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22 - Evolution of Modern Medicine by Sir William Osler · Evolution of Modern Medicine

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Speaker 1: Section twenty one of the Evolution of Modern Medicine. This
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Speaker 1: is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the
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Speaker 1: public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit
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Speaker 1: LibriVox dot org. Recording by Lawrence Trask, Mount Vernon, Ohio
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Speaker 1: interface audio dot com. The Evolution of Modern Medicine by
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Speaker 1: Sir William Osler, Section twenty one, Chapter four Renaissance and
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Speaker 1: Rise of anatomy and Physiology. Harvey let us return to
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Speaker 1: Padua about the year sixteen hundred. Vasalius, who made the
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Speaker 1: school the most famous anatomical center in Europe, was succeeded
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Speaker 1: by Philopius, one of the best known names in anatomy,
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Speaker 1: at whose death an unsuccessful attempt was made to get
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Speaker 1: Visalius back. He was succeeded in fifteen sixty five by
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Speaker 1: a remarkable man, Fabricius, who usual ruly bears the added
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Speaker 1: name of Aquapendente, from the town of his birth, a
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Speaker 1: worthy follower of Visalias. In fifteen ninety four, in the
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Speaker 1: thirtieth year of his professorate, he built at his own expense,
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Speaker 1: a new anatomical amphitheatre, which still exists in the university buildings.
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Speaker 1: It is a small, high pitched room, with six standing
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Speaker 1: rows for auditors, rising abruptly one above the other. The
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Speaker 1: arena is not much more than large enough for the
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Speaker 1: dissecting table, which by a lift could be brought up
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Speaker 1: from a preparing room below. The study of anatomy at
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Speaker 1: Padua must have declined since the days of Visalius, if
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Speaker 1: this tiny amphitheatre held all its students. Nonetheless, it is
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Speaker 1: probably the oldest existing anatomical lecture room, and for us
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Speaker 1: it has a very special significance. Early in his anatomical studies,
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Speaker 1: Fabricius had demonstrated the valves in the veins. I show
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Speaker 1: you here two figures, the first as far as I know,
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Speaker 1: in which these structures are depicted. It does not concern
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Speaker 1: us who first discovered them. They had doubtless been seen before,
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Speaker 1: but Fabricius first recognized them as general structures in the
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Speaker 1: venous system, and he called them little doors Ostiola. The
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Speaker 1: quadrangle of the university building at Padua is surrounded by
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Speaker 1: beautiful arcades, the walls and ceilings of which are everywhere
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Speaker 1: covered with the stemata or shields of former students, many
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Speaker 1: of them brilliantly painted. Standing in the arcade on the
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Speaker 1: side of the quad opposite the entrance. If one looks
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Speaker 1: on the ceiling immediately above the capital of the second
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Speaker 1: column to the left, there is seen the stemma, which
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Speaker 1: appears as a tail piece to this chapter put up
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Speaker 1: by a young Englishman, William Harvey, who had been a
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Speaker 1: student at Padua for four years. He belonged to the
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Speaker 1: Natio Anglica, of which he was conciliarius, and took his
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Speaker 1: degree in sixteen o two. Doubtless he had repeatedly seen
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Speaker 1: Fabricius demonstrate the valves of the veins, and he may, indeed,
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Speaker 1: as a senior student, have helped in making the very
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Speaker 1: dissections from which the drawings were taken for Fabricious work
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Speaker 1: de Venerium Ostiolis, sixteen o three. If one may judge
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Speaker 1: from the character of the teacher's work the sort of
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Speaker 1: instruction the student receives, Harvey must have had splendid training
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Speaker 1: in anatomy while he was at Padua. The great work
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Speaker 1: of Fabricius de vision vosse o deitou sixteen hundred was published,
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Speaker 1: then the Tructatus de Oculo vesuscu Organo sixteen oh one,
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Speaker 1: and in the last year of his residence. Fabricius must
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Speaker 1: have been busy with his studies on the valves of
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Speaker 1: the veins and with his embryology, which appeared in sixteen
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Speaker 1: o four. Late in life, Harvey told Boyle that it
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Speaker 1: was the position of the valves of the veins that
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Speaker 1: induced him to think of a circulation. Harvey returned to England,
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Speaker 1: trained by the best anatomists of his day. In London,
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Speaker 1: he became attached to the College of Physicians, and taking
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Speaker 1: his degree at Cambridge, he began the practice of medicine.
