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Show -i ! Another Anti-Papal Story Refuted. "The Popes and the History of Anatomy," by James J. Walsh, Ph. D., M. I)., of the University, of Pennsylvania, , is a most valuable and interesting inter-esting article in the Messenger for October. A statement current fo'r many years, as standing stand-ing in practically all encyclopedia articles on anatomy, js that a. bull issued about 1300' by Pope Boniface VIII forbade theTnutilation-s-andVcon-,, s-eqiiently the dissection of human bodies, . and that thus for several centuries' all opportunity for truo' progress in anatomy was seriously hindered. This false inference of the supposed Papal prohibition pro-hibition of dissection has been publicly repeated in America within a few years, in Lane lectures at the Cooper Medical college in San Francisco, by Sir Michael Foster, K. C. B. and C. L., -professor physiology in the University of Cambridge. Dr. Walsh gives a most satisfactory refutation refuta-tion of the slander by setting forth the scope of the bull as understood by those to whom it was addressed, ad-dressed, aiid the fact that contemporary with it . and for centuries after, dissection of human bodies was made in the medical departments of the uni versities directly under J apal control. , . The Bull de Sepulturis was, as its title implies, im-plies, concerned with burial and not with dissection, dissec-tion, its keynote being as follows: ''Persons cutting cut-ting up the bodies of the dead, barbarously cooking cook-ing them in order that the bones, being separated from the flesh, may be carried for burial into their own countries, are by the very fact excommunicated." excommuni-cated." The entire bull is given in a footnote to Dr. Walsh's 'article. The practice condemned by the Pope had become be-come prevalent among Christians after the Crusades, Cru-sades, and is. not unlike the custom which the early Jesuit missionaries found among the Xorth American Indians, and described most graphically in their "Relations." Great anatomical discoveries were made in Bologna Bo-logna in the sixteenth century, the city being then, as it continued to be until the French revolution, a Papal city. Here Yessalius lectured. Hither Harvey Har-vey came from England to make many of the dissections dis-sections whose outcome was his, discovery of the circulation of the blood. Michael Angelo and Leonardo Leo-nardo da Vinci studied anatomy and made plates for the illustration of anatomical text-books. The University of Bologna was ihe greatest center for the teaching of anatomy in the whole world. We have given enough points from Dr. Walsh's notable no-table paper to make our readers anxious to study it in detail and admire his copious, honest and convincing references. - We may add, as further testimony to the progressive pro-gressive spiritof the University of Bologna, that its doors were opened freely to women students, and that a woman Anna Morandi Mazzolini-yonce held, by Papal appointment, a professorship of anatomy. Boston Pilot. ' |