Very probably the most interesting feature of the relations of the Church and medicine
is to be found in a brief account of the lives and medical careers of the men who were selected for the position
of papal physicians. We have for the past seven centuries a nearly complete list of the men whom the popes chose
as their personal medical attendants. They were as a rule members of the medical profession who had deservedly
achieved fame in some way in connection with the development of medical science or medical practice.
In the list is to be found some of the greatest discoverers in modern medicine. There
is no list of names connected by any bond in the history of medicine which contains so many investigators who have
done successful original research in medicine as this of the papal physicians. There is, for instance, no faculty
list even of the oldest medical schools in Europe which contains the names of so many men who did enduring work
in medicine as these men who had been called sometimes from long distances to be given the responsibility of the
health of the popes (1).
It is easy to understand that a man selected by a pope to be his personal physician gained
prestige among his fellows that was very valuable. At the same time the selection of physicians of real scientific
attainments to be the pope's personal medical attendants gave an incentive to reverence and respect for the medical
profession that was worth much for the encouragement of proper regard for scientific medicine. At all times, and
never more than in our own, there has been a tendency for people, not merely the ignorant but very often the well-informed
and sometimes even those who seem to deserve the name of educated, to believe all sorts of curious and impossible
things and accept all sorts of absurd ideas with regard to disease and its treatment.
Not long before his death, Sir William Osier said,
"In all things
relating to disease, credulity remains a permanent factor, uninfluenced by civilization or education."
The good example set
by the popes, by the selection of their medical attendants from among the workers who made distinct advances in
medical science was of prime importance in stemming the tide of superstition that is always likely to manifest
itself in matters relating to diseases and their cure. There have always been all sorts of healing religions; and
the Catholic Church itself proclaimed the curative value of prayers at shrines and the touch of relics and of various
blessed objects, and yet the popes selected their personal physicians with due attention to their scientific attainments.
Their maxim evidently was that attributed to St. Ignatius
of Loyola - do everything possible as if all depended on you and then leave it all to God as if everything depended
on God. The list of these papal physicians who were at the same time distinguished medical scientists is of paramount
interest in the history of the Church's relations to healing down the ages. There are some hints of papal physicians
before the thirteenth century; but naturally, in the vicissitudes of rime, records of them have disappeared to
a great extent. There is a very old manuscript in the Vatican library dedicated to Ursus, physician and domestic
prelate to Pope Nicholas I, who was pope from 858 to 867.
Pope Sylvester II (999-1003), the well-known Gerbert, was famous for his knowledge of
medicine as well as of the sciences, and a close personal friend of men who did much for medical education in France.
Pope Victor III, who had been before his election as pope Abbot Desiderius at the Benedictine monastery of Monte
Cassino, was for years the intimate friend of Constantine Africanus, who did so much for the medical school of
Salerno and then afterwards became a monk under Abbot Desiderius at Monte Cassino, but continued his great work
of making Arabian medicine available for the students who flocked to Salerno by the translations that he made at
the expense of so much labor and scholarship.
With Innocent III at the beginning of the thirteenth century
the list of the papal physicians begins to be preserved somewhat better. Guy de Montpellier, summoned to Rome to
organize the hospital of Santo Spirito by Innocent III (1198-1215), was very closely in the pope's confidence.
As the result of his influence, similar hospitals of the Holy Ghost were founded throughout most of Europe until
literally there were hundreds of them. (2) Richard the Englishman, well known in the history of medicine, was a
physician to Pope Gregory IX (1227-41), and another Englishman, Hugo Attratus or Attractus, said to have been from
Evesham, was the physician of Pope Martin II (1281). Oldoino in his Athenaeo
Romano mentions a series of books written
by this Hugh of Evesham.
They bear the titles Medicinales canones and De genealogiis
humanis, "Medical Canons" and "On Human Genealogies." There is, besides, an opusculum translated
by him from the work of Isaac, the well-known Jewish physician of the Middle Ages, On
Fevers.
Just before this there had been a physician-pope, John XXI
(1276-1277), who under the name of Peter of Spain had been looked up to as one of the most distinguished natural
scientists of this interesting century. Dr. J. B. Petello, in an article in the international magazine of
science, Janus (1897-1898),
entitled "A Critical and Historical Study of the Knowledge of Ophtholomology of a Philosopher Physician Who
Became Pope," gives an excellent account of the life of Pope John XXI. He does not hesitate to declare him
"one of the most renowned persons of Europe during the thirteenth century from the point of view of the triple
evolution of his extraordinary mind which caused him to make his mark in the physical sciences, in the metaphysical
sciences and in the religious world." That a man who was as distinguished in medicine, as well as in science
generally, as this Petrus Hispanus, should have been elected pope is the best possible proof
that science and religion were on terms of very intimate relationship during the thirteenth century.
