Kitabı oku: «The Popes and Science», sayfa 14

The true significance of the lives of the men who occupied the post of Papal Physician after this time will be best appreciated from our treatment of them in the chapter on The Papal Medical School. It will be sufficient here simply to recall the names of the distinguished men who, besides being professors in the Papal Medical School, were the medical advisers of the Popes.

The first and most important of the great Renaissance professors of anatomy of the Roman Medical School who were also Papal Physicians was Columbus. He had been Vesalius's assistant at Padua and later his successor. He had lectured also at Bologna. When a special effort was made to give prestige to the University of Pisa, he was tempted by particularly liberal offers to become the professor of anatomy in that city. It was from here, by still more generous patronage, that the Popes obtained him for their medical school. On treating of the Papal Medical School, we shall have more to say of him and his successor in the professorship of anatomy and medicine as well as in the post of Papal Physician, who was the third of the first anatomists of the time–Eustachius. He with Columbus and Vesalius constitute the trinity of great original investigators in anatomy about the middle of the sixteenth century. It is extremely interesting, with the traditions that exist in the matter, to find that the Popes secured two of these great anatomists for their personal physicians as well as for their medical school. The third one, Vesalius, became the body physician first to the Emperor Charles V. and then to his son Philip II., whom many would declare to be as Catholic as the Popes themselves in religious tendencies.

After Eustachius came Varolius, whose name is engraved in the history of medicine because the Pons Varolii or bridge of Varolius, an important structure in the brain now often simply called the pons, was named after him. To Varolius we owe one of the earliest detailed descriptions of the anatomy of the brain. He was the Papal Physician to Gregory XIII., who will be remembered as the Pope under whom the reform of the calendar was made by the great Jesuit mathematician and astronomer, Father Clavius. Pope Gregory's enlightened patronage of medicine in the person of Varolius will be better appreciated if we add that he was chosen as Papal Physician when he was not yet thirty years of age, though he had already given abundant evidence of his talent for original investigation in anatomy. He died at the early age of thirty-two, but not until after he had accomplished a life's work sufficient to give him an enduring place in the history of anatomy. After Varolius as Papal Physician came Piccolomini and then Caesalpinus, whom the Italians hail as the discoverer of the circulation of the blood before Harvey, and of whom we shall have much to say in the next chapter. Piccolomini was not as great an original thinker and worker as many of his predecessors and successors, but he was a man whose prestige in medicine was scarcely less than theirs.

That this same liberal patronage of distinguished physicians was continued in the next century may be realized from the fact that Malpighi, the great founder of comparative anatomy, became one of the Papal Physicians. His intimate friend, Borelli, to whom we owe the introduction of physics into medicine, had spent some years in Rome, where, having been robbed by his servants, with the consent of the Pope he took up his abode with the Society of the Pious Schools of San Pantaleone. Here he finished his important work De Motu Animalium, in which the principles of mechanics were first definitely introduced into anatomy and physiology. The preface to this book was written by an ecclesiastic, who praises the piety of Borelli during his stay in Rome and chronicles his encouragement by the Popes in his medical work. Malpighi was succeeded as Papal Physician by Tozzi, who is famous for his commentaries on the ancients rather than for original observation, but who was looked upon in his time as one of the most prominent physicians in Italy, and at this period that meant one of the most prominent physicians in the world. At the beginning of the next century, the eighteenth, Lancisi, by many considered the Father of Modern Clinical Medicine, became the Papal Physician.

Among the consultant physicians to the Popes of the eighteenth century, though he never occupied the post of regular medical attendant, was Morgagni. His advice was often sought by a succession of Popes not only with regard to their personal health, but also with regard to the teaching of medicine and other questions of like nature. Virchow has called Morgagni the Father of Modern Pathology, because he was the first to point out, that for a knowledge of disease it is quite as important to know where the disease has been as to try to learn what it has been. All of the Popes, five in number, of the latter part of Morgagni's life were on terms of intimacy with him. Pope Benedict XIV., one of the very great Popes of the century, a native of Bologna, was an intimate friend of Morgagni. His scarcely less famous successor, Pope Clement XIII., had known Morgagni before his elevation to the Papacy, and after his election he wrote assuring Morgagni of his continued esteem and friendship, and asks him to consider the Papal palace always open to him on his visits to Rome. In an extant letter Clement praises his wisdom, his culture, his courtesy, his piety toward God, his charity toward men, and holds him up as an example to all others for the special reason that, notwithstanding all his qualities, he had not aroused the enmity or envy of those around him, thus showing what a depth of humanity there was in him in addition to his scientific attainments.

