第71章

"Know, young man, that two schools of art contend at this moment throughout Europe.The Arabian, whose ancient oracles are Avicenna, Rhazes, Albucazis; and its revivers are Chauliac and Lanfranc; and the Greek school, whose modern champions are Bessarion, Platinus, and Marsilius Ficinus, but whose pristine doctors were medicine's very oracles, Phoebus, Chiron, Aesculapius, and his sons Podalinus and Machaon, Pythagoras, Democritus, Praxagoras, who invented the arteries, and Dioctes, 'qui primus urinae animum dedit.' All these taught orally.Then came Hippocrates, the eighteenth from Aesculapius, and of him we have manuscripts; to him we owe 'the vital principle.' He also invented the bandage, and tapped for water on the chest; and above all he dissected; yet only quadrupeds, for the brutal prejudices of the pagan vulgar withheld the human body from the knife of science.Him followed Aristotle, who gave us the aorta, the largest blood-vessel in the human body.""Surely, sir, the Almighty gave us all that is in our bodies, and not Aristotle, nor any Grecian man," objected Gerard humbly.

"Child! of course He gave us the thing; but Aristotle did more, he gave us the name of the thing.But young men will still be talking.The next great light was Galen; he studied at Alexandria, then the home of science.He, justly malcontent with quadrupeds, dissected apes, as coming nearer to man, and bled like a Trojan.

Then came Theophilus, who gave us the nerves, the lacteal vessels, and the pia mater."This worried Gerard."I cannot lie still and hear it said that mortal man bestowed the parts which Adam our father took from Him, who made him of the clay, and us his sons.""Was ever such perversity?" said the doctor, his colour rising.

"Who is the real donor of a thing to man? he who plants it secretly in the dark recesses of man's body, or the learned wight who reveals it to his intelligence, and so enriches his mind with the knowledge of it? Comprehension is your only true possession.

Are you answered?"

"I am put to silence, sir."

"And that is better still; for garrulous patients are ill to cure, especially in fever; I say, then, that Eristratus gave us the cerebral nerves and the milk vessels; nay, more, he was the inventor of lithotomy, whatever you may say.Then came another whom I forget; you do somewhat perturb me with your petty exceptions.Then came Ammonius, the author of lithotrity, and here comes Hans with the basin-to stay your volubility.Blow thy chafer, boy, and hand me the basin; 'tis well.Arabians, quotha!

What are they but a sect of yesterday who about the year 1000 did fall in with the writings of those very Greeks, and read them awry, having no concurrent light of their own? for their demigod, and camel-driver, Mahound, impostor in science as in religion, had strictly forbidden them anatomy, even of the lower animals, the which he who severeth from medicine, 'tollit solem e mundo,' as Tully quoth.Nay, wonder not at my fervour, good youth; where the general weal stands in jeopardy, a little warmth is civic, humane, and honourable.Now there is settled of late in this town a pestilent Arabist, a mere empiric, who, despising anatomy, and scarce knowing Greek from Hebrew, hath yet spirited away half my patients; and I tremble for the rest.Put forth thine ankle; and thou, Hans, breathe on the chafer."Whilst matters were in this posture, in came Denys with the lemons, and stood surprised."What sport is toward?" said he, raising his brows.

Gerard coloured a little, and told him the learned doctor was going to flebotomize him and cauterize him; that was all.

"Ay! indeed; and yon imp, what bloweth he hot coals for?""What should it be for," said the doctor to Gerard, "but to cauterize the vein when opened and the poisonous blood let free?