V. THEOLOGICAL OPPOSITION TO ANATOMICAL STUDIES.

Yet a more serious stumbling-block, hindering the beginnings of modern medicine and surgery, was a theory regarding the unlawfulness of meddling with the bodies of the dead. This theory, like so many others which the Church cherished as peculiarly its own, had really been inherited from the old pagan civilizations. So strong was it in Egypt that the embalmer was regarded as accursed; traces of it appear in Græco-Roman life, and hence it came into the early Church, where it was greatly strengthened by the addition of perhaps the most noble of mystic ideas—the recog nition of the human body as the temple of the Holy Spirit. Hence Tertullian denounced the anatomist Herophilus as a butcher, and St. Augustine spoke of anatomists generally in similar terms.

But this nobler conception was alloyed with a mediæval superstition even more effective, when the formula known as the Apostles' Creed had, in its teachings regarding the resurrection of the body, supplanted the doctrine laid down by St. Paul. Thence came a dread of mutilating the body in such a way that some injury might result to its final resurrection at the Last Day, and additional reasons for hindering dissections in the study of anatomy.

To these 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 philosophical historians, that of all organizations in human history 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 honour the older Church for the great services 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 abhors the shedding of blood."

On this ground, in 1248, the Council of Le Mans forbade 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 then it was that Pope Boniface 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.

The idea lying at the bottom of this interdiction was in all probability that which had inspired Tertullian to make his bitter utterance against Herophilus; but, be that as it may, it soon came to be considered as extending to all dissection, and thereby surgery and medicine were crippled for more than two centuries; it was the worst blow they ever received, for it impressed upon the mind of the Church the belief that all dissection is sacrilege, and led to ecclesiastical mandates withdrawing from the healing art the most thoughtful and cultivated men of the Middle Ages and giv ing up surgery to the lowest class of nomadic charlatans.

So deeply was this idea rooted in the mind of the universal Church that for over a thousand years surgery was considered dishonourable: the greatest monarchs were often unable to secure an ordinary surgical operation; and it was only in 1406 that a better beginning was made, when the Emperor Wenzel of Germany ordered that dishonour should no longer attach to the surgical profession.*

* As to religious scruples against dissection, and abhorrence of the Paraschites, or embalmer, see Maspero and Sayce, The Dawn of Civilization, p. 216. For denunciation of surgery by the Church authorities, see Sprengel, vol. ii, pp. 432-435; also Fort, pp. 452 et seq.; and for the reasoning which led the Church to forbid surgery to priests, see especially Frédault, Histoire de la Médecine, p. 200. As to the decretal of Boniface VIII, the usual statement is that he forbade all dissections. While it was undoubtedly construed universally to prohibit dissections for anatomical purposes, its declared intent was as stated in the text; that it was constantly construed against anatomical investigations can not for a moment be denied. This construction is taken for granted in the great Histoire Littéraire de la France, founded by the Benedictines, certainly a very high authority as to the main current of opinion in the Church. For the decretal of Boniface VIII, see the Corpus Juris Canonici. I have used the edition of Paris, 1618, where it may be found on pp. 866, 867. See also, in spite of the special pleading of Giraldi, the Benedictine Hist. Lit. de la France, toine xvi, p. 98.

VI. NEW BEGINNINGS OF MEDICAL SCIENCE.

In spite of all these opposing forces, the evolution of medical science continued, though but slowly. In the second century of the Christian era Galen had made himself a great authority at Rome, and from Rome had swayed the medical science of the world: his genius triumphed over the defects of his method; but, though he gave a powerful impulse to medicine, his dogmatism stood in its way long afterward.

The places where medicine, such as it thus became, could be applied, were at first mainly the infirmaries of various monasteries, especially the larger ones of the Benedictine order these were frequently developed into hospitals. Many monks devoted themselves to such medical studies as were permitted, and sundry churchmen and laymen did much to secure and preserve copies of ancient medical treatises. So, too, in the cathedral schools established by Charlemagne and others, provision was generally made for medical teaching; but all this instruction, whether in convents or schools, was wretchedly poor. It consisted not in developing by individual thought and experiment the gifts of Hippocrates, Aristotle, and Galen, but almost entirely in the parrot-like repetition of their writings.

But, while the inherited ideas of Church leaders were thus unfavourable to any proper development of medical science, there were two bodies of men outside the Church who, though largely fettered by superstition, were far less so than the monks and students of ecclesiastical schools: these were the Jews and Mohammedans. The first of these especially had inherited many useful sanitary and hygienic ideas, which had probably been first evolved by the Egyptians, and from them transmitted to the modern world mainly through the sacred books attributed to Moses.

