His only contribution to medicine was to the materia medica of mercury, sulphur, and salt, without, however, giving any direction for their use, or indicating to what maladies they were applicable. The profession accepted the bequest and have found them excellent remedies for many ailments, thus justifying Cullen's epigram that "A wise man will accept a good remedy which only a fool would devise."

We know nothing in the annals of literature comparable to the exploits of Paracelsus, but the attempt of the celebrated Jean Jacques Rousseau to orchestrate a piece of music, without the least pretence of possessing a knowledge of musical harmony, but solely from his own imagination, which was, as all know, very great. His score was given to an orchestra to play, to the great amusement of that body, and the auditors. It was laughed down. Rousseau relates this story of himself in his "Confessions."

FIFTH: PERIOD OF THE RENAISSANCE

IN

CHAPTER V

MEDICINE IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY

N the beginning of the sixteenth century we find the state of learning advancing in all the countries of Europe, and England behind all the others. She had but two universities-Oxford and Cambridge. France had six; Italy sixteen; Germany eight; Spain none. Medicine was a prominent feature in all of them.

Many great and momentous events occurred in this century to distinguish it above all previous centuries, not only in medicine, but also in statecraft, civil and religious liberty. Many great men adorned this century and great progress was made in science and discovery. The Church had been

of Europe had been State was again in

rent in twain; the map changed; the power of the the ascendant over Church. It could now protect the individual guilty of heresy from being dragged off to Rome, as instanced in the previous century of the learned and pious Wycliff, whose offence consisted in making a translation-the first translation of the Bible from the Latin Vulgate into English—an event of greater importance than the

bill of Magna Charta. Nothing could have saved him for so great a crime from torture and an ignominious death of some sort, either strangulation or burning, but the timely interposition of the Duke of Lancaster, and on a subsequent occasion by the Queen mother of Richard II. The lovers of truth for its own sake had greatly increased in number since the Reformation, emboldened by contempt of the Inquisition; nevertheless, men were still imprisoned or put to death for heresy, as, for example, John Rogers, Savonarola, and Servetus.'

Among the peers of the great men of the sixteenth century stands Bruno-Giordano Brunowho, although not a physician, was yet a great physicist and worthy to be placed in the category of the illustrious. Bruno was born at Nola, in the kingdom of Sicily, in 1550. Early in his youth he joined the order of Dominican monks. His restless speculative mind did not find that kind of life agreeable, and he made his escape, visiting several states of Europe and devoting himself to philosophical studies, on which he published several works, the last of which, "Del Infinito Universo e Mondi," "On the Infinite Universe of Worlds," seemed to have brought him into conflict with Rome. The Inquisition arrested him for heresy, and sent him to Rome for trial. He was found guilty, of He was therefore burned, since he would

course.

' Vide Henry C. Lea's learned work, the History of the Spanish Inquisition.