CHAPTER XXVIII. Further Details Concerning the Advance in Our Knowledge of

FURTHER DETAILS CONCERNING THE ADVANCE IN OUR KNOWLEDGE OF ANATOMY--DISSECTING MADE A PART OF THE REGULAR TRAINING OF A MEDICAL STUDENT--IATROCHEMISTS AND IATROPHYSICISTS--THE EMPLOYMENT OF LATIN IN LECTURING AND WRITING ON MEDICAL TOPICS

Further Details Concerning the Advance in Our Knowledge of Gross Anatomy.--In the preceding chapter I have given some account of the efforts made during the sixteenth century by certain physicians to lay solidly the foundations of a gross anatomy of the human body. The time was ripe for such a movement, and the right sort of men took charge of it and pushed it forward to such a stage of successful accomplishment that we physicians of to-day are able to continue in the direction indicated, and under the impulse communicated, by these master builders. These men, it should be remembered, did something more than merely to lay solid and durable foundations in the form of an accurate anatomy, they also taught the correct methods of procedure for the erection of the superstructure of the science of medicine.

Up to the end of the sixteenth century almost all the work done in anatomy was effected with the aid of the scalpel alone, the object being to isolate and expose clearly to view the larger tissues and organs, such as muscles, arteries, veins, nerves, etc. In a very few instances more elaborate methods were devised, even as early as during the fifteenth century, by men of exceptional cleverness. Thus, for example, in 1490, Alexander Benedetti, Professor of Anatomy at Padua, invented a method of preserving muscles, nerves and blood-vessels as permanent dry specimens, and it is said that he sold such preparations for large sums of money. As already stated on a previous page, the injection of blood-vessels with certain fluids was also employed to a very limited extent at this early period as a means of distinguishing them more easily from the surrounding structures; but this practice gave place, during the seventeenth century, to the better method of employing, as an injecting material, a semi-fluid preparation which became quite solid soon after it had penetrated well into the interior of the vessels, and to which any desired opaque color might be given. This method was invented by the Hollander, John Swammerdam (1627–1680) and perfected by Van Horne. It was largely by the employment of this procedure that Friedrich Ruysch of Amsterdam (1638–1731), Professor of Anatomy and Botany in the university of his native city, gained such celebrity throughout Europe for the great beauty of his permanent anatomical preparations. Hyrtl mentions the fact that Peter the Great of Russia, who resided for a certain length of time at Zaandam, near Amsterdam, in order that he might familiarize himself with the art of ship-building, was in the habit of visiting Ruysch from time to time in his museum and laboratory; and finally (in 1717) bought from him, for the sum of 30,000 florins, his entire collection of specimens, together with the formula of the mixture which he employed in making his injections. The collection itself, it should be stated, contained not only specimens illustrative of normal human anatomy (e.g., the various solid and hollow organs, the organs of special sense, and objects belonging to the vascular, muscular, nervous and osseous systems), but also many specimens illustrating pathological and comparative anatomy, and a great variety of monstrosities.

Ruysch also attained remarkable success in restoring the rosy color and soft flexibility of the skin and the natural facial expression in certain dead bodies by the employment of a preservative fluid widely known as “Liquor balsamicus.” Tradition says that in one instance, that of a child whose corpse had been treated in this manner by Ruysch, the face presented such a perfectly life-like appearance that the Czar, as he passed near the object, thought he was looking upon a sleeping child and gave it a kiss.

The aged professor lived to be ninety-three, and continued giving his lectures on anatomy almost up to the day of his death, which resulted from accidental injuries. When it became clear that these were of so serious a nature that he could not possibly recover, he asked to be carried on a stretcher into the assembly room in order that he might say a farewell to the students who had been attending his lectures.

Although some critics have intimated that Ruysch should be ranked merely as a very clever mechanic in the domain of anatomy, there are certain well-established facts which show that this estimate of the man is unfair. It is known, for example, that he was the first anatomist to call attention to the features which distinguish the male from the female skeleton (e.g., the differences in the form of the pelvis and of the thorax). Ruysch also advanced our knowledge of the vascular system by means of the improvements which he effected in the method of injecting blood-vessels. His skill in this special work was so great that people were wont to say of him that he possessed the fingers of a fairy and the eyes of a lynx. It was Ruysch too who furnished the first descriptions of the bronchial blood-vessels and of the vascular plexuses of the heart. Finally, the term “membrana Ruyschiana,” in connection with the choroid of the eye, bears testimony to the fact that he was also an original worker in this very difficult corner of the field of human anatomy.