The Jewish scholars became especially devoted to medical science. To them is largely due the building up of the School of Salerno, which we find flourishing in the tenth century. Judged by our present standards its work was poor indeed, but compared with other medical instruction of the time it was vastly superior: it developed hygienic

principles especially, and brought medicine upon a higher plane.

Still more important is the rise of the School of Montpellier; this was due almost entirely to Jewish physicians, and it developed medical studies to a yet higher point, doing much to create a medical profession worthy of the name throughout southern Europe.

As to the Arabians, we find them from the tenth to the fourteenth century, especially in Spain, giving much thought to medicine, and to chemistry as subsidiary to it. About the beginning of the ninth century, when the greater Christian writers were supporting fetich by theology, Almamon, the Moslem, declared, "They are the elect of God, his best and most useful servants, whose lives are devoted to the improvement of their rational faculties." The influence of Avicenna, the translator of the works of Aristotle, extended throughout all Europe during the eleventh century. The Arabians were indeed much fettered by tradition in medical science, but their translations of Hippocrates and Galen preserved to the world the best thus far developed in medicine, and still better were their contributions to pharmacy: these remain of value to the present hour.*

Various Christian laymen also rose above the prevailing theologic atmosphere far enough to see the importance of promoting scientific development. First among these we may name the Emperor Charlemagne; he and his great minister, Alcuin, not only promoted medical studies in the schools they founded, but also made provision for the establishment of botanic gardens in which those herbs were espe pecially cultivated which were supposed to have healing virtues. So, too, in the thirteenth century, the Emperor Frederick II, though under the ban of the Pope, brought to

* For the great services rendered to the development of medicine by the Jews, see Monteil, Médecine en France, p. 58; also the historians of medicine generally. For the quotation from Almamon, see Gibbon, vol. x, p. 42. For the services of both Jews and Arabians, see Bédarride, Histoire des Juifs, p. 115; also Sismondi, Histoire des Français, tome i, p. 191. For the Arabians, especially, see Rosseeuw Saint-Hilaire, Histoire d'Espagne, Paris, 1844, vol. iii, pp. 191 et seq. For the tendency of the Mosaic books to insist on hygienic rather than therapeutical treatment, and its consequences among Jewish physicians, see Sprengel, but especially Frédault, p. 14.

gether in his various journeys, and especially in his crusading expeditions, many Greek and Arabic manuscripts, and took special pains to have those which concerned medicine preserved and studied; he also promoted better ideas of medicine and embodied them in laws.

Men of science also rose, in the stricter sense of the word, even in the centuries under the most complete sway of theological thought and ecclesiastical power; a science, indeed, alloyed with theology, but still infolding precious germs. Of these were men like Arnold of Villanova, Bertrand de Gordon, Albert of Bollstadt, Basil Valentine, Raymond Lully, and, above all, Roger Bacon; all of whom cultivated sciences subsidiary to medicine, and in spite of charges. of sorcery, with possibilities of imprisonment and death, kept the torch of knowledge burning, and passed it on to future generations.*

From the Church itself, even when the theological atmosphere was most dense, rose here and there men who persisted in something like scientific effort. As early as the ninth century, Bertharius, a monk of Monte Cassino, prepared two manuscript volumes of prescriptions selected from ancient. writers; other monks studied them somewhat, and, during succeeding ages, scholars like Hugo, Abbot of St. Denis,Notker, monk of St. Gall,-Hildegard, Abbess of Rupertsberg, Milo, Archbishop of Beneventum,—and John of St. Amand, Canon of Tournay, did something for medicine as they understood it. Unfortunately, they generally understood its theory as a mixture of deductions from Scripture. with dogmas from Galen, and its practice as a mixture of incantations with fetiches. Even Pope Honorius III did something for the establishment of medical schools; but he did so much more to place ecclesiastical and theological fetters upon teachers and taught, that the value of his gifts may well be doubted. All germs of a higher evolution of

* For the progress of sciences subsidiary to medicine even in the darkest ages, see Fort, pp. 374, 375; also Isensee, Geschichte der Medicin, pp. 225 et seq.; also Monteil, p. 89; Heller, Geschichte der Physik, vol. i, bk. 3; also Kopp, Geschichte der Chemie. For Frederick II and his Medicinal-Gesetz, see Baas, p. 221, but especially Von Raumer, Geschichte der Hohenstaufen, Leipsic, 1872, vol. iii, P. 259.