op medicine beyond the reach of sacred and scholastic tradition,
though still fettered by many superstitions. More and more, in spite of
theological dogmas, came a renewal of anatomical studies by dissection
of the human subject. The practice of the old Alexandrian School was
thus resumed. Mundinus, Professor of Medicine at Bologna early in the
fourteenth century, dared use the human subject occasionally in his
lectures; but finally came a far greater champion of scientific truth,
Andreas Vesalius, founder of the modern science of anatomy. The battle
waged by this man is one of the glories of our race.

From the outset Vesalius proved himself a master. In the search for real
knowledge he risked the most terrible dangers, and especially the charge
of sacrilege, founded upon the teachings of the Church for ages. As
we have seen, even such men in the early Church as Tertullian and St.
Augustine held anatomy in abhorrence, and the decretal of Pope Boniface
VIII was universally construed as forbidding all dissection, and as
threatening excommunication against those practising it. Through
this sacred conventionalism Vesalius broke without fear; despite
ecclesiastical censure, great opposition in his own profession, and
popular fury, he studied his science by the only method that could
give useful results. No peril daunted him. To secure material for his
investigations, he haunted gibbets and charnel-houses, braving the fires
of the Inquisition and the virus of the plague. First of all men
he began to place the science of human anatomy on its solid modern
foundations--on careful examination and observation of the human
body: this was his first great sin, and it was soon aggravated by one
considered even greater.

Perhaps the most unfortunate thing that has ever been done for
Christianity is the tying it to forms of science which are doomed and
gradually sinking. Just as, in the time of Roger Bacon, excellent men
devoted all their energies to binding Christianity to Aristotle; just
as, in the time of Reuchlin and Erasmus, they insisted on binding
Christianity to Thomas Aquinas; so, in the time of Vesalius, such men
made every effort to link Christianity to Galen. The cry has been the
same in all ages; it is the same which we hear in this age for curbing
scientific studies: the cry for what is called "sound learning." Whether
standing for Aristotle against Bacon, or for Aquinas against Erasmus, or
for Galen against Vesalius, th