At this time Morgagni was looked upon by all the medical world as probably the greatest of living medical scientists. Visitors who came to Italy who were at all interested in science, always considered that their journey had not been quite complete unless they had had an opportunity of meeting Morgagni. He had more personal friends among the scientists of all the countries of Europe than any other man of his time. The fact that this leader in science should be at the same time a great personal friend of the Popes of his time is the best possible evidence of the more than amicable relations which existed between the Church and medicine during this century. Morgagni's life of nearly ninety years indeed, covers most of the eighteenth century, and is of itself, without more ado, an absolute proof that there was not only no friction between religion and medicine, but shows on the contrary that medical science encountered patronage and encouragement as far as ecclesiastics were concerned, while success in it brought honor and emolument. Morgagni's personal relations to the Church are best brought out by the fact that, of his fifteen children, ten of whom lived to adult life, eight daughters became members of religious orders and one of his two surviving sons became a Jesuit. The great physician was very proud and very glad that his children should have chosen what he did not hesitate to call the better part.

After Morgagni's time, the days of the French Revolution bring a cloud over the Papacy. There were political disturbances in Italy and the Popes were shorn of their temporal power. As a consequence their medical school loses in prestige and finally disappears. The Papal Physicians after this, while distinguished among their fellow members of the Roman medical profession, were no longer the world-known discoverers in medicine that had so often been the case before. So long as the Popes had the power and possessed the means, they used both to encourage medicine in every way, as the list of Papal Physicians shows better than anything else, and a study of this chapter of their history will undo all the false assertions with regard to the supposed opposition between the Church and science.

We have already said, and it seems to deserve repetition here, that during most of these centuries in which the Papal Physicians were among the most distinguished discoverers in medicine, the term medicine included within itself most of what we now know as physical science. Botany was studied as a branch of medicine, and as we have seen, one of the Papal Physicians, Simon Januensis, compiled a dictionary that a modern German Historian of Botany finds excellent. Astrology, under which term astronomy was included, was studied for the sake of the supposed influence of the stars on men's constitutions.–Chemistry was a branch of medical study. Mineralogy was considered a science allied to medicine, and the use of antimony and other metals in medicine originated with physicians trying to extend the domain of knowledge to minerals. Comparative anatomy was founded by a Papal Physician. These were the principal physical sciences. To talk of opposition between science and religion, then, with the most distinguished scientists of these centuries in friendly personal and official relations with the Popes, is to indulge in one of those absurdities common enough among those who must find matter for their condemnation of the Popes and the Church, but that every advance in modern history has pushed farther back into the rubbish chamber of outlived traditions.

THE POPES AND MEDICAL EDUCATION AND
THE PAPAL MEDICAL SCHOOL

After the story of the Papal Physicians, the most important phase of the relations of the Popes to the medical sciences is to be found in the story of the Papal Medical School. While it seems to be generally ignored by those who are not especially familiar with the history of medical education, a medical school existed in connection with the Papal University at Rome during many centuries–according to excellent authorities, from the beginning of the fourteenth century–and this medical school had, as we have said elsewhere, during nearly two centuries some of the most distinguished professors of medicine in its ranks, and boasts among its faculty some of the greatest discoverers in the medical sciences, and especially in anatomy. For these two centuries it had but two important rivals, Padua and Bologna. Both of these were in Italy, and one, that of the University of Bologna, was in a Papal city, that is, was under the political dominion of the Popes. The best medical teaching, then, was to be found in the Papal States and under conditions such, that if there had been the slightest opposition, or indeed anything but the most cordial encouragement for medical study, the medical schools of Rome and Bologna would surely have languished instead of flourishing beyond all others.

Just about the beginning of the fourteenth century Pope Boniface VIII., who was himself one of the distinguished scholars of his time, determined that, besides the university of the Papal Court, which had existed for nearly a century at Rome, but which was mainly occupied with philosophy and theology and mainly attended by ecclesiastics, there should also be a university of the City of Rome for the people of his capital. This determination was reached only a short time before the culmination of the difficulty between Pope Boniface and the King of France, which eventually resulted in what has been called the outrage of Anagni and the subsequent death of the Pope within a short time. It has usually been thought, then, that in spite of certain extant Papal documents creating the University of the City of Rome, this university had not been organized before Pope Boniface's death, and as his successor did not take his seat at Rome, but at Avignon, it has usually been assumed that the University of the City came into existence at most only in an abortive form. Denifle, whose History of the Universities of the Middle Ages is looked upon as the best authority in such matters, however, insists that a complete university of the City of Rome did come into existence as a result of Boniface's decree.

