Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 39.djvu/168

156 cry for what is called "sound learning." Whether standing for Aristotle against Bacon, or for Aquinas against Erasmus, or for Galen against Vesalius, or for making mechanical Greek verses instead of studying the handiwork of the Almighty, the cry is always for "sound learning": the idea always is that these studies are "safe."

At twenty-eight years of age Vesalius gave to the world his great work on human anatomy. With it ended the old and began the new: its researches, by their thoroughness, were a triumph of science; its illustrations, by their fidelity, were a triumph of art.

To shield himself, as far as possible, in the battle which he foresaw must come, Vesalius dedicated the work to the Emperor Charles V, and in his dedicatory preface he argues for his method, and against the parrot repetitions of the mediæval text-books; he also condemns the wretched anatomical preparations and specimens made by physicians who utterly refused to advance beyond the ancient master. The parrot-like repeaters of Galen gave battle at once. After the manner of their time their first missiles were epithets; and, the almost infinite magazine of these having been exhausted, they began to use sharper weapons—weapons theologic.

In this case there were especial reasons why the theological authorities felt called upon to intervene. First, there was the old idea prevailing in the Church, sanctioned by one at least of the popes, that the dissection of the human body is forbidden to Christians: this was used with great force against Vesalius; but he at first gained a temporary victory; for a conference of divines having been asked to decide whether dissection of the human body is sacrilege, gave a decision in the negative.

The reason was simple: the great Emperor Charles V had made Vesalius his physician and could not spare him; but, on the accession of Philip II to the throne of Spain and the Netherlands, the whole scene changed: the bigots were now sure to have their way.

Another theological idea barred his path. Throughout the middle ages it was believed that there exists in man a bone imponderable, incorruptible, incombustible, the necessary nucleus of the resurrection body. Belief in a resurrection of the physical body, despite St. Paul's Epistle to the Corinthians, had been incorporated into the formula made many centuries after his time and called the Apostles' Creed, and was held throughout Christendom, "always, everywhere, and by all." This hypothetical bone was therefore held in great veneration, and many anatomists sought to discover it; but Vesalius, revealing so much else, did not find it, and was therefore suspected of a want of proper faith. He contented himself with saying that he left the question