st serious blow of all; for then it was
that Pope Boniface VIII, without any of that foresight of consequences
which might well have been expected in an infallible teacher, issued
a decretal forbidding a practice which had come into use during the
Crusades, namely, the separation of the flesh from the bones of the dead
whose remains it was desired to carry back to their own country.

The idea lying at the bottom of this interdiction was in all probability
that which had inspired Tertullian to make his bitter utterance against
Herophilus; but, be that as it may, it soon came to be considered as
extending to all dissection, and thereby surgery and medicine were
crippled for more than two centuries; it was the worst blow they ever
received, for it impressed upon the mind of the Church the belief
that all dissection is sacrilege, and led to ecclesiastical mandates
withdrawing from the healing art the most thoughtful and cultivated men
of the Middle Ages and giving up surgery to the lowest class of nomadic
charlatans.

So deeply was this idea rooted in the mind of the universal Church that
for over a thousand years surgery was considered dishonourable: the
greatest monarchs were often unable to secure an ordinary surgical
operation; and it was only in 1406 that a better beginning was made,
when the Emperor Wenzel of Germany ordered that dishonour should no
longer attach to the surgical profession.(302)

(302) As to religious scruples against dissection, and abhorrence of
the Paraschites, or embalmer, see Maspero and Sayce, The Dawn of
Civilization, p. 216. For denunciation of surgery by the Church
authorities, see Sprengel, vol. ii, pp. 432-435; also Fort, pp. 452 et
seq.; and for the reasoning which led the Church to forbid surgery to
priests, see especially Fredault, Histoire de la Medecine, p. 200. As
to the decretal of Boniface VIII, the usual statement is that he forbade
all dissections. While it was undoubtedly construed universally to
prohibit dissections for anatomical purposes, its declared intent was as
stated in the text; that it was constantly construed against anatomical
investigations can not for a moment be denied. This construction is
taken for granted in the great Histoire Litteraire de la France, founded
by the Benedictines, certainly a very high authority as to the main
current of opinion in the Church. For the decretal of Boniface VIII, see
the Corpus Juris Canonici. I have also used the edition