NEW BEGINNINGS OF MEDICAL
SCIENCE.
In spite of all these opposing forces, the evolution of
medical science continued, though but slowly. In the second
century of the Christian era Galen had made himself a great
authority at Rome, and from Rome had swayed the medical science
of the world: his genius triumphed over the defects of his
method; but, though he gave a powerful impulse to medicine, his
dogmatism stood in its way long afterward.
The places where medicine, such as it thus became, could be
applied, were at first mainly the infirmaries of various
monasteries, especially the larger ones of the Benedictine
order: these were frequently developed into hospitals. Many
monks devoted themselves to such medical studies as were
permitted, and sundry churchmen and laymen did much to secure and
preserve copies of ancient medical treatises. So, too, in the
cathedral schools established by Charlemagne and others,
provision was generally made for medical teaching; but all this
instruction, whether in convents or schools, was wretchedly poor.
It consisted not in developing by individual thought and
experiment the gifts of Hippocrates, Aristotle, and Galen, but
almost entirely in the parrot-like repetition of their writings.
But, while the inherited ideas of Church leaders were thus
unfavourable to any proper development of medical science, there
were two bodies of men outside the Church who, though largely
fettered by superstition, were far less so than the monks and
students of ecclesiastical schools: these were the Jews and
Mohammedans. The first of these especially had inherited many
useful sanitary and hygienic ideas, which had probably been first
evolved by the Egyptians, and from them transmitted to the modern
world mainly through the sacred books attributed to Moses.
The Jewish scholars became especially devoted to medical
science. To them is largely due the building up of the School of
Salerno, which we find flourishing in the tenth century. Judged
by our present standards its work was poor indeed, but compared
with other medical instruction of the time it was vastly
superior: it developed hygienic principles especially, and
brought medicine upon a higher plane.
Still more important is the rise of the School of Montpellier;
this was due almost entirely to Jewish physicians, and it
developed medical studies to a yet higher point, doing much to
create a medical profession worthy of the name throughout
southern Europe.
As to the Arabians, we find them from the tenth to the fourteenth
century, especially in Spain, giving much thought to
medicine, and to chemistry as subsidiary to it. About the
beginning of the ninth century, when the greater Christian
writers were supporting fetich by theology, Almamon, the Moslem,
declared, "They are the elect of God, his best and most useful
servants, whose lives are devoted to the improvement of their
rational faculties." The influence of Avicenna, the translator of
the works of Aristotle, extended throughout all Europe during the
eleventh century. The Arabians were indeed much fettered by
tradition in medical science, but their translations of
Hippocrates and Galen preserved to the world the best thus far
developed in medicine, and still better were their contributions
to pharmacy: these remain of value to the present hour.
Various Christian laymen also rose above the prevailing
theologic atmosphere far enough to see the importance of
promoting scientific development. First among these we may name
the Emperor Charlemagne; he and his great minister, Alcuin, not
only promoted medical studies in the schools they founded, but
also made provision for the establishment of botanic gardens in
which those herbs were especially cultivated which were supposed
to have healing virtues. So, too, in the thirteenth century, the
Emperor Frederick II, though under the ban of the Pope, brought
together in his various journeys, and especially in his crusading
expeditions, many Greek and Arabic manuscripts, and took special
pains to have those which concerned medicine preserved and
studied; he also promoted better ideas of medicine and embodied
them in laws.
Men of science also rose, in the stricter sense of the word,
even in the centuries under the most complete sway of theological
thought and ecclesiastical power; a science, indeed, alloyed with
theology, but still infolding precious germs. Of these were men
like Arnold of Villanova, Bertrand de Gordon, Albert of
Bollstadt, Basil Valentine, Raymond Lully, and, above all, Roger
Bacon; all of whom cultivated sciences subsidiary to medicine,
and in spite of charges of sorcery, with possibilities of
imprisonment and death, kept the torch of knowledge burning, and
passed it on to future generations.
From the Church itself, even when the theological atmosphere
was most dense, rose here and there men who persisted in
something like scientific effort. As early as the ninth century,
Bertharius, a monk of Monte Cassino, prepared two manuscript
volumes of prescriptions selected from ancient writers; other
monks studied them somewhat, and, during succeeding ages,
scholars like Hugo, Abbot of St. Denis,—Notker, monk of St.
Gall,—Hildegard, Abbess of Rupertsberg,—Milo, Archbishop of
Beneventum,—and John of St. Amand, Canon of Tournay, did
something for medicine as they understood it. Unfortunately, they
generally understood its theory as a mixture of deductions from
Scripture with dogmas from Galen, and its practice as a mixture
of incantations with fetiches. Even Pope Honorius III did
something for the establishment of medical schools; but he did
so much more to place ecclesiastical and theological fetters upon
teachers and taught, that the value of his gifts may well be
doubted. All germs of a higher evolution of medicine were for
ages well kept under by the theological spirit. As far back as
the sixth century so great a man as Pope Gregory I showed himself
hostile to the development of this science. In the beginning of
the twelfth century the Council of Rheims interdicted the study
of law and physic to monks, and a multitude of other councils
enforced this decree. About the middle of the same century St.
Bernard still complained that monks had too much to do with
medicine; and a few years later we have decretals like those of
Pope Alexander III forbidding monks to study or practise it. For
many generations there appear evidences of a desire among the
more broad-minded churchmen to allow the cultivation of medical
science among ecclesiastics: Popes like Clement III and Sylvester
II seem to have favoured this, and we even hear of an Archbishop
of Canterbury skilled in medicine; but in the beginning of the
thirteenth century the Fourth Council of the Lateran forbade
surgical operations to be practised by priests, deacons, and
subdeacons; and some years later Honorius III reiterated this
decree and extended it. In 1243 the Dominican order forbade
medical treatises to be brought into their monasteries, and
finally all participation of ecclesiastics in the science and art
of medicine was effectually prevented.
