in opinion on the subject
was probably due to sophistication, or to the importation of other and
inert barks. It was well into the eighteenth century before its virtues
were universally acknowledged. The tree itself was not described until
1738, and Linnaeus established the genus "Chinchona" in honor of the
Countess.(1)

(1) Clements R. Markham: Peruvian Bark, John Murray, London,
1880; Memoir of the Lady Anna di Osoria, Countess of Chinchona
and Vice-Queen of Peru, 1874.

A step in advance followed the objective study of the changes wrought in
the body by disease. To a few of these the anatomists had already called
attention. Vesalius, always keen in his description of aberrations from
the normal, was one of the first to describe internal aneurysm. The
truth is, even the best of men had little or no appreciation of the
importance of the study of these changes. Sydenham scoffs at the value
of post-mortems.

Again we have to go back to Italy for the beginning of these studies,
this time to Florence, in the glorious days of Lorenzo the Magnificent.
The pioneer now is not a professor but a general practitioner, Antonio
Benivieni, of whom we know very little save that he was a friend of
Marsilio Ficino and of Angelo Poliziano, and that he practiced in
Florence during the last third of the fifteenth century, dying in 1502.
Through associations with the scholars of the day, he had become a
student of Greek medicine and he was not only a shrewd and accurate
observer of nature but a bold and successful practitioner. He had formed
the good habit of making brief notes of his more important cases, and
after his death these were found by his brother Jerome and published in
1507.(2) This book has a rare value as the record of the experience of
an unusually intelligent practitioner of the period. There are in all
111 observations, most of them commendably brief. The only one of any
length deals with the new "Morbus Gallicus," of which, in the short
period between its appearance and Benivieni's death, he had seen enough
to leave a very accurate description; and it is interesting to note that
even in those early days mercury was employed for its cure. The surgical
cases are of exceptional interest, and No. 38 refers to a case of angina
for which he performed a successful operation. This is supposed to have
been a tracheotomy, and if so, it is the first in the fourteen centuries
that had elapsed since the days of Ant