rcotic and that in practically all cases where it is used regularly,
even though not consumed to excess, it produces definite pathological
changes in human tissues.

With this list before him, the reader will have all the material
necessary to understand the declaration that there is no series of men
whose names are connected together by any bond in the history of
medicine, even as members of the faculty of our oldest medical
schools, that represent so much achievement and original investigation
in medical matters as the Papal Physicians. With these men beside them
as advisers and very often as intimate friends, it would have been
quite impossible for the Popes to have been deliberate opponents of
scientific progress. We all know that by a curious irony of fate
physicians are sometimes found ranged against the line of advance in
medical science, but this is inevitable with human frailty and the
incidents of opposition have not done nearly so much harm as their
conservative refusal to listen to enthusiastic discoverers, whose
discovery was of no significance, has done of {468} good. No medical
society in the world has an unblemished record of constant readiness
to accept genuine new discoveries and all of them have sometime or
other been in opposition to what proved eventually to be significant
scientific progress. There are no striking incidents in the lives of
the Papal Physicians in this regard though their admiration for
Aristotle, Hippocrates and Galen sometimes kept them over
conservative. As a rule, however, they were ready to welcome every new
step in medical advance that was made.

We all know how much a man's physician usually means in influencing
him with regard to the attitude that he shall assume towards
scientific advances generally and particularly announced progress in
the biological sciences. The Popes could scarcely have had better
advisers in this matter than the men who were actually chosen as Papal
Physicians. They came from every part of Italy and sometimes even from
other countries. A library consisting of their works alone would
contain an extremely valuable collection of books illustrating nearly
every phase of advance in medicine.

{469}

APPENDIX VI.

ASTRONOMY AND THE CHURCH.

_Some Roman Astronomers_.

A formal list of Papal Astronomers in any way comparable to that of
the Papal Physicians cannot be given. Astronomy is not so compelling
in its interests as medicine and while man's