The Popes and Science

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James Joseph Walsh. The Popes and Science

PREFACE

PREFACE

INTRODUCTION

THE SUPPOSED PAPAL PROHIBITION OF DISSECTION

THE STORY OF ANATOMY DOWN TO THE RENAISSANCE

THE GOLDEN AGE OF ANATOMY. VESALIUS

SUPPOSED PAPAL PROHIBITION OF CHEMISTRY

A PAPAL PATRON OF EDUCATION AND SCIENCE

THE CHURCH AND SURGERY DURING THE MIDDLE AGES

PAPAL PHYSICIANS

THE POPES AND MEDICAL EDUCATION AND. THE PAPAL MEDICAL SCHOOL

THE FOUNDATION OF CITY HOSPITALS

THE CHURCH AND THE EXPERIMENTAL METHOD

CHURCHMEN AND PHYSICAL SCIENCE AT THE MEDIEVAL UNIVERSITIES

THE MEDIEVAL UNIVERSITY MAN AND SCIENCE

THE CHURCH AND THE MENTALLY AFFLICTED

APPENDIX I. OPPOSITION TO SCIENTIFIC PROGRESS

APPENDIX II

I

II

III

IV

V

APPENDIX III. MEDIEVAL LAW FOR THE REGULATION OF THE PRACTICE OF MEDICINE

APPENDIX IV. CHURCH DECREES RELATING TO MEDICINE

APPENDIX V. PAPAL PHYSICIANS

APPENDIX VI. ASTRONOMY AND THE CHURCH

APPENDIX VII. THE FATHERS OF THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE

APPENDIX VIII. SCIENCE IN AMERICA

APPENDIX IX. THE DANGER OF A LITTLE KNOWLEDGE

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For years, as a student and physician, I listened to remarks from teachers and professional friends as to the opposition of the Popes to science, until finally, much against my will, I came to believe that there had been many Papal documents issued, which intentionally or otherwise hampered the progress of science. Interest in the history of medicine led me to investigate the subject for myself. To my surprise, I found that the supposed Papal opposition to science was practically all founded on an exaggeration of the significance of the Galileo incident. As a matter of history, the Popes were as liberal patrons of science as of art. In the Renaissance period, when their patronage of Raphael and Michel Angelo and other great artists did so much for art, similar relations to Columbus, Eustachius, and Caesalpinus, and later to Steno and Malpighi, our greatest medical discoverers, had like results for science. The Papal Medical School was for centuries the greatest medical school in Europe, and its professors were the most distinguished medical scientists of the time. This is a perfectly simple bit of history that anyone may find for himself in any reliable history of medicine. The medical schools were the scientific departments of the universities practically down to the nineteenth century. In them were studied botany, zoology and the biological sciences generally, chemistry, physics, mineralogy and even astronomy, because of the belief that the stars influenced human constitutions. The Popes in fostering medical schools (there were four of them in the Papal dominions, and two of them, Bologna and Rome, were the greatest medical schools for several centuries) were acting as wise and beneficent patrons of science. Many of the greatest scientists of the Middle Ages were clergymen. Some of the greatest of them were canonized as saints. Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas are typical examples. At least one Pope had been a distinguished scientist before being elected to the Papacy. For seven centuries the Popes selected as their physicians the greatest medical scientists of the {vi} time, and the list of Papal physicians is the worthiest series of names connected by any bond in the history of medicine, far surpassing in scientific import even the roll of the faculty of any medical school.

In a word, I failed to find any trace of Papal opposition to true science in any form. On the contrary, I found abundant evidence of their having been just as liberal and judicious patrons of science as they were of art and education in all forms. I found also that those who write most emphatically about Papal opposition to science, know nothing at all of the history of science, and above all of medicine and of surgery, during three very precious centuries. Because they know nothing about it they think there was none, and go out of their way to find a reason for its absence, while all the time there is a wondrous series of chapters of science for those who care to look for them. This is the story that I have tried to tell in this book.

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Before as well as after Galileo's time scientific research was carried on ardently in the universities, especially in Italy. In the chapter on Science at the Medieval Universities, we call attention to the many advances then made with regard to scientific questions in which the world is very much interested at the present time. A hundred years before Galileo's time Copernicus went down to Italy to study astronomy and medicine, and when his book was published it was dedicated to a Pope. Copernicus himself was a faithful churchman all his life, came near being made a bishop once, and kept the diocese in which he lived, and in which his personal friend was bishop, in the fold of the Church in spite of Luther and the religious revolt all around it in Germany. One of the great scientists of the seventeenth century whose name is stamped deeply on the history of science, Father Kircher, the Jesuit, was invited to Rome the very year after Galileo's condemnation, and for thirty years continued to experiment and write in all branches of science, not only with the approbation of his own order, the Jesuits, which helped him in every way by the collection of specimens for his museum, but also with the hearty good will of many cardinals who were his personal friends, and with the constant patronage of the Popes, whose generous liberality enabled him to make Rome the greatest centre of scientific interest during this century.

At this time and during the preceding century the Roman University had the greatest medical school in the world. The names of its professors during the preceding century need only be mentioned in order to emphasize this. They include such distinguished men as Eustachius and Varolius, whose names are forever enshrined in the history of anatomy; Columbus, who discovered and described the lesser or pulmonary circulation half a century before Harvey's publication with regard to the general circulation; Caesalpinus, to whom the Italians attribute the discovery of the greater circulation before Harvey. In the next century Malpighi was tempted to come to Rome to teach at the Papal University, and the great Father of Comparative Anatomy ended his days in the Papal capital, amidst the friendship of all the high ecclesiastics and with the social intimacy of the Pope. From the beginning of the sixteenth century Bologna is a Papal city, but its medical school, far from declining after it came under Papal jurisdiction, was even more brilliant than before, and soon came even to outshine its previously successful rival, Padua.

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