistre, in his review of Bacon's Novum Organum, 
 points out that this work is replete with prejudices ; that 
 Bacon makes glaring blunders in astronomy, in logic, in 
 metaphysics, in physics, in natural history, and fills the 
 pages of his work with childish observations, trifling ex- 
 periments, and ridiculous explanations. Our own Pro- 
 fessor Draper, in his Intellectual Development of 
 Europe, has been even more severe, and has especially 
 pointed out that Bacon never received the Copernican 
 System, but "with the audacity of ignorance he pre- 
 sumed to criticise what he did not understand, and with 
 a superb conceit disparaged the great Copernicus." 
 "The more closely we examine the writings of Lord 
 Bacon," he says farther on, "the more unworthy does 
 he seem to have been of the great reputation which has 
 been awarded to him. . . The popular delusion, to 
 which he owes so much, originated at a time when the 
 history of science was unknown. This boasted founder 
 of a new philosophy could not comprehend and would 
 not accept the greatest of all scientific discoveries when 
 it was plainly set before his eyes." 
 
 As a student of the history of medicine, it has always 
 been especially irritating to me to hear Francis Bacon's 
 name heralded as the Father of Experimental Science. 
 Literally hundreds of physicians had applied the ex- 
 perimental method in its perfect form to many problems 
 in medicine and surgery during at least three centuries 
 or more before Bacon's time. They did not need to 
 have the principles of it set forth for them by this 
 
EXPERIMENTAL METHOD 285 
 
 publicist, who knew how to write about scientific 
 method, but did not know how to apply it, so far as we 
 know anything about him ; and who was utterly unable 
 to see the great discoveries that had been made by the 
 experimental method in the century before his time, and 
 refused to accept such great advances in science as were 
 made by Copernicus and others. Some two score of 
 years before Bacon wrote, in England itself, the great 
 Gilbert of Colchester, who was elected the president of 
 the Royal College of Physicians for the year 1600, and 
 who was physician-in-ordinary to Queen Elizabeth, had 
 applied the experimental method to such good purpose 
 that he well deserves the title that has been conferred 
 upon him of Father of Electricity. 
 
 There was never a more purely experimental scientist 
 than Gilbert. His work, De Magnete, is one of the 
 great contributions to experimental science. Anyone 
 who thinks that experiments came only after Lord 
 Bacon's time should read this wonderful work, which is 
 at the foundation of modern electricity. For twenty 
 years, from 1580 to 1600, Gilbert spent all the leisure 
 that he could snatch from his professional duties, in his 
 laboratory. He notes down his experiments his failures 
 as well as his successes discusses them very thoroughly, 
 suggests explanations of success and failure, hits upon 
 methods of control, but pursues the solution of the 
 problems he has in hand ever further and further. As 
 a biographer said of him, "we find him toiling in his 
 work-shop at Colchester quite as Faraday toiled, more 
 than two hundred years later, in the low dark rooms of 
 the Royal Institution of Great Britain/' Faraday was 
 actuated by no more calm, persevering, inquiring spirit 
 than was Gilbert. To say that any Englishman invented 
 
286 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 or taught the world the application of the experimental 
 method in science after Gilbert's time is to talk 
 nonsense. 
 
 Yet it was of this great scientific observer that Lord 
 Bacon, carried away by ill-feeling and jealousy of a con- 
 temporary, went so far as to say in his De Augmentis 
 Scientiarum, that Gilbert "had attempted to found a 
 general system upon the magnet, and endeavored to 
 build a ship out of materials not sufficient to make the 
 rowing-pins of a boat." When Bacon refused to accept 
 Copernicus' s teachings, he did not commit a greater er- 
 ror, nor do a greater wrong to mankind, than when he 
 made little of Gilbert of Colchester's work. Poggendorf 
 called Gilbert the " Galileo of Magnetism " and Priestley 
 hailed him as the "founder of modern electricity." 
 When Gilbert did the work on which these titles are 
 founded, however, he was only following out the meth- 
 ods which had been introduced into England long before, 
 and which had been exemplified so thoroughly all during 
 the life of Friar Bacon, and of Friar Bacon's great 
 teacher, Albertus Magnus. One would expect that at 
 least in science credit would be given properly, and that 
 the false notions introduced by litterateurs and histori- 
 ans of politics should not be allowed to dominate the 
 situation. 
 
 The position popularly assigned to Bacon in the his- 
 tory of science is indeed one of those history lies, as the 
 Germans so bluntly but frankly call them, which, though 
 very generally accepted, is entirely due to a lack of 
 knowledge of the state of education and of the progress 
 of scientific investigation long before his time. The 
 reason for this ignorance is the unfortunate tradition 
 which has been so long fostered in educational circles, 
 
EXPERIMENTAL METHOD 287 
 
 that nothing worth while ever came out of the Nazareth 
 of the Middle Ages, or the centuries before the so-called 
 reformation and the Renaissance. The ridiculously utter 
 falsity of this impression we shall be able properly to 
 characterize at the end of the next chapter. 
 
 As a matter of fact, it would have been much truer to 
 have attributed the origin of experimental science to his 
 great namesake, Roger Bacon, the Franciscan friar, 
 whose work was done at Paris and at Oxford during the 
 latter half of that wonderful thirteenth century that 
 saw the rise and the development of the universities to 
 that condition in which they have practically remained 
 ever since. Even Bacon, however, is not the real orig- 
 inator of the inductive method, since, as we shall see, 
 the writings of his great teacher, the profoundest 
 scholar of this great century, whose years are almost 
 coincident with it, Albert Magnus, the Dominican, who 
 afterwards became Bishop of Ratisbon, contained many 
 distinct and definite anticipations of Bacon as regards 
 the inductive method. 
 
 The earlier Bacon, the Franciscan, laid down very 
 distinctly the principle, that only by careful observation 
 and experimental demonstration could any real knowl- 
 edge with regard to natural phenomena be obtained. 
 He not only laid down the principle, however, but in 
 this, quite a contrast to his later namesake, he followed 
 the route himself very wonderfully. It is for this 
 reason that his name is deservedly attached to many 
 important beginnings in modern science, which we shall 
 have occasion to mention during the course of this and 
 the next chapter. His general attitude of mind toward 
 natural science can be best appreciated from the famous 
 passage with regard to his friend, Petrus Peregrinus, 
 
288 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 who did such excellent work in magnetism in the thir- 
 teenth century, and sent to Friar Bacon the details of it 
 with the loving solicitude of a pupil to a master. 
 
 In his Opus Tertium, Bacon thus praises the merits of 
 Peregrinus : "I know of only one person who deserves 
 praise for his work in experimental philosophy, for he 
 does not care for the discourses of men and their wordy 
 warfare, but quietly and diligently pursues the work of 
 wisdom. Therefore, what others grope after blindly, as 
 bats in the evening twilight, this man contemplates in 
 all their brilliancy because he is a master of experiment. 
 Hence, he knows all of natural science, whether pertain- 
 ing to medicine and alchemy, or to matters celestial or 
 terrestrial. He has worked diligently in the smelting of 
 ores, as also in the working of minerals ; he is thoroughly 
 acquainted with all sorts of arms and implements used 
 in military service and in hunting, besides which he is 
 skilled in agriculture and in the measurement of lands. 
 It is impossible to write a useful or correct treatise in 
 experimental philosophy without mentioning this man's 
 name. Moreover, he pursues knowledge for its own 
 sake ; for if he wished to obtain royal favor, he could 
 easily find sovereigns who would honor and enrich 
 him/' 
 
 Brother Potamian's reflections on this unexpected 
 passage of Bacon are the best interpretation of it for 
 the modern student of science. 
 
 ''This last statement is worthy of the best utterances 
 of the twentieth century. Say what they will, the most 
 ardent pleaders of our day for original work and labor- 
 atory methods, cannot surpass the Franciscan monk of 
 the thirteenth century in his denunciation of mere book- 
 learning, or in his advocacy of experiment and research ; 
 
EXPERIMENTAL METHOD 289 
 
 while in Peregrinus, the medievalist, they have Bacon's 
 impersonation of what a student of science ought to be. 
 Peregrinus was a hard worker, not a mere theorizer, 
 preferring, Procrusteanlike, to make theory fit the facts 
 rather than facts fit the theory ; he was a brilliant dis- 
 coverer, who knew at the same time how to use his dis- 
 coveries for the benefit of mankind ; he was a pioneer of 
 science and a leader in the progress of the world. " l 
 
 This letter of Roger Bacon contains every idea that the 
 modern scientists contend for as significant in education. 
 It counsels observation, not theory, and says very plainly 
 what he thinks of much talk without a basis of observa- 
 tion. It commends a mastery in experiment as the most 
 important thing for science. It suggests, of course, by 
 implication at least, that a man should know all sciences 
 and all applications of them ; but surely no one will ob- 
 ject to this medieval friar commending as great a 
 breadth of mental development as possible, as the ideal 
 of an educated man, and especially with regard to the 
 experimental sciences. Finally, it has the surprising 
 phrase, that Peregrinus pursues knowledge for its own 
 sake. Friar Bacon evidently would have sympathized 
 very heartily with Faraday, who at the beginning of the 
 nineteenth century wanted to get out of trade and into 
 science, because he thought it unworthy of man to spend 
 all his life accumulating money, and considered that the 
 only proper aim in life is to add to knowledge. He would 
 have been in cordial accord with Pasteur, at the end of 
 the century, who told the Empress Eugenie, when she 
 asked him if he would not exploit his discoveries in 
 fermentation for the purpose of building up a great 
 
 1 The letter of Petrus Peregrinus on the Magnet, A. D. 1269, translated by Bro. 
 Arnold, M. Sc., with an Introductory Note by Bro. Potamian, N. Y., 1904. 
 
290 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 brewing industry in France, that he thought it un- 
 worthy of a French scientist to devote himself to a mere 
 money-making industry. 
 
 For a man of the modern time, perhaps the most 
 interesting expression that ever fell from Roger Bacon's 
 lips is his famous proclamation of the reasons why men 
 do not obtain genuine knowledge more rapidly than 
 would seem ought to be the case, from the care and 
 time and amount of work which they have devoted to 
 its cultivation. This expression occurs in Bacon's Opus 
 Tertium, which, it may be recalled, the Franciscan friar 
 wrote at the command of Pope Clement, because the 
 Pope had heard many interesting accounts of all that 
 the great thirteenth century teacher and experimenter 
 was doing at the University of Oxford, and wished to 
 learn for himself the details of his work. Friar Bacon 
 starts out with the principle that there are four grounds 
 of human ignorance. 
 
 "These are: first, trust in adequate authority; sec- 
 ond, that force of custom which leads men to accept too 
 unquestioningly what has been accepted before their 
 time ; third, the placing of confidence in the opinion of 
 the inexperienced ; and fourth, the hiding of one's own 
 ignorance with the parade of superficial knowledge." 
 These reasons contain the very essence of the experi- 
 mental method, and continue to be as important in the 
 twentieth century as they were in the thirteenth. They 
 could only have emanated from an eminently practical 
 mind, accustomed to test by observation and by care- 
 ful searching of authorities every proposition that came 
 to him. 
 
 It is very evident that modern scientists would have 
 more of kinship and intellectual sympathy with Friar 
 
EXPERIMENTAL METHOD 291 
 
 Bacon than most of them are apt to think possible. A 
 faithful student of his writings, who was at the same 
 time in many ways a cordial admirer of medievalism, 
 the late Professor Henry Morley, who held the chair of 
 English literature at University College, London, whose 
 contributions to the History of English Literature are 
 probably the most important of the nineteenth century, 
 has a striking paragraph with regard to this attitude of 
 Bacon toward knowledge and science two words that 
 have the same meaning etymologically, though they 
 have come to have quite different connotations. In the 
 third volume of his English Writers, page 321, Professor 
 Morley, after quoting Bacon's four grounds of human 
 ignorance, said : 
 
 ' ' No part of that ground has yet been cut away from 
 beneath the feet of students, although six centuries ago 
 the Oxford friar clearly pointed out its character. We 
 still make sheep walks of second, third and fourth and 
 fiftieth-hand references to authority ; still we are the 
 slaves of habit ; still we are found following too fre- 
 quently the untaught crowd ; still we flinch from the 
 righteous and wholesome phrase, ' I do not know, ' and 
 acquiesce actively in the opinion of others, that we know 
 what we appear to know. Substitute honest research, 
 original and independent thought, strict truth in the 
 comparison of only what we really know with what is 
 really known by others, and the strong redoubt of ig- 
 norance is f alien. " 
 
 This attitude of mind of Friar Bacon toward the reasons 
 for ignorance, is so different from what is usually pred- 
 icated of the Middle Ages and of medieval scholars, 
 that it seems worth while insisting on it. Authority is 
 supposed to have meant everything for the scholastics, 
 
292 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 and experiment is usually said to have counted for 
 nothing. They are supposed to have been accustomed 
 to swear to the words of the master "jurare in verba 
 magistri " yet here is a great leader of medieval thought 
 insisting on just the opposite. As clearly as ever it was 
 proclaimed, Bacon announces that an authority is worth 
 only the reasons that he advances. These thirteenth 
 century teachers are supposed, above all, to have fairly 
 bowed down and worshipped at the shrine of Aristotle. 
 Many of them doubtless did. In every generation the 
 great mass of mankind must find someone to follow. As 
 often as not, their leaders are much more fallible than 
 Aristotle. Bacon, however, had no undue reverence for 
 Aristotle or anyone else, and he realized that the blind fol- 
 lowing of Aristotle had done much harm. In his sketch 
 of Gilbert of Colchester, which was published in the 
 " Popular Science Monthly " for August, 1901, Brother 
 Potamian calls attention to this quality of Roger Bacon 
 in a striking passage. 
 
 ' ' Roger Bacon, after absorbing the learning of Oxford 
 and Paris, wrote to the reigning Pontiff, Clement IV., 
 urging him to have the works of the Stagirite burnt in 
 order to stop the propagation of error in the schools. 
 The Franciscan monk of Ilchester has left us, in his Opus 
 Majus, a lasting memorial of his practical genius. In 
 the section entitled, "Scientia Experimental, " he 
 affirms that "Without experiment, nothing can be 
 adequately known. An argument proves theoretically, 
 but does not give the certitude necessary to remove all 
 doubt ; nor will the mind repose in the clear view of 
 truth, unless it finds it by way of experiment. " And in 
 his Opus Tertium: "The strongest arguments prove 
 nothing, so long as the conclusions are not verified by 
 
EXPERIMENTAL METHOD 293 
 
 experience. Experimental science is the queen of 
 sciences and the goal of all speculation. " 
 
 Lest it should be thought that these expressions of 
 laudatory appreciation of the great thirteenth century 
 scientist are dictated more by the desire to magnify his 
 work and to bring out the influence in science of the 
 churchmen of the period, it seems well to quote an ex- 
 pression of opinion from the modern historian of the 
 inductive sciences, whose praise is scarcely if any less 
 outspoken than that of others whom we have quoted and 
 who might be supposed to be somewhat partial in their 
 judgment. This opinion will fortify the doubters who 
 must have authority, and at the same time sums up very 
 excellently the position which Roger Bacon occupies in 
 the history of science. 
 
 Dr. Whewell says that Roger Bacon 's Opus Ma jus is 
 ' ' the encyclopedia and Novum Organon of the thirteenth 
 century, a work equally wonderful with regard to its 
 general scheme and to the special treatises with which 
 the outlines of the plans are filled up. The professed 
 object of the work is to urge the necessity of a reform 
 in the mode of philosophizing, to set forth the reasons 
 why knowledge had not made a greater progress, to 
 draw back attention to the sources of knowledge which 
 had been unwisely neglected, to discover other sources 
 which were yet almost untouched, and to animate men 
 in the undertaking by a prospect of the best advantages 
 which it offered. In the development of this plan all 
 the leading portions of science are expanded in the most 
 complete shape which they had at that time assumed ; 
 and improvements of a very wide and striking kind are 
 proposed in some of the principal branches of study. 
 Even if the work had no leading purposes it would have 
 
294 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 been highly valuable as a treasure of the most solid 
 knowledge and soundest speculations of the time ; even 
 if it had contained no such details, it would have been a 
 work most remarkable for its general views and scope." 
 
 The open and inquiring attitude of mind toward the 
 truths of nature is supposed usually to be utterly at 
 variance with the intellectual temper of the Middle Ages. 
 We have heard so much about the submission to author- 
 ity and the cultivation of tradition on the part of medie- 
 val scholars that we forget entirely how much they 
 accomplished in adding to human knowledge, and though 
 they had their limitations of conservatism, they were no 
 more old fogies clinging to old-fashioned ruts than are 
 the older men of each successive generation down even 
 to our own time, in the minds of their younger col- 
 leagues. It might seem to be difficult to substantiate 
 such a declaration. It may appear to be a paradox to talk 
 thus. It is not hard to show good reasons for it, and 
 far from being a far-fetched attempt to bolster up an 
 opinion more favorable to the Middle Ages, it is really a 
 very simple expression of what the history of these 
 generations shows that they actually tried to accomplish. 
 Roger Bacon must not be thought to be alone in this. 
 On the contrary, he was only a leader with many fol- 
 lowers. Even before his time, however, these ideas as 
 to the necessity for observation had been very forcibly 
 expressed by many, and by no one more than Roger's 
 distinguished teacher, Albertus Magnus, whose name 
 is now becoming familiar to scholars as Albert the 
 Great. 
 
 Albert's great pupil, Roger Bacon, is rightly looked 
 upon as the true father of inductive science, an honor 
 that history has unfortunately taken from him to confer 
 
EXPERIMENTAL METHOD 295 
 
 it undeservedly on his namesake of four centuries later ; 
 but the teaching out of which Roger Bacon was to de- 
 velop the principles of experimental science can be found 
 in many places in the master's writings. In Albert's 
 tenth book, wherein he catalogues and describes all the 
 trees, plants, and herbs known in his time, he observes: 
 ' ' All that is here set down is the result of our own ex- 
 perience, or has been borrowed from authors whom we 
 know to have written what their personal experience 
 has confirmed : for in these matters experience alone 
 can give certainty "experimentum solum certificat in 
 talibus. "Such an expression, " says his biographer, 
 "which might have proceeded from the pen of (Francis) 
 Bacon, argues in itself a prodigious scientific progress, 
 and shows that the medieval friar was on the track so 
 successfully pursued by modern natural philosophy. He 
 had fairly shaken off the shackles which had hitherto 
 tied up discovery, and was the slave neither of Pliny nor 
 of Aristotle." 
 
 Albert was a theologian rather than a scientist, and 
 yet, deeply versed as he was in theology, he declared in 
 a treatise concerning Heaven and Earth, 1 that "in 
 studying nature we have not to enquire how God the 
 Creator may, as He freely wills, use His creatures to 
 work miracles and thereby show forth His power ; we 
 have rather to enquire what nature with its immanent 
 causes can naturally bring to pass. ' ' This can scarcely 
 fail to seem a surprising declaration to those who have 
 been accustomed to think of medieval philosophers as 
 turning by preference to miraculous explanations of 
 things, but such a notion is founded partly on false tra- 
 dition, with regard to the real teaching of the medieval 
 
 J De Ccelo et Mundo, I. tr. iv., X. 
 
296 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 scholars, and even more on the partisan declarations of 
 those who thought it the proper thing to make as little 
 as possible of the intelligence of the people of the Middle 
 Ages, in order to account for their adhesion to the 
 Catholic Church. 
 
 As a matter of fact, Albert's declaration, far from 
 being an innovation, was only in pursuance of the truly 
 philosophic inethod which had characterized the writings 
 of the great Christian thinkers from the earlier time. 
 Unfortunately, the declarations of lesser minds are some- 
 times accepted as having represented the thoughts of 
 men and the policy of the Church. It is not these lesser 
 men, however, who have been in special honor. No 
 one, for instance, can possibly be looked upon as repre- 
 senting Church teaching better than Augustine, who be- 
 cause of the depth of his teaching, yet his wonderful 
 fidelity to Christian dogma, received the formal title of 
 Father of the Church, which carried with it the approval 
 of everything that he had written. There is a well- 
 known quotation from St. Augustine which shows how 
 much he deprecated the attempt to make Scriptures an 
 authority in science, and how much he valued observa- 
 tion as compared with authority, in such matters as are 
 really within the domain of investigation by experi- 
 ment and observation. 
 
 He says : "It very often happens that there is some 
 question as to the earth or the sky, or the other ele- 
 ments of this world, respecting which one who is not a 
 Christian has knowledge derived from most certain 
 reasoning or observation " (that is, from the ordinary 
 means at the command of an investigator in natural 
 science), "and it is very disgraceful and mischievous, 
 and of all things to be carefully avoided, that a Chris- 
 
EXPERIMENTAL METHOD 297 
 
 tian speaking of such matters as being according to the 
 Christian Scriptures, should be heard by an unbeliever 
 talking such nonsense that the unbeliever, perceiving 
 him to be as wide from the mark as east from west, 
 can hardly restrain himself from laughing. " It is the 
 opinions of such men as Augustine and Albert that must 
 be taken as representing the real attitude of theologians 
 and churchmen toward science, and not those of lesser 
 men, whose zeal, as is ever true of the minor adherents 
 of any cause, always is prone to carry them into unfor- 
 tunate excesses. 
 
 Albert the Great was indeed a thoroughgoing experi- 
 mentalist in the best modern sense of the term. He 
 says in the second book of his treatise On Minerals (De 
 Mineralibus) : ''The aim of natural science is not simply 
 to accept the statements of others, that is, what is nar- 
 rated by people, but to investigate the causes that are 
 at work in nature for themselves/* When we take this 
 expression in connection with the other, that "we must 
 endeavor to find out what nature can naturally bring to 
 pass," the complete foundation of experimentalism is 
 laid. Albert held this principle not only in theory, but 
 applied it in practice. 
 
 It is often said that the scholastic philosophers, and 
 notably Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas, almost 
 idolatrously worshipped at the shrine of Aristotle, and 
 were ready to accept anything that this great Greek 
 philosopher had taught. We have already quoted Roger 
 Bacon's request to the Pope to forbid the study of the 
 Stagirite. It is interesting to find in this regard, that 
 while Albert declared that in questions of natural science 
 he would prefer to follow Aristotle to St. Augustine a 
 declaration which may seem surprising to many people 
 
298 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 who have been prone to think that what the Fathers of 
 the Church said medieval scholars followed slavishly he 
 does not hesitate to point out errors made by the Greek 
 philosopher, nor to criticise his conclusions very freely. 
 In his Treatise on Physics, 1 he says, " whoever believes 
 that Aristotle was a god must also believe that he never 
 erred. But if one believe that Aristotle was a man, 
 then doubtless he was liable to err just as we are." In 
 fact, as is pointed out by the Catholic Encyclopaedia in 
 its article on Albertus Magnus, to which we are indebted 
 for the exact reference of the quotations that we have 
 made, Albert devotes a lengthy chapter in his Summa 
 Theologiae 2 to what he calls the errors of Aristotle. 
 His appreciation of Aristotle is always critical. He de- 
 serves great credit not only for bringing the scientific 
 teaching of the Stagirite to the attention of medieval 
 scholars, but also for indicating the method and the 
 spirit in which that teaching was to be received. 
 
 With regard to Albert's devotion to the experimental 
 method and to observation as the source of knowledge 
 in what concerns natural phenomena, Julius Pagel, in his 
 History of Medicine in the Middle Ages, which forms 
 one of the parts of Puschmann's Handbook of the His- 
 tory of Medicine, has some very interesting remarks that 
 are worth while quoting here: "Albert," he says, 
 ' ' shared with the naturalists of the scholastic period the 
 quality of entering deeply and thoroughly into the ob- 
 jects of nature, and was not content with bare super- 
 ficial details concerning them, which many of the writers 
 of the period penetrated no further than to provide a 
 nomenclature. While Albert was a churchman and an 
 
 iphysica, lib. VIII., tr. i., xiv. 
 
 2 Summa Theologiae, Pars II., tr. i., Quaest iv. 
 
EXPERIMENTAL METHOD 299 
 
 ardent devotee of Aristotle in matters of natural phe- 
 nomena, he was relatively unprejudiced and presented an 
 open mind. He thought that he must follow Hippoc- 
 rates and Galen rather than Aristotle and Augustine in 
 medicine and in the natural sciences. We must concede 
 it as a special subject of praise for Albert, that he dis- 
 tinguished very strictly between natural and supernatu- 
 ral phenomena. The former he considered as entirely 
 the object of the investigation of nature. The latter he 
 handed over to the realm of metaphysics. " 
 
 ' 'Albert's efforts, ' ' Pagel says, ' ' to set down the limits 
 of natural science shows already the seeds of a more 
 scientific treatment of natural phenomena, and a recog- 
 nition of the necessity to know things in their causes 
 rerum cognoscere causas and not to consider that every- 
 thing must simply be attributed to the action of Provi- 
 dence. He must be considered as one of the more 
 rational thinkers of his time, though the fetters of scho- 
 lasticism still bound him quite enough, and his mastery 
 of dialectics, which he had learned from the strenuous 
 Dominican standpoint, still made him subordinate the 
 laws of nature to the Church's teaching in ways that sug- 
 gested the possibility of his being less free than might 
 otherwise have been the case. His thoroughgoing piety, 
 his profound scholarship, his boundless industry ; the 
 almost uncontrollable impulse of his mind after univer- 
 sality of knowledge ; his many-sidedness in literary pro- 
 ductivity ; and finally the universal recognition which 
 he received from his contemporaries and succeeding 
 generations, stamp him as one of the most imposing 
 characters and one of the most wonderful phenomena of 
 the Middle Ages." 
 
 Perhaps in no department of the history of science 
 
300 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 has more nonsense been talked, than with regard to the 
 neglect of experiment and observation in the Middle 
 Ages. 'The men who made the series of experiments 
 necessary to enable them to raise the magnificent Gothic 
 cathedrals ; who built the fine old municipal buildings 
 and abbeys and castles ; who spanned wide rivers with 
 bridges, and yet had the intelligence and the skill to dec- 
 orate all of these buildings as effectively as they did, 
 cannot be considered either as impractical or lacking in 
 powers of observation. As I show in the chapter The 
 Medieval University Man and Science, Dante, the poet 
 and literary man of the thirteenth century, had his mind 
 stored with quite as much material information with 
 regard to physical science and nature study, as any 
 modern educated man. It is true that the men of the 
 Middle Ages did not make observations on exactly the 
 same things that we do, but to say either that they 
 lacked powers of observation, or did not use their powers 
 or failed to appreciate the value of such powers, is 
 simply a display of ignorance of what they actually 
 did. 
 
 On the other hand, when it comes to the question of 
 the principles of experimental science and the value they 
 placed on them, these men of the medieval universities, 
 when sympathetically studied, prove to have been quite 
 as sensible as the scientists of our own time. The idea 
 that Francis Bacon in any way laid the foundation' of 
 the experimental sciences, or indeed did anything more 
 than give a literary statement of the philosophy of the 
 experimental science, though he himself proved utterly 
 unable to apply the principles that he discussed to the 
 scientific discoveries of his own time, is one of the inex- 
 plicable absurdities of history that somehow get in and 
 
EXPERIMENTAL METHOD 3Q1 
 
 cannot be got out. The great thinkers of the medieval 
 period had not only reached the same conclusions as he 
 did, but actually applied them three centuries before ; 
 and the great medieval universities were occupied with 
 problems, even in physical science, not very different 
 from those which have given food for thought for sub- 
 sequent generations. We shall see in the next chapter 
 how successfully they applied these great principles 
 of the experimental method, and how much they antici- 
 pated many phases of science that we are apt to think of 
 as distinctly modern. 
 
CHURCHMEN AND PHYSICAL SCIENCE AT 
 THE MEDIEVAL UNIVERSITIES. 
 
 There can be no doubt at all in the minds of those who 
 know anything about the early history of the univer- 
 sities, but that the Popes were entirely favorable to the 
 great educational movement represented by these insti- 
 tutions. It is ordinarily supposed, however, that the 
 medieval universities limited their attention to philos- 
 ophy and theology, and that even these subjects were 
 studied from such narrow religious standpoints, as to 
 make them of very little value for the development of 
 human knowledge or the evolution of the human mind. 
 Any such supposition is the result of ignorance on the 
 part of those who entertain it, as to the actual curricu- 
 lum of studies at the early universities, though it is not 
 surprising that it should be very common, because, un- 
 fortunately, it has been fostered by many writers on 
 educational subjects, especially in English. Scholasti- 
 cism is often said to have been the very acme of absur- 
 dity in teaching, and its real import is entirely missed. 
 Students and professors are supposed to have been 
 limited in their interests to dialectics and metaphysics in 
 the narrowest sense of these terms, and much time was, 
 according to even presumably good authorities, frittered 
 away in idle speculations with regard to things that are 
 absolutely unknowable. 1 
 
 1 Much of the remainder of this chapter is taken from the chapter on What and 
 How They Studied at the Universities, in my book The Thirteenth Greatest of Cen- 
 turies. (Catholic Summer School Press, N. Y.) Some of the sources from which the 
 material is obtained will be found more fully referred to there, and further informa- 
 tion with regard to scientific studies at these universities will be found in the chapter 
 (302) 
 
CHURCHMEN AND SCIENCE ($(& 
 
 Anyone who studies the works of the professors at 
 these medieval universities can scarcely fail to become 
 entirely sympathetic toward these scholars, who devoted 
 themselves with so much ardor to every form of learn- 
 ing that interested them, and who did not fail to accom- 
 plish at least as much for future generations, as any 
 other generation of university men in history. Profes- 
 sor George Saintsbury in his book. On the Rise of Ro- 
 mance and the Flourishing of Allegory, which is really 
 the story of thirteenth century literature in Europe, in 
 the series of Periods of European Literature, 1 in sum- 
 ming up the contributions of these medieval professors 
 to human knowledge, said : 
 
 ' ' Yet, there has always, in generous souls who have 
 some tincture of philosophy, subsisted a curious kind of 
 sympathy and yearning over the work of these genera- 
 tions of mainly disinterested scholars, who, whatever 
 they were, were thorough, and whatever they could not 
 do, could think. And there have been in these latter 
 days some graceless ones who have asked whether the 
 science of the nineteenth century, after an equal inter- 
 val, will be of any more positive value whether it will 
 not have even less comparative interest than that which 
 appertains to the Scholasticism of the thirteenth. ' ' 
 
 Nothing could well be less true than the impression 
 that philosophy and theology were the exclusive subjects 
 of the medieval university curriculum. If because our 
 modern universities devote a great amount of time to 
 physical science in its various forms, and more of their 
 publications concern this department of educational 
 work than any other, it were to be said by some future 
 generation that our universities occupied themselves 
 
 on Post-graduate Work in the same book, from which a certain amount of material 
 is used again here, 
 i Scribners, 1896. 
 
304 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 with nothing but physical science, it would be much 
 more true than the expressions which stamp medieval 
 university teaching as limited to dialectics and meta- 
 physics. Besides science in the modern universities, 
 philosophy in all its branches is the subject of ardent 
 devotion, and the classics and languages are not neg- 
 lected, and medicine and law are important post- 
 graduate departments, and even theology comes in for 
 a goodly share of attention and occupies the minds of 
 many deep students. In the medieval universities, medi- 
 cine particularly occupied a very large share of atten- 
 tion ; but all the physical sciences were the subject not 
 only of distant curiosity, but of careful investigation, 
 many of them along lines that are supposed to be dis- 
 tinctly modern, yet which are really as old as the uni- 
 versity movement. 
 
 Turner in his History of Philosophy l summed up the 
 books most commonly used, the method of examination 
 and of conferring degrees, in a way that shows the char- 
 acter of university teaching during the thirteenth cen- 
 tury, and brings out not only its thoroughness, but also 
 the fact that a good deal of time was devoted to what 
 we now call physical or natural science, since the trea- 
 tises on animals, on the earth and on meteors, under 
 which all the phenomena of the Heavens were included, 
 represent almost exactly those questions in physical 
 science that most men who do not intend to devote them- 
 selves particularly to science care to know something 
 about at the present time. He says : 
 
 " By statutes issued at various times during the thir- 
 teenth century, it was provided that the professor should 
 read, that is, expound, the text of certain standard 
 
 1 Ginn & Co., Boston and New York, 1903- 
 
CHURCHMEN AND SCIENCE 305 
 
 authors in philosophy and theology. In a document pub- 
 lished by Denifle (the distinguished authority on medie- 
 val universities) , and by him referred to the year 1252, 
 we find the following works among those prescribed for 
 the Faculty of Arts : Logica Vetus (the old Boethian 
 text of a portion of the Organon, probably accompanied 
 by Porphyry's Isagoge) ; Logica Nova (the new trans- 
 lation of the Organon); Gilbert's Liber Sex Principi- 
 orum ; and Donatus's Barbarismus. A few years later 
 (1255), the following works are prescribed : Aristotle's 
 Physics, Metaphysics, De Anima, De Animalibus, De 
 Cselo et Mundo, Meteorica, the minor psychological trea- 
 tises and some Arabian or Jewish works, such as the 
 Liber de Causis and De Differentia Spiritus et Animae." 
 
 As time went on in the thirteenth and fourteenth cen- 
 turies, the attention to physical sciences was increased 
 rather than diminished. Much of Albertus Magnus's 
 work, and practically all of that of Aquinas and Roger 
 Bacon, was done after the date here given (1255). 
 
