uries. These are so few, however, that it
would seem that if they represented the only opportunities afforded
for dissection, then the development of anatomy must have been much
hampered.

With regard to this, it may be said that if the Popes gave permission
for dissection, then this practice was not forbidden by them. Here is
the proof of it out of the mouths of those who say the opposite. Why
should a permission be necessary, however, will be asked?

At the present moment such formal permissions are required quite as
much in all civilized countries as they were during the Middle Ages.
In certain parts of the United States a bond has to be filed by
applicants before permission to dissect will be given. Dissection is
recognized generally as a practice that needs definite regulation.
Without such regulation all sorts of abuses {52} would creep in.
During the Middle Ages popular feeling was all against dissection. It
was difficult, in many places, for the university authorities to
obtain permission for dissection from their immediate political
rulers. As a consequence of this they reverted to the theory, very
generally accepted at that time, that the university was independent
of the political authorities of the place in which it was situated, in
educational matters, and an appeal was made directly to the
ecclesiastical authorities for permission to dissect, as coming under
their jurisdiction in education. They had thus obtained many other
educational privileges that would not have been allowed them by
municipalities, and they were successful also in this. Anyone who
knows the details of the struggle of the universities to maintain the
rights of their students and faculties against the encroachments of
municipal and state authorities, will appreciate how much this
possibility of appeal to the Pope meant for the universities of that
time.

The permission to dissect was only another, but a very striking
example, of ecclesiastical authority granting privileges to
universities beyond those which they could have obtained from the
local governments under which they existed. Such permissions, far from
showing that the Popes were hampering or prohibiting dissection,
prove, on the contrary, that they were securing for educational
institutions what local popular prejudice would not have allowed them.
That this is the proper way to view this question will be best
appreciated by a review of the history of anatomy during the two