Page:The Hunterian oration, for the year 1819.djvu/21

Rh anatomy and medicine. Therefore, anatomists again had recourse to the dissection of animals, from which, however, they derived very important advantages. They were thus led to an extensive knowledge of the comparative structure of living beings in general, and to make observations and experiments illustrative of function. So that by these means, were all the paths leading to medical science fairly thrown open to enquirers.

I must now relate some ridiculous circumstances, which, however, gave a considerable bias to the progress of the medical sciences. The priests, merely because they were able to read the Greek and Roman authors on medicine, were the principal physicians, during the dark ages, as I may call them, of these sciences. They became intimate with the barbers, because the latter were frequently employed to shave the heads of the priests, according to the uniform of their order. The priests also frequently employed the barbers to shave the heads of patients, before they prescribed washes to cool the fever of the brain, or