Page:The Harveian oration - delivered at the Royal College of Physicians, October 18th, 1899 (IA b24975941).pdf/13

 extended and more scientific grasp of medicine than the immediate predecessors of Vesalius and Harvey.

But if science in the Middle Ages stood still, the handicrafts progressed, and found ultimate expression in buildings marvellous for their engineering skill and matchless beauty which enshrined all that the most cunning hands, impelled by artistic imagination and devotional enthusiasm, could producc. Science can never know what it owes to the handicrafts. Not only has it been largely recruited from their ranks, but it is obvious that science can- not progress without the craftsman to furnish it with instruments of precision. Chemistry could not exist without the glass-blower; astronomy and microscopy owe their very existence to the optician, while medicine and physiology have advanced pari passu with the power of recording and measuring. All branches of science must unite in doing homage to the printer who made the Renaissance possible. Further, let us never forget that the Middle Ages were not without their high idcals, and that the medieval priests were indefatigable in preaching charity. Many of our asylums and hospitals owe their existence to the exhortations and piety of ecclesiastics. To take only one example, let us not forget that St. Bartholomew's Hospital owes its existence to a medieval prebend of St. Paul's, and that Rahere, by providing a place in which our Harvey subsequently observed disease, must be