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INTRODUCTION

I

In the Middle Ages practically the only homes of learning were the monasteries. Here all the knowledge of the time was taught and all the studies carried on, so that under the same roof the theologian, the chemist, the artist, and the artificer sat side by side, and consequently each drew from and modified the study and practice of the other. In England, at least, the dissolution of the monasteries changed this order, and though the brilliancy of the Renaissance for a time obscured the loss to society in general, in the backwater of the eighteenth century both religion and medicine drifted into distinct circumscribed professions. The dawn of the nineteenth century saw an enormous revival of interest and study in both directions, but the newfound energy with which the two spheres of