Nor were the two men associates only in their studies; they were fellows also in the untoward fate that befel them both in after life; for both may be said to have fallen victims to their zeal. Somewhat precipitate, we may presume, in his eagerness for information, the heart of a young nobleman who had died under his care and whose body Vesalius was inspecting, was either seen to palpitate, or was thought to have palpitated, when touched by the knife of the anatomist. Accused forthwith of murder, it was only by the interference of Philip II. of Spain, whose physician Vesalius was, that a formal trial for manslaughter was commuted for a pilgrimage to Jerusalem with confession and absolution at the shrine of the Holy Sepulchre. The penance was undergone, but the pilgrim, homeward bound, suffered shipwreck on the island of Crete, and perished miserably there. Servetus again, as we shall see, in his eagerness to proclaim what he believed to be the truth, and given no chance for his life, had to abide the still more cruel death of the faggot and stake.
Joannes Guinterus, it is interesting to know, bears honourable testimony to the merits of his two assistants. In the preface to his ‘Anatomical Institutions’ he informs us that ‘he had been most effectually aided in the preparation of the work, first by Andrea Vesalius, a young man, by Hercules! singularly proficient in anatomy; and after him by Michael Villanovanus, distinguished by his literary acquirements of every kind, and scarcely second to any in his knowledge of Galenical doctrine. Under the supervision and with the aid of these two,’ he continues, ‘I have myself examined in the Subject and have shown to the students the whole of the muscles, veins, arteries, and nerves, both of the extremities and internal parts of the body.’[43] From this we learn whence Servetus had the anatomical knowledge that enabled him as inductive reasoner—true forerunner here of our own immortal Harvey—to proclaim the pulmonary circulation.
The practice of dissecting the human subject had therefore, by this time, extended to France—the bodies of one or more malefactors being now publicly anatomised in the course of each winter session.[44] Had we no other evidence of the genius with which Michael Servetus was endowed, beyond the use he made of what he saw in these anatomical demonstrations, we should still feel entitled to speak of him as the most far-sighted physiologist of his age; for he alone of all his contemporaries, though fettered by the prevalent metaphysical theories of life, the soul and the spirits, from which we ourselves have not yet escaped, not only divined, but positively proclaimed the passage of the blood, by way of the lungs, from the right to the left side of the heart, and thence—but stopping short of the whole truth, first proclaimed by Harvey—from the left ventricle of the heart to the body at large. But the book in which his important Induction is contained, though printed in his lifetime, was never published. Seen by none but a few theologians, who took no note of its physiological contents, it remained unknown to the world for nearly a century and a half, after its author had fallen a victim to the hate of Calvin and the intolerance of his age.
With the stimulus of necessity upon him, for he was poor, and the excitement of vanity, with which he was largely endowed, as he could not live on the learning he imbibed from his teachers, Servetus by-and-by appeared before the world as a teacher in his turn. Having by diligence and superior natural capacity, in a singularly short space of time, achieved the degrees of M.A. and M.D., which were required before he could present himself either as Professor or Physician within the domain of the University of Paris, Servetus now came forward as a Lecturer on the Geography of Ptolemy and the science of Astrology—a term which then included the true doctrine of the heavenly bodies as well as the false doctrine of their presumed influence on the life of man and the current of events in the world. In this bold step we have another glimpse of the self-reliant, and it may be, somewhat presumptuous, character of the man; for even as the emancipated novice of the monk’s school and Saragossan professors, when little more than of age, showed himself as Theologian in the ‘De Erroribus Trinitatis,’ so did the newly becapped Magister Artium now come forward as Lecturer on Geography and Astrology, and the scarce fledged doctor in physic, as a teacher of his fellows and the world at large, in the art and mystery of treating Disease.
The course of Lectures on Geography and Astrology was a happy thought, and proved highly successful. It was delivered to a large and distinguished audience, and besides supplying the professor with funds for all his wants, became a means of introducing him to friends, influential for good on his future life. Amongst the number of his auditors there was a young ecclesiastic, a scholar and man of talent, Pierre Paumier, who after employment in various offices of trust by his king, Francis the First, was transferred to a position of no less dignity and emolument than that of Archbishop of Vienne in Dauphiny.
Under the auspices of the Archbishop, and as we believe on his invitation, it was that Servetus found a final resting place by his side. Fresh from editing Ptolemy, with the old stores of classic lore he had at command, and of anecdote and general information he had amassed in reading up for his editorial duties, aided by the natural fluency with which we venture to credit him, it is easy to imagine how interesting these Lectures must have been in days when the world was eager for information on the discoveries of the great voyagers and travellers of the age, and when books were still both scarce and costly, and little read by the many.
But Servetus was a Physician as well as Geographer and Astrologer, and not the man to hide any light he had under a bushel. He must appear in connection with his profession, as well as in the accessory field of general knowledge, by writing a book upon some properly medical subject, a business which he set about forthwith under the immediate inspiration of all he had learned from Dr. Champier of Lyons, as well as his professors of Paris.
CHAPTER XI.
THE TREATISE ON SYRUPS AND THEIR USE IN MEDICINE.[45]
The medical world in the early part of the sixteenth century was divided into two great hostile camps, respectively designated Galenists, or followers of the Greeks, and Averrhoists, or disciples of the Arabians; the former swearing by Hippocrates and Galen, the latter by Averrhoes and Avicenna. Servetus’s initiator into matters medical, Champier, was a fervent admirer of the Greeks; and his pupil, led by his classical training as well as his master’s example, naturally attached himself to the same school. Here, nevertheless, as ever, he showed the independence of his nature by having open eyes for any truth the Arabian writers might present; so that we find nothing of servility or one-sidedness in what he has to say.