All during the time when the Popes were at Avignon this university continued to exist, and in spite of the fact that at one time, as a consequence of a great earthquake followed by a pestilence, and then serious political troubles because of the absence of the Popes, Rome had only something less than ten thousand inhabitants, the university continued its work. Denifle calls attention to the fact that there are letters of Pope John XXII. which show that he paid out of the Papal revenues the salary of a teacher of physic at the University of the City of Rome while the Papal Court was at Avignon. It is rather interesting to find the names of the two Popes, Boniface VIII. and John XXII., whose Papal decrees are supposed to have prevented the study of anatomy and chemistry, thus cropping up on unquestionable authority as the founder and the patron of medical teaching in the City of Rome. Pope Boniface VIII. is now generally credited with having been the founder of the Sapienza, the medical school of which, at the beginning of the sixteenth century, was to develop into one of the most important schools of its kind in Europe, and to have on its faculty list the greatest teachers of their time, who had been tempted to come to Rome because the Popes wished to enhance the prestige of the medical school of their capital.

While it may be a surprise for those who have been accustomed to think of the Popes as inalterably opposed to all science, and especially to medical science, thus to find them encouraging and fostering medical teaching, it will only be what would naturally be expected by those who know anything of the real history of medicine in the earlier Middle Ages. There is no doubt at all, that during the so-called "dark ages," that is, when the invasion of the barbarians had put out the lights of the older civilizations, it was mainly ecclesiastics who preserved whatever traditions there were of the old medical learning and carried on whatever serious teaching of medicine, in the sense of medical science, that existed during this time. The monks were the most prominent in this; and the Benedictines, after their foundation in the sixth century, added to their duties of caring for the other temporal needs of the poor, who so often appealed to them, that of helping them as far as they could in any bodily ailments with which they might be afflicted. There are even definite traditions that a certain amount of training in medicine, or at least in the care of the sick, was one of the features of the Benedictine monasteries.

Dr. Payne in his article on the History of Medicine in the Encyclopaedia Brittanica said: "In civil history there is no real break. A continuous thread of learning and practice must have connected the last period of Roman medicine with the dawn of science in the Middle Ages. But the intellectual thread is naturally traced with greater difficulty than that which is the theme of civil history; and in periods such as that from the fifth to the tenth century in Europe, it is almost lost. The chief homes of medical as of other learning in these disturbed times were the monasteries. Though the science was certainly not advanced by their labors, it was saved from total oblivion, and many ancient medical works were preserved in Latin or the vernacular versions. It was among the Benedictines that the monastic studies of medicine first received a new direction and aimed at a higher standard. The study of Hippocrates, Galen, and other classics was recommended by Cassiodorus (sixth century), and in the original mother abbey of Monte Cassino medicine was studied, though there was probably not what could be called a medical school there; nor had this foundation any connection (as has been supposed) with the famous school of Salerno."

A review of some of the interesting features of the early history of medical education will serve to show that, not only was there no ecclesiastical interference with the new developing science, but, on the contrary, without the personal aid and the intelligent patronage of ecclesiastics of all degree, and especially of archbishops and Popes, the development of medical teaching that took place at Salerno would probably not have had the significance in history that it now enjoys. While there was no institutional connection between the medical school of Salerno and the Benedictine Monastery at Monte Cassino, it is known that at the end of the seventh century there was a branch Benedictine monastery at Salerno, and some of the prelates and higher clergy occupied posts as teachers in the school, and even became distinguished for medical acquirements.

Though the Salernitan medical school proper was a secular institution, there is no doubt that the Benedictines had great influence in it and had fostered its formation. How close the monks of Monte Cassino were allied to the Popes, everyone knows. The Benedictines considered themselves the special wards of the Papacy, and a number of the Abbots of Monte Cassino, or monks belonging to the community, and of men who had been educated in the monastery, had been raised to the Papacy during the Middle Ages. The origin of modern medical teaching is thus closely associated not only with the Benedictines, but through them with the Popes, without whose encouragement and sanction the work would not have flourished as it did.

In advance of the formal establishment of medical schools, in the modern sense of the word, two Popes were distinguished before their elevation to the Papacy for their attainments in all the sciences, and especially in medicine, one of whom actually founded an important school of thought in medicine, while the other was a professor at Salerno. The first of these is the famous Gerbert, who, under the name of Sylvester II., was Pope at the end of the millenium and carried Christianity over what was supposed to be the perilous period of the completion of the first thousand years, when the end of the world was so universally looked for. Gerbert was famous for his attainments in every branch of science, and indeed so many wonderful traditions have collected around his name in this matter that one hesitates to accept most of them. There seems to be no doubt, however, that he was the beloved master of Fulbert of Chartres, who did much for medicine in France at the beginning of the eleventh century and who was the founder of the so-called school of Chartres and himself the teacher of John of Chartres, who became the physician to King Henry I., of France, and of Peter of Chartres and Hildier and Goisbert.

