Harvey's case is a lively picture of what happened to Vesalius the century before in Italy, which we have already discussed at length in the chapter on the Golden Age of Anatomy. President White insists that this persecution was due to ecclesiastical opposition to dissection, but of this there is not a trace to be found. Dissection was carried on with perfect freedom at all of the Italian universities, though they were all under ecclesiastical influence, and in none was there more freedom than in the Papal University of Rome, at the [{399}] very time when Vesalius was doing his work in Northern Italy. At this time, too, Bologna was famous for its work in anatomy. Berengar of Carpi did a very large number of dissections, though Bologna was at the moment a Papal city and the University was directly under the Popes.
It is clear, then, that the opposition to Vesalius arose entirely from the conservatism of fellow scientists in medicine, who thought that what had been taught for many hundreds of years in the universities, and had been accepted by men quite as good as Vesalius or any of their generation for over a thousand years, must surely be nearer absolute truth than what this young investigator wished them to accept. It is scarcely to be wondered that they resented, as men always do, what must have seemed the intrusive rashness of this young medical student, who was not yet thirty when he began to claim the right to teach his teachers, and who wanted to tell them that the medical world had all been wrong not only for many years, but for many centuries, and that he had been born to set them right. This is, after all, the attitude of mind which naturally develops in these cases, and it is no wonder that the old men use whatever means they have in their power to prevent rash young men from leading, as they think, the world astray.
The cases of Harvey and Vesalius are by no means exceptional, nor was the opposition limited to England and Italy, but examples of it may be found in every country in Europe. Nor was it only with regard to anatomy and anatomical discoveries and problems that such opposition manifested itself. In this matter the story of Servetus is very interesting. He made some new discoveries in anatomy, but these had nothing to do with the bitter opposition which some of his ideas encountered in Paris, quite apart from any question of theology or religion. We do not know just when he discovered the circulation in the lungs, which he described so clearly in the volume on the renewal of Christianity, for which he was burned at Geneva by Calvin. While at the University of Paris, he had been mainly occupied with the department of therapeutics rather than of anatomy or physiology. He had suggested especially certain changes in the mode of [{400}] giving drugs. He had much to do with the general introduction of syrups to replace more nauseating preparations of medicine. He was probably the first one to realize that elegant prescribing, that is, the choice of drugs and their combination in such a way as to make them less unpleasant to the patient, was a consummation eminently to be desired in medical practice. His ideas on this subject met, as novelties always do, no matter how good in themselves, with the most rancorous opposition. Factions were formed in the University. There were riots in the streets. Students were wounded in the fights which took place. Some even were killed apparently. All this over the question whether medicine as given to patients should be pleasant or unpleasant.
As we have had examples from England, France and Italy, we may quote one from the Netherlands. We do so only to emphasize the fact that everywhere, no matter what the character of the people, nor the religion which they happened to profess, their conservatism set them in opposition at once to novelties in science. England was Protestant in Harvey's time, and the Netherlands mainly so at the period of which we are about to speak.
When Stensen, or as he is more familiarly known by his Latin name, Steno, discovered and announced the fact that the heart is a muscle, he was looked upon with very much the same suspicion as to his sanity as Harvey, a half-century before, when the great English physiologist proclaimed the circulation of the blood, and such suspicions were rather openly expressed by those who were too conservative to accept this new teaching. The heart had been considered, not figuratively as we now speak, but seriously and very literally, as the seat of the emotions. Over and over again, all men had had the experience that in times of emotional stress the heart was disturbed. They could feel their emotions welling up from their hearts, therefore there was no doubt in their minds of the truth of the old teaching. Into the midst of this perfectly harmonious concord of scientific opinion, without a dissenting voice anywhere in the world, comes a young man not yet twenty-five, who almost sacrilegiously declares that the heart is merely a muscle and not a secreter of emotions. Fortunately for him, he was of gentler disposition than most of the other [{401}] men who have had the independence of mind to make discoveries, and so no very bitter opposition was aroused against him. He was considered too harmless to be taken very seriously, but at least when the announcement first came, most of those who knew anything about medicine, or thought they did, and this is much more serious in these cases, recognized that young Stensen had somehow allowed himself to be led astray into a very foolish notion, and one that could only emanate from a mind not quite capable of realizing truth as it was; and they did not hesitate to say so.