 The medieval workers at the universities were under 
 the obligation of having to lay the foundations for modern 
 thought, instead of being able to build up the magnifi- 
 cent superstructure which has risen in the seven cen- 
 turies since the universities were founded. Without the 
 foundation, however, the building would indeed not be 
 worthy of admiration. Their work is concealed beneath 
 the surfaces of things, but is not the less important for 
 that, and is in most ways more significant than many 
 portions of the structure that have risen above it. Un- 
 less one digs down to see how broad and deep and firm 
 they laid the foundations, the modern critic will not be 
 able to appreciate their work at its true value. Very 
 few men are able to do this ; still fewer have the time 
 or the inclination. The consequence is a sad lack of 
 sympathy with these old-time workers, who neverthe- 
 less did their work so well, and whose accomplishment 
 meant so much for the modern time. It is not hard to 
 
306 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 show that their minds were occupied with just the same 
 problems that interest us, and the wonderful thing is 
 that they anticipated so many of our conclusions, though 
 these anticipations are wrapped up not infrequently in 
 a terminology that obscures their meaning for any but 
 the patient, sympathetic student. In his Harveian 
 Lecture, Science and Medieval Thought, Professor Clifford 
 Allbutt, of the University of Cambridge, England, 
 said : 
 
 "Each period of human achievement has its phases of 
 spring, culmination, and decline ; and it is in its decline 
 that the leafless tree comes to judgment. In the un- 
 loveliness of decay, the Middle Ages are as other ages 
 have been, as our own will be ; but in those ages there 
 was more than one outburst of life ; more than once the 
 enthusiasm of the youth of the West went out to explore 
 the ways of the realm of ideas ; and if we believe our- 
 selves at last to have found the only thoroughfare, we 
 owe this knowledge to those who before us traveled the 
 uncharted seas. If we have inherited a great commerce 
 and dominion of science, it is because their argosies had 
 been on the ocean and their camels on the desert. Dis- 
 cipulus est prioris posterior dies ; man cannot know all 
 at once ; knowledge must be built up by laborious gen- 
 erations. In all times, as in our own, the advance of 
 knowledge is very largely by elimination and negation ; 
 we ascertain what is not true, and we weed it out. To 
 perceive and respect the limits of the knowable, we 
 must have sought to transgress them. We can build our 
 bridge over the chasm of ignorance with stored material 
 in which the thirteenth century was poor indeed ; we 
 can fix our bearings where then was no foundation ; yet 
 man may be well engaged when he knows not the ends 
 of his work ; and the schoolmen in digging for treasure 
 cultivated the field of knowledge, even for Galileo and 
 Harvey, for Newton and Darwin. Their many errors 
 came not of indolence, for they were passionate workers ; 
 not of hatred of light, for they were eager for the light ; 
 not of fickleness, for they wrought with unparalleled 
 devotion ; nor indeed of ignorance of particular things, 
 
CHURCHMEN AND SCIENCE 3Q7 
 
 for they knew many things. They erred because they 
 did not know, and they could not know the conditions of 
 the problems which, as they emerged from the cauldron 
 of war and from the wreck of letters and science, they 
 were nevertheless bound to attack, if civil societies 
 worthy of the name were to be constructed. " 
 
 We are very prone to think that the interests of the 
 men of the Middle Ages were very different to our own, 
 and that they had not the slightest inkling of what were 
 to be the interests of the future centuries. Ordinarily 
 students of science, for instance, would be sure to think 
 that electricity and magnetism, interest in which is 
 supposed to be a thing of comparatively recent years, or 
 at most of the last two centuries, would not be mentioned 
 at all in the thirteenth century. Such an idea is not 
 only absolutely false to the history of science as we 
 know it, but is utterly unjust to the powers of observa- 
 tion of men who have always noted, and almost neces- 
 sarily tried to investigate, the phenomena which are 
 now grouped under these sciences. Perhaps no better 
 idea of the intense interest of this first century of uni- 
 versity life in natural phenomena can be obtained, than 
 will be gleaned at once from the following short para- 
 graph, in which Brother Potamian, of Manhattan Col- 
 lege, in his brief, striking introduction to the letter of 
 Petrus Peregrinus describing the first conception of a 
 dynamo, condenses the references to magnetic manifes- 
 tions that are found in the literature of the time. 1 
 
 Most of the writers he mentions were not scientists in 
 the ordinary sense of the word, but were literary men ; 
 and the fact that these references occur, shows very 
 clearly that there must have been widespread interest in 
 such scientific phenomena, since they had attracted the 
 
 1 The Letter of Petrus Peregrinus, N. Y., 1904. 
 
308 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 attention of literary writers, who would not have spoken 
 of them doubtless, but that they knew that in this 
 they would be satisfying as well as exciting public 
 interest. 
 
 " Abbot Neckam, the Augustinian (1157-1217), distin- 
 guished between the properties of the two ends of the 
 lodestone, and gives in his De Utensilibus what is per- 
 haps the earliest reference to the mariner's compass 
 that we have. Albertus Magnus, the Dominican (1193- 
 1280) , in his treatise De Mineralibus, enumerates differ- 
 ent kinds of natural magnets and states some of the 
 properties commonly attributed to them ; the minstrel, 
 Guyot de Provins, in a famous satirical poem written 
 about 1208, refers to the directive quality of the lode- 
 stone and its use in navigation, as do also Cardinal de 
 Vitry in his Historia Orientalis (1215-1220) ; Brunetto 
 Latini, poet, orator and philosopher (the teacher of 
 Dante) , in his Tresor des Sciences, a veritable library, 
 written in Paris in 1260 ; Raymond Lully, the enlightened 
 Doctor, in his treatise, De Contemplatione, begun in 
 1272 ; and Guido Guinicelli, the poet-priest of Bologna, 
 who died in 1276. " 
 
 All of these writers, it may be said, with a single 
 exception, were clergymen, and some of them were very 
 prominent ecclesiastics in their time. 
 
 The present generation has not as yet quite got over 
 the bad habit of making fun of these medieval thinkers 
 for having accepted the idea of the transmutation of 
 metals and searched so assiduously for the philosopher's 
 stone. This supposed absurdity has for most scientific 
 minds during the nineteenth century been quite enough 
 of itself, without more ado, to stamp the generations of 
 the Middle Ages who accepted it, as utterly lacking, if 
 not in common sense, at least in serious reasoning power. 
 At the present moment, however, we are in the full tide 
 of a set of opinions that tend to make us believe not 
 
CHURCHMEN AND SCIENCE 3Q9 
 
 only in the possibility, but in the actual occurrence of the 
 transmutation of metals. Observations made with re- 
 gard to radium have revolutionized all the scientific 
 thinking in this matter. Radium has apparently been 
 demonstrated changing into helium, and so there is a 
 transmutation of metals. On the strength of this and 
 certain other recently investigated physical phenomena, 
 there is a definite tendency in the minds of many serious 
 students of physics and chemistry to consider that other 
 metals possibly change into one another, and that all 
 that is needed is careful observation to discover it, for this 
 change is supposed to be going on around us all the time. 
 Not very long since, a professor of physical science at 
 an important American university suggested that it 
 would be extremely interesting^ take a large specimen 
 of lead ore, say several tons, and having removed from 
 it carefully all traces of silver that might be contained in 
 it, put it away for twenty years, and then see whether 
 any further traces of silver could be found. The idea 
 that possibly lead occasionally changes into silver by 
 some slow chemical process is evidently deep-seated in 
 his mind. It would remind one of Newton's expression 
 some two centuries ago, that he had seen copper and 
 gold ores occurring together in specimens, and that he 
 looked upon this as evidence that copper in the course of 
 time changes into gold. Certain it is that lead ores con- 
 stantly occur in connection with silver, or at least that 
 silver is found wherever lead is; that a corresponding re- 
 lationship between gold and copper has also been noted ; 
 and that Newton's idea was not near so absurd, in the 
 light of what we now know, or still more, what we sur- 
 mise on good scientific grounds, as the nineteenth cen- 
 tury scientists would have had us believe. 
 
310 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 As I go over this manuscript for the last time just be- 
 fore going to press, there comes the announcement that 
 Sir William Ramsay has probably solved the problem of 
 the transmutation of metals. He has shown apparently 
 that lithium, when acted upon by radium emanations, 
 changes to some extent to copper. It is true that the 
 change is only in small quantities, and that there is no 
 question as yet of any commercial value to the process ; 
 but we all know that it is by such small scientific an- 
 nouncements as this that the entering wedges of large 
 industrial processes are introduced. The fact that this 
 announcement should have been made before the British 
 Association for the Advancement of Science and by a 
 thoroughly conservative English chemist, probably 
 settles forever the question of the transmutation of 
 metals, in the way that the people of the Middle Ages 
 looked at the problem rather than as the intervening 
 centuries did. 
 
 The old medieval thinkers, then, were only ridiculous 
 to a few generations of nineteenth century scientists 
 who, because they knew a little more about certain de- 
 tails in science than preceding generations had done, 
 thought that they knew all that there was to be known 
 about this immense subject, and made fun of thinkers 
 quite as great as themselves in preceding centuries. At 
 the beginning of the twentieth century, instead of mak- 
 ing ourselves ludicrous by raising a laugh at the ex- 
 pense of these fellow students in science of the olden 
 time, we should rather feel like congratulating them 
 upon the perspicacity which enabled them to anticipate 
 a great truth with regard to the relationships of chem- 
 ical elements, especially the metals, to each other. The 
 present-day idea of thinking physicists and chemists is 
 
CHURCHMEN AND SCIENCE 3H 
 
 that the seventy odd elements described in our text- 
 books on chemistry, are not so many essentially in- 
 dependent forms of matter, but are rather examples of 
 one kind of material exhibiting special dynamic energies 
 which it possesses under varying conditions, as yet not 
 well understood. This was exactly the idea that the old 
 scholastic philosophers had of the constitution of matter. 
 They said that matter was composed of two principles, 
 prime matter and form. When this doctrine of theirs is 
 properly elucidated, it proves to be an anticipation of 
 what is most modern in the thoughts of twentieth cen- 
 tury physicists. A re-statement of the old-time views 
 would read not unlike many a contribution to a dis- 
 cussion of this subject at an annual meeting of the 
 British or American Associations for the Advancement 
 of Science. 
 
 This doctrine of prime matter and form, which the 
 scholastics adopted and adapted from the Greeks, and 
 especially from Aristotle, cannot fail to be of interest 
 even to modern scientists. According to it, prime 
 matter was an indeterminate something which made up 
 the underlying substratum of all material things. Form 
 was the dynamic element which entered into the compo- 
 sition of matter and made it exhibit its specific qualities. 
 We have heard much of ionization in recent times, and 
 in many ways this would remind one even only slightly 
 familiar with the old scholastics, of their theories of 
 form entering into matter. Prime matter was supposed 
 to be absolutely without distinguishing characteristics 
 of its own. It was indifferent, and had no influence on 
 other material unless when associated with form. Form 
 was the dynamic and energizing element. 
 
 This, of course, still remains in the realm of theory ; 
 
312 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 but it is interesting to realize that in the olden time they 
 theorized about the constitution of matter at the univer- 
 sities of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries just as 
 we do now, and most surprisingly came to conclusions 
 quite like ours. Their thoughts not only concerned the 
 same subject, but were worked out in the same way. It 
 is idle to say that they knew nothing about it and hit on 
 their theory by chance. As a matter of fact, they knew 
 very little, if any less about it than we do, for our igno- 
 rance on this subject is monumental, and they antici- 
 pated our latest thinking by seven centuries. Many 
 have been the divagations of thought since that time, 
 but now we return to their conclusions. It is chastening 
 to the modern mind, so confident of the advances that 
 have been made by these latter generations, "the heirs 
 of all the ages in the foremost files of time," to find that 
 we are so little farther on in an important problem than 
 these men of the thirteenth century. 
 
 Other basic problems with regard to matter and force 
 filled the minds of the medieval schoolmen quite as they 
 do those of the modern generations. For instance, they 
 occupied themselves with the question of the indestruc- 
 tibility of matter, and also, strange as it may seem, with 
 the conservation of energy. We have presumably learned 
 so much by experimental demonstration and original 
 observation in the physical sciences in the modern times, 
 and especially during the precious nineteenth century, 
 that any thinking of the medieval mind along these lines 
 might, in the opinion of those who know nothing of what 
 they speak, be at once set aside without further ques- 
 tion as preposterous, or at best nugatory. The opinions 
 of medieval scholars in these matters would be pre- 
 sumed, without more ado, to have been so entirely spec- 
 
CHURCHMEN AND SCIENCE 313 
 
 ulative as to deserve no further attention. Nothing 
 could well be farther from the truth than this. No- 
 where will more marvelous anticipations of what is 
 most modern in science be found than in some of 
 these considerations of basic principles in the physical 
 sciences. 
 
 For instance, Thomas Aquinas, usually known as St. 
 Thomas, in a series of lectures given at the University 
 of Paris toward the end of the third quarter of the thir- 
 teenth century, stated as the most important conclusion 
 with regard to matter that " Nihil omnino in nihilum 
 redigetur. Nothing at all will ever be reduced to noth- 
 ingness. " By this, as is very evident from the context, 
 he meant to say that matter woulol never be annihilated 
 and could never be destroyed. It might be changed in 
 various ways, but it could never go back into the noth- 
 ingness from which it had been taken by the creative 
 act. Annihilation was pronounced as not being a part 
 of the scheme of things as far as the human mind could 
 hope to fathom its meaning. 
 
 In this sentence, then, Thomas of Aquin was proclaim- 
 ing the doctrine of the indestructibility of matter. It 
 was not until well on in the nineteenth century that the 
 chemists and physicists of modern times realized the 
 truth of this great principle. The chemists had seen 
 matter change its form in many ways, had seen it dis- 
 appear apparently in the smoke of fire or evaporate under 
 the influence of heat, but investigation proved that if 
 care were taken in the collection of the gases that came 
 off under these circumstances, of the ashes of combus- 
 tion and of the residue of evaporation, all the original 
 material that had been contained in the supposedly dis- 
 appearing substance could be recovered, or at least com- 
 
314 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 pletely accounted for. The physicists on their part had 
 realized this same truth, and finally there came the 
 definite enunciation of the absolute indestructibility of 
 matter. St. Thomas's conclusion, ''Nothing at all will 
 ever be reduced to nothingness/' had anticipated this 
 doctrine by nearly seven centuries. What happened in 
 the nineteenth century was that there came an experi- 
 mental demonstration of the truth of the principle. The 
 principle itself, however, had been reached long before 
 by the human mind, by speculative processes quite as 
 inerrable in their way as the more modern method of 
 investigation. 
 
 When St. Thomas used the aphorism, " Nothing at all 
 will ever be reduced to nothingness," there was another 
 signification that he attached to the words quite as 
 clearly as that by which they expressed the indestructi- 
 bility of matter. For him nihil or nothing nieant neither 
 matter nor/orm, that is, neither the material substance 
 nor the energy which is contained in it. He meant, then, 
 that no energy would ever be destroyed as well as no 
 matter would ever be annihilated. He was teaching the 
 conservation of energy as well as the indestructibility 
 of matter. Here once more the experimental demon- 
 stration of the doctrine was delayed for over six centu- 
 ries and a half. The truth itself, however, had been 
 reached by this medieval master-mind, and was the sub- 
 ject of his teaching to the university students in Paris 
 in the thirteenth century. These examples should, I 
 think, serve to illustrate that the minds of medieval 
 students were occupied with practically the same ques- 
 tions as those which are now taught to the university 
 students of our day, and that the content of the teaching 
 was identical with ours. 
 
CHURCHMEN AND SCIENCE 315 
 
 The scholars of the Middle Ages are usually said to 
 have been profoundly ignorant as regards the shape of 
 the earth, its size, and the number of its inhabitants, 
 and to have cherished the queerest notions, when they 
 really permitted themselves any ideas at all, as to the anti- 
 podes. This is very true if the ideas of the ignorant 
 masses of the people and the second-rate authors and 
 thinkers be taken as the standard of medieval thought. 
 Unfortunately, such sources as these have only too often 
 served as authorities for modern historians of education 
 and modern essayists on the history of science. This state 
 of affairs would painfully suggest the curiously inverted 
 notion of the supposed ideas entertained with regard to 
 science in our day, that would be obtained by some thir- 
 tieth century student, were he to judge our scientific 
 opinions from some of the queer books written by pre- 
 tentiously ignorant writers, who have pet scientific 
 hobbies of their own and exploit them at the expense of 
 a long-suffering world, if by some accident of fortune 
 these books should be preserved and the really great 
 contributions to science be either actually lost or lost to 
 sight. It is from Albert the Great and such men, and 
 not from their petty contemporaries, that the true spirit 
 of the science of the age must be deduced. Albert's 
 biographer said : 
 
 " He treats as fabulous the commonly-received idea, in 
 which Venerable Bede had acquiesced, that the region 
 of the earth south of the equator was uninhabitable, and 
 considers, that from the equator to the South Pole, ^ the 
 earth was not only habitable, but in all probability 
 actually inhabited, except directly at the poles, where 
 he imagines the cold to be excessive. If there be any 
 animals there, he says, they must have very thick skins 
 to defend them from the rigor of the climate, and they 
 are probably of a white color. The intensity of cold is, 
 
316 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 however, tempered by the action of the sea. He de- 
 scribes the antipodes and the countries they comprise, 
 and divides the climate of the earth into seven zones. 
 He smiles with a scholar's freedom at the simplicity of 
 those who suppose that persons living at the opposite 
 region of the earth must fall off, an opinion that can 
 only rise out of the grossest ignorance, 'for when we 
 speak of the lower hemisphere, this must be understood 
 merely as relatively to ourselves. ' 
 
 "It is as a geographer that Albert's superiority to the 
 writers of his own time chiefly appears. Bearing in 
 mind the astonishing ignorance which then prevailed on 
 this subject, it is truly admirable to find him correctly 
 tracing the chief mountain chains of Europe, with the 
 rivers which take their source in each ; remarking on 
 portions of coast which have in later times been sub- 
 merged by the ocean, and islands which have been raised 
 by volcanic action above the level of the sea ; noticing 
 the modification of climate caused by mountains, seas 
 and forests, and the division of the human race, whose 
 differences he ascribes to the effect upon them of the 
 countries they inhabit. In speaking of the British Isles, 
 he alludes to the commonly-received idea that another 
 distant island called Thile, or Thule, existed far in the 
 Western Ocean, uninhabitable by reason of its frightful 
 climate, but which, he says, has perhaps not yet been 
 visited by man." 
 
 In only needs to be said in addition to this, that Albert 
 had more than a vague hint of the possible existence of 
 land on the other side of the globe. He gives an elabo- 
 rate demonstration of the sphericity of the earth, and it 
 has been suggested by more than one scholar that his 
 views on this subject led eventually to the discovery of 
 America. 
 
 Humboldt, the distinguished German natural philoso- 
 pher of the beginning of the nineteenth century, who 
 was undoubtedly the most important figure in scientific 
 thought in his own time, and whose own work was great 
 enough to have an enduring influence even down to our 
 
CHURCHMEN AND SCIENCE 317 
 
 day, in spite of the immense progress made during the 
 nineteenth century, has praised Albert's work very 
 highly. Almost needless to say, Humboldt was possessed 
 of a thorough critical faculty and had a very wide range 
 of knowledge, so that he was in an eminently proper 
 position to judge of Albert's work. He has summed up 
 his appreciation briefly as follows : 
 
 ' ' Albertus Magnus was equally active and influential 
 in promoting the study of natural science and of the 
 Aristotelian philosophy. His works contain some ex- 
 ceedingly acute remarks on the organic structure and 
 physiology of plants. One of his works, bearing the 
 title of ' Liber Cosmographicus de Natura Locorum, ' is 
 a species of physical geography. I have found in it con- 
 siderations on the dependence of temperature concur- 
 rently on latitude and elevation, and on the effect of 
 different angles of incidence of the sun's rays in heating 
 the ground, which have excited my surprise." 
 
 I have thought that perhaps the best way to bring out 
 properly Albert's knowledge in the physical sciences 
 would be to take up Humboldt 's headings in their order 
 and illustrate them by quotations from the great schol- 
 ar's writings the only scholar to whom the epithet has 
 been applied in all history and from condensed accounts 
 as they appear in his life written by Sighart. 1 These 
 will serve to show at once the extent of Albert's knowl- 
 edge and the presumptuous ignorance of those who make 
 little of the science of the medieval period. 
 
 When we have catalogued, for instance, the many 
 facts with regard to astronomy and the physics of light 
 that are supposed to be of much later entrance into the 
 sphere of human knowledge that were grasped by Al- 
 
 1 Sighart, Albertus Magnus : Sein Leben und Seine Wisenschaft, Ratisbon. 
 1857, or its translation by Dixon ; Albert the Great, his life and scholastic labors. 
 London, 1870. 
 
318 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 bert, and evidently formed the subject of his teaching 
 at various times at both Paris and Cologne, since they 
 are found in his authentic works, we can scarcely help 
 but be amused at the pretentious lack of knowledge that 
 has relegated their author to a place in education so 
 trivial as is that which is represented in many minds by 
 the term scholastic. 
 
 " He decides that the Milky Way is nothing but a vast 
 assemblage of stars, but supposed, naturally enough, 
 that they occupy the orbit which receives the light of 
 the sun. The figures visible on the moon's disc are not, 
 he says, as hitherto has been supposed, reflections of the 
 seas and mountains of the earth, but configurations of 
 her own surface. He notices, in order to correct it, the 
 assertions of Aristotle that lunar rainbows appear only 
 twice in fifty years ; ' I myself, ' he says, ' have observed 
 two in a single year. ' He has something to say on the 
 refraction of a solar ray, notices certain crystals which 
 have a power of refraction, and remarks that none of 
 the ancients and few moderns were acquainted with the 
 properties of mirrors." 
 
 Botany is supposed to be a very modern science, and 
 to most people Humboldt's expression that he found in 
 Albertus Magnus's writings some " exceedingly acute 
 remarks on the organic structure and physiology of 
 plants," will come as an supreme surprise. A few de- 
 tails with regard to Albert's botanical knowledge, how- 
 ever, will serve to heighten that surprise, and to show 
 that the foolish tirades of modern sciolists, who have 
 often expressed their wonder that with all the beauties 
 of nature around them these scholars of the Middle Ages 
 did not devote themselves to nature study, are absurd ; 
 because if the critics but knew it, there was profound 
 interest in nature and all her manifestations, and a series 
 of discoveries that anticipated not a little of what we 
 
CHURCHMEN AND SCIENCE 319 
 
 consider most important in our modern science. The 
 story of Albert's botanical knowledge has been told in a 
 single very full paragraph by his biographer. Sighart also 
 quotes an appreciative opinion from a modern German 
 botanist, which will serve to dispel any doubts with re- 
 gard to Albert's position in botany that modern students 
 might perhaps continue to harbor, unless they had good 
 authority to support their opinion, though, of course, it 
 will be remembered that the main difference between 
 the medieval and the modern mind is only too often said 
 to be that the medieval required an authority, while the 
 modern makes its opinion for itself. Even the most 
 skeptical of modern minds, however, will probably be 
 satisfied by the following paragraph : 
 
 "He was acquainted with the sleep of plants, with 
 the periodical opening and closing of blossoms, with 
 the diminution of sap through evaporation from the 
 cuticle of the leaves, and with the influence of the dis- 
 tribution of the bundles of vessels on the folial indenta- 
 tions. His minute observations on the forms and variety 
 of plants intimate an exquisite sense of floral beauty. 
 He distinguished the star from the bell-floral, tells us 
 that a red rose will turn white when submitted to the 
 vapor of sulphur, and makes some very sagacious ob- 
 servations on the subject of germination. . . . The 
 extraordinary erudition and originality of this treatise 
 (his tenth book) has drawn from M. Meyer the follow- 
 ing comment : ' No botanist who lived before Albert can 
 be compared to him, unless Theophrastus, with whom 
 he was not acquainted ; and after him none has painted 
 nature in such living colors or studied it so profoundly 
 until the time of Conrad Gesner and CaBsalpinp.' All 
 honor, then, to the man who made such astonishing pro- 
 gress in the science of nature as to find no one, I will 
 not say to surpass, but even to equal him for the space 
 of three centuries." 
 
 Pagel in Puschmann's History of Medicine gives a list 
 
320 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 of the books written by Albert which are concerned 
 with the physical sciences. These were : Physica, 
 Books VIII. , that is, eight treatises on Natural 
 Science, consisting of commentaries on Aristotle's 
 Physics and on the underlying principles of natural 
 philosophy, and of energy and movement ; four treatises 
 concerning the Heavens and the Earth, which contain 
 the general principles of the movement of the heavenly 
 bodies Besides there is a treatise On the Nature of 
 Places, consisting of a description of climates and natu- 
 ral conditions. This volume contains, according to Pagel, 
 numerous suggestions with regard to ethnography and 
 physiology. There is a treatise on the causes of the 
 properties of the elements, which takes up the specific 
 peculiarities of the elements, according to their physical 
 and geographical relations. To which must be added 
 two treatises on generation and corruption ; six books on 
 meteors ; five books on minerals ; three books on the 
 soul, in which is considered the vital principle ; a treatise 
 on nutrition and nutritives ; a treatise on the senses ; 
 another on the memory and the imagination ; two books 
 on the intellect; a treatise on sleep and waking; a 
 treatise on youth and old age ; a treatise on breath and 
 respiration ; a treatise on the motion of animals, in two 
 books, which concerns the voluntary and involuntary 
 movements of animals ; a treatise on life and death ; a 
 treatise in six books on vegetables and plants ; a treatise 
 on breathing things. His treatise on minerals contains, 
 according to Pagel, besides an extensive presentation of 
 the ordinary peculiarities of minerals, a description of 
 ninety-five different kinds of precious stones, among 
 them the pearl, of seven metals, of salt, vitriol, alum, 
 arsenic, marcasite, nitre, tutia, and amber. Albert's 
 
CHURCHMEN AND SCIENCE 321 
 
 volumes on the vegetables and plants were reproduced 
 under the editorship of Meyer, the historian of botany 
 in Germany, and published in Berlin (1867) . All Albert's 
 books are available in modern editions. 
 
 In a word, there was scarcely a subject in natural 
 science which Albert did not treat, in what would now 
 be considered a formal serious volume, and no depart- 
 ment of science that he did not illuminate in some way, not 
 only by the collection of information that had previously 
 been in existence, but also by his own observations, and 
 especially by his interpretations of the significance of 
 the various phenomena that had been observed. His 
 work is especially noteworthy for its lack of dependence 
 on authority and the straightforward way in which 
 the great pioneer of modern science made his ob- 
 servations. 
 
 Some of Albert's contemporaries, and especially his 
 pupils, were almost as distinguished as he was himself 
 in the physical sciences. 
 
 In a previous chapter we spoke particularly of Roger 
 Bacon's attitude toward the physical sciences, above all 
 in what concerns the experimental method. He was 
 typically modern in the standpoint that he assumed, as 
 the only one by which knowledge of the things of nature 
 can be obtained. It will be interesting now to see the 
 number of things which Friar Bacon succeeded in dis- 
 covering by the application of the principle of testing 
 everything by personal observation, of not accepting 
 things on second-hand authorities, and of not being 
 afraid to say, "I do not know," in trying to learn for 
 himself. His discoveries will seem almost incredible to 
 a modern student of science and of education who has 
 known nothing before of the progress of science made 
 
322 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 by this wonderful man, or who has known only vaguely 
 that Friar Bacon was a great original thinker in science, 
 in spite of the fact that his life-history is bounded by 
 the thirteenth century. I may say that the material of 
 what I have to say of him, and also of his great con- 
 temporaries, Albertus Magnus and St. Thomas Aquinas, 
 is taken almost literally from the chapter of my book, 
 The Thirteenth Greatest of Centuries, on What They 
 Studied at the Universities. 
 
 Roger Bacon has been declared to be the discoverer 
 of gunpowder, but this is a mistake, since it was known 
 many years before by the Arabs and by them introduced 
 into Europe. He did study explosives very deeply, how- 
 ever, and besides learning many things about them, 
 realized how much might be accomplished by their use 
 in the after-time. He declares in his Opus Magnum : 
 ''That one may cause to burst forth from bronze, thun- 
 derbolts more formidable that those produced by nature. 
 A small quantity of prepared matter occasions a terrible 
 explosion accompanied by a brilliant light. One may 
 multiply this phenomenon so far as to destroy a city or an 
 army." Considering how little was know about gun- 
 powder at this time, this was of itself a marvelous an- 
 ticipation of what might be accomplished by it. 
 
 Bacon anticipated, however, much more than merely 
 destructive effects from the use of high explosives, and 
 indeed it is almost amusing to see how closely he antic- 
 ipated some of the most modern usages of high ex- 
 plosives for motor purposes. He seems to have realized 
 that some time the apparently uncontrollable forces of 
 explosion would come under the control of man and be 
 harnessed by him for his own purposes. He foresaw 
 that one of the great applications of such a force would 
 be for transportation. Accordingly he said : "Art can 
 construct instruments of navigation such that the largest 
 vessels, governed by a single man, will traverse rivers 
 and seas more rapidly than if they were filled with oars- 
 men. One may also make carriages which without the 
 aid of any animal will run with remarkable swiftness." 
 
CHURCHMEN' AND SCIENCE 323 
 
 When we recall that the very latest thing in transporta- 
 tion are motor-boats and automobiles driven by gasoline, 
 a high explosive, Roger Bacon's prophecy becomes one of 
 those weird anticipations of human progress which seem 
 almost more than human. 
 
 It was not with regard to explosives alone, however, 
 that Roger Bacon was to make great advances and still 
 more marvelous anticipations in physical science. He 
 was not, as is sometimes claimed for him, either the in- 
 ventor of the telescope or of the theory of lenses. He 
 did more, however, than perhaps anyone else to make 
 the principles of lenses clear and to establish them on a 
 mathematical basis. His traditional connection with the 
 telescope can probably be traced to the fact that he was 
 very much interested in astronomy and the relations of 
 the heavens to the earth. He pointed out very clearly 
 the errors which had crept into the Julian calendar, cal- 
 culated exactly how much of a correction was needed in 
 order to restore the year to its proper place, and sug- 
 gested the method by which future errors of this kind 
 could be avoided. His ideas were too far beyond his 
 century to be applied practically, but they were not to 
 be without their effect, and it is said that they formed 
 the basis of the subsequent correction of the calendar 
 in the time of Pope Gregory XIII. , about three cen- 
 turies later. 
 
 It is rather surprising to find how much besides the 
 theory of lenses Friar Bacon had succeeded in finding 
 out in the department of optics. He taught, for in- 
 stance, the principle of the aberration of light, and, still 
 more marvelous to consider, taught that light did not 
 travel instantaneously, but had a definite rate of motion, 
 though this was extremely rapid. It is rather difficult 
 to understand how he reached this conclusion, since 
 light travels so fast that, as far as regards any observa- 
 tion that can be made upon earth, the diffusion is prac- 
 tically instantaneous. It was not for over three cen- 
 turies later that Ropier, the German astronomer, de- 
 monstrated the motion of light and its rate by his ob- 
 servations upon the moons of Jupiter at different phases 
 of the earth's orbit, which showed that the light of these 
 moons took a definite and quite appreciable time to reach 
 the earth after their eclipse "by the planet was over. 
 
324 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 Albertus Magnus's other great pupil besides Roger 
 Bacon was St. Thomas Aquinas. If any suspicion were still 
 left that Thomas did not appreciate just what the sig- 
 nificance of his teachings in physics was, when he an- 
 nounced that neither matter nor force could ever be re- 
 duced to nothingness, it would surely be removed by the 
 consideration that he had been for many years in intim- 
 ate relations with Albert, and that he had probably 
 also been close to Roger Bacon. In association with such 
 men as these, he was not likely to stumble upon truths 
 unawares, even though they might concern physical sci- 
 ence. St. Thomas himself has left three treatises on 
 chemical subjects, and it is said that the first occurrence 
 of the word amalgam can be traced to one of these 
 treatises. Everybody was as much interested then, as 
 we are at the present time, in the transformation of 
 metals and mercury with its silvery sheen ; its facility 
 to enter into metallic combinations of all kinds, and its 
 elusive ways, naturally made it the center of scientific 
 interest quite as radium is at the present moment. 
 
 These three men, Albertus Magnus, Thomas Aquinas, 
 and Roger Bacon, were all closely associated with ec- 
 clesiastical authorities, and indeed all three of them had 
 intimate personal relations with the Popes of their time. 
 Albertus Magnus had been highly honored by the Dom- 
 inican Order, to which he belonged. He had been chosen 
 as Provincial that is, the superior of a number of houses 
 in the German part of Europe at least once, and he had 
 been constantly appealed to by his superiors for advice 
 and counsel. Although it was almost a rule that mem- 
 bers of religious orders should not be chosen as bishops, 
 he was made Bishop of Ratisbon, and his appointment 
 was considered to be due to his surpassing merit as a 
 great scholar and teacher. In spite of his devotion to 
 scientific studies during a long life, he lost nothing of 
 the ardor of his faith, and is universally considered to 
 have been a saint. He has been formally raised to the 
 
CHURCHMEN AND SCIENCE 325 
 
 altars of the Catholic Church, as the expression is that 
 is, he had the title of " Blessed " conferred on him, and 
 his prayers may be invoked as one of those who are con- 
 sidered to stand high in the favor of Heaven. 
 
 Of Thomas Aquinas the same story may be told only 
 in much more emphatic words. He was honored by his 
 own order, the Dominican, in many ways. Early in his 
 life they recognized his talent and sent him to Cologne 
 to study under the great Albert. When the Dominicans 
 realized the necessity for not only making a significant 
 exhibition of the talents of their order at the University 
 of Paris, which had become the most prominent educa- 
 tional institution in the world, but also wished to influence 
 as deeply as possible the cause of education, Albert was 
 sent to Paris, and Thomas Aquinas accompanied him. 
 When there were difficulties between Dominicans and 
 the university, it was to Thomas that his order turned 
 to defend them and maintain their rights. He did so 
 not only with intellectual acumen, but with great tact 
 and successfully. After this he was sent on business of 
 his order to England and was for some time at Oxford. 
 His reputation as a philosopher and a scientist had now 
 spread over the world and he was invited to teach at 
 various Italian universities where ecclesiastical influences 
 were very strong. The Popes asked, and their request 
 was practically a command, that he should teach for 
 some time at least at their own university at Rome. 
 Later he taught also at the University of Naples. 
 