The crowning event in the life of Ruysch--an event which shows how wasteful many of us men are of our productive powers when we deliberately retire from all participation in active work, physical or mental, at the comparatively early age of sixty-five--occurred in 1717, when he had attained the age of seventy-nine. Peter the Great had hardly left the premises with the great collection of specimens for which he had paid such a fabulous price, when Ruysch began the making of a new collection; and at this task he worked so diligently that in less than ten years he was able to deliver to John Sobieski, King of Poland, the greater part of the new collection (for which he received the sum of 20,000 florins). Then followed a period of about three years during which he continued active work as a teacher of anatomy, death alone seeming to possess the power to arrest his extraordinary energy.

Ruysch’s only published works are the following: Catalogue of the Specimens contained in his Museum, Amsterdam, 1691; and a Thesaurus Anatomicus, in 10 volumes, Amsterdam, 1701–1715.

In reading over the account which I have given of the discoveries made in gross anatomy and in physiology during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, I find that I have omitted some that may just as appropriately be mentioned in this section as in that which I intend to devote to work done in the domain of minute anatomy. I shall therefore refer to them briefly now, and then pass on to the consideration of the latter branch of my subject.

Eustachius, the famous Italian anatomist, deserves special credit for the experimental methods which he devised and employed in his efforts to gain a better knowledge of the anatomy and physiology of the kidneys. Moritz Hofmann of Fürstenwald discovered in 1641, in the turkey gobbler, the outlet duct of the pancreas, and a short time afterward George Wirsung, a Bavarian, discovered the same structure in the human being. Then, in 1651, Olaus Rudbeck, Professor of Anatomy in the University of Upsala, Sweden, discovered the lymphatics of the intestines, and established (at a later date) the fact that they are a separate system from that of the chyle ducts. Francis Glisson (1597–1677) of Cambridge University, England, one of Harvey’s pupils, made two series of anatomical investigations of a most creditable character--the first concerning the relationship which exists between the intestinal lymphatics and the alimentary canal, and the second regarding the internal construction of the liver (“capsule of Glisson”). Thomas Wharton (1610–1673), a native of Yorkshire, England, and a London practitioner of medicine, discovered the outlet channel of the submaxillary salivary gland, now known as “Wharton’s duct,” and he also published the first exhaustive treatise on the structure of glands in general (thymus, pancreas, submaxillary, etc.). About the middle of the seventeenth century Nathanael Highmore of Oxford, England (1613–1685), discovered and adequately described the cavity in the superior maxilla which bears his name (“antrum of Highmore”), and which in comparatively recent years has assumed such importance from the viewpoint of the practical surgeon. A Danish anatomist, who is known to us English-speaking physicians as Nicholas Steno (1638–1686), but to his own countrymen as Niels Stensen, discovered the outlet duct of the parotid gland (“Steno’s duct”). Stephen Blancaard (1650–1702), a practicing physician of Amsterdam, made the first successful injections of capillary blood-vessels; and Domenico de Marchettis (1626–1688), Professor in the University of Padua, employing Blancaard’s technique, succeeded in proving that the finest ramifications of both veins and arteries communicate the one with the other. To Conrad Victor Schneider, a professor at the University of Wittenberg, Germany (1614–1680), we are indebted for putting an end forever to the erroneous doctrine that the nasal mucus is produced in the brain. He did not, however, have the good fortune to discover the glands from which this mucus actually comes; the credit for this discovery being due to Niels Stensen. Among the host of other successful discoverers in the domain of anatomy during the seventeenth century the following men deserve at least to be mentioned by name: Johann Conrad Peyer (1653–1712) of Schaffhausen, Switzerland; Johann Conrad Brunner (1653–1727), also a native of Switzerland; Theodor Kerckring (1640–1693) of Hamburg, Germany; Anton Nuck (1650–1692), Professor of Anatomy at the University of Leyden, Holland; Reignier de Graaf (1641–1673), a native of the Netherlands; and Thomas Willis (1622–1675) and William Cowper (1666–1709), both of them Englishmen.

