The Origin and Growth of the Healing Art by Edward Berdoe

THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY. Revival of Human Anatomy.—Famous Physicians of the Century.—Domestic Medicine in Chaucer.—Fellowship of the Barbers and Surgeons.—The Black Death.—The Dancing Mania.—Pharmacy. REVIVAL OF HUMAN ANATOMY. Brighter days dawned for medical science after the close of the thirteenth century, up to which era the Saracenic learning prevailed. While human dissections were impossible, the sciences of anatomy and philosophy had made no advance beyond the point at which they were left by Galen, and as he dissected only animals they were necessarily left in a very imperfect state. It is not known precisely when human dissection was revived; probably the school of Salerno, under the influence of Frederick II., has a right to the honour. In 1308, however, we find the senate of Venice decreeing that a body should be dissected annually,[791] and it is known that such dissections took place at Bologna in 1300. We have, however, nothing very definite on the subject till a few years later. Italy gave birth to the first great anatomist of Europe. The father of modern anatomy was MONDINO, who taught in Bologna about the year 1315. Under his cultivation “the science first began to rise from the ashes in which it had been buried.”[792] His demonstrations of the different parts of the human body at once attracted the notice of the medical profession of Europe to the school of Bologna. He died in