story of body-snatching for dissecting
purposes." (This would seem to be sufficient of itself to show that
a number of dissections were being done, and, indeed, as I have
already said, Rashdall, in his History of the Universities, states
that, according to the University statutes teachers were bound to
dissect such bodies as students brought to them.) Roth concludes
with the words (italics are mine): "_These are a few, but weighty
testimonies for the zeal with which Bologna pursued anatomy in the
fourteenth century._" (I may add that all of these concern the
twenty years immediately following Pope Boniface's supposed
prohibition.)

Nor was the custom of making dissections any less active during the
rest of the half century after the time when, if we are to believe
Professor White, the decree of Boniface had been universally
interpreted to forbid it. In a note to his history of dissection
during this period in Bologna, Roth says: "Without doubt the passage
in {74} Guy de Chauliac which tells of having very often (multitoties,
many times, is the exact word) seen dissections must be considered as
referring to Bologna." This passage runs as follows: "My master,
Bertruccius, conducted the dissection very often after the following
manner: The dead body having been placed upon a bench, he used to make
four lessons on it. First, the nutritional portions were treated,
because they are so likely to become putrified. In the second, he
demonstrated the spiritual members; in the third, the animate members;
in the fourth, the extremities." (Guy de Chauliac was at Bologna
studying under Bertruccius just before the middle of the fourteenth
century. It is evident beyond all doubt, from what he says, that
dissections were quite common. This is during the first fifty years
after the decree. I shall show a little later that there are records
of dissections during the second half of this century. Roth, however,
goes on to tell next of the fifteenth century.)

Roth says nothing about the decree of Boniface VIII., nor of any
possible effect that it had upon anatomy. The real historian, of
course, does not mention things that have not happened. Roth
confesses, as I have said, that he takes the material for his sketch
of anatomy before Vesalius's time from Corradi. [Footnote 9] Corradi
being an Italian, and knowing of the slander with regard to the Papal
decree, explicitly denies it. Surely, here is material enough to
co