1518. The king was moved to this by the example of similar institutions

in Italy and elsewhere, by the solicitations of Thomas Linacre, one of his own physicians, and by the advice and recommendation of Cardinal Wolsey. Six physicians are named in the Letters Patent as constituting the College, viz., John Chambre, Thomas Linacre, and Ferdinand de Victoria, the king’s physicians; and Nicholas Halsewell, John Francis, and Robert Yaxlery, physicians, “and all men of the same faculty, of and in London, and within seven miles thereof, are incorporated as one body and perpetual community or college.”[840] DR. CHAMBRE was a priest before he became a physician. He was educated at Oxford, studied at Padua, where he graduated in physic. DR. THOMAS LINACRE was a distinguished scholar and physician, who was born A.D. 1460. In 1484 he was elected a fellow of All Souls’, Oxford; the next year he went to Bologna, where he studied under Pulitian; he then went to Florence, where he became acquainted with Lorenzo the Great; from Florence, he went to Rome, and thence to Venice and Padua, which at that time was the most celebrated school of physic in the world, and took the degree of Doctor of Medicine with the highest applause. Linacre founded (1524) two Physic Lectures at Oxford and one at Cambridge, but “they were not performed till divers years after Linacre’s death, on account of the troubles concerning religion.”[841] DR. ANDREW BORDE, Carthusian monk, physician, wit and buffoon, lived in the reign of Henry VIII. He took his physician’s degree at Montpellier in 1532, and afterwards became one of the court physicians on his return to England. He was a learned, genial, and sensible doctor, but possessed “a rambling head and an inconstant mind,” as Anthony à Wood says. He wrote voluminously. His chief works, the _Breviary of Health_, _The Dietary of Health_, and _The Book of the Introduction to Knowledge_, have been edited by Dr. F. J. Furnivall, and published for the Early English Text Society in a volume which is one of the most entertaining works on medicine ever written. Borde earned his title of “Merry Andrew” (a name which has become a household word) from attending fairs and revels, and conducting himself with the buffoonery which ill became so learned a man. Doubtless, however, it endeared him to his countrymen of the period. His medical works are full of prescriptions for various complaints, and many of them are exceedingly valuable and fully equal to the best treatment followed now. THOMAS VICARY was probably born between 1490 and 1500, was not a trained surgeon, but “a meane practiser” at Maidstone. In 1525 he was junior of the three Wardens of the Barbers’ or Barber-Surgeons’ Company in London. In 1528 he was Upper or First Warden of the Company, and one of the surgeons to Henry VIII., at £20 a year. In 1530 he was Master of the Barber-Surgeons’ Company, and at the head of his profession till his death in 1561 or 1562. As Dr. Furnivall says, he was “the Paget of his great Tudor time.” Soon after the dissolution of the monasteries, Henry VIII., at the request of the City of London, handed over the monastic hospitals, Bartholomew’s and others, to the Corporation of London. He gave to Bartholomew’s a small endowment (nominally £333 odd) out of old houses which he charged with pensions to parsons. The city raised £1000 for repairs and reopened the hospital for one hundred patients, and on 29th September, 1548, appointed Chief-Surgeon VICARY as one of the six new governors of the hospital. The reorganization of the hospital was in a large measure due to this excellent man and intelligent surgeon. In 1548 he published the first English work on Anatomy, _The Anatomie of the Body of Man_, which was reprinted by the Surgeons of Bartholomew’s in 1577. This text-book held the field for 150 years.[842] Those who are interested in the origin of our oldest and greatest hospital in London will find much valuable information in the _Truly Christian Ordre of the Hospital of S. Bartholomewes_, 1552, published as Appendix XVI. in Dr. Furnivall’s Vicary, p. 291. ROBERT COPLAND in 1547 or 48 published his book called _The Hy Way to the Spitt House_. This is an important and interesting account of the scamps and rogues who resorted to St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, London, in the time of Henry VIII., after the Statute 22nd Hen. VIII. (1530-1), against vagabonds. At that time the hospital gave temporary lodging to almost all the needy, as well as a permanent home to the deserving poor and sick; and sisters attended to them. Copland learns from the porter all about the ne’er-do-wells and the rascals who sought to impose on the charity.[843] The old herbalists were often very patient and devoted investigators, who experimented upon themselves, and by these means accumulated a great number of facts of great use in the art of medicine. Conrad Gesner was one of these; he used to eat small portions of wild herbs, and test their effects on his own person, sitting down in the study with the plants around him.[844] SIR WILLIAM BUTTS, M.D. (died 1545), was physician to Henry VIII., and was the friend of Wolsey, Cranmer, and Latimer. He was knighted by Henry, and is immortalised in Shakspeare’s play of _Henry VIII._ GEORGE OWEN, M.D. (died 1558), was physician to Henry VIII., Edward VI., and Queen Mary. It has been said that Edward VI. was brought into the world by Dr. Owen, who performed the Cæsarian operation on his mother. JOHN CAIUS, M.D. (1510-1573), entered Gonville Hall, Cambridge, 1529. He at first studied divinity, but in 1539 went to Padua to study medicine under Montanus. Whilst at Padua, Caius lodged in the same house with the anatomist Vesalius, devoting no less attention to anatomy than his companion. He took the degree of doctor of medicine at Padua. He was public professor of Greek in that University; in 1543 he visited all the great libraries of Italy, collecting MSS., with the view of giving correct editions of the works of Galen and Celsus. In 1552 he was residing in London, and published an account of the Sweating