The Popes and Science

Down at Montpelier, Gilbert the Englishman taught that small-pox patients should be treated in rooms with red hangings, red curtains being especially advised for the doors and windows. This is what Finsen re-discovered in the nineteenth century, and for it was given the Nobel prize in the twentieth century. He found that small-pox patients suffered much less, that their fever was shorter, and that the after effects were much less marked when only red light was admitted to them. One may well ask what drugs did they employ, and perhaps conclude that because they knew very little of drugs, therefore they knew little of medicine. It is in the use of drugs, however, that medicine has always been at its weakest, and we scarcely need Oliver Wendel Holmes's declaration, that if all the drugs men used up to his time had been thrown into the sea, they would be better rather than worse off for it; nor Professor Osier's many emphatic protests with regard to our ignorance of drugs, to make the world of the present day realize that a generation's use of them as a test would tell quite as severely against the eighteenth or the nineteenth century, as against the thirteenth or the fourteenth. They did use opium, however, the drug having been introduced into general practice, it is said, by a distinguished Papal physician, Simon Januensis. Mandrake was employed, and has not as yet gone entirely out of use. Various herbal decoctions were employed, and though these were used entirely on empiric grounds, some at least of them have continued in use with no better reason for their employment during most of the centuries since.

The relation of the Popes to these advances in medicine may be best appreciated from the interest which they took in the hospitals. It was only in hospitals that cases could be properly studied, and the medieval hospitals were conducted with very nearly the same relations to the universities of that time as those that exist at the present day. In the chapter on the Foundation of City Hospitals we show that these institutions are all, as Virchow, who is surely an authority above suspicion in any matter relating to the Popes has declared, due to one great Pope. This is the best possible demonstration of supreme humanitarian interest in human ills, and their treatment. Innocent III., as we shall see, at the beginning of the thirteenth century summoned Guy from Montpelier, where he had been trained in the care of patients, and where the greatest medical school of the time existed, to come to Rome and organize the Hospital of the Holy Ghost in the Papal City, which was to be a model for hospitals of the same kind in every diocese throughout the Christian world. Literally hundreds of these hospitals were founded during the thirteenth century as the result of this initiative. Patients were not left to die, with only the hope of prayers to relieve their sufferings, but they were cared for as skilfully as the rising science of the time knew how and with the tenderness that religious care has always been able to give. For added consolation in the midst of their sufferings and as a fortifier against the thought of death, they had religion and all its beautiful influences, for which even Virchow, himself utterly unbelieving, cannot suppress a tribute.

At the beginning of the fourteenth century, the University of the City of Rome was founded by Pope Boniface VIII. Only a year or two later the Popes removed their capital to Avignon. It has often been thought that, because of this removal of the Papal capital, this University of the City never came into existence; but we have definite records of salaries paid out of the Papal revenues to professors of law and medicine about the end of the first quarter of the fourteenth century.

Down in the South of France, at Avignon itself, the Popes had for one of their chamberlains the famous Guy de Chauliac, who is always spoken of as the Father of Modern Surgery. One of the Popes of the Avignon period founded the College of Twelve Physicians at Montpelier, the foundation being sufficient to support twelve medical students, and by adding the prestige of the Pope's patronage to the reputation of the University, greatly encouraged attendance at it.

Another of the Popes of the Avignon period, Pope John XXII., who is said by President White to have been most bitter in opposition to every form of science, actually helped in the foundation of two medical schools. One of these was at Cahors, his birthplace, and the other was at Perugia, at that time in the Papal States. In founding the medical school at Perugia, Pope John insisted that its standards must be as high as those of Paris and Bologna, and required that the first teachers there should be graduates from Paris or Bologna, where were the two greatest medical schools of the time. Seven years of study, three in the undergraduate department and four in the graduate schools, were to be required, according to this bull of foundation (given in full in the appendix), before the degree of Doctor of Medicine could be conferred. If it is recalled that this standard of three years of undergraduate work and four in the graduate school, or at least of seven years of University work, is the ideal toward which our universities are struggling, and, it must be said, not with the entire success we would like, at the beginning of the twentieth century, then, it is surprising to think that the president of a modern university, deeply interested in education in all its features and himself a professor of history, should know so little of, and be so lacking in sympathy with these men who laid the deep foundations of our modern education.

