Volume - The Clarence Darrow Collection

38
FROM MIRACLES TO MEDICINE.
Magic was so common a charge that many physiciai
seemed to believe it themselves. In the tenth century Ger-i
bert, afterward known as Pope Sylvester II, was at once sus
pected of sorcery when he showed a disposition to adopt
scientific methods ;
in the eleventh century this charge nearlj
cost the life of Constantine Africanus when he broke from]
the beaten path of medicine in the ; thirteenth, it gave Roger]
Bacon, one of the greatest benefactors of mankind, many]
years of imprisonment, and nearly brought him to the stake ;
these cases are typical of very many.
Still another charge against physicians who showed
talent for investigation was that of Mohammedanism anc
Averroism ; and Petrarch stigmatized Averroists as " mei
who deny Genesis and bark at Christ." *
The effect of this widespread ecclesiastical oppositioi
was, that for many centuries the study of medicine was rel<
gated mainly to the lowest order of practitioners. There
was, indeed, one orthodox line of medical evolution during
the later Middle : Ages St. Thomas Aquinas insisted that th<
forces of the body are independent of its physical organiza^
tion, and that therefore these forces are to be studied by the"
scholastic philosophy and the theological method, instead of
by researches into the structure of the body ; as a result ol
this, mingled with survivals of various pagan superstitions
we have in anatomy and physiology such doctrines as th<
increase and decrease of the brain with the phases of th<
moon, the ebb and flow of human vitality with the tides of
the ocean, the use of the lungs to fan the heart, the function
of the liver as the seat of love, and that of the spleen as the
centre of wit.
Closely connected with these methods of thought was tH
doctrine of signatures. It was reasoned that the Almightj
must have set his sign upon the various means of curing dis
ease which he has provided : hence it was held that blooc
root, on account of its red juice, is good for the blood ;
livei
wort, having a leaf like the liver, cures diseases of the
livei^
eyebright, being marked with a spot like an eye, cures dij
* For Averroes, see Renan, Averroh et VAverroisme, Paris, 1861, pp. 327-335.
For a perfectly just statement of the only circumstances which can justify a charge
of atheism, see Rev. Dr. Deems, in Popular Science Monthly, February, 1876.