 While here, one of the Popes wishing to confer a su- 
 preme mark of favor on him, his name was selected for 
 the vacant archbishopric of Naples. The bulls and for- 
 mal documents creating him Archbisho^were already on 
 the way when Thomas was informed of it, and he asked 
 
326 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 to be allowed to continue his studies rather than to have 
 to take up the unwonted duties of an archbishop. His 
 plea was evidently so sincere that the Pope relented and 
 respected Thomas's humility and his desire for leisure 
 to finish his great work, the Summa Theologiae. He 
 continued to be the great friend of the Popes and their 
 special counsellor. When the Council of Lyons was 
 summoned, a number of important questions concerning 
 the most serious theological problems were to be dis- 
 cussed. Thomas was asked to go to Lyons as the theo- 
 logian for the Papacy. It was while fulfilling this duty 
 that he came to his death, at a comparatively early age, 
 though not until the Council, consisting of the bishops 
 of all the world, had shown their respect for him, had 
 listened to his words of wisdom, and had acknowledged 
 that he was the greatest scholar of his time and worthy 
 of the respect and admiration of all of them. Because 
 of all that his kindness to them had meant for their up- 
 lift, the workmen of Lyons craved and obtained the 
 permission to carry his coffin on their shoulders to his 
 tomb. 
 
 Like his great teacher Albert, Thomas was respected 
 even more for his piety than for his learning. Not long 
 after his death, people began to speak of him as a saint. 
 Though he was the most learned man of his time, he was 
 considered to have given an example of heroic virtue. 
 A careful investigation of his life showed that there was 
 nothing in it unworthy of the highest ideals as a man 
 and a religious. Accordingly he was canonized, and has 
 ever since been considered the special patron, helper and 
 advocate of Catholic students. All down the centuries 
 his teaching has been looked upon as the most important 
 in the whole realm of theology. There has never been 
 
CHURCHMEN AND SCIENCE 327 
 
 a time when his works have not been considered the 
 most authoritative sources of theological lore. At the 
 end of the nineteenth century Leo XIII. crowned the 
 tributes which many Popes had conferred upon Thomas 
 by selecting him as the teacher to whom Catholic schools 
 should ever turn by formulating the authoritative Papal 
 opinion the nearer to Thomas, the nearer to Catholic 
 truth. When it is recalled that this is the man who gave 
 the great modern impulse to the doctrine of matter and 
 form, who taught the indestructibility of matter and the 
 conservation of energy, and declared with St. Augustine 
 that the Creator had made only the seeds of things, 
 allowing these afterwards to develop for themselves, 
 which is the essence of the doctrine of evolution, it is 
 hard to understand how there should be question of 
 opposition between the Church and science in his time. 
 With regard to the third of these great physical scien- 
 tists, the story of his relation to the ecclesiastical author- 
 ities is not quite so simple. Roger Bacon was in his 
 younger years very much thought of by his own order, 
 the Franciscans. They sent him to Paris and provided 
 him opportunities to study under the great Albert, and 
 then transferred him to Oxford, where he had a magnifi- 
 cent opportunity for teaching. Many years of his life 
 were spent in peace and happiness in the cloister. A 
 friend and fellow student at Paris became Pope Clement, 
 and his command was the primary cause of the compo- 
 sition of Bacon's great works. All three of his books, 
 and especially the Opus Majus, were written at the com- 
 mand of the Pope, and were highly praised by the Pon- 
 tiff himself and by those who read them in Rome. 
 Unfortunately, difficulties occurred within Friar Bacon's 
 own order. It is not quite clear now just how these 
 
328 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 came about. The Franciscans of the rigid observance 
 of those early times took vows of the severest poverty. 
 There had been some relaxation of the rule, however, 
 and certain abuses crept in. The consequence was the 
 re-assertion after a time of the original rule of abso- 
 lute poverty in all its stringency. It was Friar Bacon 
 himself who had chosen this mode of life and had taken 
 the vows of poverty. Paper was a very dear commod- 
 ity, if indeed it was invented early enough in the cen- 
 tury for him to have used it. Vellum was even more 
 expensive. Just what material Bacon employed for his 
 writings is not now known. Whatever it was, it seems 
 to have cost much money, and because of his violation 
 of his vow of poverty Roger Bacon fell under the ban of 
 his order. He was ordered to be confined to his cell in 
 the monastery and to be fed on bread and water for a 
 considerable period. It must not be forgotten that this 
 was within a century after the foundation of the Fran- 
 ciscans, and to an ardent son of St. Francis the living 
 on bread and water would not be a very difficult thing 
 at this time, since his ordinary diet would, at least dur- 
 ing certain portions of the year, be scarcely better than 
 this. There is no account of how Roger Bacon took his 
 punishment. He might easily have left his order. There 
 were many others at that time who did. He wished to 
 remain as a faithful son of St. Francis, and seems to 
 have accepted his punishment with the idea that his ex- 
 ample would influence others of the- order to submit to 
 the enforcement of the regulation with regard to pov- 
 erty, which superiors now thought so important, if the 
 original spirit of St. Francis was to be regained. 
 
 It is sometimes said that Friar Bacon indulged in 
 scientific speculations which seemed subversive of Chris- 
 
CHURCHMEN AND SCIENCE 329 
 
 tian mysteries, and that this was one reason for his pun- 
 ishment. Recently he has been declared the first of the 
 modernists since he attempted to rationalize religious 
 mysteries. Whatever truth there may be in this, of one 
 thing we are certain, that before his death Bacon deeply 
 regretted some of his expressions and theories, and did 
 not hesitate to confess humbly that he was sorry to have 
 even seemed to hint at supposed science contrary to 
 religious truth. 
 
 Of course, it may well be said, even after all these 
 communities of interest between the medieval and 
 the modern teaching of the general principles of science 
 have been pointed out, that the universities of the Middle 
 Ages did not present the subjects under discussion in a 
 practical way, and their teaching was not likely to lead 
 to directly beneficial results in applied science. It might 
 well be responded to this, that it is not the function of a 
 university to teach applications of science, but only the 
 great principles, the broad generalizations that underlie 
 scientific thinking, leaving details to be filled in in what- 
 ever form of practical work the man may take up. Very 
 few of those, however, who talk about the purely specu- 
 lative character of medieval teaching, have manifestly 
 ever made it their business to know anything about the ac- 
 tual facts of old-time university teaching by definite knowl- 
 edge, but have rather allowed themselves to be guided 
 by speculation and by inadequate second-hand author- 
 ities, whose dicta they have never taken the trouble to 
 substantiate by a glance at contemporary authorities on 
 medieval matters, much less by reading the old scholas- 
 tics themselves. 
 
 How much was accomplished in applied science during 
 the Middle Ages, that is, in those departments of science 
 
330 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 which are usually supposed to have been least cultivated, 
 since educators are prone to ridicule the over-emphasis of 
 speculation in education and the constant preoccupation 
 of mind of the scholars of these generations with merely 
 theoretic questions, may be appreciated from any history 
 of the arts and architecture during the thirteenth, four- 
 teenth, and fifteenth centuries. Some of the most diffi- 
 cult problems in mechanics as applied to the structural 
 work of cathedrals, palaces, castles, fortresses, and 
 bridges, were solved with a success that was only equaled 
 by the audacity with which they were attempted. Men 
 hesitated at nothing. There is no problem of mechani- 
 cal engineering as applied to structural work which 
 these men did not find an answer for in their wonderful 
 buildings. This has been very well brought out by 
 Prince Kropotkin in certain chapters of his book, Mutual 
 Aid a Factor of Evolution, 1 in which he treats of mutual 
 aid in the medieval cities. He says : 
 
 "At the beginning of the eleventh century the towns 
 of Europe were small clusters of miserable huts, adorned 
 with but low clumsy churches, the builders of which 
 hardly knew how to make an arch ; the arts, mostly con- 
 sisting of some weaving and forging, were in their in- 
 fancy ; learning was found in but a few monasteries. 
 Three hundred and fifty years later, the very face of 
 Europe had Been changed. The land was dotted with 
 rich cities, surrounded by immense thick walls which 
 were embellished by towers and gates, each of them a 
 work of art itself. The cathedrals, conceived in a grand 
 style and profusely decorated, lifted their bell-towers to 
 the skies, displaying a purity of form and a boldness of 
 imagination which we now vainly strive to attain. The 
 
 1 New York, McClure, Philips & Co., 1902. 
 
CHURCHMEN AND SCIENCE 331 
 
 crafts and arts had risen to a degree of perfection which 
 we can hardly boast of having superseded in many di- 
 rections, if the inventive skill of the worker and the 
 superior finish of his work be appreciated higher than 
 rapidity of fabrication. The navies of the free cities 
 furrowed in all directions the Northern Seas and the 
 Southern Mediterranean ; one effort more and they would 
 cross the oceans. Over large tracts of land, well-being 
 had taken the place of misery ; learning had grown and 
 spread ; the methods of science had been elaborated ; 
 the basis of natural philosophy had been laid down ; and 
 the way had been paved for all the mechanical inven- 
 tions of which our own times are so proud. " 
 
 The period for which Prince Kropotkin is thus enthu- 
 siastic in the matter of applied science, is all before the 
 date usually given as the beginning of the Renaissance 
 the fall of Constantinople in 1453. The three centuries 
 and a half from the beginning of the eleventh century 
 represent just the time of the rise of scholasticism and 
 the beginning of its decline. Few periods of history are 
 so maligned as regards their intellectual feebleness, and 
 in nothing is that quality supposed to be more marked 
 than in applied science ; yet here is what a special stu- 
 dent of the time says of this very period in this par- 
 ticular department. 
 
 Kropotkin has shown just what were the limitations 
 of scientific progress in the Middle Ages while empha- 
 sizing how much these wonderful generations accom- 
 plished. In this I am inclined to the opinion that he 
 does not allow as much to the Middle Ages as he should. 
 I have been able to point out, I think, in this chapter 
 many evidences of important principles in science that 
 were fully reached during the Middle Ages. Because of 
 
332 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 his more conservative opinion in this matter, however, 
 Kropotkin's opinion should carry all the more weight 
 with those who are now called upon to realize for the 
 first time, how much these despised generations accom- 
 plished in matters that were to prove a precious heritage 
 for subsequent generations, and the foundation-stones 
 of that great edifice of science which has been built up 
 in more recent years. Kropotkin says : 
 
 ' ' True that no new principle was illustrated by any of 
 these discoveries, as Whewell said ; but medieval science 
 had done something more than the actual discovery of 
 new principles. It had prepared the discovery of all the 
 new principles which we know at the present time in 
 mechanical sciences ; it had accustomed the explorer to 
 observe facts and to reason from them. It had induc- 
 tive science, even though it had not yet fully grasped 
 the importance and the powers of induction ; and it had 
 laid the foundations of both mechanical and natural 
 philosophy. Francis Bacon, Galileo, and Copernicus 
 were the direct descendants of a Roger Bacon and a 
 Michael Scot, as the steam engine was a direct product 
 of the researches carried on in the Italian universities 
 on the weight of the atmosphere, and of the mathematical 
 and technical learning which characterized Nuremberg. 
 
 But why should one take trouble to .insist upon the 
 advance of science and art in the medieval city ? Is it 
 not enough to point to the cathedrals in the domain of 
 skill, and to the Italian language and the poem of Dante 
 in the domain of thought, to give at once the measure 
 of what the medieval city created during the four cen- 
 turies it lived ?" 
 
 We are prone to think of evolution in human affairs 
 as being the ruling principle. As a consequence of this, 
 
CHURCHMEN AND SCIENCE 333 
 
 we are apt to consider that since intervening periods be- 
 tween the nineteenth century and the Middle Ages were 
 lacking in education, in applied science, and in interest 
 in physical science to a great degree, beyond doubt, then, 
 the Middle Ages must have been still more lacking in these 
 desirable qualities of education and human knowledge. 
 This is the sort of deduction that greets one constantly 
 in so-called histories of education, and especially in such 
 supposed contributions to the history of the relationship 
 of science to religion or theology as have been made here 
 in America. This deduction, as I have said before, is 
 made by men who are the first to asperse the medieval 
 scholars for having used deduction too freely, and who 
 are ever ready to praise induction. The induction in 
 this matter that is, the story of the actual history of 
 science in the Middle Ages is the direct contradiction 
 of the deduction from false principles. Intervening 
 centuries not only failed to progress beyond the Middle 
 Ages, but some of them were far behind the achieve- 
 ments of that unfortunately despised period. Once 
 more Prince Kropotkin has touched this matter very 
 suggestively. After describing the achievements of 
 applied science in the Middle Ages, he says : 
 
 ' ' Such were the magic changes accomplished in Europe 
 in less than four hundred years. And the losses which 
 Europe sustained through the loss of its free cities can 
 only be understood when we compare the seventeenth 
 century with the fourteenth or thirteenth. The pros- 
 perity which formerly characterized Scotland, Germany, 
 the plains of Italy, was gone. The roads had fallen into 
 an abject state, the cities were depopulated, labor was 
 brought into slavery, art had vanished, commerce itself 
 was decaying." 
 
334 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 In the meantime the reformation so-called had come, 
 and had carried away with it in its course nearly every- 
 thing precious that men had gained during the four cen- 
 turies immediately preceding. Art, education, science, 
 liberty, democracy everything worth while had been 
 hurt ; most of them had been ruined for the time. Even 
 the nineteenth century did not succeed in bringing us 
 back to a level with the earlier centuries in all the intel- 
 lectual and esthetic accomplishments. 
 
 Another striking evidence of the deep interest of these 
 generations in science of all kinds and in details of in- 
 formation with regard to which they are generally said 
 to have been quite incurious, was the publication of the 
 famous encyclopedia, the first work of its kind ever is- 
 sued, which was written about the middle of the thir- 
 teenth century by Vincent of Beauvais. It is only when 
 a generation actually calls for it, and when the want of 
 it has been for a good while felt, that such a work is 
 likely to be undertaken. This immense literary under- 
 taking was completed under the patronage of King- 
 Louis IX. by Vincent, a Dominican friar, who died at 
 the beginning of the last quarter of the thirteenth cen- 
 tury. His Majus Speculum is not the first book of general 
 information, but it is the first deserving the name of 
 Encyclopedia in the full sense of the word that we have. 
 It is divided into three parts the Speculum Naturale, 
 Doctrinale, and Historiale. The only one which interests 
 us here is the Speculum Naturale, which fills a huge folia 
 volume of nearly a thousand pages, closely printed in 
 double columns. It is divided into 32 books and some 
 4,000 chapters. The Encyclopaedia Brittanica says 
 of it : 
 
 "It was, as it were, the great temple of medieval 
 
CHURCHMEN AND SCIENCE 335 
 
 science, whose floor and walls are inlaid with an enor- 
 mous mosaic of skilfully arranged passages from Latin, 
 Greek, Arabic, and even Hebrew authors. To each quo- 
 tation, as he borrows it, Vincent prefixes the name of 
 the book and the author from which it is taken, dis- 
 tinguishing, however, his own remarks by the word 
 ' actor/ " 
 
 The interest aroused by Vincent's compilation outside 
 of professional and educational circles strictly so-called, 
 can be very well appreciated from the fact that, besides 
 King Louis's interest, his Queen Margaret, their son 
 Philip and son-in-law, King Theobald V., of Champagne 
 and Navarre, were, according to tradition, among those 
 who encouraged him in the work and aided him in bear- 
 ing the expenses of it. It is rather curious to find that 
 the method of compilation was nearly the same as that 
 employed at the present day. Young men, mainly 
 members of Vincent's own order of the Dominicans, 
 were engaged in collecting the material, collating refer- 
 ences, and verifying quotations. The main burden of 
 the work, however, fell upon Vincent himself, and he 
 accordingly deserves the reputation for wonderful in- 
 dustry which he has enjoyed. Much as he wrote, how- 
 ever, it does not exceed much in amount what was 
 written by others of the great scholastics, and theirs 
 was original material and not merely the collection of 
 information. 
 
 If we had no other evidence of interest in nature and 
 in natural science than this great work of Vincent of 
 Beauvais, it would be ample to show the absurdity of 
 the general impression that exists in the minds of most 
 scientists, and, unfortunately, also in the minds of many 
 educators, with regard to the barrenness of interest of 
 
336 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 the Middle Age in natural phenomena. It might easily 
 be imagined that this work of Vincent would have very 
 little of interest for a modern scientist. Any such anti- 
 cipation is entirely due, however, to the false impression 
 that exists with regard to the supposed ridiculously ab- 
 surd views in matters of science entertained by the 
 medieval scholars. Those who do not take their opinions 
 on theory, but actually consult the books with regard to 
 which they are ready to express themselves, have no 
 such opinion. There has been much more interest in this 
 class of books and in the scientific side of the literature 
 of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries during the 
 last few years, and the consequence has been a complete 
 reversal of opinions with regard to them, among German 
 and French scholars. 
 
 An excellent example of this is to be noted in Dr. 
 Julius Pagel, who, in his chapter on Medicine in the 
 Middle Ages, in Puschmann's Handbook of the History 
 of Medicine, says: "There were three writers whose 
 works were even more popular than those of Albertus 
 Magnus. These three were : Bartholomew the English- 
 man, Thomas of Cantimprato, and Vincent of Beauvais, 
 the last of whom must be considered as one of the most 
 important contributors to the generalization of scientific 
 knowledge, not alone in the thirteenth, but in the im- 
 mediately succeeding centuries. His most important 
 work was really an encyclopedia of the knowledge of his 
 time. It was called the Greater Triple Mirror, and 
 there is no doubt that it reflected very thoroughly the 
 knowledge of his period. He had the true scientific 
 spirit, and constantly cites the authorities from whom 
 his information was derived. He cites hundreds of 
 authors, and there is scarcely a subject that he does not 
 
CHURCHMEN AND SCIENCE 337 
 
 touch on. One book of his work is concerned with 
 human anatomy, and the concluding portion of it is an 
 abbreviation of history carried down to the year 1250." 
 
 It might be considered that such a compend of in- 
 formation would be very dry-as-dust reading and that it 
 would be fragmentary in character and little likely to 
 be attractive except to a serious student. Dr. Pagel's 
 opinion does not agree with this a priori impression. He 
 says with regard to Vincent's work : " The language is 
 clear, readily intelligible, and the information is con- 
 veyed usually in an excellent, simple style. Through 
 the introduction of interesting similes the contents do 
 not lack a certain taking quality, so that the reading of 
 the work easily becomes absorbing. " This is, I suppose, 
 almost the last thing that might be expected of a sci- 
 entific teacher in the thirteenth century, because, after 
 all, Vincent of Beauvais must be considered as one of 
 the schoolmen, and they are supposed to be eminently 
 arid, but evidently, since we must trust this testimony 
 of a discerning modern German physician, only by those 
 who have not taken the trouble to read them. 
 
 Vincent of Beauvais was not the only one to occupy 
 himself with work of an encyclopedic character during 
 the thirteenth century. At least two other clergymen 
 gave themselves up to the life-long work of collecting 
 details of information so as to make them available for 
 ready reference in their own times and for succeeding 
 generations. The very fact that three men should have 
 taken up such a task, shows that there must have been 
 a loud call for this sort of writing, and that there must 
 have been a veritable thirst for information among the 
 educated classes of the time. Such books, as we have 
 said, are not created without a demand for them, though 
 
338 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 they undoubtedly serve in turn to awaken a greater 
 thirst for the information which they purvey. The other 
 two encyclopedists of the time are Thomas Cantipratano 
 and Bartholomasus Anglicus, the Englishman. 
 
 Thomas of Cantimprato's work was probably published 
 about 1260. Von Toply, in his Studies in Anatomy in 
 the Middle Ages, has the most readily available informa- 
 tion with regard to Thomas's work. 1 The work of most 
 interest to us is the De Natura Rerum, a single large 
 volume in twenty books. It required some fifteen years 
 of work, and for some fifteen years before he began his 
 work on it Thomas had been writing various historical 
 and biographical works. Thomas's encyclopedic volume 
 contains one book with regard to anatomy, one with 
 regard to human monsters, and books with regard to 
 quadrupeds, birds, marine monsters, fishes, serpents, 
 worms, ordinary trees, aromatic and medicinal plants 
 and the virtues of herbs, and of curative waters of various 
 kinds. Then there are books on precious stones and 
 their cutting, on the seven regions and the humors of 
 the air, on the earth and the seven planets, and on the 
 four elements and the Heavens and eclipses of the sun 
 and moon. When such a work was published for general 
 reading, it is easy to understand that no phase of in- 
 formation with regard to nature failed to be of interest 
 to readers of the thirteenth century. Much that is ab- 
 surd is contained in the book. But when we compare it 
 with books written in the early part of the eighteenth 
 century, we are apt to wonder rather at how little ad- 
 vance had taken place in the four centuries of interval, 
 than at the ignorance of the medieval writer. 
 
 1 Studien zur Geschichte der Anatomic im Mittelalter von Robert Hitter von 
 Toply, Leipzig und Wien. Franz Deuticke, 1898. 
 
CHURCHMEN AND SCIENCE 339 
 
 We have been able, of course, in this limited space to 
 give only a modicum of the evidence for the cultivation 
 of the Physical Sciences at the Medieval Universities, 
 and their records in monumental works still extant ; but 
 this will probably be enough to enable those who are in- 
 terested in the subject to realize its significance and to 
 gather further material if they so wish. The universities 
 were ecclesiastical institutions. Most of them derived 
 their authority to give degrees directly from the Popes. 
 Appeals were frequently made to the Popes with regard 
 to the discipline and the teaching at the universities. 
 Most of the great teachers of physical science were ec- 
 clesiastics. Nearly all the students were clerics. Many 
 of those who were most successful in science reached 
 high preferment in the Church. Evidently the pursuit 
 of science did not prejudice their advancement, either in 
 their orders, when they belonged to any of the various 
 religious orders, or in the Church itself. They were the 
 near and dear friends of archbishops, cardinals and 
 Popes. This is entirely contrary to the ordinary im- 
 pression in the matter ; but this is the plain truth, while 
 the contrary opinions are founded on the false assump- 
 tion of Church opposition to science. 
 
THE MEDIEVAL UNIVERSITY MAN AND 
 SCIENCE. 
 
 Even after the series of demonstrations which we 
 have given that the great thinkers and teachers at the 
 medieval universities were deeply interested in the 
 problems of what we now call natural or physical sci- 
 ence, most people will still not be open to conviction that 
 interest in nature was quite as lively in the Middle Ages 
 as at any subsequent period, even our own. In spite of 
 the fact that the scholastics faced scientific questions in 
 nearly the same mood as we do ourselves, and, curiously 
 enough, anticipated very closely many of the doctrines 
 now current in science, not a few of those who are most 
 interested in the history of education will continue to 
 think that science occupied the minds of the students at the 
 medieval universities very little, and that while the great 
 thinkers may have known something about it, the rank 
 and file of the university men of the time gave scarcely 
 any thought to it. Besides, they will be almost sure to 
 conclude that, whatever they did think was likely to be 
 inept, and in most cases quite ridiculous. Such thoughts 
 are a part of that unfortunate educational tradition 
 which stamps the Middle Ages as neglectful of nature 
 study, as we would call it now, and as lacking in inter- 
 est in natural phenomena. Nothing could well be less 
 true, and it will require, I think, but the simple tracing 
 of the life and erudition of a single well-known student 
 of these medieval universities, to show how utterly ab- 
 surd and unfounded is the popular belief. 
 
 (340) 
 
UNIVERSITY MAN AND SCIENCE 34} 
 
 I have chosen Dante for this purpose, mainly because 
 so much more is known about the personal details of his 
 life than of anyone else, and we are able to glean from 
 his writings and the contemporary comments on them, 
 a good idea of what the general information on scientific 
 subjects of the educated man of his period was. The 
 fact that Dante was a member of the Guild of the 
 Apothecaries in Florence, an association that included 
 also the physicians of the city, has added an adventitious 
 interest to his attractions as one of the few greatest of 
 poets of all time, and has made details of his career and 
 evidence of the breadth of his education and culture of 
 special import, so that I have frequently taken occasion 
 to call the attention of physicians to the honor implied 
 by Dante's fraternal relation to us, His membership in 
 the Guild of the Apothecaries, however, did not call for 
 any special knowledge of science on his part. He had 
 nothing to do with the sale of drugs, much less with the 
 science of medicine. Originally the Italian apothecaries, 
 as the Greek origin of the word indicates, were shop- 
 keepers selling all sorts of things edible, adorning, or 
 useful for personal service. They sold drugs also, and 
 as some of these were imported from the East, they 
 commonly added to their stock certain other Eastern 
 specialties perfumes, gems and the like. In this way 
 they soon became wealthy, as a rule, and indeed the 
 name of the rich Florentine family who came eventually 
 to rule their native city the Medici is said to be de- 
 rived from similar connections. It was the sons of these 
 men who became the upper middle classes in Florence. 
 Perhaps one should say they became the upper classes, 
 for Florence had no nobility, in the proper sense of the 
 word, and men made their own positions. Their de- 
 
342 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 scendants became the men of culture, until finally the 
 Florentine Guild of the Apothecaries represented the 
 most intelligent class of the population of the city. 
 During the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, then, 
 most of the artists, the literary men, the architects, the 
 sculptors, were members of the guild. Dante's occupa- 
 tion when he was a peaceful citizen of Florence was, 
 according to tradition, that of architect, and one build- 
 ing designed by him is supposed to be still in existence 
 in Florence. 
 
 Dante should represent for us, then, what an architect 
 in Florence at the end of the thirteenth century knew 
 about natural science, as the result of his school and 
 university training. In our time, architects are likely 
 to know more about certain forms of physical science 
 than most other people, and due allowance would have 
 to be made for this in Dante's case. It will be found, 
 though, as we discuss his erudition, that the sciences in 
 which he was particularly interested astronomy and 
 various phases of biology with physical geography 
 were not those which appeal especially to an architect, 
 and certainly have no relation to his occupation. His 
 knowledge of flowers might be thought to be due to his 
 wish to use floral forms for structural decorative pur- 
 poses, but Dante is rather weak for a poet in the matter 
 of the description of flowers, and it is only from the 
 side of their color that they made any special appeal 
 to him. 
 
 Most people have been led to think of Dante as not a 
 student of nature, because that impression would inevi- 
 tably be gathered from certain passages of John Ruskin 
 with regard to him. Ruskin was so faithful and loving 
 a student of Dante that he would be expected not to be 
 
UNIVERSITY MAN AND SCIENCE 343 
 
 mistaken in such a matter, nor is he ; but he has dwelt 
 overmuch on certain phases of Dante's lack of interest 
 in nature, until the great Florentine's devotion to crea- 
 tion as he saw it around him is obscured. It is not dif- 
 ficult to show, from Dante's own writings, how much he 
 was interested in nearly every phase of nature and 
 natural phenomena. In the "Westminster Review" 
 for July and August, 1907, Mr. George Trobridge, in 
 articles on Dante as a Nature Poet, has furnished abun- 
 dant evidence to prove his thesis, though he too has felt 
 the necessity for apologizing for even apparently differ- 
 ing from so great a critic and such an enthusiastic Dante 
 student as Ruskin. Dante's works, however, themselves 
 can be the only appeal in this matter, and Mr. Trobridge 
 has used them with good effect and in such a way as to 
 carry to anyone the conviction that Dante was a pro- 
 found student of nature in all her moods and tenses. 
 Mr. Trobridge says in the introduction : 
 
 "It will appear presumptuous in the present writer to 
 differ from so great a critic and such an enthusiastic 
 student of Dante as Ruskin, but it seems to him that 
 the author of Modern Painters has done scant justice to 
 the intense insight of the poet into the beauties of the 
 world we live in and his wonderful power of expressing 
 what he saw. There are few even modern poets who 
 have taken so wide a view of the field of nature, and 
 even Shakespeare himself scarcely excells the great 
 Florentine in felicity and concentration of expression. 
 The Divina Commedia is full of vivid pictures covering 
 the whole range of natural phenomena. As these pass 
 before our eyes, we can scarcely realize that the painter 
 of them is not of our own day, so thoroughly does he 
 enter into the spirit of modern landscape art. Some- 
 
344 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 times his pictures are momentary impressions studies 
 of effects painted with a large brush ; at others his touch 
 is of a Preraphaelitic nicety, and now and then he gives 
 us a studied composition full of doubtful detail like one 
 of Turner's landscapes. He was one with Wordsworth 
 in his sincere delight in every form of natural beauty. 
 Like him, he lived beneath the habitual sway of foun- 
 tains, meadows, hills and groves ; with him he saw the 
 ' splendor in the grass ' and the ' glory in the flower. ' 
 He could ' feel the gladness of the May ' and rejoiced in 
 ' the innocent brightness of a new day.' " 
 
 In the matter of science as distinct from poetic in- 
 terest in nature, quite as much can be said for Dante. 
 This greatest of Italian poets is a fair example to take 
 of the university man of the thirteenth century in this 
 respect. He was thirty-five before the first century of 
 university existence properly so-called closed. He may be 
 considered a typical product of university life. It is true 
 he had had the almost inestimable advantage of the 
 schooling and culture of his native Florence, where at 
 the end of the thirteenth century there were more chil- 
 dren, it is said, in attendance at the schools to the num- 
 ber of the population than there is at the present 
 moment even in most of our American cities. Brother 
 Azarias in his Essays Educational, 1 said : 
 
 "In the thirteenth century, out of a population of 
 90,000 in Florence, we find 12,000 children attending the 
 schools, a ratio of school attendance as large as existed 
 in New York City, in the year of Grace 1893." This 
 ratio, it may be said, is as great as is ordinarily to be 
 found anywhere, and this fact alone may serve to show 
 
 1 Essays Educational, by Brother Azarias, with Preface by His Eminence Cardinal 
 Gibbons. Chicago, D. H. McBride & Co., 1906. 
 
UNIVERSITY MAN AND SCIENCE 345 
 
 how earnest were these medieval burghers for the edu- 
 cation of their children. Dante had the advantage of 
 this, and in addition, of the training at two or three of 
 the universities at least of Italy, besides spending some 
 time at Paris, and probably a visit at least to Oxford. 
 
 Lest it should be thought that perhaps Brother Aza- 
 rias gave too favorable an estimate in his account of the 
 schools in Florence, though he quotes as his authority 
 Villani, and other authorities are readily available, it 
 seems worth while to give a very interesting reference 
 to this subject of education in one of the notes in Prince 
 Kropotkin's chapter on Mutual Aid in the Medieval City, 
 from his book Mutual Aid a Factor in Evolution, a work 
 that we have placed under contribution a number of 
 times already in this attempt to picture medieval condi- 
 tions as they were in reality, and not in the foolish 
 imaginings of outworn traditions. Kropotkin's studies 
 in what the free cities accomplished by the union of the 
 guilds for every fraternal purpose, and the coordination 
 of their citizens for every detail of the commonweal, has 
 made him realize that common or public school educa- 
 tion was an important feature of medieval free city life, 
 and strange as that fact may appear to many modern 
 minds, that such public school education occupied at 
 least as prominent a position as it does with us in our 
 own time. In the quotation from him it will be seen 
 that he considers that Florence was not alone in this 
 matter, and he ventures to place Nuremberg on a level 
 with her. Doubtless other German cities, as certainly 
 other Italian cities, provided similar facilities for general 
 education. 
 
 Kropotkin says: "In 1336 it (Florence) had 8,000 to 
 10,000 boys and girls in its primary schools, 1,000 to 
 
346 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 1,200 boys in its seven middle schools, and from 550 to 
 600 students in its four universities. The thirty com- 
 munal hospitals contained over 1,000 beds for a popula- 
 tion of 90,000 inhabitants. (Capponi, ii. 249 seq.) It 
 has more than once been suggested by authoritative 
 writers, that education stood, as a rule, at a much higher 
 level than is generally supposed. Certainly so in demo- 
 cratic Nuremberg. " 
 
 The content of this educational system is our main 
 subject of interest at the present moment. 
 
 Seven hundred young men received the higher edu- 
 cation. (This in a city of less than 100,000 inhabitants. 
 How do our cities of 100,000 inhabitants compare with 
 it ?) The very spirit of the arts was scholastic in 
 Dante's day. You read the story in the oratory of 
 Orsanmichele, in which each art with its masterpiece 
 receives a crown ; you read it in the chapters of Santa 
 Maria Novella, in Gaddi's painting of the Trivium and 
 Quadrivium ; you read it in Giotto's sculpture of the 
 same subject upon this marvelous campanile. Here was 
 the atmosphere in which Dante's boyhood and early 
 manhood were passed." 
 
 We shall not be surprised, then, to find in Dante, the 
 typical product of this form of education, an interest in 
 every form of erudition and in all details of information. 
 
 I have preferred to take the evidence for Dante's 
 knowledge of science from others, rather than attempt 
 to supply it entirely by means of quotations from his 
 works. This latter would be the most scholarly way, 
 but Dante is not easy reading even in a good translation, 
 and one needs to be familiar with his modes of expres- 
 sion and to be accustomed to the wonderful compression 
 of his style to appreciate his full significance. There is 
 
UNIVERSITY MAN AND SCIENCE 347 
 
 no lack of good authorities, however, who have made 
 deep studies in Dante, to bring out for us the complete 
 import of all the references to the science of his time, 
 which Dante was tempted to make. We have perhaps 
 been prone to think, in English-speaking countries, that 
 no poets have ever kept more thoroughly in touch with 
 the progress of science, or at least have ever used refer- 
 ences to scientific details with more accuracy, than some 
 of our own nineteenth century poets. A little study of 
 the first great poet of modern times, in whom Carlyle 
 said "ten silent centuries found a voice, " though Dante 
 by no means stands alone in the century, but is the cul- 
 mination of a series of great poets, will show that he 
 probably must be considered as taking the palm even 
 from our most modern of poets in this respect. If the 
 expressions in text-books of the history of education are 
 to be accepted as evidence of the thoughts of educators 
 with regard to the details of education in Dante's time, 
 even a brief sketch of Dante's scientific knowledge will 
 be a supreme surprise to them. 
 
 As will be at once appreciated, Dante was not a spe- 
 cialist in science, but used the knowledge of science cur- 
 rent in his day in order to drive home his thoughts by 
 means of figures. It is surprising, however, what a 
 marvelous display of scientific knowledge, entirely with- 
 out pedantry, which anyone who knows his supreme 
 compression of style will realize to be the fault Dante is 
 least liable to, was thus made by this educated literary 
 man of the thirteenth century. Dr. L. Oscar Kuhns, 
 Professor in Wesleyan University, has in his little book 
 The Treatment of Nature in Dante's Divina Commedia, 
 suggested a comparison between Dante and Goethe. 1 
 
 1 The Treatment of Nature in Dante's Divina Commedia, by L. Oscar Kuhns, 
 Professor in Wesleyan University, Middletown, U. S. A. Edward Arnold. London 
 and New York, 1897. 
 
