that had been made
by Vesalius and others of the preceding generation. He confirmed
Columbus's discoveries at Rome with regard to the course which the
blood follows in passing from the right to the left side of the heart,
and made many important additions to the knowledge of the anatomical
relations of the cavities of the heart, the valves, and the great
blood vessels. There are a number of important structures in the brain
which owe their names to him, and his descriptions of them are better,
according to Prof. Turner, than those of other anatomists for a
century after his time.

The tradition of great teachers thus carried on during the first
century after the absorption of Bologna into the Papal States,
continued uninterruptedly in the next century, when we find on the
list of professors at Bologna such names as those of Malpighi, the
greatest mind in the medical sciences of the seventeenth century, and
his colleague Fracassati, who, though over-shrouded by Malpighi, still
claims a prominent place in the history of medicine. Bologna has a
special feature of medical development to its credit which, because of
its importance for science in general as well as for medicine,
deserves to be mentioned here. During the century after the Popes
became the rulers of the city scientific societies were founded here,
and as the professors and {246} students of the medical school were
also the most interested in science in general, the membership of
these societies was largely made up of individuals connected with the
medical school. A special society for the cultivation of anatomical
knowledge, the first of its kind ever founded, was established in
Bologna scarcely more than a century after the city came under the
Papal dominion. It was called the Coro Anatomico, or anatomical choir,
and had at first only nine members. Among these, however, were such
distinguished men as Malpighi, Fracassati, Capponi, and Massari, to
the last of whom the initiative of the foundation of the society is
said to have been due. Bologna was noted during the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries for the number of foreign students of medicine
who were attracted to its hospitable medical school and who carried
the tradition of science for its own sake, so characteristic of this
Papal Medical School, to all parts of the world.

After this consideration of the relation of the Popes to medical
science during many centuries when medicine practically included