Page:The Harveian oration 1896.djvu/26

22

HARVEY AND GALEN in anatomy 1. Vesalius has been chiefly praised for correcting the errors of Galen, and rightly so praised. But his researches were based upon the system which he destroyed, and, though it is rash to say what might have happened had things been different, it is hard to see how anatomy would have arisen when it did, had Galen’s works perished. What anatomy there had been in the Middle Ages from Mondino to Berengario Carpi was based on rude compilations of anatomy derived from Galen; but when his works were studied in the original we see the difference : modern anatomy began. Even to this day every student who goes down to the dissecting-room, his text- book in his hand, has reason to be thankful that in the fifteenth century men began to read Greek manuscripts.

Botany and the allied science of drugs owed their renovation to the revival of Dioscorides and in a minor degree of Galen. The great German herbalists, whose beautifully illustrated works superseded the rude herbals of the Middle Ages, were all Greek scholars ; some, such as Fuchs, original and learned editors of the Greek classics. The works of the Italian Matthioli, the most popular of all books of plants, were based on Dioscorides, Cesalpino, considered the first botanist of his age, was a profound Aristotelian scholar. Conrad Gesner, the first naturalist in a wide sense since Aristotle, was, at the same time, Professor of Greek and an editor of Galen. Nor was this activity confined to men of eminence. The young physicians of the Galenical Academy at Florence, before referred to, thus describe their pursuits. I give you nearly their own words. In the winter they studied from Dioscorides the history and forms, and from Galen the uses, of plants. So soon as the season permitted and the snows began to disappear from the Apennines they made excursions into the country and on the mountains to gather herbs useful in medicine. In this way they hoped to restore the ancient medicine of Hippocrates and Galen, and thus only they thought could

1 See Galeni libri aliquot, per Joannem Caium, Basel, 1544, p. 286 and elsewhere.