We arrived at Berne early on the morning of Oct. 12th, and, after leaving our horses at the inn, The Falcon, lost no time in visiting the objects of interest in that ancient city, not forgetting the bear pit, in which there were at that time six of these creatures. In the afternoon we resumed our journey toward Fribourg, and very soon overtook a newly married couple. As they were traveling on horseback like ourselves, and were following the same route for a certain distance, we all agreed to keep together. While passing along a shady part of the road the bride’s dress became so firmly entangled in the branches of an apple tree that, failing to stop the horse, she was left suspended in the air by her skirts. I immediately dismounted and helped her to regain her feet, to adjust her disordered dress, and to resume her seat in the saddle. On arriving at Fribourg we put up at the inn called La Croix Blanche, and soon discovered that almost everybody in the town spoke French, a language with which Thomas and I, who were Germans, were not familiar; but, thanks to our companion Robert, the Parisian, we experienced no difficulty whatever in making all our wants known and in securing all the information that we desired.
On the following day, Oct. 13th, it was raining hard when we left Fribourg, and we were soon wet to the skin. After passing through several small villages we stopped for refreshment at an inn in the picturesque town of Romont, and at the same time availed ourselves of the opportunity to have our clothes dried. Then, having satisfied our appetites, we resumed our journey in the direction of Lausanne; but we did not get very far on our way before we discovered that Thomas had disappeared. We were of course obliged to wait for him, and, by the time he had rejoined the party, darkness and a thick fog combined to render further progress very difficult, and we soon realized that we had lost our way. We wandered up and down for some time without encountering a barn or building of any kind in which we might find shelter from the rain and secure a measure of protection from the robbers who, according to common report, infested that part of the country. Finally, however, we discovered a small village; but, when we applied for a night’s lodging, not one of the householders was willing to receive us. So we engaged the services of a young peasant to act as our guide, and with his assistance we finally reached a mean-looking inn in a village called Mézières, which was composed of a few widely scattered houses. We entered the tavern and found several Savoyard peasants and some beggars seated at the long table of the bar-room; they were engaged in eating roasted chestnuts and black bread, which they washed down with copious draughts of a liquor called piquette. They unceremoniously examined our weapons and acted with great rudeness toward us in other respects. The woman who kept the house said she had no other room which she could place at our disposal, and our first impulse therefore was to resume our journey immediately after we had finished our meal of black bread and chestnuts; but, after careful reflection, we came to the conclusion that such a course might prove fraught with considerable danger. So we decided to remain awake and watch for an opportunity to make our escape. Very soon afterward these half-intoxicated men lay down on the floor before the fire in the adjoining hall-way or vestibule and fell into a sound sleep. Our guide then confessed to us that, while at work in the stable, he had heard them planning to waylay us on the highway at an early hour of the following day. As soon, therefore, as we heard them all snoring lustily we very quietly slipped out of the house. Our score having already been paid earlier in the evening, and our horses having been left saddled and bridled in the stable, we mounted and took our departure by a road which led at first in a direction different from that in which we were supposed to be traveling. We experienced no further trouble on this part of our journey and in due time reached Lausanne. When we told the people at the inn about our experience at Mézières they replied that we might consider ourselves most fortunate, as almost every day there occurred, in the forest through which we had passed (la Forêt du Jorat), a murder or some other deed of violence.[72] It was plain, therefore, that we had had a narrow escape from death.
In the further course of our journey along the north shore of the lake we reached the city of Geneva on Oct. 15th. When I called upon John Calvin, to whom my father had given me a letter of introduction, he said to me: “My Felix, you arrive at the right moment, for I am now able to give you an excellent traveling companion for the remainder of your journey—to wit, Dr. Michel Heronard, a native of Montpellier.” This Dr. Heronard, as I learned subsequently, was a Protestant who played a prominent part in the religious disorders which, a few years later, greatly disturbed the peace of that city.
On the 30th of October—just twenty days after we set out from Basel—we entered the city of Montpellier, and I lost no time in hunting up Laurent Catalan, the apothecary, at whose house I expected to reside during my stay in that city.