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Speaker 1: He was elected a fellow of the College in sixteen
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Speaker 1: o seven, and physician to Saint Bartholomew's Hospital in sixteen
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Speaker 1: o nine. In sixteen fifteen he was appointed lumlayan lecturer
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Speaker 1: to the College of Physicians, and his duties were to
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Speaker 1: hold certain public anatomies, as they were called, or lectures.
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Speaker 1: We know little or nothing of what Harvey had been doing,
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Speaker 1: other than his routine work in the care of the
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Speaker 1: patients at Saint Bartholomew's. It was not until April sixteen
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Speaker 1: sixteen that his lectures began. Chance has preserved us the
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Speaker 1: notes of this first course. The ms is now in
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Speaker 1: the British Museum and was published in facsimile by the
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Speaker 1: College in eighteen eighty six. The Second Day Lecture April
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Speaker 1: seventeen was concerned with a description of the organs of
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Speaker 1: the thorax, and after a discussion on the structure and
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Speaker 1: action of the heart, come the lines w h. Constet
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Speaker 1: per fabricum cordis sanguinem per pulmanus in aordum perpetuo transferi
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Speaker 1: as by two claques of a water bellows to raise
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Speaker 1: water constat per legatorium transitum sanguinous ab artius ad vedas
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Speaker 1: undo perpetuum sanguinous motum in circulo fiere posichordis. The illustration
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Speaker 1: will give one an idea of the extraordinarily crabbed hand
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Speaker 1: in which the notes are written, but it is worth
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Speaker 1: to see the original, for here is the first occasion,
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Speaker 1: upon which is laid down in clear and unequivocal words,
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Speaker 1: that the blood circulates. The lecture gave evidence of a
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Speaker 1: skilled natimist, well versed in the literature from Aristotle to Fabricius.
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Speaker 1: In the Ms of the Thorax, or as he calls it,
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Speaker 1: the Parlor Lecture, there are about one hundred references to
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Speaker 1: some twenty authors. The remarkable thing is that, although those
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Speaker 1: lectures were repeated year by year, we have no evidence
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Speaker 1: that they made any impression upon Harvey's contemporaries so far,
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Speaker 1: at least as to excite discussions that led to publication.
