ck, the
diaphragm will still continue to act--in consequence, namely, of the
origin of the phrenic nerve being _above_ the lower termination of the
neck.

Before the time of Galen the medical profession was divided into several
sects, _e.g._ Dogmatici, Empirici, Eclectici, Pneumatici, and
Episynthetici, who were always disputing with one another. After his
time all sects seem to have merged in his followers. The subsequent
Greek and Roman biological writers were mere compilers from his works,
and as soon as his writings were translated into Arabic they were at
once adopted throughout the East to the exclusion of all others. He
remained paramount throughout the civilized world until within the last
three hundred years. In the records of the College of Physicians of
England we read that Dr. Geynes was cited before the college in 1559 for
impugning the infallibility of Galen, and was only admitted again into
the privileges of his fellowship on acknowledgment of his error, and
humble recantation signed with his own hand. Kurt Sprengel has well said
that "if the physicians who remained so faithfully attached to Galen's
system had inherited his penetrating mind, his observing glance, and his
depth, the art of healing would have approached the limit of perfection
before all the other sciences; but it was written in the book of
destiny that mind and reason were to bend under the yoke of superstition
and barbarism, and were only to emerge after centuries of lethargic
sleep."

FOOTNOTES:

[16] Hence the name {theriakai}.

[17] "De Antidotis," i. 13, vol. xiv. p. 65, Kuhn.

[18] "Ex ipsius etiam Galeni verbis hanc veritatem confirmari posse,
scilicet: non solum posse sanguinem e vena arteriosa in arteriam venosam
et inde in sinistrum ventriculum cordis, et postea in arterias
transmitti."--"De Motu Cordis," cap. vii.

VESALIUS.

_VESALIUS._

The authority of Galen, at once a despotism and a religion, was scarcely
ever called in question until the sixteenth century. No attempt worth
recording was made during thirteen hundred years to extend the boundary
of scientific knowledge in anatomy and physiology. It is true that the
scholastic philosopher, Albertus Magnus, who was for a short time
(1260-1262) Bishop of Ratisbon, in the middle of the thirteenth century
wrote a "History of Animals," which was a remarkable production for the
age in which he lived; although Sir Thomas Browne, in his famous
"Enquiries i