facts of the history of science, or else they are
blinding themselves for some reason to the real situation.

Fortunately students of the facts of history, especially those who
have devoted any serious attention to the history of medicine, make no
such mistake. For them it is perfectly clear that there was a
wonderful development in anatomy which took place down in Italy,
beginning about the middle of the fifteenth century or even earlier,
and which led to the provision of such opportunities for dissection
and original research in medicine, that students from all over the
world were attracted there. For instance, Professor Clifford Allbutt,
in the address on the Historical Relations of Medicine and Surgery to
the end of the Sixteenth Century, already quoted, has a passage {99}
in which, as an introduction to what he has to say about Galen, he
sums up the history of anatomy from the return of the Popes from
Avignon to Rome, which took place just about the beginning of the last
quarter of the fourteenth century, down to the time of Vesalius. This
expresses so well what I have been trying to say with regard to the
gradual development that led up to the Golden Age of Anatomy and to
Vesalius's work, that I quote it.

"Meanwhile, however, the return of the Popes to Rome (1374) and the
displacement of the Albucasis and Avicenna by the Greek texts
renewed the shriveling body of medicine, and with the help of
anatomy, Italian medicine awoke again; though until the days of
Vesalius and Harvey the renascence came rather from men of letters
than of medicine. The Arabs and Paris said: "Why dissect if you
trust Galen? _But the Italian physicians insisted on verification;
and therefore back to Italy again the earnest and clear-sighted
students flocked from all regions._ Vesalius was a young man when he
professed in Padua, yet, young or venerable, _where but in Italy
would he have won, I would not say renown, but even sufferance!_ If
normal anatomy was not directly a reformer of medicine, by way of
anatomy came morbid anatomy, as conceived by the genius of
Benivieni, of Morgagni, and of Valsalva; the galenical or humoral
doctrine of pathology was sapped, and soaring in excelsis for the
essence of disease gave place to grubbing for its roots."

A sketch of Vesalius's career will give the best possible idea of the
influences at work in science during this Golden Age of anatomical
discovery, and will at