The physician of Pope Honorius IV was Taddeo Alderotti who
was famous as a teacher of medicine and a writer on medical topics about this time. Alderotti's work represents
what is best in medicine during this century. Alderotti's successor as physician at the papal court was scarcely,
if any, less distinguished. This was Simon Januensis, Simon of Genoa, medical attend- ant to Pope Nicholas IV (1288-1292).
Simon did much to make the use of opium more scientific than it had been and worked out rules for its administration.
Simon is best known in the history of medicine for what was probably the first important dictionary of medicine.
This was his Synonyma medicinae or Clavis
sanationis, "The Key of Health."
Steinschneider declares this to be one of the most important works in the field of synonymics.
The papal physician to Pope Boniface VIII (1298-1303) was
William of Brescia to whom Henry of Mondeville, the great French surgeon of the end of the thirteenth century whose
work represents an important landmark in the history of surgery, dedicated his volume. Henry's prestige makes the
dedication a significant compliment.
He says, "I began to write this work on the proposal
and request of William of Brescia, distinguished professor in the science of medicine and formerly physician to
Pope Boniface VIII and Benedict XI and Clement V, the present pope." Clement V was the first of the Avignon
popes and he had for his attending physician toward the end of his life Arnold of Villanova, the most distinguished
living physician of his time. His summons as consultant physician attracted all the more attention because Arnold
himself died on the journey. Subsequent Avignon popes had for their personal attending physician the famous Guy
de Chauliac, often called the father of French surgery. His textbook which has come down to us shows very clearly
how great a surgeon he was. During the fourteenth century the list of recorded papal physicians becomes too long
to mention them all, but some of them wrote books that were considered of sufficient importance to be published
after the invention of printing in the following century.
Among them are Gentilis who wrote on phthisis and on medical
dosage as well as other books; Dina del Garbo, celebrated for his scholarliness, who is known in the history of
medicine as "Dino the Expounder" because of his work in the exposition of Galen and Avicenna. He was
the son of a distinguished surgeon, Bruno del Garbo, and his son Thomas succeeded him as papal physician and wrote
a commentary on Galen's book on fevers and other volumes which were subsequently printed.
The Casini, a father, son and brother, were physicians to
Pope Urban VI, Martin V and Innocent VII. Isadorus Ugurgerius says that "among the philosophers and physicians
of their time they held easily the first place." This was the early fifteenth century. About the middle of
the century John Baptist Verallus was papal physician and archiater or chief physician to the city of Rome. Verallus
is famous for his work in improving the health of Rome itself and represents one of the pioneers in public hygiene.
In my book, The Century of Columbus, (3) I reviewed some of these surprising Italians who anticipated
our modem hygiene, among whom Verallus was one of the pioneers. Another papal physician of this Renaissance period
was Bernard Garzonis, physician to Pope Nicholas V, who had been a noted professor in the medical school at Bologna
before being summoned to Rome. He died in Rome of the pest in 1454 devoting himself to the care of those suffering
from the disease.
His successor was Laurentius Roverella of Ferrara of whom
his contemporaries speak in the highest praise for his erudition, his ability to teach and the charity of his life.
He was professor at Ferrara and subsequently at Padua, whence he went to Paris where he was crowned with the doctorate;
and after the death of Pope Nicholas V, who summoned him to Rome, he went frequently as an ambassador for the Dukes
of Ferrara.
The Renaissance popes selected some of the distinguished scholars of that time for their
medical attendants. One of the physicians to Pope Sixtus IV, was Onofrio de Onofriis who had been a professor
at the University of Perugia. Another of this pope's physicians was John Philip de Lignamine, who wrote a
book on food and drink.
Later this distinguished scholar interested himself in the new art of printing and was
the publisher of a well-known series of finely printed incunabula. One of the most important medical scientists
at the end of the sixteenth century was Benedict of Nursia. There is some question whether he was papal physician
or not, but he wrote a book on medical botany, considered a classic in the subject, which he dedicated with permission
to Pope Sixtus IV and he seems to have been summoned in consultation to see this pope during an illness.
