, the earthly machine,
as he calls it, into the sphere of mechanics and physics, and he wrote
the first text-book of physiology, "De l'Homme." Locke, too, became the
spokesman of the new questioning spirit, and before the close of the
seventeenth century, experimental research became all the mode. Richard
Lower, Hooke and Hales were probably more influenced by Descartes
than by Harvey, and they made notable contributions to experimental
physiology in England. Borelli, author of the famous work on "The Motion
of Animals" (Rome, 1680-1681), brought to the study of the action of
muscles a profound knowledge of physics and mathematics and really
founded the mechanical, or iatromechanical school. The literature and
the language of medicine became that of physics and mechanics: wheels
and pulleys, wedges, levers, screws, cords, canals, cisterns, sieves and
strainers, with angles, cylinders, celerity, percussion and resistance,
were among the words that now came into use in medical literature.
Withington quotes a good example in a description by Pitcairne, the Scot
who was professor of medicine at Leyden at the end of the seventeenth
century. "Life is the circulation of the blood. Health is its free and
painless circulation. Disease is an abnormal motion of the blood, either
general or local. Like the English school generally, he is far more
exclusively mechanical than are the Italians, and will hear nothing of
ferments or acids, even in digestion. This, he declares, is a purely
mechanical process due to heat and pressure, the wonderful effects of
which may be seen in Papin's recently invented 'digester.' That the
stomach is fully able to comminute the food may be proved by the
following calculation. Borelli estimates the power of the flexors of the
thumb at 3720 pounds, their average weight being 122 grains. Now, the
average weight of the stomach is eight ounces, therefore it can develop
a force of 117,088 pounds, and this may be further assisted by the
diaphragm and abdominal muscles the power of which, estimated in the
same way, equals 461,219 pounds! Well may Pitcairne add that this
force is not inferior to that of any millstone."(36) Paracelsus gave an
extraordinary stimulus to the study of chemistry and more than anyone
else he put the old alchemy on modern lines. I have already quoted his
sane remark that its chief service is in seeking remedies. But there is
another side to this question. If, as seems fairly certain, the