r power to
prevent rash young men from leading, as they think, the world astray.

The cases of Harvey and Vesalius are by no means exceptional, nor was
the opposition limited to England and Italy, but examples of it may be
found in every country in Europe. Nor was it only with regard to
anatomy and anatomical discoveries and problems that such opposition
manifested itself. In this matter the story of Servetus is very
interesting. He made some new discoveries in anatomy, but these had
nothing to do with the bitter opposition which some of his ideas
encountered in Paris, quite apart from any question of theology or
religion. We do not know just when he discovered the circulation in
the lungs, which he described so clearly in the volume on the renewal
of Christianity, for which he was burned at Geneva by Calvin. While at
the University of Paris, he had been mainly occupied with the
department of therapeutics rather than of anatomy or physiology. He
had suggested especially certain changes in the mode of {400} giving
drugs. He had much to do with the general introduction of syrups to
replace more nauseating preparations of medicine. He was probably the
first one to realize that elegant prescribing, that is, the choice of
drugs and their combination in such a way as to make them less
unpleasant to the patient, was a consummation eminently to be desired
in medical practice. His ideas on this subject met, as novelties
always do, no matter how good in themselves, with the most rancorous
opposition. Factions were formed in the University. There were riots
in the streets. Students were wounded in the fights which took place.
Some even were killed apparently. All this over the question whether
medicine as given to patients should be pleasant or unpleasant.

As we have had examples from England, France and Italy, we may quote
one from the Netherlands. We do so only to emphasize the fact that
everywhere, no matter what the character of the people, nor the
religion which they happened to profess, their conservatism set them
in opposition at once to novelties in science. England was Protestant
in Harvey's time, and the Netherlands mainly so at the period of which
we are about to speak.

When Stensen, or as he is more familiarly known by his Latin name,
Steno, discovered and announced the fact that the heart is a muscle,
he was looked upon with very much the same suspicion as to his sanity
as Harvey, a half-century before, when the