In the fourth century of the Christian era Roman civilization expired;
Western Europe was invaded by the barbarians; letters and science
sought a last refuge at Alexandria; the Middle Age commenced.
Greek medicine strove to survive the revolution in the city of the
Ptolemies, and even produced a few celebrated physicians, _i.e._,
Alexander Ætius, Alexander Trallian, and Paulus Ægineta, but at the
end of the seventh century the school of Alexandria also fell and
disappeared in the clouds of a false philosophy, bequeathing all
Hippocratic traditions to the Arabs, who advanced as conquerors to the
Occident.
The Arabian schools of Dschondisabur, Bagdad, Damascus, and Cordova
were founded and became flourishing institutions of learning, thanks
to a few Nestorian Greeks and Jews who were attracted to these centers
of learning; such men as Aaron, Rhazes, Haly-Abas, Avicenna, Avenzoar,
Averrhoes, Albucasis, and other writers, who continued the work left
by the Greeks, leaving remarkable books on medicine and surgery.
Unfortunately the ordinance of Islamism prevented these scientists from
following anatomical work too closely, and consequently limited the
progress they might otherwise have made in medicine.[1]
What occurred in Western Europe during this period of transition?
The torch of science was extinguished; the sacred fire on the altar
of learning only remained a flickering emblem whose pale light was
carefully guarded in the chapel of monasteries. Medicine was abandoned
to the priests, and all practice naturally fell into an empirical and
blind routine. “The physician-clergy,” says Sprengel, “resorted in the
majority of cases to prayers and holy water, to the invocations of
saints and martyrs, and inunction with sacred ointments. These monks
were unworthy of the name of doctor—they were, in fact, nothing else
than fanatical hospital attendants.”
An ephemeral ray of light broke from the clouds in the _renaissance_
of 805, when Charlemagne ordered the cathedral schools to add medicine
to their studies as a part of the _quadrivium_. Some of the monks
now commenced to study the works of Celsus and Cœlius Aurelianus,
but, ever as with the Mussulmen, the Catholic religion forbade the
dissection of the human body, and the monks made no more progress
than the barbarians; so that the masses of the people had little or
no confidence in clerical medical skill. We find the proof of a lack
of confidence in the Gothic laws promulgated by Theodoric about this
period—laws kept even into the eleventh century in the greater portion
of Western Europe. These ordinances, among other things, proclaim as
follows:
“No physician must open a vein of a woman or a daughter of the
nobility without being assisted by a relative or body-servant; _quia
difficillium non est, ut sub tali occasione ludibrium interdum
adhærescat_.” (Their morality was then a subject for caution.)
“When a physician is called to dress a wound or treat a disease, he
must take the precaution to settle on his fee, for he cannot claim any
in case the patient’s life is endangered.
“He shall be entitled to five sous for operating on hard cataract.
“If a physician wound a gentleman by bleeding, he shall be condemned to
pay a fine of one hundred sous; and should the gentleman die following
the operation, the physician must be delivered into the hands of the
dead man’s relatives, who may deal with the doctor as they see fit.
“When a physician has a student he shall be allowed twelve sous for his
services as tutor.”
Towards the tenth century, however, progress in medicine is at last
noticeable. We see some monks going to make their studies at Salerno
and at Mount Cassin, where the Benedictine friars had established a
medical college in the previous century. Constantine had given these
friars Arabian manuscripts, which had been translated into Latin, with
commentaries. Also the works of the early Greek physicians and the
treatises of Aristotle on “Natural Science.” It was at Salerno that
Ægidius de Corbeil studied physic before becoming physician to Philip
Augustus. Nevertheless, medicine remained in darkness with clerical
ignorance, the superstition and despotism of the church offering an
insurmountable barrier to all science. Finally a reform was instituted
in 1206 by the foundation of the University of Paris, which included
among its school of learning a college of medicine, wherein many
students matriculated. The _physicus_ Hugo, and Obiso, physician to
Louis the Great, were the first professors in the institution. Degrees
were accorded indiscriminately to the clergy or to the laity, the
condition of celibacy being imposed on the latter likewise.
A medical and surgical service was organized at the Hotel Dieu, which
hospital was erected before the entrance of Notre Dame, under the
direction of the clergy. On certain days the priests would assemble
around the holy water font of the cathedral, _supra cupam_, in order to
discuss questions in medicine or the connection of scholastic learning
with the healing art.
