icine included within itself most of what we now know as physical
science. Botany was studied as a branch of medicine, and as we have
seen, one of the Papal Physicians, Simon Januensis, compiled a
dictionary that a modern German Historian of Botany finds excellent.
Astrology, under which term astronomy was included, was studied for
the sake of the supposed influence of the stars on {221} men's
constitutions.--Chemistry was a branch of medical study. Mineralogy
was considered a science allied to medicine, and the use of antimony
and other metals in medicine originated with physicians trying to
extend the domain of knowledge to minerals. Comparative anatomy was
founded by a Papal Physician. These were the principal physical
sciences. To talk of opposition between science and religion, then,
with the most distinguished scientists of these centuries in friendly
personal and official relations with the Popes, is to indulge in one
of those absurdities common enough among those who must find matter
for their condemnation of the Popes and the Church, but that every
advance in modern history has pushed farther back into the rubbish
chamber of outlived traditions.

{222}

THE POPES AND MEDICAL EDUCATION AND
THE PAPAL MEDICAL SCHOOL.

After the story of the Papal Physicians, the most important phase of
the relations of the Popes to the medical sciences is to be found in
the story of the Papal Medical School. While it seems to be generally
ignored by those who are not especially familiar with the history of
medical education, a medical school existed in connection with the
Papal University at Rome during many centuries--according to excellent
authorities, from the beginning of the fourteenth century--and this
medical school had, as we have said elsewhere, during nearly two
centuries some of the most distinguished professors of medicine in its
ranks, and boasts among its faculty some of the greatest discoverers
in the medical sciences, and especially in anatomy. For these two
centuries it had but two important rivals, Padua and Bologna. Both of
these were in Italy, and one, that of the University of Bologna, was
in a Papal city, that is, was under the political dominion of the
Popes. The best medical teaching, then, was to be found in the Papal
States and under conditions such, that if there had been the slightest
opposition, or indeed anything but the most cordial encouragement for
medical study, the medical schools of Rome a