The physicians to Pope Alexander VI, who was of Spanish
origin, were mainly of Spanish extraction. The best-known of them was Alexander de Espinosa who is praised by Baldo
Baldi in his work on The Oriental Opobalsam. Mandosius who has written a history of the papal physicians
speaks of Espinosa as "a man of great erudition, endowed with high intelligence and with a great zeal for
promoting the health of humanity." Gaspar Torella, who was also a Spaniard and another of the papal physicians
of this time, wrote a book On Diet for the
Preservation of Health, in the form of
a dialogue on eating and drinking, which became rather popular.
Torello was made a bishop by Pope Julius II and his volume
on diet is dedicated to that pope. Petrus Pintor, a Spaniard from Valencia, was "the beloved friend and physician
of Pope Alexander VI." He wrote. Compilation
of the Opinions of All the Doctors on Prevention and Cure of the Pestilence.
Under the word pestilence was included at that time any form of epidemic. This volume was published in Rome in
1499 and was very well known by his contemporaries.
The physician of pope Calixtus III as well as of Pius II was Joannes Serninus, a native
of Siena. He had been archiater or director of public health in a number of Italian cities and did much to develop
disease prevention by quarantine. He was summoned to Rome by Pope Calixtus III to whom is attributed a famous Bull
(that has never been found, however) against Halley s comet on its appearance in 1456 as a harbinger and bringer
of disease.
The intimate relations between Serninus, the leading public health man of his day, and
the pope, are the best refutation of the slander.
The Renaissance popes chose for their physicians, as a rule,
men distinguished for their knowledge of Greek medicine. Many of them were among the most distinguished physicians
and writers on medicine of that erudite period. One of them, Paulus Jovius, physician to Pope Clement VII, is better
known for his historical and literary works than for his medical achievements. He was deeply interested in natural
history and the books which he wrote on Roman fishes and on the Orkney Islands have a niche of their own in natural
history.
About the middle of the sixteenth century a very distinguished group of men were papal
physicians. Among them was Antonio Musa Brasavola, the physician to four popes, as well as to the Duke of Este,
who was called in consultation to Henry VIII of England and Francis I of France. After him came Eustachius, the
great anatomist, after whom the tube is named; Columbus, discoverer of the circulation of the blood in the lungs;
Varolius, after whom the pons in the brain is named; Cesalpinus, who described the circulation of the blood in
the body before Harvey; and Ferri, who wrote on gunshot wounds and was the greatest military surgeon of his time.
At the beginning of the eighteenth century came Lancisi,
the author of two works "of capital importance" on sudden death and on aneurysm (Garrison). Morgagni,
the father of pathology, was the intimate personal friend of Benedict XIV and Clement XIII who insisted that he
should stay at the papal palace whenever he was in Rome. Professor Cotugno of Naples, the first to call attention
to the existence of the spinal fluid, was physician to Pope Pius VI. One of the physicians of Pope Pius VII was
Flajani, to whom we owe a description of Graves's disease long before either Graves or Basedow had recognized it.
The medical attendant of Pope Leo XIII and Pius X was Dr.
Joseph Lapponi, author of a book on spiritualism and hypnotism. After his death the papal physician was Professor
Marchiafava whose excellent work on malaria and on the pathology of alcoholism make him worthy successor to a long
line of distinguished men.
(1) Much of this material on the papal physicians is taken
from Mandosio and Marini's History of the Papal Physicians, Degli Archiatri Pontifici, Roma, Pagliarine, 1784.
(2) See Chapter II, "Hospitals and Christianity."
(3) Catholic Summer School Press, New York, 1914.
CHAPTER IX
MODERN
REFORM OF HOSPITALS
The greatest surprise in the history of modern medicine
is the story of the sad decadence of hospitals and of nursing during the seventeenth, eighteenth and early nineteenth
centuries, which is to be noted particularly among the English and German speaking people. Miss Nutting and Miss
Dock, in their History of Nursing, have a chapter on "The Dark Period of Nursing"
which begins, "It is commonly agreed that the darkest known period in the history of nursing was that from
the latter pare of the seventeenth up to the middle of the nineteenth century." They go so far as to say that
"the status of the nurse sank to an indescribable level of degradation." Jacobsohn in his articles on
the history of care for the ailing in the German Journal
of Care for the Ailing (1898) said:
"In the municipal and state institutions of this period
(the eighteenth century) the beautiful gardens, roomy halls and springs of water of the old cloister hospitals
of the Middle Ages were not heard of, still less the comforts of their friendly interiors."