The University only recognized as students of medicine persons who held
the degree of master-in-arts. They absolutely separated the _meges_ and
_mires_, surgeons, bonesetters, and barbers, who had made no classical
studies, and to whom was abandoned as unworthy of the real physicians
all that concerned minor surgery. These officers of health, so-called,
of the Middle Ages were unimportant and little respected persons; they
kept shops and never went out without carrying one or two dressing
cases; they were only comparable to drug peddlers; and the University
imposed no vows of celibacy in their case.
In many literary works in Latin it is often a question whether to call
in a physician or _mire_, and certain passages admirably serve to prove
this historical fact. In the _Roman de Dolopatos_,[2] for example, the
poet tells how to prevent the poisoning of wounds, as they are easy to
cure when the injury is recent:
You have heard it told
To dress a wound while new;
’Tis hard to heal when old.
You’ll find this statement true.[3]
When the doctor cometh late
The wound may poisoned be;
The sore may irritate
And most sad results we see.
In another troubadour song, _The Wicked Surgeon_ (_Vilain Mire_), from
which Moliere purloined his play “A Doctor in Spite of Himself,” we
see the wife of the bone-setter assure every one that her husband is
not only a good surgeon, but likewise knows as much of medicine and
uroscopy as Hippocrates himself. (We must not forget that a knowledge
of urine was claimed by _mires_ and _meges_.) Thus the bone setter’s
wife says:
“My husband is, as I have said,
A surgeon who can raise the dead.
He sees disease in urine hid,
Knows more than e’en Ypocras did.”
The _Roman de la Rose_ shows us a poor devil who complains of not being
able to find a surgeon (_mire_) to dress his wounds, _i.e._:
“Ne sceus que faire, ne que dire,
Ne pour ma playe trover mire,
Ne par herbe, ne par racine
Je ne peus trover medecine.”
Some years after the founding of the University of Paris, a great
scientific movement occurred in the Occident. The Faculty of
Montpellier had already acquired much celebrity. The College of
Surgeons of Paris was established in 1271. Medical circles counted a
brilliant galaxy of remarkable men, _i.e._ Richard de Wendmere, Jean
de Saint Amand, Guillaume Saliceto, the great Albert, Bernard Gordon,
Arnauld de Villeneuve, Lanfranc, and Roger Bacon. The school of Paris
now wished to direct its own affairs, and accordingly, in 1280 A.D.,
separated from the University and assumed the title _Physicorum
Facultas_, and its members became physicians. Sustained by Royal edict,
they obtained rich grants from the church and from public taxes, but
these marks of favor aroused bitter jealousies; criticism rained down
on the healing art on every hand, and medicine was lampooned; these
physicians of the thirteenth century were ridiculed so bitterly as to
make the age historical, and thus inspire the comedy writers of future
generations. This is more than evidenced in the wicked satires of Guyot
de Provins (_Bible Guiot_), who cruelly assails the doctors; it was he
who wrote the poem that said:
“Young doctors just come from Salern(o)
Sell blown-up bladders for lantern.”
As we see, from perusing these numerous lampoons, physicians were not
held in high esteem, notwithstanding the sacerdotal character in which
the profession was invested. Meantime, in the _Roman du Noveau Renard_,
we find a passage[4] that permits the supposition that physicians
already possessed a certain amount of medical erudition; that they
were acquainted with the works of Galen, and had full knowledge of all
writers of the Arabian school, as well as that of the school of Salerno.
“Je faisoie le physicien
Et allegoie Galien,
Et montrois oeuvre ancienne
Et de Rasis et d’Avicenne,
Et a tous les faisoie entendre
In’estoie drois physiciens
Et maistre des practiciens.”
In revenge, the author of the “Romance of Renard” accords but little
confidence to medical art, for he adds very maliciously:
“All belief in medicine is folly,
Trust it and you lose your life;
For it is a fact most melancholy—
Where one is cured two perish in the strife.”
Why the poet of the _Roman du Renard_ was so full of rancor against
the doctors of his time is a problem too difficult to solve; yet,
while he considered them no better than criminals and dangerous men to
society, he did not fail to call a doctor before dying. Physicians,
for some strange and unknown reason, have always been criticised by
French literary men in modern as well as ancient times. Our French
authors have never, as did the masters of Greek poesy, recognized us as
brothers in Apollo. Permit me here to call their attention to one of
the writers of Greek anthology, who said of physicians:
“The son of Phœbus himself, Æsculapius, has instilled into thy mind,
O Praxagorus, the knowledge of that divine art which makes care to be
forgotten. He has given into thy hands the balm that cures all evils.