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Speaker 1: It was not until twelve years later, sixteen twenty eight
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Speaker 1: that Harvey published in Frankfort a small quarto volume of
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Speaker 1: seventy four pages, De motu cordis. In comparison with the
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Speaker 1: sumptuous fabrica of Vesalius, this is a trifling booklet, but
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Speaker 1: if not its equal in bulk or typographical beauty, it
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Speaker 1: is in fact very poorly printed. It is its counterpart
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Speaker 1: in physiology, and for that science what Visalius had done
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Speaker 1: for anatomy, though not in the same way. The experimental
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Speaker 1: spirit was abroad in the land, and as a student
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Speaker 1: at Padua, Harvey must have had many opportunities of learning
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Speaker 1: the technique of vivisection, but no one before his day
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Speaker 1: had attempted an elaborate piece of experimental work deliberately planned
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Speaker 1: to solve a problem relating to the most important single
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Speaker 1: function of the body. Herein lies the special merit of
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Speaker 1: his work, from every page of which there breathes the
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Speaker 1: modern spirit to him as Visalius before him, the current
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Speaker 1: views of the movements of the blood were unsatisfactory, more
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Speaker 1: particularly the movements of the heart and arteries, which were
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Speaker 1: regarded as an active expansion by which they were filled
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Speaker 1: with blood like bellows with air. The question of the
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Speaker 1: transmission of blood through the thick septum and the transference
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Speaker 1: of air and blood from the lungs to the heart
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Speaker 1: were secrets which he was desirous of searching out by
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Speaker 1: means of experiment. One or two special points in the
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Speaker 1: work may be referred to as illustrating his method. He
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Speaker 1: undertook the first movements of the heart, a task so
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Speaker 1: truly arduous and so full of difficulties, that he was
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Speaker 1: almost to think, with Practistorius, that the movement of the
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Speaker 1: heart was only to be comprehended by God. But after
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Speaker 1: many difficulties he made the following statements. First, that the
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Speaker 1: heart is erected and raises itself up into an apex,
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Speaker 1: and at this time strikes against the breast and the
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Speaker 1: pulses felt externally. Secondly, that it is contracted every way,
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Speaker 1: but more so at the sides. And thirdly that grasped
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Speaker 1: in the hand, it was felt to become harder at
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Speaker 1: the time of its motion. From all of which actions,
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Speaker 1: Harvey drew the very natural conclusion that the activity of
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Speaker 1: the heart consisted in a contraction of its fibers, by
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Speaker 1: which it expelled blood from the ventricles. These were the
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Speaker 1: first four fundamental facts which really opened the way for
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Speaker 1: the discovery of the circulation, as it did away with
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Speaker 1: the belief that the heart in its motion attracts blood
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Speaker 1: into the ventricles, stating on the contrary, that by its
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Speaker 1: contraction it expelled the blood and only received it during
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Speaker 1: its period of repose or relaxation. Then he proceeded to
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Speaker 1: study the action of the arteries and showed that their
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Speaker 1: period of diastyl or expansion, correspondent with the cystal or
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Speaker 1: contraction of the heart, and that the arterial pulse follows
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Speaker 1: the force, frequency and rhythm of the ventricle, and is
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Speaker 1: in fact dependent on it. Here was a new fact
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Speaker 1: that the pulsation in the arteries was nothing else than
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Speaker 1: the impulse of the blood within them. Chapter four, in
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Speaker 1: which he describes the movements of the oracles and ventricles,
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Speaker 1: is a model of accurate description to which little has
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Speaker 1: since been added. It is interesting to note that he
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Speaker 1: mentions what is probably a recular fibrillation. He says, after
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Speaker 1: the heart had ceased pulsating, an undulation or palpitation remained
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Speaker 1: in the blood itself, which was contained in the right oracle,
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Speaker 1: this being observed so long as it was imbued with
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Speaker 1: heat and spirit. He recognized too the importance of the
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Speaker 1: oracles as the first to move and the last to die.
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Speaker 1: The accuracy and vividness of Harvey's description of the motion
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Speaker 1: of the heart have been appreciated by generations of physiologists.
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Speaker 1: Having grasped this first essential fact that the heart was
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Speaker 1: an organ for the propulsion of blood, he takes up
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Speaker 1: in chapters six and seven the question of the conveyance
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Speaker 1: of the blood from the right side of the heart
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Speaker 1: to the left. Galen had already insisted that some blood
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Speaker 1: passed from the right ventricle to the lungs, enough for
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Speaker 1: their nutrition, but Harvey points out with Colombo that from
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Speaker 1: the arrangement of the valves, there could be no other
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Speaker 1: view other than that with each impulse of the heart,
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Speaker 1: blood passes from the right ventricle to the lungs, and
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Speaker 1: so to the left side of the heart. How it
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Speaker 1: passed through the lungs was a problem, probably by a
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Speaker 1: continuous transudation. In chapters eight and nine, he deals with
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Speaker 1: the amount of blood passing through the heart from the
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Speaker 1: veins to the arteries. Let me quote here what he says,
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Speaker 1: as it is of cardinal import. But what remains to
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Speaker 1: be said upon the quantity and source of the blood
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Speaker 1: which thus passes is of a character so novel and
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Speaker 1: unheard of, that I not only fear injury to myself
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Speaker 1: from the envy of a few, but I tremble lest
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Speaker 1: I have mankind at large for my enemies. So much
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Speaker 1: doth want and custom become a second nature. Doctrine, once sown,
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Speaker 1: strikes deeply its root, and respect for antiquity influences all men.
