Roth continues: "Padua had, like Bologna, dissection in the fourteenth century. There is the record of a dissection made in the year 1341, in which Gentilis made the discovery of a gall-stone." (It is evidently not because the dissection was unusual, but because the discovery was unusual, that this incident is mentioned. The dissections were such ordinary occurrences as not to deserve special mention except for some particular reason.)
"Much more is known about dissection at Padua in the fifteenth century, when the city had become Venetian." [Footnote 11] (It is significant to note that the previous occurrence was in pre-Venetian days, for Professor White insists that it was the Venetian authorities, in opposition to the Pope, who allowed dissection at Padua. Here is the rebuttal of any such theory.) "Bertapaglia, in his Surgery, has the record of the dissection of a criminal made under the direction of Master Hugo De Senis, on the 8th of February, 1429. On the 4th of April, 1430, the dissection of a woman was made. In 1444 Professor Montagnana speaks of fourteen dissections at which he had been present." (This would seem to indicate that dissections were quite common and that the occasional records of them give no proper idea of their actual number.)
[Footnote 11: Note that this is a full century before Vesalius's time, who, Professor White insists, reintroduced dissection.]
I would not wish to produce the impression, however, that Italy was the only place in Europe in which dissections were freely done during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. There is no doubt that anatomy and surgery and every branch of medicine was cultivated much more assiduously and with much better opportunities provided for students down in Italy, than anywhere else in the world. This of itself alone shows the utter absurdity of the declarations that the Church was opposed to medical progress in any way, since the nearer the center of Christendom, the more ardor there was for investigation and the more liberty to pursue original researches. Other countries also began to wake up to the spirit of progress in medical education that was abroad. In France there were two centers of interest in anatomy. One of these was at Montpelier, the other at Paris. It is interesting to note, however, that the men to whom anatomical progress is due at these universities obtained their training, or at least had taken advantage of the special opportunities provided for anatomical investigation to be had, in the Italian cities. Guy de Chauliac I have already mentioned. He is spoken of as the Father of Modern Surgery, and there is no doubt that he did much to set surgery on a very practical basis and to make anatomy a fundamental feature of the training for it. He declared that it was absurd to think that surgeons could do good work unless they knew their anatomy.
Under his fostering care the study of anatomy flourished to a remarkable degree at the University of Montpelier. The difficulty hitherto had been that it was very hard to procure bodies for dissecting purposes. It is easy to understand that friends of the dead would always prevent dissections as far as they could. They do so even at the present moment, and there are not many of us who find it in our hearts to blame them over much for it. Few of us are ready to make the sacrifice of our own dead. Even the poor in those days had friends who prevented the cutting up of their remains; for large alms-houses were not presided over by paid officials, but by religious, to whom their poor in their friendlessness appealed as kindred. There were not many prisons, and they were not needed because all felonies were punished by death. Guy de Chauliac realized that here was the best opportunity to procure bodies. Accordingly it was mainly through his instrumentality that a regulation was made handing over the dead bodies of malefactors to the medical school for dissecting purposes. It must be recalled that when he did this the Papal court was at Avignon, in the South of France, and exerted great influence over the University of Montpelier, situate not far away.
The reputation of the University of Paris is such that we should not expect her to be backward in this important department of education. As a matter of fact, there is abundant evidence of dissection having been carried on here at the end of the thirteenth century, and the practice was not interrupted at the beginning of the fourteenth century. Lanfranc, the famous surgeon who had studied with William of Salicet in Italy (we have already mentioned both of them and we shall have much to say of them hereafter), taught surgery from a very practical standpoint in Paris, and illustrated his teachings by means of dissections. Lanfranc was succeeded in Paris by Mondeville, whose name is also associated with the practice of dissection by most historians of medicine, and whose teaching was of such a practical character that there can be no doubt that he must have employed this valuable adjunct in his surgical training of students. In general, however, the records of dissecting work and of anatomical development are not near so satisfactory at Paris as in the Italian universities. As is the case in our own day and has always been true, universities were inclined to specialties in the Middle Ages, and the specialty of Paris was Philosophy and Theology. This was choice, however, not compulsion, any more than similar conditions in our own time. The medical school continued to be in spite of this one of the best in the world, though it was not famous for its original work, except in surgery, which is, however, the subject most nearly related to anatomy and the one whose development would seem necessarily to demand attention to anatomy.
With the Renaissance, which is usually said to begin after the fall of Constantinople in 1453, and the consequent dispersion of Greek scholars throughout Italy, a new spirit entered into anatomy as into every other department of intellectual life at this time. The reason for it is not easy to explain. Perhaps the spread of Greek texts with regard to medicine inspired students and teachers to try out their problems for themselves, and so a new impetus was given to anatomical investigation. Whatever it was that caused it, the new movement came unhampered by the Church, and Italy continued to be even to a greater degree than before the Mecca for medical students who wished to do original work in anatomy. During the last fifty years of the fifteenth century anatomy began its modern phase, and original work of a very high order was accomplished. There are five names that deserve to be mentioned in this period. They are Gabriele Zerbi, Achillini, Berengar of Carpi, Matthew of Gradi and Benivieni. Each of these men did work that was epoch-making in anatomy, and each has a place in the history of the science that will never be lost.
Zerbi, who did his work at Verona, traced the olfactory nerves and describes the nerve supply of the special senses more completely than it had ever been done before. After his time it was only a question of filling in the details of this subject. Achillini added much to our knowledge of the anatomy of the head, being the first to describe the small bones of the ear and also to recognize the orifices of Wharton's ducts. Besides this, which would have been quite enough to have given him a place in the history of anatomy, he added important details to what had been previously known with regard to the intestines, and described very clearly the ileocecal valve and suggested its function. Matthew of Gradi, or De Gradibus, was the first, according to Professor Turner in his article on Anatomy in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, who represented the ovaries in the correct light as regards their anatomical relations and their function.
The most important of these fifteenth century investigators in pure anatomy, however, is Berengarius or Berengar of Carpi, who did his work at Bologna at the end of the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth century. His commentaries on Mondino's work show how much he added to that great teacher's instruction. If he had no other distinction than that of having been the first to undertake a systematic view of the several textures of which the body is composed, it would have been sufficient to stamp him as a great original worker in anatomy. He treats successively of the anatomical characters and properties of fat, of membrane in general, of flesh, of nerve, of villus or fibre, of ligament, of sinew or tendon, and of muscle in general. Almost needless to say, he must have made many dissections to obtain such clear details of information, and, as we shall see, he probably did make many hundreds. If he had done nothing else but be the first to mention the vermiform appendix, it would have been quite sufficient to give him a distinction in our day. Everything that he touched, however, he illuminated. His anatomy