Thou, too, hast learned from the sweet Epion what pains accompany long
fevers, and the remedies to be applied to divided flesh; if mortals
possessed medicines such as thine, the ferry of Charon would not be
overloaded in crossing the Styx.”
Notwithstanding sarcasm, in spite of epigrams and calumny, medicine has
always been a source of sublime consolation to the sick and afflicted,
the sufferer—rich and poor. At all ages the priest has been inclined
to indulge in the practice of physic, and it was at their instigation
that those nuns known as Sisters of Charity practiced medicine to a
certain extent in the Middle Ages. In the twelfth century we see the
nuns of the Convent of Paraclet, in Champagne, following the advice of
Abelard, essaying the surgical treatment of the sick. It is true the
first abbess of this nunnery was Heloise, in whose history conservative
surgery is not even mentioned. The nuns who dressed wounds were called
_medeciennes_ or _miresses_. Gaulthier de Conisi has left a history of
their good works:
“And the world wondered when it did learn
That woman had found a new mission;
When the doctors of Montpellier and Salern(o)
Saw each nun to be a physician.
A fever they knew, a pulse they could feel,
And best of it all is, _they managed to heal_.”
This tendency of women to care for the sick now became general. “In
our ancient poets and romancers,” says Roquefort, “we often notice
how young girls[5] were employed to cure certain wounds, because they
were more tender-hearted and gentle-handed; as, for example, Gerard
de Nevers, having been wounded, was carried into a chapel, where “a
beautiful maiden took him in hand to effect a cure, and he thought so
much of her that in brief space of time he commenced to mend; and was
so much better that he could eat and drink; and he had such confidence
in the skill of the maiden that, before a month passed, he was most
perfectly cured.”
As early as the sixth century, we note in the recital, _Des Temps
Merovingiens_, by Augustin Thierry, that Queen Radegond, wife of
Clotaire I., transformed her royal mansion into a hospital for indigent
women. “One of the Queen’s pastimes was to go thither not simply to
visit, but to perform all the most repulsive duties of nurse.”
In Feudal times it was the custom to educate the girls belonging to
the nobility in practical medicine; also in surgery, especially that
variety of surgery applied to wounds. This was immensely useful,
inasmuch as their fathers, brothers, husbands or lovers were gallant
“Knights,” who ofttimes returned from combat or tourney mutilated or
crippled. It was the delicate hand of titled ladies that rendered
similar service to strange foreign knights who might be brought wounded
to the castle gates. This is why the knights of old rendered such
devout homage to the gentler sex—knowing their kindness and love in
time of distress, when bleeding wounds were to be staunched and fever
allayed. In a Troubadour song, _Ancassin et Nicolette_, we find this
passage:
“Nicolette, in great alarm,
Asked about his pain;
Found out of joint his arm,
Put it in again;
Dressed with herbs the aching bone—
Plants to her had virtues known.”
Although the church was hostile to the philosophy of Aristotle, whose
works were publicly burned in 1209 A.D. by order of the Council,
Pierre de Vernon published, in the same thirteenth century, a short
poem by the title _Les Enseignements d’Aristote_, the object of which
was to vulgarize the scientific portion of the great Greek author’s
Encyclopedia. This treatise commenced as follows:
“Primes saciez ke icest tretiez
Est le secre de secrez numez,
Ke Aristotle le Philosophe y doine,
La fiz Nichomache de Macedoine
A sun deciple Alisandre en bone fei,
Le grant, le fiz, a Philippe le Rei,
Le fist en sa graunt vielesce.”
Which, translated from old French, reads: “From whence learn that this
treatise is the secret of secrets, that Aristotle the philosopher, son
of Nichomachus, gave to his pupil, Alexander the Great, son of King
Philip, and which was composed in his old age.”
In recalling the fact that Aristotle was the son of Nichomachus, Pierre
de Vernon probably desired to call the attention of his readers more to
the knowledge of medicine that the author derived from his father, the
celebrated physician, than to the brilliant pupil of Plato.
