The Popes and Science

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXVI, Issue 20, 21 May 1908, Page 33

The Popes and Science

In its review of ' The Popes and Science,', an ac- . count , 4 of the papal relations to science from thfe mid- ' die ases down to the n* rietcenth century, by Dr. James Walsh, L.L.D., the ' Boston 1-ilot ' says •—

The author has told in this volume a surprising story. Nearly every one assumes, that , .the Popes were somehow o|pp©s|ad to science. Dr. Walsh shows from - _ documents and tihe most recent ' authoritative histories of science, and especially of medicine, that instead of opposing, the Po~es were as judicious and ' beneficent patrons of- science as they were of art. For seven centuries tins Papal Physicians have been the greatest medical investigators and writers of medical science, and no |other set of men connected by any bond in history, even the medical faculty of any of thedarfge Uni versa ties can compare wi Mi them in accomplishment. Thsy include the Father of Modern Surgery, the author of the first |gteat dictionary of medicine, tne author of the first treatise on gun- shot wounds, Ihe Father o f Comparative Anatomy, the discoverer of the circulation of the blood in the lunsrs, the anticipat'ar ofi Harvey ml the discovery of the systematic circulation, one of the great founders of modem clinical medicine, while tJha Father of Modern Pathology was a personal friend of four Popes and always stayed at the Papal Palace |when he visited Rome. For over two cemtJuries the Relate st Medical School -in thp world was the Papal Medical School |at Rome. Its greatest rival was at Bologna, which after 1512 was ■m the Papal States. Two other Medical Schools, Ferrara an& Perugia, were also in the Papal Dominions. Until tihe tieginming of tihe nineteenth century, Italy was fox the world, | the Mecca of graduate teaching in science just as Germany has been, for the last half-cen-tury. History has no record of Papal opposition to science # except the Galileo ease,c a sc, which was an |unforfci.nate incident, personal in character, Ibut n o t a part of a policy. The Father of Modern Geology was a • convert t 0 Catholicity, afterwards a priest, |a personal friend of the Pope, and then a Bishop. The great scientists of the Middle Ages were clergymen, and many of them were canonized a s saints. Dante is the typical University man of his time, and no poet of the modem time knew as much about science as he Hid. All the talk about Papal opposition to science has been pure assumption, founded on religious intolerance bolstered up by the |Galileo case. In spite of frequent assertions, there a re no Papal prohibitions of anatomy nor chemistry, land above all, not of surgery, which developed very wonderfully in the Middle Aiges. In- ' stead 1 , Dr. Walsh shows enlightened patronage and generous encouragement of science on the part o f the Popes.