The next anatomical publication in England was a new edition in 1553 of Geminus’s plagiarized anatomical plates, but this time with an English text by Nicholas Udall, best known as the author of the first important English comedy, Ralph Roister Doister, and utterly lacking in knowledge of anatomy. In consequence one may correctly hazard that this work, published with commercial rather than pedagogical motives, would not contribute much to knowledge of anatomy in England, even though the text was now in English. It is true that Vesalius’ descriptions of his illustrations were put into English, the first translation into English of any portion of the Fabrica, but the text which now replaced the Epitome of the earlier edition of 1545, like Vicary’s work, is predominantly indebted to that same fourteenth-century manuscript compiled from the writings of late medieval surgeons. Finally, the sheets of this work were reissued in 1559 with a new preface written by Richard Eden which aimed to delude the public into the belief that the publication had been revised.
About this time, too, a small series of anatomical fugitive sheets with superimposed flaps made their appearance in England. One, at least, had two leaves of English text to explain the woodcut and is nearly always discovered bound into the 1559 reissue of Geminus’s book. The fugitive sheets, like their continental predecessors and followers, added very little to anatomical knowledge and must have been for popular consumption.
If we turn now for a moment to give consideration to continental activity during the same period, there is no difficulty in observing the superiority of publications abroad. In 1543 the Fabrica of Vesalius was published, in 1545 the De Dissectione of Rivière and Estienne, in 1555 the revised and much improved second edition of the Fabrica, in 1556 Composicion del Cuerpo Humano of Valverde, and in 1559 the De Re Anatomica of Colombo. It is little wonder that these foreign texts overwhelmed the English market and prevented any initiative which might have led to the publication of any but the most rudimentary manuals, presuming that there was in England anyone who had pursued the study of anatomy sufficiently to be in a position to compete with the continental authorities. On the other hand, the superiority of the foreign publications owed part of that superiority to the fact that they were the work of much better educated physicians who had undertaken the study of anatomy, whereas in England the subject was yet very largely under the control of the less learned and less articulate surgeons who thought of anatomy more as a limited body of technical information required for surgery rather than a field of knowledge to be studied for itself and capable of indefinite expansion. David Edwardes had sought to set medicine on the right course, but to no avail. While in time the Faculties of Medicine in the two universities would pay some lip-service to anatomy, yet some considerable time was to pass before they became genuinely interested in the subject.
In 1549 a royal examination of the Oxford statutes led to a declaration that they were ‘antiquated, semi-barbarous and obscure’, and new ones were substituted. In regard to medicine it was declared that before receiving the degree of Bachelor of Medicine the student must see two anatomical dissections, and himself perform two dissections before receiving his licence to practice. Before receiving the degree of Doctor of Medicine he was required to observe two or three more dissections.[46] This, however, seems more likely to have been the ideal than the reality and echoes a similar but normally unfulfilled requirement in fifteenth-century Paris. It is more likely that the frequency with which anatomy was conducted at Oxford would have depended upon the particular interest of the Professor of Medicine, such as Walter Bayley (1529-93) who became Regius Professor of Medicine in 1561 and who at his death left his ‘skeleton of bones in Oxford’ to his successor in the chair.[47] However, no Reader in Anatomy was appointed at Oxford until 1624. Indeed, the founder of the readership, Richard Tomlins, recognized the situation in his grant by noting that the study of anatomy was
more particularly necessary for the faculties and Artes of Phisicke and Chirurgery, the perfection whereof doth much avayle to the safety health and comfort of the whole Commonwealth in the conservation of theire persons: And that there is as yet in neither of the Vniversities of this Kingdome (thoughe otherwise the most florisshing of the whole Christian world) any such Anatomy Lecture founded or established.[48]
If we may believe John Caius, writing after the middle of the century, the first early enthusiasm for Greek studies had worn off among physicians. Caius, himself a very competent Grecist, wrote in advocacy of the study of Greek medicine in the Greek language, that
as each is more capable in his own tongue so he is consistent and always remains himself which contributes much to clarity, since each tongue has its own idioms and inexpressible terms which when translated do not retain the same emphasis or a like grace. In short, translators some times do not understand certain things, elsewhere they fall asleep, do not retain exactness of diction, restrain freedom, and since we are all human and so desirous of variety, from time to time they slip so that not only may there be obscurity but even ambiguity.
Nevertheless, wrote Caius, in his day ‘everyone turns to the Latin editions and no one touches the Greek’.[49]
It is certainly true that after that first generation of men like Linacre, there was little interest in England in the original language of Galen and Hippocrates. The surgeons, certainly, knew no Greek, and the physicians were not interested in anatomy. There was to be little controversy, therefore, as to the meaning of any of Galen’s anatomical terms and less likelihood of investigating and disputing Galenic assertions. Acceptance without demur of the translation was a long step toward unquestioned acceptance of the content of the original. Hence it appears that by the middle of the sixteenth century the authority of Galen in Latin dress, or of his commentators, was not very likely to be opposed. On the Continent it had been instances of questions and opposition which had brought about anatomical advancement by resort to the only arbiter of doubts and questions, that is, the cadaver.
With conditions as they have been portrayed it is no wonder, therefore, that little initiative was displayed in England. The most popular of the foreign works in England, as on the Continent, appears to have been the De Re Anatomica of Colombo which held its position until well after the opening of the seventeenth century. It was excellent for its time, not certainly the equal of the Fabrica, but on the other hand much cheaper to purchase, less bulky to hold, and not so detailed as to be confusing. It was probably this particular work in its several editions which more than any other prevented the appearance of a native English anatomical text.