Among the interesting passages in this poem we distinguish some that
advise abstinence to persons whose maladies are engendered by excesses
at table:
“One man cannot live without wine,
While another without it should dine;
For the latter, ’tis clear,
All grape juice and beer
For his own stomach’s sake should decline.”
The author claims drinking at meals induces gastralgia from acidity of
the stomach:
“The signs of bad stomach thus trace:
Poor digestion, a red bloated face,
With out-popping eyes,
Palpitation, and sighs.
With oppression, as though one did lace.”
He mentions eructations and sour belching as indicating frigidity of
the stomach, and advises the drinking of very hot water before meals.
Aside from this, he gives good counsel relative to all the advantages
of a sober and peaceful life:
“If passion within you wax hot,
Pray don’t eat and drink like a sot.
Give wine no license;
From rich food abstinence;
And luxurious peace is your lot.”
The author then advises that the mouth and gums be well taken care of,
that the teeth be neatly cleaned after each meal, and the entire buccal
cavity be rinsed out with an infusion of bitter-sweet plants or leaves.
“Puis apres si froterez
Vos dents et gencives assez,
Od les escorces tut en tur
D’ arbre chaud, sec. amer de savur
Kar iceo les dents ennientit,” etc.
Notwithstanding their want of scientific form, these precepts still
strongly contrast with the superstitious practices employed by the
monks in the treatment of disease. When holy relics failed the
priesthood had resource to supernatural power; they believed in the
faith cure; the touch of a Royal hand could heal disease. They took all
their scrofulous and goitre patients to Phillip I. and to Saint Louis.
These sovereigns had not always an excessive faith in the miraculous
gifts they were desired to bestow, but reasons of State policy forced
them to accept this monkish deceit, which was regularly practiced by
the clergy every Pentecost Day.
The _mise en scene_ was easily arranged: the King of France, after holy
communion at Saint Francis Convent, left the building surrounded by
men at arms and Benedictine friars; then he touched the spots on his
people, saying to each of his afflicted subjects: “_Rex tangit te, Deus
sanat te, in nomine Patris et filii et Spiritus sancti._”[6]
Block pretends that the King of England also enjoyed the power of
curing epilepsy, and remarks _apropos_ to this fact that the invention
is not new, since Pyrrhus, King of Epirus, possessed the power of
curing individuals attacked by enlarged spleen by simply pressing his
right foot on that viscera.
But this is no longer a superstition to-day, since the age of miracles
is past and the divinity of kings a belief almost without a disciple.
However, Gilbert and Daniel Turner, physicians of the thirteenth
century, give it credence in their writings, but they are fully
entitled to express their independent opinion.
The priests of the Middle Ages could not employ themselves as
obstetricians, neither could they treat uterine diseases. The
_ventrieres_ were the only midwives of the period; these women were
allowed to testify as experts in the courts of justice, but the burden
of proof rested on the testimony of at least three _sage femmes_ when a
newly-married woman was accused of pregnancy by a husband, as witness
the following:
“Should a man declare his wife just wedded be pregnant and she deny the
charge, it is well to conduct the accused woman to the house of some
prudent female friend, and then that three _ventrieres_ be summoned who
may regard the suspect. If they declare her to be in a family way, the
provost shall call the midwives as witnesses as before stated; but if
the _sage femmes_ declare the accused is not pregnant, then shall the
wife have cause against her husband; but better is it when the husband,
seeing the wrong wrought, shall humble himself and beg pardon.”