The reason for this was, as pointed out by these historians,
that:
"The religious orders had been suppressed and no substitute
organization given, so that it might almost be said that no nursing class at all existed during this period."
Unfortunately about this time there was, also, a serious decadence in surgery mainly due
to the fact that the hospitals were old and extremely dirty, reeked with infectious material and therefore it was
quite impossible to do successful surgery in them.
The attendants who replaced the members of the nursing religious
orders were of a sadly inferior type. "We always take them without a character," said an English physician
of the nineteenth century, "because no respectable woman will take such work." Dickens's awful picture
of Sairey Gamp is not the caricature that many people take it to be, but an actual bit of history true to life.
As Miss Nutting and Miss Dock say, "The drunken and untrustworthy Gamp was the only professional nurse."
Reform was sadly needed and it came largely through the
reestablishment of the religious orders for women and especially for hospital work in the English-speaking countries.
The reform is usually attributed almost entirely to Miss Florence Nightingale; but, as we shall see, she had been
preceded in her work of reforming hospitals and nursing by the Sisterhoods.
When, in the early part of the nineteenth century, the hospitals
of the English-speaking countries particularly had "sunk to an almost indescribable level of degradation,"
the hearts of two Irish women were moved by the awful conditions and they set about organizing means for improvement.
This chapter of hospital reform is the story of the Irish Sisters of Charity and of Mercy, one which ought to be
well known by all those who are interested in the history of social service.
The first step in reform came from Mother Mary Aikenhead,
foundress of the Irish Sisters of Charity. As a young woman she was brought in contact with some of the poorest
parts of Dublin and became intensely interested in the work of doing good for those who needed help so badly.
Under the direction of the bishop of Dublin she organized
a religious community whose motto was, "The charity of Christ urgeth us." There was no warrant in English
law for any such religious foundation, for the religious orders had been suppressed; but the nuns began to be seen
in the lanes and back streets of Dublin visiting the sick in their homes. After a time it was realized that they
must have a hospital in Dublin, and, though many of her friends were opposed to it, Mother Aikenhead proceeded
with the work. She sent three Sisters to Paris to be trained for a year in the care of the sick at La Pitie Hospital,
thus securing intimate touch with the old Catholic traditions of nursing and hospital work.
Friends gave her the means to buy a fine old residence on Stephen's Green, Dublin, and
Mother Aikenhead converted this into a hospital about 1820. It is still standing, a favorite place of pilgrimage
for those interested in the revolution of the care for the ailing that began there. In spite of the criticisms
of the undertaking on the score that it was not work suited for nuns, patients crowded to the Sisters' new hospital
in such numbers that the house next door had to be purchased and transformed into wards.
Her work attracted so much attention that prominent visitors to Dublin came to see Mother
Aikenhead. Dr. Pusey, who had been with the leaders of the Oxford Movement, Newman and Keble, paid a number of
visits. Bishop, afterwards Cardinal, Wiseman came for a long interview; and Gerald Griffin, the poet, had a sister
in the community and visited the hospital to meet the Superior.
Mother McAuley, who founded the Irish Sisters of Mercy,
began with the idea of establishing a sort of society of secular ladies who, between the period of leaving school
and settling in life, might without inconvenience to their families spend a few hours daily in instructing the
poor or in interesting young girls in the better things of life. Only after a time did she realize that:
A Higher Mind than hers had planned an institution different
from what she had contemplated and her little society not without much opposition even among her nearest and dearest
in the Church, came into existence."
The new congregation devoted itself to the care of the poor
and soon realized the need of a hospital. During an epidemic of cholera in 1833 Mother McAuley established herself
with her sisters in a cholera hospital.
The stricken population, in panic, was afraid to enter the
hospital. It was only when they heard that the Sisters of Mercy were working with the doctors that their wild terror
disappeared. It is not surprising that after a time, though not until after Mother McAuley's death, there came
the foundation of the great Mater Misericordiae hospital which has continued ever since to be one of the
well-known institutions of Dublin.
These two orders, the Irish Sisters of Charity and of Mercy, are the pioneers in the reaction
against the awful social abuses which existed at the beginning of the nineteenth century and which made the hospitals
and other institutions of the poor such satires on humanity. When Florence Nightingale became interested in the
care of the poor in hospitals she wrote Father, afterwards Cardinal Manning, and pleaded with him to secure for
her the privilege of being trained in one of the houses of the Sisters in Ireland. She did not want to go as a
visitor nor even as a postulant or novice. She wanted to receive the actual training of a Sister. She thought that
it would be possible for her to wear the habit of the Sisterhood and to all appearances be a Sister with only the
Mother Superior and the chaplain in the secret that she was not.
