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THE INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 145
cumstance that his works were not destroyed by the theosophists
of the Christian and Islamite eras, filled with
rage and brutal fanaticism as they were against the
literary memorials of antiquity; but that they were on the
contrary carefully preserved and zealously studied and even
given wider extension.
While the theoretical departments of the study of medicine
were doomed to inaction, a prospect of successful
scientific effort disclosed itself to practical medical science
through the foundation of hospitals. The charitable institutions
which Christian philanthropy called into existence
afforded opportunities for the observation of diseases
and injuries of all kinds and offered facilities to doctors for
acquiring education in their art and for amassing experience.
To assert that the foundation of public hospitals is
exclusively a product of jChristianity is certainly inaccurate.
Even the Buddhists, as we have seen, were acquainted with
such institutions, and the Iatreia of the Greek physicians
and especially those maintained at the public cost, were
essentially nothing but public hospitals. The convalescent
institutions of the Romans which were fitted up for slaves
and soldiers differed from them only in the fact that they
were intended for particular classes of the community.
The Spaniards on reaching Mexico after the discovery of
America, found hospitals there too and even praised them*
highly. VlRCHOW is right when he says that " every
civilization which humanizes the manners and customs
of people up to a certain degree and giyes a more finished
form to society, ends by being moved to the foundation of
hospitals." t
Christianity however deserves the incontestable merit' of
having kindled into a clear flame of enthusiasm the sparks
of true philanthropy which she found glowing in obscurity.
No other religion, no political or social power
* PRESCOTT : The conquest of Mexico, London 1863, 2nd Ed., i, p. 26, 169.
t" VIRCHOW : Tiber Hospitaler und Lazarethe in seinen gesammelten A.bhand-
lungen, Berlin 1879, "> S. 8-
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