The Origin and Growth of the Healing Art by Edward Berdoe
CHAPTER VII.
231 words | Chapter 68
THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY.
Revival of Human Anatomy.—Famous Physicians of the Century.—Domestic
Medicine in Chaucer.—Fellowship of the Barbers and Surgeons.—The Black
Death.—The Dancing Mania.—Pharmacy.
REVIVAL OF HUMAN ANATOMY.
Brighter days dawned for medical science after the close of the
thirteenth century, up to which era the Saracenic learning prevailed.
While human dissections were impossible, the sciences of anatomy and
philosophy had made no advance beyond the point at which they were
left by Galen, and as he dissected only animals they were necessarily
left in a very imperfect state. It is not known precisely when human
dissection was revived; probably the school of Salerno, under the
influence of Frederick II., has a right to the honour. In 1308,
however, we find the senate of Venice decreeing that a body should be
dissected annually,[791] and it is known that such dissections took
place at Bologna in 1300. We have, however, nothing very definite on
the subject till a few years later. Italy gave birth to the first great
anatomist of Europe.
The father of modern anatomy was MONDINO, who taught in Bologna about
the year 1315. Under his cultivation “the science first began to rise
from the ashes in which it had been buried.”[792] His demonstrations of
the different parts of the human body at once attracted the notice of
the medical profession of Europe to the school of Bologna. He died in
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