Before the end of the eleventh century Pope Victor III., who had been the Abbot of Monte Cassino, was elected Pope much against his will. He occupied the Papal throne only for about a year and a half. He had been especially recommended by Pope Gregory VII., the famous Hildebrand, as a very suitable successor. Desiderius, as he was called before becoming Pope, was one of the best scholars of his time, and had taught for some years with great distinction at Salerno. It is not known absolutely that he taught medicine, but, as the university of Salerno is usually considered not to have been founded until the middle of the next century, and as before that time the main teaching faculty was that of the medical school and all other teaching was subordinated to it, Desiderius must surely be considered as a teacher at least of medical students. At that time a physician was expected to know something more than merely his profession. Mathematics and philosophy were the two favorite subjects to which, besides medicine, they devoted themselves. The presence of the future Pope at Salerno is, moreover, the best possible index of the sympathy between the ecclesiastical authorities and the medical school.

Besides there are definite records of the friendship which existed between Alphanus, Archbishop of Salerno, and Desiderius, while they were both members of the Benedictine Community of Monte Cassino. Alphanus subsequently taught medicine at Salerno, and some of his writings on medicine have been preserved for us. He was the author of a work bearing the title De Quatuor Elementis Corporis Humani, a treatise on the four elements of the human body, which is a compendium of most of the knowledge of anatomy and physiology of the time, though it also contains much more than the information with regard to the merely physical side of man's being. The fact that Alphanus should have been promoted from the professorship in the medical faculty to the Archbishopric of Salerno is only another proof of the entire sympathy which existed between the Church and the professors of medical science at that time.

During the thirteenth century universities were founded in some twenty important cities in Europe, and in connection with most of them a medical school was established. These educational institutions were the result of the initiative of ecclesiastics; their officials all belonged to the clerical body, most of their students were considered as clerics–and indeed this was the one way to secure them against the calls for military service which would otherwise have disturbed the enthusiasm for study–and the Popes were considered the supreme authority over all the universities. In spite of this thoroughly ecclesiastical character of the universities and educational institutions, there is not a hint of interference with the teaching of medical science and abundant evidence of its encouragement. Indeed, for anyone who knows the story of the universities of the thirteenth century, it is practically impossible to understand how there could have arisen any tradition of ecclesiastical opposition to education in any form, and there is not a trace of foundation for the stories with regard to ecclesiastical intolerance of science, which are supposed to be supported by certain Papal decrees.

The best possible demonstration of the maintenance of the most amicable relations between churchmen and physicians during the century in which these decrees were issued is also the most interesting fact in the history of medicine during the thirteenth century. It is not generally known that one of the most distinguished physicians of the thirteenth century, one who wrote a book on the special subject of eye diseases that is still a classic, afterwards became Pope under the name of John. He is variously known as John XIX., John XX., or John XXI., according as certain occupants of the Papal throne are considered to be of authority or not. He was educated at Paris, and probably spent some time at Montpelier. Under the name of Peter of Spain, though he was what we should now call a Portuguese, he subsequently taught physic at the University of Sienna. Here he wrote the famous little work on the Diseases of the Eye, which was reviewed by Dr. Petella, physician-in-chief of the Royal Italian Marine, in Janus, the International Archives for the History of Medicine and for Medical Geography in 1898. Petella does not hesitate to proclaim him one of the greatest men of his time. Daunou, one of the continuators of the Benedictines' literary history of France, [Footnote 28] says that this Peter of Spain was one of the most notable persons in Europe in his generation.

[Footnote 28: Histoire Litteraire de la France, Vol. XVI. This is the famous work begun by the Benedictines of St. Maur.]