She valued very highly what the Sisters could do for her in the matter of training and
she wanted to secure the benefit of it.
In June 1852, she wrote to Father Manning:
For
what training is there compared with that of a Catholic nun? Those ladies who are not Sisters have not the chastened
temper, the Christian grace, the accomplished loveliness and energy of the regular nun. I have seen something of
different kinds of nuns and am no longer young and do not speak from enthusiasm but from experience. There is nothing
like the training (in these days) which the Sacred Heart or the order of St. Vincent gives to women.
She mentions both the Sisters of Mercy and the Sisters of Charity but the accomplishment
of her desire in the matter was out of the question. When a little later the Crimean War with its awful conditions
came to disturb the English people and the nursing care for them broke down completely, Father Manning wrote to
Mary Stanley, "Why will not Florence Nightingale give herself to the great work?" Florence Nightingale
did and with her at a day's notice by her special request went five Sisters of Mercy from Bermondsey, a branch
of the Sisters of Mercy from Dublin which had come over to London only a few years before. They served beside her
amid the hardships, and it is not surprising that when one of the nuns came down with fever, Miss Nightingale insisted
upon nursing her herself. When the Mother Superior was going back to England, Florence Nightingale wrote to her:
I do not presume to express praise or gratitude to you,
Reverend Mother, because it would look as though I thought you had done this work not unto God but unto me. You
were far above me in fitness for the general superintendency, in worldly talent of administration, and far more
in the spiritual qualifications which God values in a superior; my being placed over you was my misfortune, not
my fault. What you have done for the work no one can ever say. I do not presume to give you any other tribute but
my tears.
The Irish Sisters of Charity and of Mercy spread all over
the English-speaking world. Both of them have a large number of hospitals as well as schools in Australia and New
Zealand and Tasmania. The Sisters of Mercy have spread all over the English-speaking world following the
Irish immigrants wherever they went.
A number of very prominent hospitals here in America are
under their charge and some of them are very well known. Mercy Hospital, Pittsburgh, the oldest of them, is one
of the most important hospitals in the country. It was in Mercy Hospital, Chicago, that the distinguished
American surgeon.
Dr. John B. Murphy, did much of his great work. English and American authorities on the
history of surgery have gone so far as to declare that this was probably the best surgery that had been done anywhere
for the past three hundred years. There are over 20,000 Sisters of Mercy in various countries at the present time,
some 7,000 of them here in America. It is thought that by the time the community is one hundred years old in 1931
there will be over 25,000 Sisters in it engaged in all sorts of good work, but with their hospitals as probably
the most significant of the institutions of which they have charge.
The Sisters of Mercy furnished the best evidence as to what the Church's work in the olden
time was both for hospitals and for the ailing poor. At the same time they served to demonstrate very clearly that
the incentive furnished by Catholicity to this sort of work continues to be eminently successful in providing the
helpers who are needed for the exercise of Christian charity. The hospitals of the Sisters of Mercy in the United
States particularly are models of technical installation, and wherever there has been the opportunity in recent
years to rebuild or add to them, they represent the very latest word in hospital equipment.
They are very often full to capacity when secular hospitals in the neighborhood have a
number of vacant beds. Patients who have been treated in the Sisters' hospitals, even those who are not of the
faith, want as a rule if they have to repeat their experience of hospital care to be under the charge of the Sisters.
The real spirit of Christian charity is still alive and makes itself felt, while at the
same time there is that technical training which enables some of the best surgical work of our day to be done in
these hospitals.
It is sometimes said,
even by those who think that they know much about die matter, that the Catholic Church is very much more interested
in religious healing than in medical healing, that is to say much more occupied with cures by means of Masses and
prayers, the invocation of the saints and the touch of relics and the visitation of shrines, than by the use of
medicaments of various kinds and the application of surgery. It is even asserted that surgery was looked on askance,
and forbidden to clerics as well as discouraged in other ways so as to foster more devotion to religious means
of cure.
Any such expressions are founded on the most absolute ignorance of the Church's position
with regard to religious and medical healing. The policy of the Church has been most wise in maintaining a certain
equilibrium of forces between these two modes of healing. Churchmen have felt that they were not exclusive of each
other but complementary.