348 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 Everyone realizes at once how profound a scientist was 
 Goethe. Professor Kuhns' comparison, then, will bring 
 out the scientific qualities of this great medieval poet, 
 who is the representative scholar of the universities of 
 his time. 
 
 "There is perhaps no innate contradiction between 
 science and poetry, but it is not often that they are 
 found together in the same man. Dante, like Goethe, 
 half a millennium later, was. not only drawn by the 
 beauty of nature, but he had likewise an unquenchable 
 intellectual curiosity, and sought diligently to under- 
 stand the meaning of the universe in which he lived. 
 
 ' ' No other poet has ever combined the loftiest poetry 
 with the discussion of such complicated topics in all 
 branches of learning. In one place we find a long dis- 
 cussion of the origin and development of life, which, 
 naive and scholastic as it is, shows some lines of resem- 
 blance to the modern doctrines in biology ; in another 
 place there is a learned discussion between the poet and 
 Beatrice concerning the cause of the spots in the moon, 
 in which an actual experiment in optics is given. " 
 
 The first passage to which Professor Kuhns refers, 
 while containing many speculative elements, is a discus- 
 sion of certain important basic problems in biology that 
 have always appealed to thinking men at every period 
 of the history of science, and never more so than in our 
 own day. They must still be considered undecided, 
 though many volumes have been written on them in the 
 last century. There are thoughts in Dante's exposition 
 of the subject that are startling enough to the modern 
 biologist, and that make it clear how much men's minds 
 run along the same grooves in facing questions that we 
 are prone to think have occurred to men only in the last 
 
UNIVERSITY MAN AND SCIENCE 349 
 
 few generations. The other quotation to which Profes- 
 sor Kuhns refers deserves to be quoted entire. It is 
 perhaps even more striking because of its actual de- 
 scription of an experiment in optics, which shows how 
 much this great poetic intelligence of the medieval time, 
 usually supposed to be so abstracted and occupied with 
 things other-worldly and supernal, living his intellectual 
 life quite beyond the domain of sense, still remembered 
 the teachings of his university days, and even recalled 
 the details of demonstrations that he had seen. The 
 passage occurs in the II. canto of the Paradiso, begin- 
 ning with line 97 : 
 
 "Take thou three mirrors, two of them remove 
 
 From thee an equal distance, and the last 
 Between the two, and further from thee move ; 
 
 And turned towards them let a light be cast, 
 Behind thy back, upon those mirrors three, 
 
 So that from all reflected rays are passed. 
 Then, though the light which furthest stands from 
 thee 
 
 May not with them in magnitude compete, 
 Yet will it shine in brightness equally/' 
 
 It is easy to understand, then, that Professor Kuhns 
 should have been enthusiastic with regard to Dante's 
 knowledge of science. He says : 
 
 "The whole structure of Hell, Purgatory, and Para- 
 dise shows a thorough knowledge of the Ptolemaic sys- 
 tem ; and we invariably find astronomical facts, mingled 
 with classical quotations, in the description of stellar 
 phenomena. But not only in specific passages do we 
 find evidence of Dante's love for science, but in brief 
 allusions to the various aspects of nature metaphors, 
 
350 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 figures, descriptions a word or two is added, giving the 
 cause of the phenomenon in question. Examples of 
 this abound." 
 
 It is with regard to astronomy, of course, that Dante 
 has given us the most convincing evidence of his knowl- 
 edge of science, his interest in nature and natural 
 phenomena, his questioning spirit in nature study, and 
 the wonderful anticipations of his generation with re- 
 gard to knowledge that has usually been supposed to 
 have been hidden from them. The stars appealed to 
 his poetic spirit, and then besides, his great poem occu- 
 pied itself with all the visible universe, and especially 
 with the parts outside this world. Professor Kuhns has 
 said : 
 
 "One may confidently assert that no such perfect lines 
 descriptive of the stars have ever been written. Shake- 
 speare and others can furnish famous passages, but 
 none, I think, equal to those of Dante. They have all 
 the quality of his art truth, clearness, possessing the 
 power of touching deeply the imagination, yet terse and 
 compact, containing not a word too much. We see the 
 stars at all hours of the night, in all degrees of bril- 
 liancy, fading away at the approach of dawn, gradually 
 appearing as twilight comes on, shining with splendor 
 on a moonless night, keenly sparkling after the winds 
 have cleared the atmosphere, or eclipsed by the greater 
 effulgence of the moon. The motion of the constella- 
 tions about the pole is referred to, those which are 
 nearest to it never setting beneath the horizon." 
 
 It is often thought that the proper idea of the explana- 
 tion of the Milky Way was quite modern. Dante, how- 
 ever, discusses in his Convito the theories of it that had 
 been suggested up to his time, and then gives his own 
 
UNIVERSITY MAN AND SCIENCE 351 
 
 views, which he confesses are founded on Aristotle, but 
 which are evidently the result also of his own thinking. 
 Pythagoras, he said, attributed it to the scorching heat 
 of the sun, as if somehow this left a trace of itself even 
 after the sun had sunk. Other Greek philosophers, as 
 for example Anaxagoras and Democritus, explained it 
 as a reflection of the light of the sun which still found 
 its way even though that luminary had passed from 
 sight. Dante himself says that, following Aristotle, he 
 cannot help but think that the Milky Way is composed 
 of a multitude of minute stars which are gathered very 
 closely together in this particular part of the heavens, 
 and which are so small that they cannot be distinguished 
 from one another, though their light causes that special 
 white luminosity which we call the Milky Way. This 
 explanation is the true one, only that the apparent 
 smallness of the stars are due to their distance, and not 
 to their actual minuteness of size. 
 
 A brief list of the other astronomical phenomena men- 
 tioned by Dante has been made by Professor Kuhns. 
 This serves to show very clearly that Dante's knowledge 
 with regard to the heavens was quite as extensive as 
 that of the modern educated man, indeed, probably more 
 so, and that it was quite as exact. The little touch 
 which shows that he knew, for instance, that August 
 is the month when shooting stars are more frequent, is 
 wonderfully illuminating. His powers of observation 
 are brought out by his having seen them during the day 
 as well as at night. In all this it must not be forgotten 
 that Dante was no mere pedant making a display of his 
 knowledge ; that he was not one to parade his erudi- 
 tion for the sake of show ; that indeed no one has ever 
 written so compressedly as he ; that every word that he 
 
352 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 used counts in bringing out his meaning, and yet that 
 we find all this wealth of information with regard to 
 astronomy in a book that was meant to proclaim, and 
 has, in the opinion of men for all time since, expressed 
 more sublimely the significance of man's relations to the 
 universe and his reflections on the infinite in lofty poetic 
 thought, than any other that was ever written. Pro- 
 fessor Kuhns says : 
 
 " The other celestial phenomena mentioned by Dante 
 may be dismissed briefly. We have references to the 
 eclipse and its cause, and the Blessed in the Heaven of 
 the Fixed Stars flame brightly, a guisa di comete (in the 
 guise of a comet) . Shooting-stars are referred to sev- 
 eral times, almost invariably as a conventional figure 
 for rapidity. August is the month when they are the 
 most frequent, and they are most seen to shoot with 
 lightninglike swiftness across the serene blue sky or 
 pierce the clouds that gather around the setting sun. 
 One fine passage describes the spectator following them 
 with his eyes as they lose themselves in the distance. " 
 
 It is no wonder, then, that Prof. Kuhns should be quite 
 enthusiastic with regard to Dante's use of astronomical 
 knowledge. He insists, however, that while it was his 
 poetic soul and love for the stars that tempted him to 
 allow his thoughts to wander so frequently into the 
 realm of the celestial bodies, his interest was always 
 profoundly scientific. His passage to this effect is worth 
 while quoting in extenso, because it brings out this fact 
 very clearly. As Prof. Kuhns' only idea in this was to 
 show how marvelously the representative poet of the 
 Middle Ages turned to nature in his poetry, and there 
 was no thought of controverting the foolish notions of 
 those who so lightly declare that the students of the 
 
UNIVERSITY MAN AND SCIENCE 353 
 
 Middle Age universities knew nothing of science, the 
 paragraph is a bit of very striking evidence in this 
 matter. 
 
 "Dante's love for the stars was largely scientific ; he 
 knew thoroughly the Ptolemaic system of astronomy, 
 which forms the framework of the whole structure of 
 the Paradiso. We find constant and accurate allusions 
 to the constellations, their various shapes and positions 
 in the heavens ; while the hour of the day and the 
 season of the year are often referred to in terms of 
 astronomical science, frequently interwoven with myth- 
 ology. But besides this scientific interest, he was deeply 
 touched by the beauty, the mystery and the tranquilizing 
 power of the celestial orbs. There is hardly a phase of 
 them that he has not touched upon ; many of his descrip- 
 tions and allusions have a truth and vividness unsur- 
 passed even in this present day of nature worship. 
 Here, as elsewhere in the Divina Commedia, science and 
 learning and poetry go hand in hand. We have no mere 
 dry catalogue of facts, but the wonderful mechanism of 
 the starry heavens is brought before our eyes, rolling its 
 spheres in celestial harmony, radiant with light and 
 splendour, while the innumerable company of angels 
 and the 'spirits of just men made perfect' raise the 
 chorus of praise to the Alto Fattore." 
 
 We cannot but add the reflection that, as our own 
 poets of the nineteenth century indulged themselves in 
 figures drawn from science not only because of their own 
 interest in the subject, but because they realized the 
 interest of the men of their time in matters scientific 
 and appreciated that figures drawn from them would 
 add to the significance of their own thoughts, so Dante 
 would not have used figures drawn from science only 
 
354 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 that, closely in touch as he was with the educated men 
 of his time in many cities and countries, he felt that he 
 would thus not only be adding to the interest of his 
 work, but would be making his own meaning clearer by 
 a wealth of allusion from things scientific. This is in- 
 deed the side of this study of Dante that deserves the 
 most thorough consideration by educators in our time, 
 if they would understand what the real spirit of the 
 teaching of science in the medieval universities was, and 
 what the attitude of educated people of the time to- 
 ward nature study, which has been so egregiously mis- 
 represented by those who know nothing at all about it, 
 must be considered to have been. All this we must 
 judge, however, from contemporary sources, and not 
 from subsequent supercilious misrepresentations. 
 
 It must not be thought, however, that Dante's inter- 
 est in science was exhausted by his excursions into 
 astronomy. This has already been more than hinted at 
 in some of the passages quoted, which show his interest 
 in other phases of science. In the modern time, how- 
 ever, it is almost the rule, that if a scholar who is not a 
 scientist, and especially if he happens to be, as Dante 
 was, a literary man, indulges in some scientific pursuits, 
 he has at most but an interest in one branch of science. 
 Quite as often as not he rather prides himself on know- 
 ing nothing at all about this department of knowledge. 
 Specialism has invaded even scientific education, and 
 a man specializes in some favorite department of science 
 for his avocation, and is apt to know very little about 
 other departments. Dante was not thus constituted, 
 however. It will be comparatively easy to show that 
 every form of scientific thought interested him, and 
 that his love of nature led him into nature study, in the 
 
UNIVERSITY MAN AND SCIENCE 355 
 
 best sense of that very modern term, and caused him 
 to make observations for himself, or so retain the ob- 
 servations of others that he had heard or read, that he 
 was able to use them very forcibly and appropriately in 
 the figurative language of his great poem. 
 
 Alexander von Humboldt, the distinguished German 
 naturalist and leader of scientific thought in the early 
 nineteenth century, whose compliment to Albertus 
 Magnus, quoted in the chapter on Science at the Medie- 
 val Universities, is probably a surprise to most people, 
 but serves to show how wide was the reading of this 
 great scientist, was also an attentive student of Dante, 
 and has a passage with regard to the Florentine poet's 
 knowledge of science quite as striking as that with re- 
 gard to the great scholastic's excursions into the same 
 field. In his Cosmos he has the following tribute to 
 Dante as a student of nature and as a loving observer of 
 natural phenomena : 
 
 "When the story of the Arabic, Greek or Roman 
 dominion or, I might almost say, when the ancient 
 world had passed away, we find in the great and inspired 
 founder of a new era, Dante Alighieri, occasional mani- 
 festations of the deepest sensibility to the charms of the 
 terrestrial life of nature, whenever he abstracts himself 
 from the passionate and subjective control of that de- 
 spondent mysticism which constituted the general circle 
 of his ideas." 
 
 With regard to the famous description of the river of 
 light in the thirtieth canto of the Paradiso, Humboldt 
 declared that the picture must have been suggested to 
 Dante by the phosphorescence seen so beautifully and so 
 luxuriantly in the Adriatic Sea at times. The passage 
 itself is so beautiful and is so well worth the reading a 
 
356 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 second time, even for those who have read it before, 
 that I give it a place here, followed by Humboldt's 
 comment. 
 
 I saw a glory like a stream flow by, 
 
 In brightness rushing, and on either shore 
 Were banks that with spring's wondrous hues might vie. 
 
 And from that river living sparks did soar, 
 And sank on all sides on the floweret's bloom, 
 
 Like precious rubies set in golden ore. 
 Then, as if drunk with all the rich perfume, 
 
 Back to the wondrous torrent did they roll, 
 And as one sank another filled its room. 
 
 Dean Plumptre says that Humboldt's suggestion with 
 regard to this description has not been found elsewhere, 
 and as it adds to the completeness of the idea conveyed 
 by the figure, he gives it a place in his studies and 
 estimates of Dante. Humboldt said : 
 
 "It would almost seem as if this picture had its origin 
 in. the poet's recollection of that peculiar and rare phos- 
 phorescent condition of the ocean when luminous points 
 appear to rise from the breaking waves, and, spreading 
 themselves over the surface of the waters, convert the 
 liquid plain into a moving sea of sparkling stars." 
 
 It is with regard to the little things in life, particularly 
 those that are so small that one would be tempted to 
 think at first blush that Dante paid no attention to them 
 at all, that his powers of observation as a student of 
 nature, and his all-pervading love for every even smallest 
 manifestation of her power, is especially made manifest. 
 With regard to this subject, Prof. Kuhns, to whom I 
 have already turned so often, has an illuminating pas- 
 
UNIVERSITY MAN AND SCIENCE 357 
 
 sage, which sums up a large amount of reading of the 
 poet He says : 
 
 "The smallest members of the animal kingdom do 
 not escape the observing eye of the poet, and such un- 
 poetical insects as the flea, the gnat, and the fly are 
 brought into use. By means of these latter he has ac- 
 curately given the time of day and season of the year in 
 one line, where, showing us the farmer lying on the 
 hillside of a summer evening, looking down upon the 
 valley alight with fire-flies, he says the time was that 
 
 ' When the fly yields to the gnat. ' 
 
 Those pests of dogs, the flea and hornet, are referred to- 
 in a passage already given, where the dog is seen snap- 
 ping and scratching in agony. The butterfly was sym- 
 bolical, during the Middle Ages, tff tha death and. resur- 
 rection of the body. The various phases of its development 
 are referred to by Dante ; the caterpillar state, the 
 latter referring to the cocoon of the silk- worm, furnish- 
 ing a figure for the souls in Paradise, swathed in light ; 
 in one passage, backsliding Christians are compared to 
 insects in a state of arrested development. " 
 
 Dante's passage in the tenth canto of the Purgatorio, 
 in which he compares man to the butterfly, who in this 
 life passes through the caterpillar stage, passing in 
 death, as it were, into the larval stage when in his coffin 
 he is motionless and apparently dead, as the insect in 
 its cocoon, yet finally reaching the glory of the resur- 
 rection in the winged butterfly stage, shows how well 
 these medieval observers of nature had studied carefully 
 aspects of nature which we are apt to think were holden 
 entirely from their eyes. The passage would remind one 
 of the story of the Jesuit, three centuries later, who, in 
 
358 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 the early days of missionary work in this country, 
 wondered how he would obtain a fitting word to express 
 to the Indians the abstract idea of the resurrection of the 
 body. The good Father finally recalled his Dante, and 
 having found a caterpillar that had entered into the larval 
 stage after having spun its cocoon and wrapped itself 
 round with its shroud to lie down in what is a striking 
 similitude of death, presented it to the Indians, and 
 then having waited until the butterfly came out, asked 
 them what they called this process, and applied the 
 word for it to the resurrection. Dante says : 
 
 " Perceive ye not we are of a wormlike kind, 
 Born to bring forth the angel butterfly, 
 
 That soars to Judgment, and no screen doth find ? 
 Why doth your soul lift up itself on high ? 
 
 Ye are as insects yet but half complete, 
 As worms in whom their growth fails utterly." 
 
 It is with regard to bees and ants, however, that 
 Dante's observant love of nature and of natury study is 
 especially to be admired. It is true, as has been often 
 pointed out, that the older poets, of whom Dante was- an 
 assiduous and mindful reader, made use of figures with 
 regard to bees, and Virgil, with all of whose works Dante 
 was so intimately acquainted that nothing must have es- 
 caped him, devoted one of the four books of his Georgics to 
 what is practically a treatise on Apiculture. In this most 
 of the problems of bee raising are discussed. Lucretius, 
 Lucan, and Ovid, all made use of this interesting insect 
 for figures in their poetry. Dante might have obtained 
 most of the references to the bee, then, from his reading. 
 Prof. Kuhns is of the opinion, however, that some at 
 
UNIVERSITY MAN AND SCIENCE 359 
 
 least of Dante's references to them are due to his obser- 
 vations, quite apart from his literary reminiscences with 
 regard to their habits and instincts. He says : 
 
 " There are certain touches in the Divina Commedia 
 which seem to prove that Dante's use of them was not 
 entirely conventional. In the wonderful passage where 
 he stands contemplating 
 
 ' La forma general di Paradiso, ' 
 
 he saw the Blessed in the shape of a great white rose on 
 the banks of the river of light; and the white-robed 
 angels, with wings of gold and faces of flame, as they fly 
 unceasingly back and forth from the seats of the saints 
 to the effulgent river, are compared to bees, following 
 their inborn instinct to make honey, flying from flower 
 to flower, burying themselves in the chalice, and then 
 rising heavily to carry their burden to their hives. In 
 another passage their buzzing noise is compared to the 
 noise of a distant waterfall;' 'a touch of nature that 
 could only have come from familiarity with the insects. 
 In is with regard to ants even more than bees that 
 Dante's proclivities for nature study are most evident. 
 When in the Purgatorio, in the twenty-sixth canto, Dante 
 would describe the meeting of souls in Paradise who 
 kiss each other as they speed on their way, he compares 
 them to the ants who as they meet one another touch an- 
 tennaB, thus communicating various messages, and then 
 go on their way. The passage is very striking because, as 
 Dean Plumptre remarks, the picture drawn reminds one 
 almost of Sir John Lubbock's ant studies, or the remark- 
 able descriptions of ant life in Bishop Ken's Hymnotheo. 
 Dante's lines are as follows : 
 
360 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 " So oft, within their dusk brown host proceed 
 This ant and that, till muzzle muzzle meet ; 
 Spying their way, or how affairs succeed." 
 
 Thus did Dante know the whole round of science in 
 his time better than any modern university man. People 
 who take exception to his knowledge fail to realize its 
 environment. They may smile a little scornfully now at 
 his complacent acceptance of the Ptolemaic system with- 
 out a question, but it must not be forgotten that for 
 three centuries after his time educated men still con- 
 tinued to accept it, and that even the distinguished 
 Jesuit astronomer, Clavius, to whom we owe the Gregor- 
 ian reformation of the calendar and the restoration of 
 the year to its proper place as regards the heavens, not 
 only accepted it, but worked out his calendar reform 
 problems by means of it Clavius 's great contemporary, 
 Tycho-Brahe, the distinguished Danish astronomer, 
 found no reason to reject it Even Lord Bacon, who 
 with perverted historical sense is still proclaimed the 
 father of modern experimental science, also accepted the 
 Ptolemaic system, and found that it thoroughly explained 
 all the phenomena of the heavens, while he rejected the 
 Copernican system, then nearly a century before the 
 world, because he thought it did not. The surprise, how- 
 ever, is not in Dante's knowledge of astronomy, but in 
 his familiarity with, details of biology that enables him 
 to reason, though in poetic- language, with straightfor- 
 ward and logical directness with regard to basic thought 
 in this science that is usually considered so thoroughly 
 modern. 
 
 Another surprising feature is the knowledge of the 
 habits of birds and of insects. Our modern students of 
 
UNIVERSITY MAN AND SCIENCE 361 
 
 nature are supposed to be the first who went deeply 
 enough into these subjects to make them material for 
 literature. Here, however, is Dante describing, in a few 
 picturesque words, characteristic peculiarities of birds 
 and insects, which our modern writers spend pages over, 
 yet tell us scarcely more about them. A little knowledge 
 of Dante is evidently the best antidote that our genera- 
 tion can have for that foolish persuasion that the Middle 
 Ages were ignorant of science and that the universities 
 taught nothing but nonsense about nature. 
 
 I am tempted to add just a few pargraphs with regard 
 to another aspect of Dante's scientific interests which 
 assimilates him to the modern educated man. Education 
 itself would seem to be one of the sciences the develop- 
 ment of which was surely left to a late and more con- 
 scious age. There are, however, as has been pointed 
 out by Brother Azarias, quite enough materials in Dante's 
 works to show that a serious student who was, however, 
 only a literary man and not an educator, had many 
 thoughts with regard to the practical side of education, 
 and had come to many conclusions with regard to how 
 it should be carried on, that are anticipations of the most 
 fruitful thoughts of our modern educators and that have 
 formed the subject of many theses on education down 
 to our own day. Education is, of course, scarcely one 
 of the physical sciences, yet since its subject-matter is 
 mainly the child and the developing human intellect, 
 and in that sense it is nature study in its highest form, 
 this aspect of Dante's thinking also deserves to be given 
 due weight here. Brother Azarias says : 
 
 * ' It is the mission of the poet to reflect in his work 
 the predominant, all-pervading spirit and views of his 
 age. Now, in his day, the universities were the con- 
 
362 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 trolling element in thought, in art, in politics, moulding 
 the thinkers and rulers of the age both in church and 
 state. But Dante was a life-long student. He traveled 
 from land to land and from school to school, and sat im- 
 patiently, yet humbly, at the feet of masters, imbibing 
 whatever knowledge they could convey. He disputed in 
 public. His bright eyes and strong, sombre, reserved 
 features attracted the attention of fellow students as he 
 wended his way, absorbed in his own thoughts, through 
 the rue de Fouarre and entered the hall in which Siger 
 was holding forth. Tradition has it that he was no less 
 assiduous a frequenter of School Street in Oxford. He 
 has left us no distinct treatise on education ; but he who 
 embodied all the science of his day, who was supreme in 
 teaching so many other lessons, could not be silent in 
 regard to pedagogy. From his writings a whole volume 
 of rules and principles bearing upon education might be 
 gleaned. In ' II Convito ' he expresses himself fully on 
 the different ages of human growth and development ; 
 speaks of obedience as an essential requisite for the 
 child ; after his father he should obey his master and 
 his elders. He should also be gentle and modest, rever- 
 ent and eager to acquire knowledge ; reserved, never 
 forward ; repentant of his faults to the extent of over- 
 coming them. As our soul in all its operations makes 
 use of a bodily organ, it behooves us to exercise the 
 body, that it grow in grace and aptness, and be well 
 ordained and disposed in order that the soul may control 
 it to the best advantage. Thus it is that a noble nature 
 seeks to have a sound mind in a sound body." 
 
THE CHURCH AND THE MENTALLY AFFLICTED. 
 
 It is especially with regard to the attitude of the 
 churchmen, the people, and even the physicians of the 
 Middle Ages toward insanity, that most opprobrium has 
 been heaped upon the Church and her teachings in the 
 so-called histories of the relations of science to theol- 
 ogy or faith. Much of what has been said that has been 
 supposed to tell worst against the Church, however, 
 should not rest upon the shoulders of ecclesiastics, and 
 should not be set down to the evil effect of theology. 
 It is easy now to look back and blame men for the ac- 
 ceptance of supernatural agencies as causes in nearly all 
 cases of mental and nervous diseases, but the reason for 
 this is rather to be looked for in the nature of man than 
 in his belief in religion. Ethnology shows us traces of it 
 everywhere. Our American Indians, long before any 
 tincture of Christianity, and before any hint of theol- 
 ogy of any kind reached them, beyond that which de- 
 velops spontaneously from the depths of their natural 
 faculties, believed in the effect of the evil spirits in 
 producing disease, and, of course, particularly the 
 mental diseases which made men do things so contrary to 
 their own interests, and often so harmful to the beings 
 they loved best in the world. 
 
 In the Middle Ages they had not yet outgrown this 
 primitive way of looking at mental diseases. For that 
 matter, we have not even as yet. The intelligent 
 classes in the community are, as a rule, convinced of 
 the physical basis of mental diseases, but there are a 
 
 (363) 
 
364 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 great many people who still are inclined to think that 
 some of them, at least, are manifestations of some 
 punitive force outside of the patients themselves, or 
 even some manifestation of ill-understood forces quite 
 apart from matter. Not all the thinking people of the 
 Middle Ages accepted all the absurd notions sometimes 
 rehearsed in this matter, but as in our own time, foolish 
 traditions and superstitions dominated the unthinking 
 classes, which form still, unfortunately, the great mass 
 of mankind. We have had just the opposite delusions 
 forced upon our attention in our own day. Large num- 
 bers, supposedly of intelligent people, have pretended 
 to believe or have definitely accepted the teaching that 
 disease is nothing. This is quite as foolish as attribut- 
 ing to spiritual agencies what has come to be recognized 
 as due to physical factors. It is to be hoped that our 
 generation and its thinking shall not be judged by future 
 generations to have been utterly foolish, just because a 
 few millions of us accepted Eddyism, and it must be re- 
 membered that these are not, as a rule, the uneducated. 
 Another side of this question is even more interesting, 
 or at least has become so during the last twenty years. 
 A generation ago it was the custom to scoff not a little 
 scornfully in scientific, circles, at the idea of admitting 
 even the possibility of the interference of immaterial or 
 spiritual agencies, or of any other intelligences or wills 
 at work in the ordinary affairs of this life, than those of 
 men. This scornful attitude still continues to be the 
 pose of many students and teachers of science. It is 
 by no means so universal as it was, however. Strik- 
 ingly enough, the converts from this attitude of mind 
 have come, not from the lower ranks of teachers of 
 science, but from among the very leaders in original 
 
CHURCH AND MENTALLY AFFLICTED 365 
 
 research and scientific investigation. We may still con- 
 tinue to laugh at and ridicule the medieval people for 
 their admission of the activity of spirits in ordinary 
 mundane affairs, but if we do so, we must also laugh at 
 and ridicule just as much, such prominent leaders of 
 scientific thought and progress as Sir William Crookes, 
 Mr. Alfred Russell Wallace, Sir Oliver Lodge, Professor 
 Charles Richet, the distinguished French physiologist, 
 Flammarion the astronomer, and even of late years 
 Professor Lombroso, the well-known Italian criminolo- 
 gist, whose special doctrines as to crime and criminals 
 would apparently insure him against such theories as 
 those of the spiritualists. All of these men have con- 
 fessed their belief not only in the possibility of spiritual 
 interference in this world of ours, but insist that they 
 have seen such interference, and are absolutely con- 
 vinced of its frequent occurrence. 
 
 This is a decided reaction from previous states of the 
 scientific mind on this subject, and represents a retro- 
 version to medieval modes of thought that may be 
 deprecated by scientific investigators of materialistic 
 tendencies, but that cannot be neglected, and must not 
 be despised. When the results of these recent investi- 
 gations are taken into account, the opprobrium which 
 has been heaped upon medieval scholars and churchmen 
 for the facility with which they accepted the doctrine 
 of the interference of spirits in human life, must be 
 minimized to such a degree, or indeed eradicated so 
 entirely, that a saner view of the whole situation as 
 regards the relationship of the spiritual and material 
 world seems likely to prevail. It is easy and cheap to 
 reject without more ado and without serious considera- 
 tion, such evidence of spiritual manifestations as has 
 
366 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 convinced these leaders of scientific thought. But this 
 rejection is not scientific, nor does it show an open mind. 
 What is needed is a calm review of the situation, in 
 order to see just where truth lies. It is not at either 
 extreme. It is not in too great credulity with regard 
 to spiritual interference, but certainly not at the oppo- 
 site pole of the negation of all spiritual influence in 
 human life, that genuine progress in knowledge is to 
 come. This premised, we may take up the considera- 
 tion of the actual accomplishment of the Middle Ages 
 with regard to the insane, better prepared to appreciate 
 their point of view and to get at the significance of their 
 attitude toward the mentally diseased. 
 
 There are two phases of this question of the attitude 
 of even intelligent men of the Middle Ages toward 
 nervous and mental diseases, that deserve to be studied, 
 not superficially, but in their actual relationships to the 
 men of that time, and to our opinions at the present 
 day. These are: first, the question of the treatment of 
 the mentally afflicted, and second, the mystery of de- 
 moniacal possession and its related phenomenon medi- 
 umship, as we call it. 
 
 Personally, I was very much surprised some years 
 ago, while collecting material for a paper to be read 
 before the International Guild for the Care of the 
 Insane, to find how many things that are most modern 
 in our methods of treating the insane, and that are 
 among the desiderata which are universally conceded to 
 be most necessary for the improvement of present con- 
 ditions in our management of mental diseases, were 
 anticipated by the generations of the thirteenth to the 
 fifteenth centuries. It is not hard, for instance, to 
 show that such eminently desirable conditions as the 
 
CHURCH AND MENTALLY AFFLICTED 367 
 
 open door for mild cases, the combination of the ordi- 
 nary hospital with a ward for psychic cases, the colony 
 system for the treatment of those of lower mentality, 
 were all in existence in the Middle Ages and did good 
 work. The colony system particularly, as it comes to us 
 from the Middle Ages, has recently been studied very 
 carefully, and this has given us many valuable hints as 
 to the methods that will have to be adopted in other 
 countries in modern times. 
 
 The conditions which developed at Gheel in Belgium 
 have deservedly attracted much attention in recent 
 times, and have been the subject of articles in the medical 
 journals of nearly every country in the world, because 
 of the poignant realization by our generation that large 
 institutions, meaning by this large single buildings or 
 closely associated groups of buildings, are very unfa- 
 vorable for the care of the insane. In America, one of 
 these articles was published in the Journal of Nervous 
 and Mental Diseases, and a second, written by my 
 friend, Dr. Jelliffe, who is the Professor of Mental 
 Diseases in Fordham University School of Medicine, 
 was written after a special visit paid to Gheel by him, 
 in order to investigate conditions there. Though the 
 situation at Gheel now is practically identical with that 
 which originated there at least five centuries ago, there 
 are many who consider that similar conditions would be 
 ideal for the treatment of certain classes of the insane 
 even in our own day. It is this sort of interpretation 
 of the work of these old-time philanthropists and physi- 
 cians that we need, and not the cheap condemnation 
 which makes it necessary for us to begin all over again 
 in each generation. 
 
 In the light of this unexpected revelation and the 
 
368 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 consequent revolution of thought it suggests, a short 
 review of the treatment of the insane will not be out of 
 place. It is usual for our self-complacent generation 
 to consider that it was not until our own time that 
 rational measures for the care of the insane were 
 taken. Most of the text-books on mental diseases that 
 touch at all on the historical aspects of the treatment 
 question, are apt to say that the evolution of methods for 
 the treatment and cure of the insane might be divided 
 into four historical periods: First, the era of exorcism, 
 on the theory that insane patients were possessed of 
 devils. Second, the chain and dungeon era, during which 
 persons exhibiting signs of insanity were imprisoned 
 and shackled in such a manner as to prevent the inflic- 
 tion of injury upon others. Third, the era of asylums. 
 Fourth, the present era of psychopathic wards in gen- 
 eral hospitals for the acutely insane in cities, and col- 
 onies for the chronic insane in the country, which is 
 only just beginning to develop. 
 
 From this classification, the ordinary reader would 
 suppose that nothing at all was done for the insane 
 during the first two periods, except exorcism in one and 
 confinement in the other. As a matter of fact, the 
 number of the harmlessly insane has always been much 
 larger than the violent, and the latter, indeed, consti- 
 tute only a very small portion of the mentally ailing at 
 any period. Exorcism, as a rule, was applied only to 
 the violent and to the hysterical. In the asylums at all 
 times there were a number of patients who were not 
 chained or confined to any great degree, and unless one 
 had shown some special violent manifestation, severe 
 measures were not taken. It is the treatment of the 
 great mass of the insane rather than of the few excep- 
 
CHURCH AND MENTALLY AFFLICTED 369 
 
 tional cases, that must be considered as representing 
 the attitude of mind of the generations of the Middle 
 Age toward the mentally afflicted, and not what they 
 found themselves compelled to do because of their fear 
 and dread of violence. 
 
 For those who were mentally afflicted in a mild 
 degree, abundant suitable provision was made by the 
 generations of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. 
 When historical writers suggest the contrary, they are 
 only making one of the usual assumptions from igno- 
 rance of the details. Because in some cases insanity 
 was supposed to be due to possession by the devil, to 
 say that, therefore, in all cases no provision was made 
 for the insane is nonsense. It is comparatively easy to 
 find, from records of the hospitals of the fourteenth 
 and fifteenth centuries, that there were what we now 
 call psychopathic wards for the acutely insane in the 
 cities, and some colonies for the chronic insane in 
 country places. 
 