And, finally, it may be stated that all the leading anatomists of the sixteenth century devoted a great deal of time to the study of the manner in which the nerves are distributed throughout the body and to ascertaining the arrangement of the intracranial and intraspinal nervous structures. To give even the most superficial account of what these men accomplished would occupy far more space than can well be spared for this purpose. Kurt Sprengel is my authority for saying that, of all the workers in this particular field during the period in question, Fallopius is entitled to receive the greatest credit for what he accomplished.

The First Beginnings of Minute or Microscopic Anatomy.--The anatomy of the tissues--microscopic anatomy--begins with Marcello Malpighi (1628–1694), a native of Crevalcuore, near Bologna, Italy. It is not positively known who was the inventor of the compound microscope. First employed about the year 1620, the instruments of this type came into fairly general use toward the middle of the seventeenth century. But the early compound microscopes were not very satisfactory, and consequently preference was given, for a long time, to those of the simple type. Achromatic instruments were not purchasable until 1780, when the famous German physicist, Leonhard Euler, succeeded in overcoming the obstacles which had up to that time stood in the way of their successful manufacture.

In 1661 Malpighi, who was in the habit of manufacturing his own microscopes, was able, by aid of one of these instruments, to exhibit the blood, loaded with its corpuscular bodies, passing rapidly from one capillary vessel to another in the frog’s lung. Then in 1683 Guillaume Molyneux, in 1690 Anton van Leeuwenhoek, and in 1697 William Cowper, witnessed the same phenomenon in warm-blooded animals. Among the other anatomists of this period who contributed in varying degrees to our knowledge of the minute anatomy of the different tissues and organs the following deserve to be mentioned: J. Riolan (1577–1657), Boselli of Naples (1608–1679), Lower of Oxford, England (1631–1691), Vesling of Minden, Germany (1598–1649), Regnier de Graaf of Delft, Holland (1641–1673), who gained so great distinction by his accurate description of the ovarian follicles (“Graafian follicles”); and James Douglas (1676–1742), the English anatomist, who ascertained and described the precise limits of the peritoneum.

Of all the men whom I have mentioned above, Malpighi and Leeuwenhoek are probably the best known to our readers for the large number and important character of the contributions which they made to microscopic anatomy. The list of Malpighi’s achievements, for example, includes the following, in addition to the demonstration of the blood in actual circulation, as already mentioned: contributions to our knowledge of the finer structure of plants; the demonstration of the minute anatomy of the skin (“rete mucosum” or “rete Malpighi”); the amplification of our knowledge of the structure of the teeth; the discovery that the lungs are composed to a large extent of terminal vesicles, the walls of which are richly supplied with blood-channels.; the demonstration that certain glands possess an acinous structure (i.e., an outlet channel springing from numerous small sacs, the whole group resembling a cluster of grapes); more complete details regarding the structure of the spleen and the kidneys (“Malpighian bodies or corpuscles”); additions to our knowledge of the structure of the white and the gray substances of the brain and the demonstration that fibres from the spinal cord pass on into the brain; the declaration that the papillae of the tongue are organs of taste and the papillae of the skin are organs of the sense of touch; and not a few other contributions of greater or less importance. During his long life Anton Leeuwenhoek (1632–1723) of Delft, Holland, made a great many additions to microscopic anatomy, some of the more important of which are the following: he was the first to discover and to describe the many varieties of Infusoria (the animalcules found in stagnant collections of water); to him is also due the credit of first observing the faceted arrangement in the eyes of insects; he made original investigations into the origin and mode of development of several species of the lower organisms; he was the first to observe the canaliculated mode of construction in bone, and he also noted the existence of the so-called bone-corpuscles (afterward rediscovered and more accurately described by Purkinje); he discovered the striated condition of the bundles of muscular fibres, and was also the first person to teach the doctrine that the growth of muscles is effected by an enlargement of the primitive bundles of fibres and not by a multiplication of these structures; he taught further that muscle-substance consists of numberless small spheres; he was the first to describe the crystalline lens as a structure composed of fibres which are arranged in layers or sheets; in association with Guillaume Molyneux he studied, under the microscope, the speed with which the blood-current travels in the blood-vessels; he made valuable observations on the nature of the spermatozoa; and, finally, the very first studies in bacteriology appear to have been made by Leeuwenhoek. As a result of his discovery of “round, rod-shaped, thread-like and corkscrew-shaped bacteria” between the teeth of a human being, the theory was set forth that probably many diseases owe their origin to such “little animals.”

