real advances in
all science come when genius makes its mark, and not merely because a
large number of men happen to be interested in the subject. This will
be found as true in anatomy as in other sciences, and so there are
periods when not much is doing, but nowhere is there a trace of
ecclesiastical opposition to account for these variations of interest.

There is no doubt at all that there was much popular opposition to the
practice of dissection in the Middle Ages; that has existed at all
times in the world's history. It was very pronounced among the old
Pagans in Rome as well as in Greece, and it prevented anatomical study
to a very great degree. It continued to exist in modern times until
almost the present generation. Indeed, it has not yet entirely
disappeared, as any physician who has tried to secure autopsies on
interesting cases knows very well. The New York Academy of Medicine is
only a little over a half century old, and yet nearly every one of its
early presidents had thrilling {63} experiences in body-snatching as a
young man, because no proper provision for the supplying of anatomical
material had as yet been made by law, and bodies had to be obtained.
The feeling of objection to having the bodies of friends anatomized is
natural and not due to religion. It exists quite as strongly among the
ignorant who have no religion as among the religiously inclined. It
has not disappeared among the educated classes of our own time,
religious or irreligious. If this is borne in mind, the history of the
development of anatomy will be easier to understand.

The first definite evidence in modern history for the existence of the
practice of dissection is a famous law of the German Emperor,
Frederick II., from the first half of the thirteenth century. This law
was promulgated for the two Sicilies, that is, for Southern Italy and
Sicily proper, very probably in the year 1240. It has often been
vaguely referred to, but its actual significance can only be
understood from the terms of the law itself, which has been literally
translated by Von Toeply in his Studien Zur Geschichte der Anatomie in
Im Mittelalter. [Footnote 5]

[Footnote 5: Deuticke Leipzig und Wien, 1893]

The paragraph with regard to dissection runs
as follows:

"As an enactment that will surely prove beneficial to health, we
decree that no surgeon will be allowed to practice, in case he has
not a written testimonial, which he must present to the t