 Knowing nothing of this, Prof. White, for instance, 
 says : "The stream of Christian endeavor, so far as the 
 insane were concerned, was almost entirely cut off. 
 In all the beautiful provision during the Middle Ages 
 for the alleviation of human suffering, there was for 
 the insane almost no care. Some monasteries indeed 
 gave them refuge. We hear of a charitable work done 
 for them at the London Bethlehem Hospital in the thir- 
 teenth century, at Geneva in the fifteenth, at Marseilles 
 in the sixteenth, by the Black Penitents in the South of 
 France, by certain Franciscans in Northern France, by 
 the Alexian Brothers on the Rhine, and by various 
 agencies in other parts of Europe; but, curiously enough, 
 the only really important effort in the Christian Church 
 
370 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 was stimulated by the Mohammedans. " This last clause 
 is a slur on Christianity absolutely without justification. 
 As is true for all broad generalizations, to ignore thus the 
 work of caring for the insane and the methods employed 
 in earlier times, amounts to deplorable injustice to gen- 
 erations whose provision for the sick of every class was 
 not only much more abundant, but more rational and 
 complete, than it has been our custom to recognize and 
 acknowledge. The earliest city hospitals that we know 
 of were due to the fatherly care and providence of that 
 great Pope, Innocent III., whose pontificate (1198-1213) 
 has been more misunderstood than perhaps any corre- 
 sponding period of time in history. It was Virchow, the 
 great German pathologist, whose sympathies with the 
 Papacy were very slight, and whose attitude in the 
 Kulturkampf in Germany showed him to be a strenuous 
 opponent of the Papal policy, who paid the high tribute 
 to Pope Innocent III. which we quote in the chapter on 
 the Foundation of City Hospitals. It was in connection 
 with these hospitals founded by Pope Innocent III., or 
 the result of the movement initiated by him, that the 
 insane were cared for at first. This may seem to have 
 been an undesirable method, but at the present time 
 there is an almost universal demand on the part of ex- 
 perts in mental diseases for wards for the mentally dis- 
 eased in connection with city hospitals, because admis- 
 sion is thus facilitated, treatment is begun earlier, the 
 patient is not left in unsuitable conditions so long, 
 friends are readier to take measures to bring the patient 
 under proper treatment and surveillance, and, as a con- 
 sequence, more of the acutely insane have the course of 
 their disease modified at once, and more cures take place 
 than would otherwise be possible. Of course, this was 
 
CHURCH AND MENTALLY AFFLICTED 371 
 
 not the idea of the original founder of the medieval hos- 
 pitals, or even the conscious plan of those who were in 
 charge. They had to take the mentally infirm because 
 there was nowhere else for them to go at that time. As 
 a matter of fact, however, their simple method of 
 procedure was better in the end for the patient than is 
 our more complex method of admission to insane asylums, 
 with its disturbing necessity for formal examination of 
 the patient under circumstances that are likely to in- 
 crease any excitement that he may be laboring under. 
 And the transfer to an institution bearing the dreaded 
 name of asylum, or even sanitarium (for that term has 
 taken quite as ominous a meaning in recent years) is 
 sure to aggravate the patient's irritated state, and to 
 exaggerate symptoms which might otherwise be relieved 
 by prompt, soothing care, and by the consciousness that 
 his ailment is being treated rather than that he himself 
 is being placed in durance. 
 
 An examination of the methods for the care of 
 the insane in the Middle Ages brings out clearly 
 the fact, that the modern generation may learn from 
 those old Catholic humanitarians, whose hearts and 
 whose charity served so well to make up for any defi- 
 ciericies of intellect or of science the moderns would pre- 
 sume them to have labored under. There are said to be 
 three great desiderata for the intelligent care for the 
 insane : 
 
 First : The open door system, permitting patients who 
 are not violent, and who can be trusted even though 
 they have many queer notions, to come and go at will. 
 
 Second : The after care treatment of those who have 
 been insane, to the end that they may not be compelled to 
 go back to strenuous lives of toil ; and above all, that they 
 
372 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 may not be forced into the too harrassing conditions of 
 which their mental breakdown originally was born. 
 
 Third : A colony system by which patients of lowered 
 intelligence may be cared for in the country, far away 
 from the stress of city life, and where, without the cares 
 of existence pressing upon them, they may be surrounded 
 by gentle, patient, kindly friends who will make every 
 allowance for their peculiarities and strive to help them 
 in their up-hill struggles. 
 
 These desiderata are so absolutely modern that they 
 have only been formulated definitely with the beginning 
 of the twentieth century. Notwithstanding this apparent 
 newness, I think that it will not be difficult to show that 
 the old-time methods of caring for the insane partook, 
 to a greater degree than would be suspected at the 
 present time, of these desirable qualities that modern 
 science has come to recognize as so indispensable for the 
 rational care of the mentally unbalanced. In saying this 
 I do not wish to claim for the Middle Ages accomplish- 
 ments beyond their deserts. My idea is rather to write 
 an interpretation ; to make clear from what we know of 
 the details of the care of the insane in the fourteenth 
 and fifteenth centuries, that unconsciously those genera- 
 tions, in their large-hearted charity, anticipated what is 
 best in our present system. 
 
 The first record in English medical literature of a 
 home for the insane is that of Bethlehem Royal Hospital, 
 London, which has become famous under the familiar 
 shortened name of Bedlam, meaning a house or place of 
 confusion. Bethlehem was a general hospital into which 
 during the fourteenth century insane patients were ad- 
 mitted. There is a historical record to the effect that at 
 the beginning of the fifteenth century a royal commission 
 
CHURCH AND MENTALLY AFFLICTED 373 
 
 investigated the methods of treating the insane in vogue 
 there, because there had been complaint of abuses in the 
 institution. Practically every century since there have 
 been written corresponding records of similar investiga- 
 tions. The trouble seems always to have been that there 
 were too few attendants properly to take care of insane 
 patients, and thus they had to be placed in confinement 
 in various ways, which inevitably led to abuses. 
 
 For a generation or longer after each exposure by a 
 committee of inspection, the evils of this system would 
 be more or less tolerable ; then they would become un- 
 bearable once more and another investigation would be 
 demanded. I would like to feel that we have progressed 
 in all respects beyond these hit and miss methods, but 
 any one familiar with the present situation in the matter 
 is quite well aware that there are still many abuses that 
 need correction, and inspection committees find many 
 suggestions to make and sometimes gross evils to stig- 
 matize. 
 
 Bedlam seems, however, to have always been as well 
 and as humanely conducted as the spirit of the times 
 demanded. It must not be forgotten that according to 
 well authenticated tradition, a very large part of the 
 hospital's income was obtained by the collection of fees 
 for the admittance of visitors who came to be amused 
 by the vagaries of the insane. The number visiting the 
 asylum for this purpose must have been enormous, for, 
 though only a penny was charged for admission, the re- 
 sulting revenue is said to have amounted to four hundred 
 pounds sterling a year, showing that nearly one hundred 
 thousand persons had visited the institution. 
 
 From generations that were pleased to derive morbid 
 amusement out of the misfortunes of others, human- 
 
374 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 itarian care of the insane could not be reasonably ex- 
 pected ; but in view of this custom it is difficult to under- 
 stand how there could have been at this period any great 
 abuse of patients, in the matter of severe punishments 
 or inhuman restraint. 
 
 Some of the customs of the old-time hospitals were 
 interesting. It was believed that the one chance for an 
 insane patient to recover lay in trusting him somewhat, 
 allowing him even to go unattended outside the walls at 
 times. Patients in Bedlam were permitted to go out 
 alone after they improved in health, and if they were 
 poor they were allowed to obtain their living by means 
 of begging. In order that they might more easily work 
 upon public sympathy, they were permitted to wear tin 
 plates fastened to their arms. The wearers of these 
 were called " Bedlams, " or " Bedlamites " or ''Bedlam 
 beggars, " and tradition says that they received much 
 more consideration than ordinary beggars. 
 
 It may appear that this was dangerous liberty, but the 
 ordinary person 1 is apt to consider as dangerous the open 
 door treatment of the insane which most alienists now 
 hold to be the most commendable feature of present day 
 treatment. It seems reasonable that to permit patients 
 to go into the open air and sunshine was better than 
 confining them in the hospital, and doubtless the insignia 
 which they wore especially commended them to the care 
 and alms and sympathy of the people. 
 
 Much has been said with regard to the alleged neglect 
 and abuse of the insane during the period of exorcism, 
 because of the misunderstanding of the cause of the 
 disease. There are persons who consider neurasthenia 
 and major-hysteria as more or less modern forms of 
 nervous diseases, but it is more than probable that they 
 
CHURCH AND MENTALLY AFFLICTED 375 
 
 existed with considerable frequency in the olden time. 
 Many of these cases would be cured by strong sugges- 
 tions, that is, by the treatment usually given to supposed 
 possessed persons, and as we know that the best possible 
 treatment for certain forms of major-hysteria is to 
 frighten the patient (the earthquake at San Francisco 
 cured a dozen persons who had not been regarded as 
 able to walk, some of them for years) , it is probable that a 
 goodly number of the patients of the past were cured 
 by the rather heroic measures sometimes devised. Sir 
 Thomas More mentions such cases, and though himself 
 eminently humane, commends this method of treatment 
 4 'in which such patients were severely scourged and 
 thoroughly aroused from their willfulness. " 
 
 When psychiatrists talk slightingly of the old-time 
 methods of caring for the insane, it is well to recall that, 
 considering the conditions and limitations of scientific 
 knowledge, they seem to have done very well in those 
 times. It has been the custom of critics to hold up to 
 ridicule that insane patients were sometimes taken to 
 special shrines in order that their ills might be cured by 
 the direct interposition of Heaven ; or that the devil 
 supposed to possess them, might be driven out. It must 
 not be forgotten, however, that such procedures were of 
 supreme utility in mild cases viewed merely from the 
 human standpoint, and without any appeal to the super- 
 natural. The journey to a favorite shrine, undertaken 
 under conditions that gave variety to life and new inter- 
 ests, together with the hope aroused while there, were 
 sufficient to help the patient physically and, not infre- 
 quently, mentally. 
 
 Some of the most distinguished specialists in mental 
 diseases in Germany, France and England are on record 
 
376 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 as believing that one of the most helpful agencies in the 
 relief of certain symptoms of mental disturbance, and 
 even the cure of milder forms of insanity, is confidence 
 in the Almighty as expressed by prayer. At a meeting 
 of the British Medical Association two years ago, this 
 idea was expressed very forcibly by a distinguished 
 specialist, and was concurred in by a number of those 
 at the meeting of the Section on Mental Diseases. He 
 said : 
 
 " As an alienist and one whose life has been concerned 
 with the suffering of the mind, I would state that of all 
 hygienic measures to counteract disturbed sleep, de- 
 pressed spirits and all of the miserable sequels of a dis- 
 tressed mind, I would undoubtedly give the first place to 
 the simple habit of prayer. * * * Such a habit does 
 more to calm the spirit and strenghten the soul to over- 
 come mere incidental emotionalism than any other 
 therapeutic agent known to me." 
 
 The medieval peoples realized this, and finding it bene- 
 ficial, used it to decided advantage in a large number of 
 cases. 
 
 Occasionally some very striking developments resulted 
 from pilgrimages made for the cure of the insane. A 
 typical instance is to be found at the shrine of St 
 Dympna in Belgium. Many persons in various stages 
 and differing forms of mental derangement were accus- 
 tomed to go or be taken to the shrine of this Irish girl 
 missionary, whose martyrdom had so elevated her in the 
 estimation of the people of the neighborhood that they 
 thought her tomb worthy of special reverence. The 
 sufferers who journeyed thither frequently lingered for 
 some time in order to invoke the aid of the Saint, and, 
 if possible, secure her intercession for the relief of their 
 
CHURCH AND MENTALLY AFFLICTED 377 
 
 ailments. Many of them were found to get along better 
 in the quiet of the little village than they had done in 
 their homes, and as they were simply quartered among 
 the people of the village, their friends were able for a 
 trifling pecuniary consideration to secure their main- 
 tenance there for an indefinite period, in the hope that 
 what the Saint had not granted at the beginning might 
 be obtained by more assiduous devotion at her shrine. 
 At first the friends probably intended to come back and 
 take the patients away, but after a time, finding that 
 they got along so well near the shrine, they gradually 
 learned to leave them there entirely. Thus originated 
 the famous insane colony at Gheel which has in recent 
 years been the subject of more attention on the part of 
 alienists the world over than almost any other therapeu- 
 tic method of our time. This medieval invention of 
 caring for the non-violent insane, especially those of low 
 grades of intelligence, in the midst of small families, 
 where none of the cares of life burden them and where 
 they have occupation of mind and body and certain 
 human interests, such as might appeal to their weakened 
 intelligence, is probably the ideal method of caring for 
 such patients. Certain it is that it is much better than 
 the large institutional system, the invention of succeed- 
 ing centuries, from which we are now trying to get 
 away as fast and as far as possible. 
 
 The Gheel mode of caring for the insane is really the 
 colony system that is now universally recognized as the 
 most favorable mode of treatment for these patients. It 
 seems not unlikely that there was much more of this 
 practice during the Middle Ages in Europe than we have 
 any idea of. 
 
 With regard to the serious accusations so often made 
 
378 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 against the people of the Middle Ages for their cruelty 
 to the insane, not much apology will be needed by those 
 who know anything about the treatment of the insane, 
 even in quite recent times. Measures of rigid restraint 
 were employed for dangerous cases. Patients who had 
 shown manifestations of violence were likely to be 
 chained. Severe and unusual punishments were some- 
 times inflicted. Of all this there is no doubt. Abuses 
 crept into institutions. The insane were sometimes 
 brutally treated or hideously neglected. These, how- 
 ever, are objections that can be urged against our 
 system of taking care of the insane in many places even 
 at the present day. In certain states, in order to lessen 
 the expense of caring for the insane, they are kept in 
 departments in the Poor Houses, and every now and 
 then a legislative committee of investigation tells the 
 story of appalling evils that have been discovered. It 
 was not because they thought that possessed people 
 deserved punishment, nor because they hoped thus to 
 get the devils to go out of them, that the medieval 
 generations allowed such things in their asylums, but 
 because human nature will neglect its duties toward 
 the ailing unless carefully superintended, and because 
 regular attendants become hardened in their feelings 
 sooner or later, when they serve only for pay, and the 
 result always is the abuse of patients. 
 
 In proportion to the number of patients cared for, 
 there was much more need for restraint in those old 
 days than at present. As a rule, during the Middle 
 Ages prisons and asylums were few. Only the violently 
 insane, who already had actually committed some 
 serious crime or threatened to, were kept in the asy- 
 lums. For these restraint is needed even at the present 
 
CHURCH AND MENTALLY AFFLICTED 379 
 
 time. We have learned to apply milder measures by 
 employing many more attendants, but even that has 
 come only in the last generation or two. The milder 
 cases of insanity were not kept in asylums, but were 
 allowed to wander about the country, or were cared for 
 in their families with a devotion of which one finds no 
 example at the present time; or if the insane person 
 belonged to a noble family, very often the patient was 
 kept in the house of a retainer and gently cared for. The 
 fact that the milder cases were allowed to wander about 
 the country might seem to be dangerous, but is not so 
 serious as is ordinarily thought. Only a limited number 
 of insane patients are likely to be violent, and these, as 
 a rule, show manifestations of it early in the history of 
 their affection. It was the frequent meeting with these 
 harmless insane, as they were to be encountered in the 
 many places through which he wandered professionally 
 in England, that enabled Shakespeare to make his pic- 
 tures of insane characters so true to life, that even at 
 the present day we are able to recognize from his mar- 
 velous description exactly the form of insanity that was 
 present. 
 
 In a word, these generations of the Middle Ages 
 builded better than they knew in this matter of the 
 care of the mentally afflicted, as in everything else 
 which they took up for serious consideration. They did 
 only the most obvious things, and what they could not 
 very well help, under the circumstances, and yet very 
 often the solutions of grave problems which they hit 
 upon so naturally, proved to be as efficient as, indeed 
 sometimes practically identical with, those we have 
 reached by much more elaborate methods. This story 
 of the treatment of the insane in the Middle Ages 
 
380 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 deserves careful study. I have given only a few sug- 
 gestions for the interpretation of certain methods of 
 action on their part, apparently very different from our 
 ideas, yet in reality anticipating our most recent con- 
 clusions. 
 
 What many people have not been able to forgive the 
 generations of the Middle Ages, and especially the 
 ecclesiastics of the centuries before our own, is that as 
 educated men and leaders of the people they should 
 have accepted the view that mental diseases may, in 
 some of their forms at least, be due to possession by 
 the devil or some other spiritual interference with the 
 working of the human intellect. During the latter half 
 of the nineteenth century, it became the custom among 
 the educated to scoff at any possible manifestation of 
 this kind. The interference of the spiritual world with 
 any of man's actions came to-be looked upon as absurd, 
 except by those who still clung to old-time beliefs and 
 thought that new fashions in opinion might very well 
 prove almost as variable as do corresponding fads in the 
 realm of dress or of interests. The difficulty in the 
 matter was that the generations of the latter nine- 
 teenth century lost their faith, to a great extent, in the 
 existence of a spiritual world, and consequently it was 
 easy to laugh at those who had found the interference 
 of such a world as not only possible, but actual, in a 
 great many affairs in human life. As a matter of fact, 
 when we realize how many utterly inexplicable phe- 
 nomena the earlier centuries tried to explain this way, 
 it is not surprising to find their explanation sometimes 
 wrong. 
 
 It is very easy, to my mind, for men of our genera- 
 tion to be too hard in their judgments of the men of 
 
CHURCH AND MENTALLY AFFLICTED 381 
 
 the Middle Ages with regard to the curious phenomena, 
 psychic, spiritistic and occult, which, with all our 
 advance in science, are still almost as obscure to the 
 eye of the intellect as they were seven centuries ago. 
 The medieval generations saw a great many things that 
 they could not explain happening round them, and 
 attributed them to spiritual agencies. We have learned 
 since that many of these things are merely natural, and 
 must not be considered as due to anything else than the 
 ordinary laws of nature. We have not eliminated belief 
 in the spiritual world, however, and there is still a large 
 proportion of mankind who think that they see, even in 
 the matter-of-fact world around them of the present 
 day, many signs of interference in human affairs by 
 agencies distinct from those of human beings and quite 
 independent of matter. It is easy to dismiss this side 
 of the question with a shrug of the shoulders and say 
 that it need not be taken into account. A man who 
 does this easily succeeds in convincing himself that 
 there are no evidences for spiritual manifestations in 
 our life, and that the stories with regard to them are 
 all nonsense. 
 
 It is curious, however, that anyone who investigates 
 and does not merely dismiss at once, is very prone to 
 come to a contrary conclusion, even though all his train- 
 ing and the traditions of his education are opposed to 
 such an admission. There are many prominent scientists 
 who have allowed themselves to be drawn into the 
 investigation of spiritualistic manifestations so-called. 
 Very few of them have come away from their investi- 
 gations entirely convinced that there was nothing in 
 them. Frauds they have found ; sleight-of-hand imposi- 
 tions they have exposed ; but apart from all these, there 
 
382 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 is a residue of phenomena which they cannot explain 
 and which convinces many of them of the existence and 
 the mundane action of forces independent of matter. 
 The men who come to these conclusions are not only the 
 ignorant, nor the over-credulous, but frequently rep- 
 resentative leaders in scientific thought men who are 
 known to be thoroughly capable of weighing evidence, 
 prominent lawyers and judges, above all, men who are 
 accustomed to investigation as most painstaking scien- 
 tists and faithful students of nature. 
 
 A few examples will illustrate this. Mr. Alfred 
 Russell Wallace, the co-discoverer with Darwin of the 
 theory of natural selection, has a name in the scientific 
 world that places him among the leaders of scientific 
 thought. For many years he has been convinced that 
 spiritualism contains in itself truths that deserve careful 
 investigation, and he for one is persuaded that the 
 neglect of investigation of this subject, on the part of 
 recent generations, is one of the most serious mistakes, 
 from a purely scientific standpoint, that they have 
 made. Sir William Crookes, whose brilliant theories 
 with regard to the fourth stage of matter, radiant 
 matter, would seem to have quite appropriately prepared 
 him for the proper investigation of existences even 
 beyond the domain of the attenuated substances with 
 which he had been so much concerned, is another of the 
 prominent scientists of the day who confesses to a belief 
 in the truth of spiritualistic phenomena. He made his 
 first publication on the subject more than a quarter of a 
 century ago. When a score of years after this he was 
 elected as the President of the British Association for 
 the Advancement of Science, the most prominent sci- 
 entific body in Great Britain, and, it may be said, in the 
 
CHURCH AND MENTALLY AFFLICTED 333 
 
 English-speaking world, he recurred in his Presidential 
 address to the subject of spiritualism, and said that in 
 the meantime he not only had not changed his mind with 
 regard to the truth of certain spiritualistic phenomena, 
 but had even become more convinced than he was orig- 
 inally. 
 
 These are prominent English scientists, and English- 
 men are supposed to be more conservative, less likely to 
 be influenced by personal motives, and less prone to be 
 led astray by imaginative influences, than their col- 
 leagues on the Continent. Besides these two whom we 
 have mentioned, there is a third one, of quite as great 
 prominence, Sir Oliver Lodge, who is also a convert to 
 belief in the reality of certain spiritual manifestations, 
 and other names might readily be mentioned. Over in 
 France, the most prominent of living physiologists, 
 Professor Charles Richet, who is well known for inves- 
 tigating work of a high order and successful original 
 research that has made his name familiar throughout 
 the medical world at least, is another modern scientist 
 who cannot but think that there is something in spir- 
 itualistic manifestations. The latest convert to these 
 notions is an even more surprising addition to such a 
 group of witnesses to the possibility of the interference 
 of spirits with human affairs. This is no less a person 
 than Lombroso, the well-known writer on criminology, 
 who has recently confessed that certain tests made by 
 him showed beyond all doubt that there were influences 
 at work quite independent of human powers, and show- 
 ing the existence of a world apart from matter. This 
 immaterial world evidently interpenetrates, and may 
 interfere with things in the material world as we 
 know it. 
 
384 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 In a word, it may be said that if a man wants to 
 keep the spiritual side of things out of his purview of 
 life, he may do so by refusing to investigate any evi- 
 dence that would demonstrate the existence of spiritual 
 forces in the world around him. The heavy price, how- 
 ever, that he pays for absolute certainty and peace 
 of mind in this matter is peremptory refusal to inves- 
 tigate. If he gives himself up to investigations, he 
 comes inevitably to the conclusion that there is some- 
 thing in the belief in the existence of spirits all round 
 us, and of the possibility of their interference in the 
 ordinary affairs of life. It is true that after he has 
 come to this conclusion he may not be able to demon- 
 strate it to others. His conviction of it, however, will 
 be none the less absolute because of this. His adhesion 
 to the new belief may seem to many people absurd. 
 He will accept this view of his state of mind quite 
 calmly, and apparently enjoy the compensation of 
 finding the absurdity to be in the other point of view. 
 It matters not how distinguished a scientist he may be, 
 he comes out of investigation of spiritual phenomena 
 persuaded of the existence of a spiritual world. 
 
 This persuasion seems to come by some form of in- 
 tuition not quite dependent on the ordinary processes 
 of intelligence. It is as if spirit called to spirit across 
 the abyss, from the immaterial to the material, as if 
 somehow we obtained a conviction of the existence of 
 spirits around us by the very sympathy of our natures 
 and their relationship to the immaterial world, rather 
 than by the ordinary avenues of intelligence. It is, in 
 a word, a telepathy, the other agent in which is not 
 material, but quite independent of matter, yet somehow 
 is able to set up those vibrations in the ether which 
 
CHURCH AND MENTALLY AFFLICTED 385 
 
 affect brain cells, and thus bring about communications, 
 as Sir William Crookes explains the curious phenomena 
 in this line that occur between human beings. Such 
 an explanation may easily be dismissed as highly imag- 
 inative and altogether theoretic. As a student of psy- 
 chology now for many years, it has appealed to me, 
 however, as the only possible hypothesis that gives any 
 plausible explanation of the curious conversions which 
 so inevitably result from sympathetic attempts at inves- 
 tigation of the possibility of spirit interference in mun- 
 dane affairs. 
 
 How far this persuasion of spiritual interference in 
 ordinary human affairs has gone, will not be realized 
 except by those who are familiar with some of the 
 literature which has been made in the last twenty years 
 on the subject of psychical research. Not long since, a 
 distinguished European professor of physical science 
 went so far as to warn people of the dangers there 
 might be in dismissing the opinion that other intelli- 
 gences than those of men could interfere for the abro- 
 gation of certain natural laws. This may be scoffed at 
 as the height of credulity, and may be received in 
 sceptical mood by those who refuse to look into such 
 matters, because they know a priori that they cannot 
 be true! It is hard, however, to differentiate the atti- 
 tude of mind of such persons from that which Galileo 
 deprecated so much, in that letter of complaint to 
 Kepler, in which he said so bitterly that they refused 
 to look through his telescope and demolished, as they 
 thought, his observations by logical conclusions from 
 what they knew already. It is to be remarked that it 
 was not ecclesiastics of whom he was talking- at this 
 time, but professors of science at the University of 
 
386 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 Pisa, who were quite as unsympathetic towards certain 
 of his astronomical discoveries as were any of the ec- 
 clesiastics of his time. 
 
 Alfred Russell Wallace has summed up this matter in 
 a well-known chapter on psychic research, which he 
 places among what he calls the failures of A Wonder- 
 ful Century the nineteenth. While personally viewing 
 this matter from a very different standpoint to that 
 from which it is viewed by Mr. Wallace, I cannot help 
 but think that the position he occupies is much nearer 
 the truth than the absolute refusal to credit stories of 
 supra-natural or ultra-natural, if not supernatural inter- 
 ferences in human affairs. When Mr. Wallace has an 
 opinion he is likely to express it very forcibly, and he 
 has done so in this case. He does not hesitate to 
 attribute a great many marvelous happenings to practi- 
 cally the same forces as the medieval people formulated 
 for them, though they would disagree utterly in the 
 purposes attributed to these events. Mr. Wallace says : 
 
 "The still more extraordinary phenomena veridical 
 hallucinations, warnings, detailed predictions of future 
 events, phantoms, voices or knockings, visible or audi- 
 ble to numerous individuals, bell-ringing, the playing 
 on musical instruments, stone-throwing and various 
 movements of solid bodies, all without human contact 
 or any discoverable physical cause, still occur among us 
 as they have occurred in all ages. These are now being 
 investigated, and slowly but surely are proved to be 
 realities, although the majority of scientific men and of 
 writers for the press still ignore the cumulative evidence 
 and ridicule the inquirers. These phenomena being 
 comparatively rare, are as yet known to but a limited 
 number of persons ; but the evidence for their reality is 
 
CHURCH AND MENTALLY AFFLICTED 387 
 
 also very extensive, and it is absolutely certain that 
 during the coming century they too will be accepted as 
 realities by all impartial students and by the majority 
 of educated men and women. " 
 
 Mr. Wallace has insisted further on the utterly unsci- 
 entific position of many of those who refuse to look into 
 the evidence for these phenomena, so plainly beyond 
 the power of the ordinary forces of nature as we know 
 them, or of the human intelligences in the body, that 
 are immediately around us. He deprecates, as does 
 Galileo, the method by which this subject has been kept 
 from receiving its due meed of attention. He points 
 out that it is because of intellectual intolerance that this 
 subject has been relegated to the background of scien- 
 tific attention. He even contends that a great lesson 
 is to be learned from this neglect, and one which will 
 help men to free themselves from that burden of over- 
 conservatism which, much more than religion or the- 
 ology, has impeded the progress of knowledge and the 
 advance of science. He says : 
 
 "The great lesson to be learnt from our review of 
 this subject is, distrust of all a priori judgments as to 
 facts ; for the whole history of the progress of human 
 knowledge, and especially of that department of knowl- 
 edge now known as psychical research, renders it 
 certain that whenever the scientific men or popular 
 teachers of any age have denied, on a priori grounds of 
 impossibility or opposition to the 'laws of nature/ the 
 facts observed and recorded by numerous investigators 
 of average honesty and intelligence, these deniers have 
 always been wrong. " 
 
 " Future ages will, I believe, be astonished at the vast 
 amount of energy and ignorance displayed by so many 
 
388 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 of the great men of this century in opposing unpalatable 
 truths, and in supposing that a priori arguments, ac- 
 cusations of imposture or insanity, or personal abuse, 
 were the proper means of determining matters of fact 
 and of observation in any department of human knowl- 
 edge." 
 
 If these hard-headed scientists, whose training has 
 been obtained in what physical scientists themselves, at 
 least, are fain to call the rigid school of the logic of facts, 
 and under the severe mental discipline of the inductive 
 method, accept on the evidence afforded them, the 
 manifestations of the spiritual world and its influences 
 in this as true, surely we will not condemn these men 
 of the Middle Ages, who approached the subject in such 
 a different temper, if they came to the same conclusion. 
 We recognize that the modern scientist, with his trained 
 powers of observation and his elaborate facilities for 
 eliminating the adventitious in his experiments, is in a 
 position to judge impartially with regard to such sub- 
 jects. More than this, his life has usually been spent 
 in making such syntheses of evidence for and against 
 the significance of facts, as should enable him to be a 
 proper judge. If, then, whenever he seriously devotes 
 himself to such an investigation, he comes almost in- 
 evitably to the conclusion that spirits do intervene in 
 our affairs, yet we refuse to believe with him, it is hard 
 to know on what principle we shall accept his scientific 
 conclusions. If we cannot bring ourselves to think his 
 conclusions are of equal value in both cases, we place 
 ourselves in a strange dilemma. The medieval scholars 
 were prone, because of the faith to which they had 
 given their whole-hearted adhesion, to see spiritual 
 powers at work in many things. In this they were 
 
CHURCH AND MENTALLY AFFLICTED 389 
 
 sometimes sadly mistaken, but not so much mistaken 
 as certain generations of the nineteenth century, who 
 absolutely refused to accept any possibility of spiritual 
 interference in things mundane. Both the extremes 
 are mistakes. It is manifestly more of a mistake, how- 
 ever, to deny spiritual influence entirely (I talk now 
 from the standpoint of the scientist and not the be- 
 liever) , than to accept so much of spiritual interference 
 as the medieval generations permitted themselves to be 
 convinced of. 
 
 This whole subject is one that cannot be dismissed 
 as the conclusion of a bit of vapid superficial argumen- 
 tation. It is one of the great mysteries of life and of the 
 significance of man in the world. The medieval peoples 
 did much harm by accepting the position, that many 
 persons suffering from ordinary nervous and mental 
 diseases as we now know them were really possessed by 
 the devil. The treatment accorded these supposedly 
 possessed (for the moment we lay aside the question as 
 to the possibility of the reality of diabolic possession) was 
 not any worse than has frequently been accorded to 
 sufferers from mental and nervous disease in presum- 
 ably much more intelligent times, either because of fear 
 of them, or neglect on account of the absence of a 
 sufficient number of keepers, or because of curious 
 theories of medical science. Mankind, it is hoped, is 
 progressing, but the amount of progress from genera- 
 tion to generation is not enough, that any succeeding 
 age should criticise severely the well-intentioned though 
 mistaken efforts of their predecessors to meet, accord- 
 ing to the best of their ability, problems that are as 
 deep as those involved in nervous and mental diseases. 
 
390 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 "The truth seeker has had to struggle for his physi- 
 cal life. Each acquisition of truth has been resisted by 
 the full force of the inertia of satisfaction with precon- 
 ceived ideas. Just as a new thought comes to us with 
 a shock which rouses the resistance of our personal con- 
 servatism, so a new idea is met and repelled by the 
 conservatism of society." (Jordan, The Struggle for 
 Realities, in Footsteps of Evolution.) 
 
 I. 
 OPPOSITION TO SCIENTIFIC PROGRESS. 
 
 The main purpose of this book has not been accom- 
 plished unless it has been shown that the Church, the 
 Popes, and ecclesiastics generally during the Middle 
 Ages, and especially during the three centuries before 
 the reformation so-called, far from opposing scientific 
 advance or investigation, were constantly in the posi- 
 tion of encouraging and fostering science, even if the 
 meaning of that term be limited, as it has come to be in 
 modern times, to the physical or natural sciences. The 
 Popes and the great ecclesiastics were patrons of learn- 
 ing of every kind, and that they not only encouraged, 
 but aided very materially the institutions of learning in 
 which the problems of science with which we are now 
 engaged, were discussed in very much the same way as 
 we discuss them at the present time, is evident from 
 the story of the foundation of the universities. It will 
 be a source of wonder to many people how, with all this 
 as a matter of simple educational history, the traditions 
 with regard to the supposed opposition of the Church 
 and the Popes to science have grown up. This is not 
 so difficult to understand, however, as might be thought, 
 
APPENDIX 391 
 
 and a few words of explanation will serve to show that 
 there was opposition to science, but that this was not 
 due to religious intolerance in any proper sense of the 
 term. 
 
 Those who give the religious element a prominent 
 place in this, forget how much natural opposition to the 
 introduction of new ideas there is in men's minds, 
 quite apart from their religious convictions. Nearly two 
 centuries ago Dean Swift said, in his own bitter frame 
 of mind of course, but still with an approach to truth 
 that has made the expression one of the oft-quoted pas- 
 sages from his works : ' ' When a true genius appears in 
 the world, you may know him by this sign that all the 
 asses are in confederacy against him." 
 
 I suppose the Dean himself would have been the first to 
 insist that some of his colleagues in the ministry emi- 
 nently deserved the opprobrious substantive epithet he 
 employed. It would be too much to expect that there 
 should not be as many foolish ones among the clergy of 
 the olden times as in any other of the professions. Oc- 
 casionally one of these foolish clergymen rose up in 
 opposition to science. Whenever he did, especially if he 
 belonged to the class mentioned by Dean Swift, then he 
 surely made his religion the principal reason for his op- 
 position. That gave an added prestige in his mind and 
 in the minds of those who accepted his teachings, to 
 whatever he had to say on the subject. This no more 
 involved the Church itself, nor ecclesiastics generally, in 
 the condemnation of the particular scientific doctrine, 
 than does the frequent opposition of peculiar members 
 of medical societies to real progress in medicine, involve 
 the organization to which they belong in the old-f ogyism 
 which would prevent advance. 
 