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Speaker 1: Will the dye is cast, and my trust is in
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Speaker 1: my love of truth and the candor of cultivated minds.
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Speaker 1: Then he goes on to say, I began to think
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Speaker 1: whether there might not be a movement, as it were,
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Speaker 1: in a circle. Now this I afterwards found to be true,
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Speaker 1: And I finally saw that the blood forced by the
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Speaker 1: action of the left ventricle into the arteries was distributed
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Speaker 1: to the body at large and its several parts in
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Speaker 1: the same manner. As it is sent through the lungs,
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Speaker 1: impelled by the right ventricle, into the pulmonary artery, and
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Speaker 1: that it then passed through the veins and along the
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Speaker 1: vena cava, and so round to the left ventricle in
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Speaker 1: the manner already indicated. The experiments dealing with the transmission
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Speaker 1: of blood in the veins are very accurate, and he
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Speaker 1: uses the old experiment that Fabricius had employed to show
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Speaker 1: the valves to demonstrate that the blood in the veins
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Speaker 1: flows towards the heart. For the first time, a proper
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Speaker 1: explanation of the action of the vowels is given. Harvey
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Speaker 1: had no appreciation of how the arteries and veins communicated
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Speaker 1: with each other. Galen, you may remember, recognized that there
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Speaker 1: were anastomosis, but Harvey preferred the idea of filtration. The
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Speaker 1: de motu Cordis constitutes a unique piece of work in
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Speaker 1: the history of medicine. Nothing of the same type had
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Speaker 1: appeared before. It is a thoroughly sensible scientific study of
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Speaker 1: a definite problem, the solution of which was arrived through
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Speaker 1: the combination of accurate observation and ingenious experiment. Much misunderstanding
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Speaker 1: has arisen in connection with Harvey's discovery of the circulation
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Speaker 1: of the blood. He did not discover that the blood moved.
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Speaker 1: That was known to Aristotle and to Galen, from both
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Speaker 1: of whom I have given quotations which indicate clearly they
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Speaker 1: knew of its movement. But at the time of Harvey,
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Speaker 1: not a single anatomist had escaped from the domination of
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Speaker 1: Galanennis views. Both Servitus and Colombo knew of the pulmonary circulation,
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Speaker 1: which was described by the former in very accurate terms. Cicalpinus,
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Speaker 1: a great name in anatomy and botany, for whom is
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Speaker 1: claimed the discovery of the circulation, only expressed the accepted
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Speaker 1: doctrines in the following oft quoted phrase. We will now
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Speaker 1: consider how the attraction of aliment and the process of
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Speaker 1: nutrition takes place in plants. For in animals, we see
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Speaker 1: the element brought through the veins to the heart as
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Speaker 1: to a laboratory of an eight heat, and after receiving
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Speaker 1: there its final perfection distributed through the arteries to the
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Speaker 1: body at large, by the agency of the spirits produced
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Speaker 1: from the same element in the heart. There is nothing
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Speaker 1: in this but Galen's view, and Sicalpinus believed, as did
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Speaker 1: all his contemporaries that the blood was distributed through the
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Speaker 1: body by the vena cava and its branches, for the
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Speaker 1: nourishment of all its parts. To those who have any
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Speaker 1: doubts as to Harvey's position in this matter, I would
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Speaker 1: recommend the reading of the De motu Cordis itself. Then
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Speaker 1: the various passages relating to the circulation, from Aristotle to Visalias,
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Speaker 1: many of those can be found in the admirable works
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Speaker 1: of Dalton, Florence, Richet, and Curtis. In my Harvean Oration
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Speaker 1: for nineteen o six, I have dealt specially with the
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Speaker 1: reception of the new views, and have shown how long
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Speaker 1: it was before the reverence for Galen allowed of their acceptance.