Platter had now, after a long and dangerous journey, reached one of the three greatest medical schools of that period, and it was his hope and expectation that he would here be able to acquire a correct and intimate knowledge of human anatomy. He was already aware that this knowledge could be satisfactorily obtained in only one way—that is, by dissecting the human body; and accordingly he availed himself of every possible opportunity, during the five years which he spent at Montpellier, to accomplish this purpose. From the somewhat superficial examination which I have made of the record furnished by the diary, it appears that only five or six official lessons or demonstrations were given by the professor of anatomy during the period of time named; but—as every student of medicine knows—instruction of this character is of relatively small value; and Platter himself seems to have realized fully the truth of this statement, for during the second year of his stay at Montpellier he joined a secret band of nocturnal grave-robbers who were determined at all hazards to obtain the material needed for self-instruction. The following brief description of one of the raids made by this band of eager searchers after knowledge will convey a good idea of the manner in which the work was conducted:—
Our first excursion of this kind was made on Dec. 11th, 1554. As soon as it was really dark our fellow student Gallotus guided us, along the road that leads to Nîmes, to the Augustinian Monastery, which is situated about half-way between Castelnau and the Verdanson brook. Here we were received by a monk called Brother Bernard, a bold and determined fellow, who had disguised himself for the business in hand. At midnight, after we had partaken of food and drink, we started out, sword in hand, for the cemetery which is located close to the church of Saint Denis. Here we dug up with our hands a corpse which had been interred that very day; and, having lifted it out of the pit by means of ropes, and wrapped our cloaks around it, we carried the body on two canes as far as Montpellier. Then, having concealed our load close to the postern, alongside the city gateway, we summoned the keeper and begged him to get us some wine, as we were dying of thirst and very tired. While he was absent in search of the wine three of our party slipped in through the passage and carried the corpse safely to Gallotus’ house, which was only a short distance from the gate. The gate-keeper returned in due time with the wine, and did not appear to have the slightest suspicion of the trick that we had played upon him. It was now three o’clock in the morning.
The control exercised by the authorities over the practice of dissecting human corpses differed very appreciably at different dates in different parts of Europe. Thus, for example, orders were issued to the Italian bishops during the latter part of the fourteenth century to put a stop to further dissections, and for a period of over one hundred years these orders accomplished the purpose desired. On the other hand, the Emperor Charles the Fourth adopted a more liberal course: from the year 1348 on he permitted dissections of human corpses to be made without hindrance in Prague, Bohemia, but his liberality in this particular appears to have been of little use, for there is no evidence to show that the knowledge of anatomy made any appreciable advance anywhere in Europe until after the beginning of the sixteenth century.
Gabriel Zerbi of Verona (1468–1505) published at Venice in 1502 the first modern treatise on human anatomy that deserves to receive special mention. Pagel speaks of it as containing fairly good descriptions of different parts of the body. Zerbi held the Chair of Medicine, Logic and Philosophy in the University of Padua, and lectured first in that city, next at Bologna, and finally at Rome. One incident in his career may prove of interest to the reader as showing the fearful risks to which a practicing physician in those days was sometimes exposed. The incident was of this nature:—
A wealthy pacha in Constantinople, failing to obtain relief from his malady at the hands of the native Turkish doctors, summoned an Italian physician from Venice. Zerbi, whom the ruling Doge invited to accept the summons, sailed immediately for Constantinople in company with his two sons who were mere lads. The treatment which he inaugurated proved promptly successful, and Zerbi, having been handsomely remunerated for his services, was already on his way back to Venice when his ship was overhauled by a swift-sailing caique on board of which were the sons of his recent patient, who—as the story goes—had celebrated his recovery by eating and drinking to excess. This debauch promptly caused his death—probably by cerebral apoplexy; but the sons were convinced that it was the result of poison administered by Zerbi, and accordingly they lost no time in starting out to capture the supposed murderer. Their first act, on reaching the vessel which they were pursuing, was to kill the younger of the two sons, in the presence of the father, by sawing his body in two lengthwise. Then they killed Zerbi himself in the same manner.
Tiraboschi, the first historian of Italian literature (1731–1794), is mentioned by Dezeimeris as his authority for this terrible tale. The events here narrated occurred in 1505.