Perhaps the most striking feature of the relation of the Popes to medicine remains to be mentioned. If they really were the bitter opponents of things medical that Dr. White would have us believe, then we should expect that either there were no such officials as Papal physicians, or else that the men who occupied these posts were the veriest charlatans, who knew very little of medicine, and certainly did nothing to develop the science. As a matter of fact, there is no list of physicians connected by any common bond in history who are so gloriously representative of scientific progress in medicine as the Papal physicians. The faculty of no medical school presents such a list of great names as those of the men who were chosen to be the official medical attendants of the Popes, and who were thus given a position of prominence where their discoveries in medicine had a vogue they otherwise could not have attained. The list of the Royal physicians of any reigning house of Europe for the last seven centuries looks trivial beside the roll of Papal physicians. Could the Popes possibly have done anything more than this for medicine, or shown their interest in its progress, or made people realize better, that while prayer might be of service, every possible human means must be taken to secure, maintain and recover health.

To read even the headings of Dr. White's chapter on from Miracles to Medicine, in which he tells of how "the medieval miracles of healing checked medical science," how "pastoral medicine held back scientific effort," how "there was so much theological discouragement of medicine," and finally, how "the study of Anatomy was considered a sin against the Holy Ghost," in the light of this plain, matter-of-fact story of the wonderful development of medical science in the ecclesiastically founded and ruled universities of the thirteenth century, makes one realize into what a farcical state of mind as regards the realities of history such writers have forced themselves, and unfortunately have led many readers, by their excursions into the history of medicine and science. Probably there was never a more pretentious exhibition of ignorance of the facts of history than is displayed by these expressions and by the whole drift of this chapter. Dr. White would have us believe that the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries were so backward in medicine and surgery that they practically have no history in these departments, or so little as not to be worth talking about. The simple facts show us that this is one of three or four great periods in human history in which there was the most wonderful development of medicine and surgery.

As we shall see in the course of this book, there was no bull or any other document issued by the Popes forbidding dissection or hampering the development of anatomy in any way. As a matter of fact, the ecclesiastics, instead of being behind their age in liberality of spirit with regard to the use of the human body after death for anatomical purposes, were always ahead of it. There has always existed a popular horror of dissection, and this has manifested itself from the earliest times in history down to and within the last half century, in refusal to enact such secular legislation as would properly provide for the practice of dissection. This was as true in the United States until within the memory of men still alive as it had always been hitherto in European history. Dissection came to be allowed so freely in the medieval universities founded under ecclesiastical influence and ruled by ecclesiastics, as the result of the intelligent realization on the part of churchmen that the study of the human body was necessary for a proper recognition and appreciation of the causes of the ills to which flesh is heir. They realized that the only way to lay the foundation of exact medical knowledge was not only to permit, but to encourage the practice of dissection, and accordingly this was done at everyone of a dozen medical schools of Italy during the fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and nowhere more so than at the Papal University at Rome itself during the sixteenth century, at a time when, if we would believe Dr. White, the Church authorities were doing everything in their power to prevent dissection.

None of the other sciences allied to medicine were hampered in any way, but, on the contrary, fostered and encouraged; and the devoted students of science were prominent churchmen, some of whom were honored with the title of saint after their deaths. In spite of declarations to the contrary, chemistry was not forbidden by a Papal decree or other document, though the practice of certain alchemists of pretending to make gold and silver out of baser metals and thus cheating people was condemned, just as we condemn the corresponding practice of selling "gold bricks" at the present time. As will be made very clear, the Pope who issued the decree that forbids such sharp practices was a distinguished and discriminating patron of medical education at the beginning of the fourteenth century, doing more for it than any ruler for three centuries after his time; yet in doing so he was only carrying out the policy which had been maintained by the Popes before his time and was to continue ever afterwards.

Strange as it may appear when we recall how much has been said with regard to Papal, and Church, and theological opposition to science, the story that we have just told with regard to the Papal relations to medicine and medical schools must be retold with regard to science in every department, and the scientific studies at the great medieval universities. Most people will find it even more difficult to accept this than to reach a calm consideration of the Papal relations to the medical sciences. Medicine is supposed to be the sort of practical subject that, in spite of prejudice, the ecclesiastical authorities could not neglect and were not able to suppress. Science in general, however, is supposed to be so distinctly opposed to what was at least considered religious truth, that the Church could not very well do anything else than prevent its development, or at least hamper its progress to such an extent that it was only with the lifting of the ecclesiastical incubus in our own day, that any great scientific advances came in the physical sciences. This is an entirely false impression emphasized by the ridiculous intolerance of writers who knew practically nothing of the real history of science in the Middle Ages, wrote their own prejudices large into the story of the times, and did great positive harm to the cause of truth by a pretense of knowledge they did not have, but which so many confidingly believed them to possess.