The same idea, as will be shown farther on, occurred to the distinguished medical practitioner of Verona, Italy,--viz., Fracastoro,--one hundred years earlier (1546). Leeuwenhoek, it should here be stated, possessed a very great advantage over his rivals in the field of minute anatomy, for he was in the habit of using, in his investigations, microscopes which he himself had made, and which magnified from 160 to 270 diameters, whereas those utilized by the others were capable of magnifying, at the maximum, only 143 diameters. While a large part of the work which he performed shows plainly that he was a skilful and careful anatomist and endowed with good mental powers, Leeuwenhoek nevertheless manifested certain mean traits of character. Daremberg says that these “consisted in his disposition to conceal his technical methods from his associates, and in his jealousy of others--as manifested, for example, toward Leibnitz, who had established a similar laboratory for research work in minute anatomy. These traits of character showed that fundamentally he was not a true lover of science, but rather an artisan. And yet, with all these faults, he does not appear to have placed an inordinately high value upon his discoveries or to have been unreasonably sure of the correctness of his conclusions.” The first monograph published by Leeuwenhoek bears the date 1673. It is a study of the minute anatomy of the bee’s sting. He was the first to declare that the blood is the nutritive fluid par excellence, and that it is to be found in the entire series of organisms belonging to the animal kingdom. He divided blood into two parts--the red, or the solid portion, and the serum. The corpuscles which float in the serum and give to the whole fluid its red color, are called by him “particles,” in the case of blood from birds, reptiles and fishes, and “globules” in that from quadrupeds. He employed this term “globules” because he believed that these bodies were exactly spherical in shape. According to Daremberg, Leeuwenhoek’s studies cover the entire field of human histology, and his findings are for the most part correct.

The Founding of Organizations for the Advancement of Medical Science.--During the seventeenth century there were formed a number of associations which had for their object the promotion of scientific knowledge, and these organizations contributed greatly to stimulate original researches in anatomy and physiology and to secure accuracy in the published results. Perhaps the most important institution of this kind was the French Académie des sciences, which was founded in 1666, and which deserves the credit of having taken a very important part in the perfecting of our knowledge of anatomy and physiology. The Royal Society of London, founded in 1645, possesses a splendid record of valuable work accomplished. The following organizations also deserve to be honorably mentioned in this place: the Accademia dei Lincei at Rome, founded in 1603; the Académie des Curieux de la Nature, 1652; and the Accademia del Cimento, founded at Florence in 1657. New universities were also founded in Germany.

During the second half of the seventeenth century there were three French physicians who deserve credit for the excellence of the work which they did in the departments of anatomy and physiology, viz., Vieussens, du Verney and Dionis.

Raymond Vieussens (1641–1716), a native of Rovergue, was Professor of Anatomy at the University of Montpellier, in Southern France. Some idea of the extraordinary industry displayed by this anatomist may be gained from the fact that he is credited with having dissected more than five hundred bodies. His more important published works relate to the heart, the nervous system and the structures of the organ of hearing. Pagel speaks of him as being entitled to the name of founder of the pathology of diseases of the heart.

Jean Guichard du Verney (1648–1730), who held the Chair of Anatomy in the University of Paris, gained a large part of his fame as an anatomist from the excellence of his investigations into the complicated structures of the internal ear.

Pierre Dionis, who died in 1718, was Demonstrator of Anatomy and Surgery at the Jardin du Roi in Paris during the latter part of the seventeenth century and early part of the eighteenth. In 1690 he published a treatise on anatomy which remained the standard book on this subject for a number of years. In course of time it was translated into the Latin, English, German and Chinese languages.

Dissecting Made a Part of the Regular Training of a Medical Student.--The opportunities for dissecting human bodies varied greatly in different parts of Europe during the period of which I am now treating. Vieussens, as we have just seen, dissected no fewer than five hundred bodies during his long professorship at Montpellier; and Joseph Lieutaud, Professor of Anatomy at Paris, dissected more than twelve hundred bodies during the continuance of his connection with that institution. So far as I have been able to learn from my examination of the literature, the professors and their immediate official assistants were the only persons who had, up to this time, derived the principal benefits that flow from work of this nature; the students merely listened to the instructor’s remarks upon the objects which had previously been exposed to view by dissection. But toward the end of the period--a little before or shortly after the beginning of the eighteenth century--facilities were provided in some of the medical schools, and before long in all of the leading ones, for the students themselves to participate in this highly important part of a physician’s education. The value of such training was emphasized by the statement made by the English philosopher, John Locke (1632–1704), toward the end of his life, viz., that all human understanding is based upon experience. He wrote that at birth the human soul is like a clean sheet of paper upon which all the objects perceived by the senses are recorded as experiences, and there they remain until by the aid of reflexion--i.e., by the aid of the understanding, which Locke calls the inner sense--they are combined into conceptions or ideas. Locke, it should be remembered, was educated as a physician, but he never took his degree, nor did he ever practice medicine.

