e Church to medical science. Without these
two presumably solid pillars of actual Papal documents, what is said
with regard to the Church and its relations to medical science in the
Middle Ages amounts to very little. Much is made of the existence of
superstitions in medicine as characteristic of the Middle Ages and as
encouraged by clergymen, but medical superstitions of many kinds
continue to have their hold on even the intelligent classes down to
the present day in spite of the progress of education, and in
countries where the Church has very little influence over the people.
Dr. White quotes with great confidence and absolute assurance a Papal
decree issued in the year 1300 by Pope Boniface VIII., which forbade
the mutilation of the human body and consequently hampered all
possibility of progress in anatomy for {30} several important
centuries in the history of modern science. Indeed, this supposed
Papal prohibition of dissection is definitely stated to have precluded
all opportunity for the proper acquisition of anatomical knowledge
until the first half of the sixteenth century, when the Golden Age of
modern anatomy set in. This date being coincident with the spread of
the movement known as the Protestant Reformation, many people at once
conclude that somehow the liberality of spirit that then came into the
world, and is supposed at least to have put an end to all intolerance,
must have been the active factor in this development of anatomy, and
that, as Dr. White has indeed declared, it was only because the Church
was forced from her position of opposition that anatomical
investigation was allowed.

Since so serious an accusation is founded on a definite Papal
document, it cannot but be a matter of surprise that those who have
cited it so confidently as forbidding anatomy, and especially
dissection, have never given the full text of the document. It is
practically impossible for the ordinary reader, or even for the
serious student of the history of medicine, to obtain a copy of this
decree unless he has special library facilities at his command and the
help of those who are familiar with this class of documents. Many
references have been made to this prohibition by Pope Boniface VIII.,
but no one has thought it worth while to give, even in a footnote, the
text of it. The reason for this is easy to understand as soon as one
reads the actual text. It has nothing to say at all with regard to
dissection. It has absolu