Prayer, by which is meant not a formula of words but a lifting up of the mind and heart
to God, is an extremely valuable means for soothing the mind making it ever so much less amenable to disturbing
influences
than it may be when left to itself. In our day we have come to realize very clearly that an unworried state of
mind is an extremely important factor for bringing about the cure of a great many diseases. Disease is after all,
etymologically, only discomfort and a great many of the affections of mankind, even those which are complained
of the most, are largely matters of mental worry and oversolicitude about oneself.
When the mind is at rest, nature's physical resources can
be used to much better advantage. In the midst of worry and solicitude there is a dissipation of energy that makes
recovery even from purely physical disease much more difficult than it would be under favorable conditions of mind.
When people are very much discouraged, it is a difficult
task to put them on the road to recovery. Prayer with its promise of direct communication with Infinite Power,
gives people new confidence in themselves and accomplishes much in predisposing even those who are seriously ailing
to get better. If prayer and the various religious inspirations that are used accomplished nothing more than to
predispose the mind favorably toward cure, that would mean much for recovery. The Catholic Church teaches, however,
that besides this mental or psychological result of prayer there is, in certain cases at least, a real influence
from on High that favors the cure of disease if not actually bringing it about.
The effect of this has been particularly noted in connection
with certain shrines or localities where for some reason the Infinite stoops to the finite and performs miracles
of healing. The Church's teaching is not that all the ailing are to go to such places to be cured nor that all
those who go there will be sure of a cure, but that some of them for special reasons will be granted the favor
of a cure as a demonstration that the arm of the Lord is not shortened and that wonders of healing are being worked
in our day. The Church has been very careful to insist that there should be proper investigation of the patient's
history and the proper diagnosis of their actual condition made by physicians. Only when there is assurance of
a cure of physical and not merely psycho-neurotic disease is any question raised of a miraculous cure.
While the Church promulgated these ideas with regard to
the efficacy of prayer and devotion at shrines, her attitude never was that this should be the only recourse of
the ailing. On the contrary the Church insisted that everyone ought to take every possible advantage of the healing
power of medicine and the various modes of treatment as well as of surgery. When these failed, recourse might be
taken to religious healing.
A maxim often quoted by churchmen is, "Pray as if everything
depended on the Lord, but do everything that you can as if all depended on you." In accordance with this the
popes selected as their personal physicians men who had reached distinction in medicine and surgery among their
fellows. Their good example undoubtedly gave a prestige to the medical profession and encouraged the consultation
of medical scientists, rather than of the quacks and charlatans whom we have always had with us, by the mass of
the people. Physicians and churchmen were on the best of terms. Abundant evidence for this is to be found throughout
this book.
It was this intimate relationship between the popes and
leading physicians that undoubtedly brought the Church authorities to secure the bodies of the friendless poor
for dissecting purposes. It has sometimes been said that the Church was opposed to dissection but there is not
the slightest evidence for this and copious proof of encouragement of scientific anatomical study. A number of
higher ecclesiastics actually asked that their bodies might be the subject of special study after their death so
that diagnosis might be benefited. As we have pointed out elsewhere, when the Church's influence was not felt,
the old very human deterrence for mutilation of the body left anatomists without proper supply of subjects even
in very modern times.
The missionaries of the Church who wandered into distant
countries were always intent on finding any novel drugs or substances that might be useful in the treatment of
disease. As the result of that eagerness to secure for the people in Europe the benefit of any medicine the natives
of foreign countries might have found, the missionaries are responsible for the introduction of half a dozen of
our most important drugs. Cinchona, for instance, we owe to the Jesuits and for long it was called "Jesuits'
bark." The St. Ignatius bean, a source of strychnine, is another example. Cascara sagrada comes to us also
through the missionaries as well as balsam of Peru, grindelia robusta and others.
The Church had much to do with limiting the activities of
quacks and charlatans of various kinds and legislated against alchemy so far as that was a fraud.
Superstition with regard to the influence of the stars on
human life was condemned by the Fathers. The physicians insisted on emphasizing its bodily effects, but the Church's
position helped to keep out many abuses in connection with astrology. Priests and even bishops are but human and
have at times been carried away by new-fangled, but inefficacious, methods of healing. The Church's influence has
constantly been exerted in the right direction. Professor Osier once said that it seemed to be almost a rule in
modern times that the nearer clergymen were to the Council of Trent, the nearer they were to orthodoxy in medicine.