The first stimulating effects of the Renaissance upon the devotees of the science of medicine were felt in Italy toward the end of the fifteenth century, and these effects rapidly gained in intensity during the following century. First France and afterward Switzerland, Belgium, Holland and England were almost simultaneously brought under the same influence; and in all these countries the students manifested a remarkable eagerness to acquire all the knowledge they possibly could. In Germany, however, the influence of the Renaissance did not make itself felt until a much later date, and the thirst for knowledge was very much slower in developing than was the case in any of the other countries mentioned. Thus Puschmann, in his “History of Medical Education,” makes the following statement which shows clearly that in Germany the university students of that period must have been a very rough set of men: “In 1625 the Senate of the University of Leipzig was obliged to warn its students that they must cease disturbing wedding festivals and handling the guests roughly, that they must no longer make obscene remarks to married women and maidens, etc. And in 1631 a physician named Lotichius, in writing to a friend, made the statement that ‘in our German high schools the students seem to prefer strife to the reading of books, daggers to copy-books, swords to pens, bloody encounters to learned discussions, incessant boozing and noisy reveling to the quiet pursuit of their studies, and public-houses and brothels to students’ work-rooms and libraries.’” In 1660 the students at Jena, on one occasion, carried on a regular battle with the police, and as a result of this encounter several persons were killed. In the light of this evidence, therefore, it is not surprising that the science of medicine made comparatively little advance in Germany until after the eighteenth century was reached.

Iatrochemists and Iatrophysicists.--During the seventeenth century there was a great deal of disputing among physiologists about the nature of certain processes like assimilation and retrograde metamorphosis, about the manner in which blood is formed, about digestion, and about the rôle played by the lymph vessels. According to Haeser a large proportion of the physicians of that day were confident that chemistry was entirely competent to solve these riddles, and yet, on the other hand, there were not a few who believed that the science of physics, which was then much further advanced than that of chemistry, was quite as competent to explain all the phenomena. At first the split into these two factions was confined to men who were interested in questions of a purely physiological nature, but in a short time the practitioners of medicine were also drawn into the controversy; and from that time onward it became customary to employ the terms, “iatrochemists” and “iatrophysicists” in speaking of the partisans of the two schools of medicine (the iatrochemical and the iatrophysical or iatromechanical). The iatrochemists described digestion as an act that is essentially chemical in character, a form of fermentation; and by the latter term the more advanced members of this school--François Deleboë Sylvius (1614–1672), who was born in Hanau, Prussia, of Dutch parents, and who took his doctor’s degree in Basel in 1637, and Thomas Willis of London (1622–1675)--understood something quite different from our modern conception of fermentation. Their interpretation was as follows: “An internal chemical movement of matter which is set agoing and continued in action in the stomach and intestinal canal through the agency of certain chemical reagents.” (Haeser.) They attributed an important influence to the saliva, the pancreatic juice and the bile in effecting the changes mentioned. The iatrophysicists, on the other hand, and more particularly Archibald Pitcairn of Edinburgh, Scotland (1652–1713), and Giorgio Baglivi of Ragusa, Italy (1668–1707), described digestion as a purely mechanical breaking up of the elements of the food partaken--a “trituration.” As to the further fate of the resulting chyle (its mode of reaching the blood, for example) the two schools were in perfect accord.

