r the royal touch, see Becket, Free and Impartial Inquiry into
the Antiquity and Efficacy of Touching for the King's Evil, 1772, cited
in Pettigrew, p. 128, and elsewhere; also Scoffern, Science and Folk
Lore, London, 1870, pp. 413 and following; also Adams, The Healing
Art, London, 1887, vol. i, pp. 53-60; and especially Lecky, History of
European Morals, vol. i, chapter on The Conversion of Rome; also his
History of England in the Eighteenth Century, vol. i, chap. i. For
curious details regarding the mode of conducting the ceremony, see
Evelyn's Diary; also Lecky, as above. For the royal touch in France, and
for a claim to its possession in feudal times by certain noble families,
see Rambaud, Hist. de la Civ. francaise, p. 375.

IX. THE SCIENTIFIC STRUGGLE FOR ANATOMY.

We may now take up the evolution of medical science out of the medieval
view and its modern survivals. All through the Middle Ages, as we have
seen, some few laymen and ecclesiastics here and there, braving the
edicts of the Church and popular superstition, persisted in
medical study and practice: this was especially seen at the greater
universities, which had become somewhat emancipated from ecclesiastical
control. In the thirteenth century the University of Paris gave a strong
impulse to the teaching of medicine, and in that and the following
century we begin to find the first intelligible reports of medical cases
since the coming in of Christianity.

In the thirteenth century also the arch-enemy of the papacy, the Emperor
Frederick II, showed his free-thinking tendencies by granting, from
time to time, permissions to dissect the human subject. In the centuries
following, sundry other monarchs timidly followed his example: thus John
of Aragon, in 1391, gave to the University of Lerida the privilege of
dissecting one dead criminal every three years.(319)

(319) For the promotion of medical science and practice, especially in
the thirteenth century, by the universities, see Baas, pp. 222-224.

During the fifteenth century and the earlier years of the sixteenth the
revival of learning, the invention of printing, and the great voyages
of discovery gave a new impulse to thought, and in this medical science
shared: the old theological way of thinking was greatly questioned,
and gave place in many quarters to a different way of looking at the
universe.

In the sixteenth century Paracelsus appears--a great genius, doing much
to devel