nd greatly fruitful
period.

{28}

THE SUPPOSED PAPAL PROHIBITION OF DISSECTION.

There is a very general impression that the Roman Catholic Church was,
during the Middle Ages, opposed to the practice of dissection, and
that various ecclesiastical regulations and even Papal decrees were
issued which prohibited, or at least limited to a very great degree,
this necessary adjunct of medical teaching. These ecclesiastical
censures are supposed to be in force, to some extent at least, even at
the present time. The persuasion as to the minatory attitude of the
Church in regard to dissection is so widespread among even supposedly
well-educated professional men, that, as we have said in the
introductory chapter, when there was question some time ago of opening
a medical school in New York City under Catholic auspices as a
department of Fordham University, a number of more than ordinarily
intelligent physicians asked: What would be done about the study of
anatomy, since in the circumstances suggested dissection would not be
allowed? This false impression has been produced by writers in the
history of science who have emphasized very strenuously the supposed
opposition of the Church to science, and as these writers had a
certain prestige as scholars their works have been widely read and
their assertions have been unquestioned, because it would naturally be
presumed that they would not make them without thorough investigation
of such important questions. Professional men are not to blame if they
have taken such statements {29} seriously, even though they are
absolutely without foundation. That statements of this kind should
have been made by men of distinction in educational circles and should
have passed current so long, is only additional evidence of an
intolerant spirit in those who least suspect it in themselves and are
most ready to deprecate intolerance in others.

Take a single example. Most of what is said as to the opposition of
the Church to medicine during the Middle Ages in A History of the
Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom, by Andrew D. White
(Appleton's, New York), is founded on a supposed Papal prohibition of
anatomy and on a subsequent equally supposed Papal prohibition of
chemistry. These two documents are emphasized so much, that most
readers cannot but conclude that, even without further evidence, these
are quite enough to prove the contention with regard to the
unfortunate opposition of th