But it will at once be said, what of Galileo? Does not his case show the anti-scientific temper of churchmen? Nearly half a century ago, Cardinal Newman in his Apologia characteristically observed that this very case sufficed to prove that the Church did not set herself against scientific progress, for this is the "one stock argument" to the contrary, "the exception which proves the rule." Commenting upon the Galileo incident, Professor Augustus de Morgan, in his article on the Motion of the Earth in the English Encyclopedia, has expressed exactly the same conclusion. He is an authority not likely to be suspected of Catholic sympathy. He says:

"The Papal power must upon the whole have been moderately used in matters of philosophy, if we may judge by the great stress laid on this one case of Galileo. It is the standing proof that an authority which has lasted a thousand years was all the time occupied in checking the progress of thought(!) There are certainly one or two other instances, but those who make most of the outcry do not know them."

There is no doubt that Galileo was prosecuted by the Roman inquisition on account of his astronomical teachings. We would be the last to deny that this was a deplorable mistake made by persons in ecclesiastical authority, who endeavored to make a Church tribunal the judge of scientific truth, a function altogether alien to its character which it was not competent to exercise. The fact that this was practically the only time that this was done serves to show that it was an unfortunate incident, but not a policy. The mistake has been to conclude that this was a typical case–one of many, more flagrant than the others. This single incident has indeed made it impossible that anything of the same kind should ever occur again. It was rather because of the way in which Galileo urged his truths than because of the truths themselves that he was condemned. Even Professor Huxley, in a letter to Professor St. George Mivart, November 12th, 1885, said: "I gave some attention to the case of Galileo when I was in Italy, and I arrived at the conclusion that the Pope and the College of Cardinals had rather the best of it."

Before as well as after Galileo's time scientific research was carried on ardently in the universities, especially in Italy. In the chapter on Science at the Medieval Universities, we call attention to the many advances then made with regard to scientific questions in which the world is very much interested at the present time. A hundred years before Galileo's time Copernicus went down to Italy to study astronomy and medicine, and when his book was published it was dedicated to a Pope. Copernicus himself was a faithful churchman all his life, came near being made a bishop once, and kept the diocese in which he lived, and in which his personal friend was bishop, in the fold of the Church in spite of Luther and the religious revolt all around it in Germany. One of the great scientists of the seventeenth century whose name is stamped deeply on the history of science, Father Kircher, the Jesuit, was invited to Rome the very year after Galileo's condemnation, and for thirty years continued to experiment and write in all branches of science, not only with the approbation of his own order, the Jesuits, which helped him in every way by the collection of specimens for his museum, but also with the hearty good will of many cardinals who were his personal friends, and with the constant patronage of the Popes, whose generous liberality enabled him to make Rome the greatest centre of scientific interest during this century.

At this time and during the preceding century the Roman University had the greatest medical school in the world. The names of its professors during the preceding century need only be mentioned in order to emphasize this. They include such distinguished men as Eustachius and Varolius, whose names are forever enshrined in the history of anatomy; Columbus, who discovered and described the lesser or pulmonary circulation half a century before Harvey's publication with regard to the general circulation; Caesalpinus, to whom the Italians attribute the discovery of the greater circulation before Harvey. In the next century Malpighi was tempted to come to Rome to teach at the Papal University, and the great Father of Comparative Anatomy ended his days in the Papal capital, amidst the friendship of all the high ecclesiastics and with the social intimacy of the Pope. From the beginning of the sixteenth century Bologna is a Papal city, but its medical school, far from declining after it came under Papal jurisdiction, was even more brilliant than before, and soon came even to outshine its previously successful rival, Padua.

What we would say then, is that the story of the supposed opposition of the Church and the Popes and the ecclesiastical authorities to science in any of its branches, is founded entirely on mistaken notions. Most of it is quite imaginary. Much of it is due to the exaggeration of the significance of the Galileo incident. Only those who know nothing about the history of medicine and of science continue to harbor it. That Dr. White's book, contradicted as it is so directly by all our serious histories of medicine and of science, should have been read by so many thousands in this country, and should have been taken seriously by educated men, physicians, teachers, and even professors of science who want to know the history of their own sciences, only shows how easily even supposedly educated men may be led to follow their prejudices rather than their mental faculties, and emphasizes the fact that the tradition that there is no good that can possibly come out of the Nazareth of the times before the reformation, still dominates the intellects of many educated people who think that they are far from prejudice and have minds perfectly open to conviction.