Midwives were sworn, according to statutes and ordinances, which
contained formulæ reports to be presented to the judges, to visit
girls who complained of having been raped; fourteen signs of such
deflowerment were admitted in testimony. Laurent Joubert has
transcribed three of such reports, of which we will reproduce only one
that was addressed to the Governor of Paris on October 23d, 1672:
“We, Marie Miran, Christophlette Reine, and Jeannie Porte, licensed
midwives of Paris, certify to whom it may concern, that on the 22d day
of October in the present year, by order of the Provost of Paris, of
date 15th of aforesaid month, we visited a house in Rue Pompierre and
there examined a girl aged thirty years, named Olive Tisserand, who had
made complaint against one Jaques Mudont Bourgeois, whom she insisted
deflowered her by violence. We examined the plaintiff by sight and the
finger, and found as follows:
“Her breasts relaxed from below the neck downwards; _mammaæ marcidæ
et flaccidæ_; her vulva chafed; _os pubis collisum_; the hair on the
os pubis curled; _pubes in orbem finuata_; the perineum wrinkled;
_perinæum corrugatum_; the nature of the woman lost; _vulva dissoluta
et mercessans_; the lips of private pendant; _labia pendenta_; the
lesser lips slightly peeled; _labiorum oræ pilis defectæ_; the nymphæ
depressed; _nymphæ depressæ_; the caroncles softened; _carunculæ
dissolutæ_; the membrane connecting the caroncles retracted; _membrana
connecteus inversa_; the clitoris was excoriated; _clitoris excoriata_;
the uterine neck turned; _collum uteri_; the vagina distended; _finus
pudoris_; in fact, the lady’s hymen is missing; _hymen deductum_;
finally, the internal orifice of the womb is open; _os internum
matricis_. Having viewed this sad state of affairs, sign by sign, we
have found traces _omnibus figillatum perspectis et perforutatis_,
etc., and the above-named midwives certify to the before-mentioned
Provost that the aforesaid statement under oath is true.”
Physicians were not obliged by the magistrates to determine the
nature of rapes on women; all gynecological questions were remanded
to midwives. In truth, among all the physicians of antiquity only
Hippocrates discussed uterine complaints and Ætius studied obstetrics.
It was only in the sixteenth century that midwifery took its place
among the medical sciences, thanks to Rhodion, Ambroise Parè,
Reif, Rousset, and Guillemeau. Shortly before this time, that is
to say, in the fifteenth century, Jacques de Foril published his
“Commentaires” on generation, his ideas being derived from Avicenna;
his notions, however, were absurd, being wholly based on astrological
considerations. He pretended that an infant is not viable in the eighth
month, because in the first month the pregnant woman is protected by
Jupiter, from whom comes life; and in the seventh month by the moon,
which favorizes life by its humidity and light; while in the eighth
month or reign of Saturn, who eats children, the influence is hostile.
But on the ninth month the benevolent influence of Jupiter is again
experienced, and for this reason the infant is more apt to be alive at
this period of gestation.
To the scholastic philosophy of the Middle Ages we must attribute the
prejudice that, the human body being in direct connection with the
universe, especially the planets, it was impossible for physical
change to occur without the influence of the constellations. Thus
astrology came to be considered as an essential part of medicine. This
belief in the influence of the stars came from the Orient, and was
carried through Europe after the crusades.
As to the treatise on “Diseases of Women,” attributed to Trotula, a
midwife of the school of Salerno, it is only a formulary of receipts
for the use of women—baths in the sea-sands under a hot sun to thin
ladies suffering from overfat; signs by which a good wet-nurse may be
recognized: a method of kneading the head, the nose, and the limbs of
new-born children before placing them in swaddling clothes; the use of
virgin wine mixed with honey as a remedy for removing the wrinkles of
old age.
“The _Commentaires_ of Bernard de Provincial informs us,” says
Daremberg, “that certain practices, not only superstitious but
disgusting, were common among the doctrines of Salerno; one, for
instance, was to eat themselves, and also oblige their husbands to eat,
the excrement of an ass fried in a stove in order to prevent sterility;
likewise, to eat the stuffed heart of a diseased sow in order to forget
dead friends,” etc.
We can form some judgment, from such observations, as to the
_therapeutic_ wisdom of these doctrines of the school of Salerno. It
is true, however, that at this epoch but little medicine save that of
an unique and fantastic order was prescribed. Gilbert, the Englishman,
advised, with the greatest British _sang froid_, tying a pig to the bed
of a patient attacked by lethargy; he ordered lion’s flesh in case of
apoplexy, also scorpion’s oil and angle-worm eggs; to dissolve stone in
the bladder, he prescribed the blood of a young billy-goat nourished on
diuretic herbs.
Peter of Spain, who was archbishop, and afterwards Pope, under the
name of John XXI., was a man whom historians claim was more celebrated
as a physician than as Pope; it was this Peter who adapted the
curious medical formulary known by the title of _Circa Instans_, and,
had improved on the invention. Those who wore on their bodies the
words “Balthazar,” “Gaspar” and “Melchior” need never fear attacks
of epilepsy; in order to produce a flux in the belly, it was only
necessary to put a patient’s excrement in a human bone and throw it
into a stream of water.