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Speaker 1: The University of Paris opposed the circulation of the blood
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Speaker 1: for more than half a century after the appearance of
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Speaker 1: De motu Cordis. To summarize, until the seventeenth century, there
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Speaker 1: were believed to be two closed systems in the circulation.
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Speaker 1: The natural containing venous blood had its origin in the liver,
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Speaker 1: from which, as from a fountain, the blood continually ebbed
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Speaker 1: and flowed for the nourishment of the body. The vital
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Speaker 1: containing another blood, and the spirits ebbed and flowed from
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Speaker 1: the heart, distributing hate and life to all parts like
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Speaker 1: a bellow's. The lungs fanned and cool this vital blood.
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Speaker 1: Here and there we find glimmering conceptions of a communication
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Speaker 1: between these systems, but practically all teachers believe that the
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Speaker 1: only one of importance was through small pores in the
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Speaker 1: wall separating the two sides of the heart. Observation merely
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Speaker 1: looking at and thinking about things had done all that
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Speaker 1: was possible, and further progress had to await the introduction
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Speaker 1: of a new method v I Z experiment. Galen, it
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Speaker 1: is true, had used this means to show that the
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Speaker 1: arteries of the body contained blood and not air. The
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Speaker 1: day had come when men were no longer content with
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Speaker 1: accurate description and with finely spun theories and dreams. It
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Speaker 1: was reserved for the immortal Harvey to put into practice
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Speaker 1: the experiment method, by which he demonstrated conclusively that the
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Speaker 1: blood moved in a circle. The de motu cordis marks
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Speaker 1: the final break of the modern spirit with the old traditions.
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Speaker 1: It took long for men to realize the value of
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Speaker 1: this inventim Arabeli, used so effectively by the Alexandrians by Galen. Indeed,
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Speaker 1: its full value has only been appreciated within the past century.
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Speaker 1: Let me quote a paragraph from my Harveian oration to
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Speaker 1: the age of the hearer, in which men had heard
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Speaker 1: and heard only had succeeded the age of the eye,
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Speaker 1: in which men had seen and been content only to see.
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Speaker 1: But at last came the age of the hand, the thinking, devising,
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Speaker 1: planning hand. The hand as an instrument of the mind,
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Speaker 1: now reintroduced into the world. In a modest little monograph
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Speaker 1: from which we may date the beginning of experimental medicine.
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Speaker 1: Harvey caught the experimental spirit in Italy, with brain, eye
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Speaker 1: and hand as his only aids. But now an era
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Speaker 1: opened in which medicine was to derive an enormous impetus
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Speaker 1: from the discovery of instruments of precision. The new period
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Speaker 1: in the development of the natural sciences, which reached its
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Speaker 1: height in the work of such men as Galileo, Gilbert
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Speaker 1: and Kepler, is chiefly characterized by the invention of very
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Speaker 1: important instruments for aiding and intensifying the perceptions of the senses,
18:30
Speaker 1: by means which was gained a much deeper insight into
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Speaker 1: the phenomena than had hitherto been possible. Such instruments, as
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Speaker 1: the earlier ages possessed, were little more than primitive hand
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Speaker 1: made tools. Now we find a considerable number of scientifically
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Speaker 1: made instruments, deliberately planned for the purposes of special research. And,
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Speaker 1: as it were, on the threshold of the period, stand
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Speaker 1: two of the most important, the compound microscope and the telescope.