After this Stensen found the Netherlands quite an unsympathetic place for his studies, and so moved down into Italy, where he could find more freedom of thought for research and more appreciation, and continue his original investigations with less scorn for his new discoveries. Here he continued to hit upon original ideas that were likely to make things quite uncomfortable for him, not because of religious intolerance, but because of the more or less hide-bound conservatism that always characterizes mediocre minds. Far from coming into disrespect here, however, he acquired many and very close friends. He laid the foundation of modern geology and wrote a little book that is a very wonderful anticipation of supposedly nineteenth century ideas in that science. He had come down into Italy a Protestant, having been raised in that religion in his native Denmark. He found so much of sympathy with every phase of intellectual activity among the ecclesiastics in Italy, that he not only became a convert to Catholicity, but after a time a Catholic priest. His reputation spread to Rome, and the Pope not only sent for and received this innovator in anatomy and the founder of geology very courteously, but treated him with every mark of appreciation, and this within a half a century after Galileo's condemnation. Stensen eventually went back to Northern Europe as a bishop, in the hope of being able to convert to Catholicity those among the Teutonic nations who had been led away during the religious revolt.
It might be thought that such examples of persecution were of course rather frequent in the distant centuries, and must not be taken too seriously, since they come in times before men had learned to respect one another's [{402}] opinions and to realize that the assertions of an authority in science are only to be considered as worth the reasons he advances for them. Most people will be quite ready to congratulate themselves on the fact that our modern time has outlived this unfortunate state of mind, which served to hamper scientific investigation. They will probably even be quite self-complacent over the supposed fact that, ever since the study of natural science was taken up seriously at the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century, this unfortunate temper has disappeared. Those who think so, however, know nothing of the history of nineteenth century science, and especially not of nineteenth century medicine. Jenner's great discovery of the value of vaccination against small-pox came just before the nineteenth century opened. It met with the bitterest kind of opposition. This was especially the case in England. There is a doubt whether Germany did not eventually do more to bring about the recognition of the immense value of Jenner's discovery than his native England. Anyone who has read Jenner's life knows how much he was made to suffer from the bitterness of opponents' expressions with regard to him. [Footnote 46] It is true that he was eventually rewarded quite liberally, and that honors were showered upon him, but only after a preliminary series of trials that must have made him regret, if possible, that he had ever devoted himself to the propaganda of a great truth. Nor did the dawn of the vaunted nineteenth century bring in a better state of affairs in this regard.
[Footnote 46: See my sketch of his life in Makers of Modern Medicine. Fordham University Press, N. Y., 1907.]
It might perhaps be thought that this almost constant tendency to oppose new developments in science was not recognized for what it really is, the ultra-conservatism of human nature as men grow older, until comparatively modern times. Anyone who knows some of the intimate details of the history of medicine is sure to be better informed in this matter, and to be well aware that, like Harvey, most discoverers in medicine anticipated this opposition. Usually they have had no experience of it before, but they realize from the way men [{403}] think around them, and very probably also from their own prompt reaction of opposition to whatever is novel, that men are sure to be ready to oppose the introduction of whatever is new. One of the quietest, gentlest and most lovable characters among the geniuses in medicine was Auenbrugger, who, in Vienna, about 150 years ago, discovered the method of percussion of the chest, which is so helpful in the diagnosis of chest diseases. He perfected his discovery when he was a young man of about 25. He did not publish it until he was nearly 40 years of age. Like Harvey, he waited nearly a score of years before giving it to the world. The reason for the delay is given in the preface in the following words:
"I foresee very well that I shall encounter no little opposition to my views, and I put my invention before the public with that anticipation. I realize, however, that envy and blame and even hatred and calumny have never failed to come to men who have illuminated art or science by their discoveries or have added to their perfection. I expect to have to submit to this danger myself, but I think that no one will be able to call any of my observations to account. I have written only what I have myself learned by personal observation over and over again, and what my senses have taught me during long hours of work and toil. I have never permitted myself to add or subtract anything from my observations because of the seductions of preconceived theory."