Hugo de Lucgnes, in fractures of the bone, employed a powder composed
of ginger and cannella, which he used in connection with the “Lord’s
Prayer,” in the meantime also invoking the aid of the Trinity. He
treated hernia by cauterization, and leprosy by inunctions of mercurial
ointment.
If therapeutics made only slight progress in the thirteenth century,
we cannot say as much for other branches of the medical and natural
sciences.
Arnauld de Villeneuve, physician, chemist and astrologer, particularly
distinguished himself by discovering sulphuric, nitric and hydrochloric
acids, and also made the first essence of turpentine.
Lanfranc attracted large numbers of students to the College of Saint
Come, and exhibited his skill as an anatomist and surgeon. In one of
his publications he gives a very remarkable description of chancres and
other venereal symptoms.
At the Faculty of Montpellier, which was founded in 1220 A.D., we see
as the Dean Roger of Parma, and as professor Bernard de Gordon, who
left a very accurate account of leprosy and a number of observations on
chancres following impure connection; these observations are valuable,
inasmuch as they are corroborated by Lanfranc and his contemporary,
Guillaume de Saliceto, of Italy, _two centuries before the discovery of
America_.
Albert the Great (Albertus Magnus) and Roger Bacon also belonged to the
thirteenth century.
Albert de Ballstatt, issue of a noble family of Swabia, monk of the
order of St. Dominicus, after studying in the principal schools of
Italy and Germany, arrived at Paris in 1222 A.D., and soon had numerous
auditors, among whom may be mentioned Saint Augustin, Roger Bacon,
Villeneuve, and other distinguished men. His lectures attracted such
crowds of students from the University that he was obliged to speak
from a public place in the Latin Quarter, which, in commemoration of
his success, was called _Place Maitre Albert_, afterwards corrupted to
Place Maubert.
His writings were encyclopedic, their principal merit being
commentaries on the works of Aristotle, of whom but little was known
at that period; he studied also the Latin translations of the Arabian
school, and reviewed Avicenna and Averrhoes, adding to such works some
original observations.
Albert the Great, or Albertus Magnus, the name posterity has bestowed
on this genius, was also much occupied with alchemy, and passed for a
magician. He was considered a sorcerer by many, as he was said to evoke
the spirits of the departed, and produced wonderful phenomena.
Albert’s works on natural history, his botany and mineralogy are, in
reality, taken from the works of Aristotle, as well as his _parva
naturalis_, which is only a reproduction of the _Organon_ of the Greek
philosopher; nevertheless, Albert deserves credit for his good work in
relighting the torch of science in the Occident.
His disciple, Roger Bacon, was also a monk; he studied in Paris and
afterwards removed to Oxford, England, where he actively devoted
himself to natural science, especially physics. He left behind him
remarkable observations on the refraction of light; explanation of the
formation of rainbows, inventing the magnifying glass and telescope.
His investigations in alchemy led him to discover a combustible body
similar to phosphorus, while his work on “Old Age” (_De retardtandus
senectutis occidentibus_) entitled him to a high position among the
physicians of the thirteenth century. Although one of the founders
of experimental science, one of the initiators—if the expression
may be used—of scientific positivism, he also devoted much time to
astrology. Denounced as a magician and sorcerer by his own _confreres_
in religion, he was condemned to perpetual imprisonment, and was only
released a few years before his death, leaving many writings on almost
every branch of science.
It was more than a century after these two great men died that medical
science commenced its upward flight.
Anatomy, proscribed by the Catholic Church, had an instant’s toleration
in the middle of the thirteenth century, thanks to the protection of
Frederick II., King of the Two Sicilies. But an edict of Pope Boniface
VIII., published in 1300, forbid dissections once more, not only in
Italy, but in all countries under Papal rule. Nevertheless, in 1316,
Mondinus, called the restorer of anatomy, being professor at the
University of Bologna, had the courage to dissect the cadavers of two
patients in public; he then published an account of the same, which
Springer declares had “the advantage of having been made after nature,
and which is preferable to all works on anatomy published since Galen’s
time.”
