Page:The growth of medicine from the earliest times to about 1800.djvu/582

 Lapeyronie decided to settle permanently in the metropolis. He taught anatomy in the Collège de Saint-Côme, and in a short time was chosen Head Surgeon of the Charité, one of the largest hospitals of Paris. In 1731 he became one of the founders of the Royal Academy of Surgery, and he took a most prominent part in the struggle which was then actively going on between the physicians and surgeons of Paris,—one of the last and most serious of the attempts made by the former to render the surgeons subordinate to the physicians. The surgeons won the battle (April 23, 1743), and Dezeimeris says that the part taken by de Lapeyronie in this struggle may be looked upon as one of the most honorable achievements recorded in the history of medicine. De Lapeyronie died on April 25, 1747, after a long and painful illness. In his will he made most liberal provision for the promotion of medical science; establishing funds for the giving of annual prizes, for the founding of a medical library, for the building of an anatomical amphitheatre, etc. In his treatise on anatomy Hyrtl, the distinguished professor at the University of Vienna, makes the following brief statement with reference to a certain dissecting room in Paris, but he does not state in what part of the city the room in question is located, nor does he mention any other facts that might enable his readers to fix its location. In the absence of more precise information concerning this matter, I shall take the liberty of suggesting that Hyrtl's discovery was made in the Anatomical Institute which de Lapeyronie founded. Hyrtl's statement reads as follows:—

Over the entrance doorway of a dissecting room in Paris I read this inscription: Hic locus est ubi mors gaudet succurrere vitae. [Here is the spot where Death rejoices to render assistance to Life.] No more beautiful or fitting words could be employed for inspiring the student, upon his first entrance into the room, with respect for the work in which he is about to engage.

And yet, a few pages beyond that on which the above statement is printed, Hyrtl quotes Vicq d'Azyr as saying: "Among all the sciences anatomy is perhaps the one the