Volume - The Clarence Darrow Collection

50
FROM MIRACLES TO MEDICINE.
Aragon, in 1391, gave to the University of Lerida the privi-
lege of dissecting one dead criminal every three years.*
During the fifteenth century and the earlier years of the
sixteenth the revival of learning, the invention of printing,
and the great voyages of discovery gave a new impulse to
thought,
and in this medical science shared : the old theo-
logical way of thinking was greatly questioned, and gave
at the
place in many quarters to a different way of looking
universe.
In the sixteenth century Paracelsus appears a great
genius, doing much to develop medicine beyond the reach
of sacred and scholastic tradition, though still fettered by
many superstitions. More and more, in spite of theological
dogmas, came a renewal of anatomical studies by dissection
of the human subject. The practice of the old Alexandrian
School was thus resumed. Mundinus, Professor of Medicine
at Bologna early in the fourteenth century, dared use the
human subject occasionally in his lectures ; but finally came
a far greater champion of scientific truth, Andreas Vesalius,
founder of the modern science of anatomy. The battle
waged by this man is one of the glories of our race.
From the outset Vesalius proved himself a master. Inf
the search for real knowledge he risked the most terrible
dangers, and especially the charge of sacrilege, founded
upon the teachings of the Church for ages. As we have
seen, even such men in the early Church as TertuUian and
St. Augustine held anatomy in abhorrence, and the decretal
of Pope Boniface VIII was universally construed as forbidding
all dissection, and as threatening excommunication
against those practising it. Through this sacred conven-
tionalism Vesalius broke without fear ; despite 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. First of all men he began to place the science ol
ti^
* For the promotion of medical science and practice, especially in the thirteen^ ^M ^
century, by the universities, see Baas, pp. 222-224. 1 ;>>.
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