ot only became a convert to
Catholicity, but after a time a Catholic priest. His reputation spread
to Rome, and the Pope not only sent for and received this innovator in
anatomy and the founder of geology very courteously, but treated him
with every mark of appreciation, and this within a half a century
after Galileo's condemnation. Stensen eventually went back to Northern
Europe as a bishop, in the hope of being able to convert to
Catholicity those among the Teutonic nations who had been led away
during the religious revolt.

It might be thought that such examples of persecution were of course
rather frequent in the distant centuries, and must not be taken too
seriously, since they come in times before men had learned to respect
one another's {402} opinions and to realize that the assertions of an
authority in science are only to be considered as worth the reasons he
advances for them. Most people will be quite ready to congratulate
themselves on the fact that our modern time has outlived this
unfortunate state of mind, which served to hamper scientific
investigation. They will probably even be quite self-complacent over
the supposed fact that, ever since the study of natural science was
taken up seriously at the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of
the nineteenth century, this unfortunate temper has disappeared. Those
who think so, however, know nothing of the history of nineteenth
century science, and especially not of nineteenth century medicine.
Jenner's great discovery of the value of vaccination against small-pox
came just before the nineteenth century opened. It met with the
bitterest kind of opposition. This was especially the case in England.
There is a doubt whether Germany did not eventually do more to bring
about the recognition of the immense value of Jenner's discovery than
his native England. Anyone who has read Jenner's life knows how much
he was made to suffer from the bitterness of opponents' expressions
with regard to him. [Footnote 46] It is true that he was eventually
rewarded quite liberally, and that honors were showered upon him, but
only after a preliminary series of trials that must have made him
regret, if possible, that he had ever devoted himself to the
propaganda of a great truth. Nor did the dawn of the vaunted
nineteenth century bring in a better state of affairs in this regard.

[Footnote 46: See my sketch of his life in Makers of Modern Medicine.
Fordham University Press, N. Y.