Sickness which prevailed in 1551. He was physician to Edward VI., Mary, and Elizabeth. Dr. Caius enlarged and augmented the resources of the college at Cambridge, at which he had been educated; and he rendered eminent service to the College of Physicians by defending its rights against the illegal practices of the surgeons, who interfered with the proper functions of the physicians. His munificent foundation at Cambridge is a claim on the gratitude of the English nation, and ensures him a high place for ever in the annals of our universities. The visitor to Cambridge will not fail to remember that it was he who built the three singular gates at his college, inscribed to Humility, to Virtue and Wisdom, and to Honour. But he has another lasting claim to respect on the grounds that he first introduced the study of practical anatomy into this country, and was the first publicly to teach it, which he did in the hall of the Barber-Surgeons, shortly after his return from Italy. Dr. Caius was a profound classical scholar, and left numerous works on the Greek and Latin medical authors. As a naturalist, linguist, critic, and antiquary, he was no less distinguished than as a physician. EDWARD WOTTON, M.D. (died 1555), seems to have been the first English physician who applied himself specially to the study of natural history. He made himself famous by his work on this subject, entitled _De Differentiis Animalium_. DR. GEYNES (died 1563) was cited before the College of Physicians for impugning the authority of Galen; he recanted and humbly acknowledged his heresy, and was duly pardoned. The circumstance is a curious illustration of the sentiments of the times.[845] SIMON LUDFORD was originally a friar who became an apothecary in London, who was admitted by the University of Oxford to the baccalaureate in medicine, although totally ignorant and incompetent. The College reproved the University, and he was compelled to undergo a course of study, when he was ultimately admitted doctor of medicine in Oxford, and Fellow of the College of Physicians in 1563. WILLIAM GILBERT, M.D. (born 1540), engaged in experiments relative to the magnet, achieving results which Galileo declared to be “great to a degree which might be envied,” and which induced Galileo to turn his mind to magnetism.[846] THOMAS PENNY, M.D. (practised in London, 1570-1). Gerard styles him “a second Dioscorides, for his singular knowledge of plants.” He was also one of the first Englishmen who studied insects. PETER TURNER, M.D. (died 1614), was physician to St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, and one of the greatest botanists of his age. THOMAS MUFFET, M.D., the learned friend of distinguished physicians and naturalists, was esteemed in his day the famous ornament of the body of physicians (died 1604). BERENGER OF CAPRI (died 1527) flourished at Bologna (1518). He was a zealous anatomist, and declared that he had “dissected more than one hundred human bodies.” He was the first who recognised the larger proportional size of the male chest than the female, and the converse concerning the pelvis. He discovered the two arytenoid cartilages in the larynx, first accurately described the thymus, and gave a good description of the brain and the internal ear, in which he noticed the _malleus_ and _incus_. He rectified some of the mistakes of Mondino, but was, like all other anatomists before Harvey, deeply perplexed about the heart and the circulation. He investigated the structure of the valves of the heart. * * * * * The art of midwifery, up to the middle of the sixteenth century, was in the lowest possible condition. In 1521, a doctor named Veites was condemned to the flames in Hamburg, for engaging in the business of midwifery. In the year 1500, the wife of one JACOB NUFER, of Thurgau, a Swiss sow-gelder, being in peril of her life in pregnancy, though thirteen midwives and several surgeons had attempted to deliver her in the ordinary way, it occurred to her husband to ask permission of the authorities, and the help of God, to deliver her “as he would a sow.” He was completely successful, and thus performed the first Cæsarian operation on the living patient, who lived to bear several other children in the natural way, and died at the age of seventy-seven. Another sow-gelder performed the operation of ovariotomy on his own daughter, in the sixteenth century. FRANÇOIS ROUSSET (about 1581), physician to the Duke of Savoy, was the first to write upon the Cæsarian operation. The improvement in printing and engraving caused the works of the Greek, Roman, and Arabian writers to be more widely known, and manuals were published for the instruction of midwives. The first book of this kind was by EUCHARIUS ROSLEIN, at Worms, called the _Rose Garden for Midwives_ (1513). VESALIUS (1543) rendered great services to the obstetric art by his anatomical teaching; and when Rousset published his treatise, the operation became popular, and was constantly performed on the living subject, sometimes even when it was not absolutely necessary. PINEAU, a surgeon of Paris, in 1589, first suggested division of the pubes to facilitate difficult labour. * * * * * In the year 1535 (27 Henry VIII.), Wood says[847] that at Oxford “divers scholars, upon a foresight of the ruin of the clergy, had and did now betake themselves to physick, who as yet raw and inexpert would adventure to practise, to the utter undoing of many. The said visitors ordered, therefore, that none should practise or exercise that faculty unless he had been examined by the physick professor concerning his knowledge therein. Which order, being of great moment, was the year following confirmed by the king, and power by him granted to the professor and successors to examine those that were to practise according to the Visitor’s Order.” PIERRE FRANCO (_c._ 1560) was a Swiss or French surgeon, and a famous lithotomist, who performed the high operation for the first time in 1560, with success, on a child aged two years. Recognising the dangers of this method, he introduced a new method in the operation known as perineal