 It must not be forgotten that small minds are always 
 prone to find very respectable reasons for their opposi- 
 tion to something that has been hitherto unknown to 
 them. While novelty is supposed to attract, and does 
 when it comes in a form not too unfamiliar, and when 
 men are not asked to give up old convictions for its sake, 
 real newness always evokes opposition. Washington 
 Allston once said very well with regard to ^ this, that 
 ' ' An original mind is rarely understood until it has been 
 reflected from some half-dozen congenial with it, so 
 
392 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 averse are men to admitting the true in an unusual 
 form ; whilst any novelty, however fantastic, however 
 false, is greedily swallowed/' This principle will be of 
 great service in making clear the real significance of 
 many incidents in the history of science, in which not 
 only intelligent men without special scientific training 
 have been found in opposition to real scientific progress, 
 but in which men having had the advantage of long ex- 
 perience in scientific investigation, having themselves 
 sometimes as younger men done original work of value, 
 have yet placed themselves squarely in opposition to sci- 
 entific advance that eventually proved of the highest 
 possible significance. 
 
 Scientific men have, as a rule, been quite ready at all 
 times to argue that an announced new discovery could 
 not be true, that indeed it was absurd to think of it. 
 The word nonsense is perhaps oftener on scientists' 
 tongues than on any others'. It is not because he is 
 deliberately opposed to scientific progress that this is the 
 case with the scientist, but that he is so convinced of 
 the ultimate significance of many things that he knows 
 already, that he cannot readily bring himself to admit 
 the idea of progress along lines with which he is familiar. 
 To do so, indeed, supposes that he himself has been 
 lacking in perspicacity and in powers of observation. 
 The fact that it is usually a young man who makes the 
 new observation, not infrequently a young man who 
 does not know the great body of science that the older 
 acknowledged scientist does, only adds to the readiness 
 with which the senior is apt to consider the new proposi- 
 tion as absurd. Ecclesiastics have done this same thing, 
 but not nearly so frequently as scientists. There was a 
 time when the majority of educated men belonged to the 
 clerical order, and then it seemed as though it must be 
 religion that prompted some of the conservatism which 
 led them to oppose what proved eventually to be new 
 truths. It was not, however, but only human nature 
 asserting itself in spite of education. 
 
 Prof. David Starr Jordan in reviewing briefly the his- 
 tory of .the Struggle for Realities in one of the essays in 
 his Foot-notes to Evolution, 1 has summed up the genuine 
 
 1 N. Y., Appleton, 1902. 
 
APPENDIX 393 
 
 significance of this supposed opposition of science and 
 theology in some striking paragraphs. To my mind, he 
 places the whole subject on its proper foundation, and 
 properly disposes of the supposed conflict between religion 
 or theology and science. He says : 
 
 "But as I have said before, the real essence of con- 
 servatism lies not in theology. The whole conflict is a 
 struggle in the mind of man. It exists in human psy- 
 chology before it is wrought out in human history. It is 
 the struggle of realities against tradition and suggestion. 
 The progress of civilization would still have been just 
 such a struggle had religion or theology or churches or 
 worship never existed. But such a conception is im- 
 possible, because the need for all these is part of the 
 actual development of man. 
 
 Intolerance and prejudice is, moreover, not confined to 
 religious organizations. The same spirit that burned 
 Michael Servetus and Giordano Bruno for the heresies of 
 science, led the atheist ' ' liberal ' ' mob of Paris to send 
 to the scaffold the great chemist Lavoisier, with the 
 sneer that "the republic has no need of savants." The 
 same spirit that leads the orthodox Gladstone to reject 
 natural selection because it "relieves God of the labor 
 of creation," causes the heterodox Hseckel to condemn 
 Weismann's theories of heredity, not because they are 
 at variance with facts, but because such questions are 
 settled once for all by the great philosophic dictum (his 
 own) ' ' of monism. ' ' 
 
 This very natural ultra-conservative mood of scientists 
 is well illustrated by a passage from Galileo's life, in 
 which he himself describes in a letter to Kepler, the 
 great mathematician and astronomer of his time, the re- 
 ception that his new invention, the telescope, met with 
 from distinguished men of science, their colleagues of 
 the moment. The Italian astronomer encountered the 
 well-known tendency of men to reason from what they 
 already know, that certain advances in knowledge are 
 impossible or absurd. The favorite expression is that 
 the thoughts suggested by some new discovery are il- 
 logical. Men have always reasoned thus, and apparently 
 they always will. Knowledge that they learn before 
 they are forty constitutes, consciously or unconsciously, 
 for them the possible sum of human knowledge, and 
 
394 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 they can only think that apparent progress that contra- 
 dicts their previous convictions must be founded on false 
 premises or faulty observation. We cannot help sym- 
 pathizing with Galileo, though it must be a consolation 
 for others who are struggling to have ideas of theirs 
 adopted, to read the words addressed to his great con- 
 temporary and sympathetic fellow worker by the Italian 
 astronomer. 
 
 "What wilt thou say," he writes, "of the first 
 teachers at the University at Padua, who when I offered 
 to them the opportunity, would look neither at the planets 
 nor the moon through the telescope ? This sort of men 
 look on philosophy as a book like the ^Eneid or Odyssey, 
 and believe the truth is to be sought not in the world of 
 nature, but only in comparison of texts. How wouldst 
 thou have laughed, when at Pisa the leading Professor 
 of the University there endeavored, in the presence of 
 the Grand Duke, to tear away the new planets from 
 Heaven with logical arguments, like magical exor- 
 cisms !" 
 
 This gives the key to the real explanation of the 
 Galileo incident better than would a whole volume 
 of explanation of it. It is now realized that very 
 few of those who have been most ready to quote 
 the example of Galileo's condemnation as an argument 
 for Church intolerance in the matter of science, know 
 anything at all about the details of his case. The bitter 
 intolerance of many men of science of his time, including 
 even that supposed apostle of the experimental method 
 Bacon to the Copernican system, is an important but 
 ignored phase of the case of Galileo, as it came before 
 the Roman inquisition. The peculiar position occupied by 
 Galileo caused Prof. Huxley, writing to Prof. St. George 
 Mivart, November 12th, 1885, to say that, after looking 
 into the case of Galileo when he was in Italy, he had 
 arrived at the conclusion ' ' that the Pope and the Col- 
 lege of Cardinals had rather the best of it." In our 
 own time, M. Bertrand, the Perpetual Secretary of the 
 French Academy of Sciences, declared that "the great 
 lesson for those who would wish to oppose reason with 
 violence was clearly to be read in Galileo's story, and 
 the scandal of his condemnation was learned without any 
 profound sorrow to Galileo himself; and his long life, 
 
APPENDIX 395 
 
 considered as a whole, must be looked upon as the most 
 serene and enviable in the history of science. ' ' 
 
 Certain historical incidents in which Church author- 
 ities and ecclesiastics assumed an attitude distinctly 
 opposed to true scientific advance can be found. They 
 are, however, ever so much rarer than is thought. Let 
 those who accept unquestioningly the supposed opposi- 
 tion of Church to science, count over for themselves the 
 definite cases of this in history which they know for 
 certain, and they will be surprised, as a rule, on what 
 slight grounds their persuasion in this matter is founded. 
 We have detailed the policy of the Church with regard 
 to education and science. Such incidents of opposition 
 as can be gathered were breaks away from that policy. 
 They were not due so much to faith or theology, though 
 these were often made excuses for them, as to the nat- 
 ural opposition to novelty, so common in man. 
 
 With regard to this matter, as with regard to opposi- 
 tion in general to science, President Jordan has once 
 more set forth the realities of the situation so as to 
 make it clear that, ^even when it was the dogmatic 
 spirit that was behind the refusal to accept certain 
 scientific truths, not only was there the best of inten- 
 tions in this in all cases, but in nearly all, the results 
 were such as to benefit mankind, and even to help 
 rather than hinder science. He says : 
 
 The desire of dogmatism to control action is in its 
 essence the desire to save men from their own folly. 
 The great historic churches have existed ' for the benefit 
 of the weak and the poor. ' By their observances they 
 have stimulated the spirit of devotion. By their com- 
 mands they have protected men from unwise action. 
 By their condemnations they have saved men from the 
 grasp of vice and crime. " 
 
 The ultra-conservatism which is the real factor at 
 fault in these cases exists in all men beyond middle life. 
 It is a wise provision of nature very probably to prevent 
 the young and headstrong from running away with the 
 race. We would be plunged into all sorts of curious 
 experimental conditions only for the fact that those 
 beyond middle life act as a brake on the initiative of 
 their juniors. While it does some harm, there is no 
 doubt of its supremely beneficial effects in the long run. 
 
396 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 For one announced great discovery that proves its actual 
 right to the title, there are at least a hundred that are 
 proclaimed with loud blare of trumpet, yet prove 
 nonentities. This sometimes becomes a very trouble- 
 some brake on progress, however. Some three hundred 
 years ago, Harvey said with regard to his epoch-making 
 discovery of the circulation of the blood, that he did not 
 expect any of his contemporaries who was over forty 
 years of age to accept it. His premonition in this 
 matter was fully confirmed by the event. Darwin, I 
 believe, once remarked that he did not think that men 
 of his own age in his own generation would accept his 
 theory, and most of them did not. 
 
 The opposition which, as a consequence of this natural 
 conservatism, is so constantly ready to manifest itself, 
 is as human as the envy which, much as we may bewail 
 the fact, accompanies all individual success. A history 
 of this phase of scientific progress is of itself very 
 interesting and of great psychological importance. A 
 short sketch of it will serve the purpose of placing 
 the opposition of churchmen to science in the category 
 where it belongs, and will make this subject appear in 
 its true light of a very natural and universal psychic 
 manifestation, not a religious or supposed theological 
 phenomenon. 
 
 As a matter of fact, it is comparatively easy to show 
 that there are many more incidents of opposition to the 
 progress of science on the part of scientists because of 
 their conservatism, than on the part of ecclesiastics 
 because of religion or theology. There has scarcely 
 ever been a really important advance made in science, 
 a really new discovery announced, which has not met 
 with such bitter opposition on the part of the men who 
 were most prominent in the science concerned at the 
 time, as to make things very uncomfortable for the 
 discoverer, and on many occasions this opposition has 
 taken on the character of real persecution. It will be 
 at once said that this is very different from the formal 
 condemnation by organized bodies of truths in science, 
 with all that this implies of ostracization and of dis- 
 couragement on the part of scientific workers. The 
 history of science is full of stories showing that formal 
 scientific bodies refused to consider seriously what were 
 
APPENDIX 397 
 
 really great discoveries, or that scientific editors not 
 only rejected papers representing valuable original 
 research, but even did not hesitate to discredit their 
 authors in such a way as to make it extremely difficult 
 for them to pursue their studies in science successfully, 
 and still more to prevent them from securing such 
 positions as would enable them to carry on their scien- 
 tific investigations under favorable circumstances. In 
 a word, persecution was carried out just as far as pos- 
 sible, and the result was quite as much discouragement 
 as if the opposition were more formal. It is not hard 
 to show, on the other hand, that while formal opposi- 
 tion by Church authorities was very rare, rejection 
 by medical and scientific societies and by the scientific 
 authorities for the moment of new discoveries was so 
 common, as to be almost the rule in the history of 
 progress in science. 
 
 This is so different from what is ordinarily supposed 
 to be the calm course of scientific evolution, that it will 
 need a series of illustrative cases to support it. In 
 recent years, however, the cultivation of the history of 
 science has been more ardent than in the past, and ^ the 
 result has been that many more know of this curious 
 anomaly and paradox in scientific history than was the 
 case a few years ago, and it is comparatively easy to 
 obtain the material to demonstrate it. One of the most 
 striking instances is that of Harvey. 
 
 Harvey discovered the circulation of the blood, at a 
 time and under circumstances that would surely lead us 
 to expect its immediate acceptance and the hailing of 
 him as a great original thinker in science. He first ex- 
 pounded it to his class, very probably in 1616, which 
 will be remembered as the year of Shakespeare's death. 
 The glory of the great Elizabethan era in England was 
 not yet passed. Men's minds had been opened to great 
 advances in every department of thought during the 
 preceding century, by the Renaissance movement and 
 the New Learning in England. Probably no greater 
 group of original thinkers has ever existed than were 
 alive in England during the preceding twenty-five years. 
 Four years after Harvey had sufficiently elaborated his 
 ideas on the circulation to present them to his class, 
 and the very year after he wrote his treatise on the 
 
398 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 subject, though he dared not publish it as yet, Lord 
 Bacon published his Novum Organum, in which he ad- 
 vocated the use in science of the very principles of 
 induction on which Harvey's great discovery was 
 founded. 
 
 What happened is interesting for our purpose. Har- 
 vey was so well acquainted with the intolerant temper 
 of men as regards new discoveries, that he hesitated to 
 publish his book on the subject until men had been 
 prepared for it, by his ideas gradually filtering out 
 among the medical profession through the members of 
 his class. He waited nearly fifteen years after his first 
 formal lesson on the subject, before he dared to commit 
 it to print. Shakespeare had made Brutus say to Portia: 
 
 " You are my true and honorable wife, 
 As dear to me as are the ruddy drops 
 That visit my sad heart ;" 
 
 but men were not yet ready to accept the great princi- 
 ple of the blood movement. There seems to be good 
 authority for saying that Harvey had more than suspected 
 his great truth for twenty-five years before he dared 
 print it. He realized that it would surely meet with 
 opposition and would make serious unpleasantness be- 
 tween him and his friends. He was not deceived in 
 anticipation. Many of his friends fell away from him, 
 and according to tradition, he lost more than half of his 
 consulting practice, because physicians could not and 
 would not believe that a man who evolved such a 
 strange idea as the constant movement of the blood all 
 over the body, from heart to surface and back, could 
 possibly be in his right mind, and, above all, be a suit- 
 able person to consult with in difficult cases. 
 
 Harvey's case is a lively picture of what happened to 
 Vesalius the century before in Italy, which we have 
 already discussed at length in the chapter on the Golden 
 Age of Anatomy. President White insists ^ that this 
 persecution was due to ecclesiastical opposition to dis- 
 section, but of this there is not a trace to be found. 
 Dissection was carried on with perfect freedom at all 
 of the Italian universities, though they were all under 
 ecclesiastical influence, and in none was there more 
 freedom than in the Papal University of Rome, at the 
 
APPENDIX 399 
 
 very time when Vesalius was doing his work in Northern 
 Italy. At this time, too, Bologna was famous for its 
 work in anatomy. Berengar of Carpi did a very large 
 number of dissections, though Bologna was at the mo- 
 ment a Papal city and the University was directly under 
 the Popes. 
 
 It is clear, then, that the opposition to Vesalius arose 
 entirely from the conservatism of fellow scientists in 
 medicine, who thought that what had been taught for 
 many hundreds of years in the universities, and had 
 been accepted by men quite as good as Vesalius or any 
 of their generation for over a thousand years, must 
 surely be nearer absolute truth than what this young in- 
 vestigator wished them to accept. It is scarcely to be 
 wondered that they resented, as men always do, what 
 must have seemed the intrusive rashness of this young 
 medical student, who was not yet thirty when he began 
 to claim the right to teach his teachers, and who wanted 
 to tell them that the medical world had all been wrong 
 not only for many years, but for many centuries, and 
 that he had been born to set them right. This is, after 
 all, the attitude of mind which naturally develops in 
 these cases, and it is no wonder that the old men use 
 whatever means they have in their power to prevent 
 rash young men from leading, as they think, the world 
 astray. 
 
 The cases of Harvey and Vesalius are by no means ex- 
 ceptional, nor was the opposition limited to England and 
 Italy, but examples of it may be found in every country 
 in Europe. Nor was it only with regard to anatomy and 
 anatomical discoveries and problems that such opposition 
 manifested itself. In this matter the story of Seryetus 
 is very interesting. He made some new discoveries in 
 anatomy, but these had nothing to do with the bitter op- 
 position which some of his ideas encountered in Paris, 
 quite apart from any question of theology or religion. 
 We do not know just when he discovered the circulation 
 in the lungs, which he described so clearly in the volume 
 on the renewal of Christianity, for which he was burned 
 at Geneva by Calvin. While at the University of Paris, he 
 had been mainly occupied with the department of thera- 
 peutics rather than of anatomy or physiology. He had 
 suggested especially certain changes in the mode of 
 
400 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 giving drugs. He had much to do with the general in- 
 troduction of syrups to replace more nauseating prepara- 
 tions of medicine. He was probably the first one to 
 realize that elegant prescribing, that is, the choice of 
 drugs and their combination in such a way as to make 
 them less unpleasant to the patient, was a consummation 
 eminently to be desired in medical practice. His ideas 
 on this subject met, as novelties always do, no matter 
 how good in themselves, with the most rancorous opposi- 
 tion. Factions were formed in the University. There 
 were riots in the streets. Students were wounded in the 
 fights which took place. Some even were killed ap- 
 parently. All this over the question whether medicine 
 as given to patients should be pleasant or unpleasant. 
 
 As we have had examples from England, France and 
 Italy, we may quote one from the Netherlands. We do 
 so only to emphasize the fact that everywhere, no matter 
 what the character of the people, nor the religion which 
 they happened to profess, their conservatism set them in 
 opposition at once to novelties in science. England was 
 Protestant in Harvey's time, and the Netherlands mainly 
 so at the period of which we are about to speak. 
 
 When Stensen, or as he is more familiarly known by 
 his Latin name, Steno, discovered and announced the 
 fact that the heart is a muscle, he was looked upon with 
 very much the same suspicion as to his sanity as Harvey, 
 a half-century before, when the great English physiol- 
 ogist proclaimed the circulation of the blood, and such 
 suspicions were rather openly expressed by those who 
 were too conservative to accept this new teaching. The 
 heart had been considered, not figuratively as we now 
 speak, but seriously and very literally, as the seat of the 
 emotions. Over and over again, all men had had the 
 experience that in times of emotional stress the heart 
 was disturbed. They could feel their emotions welling 
 up from their hearts, therefore there was no doubt in 
 their minds of the truth of the old teaching. Into the 
 midst of this perfectly harmonious concord of scientific 
 opinion, without a dissenting voice anywhere in the 
 world, comes a young man not yet twenty-five, who al- 
 most sacrilegiously declares that the heart is merely a 
 muscle and not a secreter of emotions. Fortunately for 
 him, he was of gentler disposition than most of the other 
 
APPENDIX 401 
 
 men who have had the independence of mind to make 
 discoveries, and so no very bitter opposition was aroused 
 against him. He was considered too harmless to be 
 taken very seriously, but at least when the announce- 
 ment first came, most of those who knew anything 
 about medicine, or thought they did, and this is much 
 more serious in these cases, recognized that young Sten- 
 sen had somehow allowed himself to be led astray into a 
 very foolish notion, and one that could only emanate 
 from a mind not quite capable of realizing truth as it was ; 
 and they did not hesitate to say so. 
 
 After this Stensen found the Netherlands quite an un- 
 sympathetic place for his studies, and so moved down into 
 Italy, where he could find more freedom of thought for 
 research and more appreciation, and continue his original 
 investigations with less scorn for his new discoveries. 
 Here he continued to hit upon original ideas that were 
 likely to make things quite uncomfortable for him, not 
 because of religious intolerance, but because of the more 
 or less hide-bound conservatism that always character- 
 izes mediocre minds. Far from coming into disrespect 
 here, however, he acquired many and very close friends. 
 He laid the foundation of modern geology and wrote a 
 little book that is a very wonderful anticipation of sup- 
 posedly nineteenth century ideas in that science. He 
 had come down into Italy a Protestant, having been 
 raised in that religion in his native Denmark. He found 
 so much of sympathy with every phase of intellectual 
 activity among the ecclesiastics in Italy, that he not 
 only became a convert to Catholicity, but after a time a 
 Catholic priest. His reputation spread to Rome, and the 
 Pope not only sent for and received this innovator in 
 anatomy and the founder of geology very courteously, 
 but treated him with every mark of appreciation, and 
 this within a half a century after Galileo's condemnation. 
 Stensen eventually went back to Northern Europe as a 
 bishop, in the hope of being able to convert to Catholic- 
 ity those among the Teutonic nations who had been led 
 away during the religious revolt. 
 
 It might be thought that such examples of persecution 
 were of course rather frequent in the distant centuries, 
 and must not be taken too seriously, since they come in 
 times before men had learned to respect one another's 
 
402 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 opinions and to realize that the assertions of an authority 
 in science are only to be considered as worth the reasons 
 he advances for them. Most people will be quite ready 
 to congratulate themselves on the fact that our modern 
 time has outlived this unfortunate state of mind, which 
 served to hamper scientific investigation. They will 
 probably even be quite self-complacent over the sup- 
 posed fact that, ever since the study of natural science 
 was taken up seriously at the end of the eighteenth and 
 the beginning of the nineteenth century, this unfortun- 
 ate temper has disappeared. Those who think so, how- 
 ever, know nothing of the history of nineteenth century 
 science, and especially not of nineteenth century medi- 
 cine. Jenner's great discovery of the value of vaccina- 
 tion against small-pox came just before the nineteenth 
 century opened. It met with the bitterest kind of 
 opposition. This was especially the case in England. 
 There is a doubt whether Germany did not eventually do 
 more to bring about the recognition of the immense 
 value of Jenner's discovery than his native England. 
 Anyone who has read Jenner's life knows how much he 
 was made to suffer from the bitterness of opponents' 
 expressions with regard to him. 1 It is true that he was 
 eventually rewarded quite liberally, and that honors were 
 showered upon him, but only after a preliminary series 
 of trials that must have made him regret, if possible, 
 that he had ever devoted himself to the propaganda of a 
 great truth. Nor did the dawn of the vaunted nine- 
 teenth century bring in a better state of affairs in this 
 regard. 
 
 It might perhaps be thought that this almost constant 
 tendency to oppose new developments in science 
 was not recognized for what it really is, the ultra- 
 conservatism of human nature as men grow older, until 
 comparatively modern times. Anyone who knows some 
 of the intimate details of the history of medicine is sure to 
 be better informed in this matter, and to be well aware 
 that, like Harvey, most discoverers in medicine antici- 
 pated this opposition. Usually they have had no exper- 
 ience of it before, but they realize from the way men 
 
 1 See my sketch of his life in Makers of Modern Medicine. Fordham University 
 Press, N. Y., 1907. 
 
APPENDIX 403 
 
 think around them, and very probably also from their 
 own prompt reaction of opposition to whatever is novel, 
 that men are sure to be ready to oppose the introduction 
 of whatever is new. One of the quietest, gentlest and 
 most lovable characters among the geniuses in medicine 
 was Auenbrugger, who, in Vienna, about 150 years ago, 
 discovered the method of percussion of the chest, which 
 is so helpful in the diagnosis of chest diseases. He 
 perfected his discovery when he was a young man of 
 about 25. He did not publish it until he was nearly 40 
 years of age. Like Harvey, he waited nearly a score of 
 years before giving it to the world. The reason for the 
 delay is given in the preface in the following words : 
 
 "I foresee very well that I shall encounter no little 
 opposition to my views, and I put my invention before 
 the public with that anticipation. I realize, however, 
 that envy and blame and even hatred and calumny have 
 never failed to come to men who have illuminated art or 
 science by their discoveries or have added to their perfec- 
 tion. I expect to have to submit to this danger myself, 
 but I think that no one will be able to call any of my 
 observations to account. I have written only what I 
 have myself learned by personal observation over and 
 over again, and what my senses have taught me during 
 long hours of work and toil. I have never permitted 
 myself to add or subtract anything from my observa- 
 tions because of the seductions of preconceived theory/' 
 
 Nearly fifty years after the publication of Auen- 
 brugger 's book, Laennec completed the development of 
 the diagnostic methods necessary for the differentiation 
 of chest diseases by the discovery of auscultation. 
 His was the greatest work ever done in clinical medi- 
 cine. The solution of the meaning of the multitude of 
 sounds that can be heard in the human chest required 
 a genius for observation, and almost infinite patience. 
 Laennec spent twelve years at the task, and then pub- 
 lished his books on the subject. Practically nothing of 
 importance has been added to his methods and results 
 in the more than three-quarters of a century of active 
 attention that has been given to medicine since that 
 time. Laennec did not expect that his discovery would 
 be taken up by his contemporaries. He even refers to 
 the cool reception which had been given to Auenbrug- 
 
404 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 ger's work, and deprecates the fact that a man who had 
 done so much for mankind should have met with such 
 neglect and lack of appreciation, and even the contempt 
 of his colleagues in medicine, who could not bring them- 
 selves to think that his method of ' ' drumming on the 
 chest, " as they called it, could ever mean much for the 
 recognition of disease. 1 
 
 In the preface of his book Laennec, like Auenbrugger, 
 prophesies that his work will not receive the attention 
 that it deserves, and attempts to lessen the effect of the 
 derision that will be meted out to it by calmly stating 
 his expectation of it. It is curious that both of these 
 men, one of them a German and the other a Frenchman, 
 one of them a rather stolid Styrian, the other of the 
 lively Celtic nature of the Bretons, should in turn have 
 realized, at a distance of a thousand miles and more 
 than half a century from one another, just what the 
 attitude of the men of science was to be toward their 
 discoveries, even though those are of a kind that were 
 eventually to be hailed as among the most important 
 steps in medical progress ever made. Certain words of 
 Laennec's preface are an echo of Auenbrugger's ex- 
 pressions. He said : 
 
 "For our generation is not inquisitive as to what is 
 being accomplished by its sons. Claims of new discov- 
 eries made by contemporaries are likely, for the most 
 part, to be met by smiles and mocking remarks. It is 
 always easier to condemn than to test by actual experi- 
 ence/' 
 
 Many people are accustomed to think that, after the 
 spirit that came into the world with the French Revolu- 
 tion, men were less prone to listen to authority or cling 
 to old-fashioned notions, and that liberalism of mind is 
 to be found written large on many pages of nineteenth 
 century scientific history. One of the great scientists 
 of the first part of the last century was Dr. Thomas 
 Young, to whom we owe so much with regard to the 
 theory of light waves and the existence of the ether to 
 carry them. Men absolutely refused to listen to this 
 idea at all at the beginning, though now it is the 
 
 1 Makers of Modern Medicine, by James J. Walsh, M. D., Ph. D., LL.D. Fordham 
 University Press, New York, 1307. 
 
APPENDIX 405 
 
 groundwork of most of our thinking and of nearly all of 
 our mathematical demonstrations with regard to the 
 movement of light. They not only refused, however, 
 but they expressed their scorn of the man who invented 
 such a cumbrous theory. Dr. George M. Gould, in one 
 of the volumes of his Biographic Clinics, has told the 
 story of Dr. Young's career, and I prefer to present it 
 in his words rather than my own. 
 
 "A practicing, physician, Young, as early as 1801, 
 hit upon the true theory of the luminiferous ether, and 
 of light and color, which nearly a century before had 
 been discovered by Robert Hooke. But his scientific 
 contemporaries would not see it, and to avoid persecu- 
 tion and deprivation of practice, Dr. Young was com- 
 pelled to publish his grand discoveries arid papers 
 anonymously. Published finally by the Royal Society 
 (one can imagine the editor's smile of superior wisdom 
 over such trash) , they were as utterly ignored as were 
 those of Mitchell, Thompson and Martin as to eye- 
 strain, two or three generations later. Arago finally 
 championed Dr. Young's theory in the French Academy, 
 but the leaders, LaPlace, Poissin, Biot, etc., denounced 
 and conquered, and not until 1823 would the Academy 
 allow the publication of Fresnel's papers on the subject ; 
 in about twenty-five years the silencers were themselves 
 silenced. But Young had been silenced too ; his disgust 
 was so great that he resigned from the Royal Society, 
 and devoted himself to his poor medical practice and to 
 deciphering Egyptian hieroglyphics. " (In which, by 
 the way, as might be expected I suppose, he made a 
 distinguished name for himself. ) 
 
 Many another important medical discoverer in the 
 nineteenth century found the truth of Auenbrugger's 
 and Laennec's expressions, and met the fate of Jenner 
 and Young. Next to vaccination for small-pox, proba- 
 bly the most important advance in nineteenth century 
 medicine was the discovery of the cause of puerperal 
 fever, and the consequent diminution of the death-rate 
 from that very fatal disease. At one time in the nine- 
 teenth century, it was much more dangerous for a 
 woman to have a child in a lying-in hospital in Europe 
 than to go through an attack of typhoid fever. The 
 death-rate was at least 10 per cent. When it was 
 
406 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 reduced to five per cent, the hospital authorities felt 
 quite self-complacent about it. Shortly after the be- 
 ginning of the second quarter of the nineteenth cen- 
 tury, there began to come glimmerings of the real cause 
 of the affection. It was not due to something from within 
 the patient, but was caused by a materies morbi intro- 
 duced from without. Usually the physician in attend- 
 ance was responsible for the introduction of it. He 
 came to these patients after contact with septic cases 
 of various kinds improperly cleansed. The consequence 
 was that he infected them, and puerperal fever was 
 contracted. 
 
 It would seem as though the medical profession would 
 be very ready and willing to test any such simple ex- 
 planation of the origin of a serious disease, and' if 
 possible secure its diminution. On the contrary, the old 
 men proved to be so wedded to the notion that the 
 physician could not possibly be the cause of this serious 
 condition, that they were very bitter in their denuncia- 
 tion of those who tried to introduce the new idea. One 
 distinguished old professor of midwifery declared very 
 superciliously that, of course, it was a very charming 
 thing for a young poet to insist on the notion that these 
 serious diseases were not associated necessarily with 
 the beautiful function of maternity itself, but were 
 extraneous factors quite apart from it; but there was 
 no doubt, he declared, that the affection came from 
 within, all the same, and that the youthful poet's idea 
 was only a pleasant fiction. The poet in the case was 
 Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, and, needless to say now, 
 though he was laboring under the heinous crime of 
 being a young man, and did indulge in occasional 
 poetry, he was entirely in the right, and the distin- 
 guished old professor entirely in the wrong. No little 
 denunciation was heaped upon the devoted head of 
 Holmes, however, for his strenuous humanitarian work 
 with regard to this subject. It cost Holmes some 
 of his medical friends and not a little practice for 
 some time. Even in America, then the land of the 
 free, there was a strong conservatism that made the 
 introduction of new ideas a very difficult and almost a 
 dangerous thing. 
 
 The man who worked out the same idea to a practical 
 
APPENDIX 407 
 
 effect in Europe met with even more determined opposi- 
 tion than did our own Dr. Holmes. I refer, of course, 
 to Semmelweiss, who, while teaching obstetrics in 
 Vienna, realized that it was the students and doctors en- 
 gaged in pathological work at the same time that they 
 were taking out their courses in obstetrics, who caused 
 the havoc among the patients in his (obstetrical) depart- 
 ment in the hospital. The death-rate in the hands of 
 these obstetrical attendants, who came directly to the 
 lying-in department from their work in pathology, was 
 sometimes as high as one in five. Semmelweiss insisted 
 that this state of affairs must cease, and that while the 
 students were doing the pathological work they must 
 not be allowed to attend obstetrical cases. This at once 
 raised a storm of opposition in the university. Poor 
 Semmelweiss lost his position as a consequence of it. In 
 the midst of the rancorous discussion that followed, 
 Semmelweiss lost his reason also for a time, and had to 
 be cared for in an insane asylum. It is well recognized 
 that his beneficent discovery was for him the cause of 
 many years of unhappiness. 
 
 Nor must it be thought that it is only with regard to 
 medical discoveries that such opposition bitter, personal, 
 rancorous and persecutory- can be aroused. While it 
 might be thought that the great minds in the ordinary 
 natural sciences would have no reason for the personal ele- 
 ment which more or less necessarily enters into medical 
 discussion because men had been applying for gain the 
 notions that now are proved to be incorrect, and their 
 reputations have been made on such applications, to think 
 that all was placid and quiet in the physical sciences 
 would be a serious mistake. Long ago Virgil asked in 
 a famous line, "Is it possible that there can be such 
 great wrath in divine minds ? " ' 'tantaene animae 
 celestibus irae" and we might be tempted to ask, can 
 there be such foolish intolerance on the part of scientific 
 teachers? but the answer would be the same in each 
 case. Virgil found that the gods were very human in 
 this respect, and anyone who knows the history of sci- 
 ence knows the scientists are like the pagan dieties, 
 when their conservative spirit is aroused, and when they 
 are up in arms, as they fondly think, to protect their be- 
 loved science from foolish innovators. 
 
408 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 A typical example of the sort of opposition which a 
 modern discoverer in science meets with is to be found 
 in the life of Ohm, after whom, because of his discovery 
 of the law of electrical resistance, the unit of resistance 
 is called. When he made his discovery Ohm was work- 
 ing in the Gymnasium at Cologne. The leading phys- 
 icists of the day could not bring themselves to believe 
 that this comparatively young man he was scarcely 
 forty at the time could have made a discovery that 
 went far beyond their knowledge. His paper on the 
 subject was discussed rather coldly and without any 
 recognition of the far-reaching significance of the work 
 that he had accomplished. A distinguished representative 
 of the University of Berlin criticised it severely. As the 
 law was advanced on mathematical as well as ex- 
 perimental grounds, the opinion of the university author- 
 ities at Berlin was looked upon as extremely important, 
 since at the time mathematics was the forte there. The 
 minister of education took his cue from the authorities 
 at Berlin. Ohm and his friends urged his appointment 
 to a university position. This was not only refused, but 
 was rejected in such terms that Ohm offered his resig- 
 nation as a teacher. His resignation was accepted with 
 regrets by the ministry, but with a distinct expression 
 that Ohm must not expect other than a gymnasium posi- 
 tion. The consequence of this misunderstanding was 
 that other teaching institutions in Germany would not 
 give him a place on their staff, because of the danger of 
 misunderstanding with the ministry of education. Ohm 
 had to accept a private tutorship in mathematics in 
 Berlin and a few hours of teaching in a military school, 
 for which he was paid three hundred thalers a year. 
 This would be something over $200 in our money, though 
 money was worth, in buying power, probably two or 
 three times as much as it is at the present time. Six 
 precious years of Ohm's life, at the very acme of his 
 powers as an investigator, were thus spent away from 
 the larger educational institutions and their opportunities 
 for research, because men would not accept the great 
 discovery that he had made, and could not be brought to 
 understand that a genius might come along to revolution- 
 ize all their thinking, though he did his work from an 
 obscure position, and practically attracted no attention 
 
APPENDIX 409 
 
 before he found this wonderful clue to the maze of 
 electrical science, which meant so much for the elucida- 
 tion of difficulties hitherto insoluble. 
 
