Two others of his books deserve mention because they show how broad were the interests of the man in many phases of progress in medicine. Their titles are Diseases and Infections of Domestic Animals and The Climate of Rome.
The next great name in Italian medicine is that of Morgagni. He was not a regular Papal physician, nor a member of the faculty of the Papal Medical School, but he was often consulted, as we told in the chapter on Papal Physicians, both as to the health of the Popes and the methods of teaching at the Roman Medical School. His life brings us down almost to the nineteenth century, and the cordial relations of the Popes to him, far from being an exception in the history of medicine, are only typical of the attitude of the Roman Pontiffs to medical and all other scientists from the dawn of the history of science in modern times.
While the Papal Medical School at Rome, attached to the university of the city and directly under the control of the Papal Curia, more especially deserves the name thus given it, it must not be forgotten that there was in the Papal States a series of medical schools in various cities. One of these, at Perugia, founded by a bull of Pope John XXII., has come under consideration in the chapter on A Papal Patron of Medical Education. Another medical school, that of Ferrara, which also was in the Papal States, had considerable prestige. Some distinguished professors taught there before going to [{244}] Padua or Bologna. At the beginning of the sixteenth century, Bologna, after having been during the preceding three centuries under the domination of one powerful family or another, from the Pepoli to the Bentivogli, and then to the Visconti and back again to the Bentivogli, was incorporated in the Papal States under Pope Julius II. At this time the Medical School of Bologna was at the height of its reputation and was one of the two greatest medical schools in Italy. Padua was its only rival. Shortly after this Rome became a serious competitor in medical education. Practically, then, this was a second Papal medical school, almost as directly under the control of the Popes as the Roman Medical School. Far from there being any diminution in the glory or the efficiency of the Bolognese Medical School, its reputation even became enhanced after the city came under the control of the Popes.
This is all the more surprising because, as we have shown, just about this time the Popes began the work of making their Medical School at Rome the most important center for medical education, especially in the scientific phases of medicine--anatomy, physiology, and comparative anatomy--that there was at that time in the world. In spite of this rivalry, however, nothing was done directly to hurt the prestige of the school of Bologna, and indeed the rivalry seems to have been more of an encouraging competition than in any sense a destructive struggle for existence. When the Popes took possession of Bologna, Alexander Achillini was professor of anatomy and medicine in the Bolognese school, and his discoveries and methods of investigation attracted the attention of students from all over the world. His assistant for many years and his successor in the [{245}] post was Berengar of Carpi, of whom we have already said much in the chapter Anatomy Down to the Renaissance. For some time Vesalius lectured on medicine and anatomy at Bologna, and one of Berengar's most distinguished successors in the sixteenth century was Aranzi, who occupied the post of anatomical professor for thirty-two years and who corrected a number of errors in anatomical detail that had been made by Vesalius and others of the preceding generation. He confirmed Columbus's discoveries at Rome with regard to the course which the blood follows in passing from the right to the left side of the heart, and made many important additions to the knowledge of the anatomical relations of the cavities of the heart, the valves, and the great blood vessels. There are a number of important structures in the brain which owe their names to him, and his descriptions of them are better, according to Prof. Turner, than those of other anatomists for a century after his time.
The tradition of great teachers thus carried on during the first century after the absorption of Bologna into the Papal States, continued uninterruptedly in the next century, when we find on the list of professors at Bologna such names as those of Malpighi, the greatest mind in the medical sciences of the seventeenth century, and his colleague Fracassati, who, though over-shrouded by Malpighi, still claims a prominent place in the history of medicine. Bologna has a special feature of medical development to its credit which, because of its importance for science in general as well as for medicine, deserves to be mentioned here. During the century after the Popes became the rulers of the city scientific societies were founded here, and as the professors and [{246}] students of the medical school were also the most interested in science in general, the membership of these societies was largely made up of individuals connected with the medical school. A special society for the cultivation of anatomical knowledge, the first of its kind ever founded, was established in Bologna scarcely more than a century after the city came under the Papal dominion. It was called the Coro Anatomico, or anatomical choir, and had at first only nine members. Among these, however, were such distinguished men as Malpighi, Fracassati, Capponi, and Massari, to the last of whom the initiative of the foundation of the society is said to have been due. Bologna was noted during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries for the number of foreign students of medicine who were attracted to its hospitable medical school and who carried the tradition of science for its own sake, so characteristic of this Papal Medical School, to all parts of the world.
After this consideration of the relation of the Popes to medical science during many centuries when medicine practically included all the physical sciences, it may seem utterly inexplicable to any fair-minded person that the tradition of the opposition of the Popes to science and scientific educational development should have apparently become a commonplace in history. This will not be a surprise, however, to those who know how perversive and influential has been the Protestant tradition which from the beginning of the sixteenth century has devoted itself to blackening the reputation of the Church, the Popes, and Catholic ecclesiastics generally. Nowhere is this more true than in history as written for English-speaking people. Those who left the old Church and their immediate descendants, justified their [{247}] withdrawal to themselves as well as others, by taking every possible excuse and inventing every possible pretext, to show how unworthy of their continued allegiance the old Church had been. The point of view thus assumed was taken quite seriously by succeeding generations, until at length a whole body of historical traditions, utterly unfounded in fact, accumulated, especially in England, where it must be remembered that for several centuries Catholics were not in a position to impugn and eradicate it. This unfortunate state of affairs, and not real opposition on the part of the Popes to science, is the source of the tradition with regard to the supposed opposition between the Church and science.
THE FOUNDATION OF CITY HOSPITALS.
Probably the most important work that the Popes did for medical science in the Middle Ages was their encouragement of the development of a hospital system throughout Christianity. The story of this movement is not only interesting because it represents a coordination of social effort for the relief of suffering humanity, but also because it represents the provision of opportunities for the study of disease and the skilled care of the ailing such as can come in no other way. Those who are familiar with the history of medicine, and especially of surgery, know that a great period of progress in these departments came during the thirteenth century. The next two centuries indeed represent an epoch of surgical advance such as was probably never surpassed and only equalled by the last century. This seems much to say of a medieval century 700 years ago, but our chapter on surgery will, I think, amply justify the assertion. The reasons for this great development in surgical knowledge are properly understood only when we come to realize that there was a corresponding development in hospital organization. These two features of medicine always go hand in hand. The hospitals, as might be expected, preceded the surgical development, and owed their great progress at this time mainly to the Popes.
The city hospital as we have it at the present time, that is, the public institution meant for the reception of those suffering from accidents, from acute diseases of various kinds, and also for providing shelter for those [{249}] who have become ill and have no friends to take care of them, is an establishment dating from the beginning of the thirteenth century. It will doubtless be a surprise to most people to be told that the modern world owes this beneficent institution to the fatherly watchfulness, the kindly foresight, and the very practical charity of one of the greatest of the Popes, whose name is usually associated with ambitious schemes for making the Papacy a great political power in Europe, rather than as the prime mover in what was probably the most far-reaching good work of supreme social significance that was ever accomplished.