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96 voices against the delusion, the storm of obloquy and contempt which was showered on them served to show the strength and popularity of the superstition. The heavens were divided, by the most educated men of the time, into houses of life and of death, of riches, marriage, or religion, and the particular planet which chanced to be in any one house at the time, was denominated the lord of the house, in power over the destinies of mankind, unless a greater than he reigned elsewhere.

While this firm belief in magic, and this disposition to refer all diseases to the direct interposition of supernatural agencies, continued to prevail, the science of medicine necessarily remained almost stationary, or rather could hardly come into existence. Few ever thought of trying to find out how sorcerers, demons, and planets did their work—and the Church terribly punished all who dared to attempt the investigation. As magic—a mysterious power which man could not understand, but thoroughly believed in—caused diseases, so a kind of magic was trusted to cure them. The efficacy of relics and charms was universally acknowledged. The efforts of physicians were directed to the invention of nostrums and counter charms—not to the investigation of the causes of disease, the careful observation of their phenomena, or the mode of action of the remedies prescribed for them. Galen had, indeed, made important discoveries in anatomy in the second century, and Mondino and others had added to them; but their knowledge was rude and imperfect, and their deductions vitiated by the most absurd physiological dogmas. When they had discovered a few broad and simple facts in anatomy, they rested from their labors, well content; and founded theories, supported by unfounded assumptions, but which became articles of faith, received without question by their successors in the study. Galen, for example, assumed that the arteries carried the purest blood from the left ventricle of the heart, to the higher and more refined organs, the brain and lungs; while the veins conveyed that of inferior quality from the right ventricle to the grosser organs, the liver and spleen. He chose, moreover, to affirm that the venous blood was not fit for its office, unless some portion of the essence or spirit, and of the arterial blood contained in the left ventricle, were infused into it. Now, these two chambers of the heart, each containing the different quality of blood above mentioned, are separated by a partition, through which there is no aperture whatever. Holes of communication were, however, required by Galen to support his theory, and, therefore, in the true spirit of the time, holes were accordingly seen by him. He squared his facts to suit his theory. And, stranger still, although the heart was frequently examined afterward, so paramount was the authority of Galen, that these imaginary holes were seen by a succession of anatomists for fourteen hundred years, until, at last, Vesalius dared to declare that he could not find them.