Pope John XXI., before his accession to the Papacy, had certainly accomplished remarkable work in medicine, and of a kind that makes his writings of great interest even at the present day. There is scarcely an important pathological condition of the eye which does not receive some consideration in this little book, and it is a constant source of surprise in reading it to find, with their limited knowledge and lack of instruments, what good diagnosticians the ophthalmologists of the thirteenth century were. Cataract is described, for instance, under the name of "water that descends into the eye," and a distinction is made between cataract from internal and external causes. Hardening of the eye is mentioned and is declared to be very serious in its effects. There seems no doubt that this was glaucoma. Conditions of the lids, particularly, were differentiated and treated by rational measures, some of them quite modern in substance. A curious anticipation of modern therapeutics is the frequent recommendation of extracts of the livers of various fishes for external and internal use, that is a reminder of the present employment of cod-liver oil. The book is acknowledged to be a classic in medicine. The fact that its author should have become Pope later, is the best proof that instead of opposition there was the greatest sympathy between medicine and ecclesiasticism in his time.

With these thoroughly amicable relations between the Church and the medical schools during the thirteenth and preceeding centuries, it will not be so much of a surprise as it might otherwise be, to learn of the foundation of the Medical School of Rome and of the continuation of Papal patronage of it even while the Popes were absent at Avignon. University records do not say much about it during the next two centuries. With the coming of the Renaissance, however, and the entrance of a new spirit into education, the Popes also were touched by the educational time-spirit, and there came a rejuvenation of the University of the City, which now acquired a new name, that of the Sapienza, and became the home of some of the most distinguished teaching in Europe in every department. Early in the sixteenth century the medical department of the Sapienza, or Papal University at Rome, became one of the most noteworthy institutions of Europe because of the work in medicine accomplished there, and had among its faculty the most distinguished investigators in medical science, and especially in that department of medicine–anatomy–which by an unfortunate tradition the Popes are said to have hampered.

The most important event in the history of the institution, after its foundation, was its establishment in the home which it was to occupy down to our own time. Its new habitation was prepared for it by the Pope who has probably been the most maligned in history–Alexander VI. A magnificent site was appropriated for it, and the construction of suitable buildings begun. A little more than a decade later, Leo X., another one of the misunderstood Popes, came to the conclusion that the two universities in Rome, that of the Papal Court and that of the City, would do better work if combined into one, and accordingly this combination was effected. This made provision for one very strong teaching faculty in Rome. The final steps for the completion of the union of the two universities were taken by Pope Alexander VII., and the buildings which the new university was to occupy were finished in a manner worthy of the great institution of learning which it was hoped to create in Rome.

The first of the great professors who made the Papal Medical School famous was Realdo Colombo, often spoken of as Columbus simply, who was invited to teach in Rome by Pope Paul III., the same Pope who issued the bull founding the Jesuits. Some people might consider the two actions as representing contrary tendencies in education, but they are not such as know either the history of the Jesuits, or of the constant endeavor of the Popes to foster education. Columbus came to Rome, as we have said, with the prestige of having succeeded Vesalius at Padua, and later having been specially tempted by the reigning prince in Pisa, who wanted to create a great medical school in connection with his university in that city, which he was at that moment trying to raise to distinction, to accept the professorship of anatomy there.

Vesalius was still alive at this time, and the period when, if we would credit certain historians who emphasize the opposition between the Church and science, it was dangerous to dissect human bodies had not yet passed. It is interesting to read the account of Columbus's reception in Rome, and the interest manifested in his work by all classes in the Roman University at this time. His course in anatomy was so enthusiastically attended that, as he himself tells in a letter to a friend, he often had several hundred persons in his audience when he gave his anatomical demonstrations on the cadaver. These were not all medical students, but many of them were ecclesiastics, and some of them important members of the hierarchy. Even cardinals manifested their interest in anatomy, and occasionally attended the public dissections–public, that is, as far as the University is concerned–which were made by Columbus.

Columbus's enthusiasm for anatomy was such that, as Dr. Fisher said of him in the Annals of Anatomy and Surgery, Brooklyn, 1878-1880, "he dissected an extraordinary number of human bodies, and so devoted himself to the solution of problems in anatomy and physiology that he has been most aptly styled the Claude Bernard of the sixteenth century." In one year, for instance, he is said to have dissected no less than fourteen bodies, demonstrating, as Dr. Fisher has said, that "it was an age of remarkable tolerance for scientific investigation."

Besides being an investigator, Columbus was a great teacher, and many of our modern methods of instruction in medical schools had their origin in the system of demonstrations introduced by him. His descriptions of the demonstrations for students upon living animals, show that some of the most recent ideas in medical teaching were anticipated by this Roman professor of anatomy and medicine in the Renaissance period. His demonstrations of the heart and blood-vessels and of the actions of the lungs are particularly complete, and must have given his students a very practical working knowledge of these important physiological functions. In a word, the medical teaching of the Roman University, under him at this time, far from being merely theoretic and distant from actual experience and demonstration, was thoroughly modern in its methods.