lithotomy, which was called the lateral method. He preceded Paré in improvements in dealing with strangulated hernia by the operation known as herniotomy. He was one of the first to re-introduce into midwifery practice the operation known as “turning,” in difficult labour. The operation was a familiar one amongst the Hindus, and had been known to the later Græco-Roman school, but had fallen into disuse until Paré, Franco, and Guillemeau devoted themselves to the improvement of this neglected branch of the healing art with great success. ANDREW LIBAVIUS (1546-1616), physician at Coburg, is said by Sprengel to have been the person who began to cultivate chemistry; as distinct from all theosophical fancies of his predecessors. CONRAD GESNER, the miracle of learning, whom we have already mentioned, devoted great attention to gynæcology, and wrote learnedly and without prejudice upon medicine. DR. HENRY ALKINS (born 1558) was one of the principal physicians of James I. While president of the Royal College, the first London Pharmacopœia was published in 1618. JOHN BANNISTER was a voluminous writer on surgery who practised in London, and wrote a treatise on surgery in 1575. THOMAS GALE (1507-1586), the “English Paré,” was a military surgeon, under Henry VIII. and Elizabeth, who taught that gun-shot wounds were not poisoned as was commonly supposed, but were to be treated as ordinary wounds. WILLIAM BULLEYN (died 1576) was a famous physician and botanist in the reigns of the later Tudors. He wrote _The Government of Health_ (1548), _Book of Simples_, and other works. FRESCATORIUS (1483-1553) was the first to publish a description of typhus fever. Dr. Mead says[848] that he knew that “consumption is contagious, and is contracted by living with a phthisical person, by the gliding of the corrupted and putrified juices [of the sick] into the lungs of the sound man.” He _inferred_ the microbes which we _see_. G. BAILLOU (1536-1614) was the first to describe clearly the diseases whooping cough and croup. ALEXANDER BENEDETTI (died 1525) was an anatomist, who made important observations on gall-stones. FELIX PLATTER (1536-1614), a professor at Basle, must ever be gratefully remembered for his humane and wise opposition to the cruel treatment of the insane by coercive measures, which unhappily were in fashion up to recent times. He suggested the division of diseases into three classes: (1) Mental disorders; (2) Pains, fevers, etc.; (3) Deformities and defects of secretion. A book which contains directions for identifying simples and preparing compound medicines is called a Pharmacopœia. The first work of this character, which was published under Government authority, was that of Nuremberg, in 1512. A student, VALERIUS CORDUS, passing through the city, exhibited a recipe book, which he had compiled from the writings of the most eminent physicians of the town. He was urged to print it for the benefit of the apothecaries. The College of Medicine at Florence issued the _Antidotarium Florentinum_, somewhat earlier, but merely on its own authority. Dr. A. Foes used the term pharmacopœia first as a distinct title for his work published at Basle, in 1561.[849] COSTANZO VAROLIUS of Bologna (1545-1575), one of the greatest of the Italian anatomists, described the optic nerves and many important points in the anatomy of the brain. VOLCHER COITER, of Groningen (1534-1600), was a pupil of Fallopius and Eustachius, who was distinguished for his important researches on the cartilages, bones, nerves, and the anatomy of the fœtal skeleton. FABRICIUS, of Acquapendente (1537-1619), a pupil of Fallopius, and a distinguished anatomist, made important researches on the structure of animals in general. His famous discovery of the valves of the veins and his investigations concerning their use led Harvey to make the discovery of the circulation of the blood. CASSERIUS (1561-1616) investigated the anatomy of the vocal organs, discovered the muscles of the ossicles of the ear, and practised bronchotomy, which he had learned from Fabricius. He was professor at Padua, and a teacher of Harvey. SPIGEL (1578-1625) made researches on the liver, a lobulus of which bears his name. OLAUS WORM (1588-1654) first described the small bones of the skull, now called “Wormian” bones. It was not till the sixteenth century that France contributed her quota to the list of great anatomists. Nothing shows more clearly the difficulty with which learning was spread in the times of which we write than the fact that the works of the early Italian anatomists were altogether unknown in France until a hundred years after they were written. JACQUES DUBOIS (1478-1555) taught anatomy at Paris, and was professor of surgery to the Royal College. He was an irrational admirer of Galen. The carcases of dogs and other animals were the materials from which he taught; it does not appear that it was possible to obtain human subjects for dissection without robbing the cemeteries. CHARLES ETIENNE (1503-64) was the first to detect valves in the orifices of the hepatic veins. He knew nothing of the researches of Achillini concerning the brain, although they were made sixty years before; yet his investigations of the structure of the nervous system were most important, and his demonstration of the existence of a canal running through the whole length of the spinal cord, which had not previously been suspected, entitles him to a high place in the history of anatomy. A new era in the history of anatomy was inaugurated by the appearance of ANDREW VESALIUS (1514-1564), a Fleming, who pursued the study with the greatest assiduity at Venice, and demonstrated it at Padua before he was twenty-two. He remained there seven years, then went to Bologna and thence to Pisa. He is known as the first author of a systematic and comprehensive view of human anatomy. He recognised the necessity of divesting the science of the current misrepresentations of ignorance and fancy. Vesalius especially contributed to our knowledge of the circulatory organs; it was he who, by his study of the structure of the heart and the mechanism of