 Always men find some excuse other than their own 
 unwillingness to confess that they were wrong. It is to 
 this that they object, and not the acceptance of the new 
 truth. In the course of writing the biographies of the 
 Makers of Modern Medicine, published last year, and the 
 Makers of Electricity, which is now preparing for the 
 press, one fact proved to be very striking. It is that 
 discoverers of really great truths are practically always 
 what we would call young men, and what older men are 
 apt to think of as scarcely more than mere boys. Such 
 men as Morgagni, the Father of Pathology ; Laennec, 
 the Father of Pulmonary Diagnosis ; Stokes, who taught 
 us so much about the lungs ; and Corrigan, who laid the 
 foundation of exact knowledge in heart diseases, were 
 under twenty-five when they made their primal dis- 
 covery, and some of them scarcely more than twenty. 
 Vesalius published his great work on anatomy when he 
 was not yet thirty, and Stensen did his best work under 
 twenty-five. When such men attempt to teach their 
 elders, of course they are properly put in their places 
 by their elders, and this often includes a good deal of 
 bitter satire and discouragement. It is the eternal con- 
 flict between youth and age that constitutes the main 
 reason for opposition to progress in any form of knowl- 
 edge, for youth will be progressive and age will be con- 
 servative. Unfortunately age often dissembles the 
 reasons for its opposition even to itself, and religion 
 and common sense and supposedly established principles 
 of science are all appealed to as contradicted by the new 
 doctrine introduced by young men, the truth of which 
 their elders cannot see. 
 
 Nor must it be thought that the second half of the 
 nineteenth century was free from this tendency to per- 
 secute those who made advances in medicine. There is 
 probably no form of treatment which, in the minds of 
 those who know most about the disease, that has done 
 more to save awful suffering in mankind than the 
 Pasteur treatment for rabies. Anyone who knows any- 
 thing about the history of the introduction of that 
 treatment will not be likely to forget how much of pain 
 
410 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 and suffering the discovery and introduction of it cost 
 its author. Nothing too bitter could be said by the 
 medical profession of Germany for many years after the 
 treatment was first broached. One of the most distin- 
 guished of German medical discoverers in the nine- 
 teenth century said, in a very climax of satire, "that 
 the distinguished Frenchman deserved to be well known 
 as one who treated diseases of which he knew nothing 
 by remedies of which he knew less." His good faith 
 was impugned, his statistics scorned, his results 
 laughed at, even his friends hesitated to say anything 
 on the subject. Those who were close to Pasteur know- 
 that he suffered, for his nature was of the most sensi- 
 tive, veritable torment because of this bitter opposition, 
 which at one time, because his French colleagues also 
 were sceptical of his treatment, threatened to impair 
 the usefulness of our greatest discoverer in nineteenth 
 century medicine and leave him without that support 
 which would enable him to go on with his precious in- 
 vestigation. 
 
 The more recent furore against antitoxin is still in 
 many persons' minds. Physicians who used it, and in 
 whose cases serious results took place, not the conse- 
 quence of the antitoxin, but the consequence of factors 
 of the disease over which they had no control, sometimes 
 suffered seriously in their practice. All forms of oppo- 
 sition were aroused against it. Even at the present 
 time one still hears of the crime, as some do not hesitate 
 to call it, of injecting the serum of a diseased animal 
 into the veins of the human being, and above all a little 
 child. There are men (intelligent men !) who do not 
 stop short of tracing all sorts of disease incidents that 
 happen after such an injection, even many years later, 
 to the evil effects of the horse serum employed. Such 
 people are exercising that superstitious fanatic faculty 
 which at all times has caused the obstinately conserva- 
 tive to seek and find the most serious objections to any 
 new doctrine, careless of the consequences that they 
 might bring on the discoverer or the benefit they might 
 prevent for the mass of humanity. 
 
 Originally vaccination was opposed by certain clergy- 
 men on the grounds of theological objection to its use. 
 At the present time most of such objection has ceased. 
 
APPENDIX 
 
 It is still clergymen, however, who are the most promi- 
 nent among the anti-vaccinationists, though now they 
 usually find biological and pathological, instead of theo- 
 logical reasons. They proclaim it a crime against nature, 
 from the biological standpoint, that the disease of an 
 animal should be conveyed to man, even for protective 
 purposes. At the present time one can find just as 
 bitter objections to vaccination in anti- vaccination jour- 
 nals as when the subject was first brought under dis- 
 cussion. Men must find some reason for their oppo- 
 sition, and they take the weapon that is handiest and 
 that they are able to use with best effect. In an era 
 when theological ideas were dominant, theology was 
 ready at hand for this purpose, but any other ology will 
 do just as well, and the history of science, even in the 
 present day, will show that always some ology, regard- 
 less of human feelings, is used quite as ruthlessly and 
 as ^cruelly as in the olden days. There are tortures of 
 spirit that are worse than prison or even fire. 
 
 When we recall how few examples there are of oppo- 
 sition to science on the part of ecclesiastics, and how 
 most of these prove on careful examination to be due to 
 misunderstandings rather than to actual desire to 
 prevent the development of science, the stories of the 
 way in which discoveries in science were received in 
 more modern times become a striking lesson that 
 makes us appreciate the broad-mindedness and liberal 
 policy of ecclesiastical educators in the olden time. 
 They were evidently much more ready to accept novel 
 ideas, and much less prone to set themselves up in 
 opposition to them, than the educational authorities of 
 more modern times. This is the phase of the history of 
 education in the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth 
 centuries that deserves the most careful study, and that 
 should make modern educators feel proud of their 
 kinship with these old founders and patrons in educa- 
 tion, who at the same time furnish an example of 
 liberality of mind that it would be very beneficial to 
 have in our modern supposedly free universities. 
 
 For while we are prone to be proud of our academic 
 freedom, we have had more than one example in recent 
 times of how dangerous it is for a man, even though he 
 may be recognized as an authority in his department, 
 
412 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 to treat certain economic questions from a standpoint 
 that is not favored by the rest of the faculty, or by the 
 Board of Governors, or, above all, by certain munificent 
 patrons of the particular educational institution. Much 
 has been said about religious educational institutions, 
 about the middle of the nineteenth century, so hamper- 
 ing the work of men in the physical sciences, especially 
 with regard to problems in geology and evolution, as 
 to nullify progress. Just this same thing, however, is 
 true with regard to many economic questions, because 
 of the attitude of educational interests with regard to 
 free trade and protection, single tax, and socialism and 
 the like. No professor of science at a religious institu- 
 tion ever felt himself more in the grip of old-fashioned 
 notions than do certain professors in departments of 
 finance and sociology with regard to problems that are 
 now of the most profound interest. Men have changed 
 the reason for their conservatism, but the conservatism 
 itself remains, and apparently always will remain. This 
 is what must be realized when the stories of ecclesiasti- 
 cal opposition to progress are told. 
 
APPENDIX II. 
 
 Latin text of the Papal bulls and decrees which are given in 
 English in the body of this book. These documents are taken from 
 Tomassetti's Bullarium, except the decree of John XXII. with re- 
 gard to alchemies, which is taken from the Corpus Juris Canonici, 
 Tome II., Lyons, 1779. 
 
 I. 
 
 Bull of Pope Boniface VIII. with regard to burials, which is sup- 
 posed to have been misconstrued into a prohibition of dissection. 
 
 De Sepulturis, Bonifacius VIII. Corpora defunctorum exenternantes, et ea im- 
 maniter decoquentes, ut ossa a carnibus separata f erant sepelienda in terram suam, 
 ipso facto sunt excommunicati. 
 
 CAP. I. Detestandae f eritatis abusum, quern ex quodam more (Alias, mode) horri- 
 bili nonnulli fideles improvide prosequuntur, nos piae intentionis ducti proposito, ne 
 abusus praedicti saevitia ulterius corpora humana dilaceret, mentesque fidelium hor- 
 rore commoveat, et perturbet auditum, digne decrevimus abolendum. Praefati nam- 
 que fideles hujus suae improbandae utique consuetudinis vitio intendentes, si quisquam 
 ex eis genere nobilis, vel dignitatis titulo insignitus, praesertim extra suarum partium 
 limites debitum naturae persolvat, in suis, vel alienis remotis partibus sepultura 
 electa ; defuncti corpus ex quodam impiae pietatis affectu truculenter exenterant, ac 
 illud membratim, vel in frusta immaniter concidentes, ea subsequenter aquis immersa 
 exponunt ignibus decoquenda. Et tandem (ab ossibus tegumento carnis excusso) 
 eaclem ad partes praedictas mittunt, seu def erunt tumulanda. Quod non solum Divi- 
 nao majestatis conspectui abominabile plurimum redditur, sed etiam humanae con- 
 siderationis obtutibus occurrit vehementius abhorrendum. Volentes igitur (prout officii 
 nostri debitum exigit), illud in hac parte remedium adhibere, per quod tantae abomi- 
 nationis, tantaeque immanitatis, et impietatis abusus penitus deleatur, nee extenda- 
 tur ad alios ; Apostolica auctoritate statuimus, et ordinamus, ut cum quis cujuscum- 
 que status, aut generis, seu dignitatis exstitent : in civitatibus, terris, seu locis, in 
 quibus catholicae fidei cultus viget, diem de caetero claudet extremum circa corpora 
 defunctorum hujusmodi abusus, vel similis nullatenus observetur, nee fidelium manus 
 tanta immanitate foedentur. Sed ut defunctorum corpora sic impie, ac crudeliter non 
 tractentur, et deferantur ad loca in quibus viventes eligerint sepeliri, aut in civitate, 
 castro, vel loco ubi decesserint, vel loco vicino ecclesiasticae sepulturae tradantur ad 
 tempus, ita, quod demum incineratis corporibus, aut alias ad loca ubi sepulturam 
 eligerint, deportentur, et sepeliantur in eis. Nos enim si praedicti defuncti executor, 
 vel executores, aut familiares ejus, seu quivis alii cujuscumque ordinis, conditionis, 
 status aut gradus fuerint etiam si pontificali dignitate praef ulgeant, aliquid contra 
 hujusmodi nostri statuti, et ordinationis tenorem praesumpserint attentare defunc- 
 torum corpora sic inhumaniter et crudeliter pertractando, vel faciendo pertractari 
 
 413 
 
414 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 excommunicationis sententiam (quam exnunc in ipsos plurimos) ipso facto se move- 
 rint incursuros, a qua non nisi per Apostolicam sedem (praeterquam in mortis ar- 
 ticulo) possint absolutionis beneficium obtinere. Et nihilominus ille, cujus corpus sic 
 inhumane tractatum fuerit, ecclesiastica careat sepultura. Nulli eigo, etc. Datum 
 Latera. XII. Calen. Martii, Pontificatus nostri anno VI. 
 
 II. 
 
 Decree of Pope John XXII. forbidding alchemies, by which he 
 prohibited the pretended making of gold and silver, but is claimed 
 to have hampered the progress of chemistry. 
 
 De Crimine Falsi Titulus VI. I Joannis XXII. [circa annum 1317 Avenioni] 
 Alkimise hie prohibentur, et puniuntur facientes et fieri procurantes : quoniam tan- 
 turn de vero auro et argento debent inferre in publicum, ut pauperibus erogetur 
 quantum de falso et adulterine posuerunt. Et si eorum facultates non sumeiunt, 
 poena per judicis discretionem in aliam commutabitur, et infames fiunt. Et si sint 
 clerici beneficiis habitis privantur et ad habenda inhabiles efficiuntur. (Vide Extra- 
 vagantem ejusdem Joannis quae incipit "Providens" et est sub eodem titulo 
 collocata.) 
 
 Spondent quas non exhibent divitias, pauperes Alchimistae ; pariter qui se sapientes 
 existimant in f oveam incidunt quam f ecerunt. Nam haud dubie hujus artis Alchi- 
 miae alterutrum se prof essores ludificant ; cum suae ignorantiaa conscii, eos, qui supra 
 ipsos aliquid hujusmodi dixerint, admirentur : quibus cum veritas quaesita non sup- 
 petat, diem cernunt, facultates exhauriunt ; idemque verbis dissimulant f alsitatem, 
 ut tandem quod non est in rerum natura, esse verum aurum vel argentum sophistics 
 transmutatione confingant ; eoque interdum eorum temeritas damnata et damnanda 
 progreditur, ut fictis metallis cudant publicae monetae characteres fidis oculis, et non 
 alias Alchimicum f ornacis ignem vulgum ignorantem eludant. Haec itaque perpetuis 
 volentes exulare temporibus, hac edictali constitutione sancimus, ut quicumque 
 hujusmodi aurum vel argentum f eceririt, vel fieri secuto facto mandaverint, vel ad hoc 
 scienter (dum id fieret) f acientibus ministraverint, aut scienter vel auro vel argento usi 
 fuerint vendendo vel dando in solutum : verum tanti ponderis aurum vel argentum 
 poenae nomine inferre cogantur in publicum pauperibus erogandum, quanti Alchimi- 
 cum existat ; circa quod eos aliquo praedictorum modorum legitime constiterit deli- 
 quisse: f acientibus nihilominus aurum vel argentum Alchimicum aut ipso, praamittitur, 
 scienter utentibus perpetuae, infamiae nota respersis. Quod si ad praefatam poenam 
 pecuniarum exsolvendam deliquentium ipsorum facultates non sufficiant, poterit dis- 
 creti moderatio judicis poenam hanc in aliam (puta carceris, vel alteram juxta qualita- 
 tem negotii personarum differentiam aliasque attendendo circumstantias) commutare. 
 Hlos vero qui in tantae ignorantiam inf elicitatis proruperint, ut nedum nummos vedunt, 
 sed naturalis juris praecepta contemnant, artis excedant metas, legumque violant 
 interdicta scienter videlicet adulterinam ex auro et argento Alchimico cudendo seu 
 f undendo, cudi seu f undi f aciendo monetam ; hac animadversione percelli jubemus, ut 
 ipsorum bona deserantur carceri, ipsique perpetuo sint infames. Et si clerici fuerint 
 delinquentes, ipsi ultra praedictas poenas priventur beneficiis habitis et prorsus red- 
 dantur inhabiles ad habenda. 
 
 III. 
 
 Bull of Pope John XXII. forbidding certain magical practices, 
 which, like the prohibition of alchemies, protected his flock from 
 
APPENDIX. 415 
 
 sharpers of various kinds, sooth-sayers, pretended sorcerers, magic- 
 ians, et id genus omne. This is the bull which Pres. White quotes 
 under its Latin title, Super illius specula^ as if he had it under his 
 eye at the moment of writing, and which he says " shows Pope John 
 himself, in spite of his infallibility, sunk in superstition the most 
 abject and debasing ; for in this bull, supposed to be inspired from 
 wisdom from on high, Pope John complains that both he and his 
 flock are in danger of their lives by the arts of the sorcerers. He 
 (the Pope) declares that such sorcerers can shut up devils in mirrors 
 and finger-rings and phials and kill men and women by a magic 
 word ; that they had tried to kill him by piercing a waxen image of 
 him with needles in the name of the devil. ' ' 
 
 Contra immolantes daemonibus, aut responsa et auxilia ab eis postulantes ; sive 
 tenentes libros de eiusmodi erroribus tractantes. 
 
 loannes episcopus servus servorum Dei, ad perpetuam rei memoriam. 
 
 Super illius specula, quamvis immeriti, Eiusf avente dementia qui primum hominem 
 humani quidem generis protoplastum, terrenis praclatum, divinis virtutibus ador- 
 natum, conformem et consimilem imagini suse fecit, revocavit profugum, legem 
 dando ; ac demum liberavit captivum, reinvenit perditum, et redemit venditum, 
 merito suae Passionis, ut contemplaremur ex ilia super filios hominum, qui christianae 
 religionis culta Deum intelligunt et requirunt : dolenter advertimus, quod etiara cum 
 nostrorum turbatione viscerum cogitamus quamplures esse solo nomine christianos, 
 qui relicto primo veritatis lumine, tanto erroris caligine obnubilantur, quod cum 
 morte f oedus ineunt, et pactum f aciunt cum inferno : daemonibus namque immolant, 
 hos adorant, fabricant ac fabricari procurant imagines, annulum vel speculum, vel 
 phialam, vel rem quamcumque aliam magice ad daemones inibi alligandos, ab his 
 petunt responsa, ab his recipiunt, et pro implendis pravis suis desideriis auxilia 
 postulant, pro re faet idissima faetidam exhibent servitutem : Proh dolor ! hujus- 
 modi morbus pestifer, nunc per mundum solito amplius convalescens, eccessive 
 gravius inficit Christi gregem. 
 
 1. Cum igitur, ex debito suscepti pastoral is officii, oves aberrantes per devia teneamur 
 ad caulas Christi reducere, et excludere a grege dominico morbidas, ne alias corrumpant: 
 hoc edicto in perpetuum valituro, de consilio f ratrum nostrorum, monemus omnes et 
 singulos renatos f onte baptismatis, in virtute sanctae obedientiae, et sub intermina- 
 tione anathematis, praecipientes eisdem, quod nullus ipsorum aliquid de perversis 
 dictis dogmatibus docere ac addiscere audeat : vel, quod execrabilius est, quomodo- 
 libet alio modo, in aliquo illis uti. 
 
 2. Et quia dignum est, quod hi, qui per sua opera perversa spernunt Altissimum, 
 poenis suis pro culpis debitis percellantur : nos in omnes et singulos, qui contra 
 nostra saluberrima monita et mandata facere de praedictis quicquam praesumpserint, 
 excommunicationis sententiam promulgamus, quam ipsos incurrere volumus ipso 
 facto. Statuentes firmiter, quod praeter poenas prsedictas, contra tales, qui admoniti 
 de praedictis seu praedictorum aliquo infra octo dies a monitione computandos praefata, 
 a praefatis non se correxerint, ad infligendas poenas omnes et singulas, praeter DO- 
 norum confiscationem dumtaxat, quas de iure merentur haeretici, per suos compe- 
 tentes iudices procedetur. 
 
 3. Verum cum sit expediens, quod ad haec tarn nefanda omnis via omnisque occasio 
 praecludatur, de dictorum nostrorum fratrum consilio, universis praecipimus et man- 
 damus, quod nullus eorum libellos, scripturas quascumque ex praefatis damnatis erro- 
 bus quicquam continentes, habere aut tenere vel in ipsis studere prsesumat ' quin 
 
416 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 potius volumus, et in virtute sanctae obedientise cunctis praecipimus. quod quicum- 
 que de scripturis praef atis vel libellis quicquam habuerint, infra octo dierum spatium 
 ab .huiusmodi edicti nostri notitia computandum, totum et in toto et in qualibet sui 
 parte abolere et comburere teneantur : alioquin volumus, quod incurrant sententiam 
 excommunicationis ipso facto, processuri contra contemptores huiusmodi (cum con- 
 stiterit) ad pcenas alias graviores. 
 Datum Avenione, etc. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Bull of Pope John XXII. authorizing the institution of chairs of 
 medicine and arts in the University of Perugia. The bull shows 
 John's care for the maintenance of standards in education, and is a 
 revelation by its anticipation of requirements for the Doctor's Degree 
 that we are only now coming to enforce once more. 
 
 Erectio cathedrarum medicinae et artium in Perusino Studio, data insuper f acultate 
 episcopo licentiandi et laureandi in utraque facultate idoneos, pro quorum examine 
 nonuUse sanciuntur leges. 
 
 loannes episcopus servus servorum Dei, ad perpetuam rei memoriam. 
 
 Dum solicitae considerations indagine in mente revolvimus, quam sit donum sci- 
 entiae pretiosum, quamque illius desiderabilis et gloriosa possessio, per quam pro- 
 fugandur ignorantiae tenebrae, et eliminata funditua erroris caligine, studentium 
 curiosa solertia cursus et actus disponit et ordinat in lumine veritatis ; magno nimi- 
 rum desidero ducimur, ut literarum studia, in quibus impretiabilis margarita scientiaa 
 reperitur, laudanda ubilibet incrementa suscipiant : sed in illis praesertim locis pro- 
 pensius vigeant, quae ad multiplicanda doctrinae semina et germina salutari produ- 
 cenda fore magis accommoda et idonea dignoscuntur. 
 
 1. Dudum siquidem felicis recordationis Clemens Papa prsedecessor noster, 
 attendens fidei puritatem et devotionem eximiam, quam civitas Perusina, terra pecu- 
 liaris Romanae Ecclesiae, ad ipsam Ecclesiam ab olim habuisse dignoscitur, et quod illas 
 ad earn successibus temporum de bono in melius augumentarat, dignum duxit et 
 aequitati consonum existimavit, ut civitatem eamdem, quam divina gratia multarum 
 prserogativa bonitatum gratiose dotaverat, concessione generalis Studii insigniret : et 
 ut auctore Deo ex civitate ipsa producerentur viri scientia praepollentes auctoritate 
 apostolica statuit, ut in ea esset Studium generate, illudque vigeret ibidem perpetuis 
 futuris temporibus in qualibet facultate, prout in literis praedecessoris eiusdem inde 
 conf ectis plenius dicitur contineri. 
 
 2. Ac subsequenter nos, licet immeriti, ad apicem Summi Apostolatus assumpti, 
 civitatem eamdem propter suae devotionis insignia quibus se dignam Apostolicse Sedis 
 gratia exhibe'bat, uberiore dono gratia? prosequi cupientes, auctoritate apostolica de 
 f ratrum nostrorum consilio, venerabili f ratri nostro episcopo Perusino et successori- 
 bus eius episcopus Perusinis, qui essent pro tempore, impertiendi personis ad hoc 
 idoneis docendi licentiam in iure canonico et civili iuxta certum modum in literis 
 nostris expressum, liberam concessimus potestatem, prout in eisdem literis nostris 
 plenras et seriosius continetur. 
 
 3. Considerantes igitur, quod eadem civitas propter eius commoditates et condi- 
 tiones quamplurimas est non modicum apta studentibus, ac propterea concessiones 
 huiusmodi ob prof ectus publicos, quos exinde provenire speramus, ampliare volentes, 
 apostolica auctoritate statuimus ut si qui processu temporis in eodem Studio fuerint, 
 qui etiam in medicinali scientia et liberalibus artibus scientiae bravium assecuti, sibi 
 docendi licentiam, ut alios liberius erudire valeant, petierint in perpetuum, in prse- 
 dictis medicinali scientia et artibus examinari possint ibidem et in eisdem f acultatibus 
 
APPENDIX 417 
 
 titulo magisterii decorari : statuentes, ut quotiens aliqui in prsedictis medicina et ar- 
 tibus f uerint doctorandi, prsesententur episcopo Perusino, qui pro tempore f uerit, vel 
 ei, quern ad hoc praedictus episcopus duxerit deputandum, qui magistris huiusmodi 
 facultatis, in qua examinatio fuerit facienda, in studio eodem prassentibus, qui ad 
 minus quatuor numero in examinatione huiusmodi esse debeant, convocatis eos gratis* 
 et difficultate quacumque sublata, de scientia, f acundia, modo legendi, et aliis, quae in 
 promovendis ad doctoratus seu magistratus officium requiruntur, examinari studeat 
 diligenter; et illos, quos idoneos repererit, petito secrete magistrorum eorumdem con- 
 silio, quod utique consilium in ipsorum consulentium dispendium vel iacturam reve- 
 lare quomodolibet districtius prohibemus, approbet et admittat, eisque petitam 
 licentiam largiatur: alios minus idoneos nullatenus admittendo, postpositis gratia, 
 odio vel f avore. 
 
 4. Ut autem in prasdictis medicina et artibus prasfatum Studium tanto plenius 
 coalescat, quanto peritiores doctores in huiusmodi suis primitiis ibidem caeperint actu 
 regere etdocere, statuimus, quod usque ad triennium vel quatriennium aliqui doctores, 
 duo ad minus, qui in medicinali scientia in Parisien. vel Bononien. aut aliis f amosis 
 generalibus Studiis honorem receperint doctoratus, ad docendum et regendum in 
 scientia medicine et tres vel duo ad minus, qui in artibus in Parisien. Studio apud 
 maiorem Parisien. Ecclesiam docendi licentiam f uerint assecuti, et saltern per annum 
 rexerint, sue docuerint in Parisien. Studio memorato, ad regendum et docendum in 
 dictis artibus in praafato Perusin. Studio assumantur, qui usque ad quatriennium vel 
 quinquennium, donee prsef atum Studium in bonis studentibus laudabiliter progressum 
 acceperit, regant et doceant in eodem. 
 
 5. Circa doctorandos vero in scientia medicinae hoc praecipue observetur, ut huius- 
 modi decorandi audiverint omnes libros eiusdem sciential, qui in Bononien. vel Pari- 
 sien. Studio a studentibus promovendis consueverunt audiri, per septennium, vel qui 
 in logicalibus aut philosophia alias forent sufficienter instruct! saltern per quin- 
 quennium in scientia prsedicta studerint, ita quod saltern tribus annis eiusdem sep- 
 tennii vel quinquenni, ut praadicitur, in medicinali scientia audierint in aliquo Studio 
 generali, et ut moris est, responderint sub doctoribus et extraordinarie legerint libros 
 legi extraordinarie consuetos, servato circa examinationem ipsius in medicinse sci- 
 entia promovendi more laudabili, qui in talibus erga eos, qui promoventur in Parisien. 
 vel Bononien. Studio observatur. 
 
 6. Circa doctorandos vero in artibus liberalibus etiam observetur, quod studuerint 
 per quatuor vel quinque annos, do quibus saltern duobus annis audierint in aliquo 
 Studio generali : ita videlicet ut in grammatica Priscianum maiorem et minorem, et 
 in dialectica Logicam novam et veterem Aristotelis, ac in philosophia librum de 
 anima, et saltern quatuor libros Ethicorum ; et tarn in iis, quam in caeteris aliis libe- 
 ralibus artibus illos alios libros audierint, qui in Parisien. Studio per promovendos in 
 dicta facultate artium consueverint audiri, servato circa examinationem tana in 
 communibus quam in propriis ipsius artibus promovendi more laudabili, qui in 
 talibus erga eos, qui promoventur, apud praefatam maiorem Ecclesiam Parisien. 
 observatur. 
 
 7. Verum quia non passim reperiuntur in Studiis, qui omnes huiusmodi libros 
 audierint, praefato Perusin. episcopo suisque successoribus Perusin episcopis, qui 
 pro tempore fuerint, indulgemus, ut in auditione aliorum praefatorum librorum de 
 forma circa licentiandos ipsos in artibus, prout sufficientia eorumdem licentiandorum 
 exegerit et sibi videbitur expedire, auctoritate nostra valeat dispensare. 
 
 8. Illi autem, qui in dicta civitate Perusin. taliter examinati et approbati fuerint, 
 ac docendi licentiam obtinuerint, ut est dictum, ex tune, absque examinatione vel 
 approbatione alia, regendi et docendi ubique plenam et liberam habeant auctoritate 
 praesentium facultatem, nee a quoquam valeant prohiberi. 
 
 9. Sane ut rite in prsefatis examinationibus procedatur, prsecipimus, ut tarn epis- 
 
418 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 copus Perusin., qui pro tempore fuerit quam ille, cui praefatus episcopus ex causa 
 rationabili impeditus in hac parte commiserit vices suas, eidem episcopo, propositis 
 tamen, sed non tactis Evangeliis, ab aliis vero corporaliter tactis iurent, quod in hac 
 parte officium suum fideliter exequentur. Volumus autem quod personis, qua; per 
 examinationem huiusmodi repertae f uerint idoneae, huiusmodi licentia debeatur im- 
 pertiri, et quod idem episcopus personaliter, non per vicarium vel substitutum exami- 
 nationi huiusmodi interesse debeat: nisi esset ex aliqua rationabili causa adeo impeditua 
 quod suam non posset examination! praedictae personalem praesentiam exhibere : in 
 quo casu eidem episcopo interessendi examinationi huiusmodi per vicarium, vel alium 
 ad hoc idoneum substitutum, tenore prassentium indulgemus : et quod nomini huius- 
 modi impartietur licentia, nisi, ei, quern omnis vel maior pars doctorum, qui huius- 
 modi examinationi intererint, approbabunt. 
 
 10. Magistri quoque, regere in eodem Studio cupientes, vel alias inibi residentes, 
 antequam incipiant, praestentin manibus dicti episcopi iuramentum, quod ipsi vocatio 
 ad examinationes easdem venient, nisi f uerint legitime impediti, et gratis sine diffi- 
 cultate dabunt examinatori fidele consilium, qui de examinatis ut digni approbari 
 debeant, aut indigni merito non admitti. Qui vero iui-amentum huiusmodi prsestare 
 noluerint, nee ad examinationes eorumdem, nee etiam ad aliqua ipsius Studii commoda 
 vel beneficia ullatenus admittantur. 
 
 11. Nulli ergo omnino hominum liceat hanc paginam nostrarum constitotionis, 
 prohibitions, concessionis, praecepti et voluntatis inf ringere, etc. 
 
 Datum Avenioni, duodecimo kalendas martii, pontificatus nostri anno v. 
 Dat. die 18 f ebruarii 1321, pontif. anno v. 
 
 V. 
 
 Bull of Pope John XXII. in which he authorizes the foundation of 
 a University in the City of Cahors, his birthplace, as a memorial 
 of his interest in the townspeople and a monument of his zeal for 
 education. 
 
 Confirmatio erectionis Universitatis studiorum in civitate Cadurcensi. 
 
 loannes episcopus servus servorum Dei, ad perpetuam rei memoriam. 
 
 Cum civitas Cadurcensis, quam excellentiae divinae bonitas multiplicium gratia- 
 rum bonis et dotibus decoravit, propter ipsius commoditates et conditiones quam- 
 plurimas apta non modicum generali Studio censeatur, nos reipublicae multipliciter 
 expedire credentes, quod in civitate praef ata fiat et emanet fons scientiarum irriguus, 
 de cuius plenitudine hauriant universi, litteralibus cupientes imbui document is, et 
 etiam cultores sapientiae inserantur et provehantur diversarum facultatum dogma* 
 tibus eruditi, facundi et undique illustrati, fructum uberem, largiente Domino, suo 
 tempore producturi ; attendentes quoque sincerae fidei puritatem, ac eximiae devo- 
 tionis affectum, quos dilecti filii consules et Universitas eiusdem civitatis ad nos et 
 Romanam Ecclesiam habere noscuntur : ex praedictis causis, porrectis etiam nobis 
 pro parte consulum et Universitatis praedictae humilibus et devotis supplicationibus 
 inclinati, auctoritate apostolica statuimus et ordinamus, quod in civitate prcedicta 
 perpetuis futuris temporibus generate Studium habeatur et vigeat in qualibet licita 
 facultate, quodque praefatum Studium, ac eius Universitas, ac doctores, magistri 
 licentiati, baccalaurei et scholares pro tempore commorantes causa studiorum ibidom, 
 omnibus privilegiis, liberatibus et immunitatibus, concessis Studio Tholosamensi ao 
 Universitati eius, plene et libere gaudeant et utantur. 
 
 Nulli ergo omnino hominum etc. 
 
 Datum Avenione vii idus iunii, pontificatus nostri anno xvi. 
 
 Dat. die 7 iunii 1332, pont. anno xvL 
 
APPENDIX III. 
 
 MEDIEVAL LAW FOR THE REGULATION OF THE 
 PRACTICE OF MEDICINE. 
 
 It is usually presumed that the practice of medicine was on a very 
 low plane during the Middle Ages, and that while only little was 
 known about medical science, the methods of practicing the medical 
 art were crude, as befitted an earlier time in evolution before modern 
 advances had come. Any such impression is founded entirely on 
 ignorance of the conditions which actually existed. In his studies 
 in the history of anatomy in the Middle Ages, Von Toply 1 quotes 
 the law for the regulation of the practice of medicine issued by the 
 Emperor Frederick II. in 1240 or 1241. The Law was binding on 
 the two Sicilies, and shows exactly the state of medical practice in 
 the southern part of Italy at this time. Everything that we think 
 we have gained by magnificent advances in modern times is to be 
 found in this law. A physician must have a diploma from a university 
 and a license from the government; he must have studied three years 
 before taking up medicine then three years in a medical school, and 
 then must have practiced with a physician for a year before he 
 will be allowed to take up the practice of medicine on his own ac- 
 count. If he is to take up surgery, he must have made special studies 
 in anatomy. The law is especially interesting because of its regula- 
 tion of the purity of drugs, in which it anticipates by nearly seven 
 centuries our Pure Drug Law of last year. (This law was published 
 in the form here given in the 4 ' Journal of the American Medical 
 Association," January, 1908.) 
 
 "While we are bent upon making regulations for the common- 
 weal of our loyal subjects, we keep ever under our observation the 
 health of the individual. In consideration of the serious damage 
 and the irreparable suffering which may occur as a consequence of 
 the inexperience of physicians, we decree that in future no one who 
 claims the title of physician shall exercise the art of healing or dare 
 
 i Studien zur Geschichte der Anatomie im Mittelalter von Robert Hitter Von 
 Toply. Leipzig, 1898. 
 
 (419) 
 
420 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 to treat the ailing, except such as have beforehand, in our University 
 of Salerno, passed a public examination under a regular teacher of 
 medicine, and been given a certificate not only by the professor of 
 medicine, but also by one of our civil officials, which declares his 
 trustworthiness and sufficient knowledge. This document must be 
 presented to us, or in our absence from the kingdom to the person 
 who remains behind in our stead, and must be followed by the ob- 
 taining of a license to practice medicine either from us or from our 
 representative aforesaid. Violation of this law is to be punished by 
 confiscation of goods and a year in prison for all those who in 
 future dare to practice medicine without such permission from our 
 authority. 
 