Some years later the prejudice against human dissection disappeared
in France, and anatomy was allowed to be taught by the Faculties of
Paris and Montpellier. Henri de Hermondaville, Pierre de Cerlata, and
Nicholas Bertrucci were particularly distinguished anatomists during
the fourteenth century, and traced the scientific path followed by
Vesalius, Fallopius, Eustachius, Fabrica de Aguapendente, Sylvius,
Plater, Varola de Torre, Charles Etienne, Ingrassias, and Arantius in
the sixteenth century.
From this time dates the escape of medicine from ecclesiastical
authority.
In 1452, Cardinal d’Estouteville, charged by the Pope with the
reorganization of the University of Paris, obtained a revocation of the
order obliging celibacy, claiming it to be “impious and senseless” in
the case of doctors.
It was at this moment that the Faculty of Physicians renounced the
hospitality of the University and installed themselves in a house on
the _Rue de la Bucherie_, the same being graciously tendered them
by Jacques Desparts, physician to the King. This faculty now opened
a register of its acts, which later became the _Commentaries of the
Society_, and, already confident of a brilliant future and its own
strength, the college engraved on its escutcheon these words: “_Urbi
et Orbi Salus_,” and declared itself the guardian of antique morality;
_veteris disciplinæ retinentissima_. Soon the dean of the faculty
obtained from royalty the right to coin medals, the same being bestowed
on physicians who rendered valuable public services; these bore the
imprint of the college coat of arms, and Guy Patin went so far as to
issue his own coined effigy in 1632 A.D.
The royal authority still further aided the medical profession and
the faculty in gathering students: for instance, an order was issued
granting physicians titles of nobility and coats of arms in cases of
great merit; they were also exempted from taxes and other contributions
to the crown, for, says Louis XIV., who speaks, “We cannot withhold
such marks of honor to men of learning and others who by their
devotion to a noble profession and personal merit are entitled to a
rank of high distinction.” Besides, some of the greatest names in
France were inscribed on the registers of the faculty; let us cite, for
instance, Prader, Mersenne, Saint Yon, Montigny, Mauvillain, Sartes,
Revelois, Montrose, Farcy, Jurency, and others. Can it be astonishing
that the Faculty of Medicine, considering such high favors, was so
deeply attached to the royalty that gave liberty and reputation to the
great thinkers of the age?
The dean, who before the thirteenth century only had the title
_Magister Scolarum_, administered the affairs of the faculty without
control, and was recognized as the chief hierarch of the corporation;
but he was elected by all the professors, and often chosen outside the
professors of the Faculty. This high office was thus duly dignified,
and it was only justice.
Above the dean, however, was the first Physician to the King, who was
a high officer of the crown, having the same rights and privileges
as the nobility, securing on his appointment the title of Count with
hereditary transmission of same to his family; he was also a Councillor
of State and wore the costume and decorations of this order. When he
came to the faculty meetings he was received by the dean and bachelors,
for he was also grand master of hygiene and legal medicine in the
realm; he named all the salaried medical appointments, notably those of
experts in medical jurisprudence.
Under Charles VIII., Adam Fumee and Jean Michel, sitting in Parliament
as Councillors; Jacques Coictier, physician to Louis XI., was the
President of the Tax Commission; while Fernel, no less celebrated as
a mathematician than as a physician, was the intimate friend of Henri
II. at the same time that Ambroise Pare was surgeon to the latter King
and his two successors; F. Miron, too, afterwards became Embassador to
Henri III.
Later we see Vautier, physician to _Marie de Medecis_, one of the
malcontents sent to the Bastile for political reasons. Valot, Daquin
and Fagon, all physicians to Louis XIV., were politicians, but were
also great dispensers of Royal favor. Medical politicians figured
largely in the time of Louis XIV. Among the independents, we may
cite Guy Patin, the intimate friend and adviser of Lamoignan and
Gabriel Naude, who was one of the most erudite men of the age. Under
such conditions, no wonder that medicine entered into a new phase of
progress. The time of study was now fixed at six years; after this
there were examinations, from which, unfortunately, however, clinical
medicine was excluded; examinations corresponded with the grades of
Bachelor and doctor; finally—triumphant act of culmination—came the
thesis with the obligation of the solemn Hippocratic oath.
The degree of Bachelor had existed since the foundation of the
University of Paris. The Bacchalauri, or Bachalarrii,[7] were always
students for the doctoral title. After numerous other tests, they
signed the following obligation:
1. I swear to faithfully observe all secrets with honor, to follow the
code and statutes laid down by the Faculty, and to do all in my power
to assist them.