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Speaker 1: The former was invented about fifteen ninety and the latter
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Speaker 1: about sixteen o eight. It was a fellow professor of
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Speaker 1: the great genius Galileo who attempted to put into practice
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Speaker 1: the experimental science of his friend. With Sanctorius began the
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Speaker 1: studies of temperature, respiration and the physics of the circulation.
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Speaker 1: The memory of this great investigator has not been helped
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Speaker 1: by the English edition of his Distatica Medicina, not his
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Speaker 1: best work, with a front's piece showing the author in
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Speaker 1: his dietetic Balance. Full justice has been done to him
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Speaker 1: by doctor Weir Mitchell in an address as President of
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Speaker 1: the Congress of Physicians and Surgeons eighteen ninety one. Sanctorius
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Speaker 1: worked with the pulselogue devised for him by Galileo, with
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Speaker 1: which he made observations on the pulse. He is said
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Speaker 1: to have been the first to put in use the
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Speaker 1: clinical thermometer. His experiments on insensible perspiration mark him as
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Speaker 1: one of the first modern physiologists. But neither Sanctorious nor
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Speaker 1: Harvey had the immediate influence upon their contemporaries, which the
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Speaker 1: novel and stimulating character of their work justified. Harvey's great contemporary, Bacon,
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Speaker 1: although he lost his life in making a cold storage experiment,
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Speaker 1: did not really appreciate the enormous importance of experimental science.
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Speaker 1: He looked very coldly upon Harvey's work. It was a
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Speaker 1: philosopher of another kidney, Renee Descartes, who did more than
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Speaker 1: any one else to help men realize the value of
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Speaker 1: the better way, which Harvey had pointed out that the
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Speaker 1: beginning of wisdom was, in doubt not an authority. Was
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Speaker 1: a novel doctrine in the world. But Descartes was no
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Speaker 1: arm chair philosopher, and his strong advocacy and practice of
20:51
Speaker 1: experimentation had a profound influence in directing men to la
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Speaker 1: nouvelle methaude. He brought the human body, the earthly machine,
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Speaker 1: as he calls it, into the sphere of mechanics and physics,
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Speaker 1: and he wrote the first textbook of physiology de l'Homme. Locke,
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Speaker 1: too became the spokesman of the new questioning spirit, and
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Speaker 1: before the close of the seventeenth century, experimental research became
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Speaker 1: all the mode. Richard, lower Hook and Hales were probably
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Speaker 1: more influenced by Descart's than Harvey, and they made notable
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Speaker 1: contributions to experimental physiology in England. Burrelli, author of the
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Speaker 1: famous work on the Motion of Animals Rome sixteen eighty
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Speaker 1: to sixteen eighty one, brought to the study of the
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Speaker 1: action of muscles a profound knowledge of physics and mathematics,
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Speaker 1: and really founded the mechanical or iatra mechanical school. The
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Speaker 1: literature and the language of medicine became that of physics
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Speaker 1: and mechanics. Wheels and pollys, wedges, levers, screws, cords, canals, cisterns,
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Speaker 1: sieves and strainers with angles, cylinders, celerity, percussion, and resistance
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Speaker 1: were among the words that now came into use in
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Speaker 1: medical literature. Withington quotes a good example in a description
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Speaker 1: by Pitcairn. The Scott, who was professor of medicine Leiden
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Speaker 1: at the end of the seventeenth century. Life is the
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Speaker 1: circulation of the blood. Health is its free and painless circulation.
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Speaker 1: Disease is an abnormal motion of the blood, either general
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Speaker 1: or local. Like the English school, generally, he is far
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Speaker 1: more exclusively mechanical than are the Italians, and will hear
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Speaker 1: nothing of ferments or acids even in digestion, this, he declares,
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Speaker 1: is a purely mechanical process due to heat and pressure,
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Speaker 1: the wonderful effects of which may be seen in Papin's
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Speaker 1: recently invented digester. That the stomach is fully able to
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Speaker 1: cumminute the food may be proved by the following calculation.