We would not leave the impression, moreover, that it was in medicine alone that the misunderstood Middle Ages made distinct progress in science. This is true in every department of what we now call natural science. The reason for the false impression that science was not studied in the Middle Ages at the universities, is that the supposed historians of education and of science who have made such declarations have never taken the trouble to look into the works of the great writers of this period. Anyone who does so, at once changes his opinion in this matter. Humboldt, for instance, the great German natural philosopher, has given ample credit to these colleagues of his, who lived some six centuries before him, yet did such wonderful work in spite of their inadequate means and the fact that they were as yet only groping in the darkness of the beginnings of science. Whewell, the English historian of the inductive sciences, has also proved sympathetic to these old philosophers, and especially to Albertus Magnus and Roger Bacon. Those who so ignorantly but with a pretense of knowledge make little of the science of the Middle Ages, know nothing of the real accomplishments of such men as Bacon, Albertus Magnus, Thomas Aquinas, Arnold of Villanova, nor Vincent of Beauvais, the encyclopedist. As is always the case, however, the ignorance of supposed historians of science and education in this matter, has only served to emphasize the presumptuous assurance of their declarations as to the intolerance of the Middle Ages toward scientific progress. It is ever the ignorant man who has the least doubt about his opinions.

Unfortunately many students of science followed these writers apparently without a hint of the deception that was being practiced on them. Not infrequently the prestige or institutional position of the writers has been enough to carry their works into a vogue which has been heightened by the existence of religious prejudice and intolerance. Usually such motives are supposed to be far distant from the scientific mind. In this case they have been, to some degree at least, unconsciously present. There has unfortunately been a definite persuasion that there could be nothing good in the Middle Ages, and therefore there has been no surprise that evil should be found there. Perhaps there is nothing sadder in present day education, than the fact that serious students and professors of science should thus have been led astray. Nothing shows more clearly the superficiality of our education than the fact that these unfounded statements with regard to the greatest period of education in history have been so universally accepted with so little question.

A moment's consideration of the conditions in which the universities developed will show how unreasonable is the thought that the Church or the Popes were opposed to any phase of education.

It has come to be universally conceded in recent years that the Church was the great patron of art and of letters during these centuries. Without the inspiration of her teachings there would have been no sublime subjects for artists; without the lives of her saints there would have been much less opportunity for artistic expression; without the patronage of the cathedral builders, the high ecclesiastics, and above all the monastic orders, on whom, with so little reason, so much contempt has been heaped, there would have been none of that great art which developed during the centuries before what is called the Renaissance. In literature, everyone of the great national poems that lie at the basis of modern literature is shot through and through with sublime thoughts that owe their origin to the Church. We need only mention the Cid in Spain, the Arthur Legends in England, such works of the Meistersingers as Perceval and Arme Heinrich, the Golden Legend, the Romance of the Rose, and Dante,–all written during the thirteenth century alone, to illustrate Church influence in literature. This is, as we have said, admitted by all. It is supposed, however, that while the Church encouraged this side of human development, it effectually prevented the evolution of man's scientific interests.

As a matter of fact, however, the Church did quite as much for science as for literature and art and charity, There has never been any question that under her fostering care philosophy developed in a very marvelous way. The scholastic philosophers are no longer held in the disrepute so ignorantly accorded them in the last century. It is recognized that scholastic philosophy represents a supremely great development of human thinking with regard to the relations of man to his Creator, to his fellow man, and to the universe. Even those who do not accept its conclusions now, if themselves educated men, no longer make little of those wonderful thinkers, but sympathize with their magnificent work. Only those who are ignorant of scholastic philosophy entirely, still continue to re-echo the expressions of critics whose opinions were founded on second-hand authorities and who confessedly had been unable to make anything out of the scholastics themselves. This field of philosophy was the real danger point for faith and the Church, yet its study was encouraged in every way, provided the philosophers kept within the bounds of their subject.

Just exactly the same thing was true in the realm of natural science. Strange as it may seem to those who have allowed themselves to be led into thinking that only for the last century or a little more have men made observations on nature, and only comparatively recently have the conclusions which they reached with regard to natural phenomena been of any real significance, there is no doubt at all that men made great achievements in physical science in the Middle Ages, some of which unfortunately were lost sight of later, but many of which remained to form the basis on which our modern scientific knowledge has been built. In order to obtain a proper appreciation of this, all that is necessary is to study the works of the investigating scholars of the early history of the universities, and see how much that is considered very modern they anticipated in their writings. They must be read for themselves, not be judged by excerpts chosen by prejudiced readers, much less by critics who were bent on not finding anything good in the Middle Ages. There is need of sympathetic interpretation to replace the ignorant contempt which has so far dominated this period of the history of education. The precious lesson that men may learn from the unfortunate misunderstanding, however, is how much old-time prejudice still dominates the attitude even of scholars–nay, even of scientists and educators, with regard to certain periods in history.