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—uroscopists, Paracelsists, Jews, calf-doctors, executioners, crystallomancers (a class of people—chiefly Italian—who sought after crystals), mountebanks, vagrants, magicians, exorcists, monsters, rat-catchers, jugglers, and gypsies. Veterinary physicians were also at that time included in this class.
Anatomy was now studied more from human bodies, and was authorized by statute. This was especially the case in non-German institutions, to which for this reason students flocked in great numbers. In Dresden, so early as 1617, there was a dissecting-room in which stuffed birds, at that time a great rarity, and similar curiosities were preserved. The study of anatomy was at a low ebb in Germany; so that when Rolfink, in 1629, arranged at Jena, which was then the most popular German university, for two public dissections upon executed malefactors, it was considered such an event that the very highest authorities were present. But the peasantry took such fright at this occurrence that for a long time afterward they watched their cemeteries by night lest the corpses should be dug up and, as they said, "Rolfinked." Vienna did not possess a skeleton until 1658. Strassburg obtained one of a male in 1671, and several years later one of a female. In Edinburgh an anatomical theatre was first erected in 1697 in Surgeons' Hall. It is worthy of remark that anatomical plates, designed to be lifted off in layers, existed even at this period. About the middle of this century there arose a dispute at the bedside of the Margrave of Baden, between two learned professors and the regular court physician, whether a plaster to be applied over the patient's heart should be placed in the middle of the chest, according to Galen, or upon the left side. The dispute was settled by opening, before the eyes of the noble patient, a hog, by means of which it was demonstrated that, as a matter of fact, the heart of the hog lay on the left side. So convinced was his excellency that he dismissed the ordinary physician, who had held a contrary opinion as to the position of a nobleman's heart.
The general barbarity and immorality of this century were conspicuous, especially among the upper classes, and by its close had spread from France, became naturalized in both Germany and Italy, and extended even to the universities, their professors, and their students. The life of the latter during this period was more vulgar and rude than ever before, and almost more so than ever since. Pennalism—that is to say, barbarity toward junior students—became unbounded, so that outbreaks occurred even during lectures. At last the State authorities were compelled to interfere. Student outrages were very frequent and often fatal, and their outbursts were disgraceful in the extreme.
Only in France was instruction in surgery well regulated, for this was the only country which possessed a proper surgical college. Practical instruction was imparted to mid wives—in Paris through a special institution, in Germany through the Midwives' Guild; the barbers, too, continued to receive instruction from their guilds; while instruction in pharmacy was given by the master-apothe-caries, too often dogmatically and even farcically, serving as objects for the keen satire of Molière. The expenses of graduation were very great, and the ceremonies sometimes lasted two days.
In another way this same seventeenth century might be characterized as one of aggrandizement for physicians,—that is, as one during which their position was improved in the eyes of the public and better supported by the State. The physicians proper—the "medici pitri"—were still persons of the profoundest gravity, with fur-trained robes, perukes, canes, and swords, when matters were prosperous, who for their lives would do nothing more than write prescriptions in formal style, everything else being considered beneath their dignity,—even as they affect in England to*day. They demanded to be called in every case, however, even though they knew nothing about it, claiming that only by means of their presence could things certainly go right. Nevertheless, in dangerous cases—for example, during the plague—they left the surgeons alone, while they looked upon the sick through the windows. In spite of this, however, they were generally esteemed and often sought for, as well in public as in private. Some of them were supplied with large libraries by their patrons or through their positions under the government, and most of them enjoyed moderate prosperity. Their pay was, for the most part, regulated in accordance with a definite tariff, while the State gradually cut down the doctor's honorarium to the pay of a day-laborer. During that century a certain physician to a countess in Munich received $25 as his annual stipend. For being present at a post-mortem and rendering an opinion thereon, each physician received $1.75. Surgeons who were zealous and eager were always highly esteemed; they were often better educated, in many respects, because of their extensive travels; but the social emancipation of the surgeons was not completed until the eighteenth century. About this time amputation of the arm was supposed to be worth 31 marks ($7.75); of the leg, 41 marks; or, if a patient died, half this price. Lithotomy cost 51 marks, or half of that if the patient died. For cataract operation on one eye the surgeon received 17 marks; for a like operation on both eyes, 25 marks.
We find in medicine, as in other branches of knowledge, that each succeeding century presents its added quota of imperishable facts, making it still more important than its predecessor. We may say that the fifteenth century had prepared the way for a reforming idealism which was the principal characteristic of the sixteenth; and that in the seventeenth century the realistic reaction against this same idealism showed itself in the church and the State by struggles against constituted authority, and in medical science by the domination of inductive philosophy. The idealism of the eighteenth century was not reformative and humanistic, but revolutionary and humanitarian. The unsettled character of the century's events may be charged, in some degree, to the American and French revolutions, with their interpretation (and their attempted attainment) of the so-called "rights of man." The masses were now supposed to be released, and philosophers created new doctrines, which had a greater influence upon the times than ever had philosophical doctrines before. Rousseau, for instance, aroused a revolution in politics and education, while skeptics and materialists alike strove for general enlightenment, which was sadly needed. Among the higher classes extravagance and immorality prevailed extensively, among the lower classes poverty and ignorance. In Germany the rulers even sold their subjects, as when Hesse-Cassel sold to the English seventeen hundred mercenary soldiers, and other States sold smaller numbers. A criminal code, published in 1769, contained seventeen copper-plate engravings, illustrating various methods of torture. A physician was always present when torture was inflicted, to see that the victim's sufferings were not greater than he could bear. This inhuman mode of eliciting testimony was last practiced in Europe in 1869, in the Swiss Canton of Zug. Popular education was a myth, and the children of bondmen were not permitted to learn. No wonder the French revolution was hailed with joy along the Rhine, where it swept away at once and forever the petty rulers, abbots, and bishops, who were the "bloodsuckers" of the people. The numerous wars of the century had no great influence upon the development of medicine, except in the direction of surgery.
The eighteenth century was revolutionary also in the introduction of freedom of religious thought, so that clerical physicians disappeared entirely from the ranks, save a few who officiated as lithotomists, like Frère Come, or as oculists, like Wrabetz, the latter of whom was even a professor in Prague.
This was the century, too, of Leibnitz and Kant, of Linnæus and Lavoisier, as well as of Bach, Haydn, Beethoven, and Goethe. During it the most conspicuous services in nearly all branches of learning were rendered by the Germans, instead of by the Italians and English, as during' the preceding century. In fact, Germany was then at the zenith of her glory, and supplied an impulse for all other nations.