its valves, stimulated his pupils and fellow-students to pursue a course of research which ended at last in Harvey’s immortal discovery. Besides these researches on the vascular system, he first accurately described the sphenoid bone and the sternum. He described the omentum, the pylorus, the mediastinum and pleura, and gave the fullest description of the brain which, up to that time, had appeared. Splendid as were his researches, and valuable as were his writings, it was perhaps by the way in which he stimulated inquiry in others that he rendered the greatest services to anatomical science. Dr. Molony, writing in the _British Medical Journal_, December 31, 1892, says: “I recently secured possession of his works, entitled _Andreæ Vesalii Invictissimi Caroli V. Imperatoris Medici Opera Omnia_. It is a curious work in two immense folio volumes, written in fairly good Latin. It has several plates representing the surgical instruments of the period, dissections, and, it must be added, quadrupeds of all sorts tied up evidently awaiting vivisection. “The preface consists of a lengthy and appreciative life of Vesalius, from which it seems that he was born in 1514, at Brussels, where his father was court physician. As a boy he seems to have shown a taste for comparative anatomy, ‘puer animalium penetralia nudare atque viscera inspicere soleret.’ His anatomical studies were at all times pursued under difficulties. He obtained the bodies of criminals by bribing the judges, ‘corpora nactus eorum, in cubicula vexit, suosque in usus per tres et ultra septimanas asservavit. Horretne legenti animus? O juvenilis ardor, repagula eluctatur ferrea! Tali opus erat ingenio, artibus bis, at nobile conderet opus.’ He does not seem to have been married, if we may judge from the following extract: ‘Aetate vero integra, uxore, liberis, rei familiaris omni cura liber, totum se immersit in anatomicis.’ “Vesalius was an enthusiastic surgeon, and apparently looked down upon the physicians of the period: ‘Jocatus medicos reliquos syrupis præscribendis unice occupari.’ His success aroused the jealousy of his contemporaries. Among others he came into collision with Sylvius of Paris, Eustachius of Rome, and Fallopius of Padua. Mention is also made of ‘Joannis Caji Medici Celebris Britanni.’ It would be interesting to ascertain who this was. [No doubt it was Caius.] “The end of Vesalius was tragic enough. ‘Hispanum curabat nobilem petiit ab amicis defuncti corpus aperire ut mortis scrutaretur causam. Quo concesso, visum cor in aperto jam pectore adhuc palpitans.’ The punishment ordered for this was a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. On his return voyage he was wrecked on the island of Zacinthus. ‘Inops, in loco solitario, omnique carens subsidio miserabiliter vitam finivit 1564.’” “VESALIUS,” says Portal, “appears to me one of the greatest men who ever existed. Let the astronomers vaunt their Copernicus, the natural philosophers their Galileo and Torricelli, the mathematicians their Pascal, the geographers their Columbus, I shall always place Vesalius above all their heroes. The first study for man is man. Vesalius has this noble object in view, and has admirably attained it; he has made on himself and his fellows such discoveries as Columbus could only make by travelling to the extremity of the world. The discoveries of Vesalius are of direct importance to man; by acquiring fresh knowledge of his own structure, man seems to enlarge his existence; while discoveries in geography or astronomy affect him but in a very indirect manner.” The zeal of Vesalius and his fellow-students of anatomy often led them to weird adventures. Hallam says:[850] “they prowled by night in charnel-houses, they dug up the dead from the graves, they climbed the gibbet, in fear and silence, to steal the mouldering carcase of the murderer; the risk of ignominious punishment, and the secret stings of superstitious remorse, exalting no doubt the delight of these useful but not very enviable pursuits.” Vesalius, as has been said above, was once absurdly accused of dissecting a Spanish gentleman before he was dead. He only escaped the punishment of death by undertaking a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, during which he was shipwrecked, and died of famine in one of the Greek islands.[851] GABRIEL FALLOPIUS (1523-1562) was a prominent pupil of Vesalius who studied the anastomoses (the blending together) of the blood-vessels. His researches in the anatomy of the bones and the internal ear greatly advanced anatomical knowledge. He discovered the tubes connected with the womb, called after him the “Fallopian tubes.” Fallopius is described as a savant distinguished by his sense of justice, his modesty and gentleness; yet Dr. Baas says,[852] “the fact that even Fallopio did not shrink from accepting the gift of some convicts, and then poisoning them—indeed, when the first experiment proved a failure, he tried it again with better success—is characteristic of the zeal of the age in the investigation of the human body, and of the barbarous idea that might makes right towards those guilty before the law!” EUSTACHIUS was a contemporary of Vesalius. He divides with him the honour of having created the science of human anatomy. His name is perpetuated by the tube in the internal ear, called the “Eustachian tube.” His researches on the anatomy of the internal part of the organ of hearing, his studies in the anatomy of the teeth, in which he was the pioneer, his famous _Anatomical Engravings_, and his labours in connection with the intimate structure of the organs of the body, taken in connection with their relative anatomy, prove that he laboured for the advancement of the knowledge of the structure of the human frame with the utmost assiduity and success. J. C. ARANZI (1530-1589), of Bologna, gave the first correct account of the anatomy of the fœtus, and his description of that of the brain is exceedingly minute and lucid. He named the _hippocampus_, described the choroid plexus, and the fourth ventricle under the name of the _cistern of the cerebellum_. COLUMBUS (died 1559) was a pupil of Vesalius, whom he succeeded in the chair of anatomy at Padua. He had a glimpse of how the blood passes from the right to the left side of the heart, but he had no true knowledge of the circulation. _Michael Servetus_ (1511-1553) was either a pupil or fellow-student of Vesalius, who, in 1553, described accurately the pulmonary circulation. He recognised that the change from venous into arterial blood took place in the lungs, and not in the left ventricle. He was a pioneer in physiological science by his great discovery of the respiratory changes in the lungs. LEVASSEUR (about 1540), says Hallam,[853] appears to have known the circulation of the blood through the lungs, the valves of the veins, and their direction and purpose. GASPARE TAGLIACOZZI (1546-1599) was a professor at Bologna, whose name is famous in the history of surgery from his skill in performing “plastic operations.” Rhinoplastic operation is a term in surgery sometimes synonymous with the Taliacotian operation, which is a process for forming an artificial nose. It consists in bringing down a piece of flesh from the forehead, and while preserving its attachment to the living structures, causing it to adhere to the anterior part of the remains of the nose. Tagliacozzi, himself, to replace the lost substance employed the skin of the upper part of the arm, as BRANCA did previously. Patients flocked to him from all parts of Europe. The world was, as usual, ungrateful; the great surgeon was considered to have presumptuously interfered with the authority of Providence. Noses and lips which the Divinity had destroyed as a punishment for the sins of men had been restored by this daring man. After his death some nuns heard voices in their convent crying for several weeks: “Tagliacozzi is damned!” By the direction of the clergy of Bologna his corpse was taken from the grave and re-interred in unconsecrated ground.[854] We are not in a position to sneer at this, for the preachers of the nineteenth century said something very similar of the use of chloroform in midwifery only a few years ago. In 1742 the Faculty of Paris declared Tagliacozzi’s operation impossible; but the English journals, in 1794, discovered that such a method of surgical procedure had been in use in India from ancient times, and then the scientific world tried the experiment and succeeded perfectly. AMBROISE PARÉ, “the father of French surgery” (1509-1590), availed himself of the opportunities offered him in military surgery during the campaign of Francis I. in Piedmont. It was the practice of the time to treat gunshot wounds with hot oil—a treatment which Paré revolutionized by using merely a simple bandage. In 1545 he attended the lectures of Sylvius at Paris, and became prosector to that great anatomist. His book on _Anatomy_ was published five years later. By his employment of the ligature for large arteries, he was able so completely to control hæmorrhage that he was able to practise amputation on a larger scale than had before been attempted. Paré is considered as the first who regularly employed the ligature after amputation. He declares in his _Apologie_ that the invention was due to the ancients, and he explains their use of it, although he ascribes to inspiration of the Deity his own first adoption of the practice. The PHILOSOPHER RAMUS in 1562 urged Charles IX. of France to establish schools for clinical teaching, such as already existed at Padua. ROBERT FLUDD, M.D., or in the Latin style he affected, _Robertus de Fluctibus_, was born in 1574; he was an ardent supporter of the Rosicrucian philosophy. He had a strong leaning towards chemistry, but had little faith in orthodox medicine. His medical ideas consisted of a mysterious mixture of divinity, chemistry, natural philosophy, and metaphysics. In 1573, Harrison, in his unpublished _Chronologie_, remarks that “these daies the taking in of the smoke of the Indian herb called tabaco, by an instrument like a little ladell, is gretly taken up and used in England against rewmes.” It was not till 1576 that croup was well understood. Laënnec thinks it was quite unknown to the Greek and Arabian physicians; but Forbes says that it was known to Hippocrates and Aretæus, although its pathology was not understood. Ballonius was the first who accurately described the false membrane, which is a characteristic of the disease.[855] At the Reformation in England under Elizabeth, some of the Catholic priests who refused to conform to the new religion sought in other professions the means of living. In a curious old book, _Tom of all Trades, or the Plaine Pathway to Preferment_, by Thomas Powell (printed 1631), there is a story which no doubt was founded in fact. “And heere I remember me of an old tale following, _viz._, At the beginning of the happy raigne of our late good Queene _Elizabeth_, divers Commissioners of great place, being authorized to enquire of, and to displace, all such of the _Clergie_ as would not conforme to the reformed _Church_, one amongst others was Conuented before them, who being asked whether he would subscribe or no, denied it, and so consequently was adiudged to lose his benefice and to be deprived his function; wherevpon, in his impatience, he said, ‘That if they (meaning the Commissioners) held this course it would cost many a man’s life.’ For which the Commissioners called him backe againe, and charged him that he had spoke treasonable and seditious words, tending to the raysing of a rebellion or some tumult in the Land; for which he should receive the reward of a Traytor. And being asked whether hee spake those words or no, he acknowledged it, and tooke vpon him the Iustification thereof; ‘for, said he, ‘yee have taken from me my liuing and profession of the Ministrie; Schollership is all my portion, and I have no other meanes now left for my maintenance but to turn _Phisition_; and before I shalbe absolute Master of that Misterie (God he knowes) how many mens lives it will cost. For few _Phisitions_ vse to try experiments vpon their owne bodies.’ “With vs, it is a Profession can maintaine but a few. And diuers of those more indebted to opinion than learning, and (for the most part) better qualified in discoursing their travailes than in discerning their patients malladies. For it is growne to be a very huswiues trade, where fortune prevailes more than skill.” A writer in Hood’s _Every-Day Book_, on the date February 25, says that the monks knew of more than three hundred species of medicinal plants which were used in general for medicines by the religious orders before the Reformation. The Protestants, the more efficiently to root out Popery, changed the Catholic names of many of these. Thus the _virgin’s bower_ of the monastic physician was changed into _flammula Jovis_; the _hedge hyssop_ into _gratiola_; _St. John’s wort_ became _hypericum_; _fleur de St. Louis_ was called _iris_; _palma Christi_ became _ricinus_; _Our Master wort_ was christened _imperatona_; _sweet bay_ they called _laurus_; _Our Lady’s smock_ was changed into _cardamine_; _Solomon’s seal_ into _convallaria_; _Our Lady’s hair_ into _trichomanes_; _balm_ into _melissa_; _marjoram_ into _origanum_; _herb Trinity_ into _viola tricolor_; _knee holy_ into _rascus_; _rosemary_ into _rosmarinus_; _marygold_ into _calendula_; and a hundred others. But the old Catholic names cling to the plants of the cottage garden, and _Star of Bethlehem_ has not quite given place to _ornithogalum_; _Star of Jerusalem_ to _goat’s beard_; nor _Lent lily_ to _daffodil_. The gullibility of mankind has never been exhibited in a clearer light than JOHANN VALENTIN ANDREÆ (1586-1654) succeeded in showing in his elaborate joke of the SOCIETY OF THE ROSY-CROSS. In 1614 a famous but entirely fabulous secret society set the scholars of Europe discussing the pretensions of the Rosicrucians, who were said to have derived their origin from one CHRISTIAN ROSENKREUZ, two hundred years previously. This philosopher, it was said, had made a pilgrimage to the East, to learn its hidden wisdom, of which the art of making gold was a portion. The character of the society was Christian, but anti-Catholic, and its ostensible objects were the study of philosophy and the gratuitous healing of the sick. Its device was a cross, with four red roses. Andreæ was a learned man, but jocular withal; for no sooner had the public eagerly swallowed his story, than he confessed the whole was pure invention, and that he had originated the idea with the view of ridiculing the alchemists and Theosophists, whose opinions were dominating European society. The public, however, liked the idea so well that it developed and flourished, and a society was established called _Fraternitas Rosæ Crucis_. The most celebrated followers of the Rosicrucians were Valentine Wiegel, Jacob Boehm, Egidius Gutman, Michael Mayer, Oswald Crollius, and Robert Fludd.[856] De Quincey has traced the connection between the Rosicrucians and Freemasons. “Rosicrucianism,” he says, “it is true, is not Freemasonry, but the latter borrowed its form from the first.”[857] Scrofula was anciently treated in a superstitious manner by the sovereigns of England and France by imposition of hands. This ceremony is said to have been first performed by Edward the Confessor (1042-1066). A special “Service of Healing” was used in the English Church in the reign of Henry VIII. (1484-1509). The ceremonies of blessing cramp-rings on Good Friday, called the Hallowing of the Cramp-Rings, is described by Bishop Percy in his _Northumberland Household Book_,[858] where we have the following account:— “And then the Usher to lay a Carpett for the Kinge to Creepe to the Crosse upon. And that done, there shal be a Forme sett upon the Carpett, before the Crucifix, and a Cushion laid upon it for the King to kneale upon. And the Master of the Jewell Howse ther to be ready with the Booke concerninge the Hallowing of the Crampe Rings, and Amner (Almoner) muste kneele on the right hand of the Kinge, holdinge the sayde booke. When that is done the King shall rise and goe to the Alter, wheare a Gent. Usher shall be redie with a Cushion for the Kinge to kneele upon; and then the greatest Lords that shall be ther to take the Bason with the Rings and beare them after the Kinge to offer.” In the Harleian Manuscripts there is a letter from Lord Chancellor Hatton to Sir Thomas Smith, dated Sept, 11th, 158-, about a prevailing epidemic, and enclosing a ring for Queen Elizabeth to wear between her breasts, the said ring having “the virtue to expell infectious airs.”[859] Andrew Boorde, in his _Introduction to Knowledge_ (1547-48), says: “The Kynges of England by the power that God hath gyuen to them, dothe make sicke men whole of a sickeness called the kynges euyll. The Kynges of England doth halowe euery yere crampe rynges, the whyche rynges, worne on ones fynger, dothe helpe them the whyche hath the crampe.”[860] Concerning the king’s evil, which Boorde explains is an “euyl sickenes or impediment,” he advises: “For this matter let euery man make frendes to the Kynges maiestie, for it doth pertayne to a Kynge to helpe this infirmitie by the grace the whiche is geuen to a Kynge anoynted.”[861] In Robert Laneham’s letter[862] about Queen Elizabeth’s visit to Kenilworth Castle, it is told how on July 18th, 1575, her Majesty touched for the evil, and that it was “a day of grace.” “By her highnes accustumed mercy and charitee, nyne cured of the peynfull and daungerous diseaz, called the kings euill; for that Kings and Queenz of this Realm withoout oother medsin (saue only by handling and prayerz) only doo cure it.” Sir John Fortescue, in his defence of the House of Lancaster against that of York, argued that the crown could not descend to a female because the Queen is not qualified by the form of anointing her to cure the disease called the king’s evil. On this account, and more especially after the excommunication of Elizabeth by the Pope in 1570, it must have been eminently comforting to all concerned to find that the power to cure disease by the royal touch had not been affected by the change of religion or any other cause. The practice was at its height in the reign of Charles II.