Servetus and Calvin. Robert Willis
the students the whole of the muscles, veins, arteries, and nerves, both of the extremities and internal parts of the body.’43 From this we learn whence Servetus had the anatomical knowledge that enabled him as inductive reasoner—true forerunner here of our own immortal Harvey—to proclaim the pulmonary circulation.
The practice of dissecting the human subject had therefore, by this time, extended to France—the bodies of one or more malefactors being now publicly anatomised in the course of each winter session.44 Had we no other evidence of the genius with which Michael Servetus was endowed, beyond the use he made of what he saw in these anatomical demonstrations, we should still feel entitled to speak of him as the most far-sighted physiologist of his age; for he alone of all his contemporaries, though fettered by the prevalent metaphysical theories of life, the soul and the spirits, from which we ourselves have not yet escaped, not only divined, but positively proclaimed the passage of the blood, by way of the lungs, from the right to the left side of the heart, and thence—but stopping short of the whole truth, first proclaimed by Harvey—from the left ventricle of the heart to the body at large. But the book in which his important Induction is contained, though printed in his lifetime, was never published. Seen by none but a few theologians, who took no note of its physiological contents, it remained unknown to the world for nearly a century and a half, after its author had fallen a victim to the hate of Calvin and the intolerance of his age.
With the stimulus of necessity upon him, for he was poor, and the excitement of vanity, with which he was largely endowed, as he could not live on the learning he imbibed from his teachers, Servetus by-and-by appeared before the world as a teacher in his turn. Having by diligence and superior natural capacity, in a singularly short space of time, achieved the degrees of M.A. and M.D., which were required before he could present himself either as Professor or Physician within the domain of the University of Paris, Servetus now came forward as a Lecturer on the Geography of Ptolemy and the science of Astrology—a term which then included the true doctrine of the heavenly bodies as well as the false doctrine of their presumed influence on the life of man and the current of events in the world. In this bold step we have another glimpse of the self-reliant, and it may be, somewhat presumptuous, character of the man; for even as the emancipated novice of the monk’s school and Saragossan professors, when little more than of age, showed himself as Theologian in the ‘De Erroribus Trinitatis,’ so did the newly becapped Magister Artium now come forward as Lecturer on Geography and Astrology, and the scarce fledged doctor in physic, as a teacher of his fellows and the world at large, in the art and mystery of treating Disease.
The course of Lectures on Geography and Astrology was a happy thought, and proved highly successful. It was delivered to a large and distinguished audience, and besides supplying the professor with funds for all his wants, became a means of introducing him to friends, influential for good on his future life. Amongst the number of his auditors there was a young ecclesiastic, a scholar and man of talent, Pierre Paumier, who after employment in various offices of trust by his king, Francis the First, was transferred to a position of no less dignity and emolument than that of Archbishop of Vienne in Dauphiny.
Under the auspices of the Archbishop, and as we believe on his invitation, it was that Servetus found a final resting place by his side. Fresh from editing Ptolemy, with the old stores of classic lore he had at command, and of anecdote and general information he had amassed in reading up for his editorial duties, aided by the natural fluency with which we venture to credit him, it is easy to imagine how interesting these Lectures must have been in days when the world was eager for information on the discoveries of the great voyagers and travellers of the age, and when books were still both scarce and costly, and little read by the many.
But Servetus was a Physician as well as Geographer and Astrologer, and not the man to hide any light he had under a bushel. He must appear in connection with his profession, as well as in the accessory field of general knowledge, by writing a book upon some properly medical subject, a business which he set about forthwith under the immediate inspiration of all he had learned from Dr. Champier of Lyons, as well as his professors of Paris.
CHAPTER XI.
THE TREATISE ON SYRUPS AND THEIR USE IN MEDICINE.45
The medical world in the early part of the sixteenth century was divided into two great hostile camps, respectively designated Galenists, or followers of the Greeks, and Averrhoists, or disciples of the Arabians; the former swearing by Hippocrates and Galen, the latter by Averrhoes and Avicenna. Servetus’s initiator into matters medical, Champier, was a fervent admirer of the Greeks; and his pupil, led by his classical training as well as his master’s example, naturally attached himself to the same school. Here, nevertheless, as ever, he showed the independence of his nature by having open eyes for any truth the Arabian writers might present; so that we find nothing of servility or one-sidedness in what he has to say.
The treatise in which Villanovanus came before the public in his new capacity of physician was on the practical use of the class of medicines known in those days by the title of Syrups—sweetened decoctions or infusions of different kinds, still in vogue among the French under the name of Tisanes. These syrups appear to have been one of the bones of contention between the two parties, though neither was perfectly agreed in itself as to the indications for their use or of the principles on which they were to be prescribed. This question does not interest us here, and so we leave it; but we turn to the work of Michael Villanovanus for intimations in its style of the intellectual and moral nature of its author.
In his address to the reader he says, ‘I should not have proposed, most learned reader, to take on my weak shoulders this weighty and so much disputed province of the healing art, had I not felt me forced, against my will as it were, to lend my aid in furthering medical studies by a fair defence of Galenical doctrine, and more especially still by my love of truth. … I think it will be found that I have conciliated Galen so far with my own views as to dispel any doubts I may have had of a favourable award, if I have only an equitable judge in my reader. Of this, at all events, I feel well assured that no studious person who carefully weighs what is here set forth will repent him of his reading.’ This is not amiss from a Doctor of a year’s standing! But it is in his Preface to the work that Michael Villanovanus, as we apprehend him, comes still more particularly before us. Aware, as he says, of the fate that so often befals the meddler in a quarrel not his own, and displaying a commendable amount of caution, not without a spice of mock modesty, our author is here considerate enough to tell us that ‘he does not intend to offer himself as censor in the controversy, between the Galenists and Averrhoists, and by finding something to object to in the conclusions of each, to have them both fall foul of him as an enemy;’ after which he proceeds, characteristically still, to say, ‘but that I may not withhold from others that which I possess myself and gratefully acknowledge, which may be of use to my fellow men, I throw aside fear and proclaim what I believe to be the truth.’
The ‘Syruporum Universa Ratio,’ or general Rationale of Syrups, is in truth a very learned little book, extremely well written; much of it, as becomes the young practitioner, having reference to the writings of predecessors of the highest authority in medical science. Hippocrates and Galen, above all others, are freely quoted, and their views discussed, for Servetus was ‘nothing if not critical,’ and a variorum reading or two to show his scholarship is proposed. But he also refers to Avicenna, not thinking it amiss to learn of the enemy, and to Paul of Aegina, Monardus and others, by which he proclaims the extent of his reading, and his readiness to imbibe knowledge at every source.
I looked with interest for some physiological hint or statement in this book, on Syrups or Diet drinks, that might have heralded the brilliant exposition contained in the latest product of his genius—the Christianismi Restitutio or Restoration of Christianity—concerning the way in which the blood from the right reaches the left ventricle of the heart through the lungs, but in vain. We must presume nevertheless that he was already possessed of the anatomical facts on which his later induction is founded. The only physiological reference I discovered in the book on Syrups was to the Mesentery as giving origin to the veins—a step in advance