If Prof. White knew anything about the lives of the men whose names are most distinguished in the history of medicine during the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, we would have heard nothing of his almost incomprehensible negation of the existence of scientific medicine, during centuries when so many men who have stamped their names indelibly on the history of the medical sciences were doing their work and [{202}] writing. If he had taken any pains to learn even a few details of the personal relations of these old-time makers of medicine to the Popes, we would have heard none of this utter absurdity of Papal opposition to medicine or ecclesiastical hampering of medical science. To answer Prof. White's argument, that "it would be expecting too much from human nature to imagine that Pontiffs should favor the development of any science which undermined their interests," the simple story of the men the Popes choose as their own medical advisers, and who because of the prestige of their appointment as Papal Physicians helped to raise up in the eyes of the people the dignity of the medical profession which they represented, will be quite enough. It will also serve to show how different is history founded on an assumption from history founded on actual facts.
The best, most easily obtainable, and most impressive data for the inductive method of reaching the truth as regards the relation of the Popes to medical science and (because of the fact that physicians were the scientists par excellence of the Middle Ages) to all science, will be found in a brief consideration of the lives of the men who occupied the position of Papal Physician during the last seven centuries. I do not think that this group of men has ever been treated together before; at least I have been unable to find any work on the subject. While I am able to present a considerable amount of interesting material in brief form with regard to them, I am sure that there are many of them whom I have omitted. Practically up to the day of going to press I have been finding new references that led to further precious information with regard to this most wonderful group of men in medical history. It will be well [{203}] understood, then, that impressive as the consideration of the work and character of the men whose names I have found must be, this does not represent all the truth in the matter, but can be supplemented without much difficulty from other sources.
If the Popes had been interested only in the miraculous healing of disease, and had wished to teach the lesson that men should depend solely for their recovery from serious symptoms and ailments of all kinds on prayers and relics and pilgrimages, then they would either have had no physicians at all in regular attendance on them, or at least their physicians would not have been selected from among the men who were doing most to advance the cause of practical and scientific medicine and of medical education. The very opposite of this is the case. The Papal physicians were as a rule the most scientific medical men of their time. This is not a pious exaggeration, but is literally true for seven centuries of history, as we shall see presently. The wonder of it is that there were not some charlatans among them. The physicians whom educated people select are not, as physicians we'll know, always worthy examples of progressive medical men. Literary folk particularly seem to have a distinct tendency to want to be different from other people, and their physicians are often the veriest theorizers. A medical friend who occasionally quotes, but perverts the old line, "the people people have for friends are often very queer," says, half in jest of course, but alas! more than half in earnest, that "the people literary folk and the clergy have for doctors are the queerest ducks (docs.) of all."
It is only too true that clergymen are especially prone to be erratic in the choice of their medical advisers and [{204}] lacking in a critical judgment as to the remedies and methods of treatment of which they become the willing recipients, and occasionally even the sponsors as regards other people, who look up to their judgment for other reasons with confidence. Prof. Osler once said that the nearer to the Council of Trent the clergyman, the nearer he was likely to be to truth and common sense in medical matters; but then perhaps all would not agree with him. It is all the more surprising under the circumstances, and very greatly to their credit, that the Popes should have had as their physicians a list of men whose names are the brightest on the roll of great contributors to medical literature and some of the most distinguished among the great discoverers in medical science.
This fact alone constitutes the most absolute contradiction of the declarations as to supposed Church opposition to medicine that could possibly be given. No better means of encouraging, fostering, and patronizing medical science could be thought of than to give the prestige and the emoluments of physician to the head of the Church to important makers of medicine in every generation. The physicians to the rulers of Europe have not always been selected with as good judgment, and, as I have already said, there is no list of physicians to any European Court, nor indeed any list of names of medical men connected together by any bond in history--no list, for instance, of any medical faculty of a university--which can be compared for prestige in scientific medicine with the Papal Physicians.
Before the beginning of the thirteenth century very little is known of the medical attendants of the Popes. We point out in the following chapter that the Papacy was closely in touch with the medical school at Salernum. [{205}] It seems not unlikely, and indeed there are some traditions to that effect, that in cases of severe illnesses of the Popes, important members of the medical faculty were sometimes summoned from the South of Italy to Rome. The relations of the Popes to the neighboring abbey of Monte Cassino might, as we have said, suggest this. We have, however, very few details in this matter. With the beginning of the great thirteenth century, however, the records of human achievement in every line are better kept, and at once we begin to know something definite about Papal Physicians. The first one of decided prominence was Guy or Guido of Montpelier, who was summoned to Rome by Pope Innocent III. in order that he might re-establish the hospital of the Santo Spirito at Rome, in accordance with what were considered to be the latest ideas in the matter of hospital building and the enlightened care of the sick. How well he accomplished this work, and how well he deserves to head the glorious roll of Papal Physicians, will be seen in the chapter on The Popes and City Hospitals.
The next of the Papal Physicians of whom much is known in the history of medicine was Richard the Englishman, usually spoken of as Ricardus Anglicus. He was the physician to the famous Pope Gregory IX. (1237-1241). Richard, who was born in England not long before the beginning of the thirteenth century, died shortly after the middle of that century. For a time he was at Paris, and accordingly is sometimes spoken of as Ricardus Parisiensis. According to Gabriel Naudé he was at Paris after the death of his patient, Gregory IX., and towards the end of his life retired to the Abbey of St. Victor, to spend his last days in recollection and prayer. In this he anticipated another great English physician [{206}] with a European reputation--Linacre--who, three centuries later, after having been the royal physician for many years to King Henry VIII., became a clergyman. It is interesting to realize that, early in history as Richard's life occurs, some works attributed to him contain definite information with regard to anatomy. Most of this, it is true, is taken from Hippocrates, Galen, and the Arabs, but some of it seems to be the result of his own personal experience, on the living, if not on the dead.
After Richard, the next of the physicians to the Popes who has an important place in the history of medicine is the famous Thaddeus Alderotti, who lived for more than eighty years during the thirteenth century. He has the added interest for this generation of having been a self-made man, for he was the son of very poor parents of the lowest rank. Up to his thirtieth year he remained without any special education. He made his living, it is said, by selling candles. Having acquired a little competency, at the age of thirty he began with great zeal the study of philosophy and of medicine, two sciences which in the old days were supposed to go very well together, though, unfortunately, they are often rigidly separated from each other in later times. Fifteen years after he began the study of medicine we hear of him as a medical teacher, and then ten years later he began to be famous as a writer on all sorts of medical topics. He became the physician of Pope Honorius IV., himself one of the most liberal and broadly educated of men, and as the result of the confidence awakened by his occupancy of this honorable position, he secured an immense success in practice and made an enormous fortune. Alderotti's work represents what is best in medicine for the whole of the thirteenth century.
A curiously interesting episode that deserves a place in the history of Papal Physicians occurred during Alderotti's life. One of the Popes elected to fill the Papal chair had been earlier in life a physician. This was the famous Peter of Spain, though he was really a Portuguese, who, under the name of John XXI., occupied the Papal throne during the years 1276-1277. Peter of Spain had been one of the most distinguished natural scientists of this interesting century. Dr. J. B. Petella, in an article published in Janus about ten years ago, entitled A Critical and Historical Study of the Knowledge of Ophthalmology of a Philosopher Physician who became Pope, gives an excellent account of the life of Pope John XXI. [Footnote 27]