[863] Lord Braybrooke says,[864] “In the first four years after his restoration he ‘touched’ nearly 24,000 people.” We find that Dr. Johnson was touched by Queen Anne. “The Office for the Healing” continued to be printed in the Book of Common Prayer after the accession of the House of Hanover. The custom evidently arose from the fact that Edward the Confessor was a saint as well as a king. William of Malmesbury gives the origin of the royal touch in his account of the miracles of Edward: “A young woman had married a husband of her own age, but having no issue by the union, the humours collecting abundantly about her neck, she had contracted a sore disorder, the glands swelling in a dreadful manner. Admonished in a dream to have the part affected washed by the king, she entered the palace, and the king himself fulfilled this labour of love, by rubbing the woman’s neck with his fingers dipped in water. Joyous health followed his healing hand; the lurid skin opened, so that worms flowed out with the purulent matter, and the tumour subsided. But as the orifice of the ulcers was large and unsightly, he commanded her to be supported at the royal expense till she should be perfectly cured. However, before a week was expired, a fair new skin returned, and hid the scars so completely, that nothing of the original wound could be discovered; and within a year becoming the mother of twins, she increased the admiration of Edward’s holiness. Those who knew him more intimately, affirm that he often cured this complaint in Normandy; whence appears how false is their notion, who in our times assert, that the cure of this disease does not proceed from personal sanctity, but from hereditary virtue in the royal line.”[865] Many other miracles of healing were attributed to St. Edward. Jeremy Collier[866] maintains that the scrofula miracle is hereditary upon all his successors. The curious fact, however, is that the hereditary right of succession was repeatedly interrupted, yet the power remained. In connection with this royal touching, pieces of gold were given by the sovereigns to be worn by the patients as amulets. They were called “touching pieces,” and though not absolutely requisite for the cure, some persons declared that the disease returned if they lost the coins. We can only account for the great efficacy which in some cases seemed to have attended the royal treatment, by the confidence and exalted expectation awakened in the sufferers by the ceremony, which acted as a tonic to the system, and roused the patients’ imagination to contribute to their own cure.[867] Chips and handkerchiefs dipped in the blood of King Charles I. are said to have been efficacious in curing sick persons in hundreds of cases. The College of Physicians of Edinburgh was created by the king’s letters patent in 1581, one year after the foundation of Edinburgh University by James VI. In the reign of Elizabeth, when physicians rode on horseback, they were seated sideways; many of them carried muffs, to keep their fingers warm when they had to feel their patient’s pulse. Twice a year everybody was bled—a system which must have caused many disorders. Fifteen centuries after the age of CELSUS, with the revival of learning and science came the revival of human vivisection. VESALIUS, as above mentioned, is known to have vivisected men; and in the _Storia Universale_ of CESARE CANTÙ there is an account of the DUKE OF FLORENCE giving a man for vivisection to FALLOPIUS. This incident has been disputed; but the following series of cases, extracted by Professor ANDREOZZI from the Criminal Archives of Florence, and published by him in his book _Leggi Penali degli antichi e Cinesi_, are beyond question. COSMO DE MEDICI seems to have taken the anatomists of Pisa under his special favour, and to have sent them the miserable convicts from the prisons at his option. The following examples are a selection from the cases extracted by Signor ANDREOZZI from the _Archivio Criminale_:— “1. January 15th, 1545.—SANTA DI MARIOTTO TARCHI DI MUGELLO, wife of BASTIANO LUCCHESE, was condemned to be beheaded for infanticide. Under the sentence is written, ‘Dicta Santa, de mente Excell^{mi} Ducis, fuit missa Pisis, de ea per doctores fieret notomia.’[No notice to be found of any execution of the woman, such as would have appeared had she been put to death before she was sent to Pisa.] “2. December 14th, 1547.—GIULIO MANCINI SANESE was condemned for robbery and other offences. Sent to Pisa to be anatomised. ‘Ducatur Pisis, pro faciendo de eo notomia.’ “3. In the record of prisoners sent away, dated September 1st, 1551, occurs this entry:—‘Letter to the Commissioner of Castrocaro, that MADDALENA, who is imprisoned for killing her son, should be sent here, if she be likely to recover, as it pleases S. E. that she should be reserved for anatomy. Of this nothing is to be said, but she is to be kept in hopes. If she is not likely to recover, the executioner is to be sent for to decapitate her.’ The end of the horrible extract is,—‘Went to Pisa, to be made an anatomy.’ “4. December 12th, 1552.—A man named ZUCCHERIA, accused of piracy, was reserved from hanging, with his comrade, and sent to Pisa, ‘per la notomia.’ “5. December 22nd, 1552.—A certain ULIVO DI PAOLO was condemned by the Council of Eight to be hanged for poisoning his wife. Sentence changed—to be sent for anatomy. Was sent to Pisa on January 13th. “6. November 14th, 1553.—MARGUERITA, wife of BIAJIO D’ANTINORO, condemned to be beheaded for infanticide.... December 20th, ‘she was released from the fetters and consigned to a familiar, who took her to Pisa to the Commissario, _who gave her, as usual, to the anatomist, to make anatomy of her_; which was done’ (‘che la consegni, secondo il solito, al notomista, per farne notomia, come fu fatto’).” “Several other cases, from 1554 to 1570, are recorded, with equally unmistakable exactitude. In one instance the condemned man’s destiny was mitigated, and after having been ordered to be sent to Pisa for the Commissario to consign to the anatomist, ‘when he should ask for him, and at his pleasure,’ he was mercifully sentenced to be hanged at once at Vico, ‘by direction of Sua Excellenza Illustrissima.’ Two unfortunate thieves, PAOLI DI GIOVANNI and VESTRINO D’AGNOLO, were sent together by the Council of Eight to be anatomised; the Duke having written to say ‘that they wanted in Pisa a subject for anatomy.’” After the date 1570 no more cases occur in the Archives. Francis I. invited the Italian anatomist VIDUS VIDIUS to his royal college at Paris. Several new medicines were introduced about this period. Lemon juice was first spoken of as a remedy for scurvy in 1564. Its use was discovered by some Dutch sailors whose ship was laden with lemons and oranges from Spain.[868] The virtues of sassafras as a medicine for scurvy were discovered, according to Cartier, in 1536, on a voyage to explore the coast of Newfoundland and the St. Lawrence. The natives advised the sailors afflicted with the malady to use the wood of the tree ameda, which was thought to have been sassafras.[869] [Illustration: INTERIOR OF A DOCTOR’S HOUSE. Facsimile of a miniature from the _Epistre de Othea_, by Christine de Pisan. (Fifteenth century MS. in Burgundy Library, Brussels.) [_Face p._ 374] Sarsaparilla was first brought to Europe by the Spaniards, in the middle of the sixteenth century, from Peru and Brazil. Guaiacum was introduced into Europe in 1509, and in 1519 its use became common. Holinshed complained[870] that estimation and credit given to compound medicines made with foreign drugs in his time was one great cause of the prevailing ignorance of the virtues and uses of “our own simples,” which he held to be fully as useful as the “salsa parilla, mochoacan, etc.,” so much in request. “We tread those herbs under our feet, whose forces, if we knew and could apply them to our necessities, we would honour and have in reverence.—Alas! what have we to do with such Arabian and Grecian stuff as is daily brought from those parts which lie in another clime?—The bodies of such as dwell there are of another constitution than ours are here at home. Certes, they grow not for us, but for the Arabians and Grecians.—Among the Indians, who have the most present cures for every disease of their own nation, there is small regard of compound medicines, and less of foreign drugs, because they neither know them nor can use them, but work wonders even with their own simples.” CARLO RUINI, of Bologna, published in 1598 a work on the anatomy of the horse, in which Ercolani has found evidence that he, to some extent, anticipated Harvey’s discovery.[871] NICHOLAS HOUEL (1520-1585) was born at Paris, 1520. He was a famous and learned pharmacien, who devoted the fortune which he acquired by his industry and skill to philanthropic and scientific purposes. He founded a great orphanage in Paris, and the School of Pharmacy of that city owes its origin to him. He wrote a _Treatise on the Plague_, and one on the _Theriacum of Mithridates_, both published in 1573. It is to his enlightened and charitable suggestion that dispensaries arose in Paris. His “Garden of Simples” inspired the creation of the _Jardin des Plantes_.[872] Even at the close of the sixteenth century careful and sober men, as Mr. Henry Morley says,[873] believed in the miraculous properties of plants and animals and parts of animals. When the century commenced, the learned and unlearned alike believed in the influences of the stars and the interferences of demons with diseases, and in the mysteries of magic. The reason why students of such sciences as existed were punished and persecuted was the dread which men had that the knowledge of the occult powers of nature would afford the learner undue and mysterious power over them. LEGAL MEDICINE. That most important branch of medical science known as Medical Jurisprudence, or Forensic Medicine, first took its rise in Germany, and, later, was recognised as a necessary branch of study in England. Briefly this science may be described as “that branch of State medicine which treats of the application of medical knowledge to the purposes of the law.” It embraces all questions affecting the civil or social rights of individuals, and of injuries to the person. Although we find traces of the first principles of this science in ancient times, especially in connection with legitimacy, feigned diseases, etc., it is by no means certain that even in Rome the law required any medical inspection of dead bodies. The science dates only from the sixteenth century. The Bishop of Bamberg, in 1507, introduced a penal code requiring the production of medical evidence in certain cases. In 1532, Charles V. induced the Diet of Ratison to adopt a code in which magistrates were ordered to call medical evidence in cases of personal injuries, infanticide, pretended pregnancy, simulated diseases, and poisoning. The actual birth of forensic medicine, however, did not take place until the publication, in Germany, in 1553, of the _Constitutio Criminalis Carolina_.[874] The difficulties which the infant science had to contend against may be estimated from the fact that a few years later a physician named Weiker, who declared that witches and demoniacs were simply persons afflicted with hypochondriasis and hysteria, and should not be punished, was with difficulty saved from the stake by his patron, William, Duke of Cleves. AMBROSE PARÉ wrote on monsters, simulated diseases, and the art of drawing up medico-legal reports. In 1621-35 Paulo Zacchia, of Rome, published a work entitled _Quæstiones Medico-Legales_, which inaugurated a new era in the history of Forensic Medicine. He exhibited immense research in this classical work, the materials for which he collected from 460 authors. Considering that chemistry and physiology were then so imperfectly understood, such a work is a proof of the learning and sagacity of the author. In 1663 the Danish physician Bartholin proposed the hydrostatic test for the determination of live-birth, the method used to-day in examining the lungs of an infant to discover whether the child was born alive or not, by observing whether they float or sink in water.