Sprengel mentions it as an actual fact that, during the seventeenth century, there were several physicians who combined the two careers of teacher of medicine and hydraulic engineer (iatrophysicists or iatromathematicians). Several events conduced to the formation, in Italy and in Great Britain, of a distinct iatromathematical school. Among them may be mentioned, first and foremost, Harvey’s discovery of the circulation of the blood; second, the spread of the doctrines taught by Descartes favored in a marked degree the union of medicine and mathematics (physiology, the iatromathematicians claimed, was only a branch of applied mathematics); and, third, the formation at Florence, in the middle of the seventeenth century, of an association of the pupils of Galileo. The objects of this association were to cultivate their master’s philosophy, to carry on the work of experimental physics, and to apply its principles in every department of natural science. Alphonso Borelli (1608–1679), Professor of Mathematics first at Messina and afterward at Pisa, the author of the famous treatise on “The Movements of Animals,” and the founder of the iatromathematical school, was a member of the association. In this connection it is important to mention another zealous worker in the field of iatromathematics, viz., Sanctorius Sanctorinus, of Capo d’Istria (1561–1636). His work was done quite independently of any general movement among scientific investigators and at a much earlier period than that during which the school flourished. He was quite successful, for example, in his attempts to measure the actual amount of imperceptible evaporation, and to determine the influence which this process exerts upon health and disease. In the course of these investigations in what he called “static medicine,” Sanctorinus invented a number of unusual instruments.

The phenomenon of the formation of schools or sects, the members of which were keenly interested in the maintenance and promulgation of certain physiological, pathological, or therapeutic doctrines, manifested itself anew, as I have shown above, in the seventeenth century. In the early years of the Christian era the partisans of different medical doctrines formed schools of this nature which flourished for a certain period of time and then died out completely. Such, for example, were the sects of the Dogmatists, the Methodists, the Pneumatists, etc. The mere fact of the existence of these different schools or sects showed unmistakably that the science of medicine was alive at that time and that its devotees were making vigorous efforts to increase their stock of knowledge. Then followed the long period of the Middle Ages, a series of many centuries, during which medicine made only slight gains; but at last came the Renaissance,--the fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth centuries,--and here again we have a recurrence of the same phenomenon of sects in medicine; but note the great difference between the earlier manifestations and those which I have just outlined. The present group, it is proper to remark, is merely the forerunner of several similar movements that are to occur during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, movements that are all based, in varying degrees, upon the truth.

The Employment of Latin in Lecturing and Writing on Medical Topics.--In all the countries of Europe, but more particularly in Germany, there existed during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries--and for a long time subsequently--the practice of delivering all the lectures on medical topics in the Latin tongue--i.e., in a language which at best could not be easily understood by more than a small proportion of the students. Even the lecturers themselves must have been hampered in the full expression of their thoughts by this rule, which was practically compulsory. Paracelsus (1493–1534), the famous Swiss physician, tried--a full century earlier, as will be shown farther on--to break up this seemingly harmless but in reality objectionable custom; his example, however, was not followed, and the practice was continued without interruption for at least two centuries longer. The use of Latin as the language in which all medical knowledge was to be taught was undoubtedly based upon the idea that it was necessary for the educated physician to be reasonably familiar with that particular tongue, for the simple reason that it was the only one in which, in those early days in Western Europe, the writings of Galen were accessible, for nobody but a few expert scholars had yet acquired any useful knowledge of Greek, the language in which all of Galen’s works were originally written. But it is quite likely that with this motive, which certainly was intended to produce good and useful fruit, there was coupled the further idea that the great mass of irregular practitioners--the quacks, the early barber-surgeons (Wundaerzte), and the peripatetic physicians--would in this way be debarred from entering the ranks of the regularly trained physicians. It was only after the custom of using the Latin for lecturing and writing purposes had become thoroughly rooted in the minds of medical men as something right and proper, that it began to dawn upon the minds of some of the brighter men that this practice was harmful to the advance of medicine beyond the standards established by Galen. Vesalius, who was a contemporary of Paracelsus, fully appreciated how serious an obstacle to further progress in anatomical knowledge the teachings of Galen were, and it was he who made the first really successful attack on this great hindrance to further progress; but there is no evidence to show that he had the slightest idea that lecturing and writing about medical topics in Latin played any part in the perpetuation of the evil which he was fighting. To Paracelsus alone belongs the credit, so far as I know, of endeavoring, through the force of example and by spoken arguments, to break up the practice which we are here considering. I may be mistaken in the view which I have here expressed, but it is difficult for me not to believe that the habitual use of Latin as the proper vehicle for the transmission of facts and ideas belonging to the domain of medicine must have materially hindered the advancement of that science; for such use certainly tended to keep men’s minds moving in fixed ruts, and those ruts all led straight toward the faulty teachings of Galen.