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Speaker 1: Birelli estimates the power power of the flexors of the
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Speaker 1: thumb at three thousand, seven hundred and twenty pounds, their
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Speaker 1: average weight being one hundred and twenty two grains. Now,
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Speaker 1: the average weight of the stomach is eight ounces. Therefore,
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Speaker 1: it can develop a force of one hundred seventeen thousand
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Speaker 1: and eighty eight pounds, and this may be further assisted
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Speaker 1: by the diaphragm and abdominal muscles, the power of which,
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Speaker 1: estimated in the same way equals four hundred and sixty
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Speaker 1: one thousand, two hundred and nineteen pounds. Will may pit
23:30
Speaker 1: Cairn add that this force is not inferior to that
23:33
Speaker 1: of any millstone. Paracelsus gave an extraordinary stimulus to the
23:38
Speaker 1: study of chemistry, and more than anyone else, he put
23:42
Speaker 1: the old alchemy on modern lines. I have already quoted
23:46
Speaker 1: his sane remark that its chief service is in seeking remedies.
23:50
Speaker 1: But there is another side to this question. If, as
23:54
Speaker 1: seems fairly certain, the Basil Valentine, whose writings were supposed
23:58
Speaker 1: to have inspired Paris Elsis, was a hoax, and his
24:01
Speaker 1: works were made up in great part from the writing
24:04
Speaker 1: of Paracelsus, then to a medical Luther, and not to
24:07
Speaker 1: the mythical Benedictine monk, must be attributed a great revival
24:12
Speaker 1: in the search for the philosopher's stone, for the elixir
24:16
Speaker 1: of life, for a universal medicine, for the perpetuum mobile,
24:20
Speaker 1: and for an aram potobile. I reproduce almost at random
24:25
Speaker 1: a page from the fifth and last part of the
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Speaker 1: Last Will and Testament of Basil Valentine, London, sixteen fifty seven,
24:33
Speaker 1: from which you may judge the chemical spirit of the time.
24:37
Speaker 1: Out of the mystic doctrines of Paracelsus arose the famous
24:40
Speaker 1: brothers of the Rosy Cross. The brotherhood was possessed of
24:44
Speaker 1: the deepest knowledge in science. The transmutation of metals, the
24:48
Speaker 1: perpetuum mobile, and the universal medicine were among their secrets.
24:53
Speaker 1: They were free from sickness in suffering during their lifetime,
24:57
Speaker 1: though subject finally to death. A school of a more
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Speaker 1: rational kind followed directly upon the work of Paracelsus, in
25:05
Speaker 1: which the first man of any importance was Van Helmont.
25:09
Speaker 1: The Paracelsian Archaeus was the presiding spirit in living creatures,
25:13
Speaker 1: and worked through special local ferments by which the functions
25:17
Speaker 1: of the organs were controlled. Disease of any part represents
25:21
Speaker 1: a strike on the part of the local archaeas who
25:24
Speaker 1: refuses to work. Though full of fanciful ideas, Van Helmont
25:28
Speaker 1: had the experimental spirit and was the first chemist to
25:32
Speaker 1: discover the diversity of gases. Like his teacher, he was
25:36
Speaker 1: in revolt against the faculty, and he has bitter things
25:40
Speaker 1: to say of physicians. He got into trouble with the
25:43
Speaker 1: Church about the magnetic cure of wounds, as no fewer
25:47
Speaker 1: than twenty seven propositions incompatible with the Catholic faith were
25:51
Speaker 1: found in his pamphlet ferguson the Philosophis per ignem Toparchia
25:57
Speaker 1: in merode Rollenborg, as he is style in certain of
26:00
Speaker 1: his writings, is not an easy man to tackle. I
26:04
Speaker 1: show the title page of the Ortis Medicinae, the collection
26:08
Speaker 1: of his works by his son. As with the pages
26:12
Speaker 1: of Paracelsus, there are many gems to be dug out.