 ' ' Since students cannot be expected to learn medical science unless 
 they have previously been grounded in logic, we further decree that 
 no one be permitted to take up the study of medical science without 
 beforehand having devoted at least three full years to the study of 
 logic." (Under logic at this time was included the study of prac- 
 tically all the subjects that are now taken up in the arts department 
 of our universities. Huxley, in his address before the University of 
 Aberdeen on the occasion of his inauguration as Rector of that Uni- 
 versity, said that "the scholars [of the early days of the univer- 
 sities] studied Grammar and Rhetoric ; Arithmetic and Geometry ; 
 Astronomy, Theology and Music." He added : "Thus their work, 
 however imperfect and faulty, judged by modern lights, it may have 
 been, brought them face to face with all the leading aspects of the 
 many-sided mind of man. For these studies did really contain, at 
 any rate, in embryo sometimes, it may be, in caricature what we 
 now call Philosophy, Mathematical and Physical Science, and Art. 
 And I doubt if the curriculum of any modern university shows so 
 clear and generous a comprehension of what is meant by culture 
 as the old Trivium and Quadrivium does." Huxley, Science and 
 Education Essays, page 197. New York, D. Appleton & Co., 
 1896. J. J. W.) 
 
 "After three years devoted to these studies, he (the student) may, 
 if he will, proceed to the study of medicine, provided always that 
 during the prescribed time he devotes himself also to surgery, which 
 is a part of medicine. After this, and not before, will he be given 
 the license to practice, provided he has passed an examination in 
 legal form as well as obtained a certificate from his teacher as to his 
 
APPENDIX 421 
 
 studies in the preceding time. After having spent five years in 
 study, he shall not practice medicine until he has during a full year 
 devoted himself to medical practise with the advice and under the 
 direction of an experienced physician. In the medical schools the 
 professors shall during these five years devote themselves to the 
 recognized books, both those of Hippocrates as well as those of 
 Galen, and shall teach not only theoretic, but also practical medicine. 
 
 "We also decree, as a measure intended for the furtherance of 
 Public Health, that no surgeon shall be allowed to practice, unless 
 he has a written certificate, which he must present to the professor 
 in the medical faculty, stating that he has spent at least a year at 
 that part of medicine which is necessary as a guide to the practice of 
 surgery, and that, above all, he has learned the anatomy of the 
 human body at the medical school, and is fully equipped in this 
 department of medicine, without which neither operations of any 
 kind can be undertaken with success nor fractures be properly 
 treated. 
 
 ' ' In every province of our Kingdom which is under our legal 
 authority, we decree that two prudent and trustworthy men, whose 
 names must be sent to our court, shall be appointed and bound by a 
 formal oath, under whose inspection electuaries and syrups and other 
 medicines be prepared according to law and only be sold after such 
 inspection. In Salerno in particular, we decree that this inspector- 
 ship shall be limited to those who have taken their degrees as 
 Masters in Physic. 
 
 " We also decree by the present law, that no one in the Kingdom, 
 except in Salerno or in Naples (in which were the two universities 
 of the Kingdom), shall undertake to give lectures on medicine or 
 surgery, or presume to assume the name of teacher, unless he shall 
 have been very thoroughly examined in the presence of a Govern- 
 ment official and of a professor in the art of medicine. 
 
 "Every physician given a license to practice must take an oath 
 that he shall faithfully fulfil all the requirements of the law, and in 
 addition, whenever it comes to his knowledge that any apothecary 
 has for sale drugs that are of less than normal strength, he shall re- 
 port him to the court, and besides he shall give his advice to the 
 poor without asking for any compensation. A physician shall visit 
 his patient at least twice a day, and at the wish of his patient once 
 also at night, and shall charge him, in case the visit does not re- 
 
422 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 quire him to go out of the village or beyond the walls of the city, 
 not more than one -half tarrene in gold for each day's service." (A 
 tarrene in gold was equal to about thirty cents of our money. Money 
 had at least twenty times the purchasing power at that time that it 
 has now. At the end of the thirteenth century, according to an Act 
 of the Knglish Parliament, a workman received 4d [eight cents] a day 
 for his labor, and according to the same Act of Parliament the fol- 
 lowing prices were charged for commodities : A pair of shoes cost 
 eight cents, that is, a day's wages. A fat goose cost seven cents, 
 less than a day's wages. A fat sheep unshorn cost thirty-five cents; 
 shorn, about twenty -five cents. For four days pay a man could get 
 enough meat for himself and family to live on for a week, besides 
 material out of which his wife could make excellent garments for 
 the family. A fat hog cost twice as much as a fat sheep, and a 
 bullock about six times as much. J. J. W.) " From a patient whom 
 he visits outside of the village or the wall of the town, the physician 
 has a right to demand for a day's service not more than three tar- 
 renes, to which maybe added, however, his expenses, provided that 
 he does not demand more than four tarrenes altogether. 
 
 "He (the regularly licensed physician) must not enter into any 
 business relations with the apothecary, nor must he take any of 
 them under his protection nor incur any money obligations in their 
 regard." (Apparently many different ways of getting round this 
 regulation had already been invented, and the idea of these expres- 
 sions seemed to be to make it very clear in the law that any such 
 business relationship, no matter what the excuse or method of it, is 
 forbidden. J. J. W.) "Nor must any licensed physician keep an 
 apothecary's shop himself. Apothecaries must conduct their business 
 with a certificate from a physician, according to the regulations and 
 upon their own credit and responsibility, and they shall not be per- 
 mitted to sell their products without having taken an oath that all 
 their drugs have been prepared in the prescribed form, without any 
 fraud. The apothecary may derive the following profits from his 
 sales : Such extracts and simples as he need not keep in stock for 
 more than a year before they may be employed may be charged for 
 at the rate of three tarrenes an ounce." (90 cents an ounce seems 
 very dear, but this is the maximum.) "Other medicines, however, 
 which in consequence of the special conditions required for their 
 preparation or for any other reason the apothecary has to have in 
 
APPENDIX 423 
 
 stock for more than a year, he may charge for at the rate of six tar- 
 renes an ounce. Stations for the preparation of medicines may not 
 be located anywhere, but only in certain communities in the King- 
 dom, as we prescribe below. 
 
 ' ' We decree also that the growers of plants meant for medical 
 purpose shall be bound by a solemn oath that they shall prepare 
 medicines conscientiously, according to the rules of their art, and as 
 far as it is humanely possible that they shall prepare them in the 
 presence of the inspectors. Violations of this law shall be punished 
 by the confiscation of their movable goods. If the inspectors, how- 
 ever, to whose fidelity to duty the keeping of these regulations is 
 committed, should allow any fraud in the matters that are entrusted 
 to them, they shall be condemned to punishment by death." 
 
INDEX 
 
 A. A. A. S. 311 
 
 Abditif de causis morborum 84 
 
 Accident of fevers 213 
 
 Achievement, human 306 
 
 Achillini 76, 86, 92, 105, 244 
 
 Achillinus (see above) 
 
 Addison 85 
 
 After care of insane 371 
 
 Agenius, Otto 47 
 
 Agnostic 262 
 
 Agnus Dei 199 
 
 Albert (see Albertus) 
 
 Albertus Magnus 102, 134, 287, 295, 305, 324 ; 
 botany 318 ; physical geography 318 ; 
 science 299; scientific treatises 319; 
 scientific works 319 
 
 Albigenses 257 
 
 Albucasis 99 
 
 Alchemy 134, 135 
 
 Alderotti, Thaddeus 206 
 
 Alexander VI. 215, 231 
 
 Allbutt 83, 173, 185, 194, 196. 214, 50f5 
 
 Allston, Washington 391 
 
 Alma Mater Studiorum 94 
 
 Alphanus 228 
 
 America, discovery of 316 
 
 Amerigo Vespucci 283 
 
 Amalgam 135 
 
 Ampere 281 
 
 Anatomical preparations 46 ; work at Rome 
 117 
 
 Anatomy, history of 114, 62; Father of 
 111; Golden Age 30; myths 61; Re- 
 naissance of 112 ; supposed prohibi- 
 tion 28 
 
 Anaxagoras 351 
 
 Aneurysms 243 
 
 Angelico 92 
 
 Angelo 90, 112 
 
 Angel butterfly 358 
 
 Angleworms dried 184 
 
 Annals of Anatomy and Surgery 116, 233 
 
 Annihilation 313 
 
 Anomalies 185 
 
 Antimony, Triumphal Chariot of 136 
 
 Antipodes 316 
 
 Ants 358 
 
 Applied science 329 
 
 Aquinas 135, 305, 323, 325 
 
 Arabisms 170 
 
 Arabs, surgical knowledge of 170, 192 
 
 Aranzi 245 
 
 Archives, Hospitalieres 253 
 
 Ardern, John 188 
 
 Argelata 76 
 
 Aristotle 218, 292 ; a man 298 ; errors <rf 
 
 298 
 
 Arnold of Villanova 135, 186, 210 
 Arts and architecture 329 ; seven devilish 
 
 145 
 
 Arts and Sciences, Congress of 173 
 Astrology 158, 212 
 Astronomy 140 
 Auenbrugger 243, 403 
 Augsburg 251 
 Augustine, St. 112, 296, 327 
 Authors, second-rate 315 
 Autopsy on a living person 117; on 
 
 Cardinals 58 
 Autopsy, legal 72 
 Avicenna 99, 183 
 Avignon 79, 164, 182, 211 ; development 
 
 of 139 
 Azarias, Brother 344 
 
 B.A. A.S. 311 
 
 Bacon, Francis 283, 332, 360 
 
 Bacon, Roger 134, 305, 321, 323, 327, 
 
 Baillie 85 
 
 Balliol College 95 
 
 Bartholomseus Anglicus 338 
 
 Bartholomew the Englishman 336 
 
 Bartolo 270 
 
 Basel 105 
 
 Basil, Valentine 136 
 
 Bauhin 209 
 
 Baunette 308 
 
 Baverius de Baveriis 213 
 
 Bede 315 
 
 Bedlam 255, 372; visitors' fees 873 
 
 Bedlamites 374 
 
 Bedlams 374 
 
 Bees 358 
 
 Belgium, Catholic 102 
 
 Bellinis 90 
 
 Benedict XIV. 218, 223 
 
 Benedictines and medicine 224; of St. 
 
 Maur 53, 54 
 Benivieni 83, 85, 99, 105 
 Berengar of Carpi 82, 86, 105. 115, 245, 399 
 Berengarius 77 
 Bertapaglia 77 
 Berthelot 132 
 Bertrand, M. 394 
 Bertrucci 92, 186 
 Besancon 254 
 
 Bethlehem Hospital 369, 372 
 Black Death 272 
 Blepharitis 208 
 Blood, shedding of 168, 101 
 
 (425) 
 
426 
 
 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 Bodleian 95 
 
 Body-snatching: 37, 75 
 
 Boerhaave 244 
 
 Bologna 19, 119, 152, 158, 174, 192, 222; 
 a Papal City 82 
 
 Bolognese Medical School 244 
 
 Boniface VIII. 56, 112 
 
 Boniface's, Pope, Bull 29; Bull, meaning 
 of 59; misinterpretation 35; reason 
 for 32; text 31; where found 31 
 
 Books, medical, dedicated to Popes 235 
 
 Borelli 217 
 
 Botany 140, 158; medieval 318 
 
 Brethren of the Common Life 97 
 
 Bridewell 255 
 
 Bright 85 
 
 Broeck 178 
 
 Brother Potamian 288 
 
 Brothers 254 
 
 Butterfly 358 
 
 Csesalpino 319 
 
 CaBsalpinus 18, 113, 119, 217. 236 
 
 Cahors 156, 162, appendix 
 
 Caius, John 94; College 94 
 
 Calendar, correction of 323 
 
 Cambridge Modern History 24 
 
 Cantharides 181 
 
 Carlyle 347 
 
 Cassiodorus 225 
 
 Catalepsy 214 
 
 Cataract 208, 230 
 
 Catarrh 180 
 
 Catherei 185 
 
 Catherine of Siena 272 
 
 Cecco di Ascolo 211 
 
 Charles V. 108, 116, 217 
 
 Chartres 228 
 
 Chauliac 45, 74, 176. 180, 181,210 ; self-made 
 man 210 
 
 Chauvinism 237 
 
 Chemicum Theatrum 135 
 
 Chemistry, story of 134 
 
 Children attending schools 344 
 
 Chirurgia Magna 175, 187 
 
 Chirurgia Parva 187 
 
 Chlorosis, iron for 214 
 
 Church and art 21 ; education 21 ; letters 
 22; science 22 
 
 Christ's Hospital 255 
 
 Church, pressure of 190 
 
 Circulation of the blood 238 
 
 City Hospitals 248,370 
 
 Classic histories misleading 25 
 
 Claude Bernard 233 
 
 Clavis Sanationis 209 
 
 Clavius, S. J., Father 217, 360 
 
 Cleanliness, surgical 279 
 
 Clement V. 13, 150, 210 ; VHL 237 ; XL 
 242; XIII. 219 
 
 Climate at Rome 243 
 
 Climatology 140 
 
 Cod liver oil 230 
 
 Cologne 251, 318, 325 
 
 St. Come College 195 
 
 Colony system 367, 372 
 
 Columbus 86, 90, 113, 216, 232 
 
 Committee of inspection 373; of investiga- 
 tion 378 
 
 Concordance 134 
 
 Conflict, supposed, between religion and 
 
 science 393 
 
 Congregation of St. Maur 54 
 Conspiracy against the Truth 24 
 Constantino Af ricanus 170 
 Conservation of energy 312 
 Consultation, Vesalius's 107 
 Contact, without human 386 
 Content of medieval teaching 314 
 Constanz 251 
 
 Copenhagen, University of 97 
 Copper and gold 309 
 Coquelines 146 
 Coryza 180 
 Coro Anatomico 246 
 Corpus Juris Canonici 124 
 Corradi 74 
 Cosmos 355 
 Coulomb 282 
 Cruikshank 121 
 Crusades of surgery 192 
 Cycles of interest 131 
 
 Dante 341; as a nature student 343; 
 architect 342; like Goethe 348; on 
 education 361 ; treatment of nature 
 
 Daremberg 188 
 
 Darwin 396 
 
 Daunou 54, 230; Protestant tract 55 
 
 Decretals, sixth book of 56 
 
 Deduction 1G9, 200 
 
 Deductions in history 26 
 
 De Magnete 285 
 
 DeMaistre 24, 165, 284 
 
 Democritus 351 
 
 Demonical possession 366 
 
 De Motu Cordis 242 
 
 De Natura rerum 338 
 
 Denifle 305 
 
 De Re Anator^ica 235 
 
 Desiderata for insane 371 
 
 Desiderius 227 
 
 Development of anatomy 63 
 
 Diabetes 180 
 
 Dillon, Arthur 266 
 
 Dinode Garbo 212 
 
 Director, surgical 183 
 
 Disease, eradication 275 ; What, Where 85 
 nothing 364 
 
 Disinterested scholars 302 
 
 Dissection at Rome 59; at Venice 38; 
 first 1302 37; numerous 77 ; heroof 111; 
 in public 58 ; permissions 51 ; practice 
 of 63 ; Rashdall on 37 ; supposed pro- 
 hibition 29; systematic 76; was it 
 hampered? 38; wounds 47 
 
 Documentary evidence 25 
 
 Dogmatism 395 
 
 Doctorates 154 
 
 Donatello 112 
 
 DonatUE 305 
 
 Donkey, breath of 167, 183 
 
 Draper, Dr. 284 
 
 Dropsy, cause 174 
 
 Ducks, queerest 203 
 
 Ditrities ronum 174 
 
INDEX 
 
 427 
 
 Dungeon era 868 
 Dympna, St. 876 
 Dysuria 180 
 
 B 
 
 Earth, shape-size 315 
 
 Ecclesiastical institutions 339 
 
 Economics 412 
 
 Eddyisra 364 
 
 Education and Popes 19; medical 65; 
 preliminary 141, 158 ; Pope John XXII. 
 and 141 
 
 Edward VI. 256 
 
 Elementis, De Quatuor 208 
 
 Elizabeth, Queen 94, 285 
 
 Empycma T85 
 
 Encyclopedia, first 334 ; Britannica 133 
 
 Energy, conservation 314 
 
 Engineering, mechanical 330 
 
 Epilepsy 214 
 
 Epochs, four marvelous 161 
 
 Era of asylums 368 
 
 Erhardt 137 
 
 Erysipelas 276 
 
 Essays, educational o44 
 
 Etruscans 151 
 
 Eugenie, Empress 289 
 
 Eustachius 18, 86, 114, 119, 216 
 
 Evolution, footsteps of 390 ; in human af- 
 fairs 332 ; of science 93 
 
 Exaggeration, pious 203 
 
 Experimentalism 297 
 
 Experiment in optics 348 
 
 Exorcism 368, 374 
 
 Extravagantes 31, 124 
 
 Eye diseases 229 
 
 Fabrica, corporis humani 108 
 
 Fallopius 187 
 
 Falsification, crime of 125 
 
 Faraday 285 
 
 Father of electricity 265 
 
 Ferrara 243 
 
 Fevers 213 
 
 Finance 412 
 
 Firearms, wounds made by 215 
 
 Fisher, Dr. 233 
 
 Flies carry the plague 239 
 
 Florence 83 
 
 Fordham University Medical School 2 
 
 267 
 
 Form 311 
 Fortune teller 129 
 
 Foster, Sir Michael 107 ; Prof. Med. 237 
 Fouarre, rue de 362 
 Foundation for modern thought 305 
 Foundling House 258 
 Fracassate 245 
 France 174 
 Franciscans 
 Francis of Siena 213 
 Francis, Saint 328 
 Francis Speretis 381 
 Frankfort 251 
 Frederick IL, body 34, 68 
 Free cities 333 
 Freind 187 
 Fulbert of Chartres 227 
 
 Gairdner 256 
 
 Galen 183. 194 
 
 Galileo 16, 19, 239, 306, 332, 885 
 
 Galvani 282 
 
 Gardner 270 
 
 Generation, spontaneous 92 
 
 Gentilis 77 
 
 Geography 140 
 
 Geology, foundation 401 
 
 Gerbert 227 
 
 Gesner 319 
 
 Gheel 367 
 
 Ghent 273 
 
 Gilbert 305 ; of Colchester 285 
 
 Giordano Bruno 393 
 
 Giliani, Alessandra 46 
 
 Giotto 92 
 
 Gladstone 393 
 
 Glaucoma 230 
 
 Goisbert 227 
 
 God's hostelry 260 
 
 Gold, bricks 15 ; from sea water 127 
 
 Gonorrhoea 180 
 
 Gordon 185 
 
 Gould, Dr. Geo. M. 405 
 
 Government interfered 279 
 
 Grandfather of Vesalius 110 
 
 Graves rifled 75 
 
 Grecisms 170 
 
 Gregory VII. 227; IX. 205; XL 212 
 
 Guido, or Guy of Montpelier 250 
 
 Guinicelli 308 
 
 Guyot de Provins 308 
 
 Giinther of Andernach 103 
 
 Habits, religious 278 ; of prayer 376 
 
 Hajckel 393 
 
 Haeser 182 
 
 Haly 183 
 
 Hangman, touch of 183 
 
 Harvey 96, 119, 234, 306, 396, 397 
 
 Health, Key of 209 
 
 Heart as a muscle 400 
 
 Hildebrand 227 
 
 Hildier 227 
 
 Hirsch's Biographical Lexicon 242 
 
 History lies 120, 122, 286 
 
 History of Science 16; of the Court of 
 
 Rome 55 
 
 Histoire litteraire de la France 81. 53, 54 
 Hoefer 132 
 
 Holmes, Oliver Wendell 277, 405 
 Holy Ghost, sin against 35 
 HonoriusIII. 273; IV. 274 
 Hooke, Robert 405 
 Hospital organization 248 ; of Holy Spirit 
 
 250; nursing 262; community 273; 
 
 Siena 269; for erysipelas 277 
 Hounds, bites of mad 181 
 House signs 253 
 House of God 266 
 Hugo De Senis 77 
 
 Humboldt 316 ; on medical science 20, 355 
 Humanitarian institutions 264 
 Huxley on Galileo 17; Prof. 394 
 Hydrophobia 181 
 Hypodermics 197 
 Hysteria 214 
 
428 
 
 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 Icterus 180 
 
 Ignatius Loyola 201 
 
 Ignorance, sublime 26 ; four grounds of 290 
 
 II Convito 362 
 
 Image, waxen 145, 169 
 
 Indestructibility of matter 312 
 
 Infallibility 35, 143, 169 
 
 Induction 169 
 
 lonization 311 
 
 Innocent III. 249, 273, 276, 370 ; XI. 240 ; 
 XII. 242 
 
 Inunctions, mercurial 215 
 
 Insanity in Middle Ages 363 
 
 Insane colony 377 ; non-violent 377 ; brut- 
 ally treated 378 ; in the poor houses 
 378; harmless 379 
 
 Inquisition 112, 118 
 
 Inter ceteras euros 160 
 
 Intestines 185 
 
 Interference, spiritual 380, 385 
 
 Institutions, large 367 
 
 Institutional system 377 
 
 Instruments, illustrations of 181, 185 
 
 Intuition 384 
 
 Investigations by experiment 296 
 
 Italy, post-graduate work in 96 
 
 Latin Empire 258 
 
 Lavoisier 393 
 
 Lead into silver 309 
 
 Leproseries 274 
 
 LeSexte 56 
 
 Leo XIII. 138, 327 ; X. 215 
 
 Lionardo da Vinci 90 
 
 Leyden 241 
 
 Liber Cosmographicus 317 
 
 Library of Canon and Civil Law 162 
 
 Linacre 93 
 
 Lithium into copper 310 
 
 Livers, extracts 230 
 
 Lodge, Sir Oliver 383 
 
 Logic, groundwork of 64 
 
 Lombroso 383 
 
 Lords the Poor 260 
 
 Louis IX. 334; body 34 
 
 Louvain 100 ; University of 102 
 
 Lubbock, Sir John 359 
 
 Lucan 358 
 
 Lucretius 358 
 
 Lully, Raymond 308 
 
 Lunar rainbows 318 
 
 Lung Abscess 180 
 
 Lutheranism 102 
 
 Lyons Council 326 
 
 Jackson, Dr. Geo. 116 
 
 Jacques de Vitry 265 
 
 Janus 207, 228 
 
 Jelliffe 367 
 
 Jenner 402 
 
 Jesuitism 50 
 
 Jesuits 232 
 
 Joannes de Tornamira 212 
 
 John XXII. 121 ; and education 143, 207, 223 
 
 John of Vigo 214 
 
 John of Chartres 227 
 
 Jordan, David Starr 390 
 
 Jordan, Pres. 395 
 
 Joubert 197 
 
 Julius II. 214 
 
 Kelly, Dr. Howard 239 
 Ken, Bishop 359 
 Kepler 385 
 Kircher 18, 238 
 Knights Hospitalers 261 
 Knowledge, advance 306 
 Kopp 131 
 Kropotkin 180, 332 
 Kuhns, Prof. L. Oscar 347 
 
 Lachrimal fistula 208 
 Laennec 403 
 Lanfranc 68, 79, 173. 175 
 Lane lectures 237 
 Lancisi 241 
 La Place 405 
 Lapponi, Dr. 214 
 
 Macaulay 284 
 Magnet in surgery 178 
 Mail and Express 266 
 Maison Dieu 260 
 Malpighi 18, 85, 96, 119, 217, 240 
 Malgaigne 182, 194 
 Malingerers 273 
 Mantegna 112 
 Manipulations, surgical 185 
 Marguerite of Burgogne 266 
 Marie of Burgundy 109 
 Mary, Queen 94 
 
 Massari 246 
 
 Maximilian I. 109 
 
 Medical Library and Hist. Journal 40, 121 
 
 Medical Schools of Rome 222 
 
 Medieval scientific books 23 
 
 Mental and nervous diseases 363 
 
 Method, deductive 281 ; inductive 283 
 
 Meyer, Ernest von 132 
 
 Meyer 209 
 
 Michel Angelo 90 
 
 Milan's magnificent hospital 269 
 
 Minerals 135 
 
 Mineralogy 140, 157 
 
 Miracles to medicine 167 ; belief in 199 
 
 Mitchell 405 
 
 Mivart, St. George 394 
 
 Mondino 37 
 
 Monte Cassino 205, 225 
 
 Montpelier, University of 79, 177, 182, 192 
 
 Montagnano 78 
 
 Morgagni 99, 219; forerunner of 83; 
 
 eighth daughter of 222 ; son a Jesuit 
 
 221 
 
 Morgan, Augustus de, on Galileo 16 
 Morley, Henry 291 
 Miinchen 251 
 
INDEX 
 
 429 
 
 N 
 
 Naples 825 
 
 Nature, interest in 335 ; laws of 387 
 
 Natural phenomena 340 ; science 340 
 
 Naude 205 
 
 Neckam, Abbot 308 
 
 Necropsies 85 
 
 Newark 188 
 
 Newman, Cardinal, on Galileo 16 
 
 Newton 306 
 
 Nicaise 182 
 
 Nicholas, Pope 137 ; IV. 208 ; V. 213 
 
 Nothingness 313 
 
 Novelty 392 
 
 Novum Organum 284, 293 
 
 Nuremberg 332 
 
 Observation, powers of 300 
 
 Ohm 282, 408 
 
 Open door 367. 371, 374 
 
 Opposition, ecclesiastical 62 ; popular 62 
 
 Opposition to the progress of science 396 
 
 Opus Tertium 134, 288 ; Majus 292 
 
 Ordures 183 
 
 Ovid 358 
 
 Oxford 324 
 
 Pious Schools, Society of 218 
 Pius IV. 235 
 Poggendorf 286 
 Poissin 405 
 Polypus 85 
 Pope Clement 327 
 
 Popes encouraged anatomy and medical 
 sciences 113 
 
 (For separate Popes see names) 
 Pope John and education 141 
 Popularizers in science 283 
 Possessed 368 
 Possession 380 
 Potamian, Brother 307 
 Practice of medicine 65 
 Prayer for mental diseases 376 
 Prerequisite for degree 159 
 President, our 143 
 Priestley 286 
 Prince Kropotkin 330, 345 
 Prime matter 311 
 Prospectus of Medical School 157 
 Protestant tradition 24 
 Ptolemaic 353 
 Psalms 178 
 
 Psychopathic wards 368 
 Public buildings 269 
 Puccinotti 69, 75 
 
 Puschmann 41, 58, 75, 171, 298, 319 
 Pythagoras 351 
 
 Padua 77, 83, 106; University at 394 
 
 Pagel 171, 177, 190, 319 
 
 Palmist 129 
 
 Papal Medical School 26, 66, 89, 119, 222 
 
 Papal bulls 26; Curia 113; Physicians 
 
 118, 202 
 
 Paracelsus 118, 137. 
 Pare 174 
 
 Paris 152, 158, 192, 317, 325 
 Pasteur 289, 409 
 Pathology, father of 84 
 Patron of students 331 
 Patients scourged 375 
 Paul III. 113, 232 ; IV. 113, 114 
 Peregrinus 307 
 Permissions to dissect 51 
 Perugia University 149, 156, 161 
 Perugino 162, 243 
 Petella 207, 229 
 Peter of Chartres 227 
 Peter of Spain 207, 208 
 Pharmacology 158 
 Phenomena, psychic 381; occult 381 
 Philip Le Bel 177 
 Philip II. 217 
 
 Philosopher's stone 135, 308 
 Philosophy encouraged 22 
 Phosphorescence 355 
 Phreas, John 95 
 Phthisis 180 
 
 Physicians, Royal College of 93 
 Physicians, thinking 201; of educated 
 
 people 203 
 
 Physics, treatise on 298 
 Physical geography 317 
 Piccolomini 216, 235 
 
 PHcher, Prof., on Mondino 39, 45, 48, 64, 66 
 Pilgrimage for insane 875, 376 
 
 Questions, medical 237 
 
 Rabies, treatment for 409 
 
 Ramsay, Sir Wm. 310 
 
 Raphael 90, 162 
 
 Rashdall 73; History of Universities 37 
 
 Ratisbon, Bishop of 324 
 
 Reason for false tradition 24 
 
 Reed, Major Walter 239 
 
 Reformation, so-called 166, 190 
 
 Reform of philosophizing 293 
 
 Regius professors 193 
 
 Religious care for the sick 263 
 
 Regulation of medical practice 65 
 
 Renaissance 80 
 
 Renaissance of science 91 
 
 Resurrection of 91 
 
 Richard the Englishman 205 
 
 Ricardus Anglicus 205 
 
 Ricardus Paresiensis 205 
 
 Richet 383 
 
 Roger 170, 192 
 
 Rome 325; Roman University 164 
 
 Rosarium 132 
 
 Rostock, University of 155 
 
 Roth 70, 76 
 
 Rovere, Cardinal Delia 14 
 
 Ruskin 342 
 
 S 
 
 Saintsbury 303 
 
 Saladin 261 
 
 Salermo 65 ; history of 130 
 
430 
 
 THE POPES AND SCIENCE 
 
 Salicet 173, 221 
 Sanitarium 371 
 Sapienza 215 
 Sarti 67 
 Schacht 137 
 Scheit 137 
 
 Scholasticism 302, 303 
 Scholarship, profound 299 
 School street in Oxford 362 
 Science, Medieval 301, 335 
 Science in modern universities 304 ; chem- 
 ical 120 
 
 Scientists believers 282 
 Scientia Experimentalis 292 
 Scirrhus 85 
 
 Segregation, leprosy 275 
 Semmelweiss 407 
 Servetus 393, 399, 400 
 Shrines 375 
 Sicilies, dissection in 63 
 Siena, story of 270 
 Sighart 317 
 Simon Januensis 208 
 Scotus, Michael 102 
 Sir Wm. Crookes 382 
 Sister of Holy Ghost 254 
 Skeleton of felon 104 
 Skeletons 105 
 Snake, bite of 181 
 Social ostracism 127 
 Sociology 412 
 South Pole 315 
 Speakman, Eliz. 259 
 Speculum Naturale 334 
 Sphericity of the earth 316 
 Spirit interference 385 
 Spiritist 129 
 
 Spiritual manifestations 381 
 Spiritual interference 366 
 Spiritual interference in human life 366 
 Spiritual world 380 
 Spondent pariter 122 
 St Anthony's fire 272 
 St. Bartholomew's 255 
 St. Catherine of Siena 272 
 St. Charles Seminary 146 
 St.C6me 194 
 St. Dympna 376 
 St. Francis 162, 328 
 St. Francis's fire 276 
 St. Gallen 251 
 St. Thomas's Hospital 256 
 St. Victor 205 
 Stagirite 292 
 
 Stars, shooting 351 ; fixed 352 
 Steinschneider 209 
 Steno 96, 400 
 Stensen % 
 Stenosis 85 
 
 Stone, philosopher's 125 
 Strangury 180 
 Strasburg 72 
 Structural work 330 
 Students clerics 339; of medicine 157 
 Sturdy vagrants 274 
 Sudden Death 242 
 Suggestions, strong 375 
 Summa Theologiae 298 
 Super Illius specula 128 
 Superstition 184 
 Superficiality of our education 21 
 
 Surgery, history of 68 ; prohibition of 169 
 Surgery, father of 193 ; prejudice against 
 
 194 
 Surgeons ecclesiastics 169; dishonorable 
 
 171 
 
 Surgeons, Middle Ages 172 
 Swift, Dean 391 
 Syncope 214 
 Sylvester II. 227 
 Synonyma Medicinae 209 
 Synonymies 209 
 
 Taxes 185 
 
 Telepathy 384 
 
 Tents 183 
 
 Temporal power 55 
 
 Tertullian 112 
 
 Thaddeus 206 
 
 Theobald V., King 335 
 
 Theodoric 183 
 
 Theological discouragement 167 
 
 Theological opposition 167 
 
 Theophastus 319 
 
 Thirteenth Greatest of Centuries 322 
 
 Thomas of Cantimprato 336 
 
 Thrombosis of the mesenteric vein 85 
 
 Thule 315 
 
 Thomson 132, 135, 405 
 
 Tolerance for scientific investigation 116 
 
 Thomassetti 146 
 
 Tooth, dead man's 167, 183 
 
 Toply 58, 67; von 41 
 
 Tozzi 218, 240 
 
 Traditions, blood-fearing 192 
 
 Tramp 274 
 
 Transmutation of metals 309 
 
 Trephining 185 
 
 Trent, Council of 204 
 
 Trithemius 137 
 
 Trowbridge 343 
 
 Tuberculosis, crusade against 278 
 
 Turner 86, 115, 245, 304 
 
 Twelve, College of, Physicians 211 
 
 Tycho-Brahe 360 
 
 Tyndall 238 
 
 U 
 
 Ulcers, carcinomatous 183 
 
 Umbrian School 162 
 
 University curriculus, medieval 801, 308 
 
 University books 304; teaching 329 
 
 University, Papal 15 
 
 University of the City of Rome 223 
 
 Urban VI. 211 
 
 Valentine 136 
 Valsalva 99, 194 
 VanSwieten 241 
 Varolius 217 
 Vatican 88 
 Vecchetta 271 
 Venice 72, 88, 106 
 Verocchio 112 
 Verona 174 
 
INDEX 
 
 431 
 
 Vesalius 35, 51, 100; great-grandfather 
 109 ; inquisitive 101 ; ancestry 109 ; 
 father 110; as consultant 112; life 
 of 116, 216 
 
 Vibrations in the ether 384 
 
 Vienna Medical School 241 
 
 Villani 345 
 
 Villanova, Arnold of 210 
 
 Vincent of Beauvais 334 
 
 Virchow 251, 256 
 
 Virgil 407 
 
 Visitor's fees, Bedlam 373 
 
 Vitry 308 
 
 W 
 
 Wallace, Alfred Russell 386 
 Walsh 144 
 
 Wards, cheerless, white 268 
 Ward for psychic cases 367 
 Warfare, Theology, Science 29 
 Weismann 393 
 
 Wenzel, Emperor 169 
 
 Whewell 293 
 
 White, Andrew D. 29 ; on dissection 49 ; 
 
 universal prohibition 20, 112, 122. 128, 
 
 130, 171, 199, 369 
 William of Salicet 68, 79 
 Workmen of Lyons 326 
 World, immaterial 3S 
 Wurz 174 
 
 Young, Dr. Thomas 404 
 Yperman 178 
 Ypres 178 
 
 Zerbi 105 
 Zoology 158 
 Zurich 251 
 
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