26:16
Speaker 1: The counter blast against bleeding was a useful protest, and
26:20
Speaker 1: to deny in Toto its utility in fever required courage,
26:25
Speaker 1: a quality never lacking in the father of modern chemistry,
26:28
Speaker 1: as he has been called a man of a very
26:32
Speaker 1: different type, A learned academic, a professor of European renowned
26:37
Speaker 1: was Daniel Sennert of Wittenberg, the first to introduce the
26:41
Speaker 1: systematic teaching of chemistry into the curriculum, and who tried
26:45
Speaker 1: to harmonize the Gallanists and the Paracelsians. Franciscus Silvius, a
26:50
Speaker 1: disciple of van Helmont, established the first chemical laboratory in
26:54
Speaker 1: Europe at Leiden, and to him is due the introduction
26:57
Speaker 1: of modern clinical teaching. In sixteen sixty four, he writes,
27:02
Speaker 1: I have led my pupils by the hand to medical practice,
27:06
Speaker 1: using a method known at Leiden or perhaps elsewhere, for example,
27:10
Speaker 1: taking them daily to visit the sick at the public hospital. There,
27:14
Speaker 1: I have put the symptoms of disease before their eyes,
27:17
Speaker 1: have let them hear the complaints of the patients, and
27:20
Speaker 1: have asked them their opinions as to the causes and
27:23
Speaker 1: rational treatment of each case, and the reasons for those opinions.
27:29
Speaker 1: Then I have given my own judgment on every point.
27:32
Speaker 1: Together with me, they have seen the happy results of
27:35
Speaker 1: treatment when God has granted to our cares a restoration
27:39
Speaker 1: of health, or they have assisted in examining the body
27:43
Speaker 1: when the patient has paid the inevitable tribute to death.
27:46
Speaker 1: Glauber Willis, Mayo, Lemerie, Agricola, and Stall led up to
27:51
Speaker 1: Robert Boyle, with whom modern chemistry may be said to begin.
27:56
Speaker 1: Even as late as seventeen sixteen, Lady Mary ward Lee
28:00
Speaker 1: Montague in Vienna found that all had transferred their superstitions
28:04
Speaker 1: from religion to chemistry. Scarcely a man of opulence or
28:08
Speaker 1: fashion that has not an alchemist in his service to
28:12
Speaker 1: one scientific man of the period, and must refer as
28:14
Speaker 1: author of the first scientific book published in England, Dryden sings,
28:20
Speaker 1: Gilbert shall live till Lodestone's ceased to draw or British
28:24
Speaker 1: fleets the boundless oceans awe, and the verse is true.
28:29
Speaker 1: For by the publication in sixteen hundred of the d Magnete,
28:33
Speaker 1: the science of electricity was founded. William Gilbert was a
28:37
Speaker 1: fine type of the sixteenth century physician. A colchester Man
28:42
Speaker 1: educated at Saint John's College, Cambridge. Sylvanus Thompson says he
28:48
Speaker 1: is beyond question rightfully regarded as the father of electric science.
28:53
Speaker 1: He founded the entire subject of terrestrial magnetism. He also
28:57
Speaker 1: made notable contributions to astronomy, being the earliest English expounder
29:02
Speaker 1: of Copernicus in an age given over to metaphysical obscurities
29:07
Speaker 1: and dogmatic sophistry. He cultivated the method of experiment and
29:11
Speaker 1: of reasoning from observation, with an insight and success which
29:16
Speaker 1: entitles him to be regarded as the father of the
29:19
Speaker 1: inductive method. That method so often accredited to Bacon, Gilbert
29:24
Speaker 1: was practicing years before him. End of section twenty one.
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Speaker 1: Recording by Lawrence Trask Mount Vernon, Ohio. Interface audio dot
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Speaker 1: Com