On the Doctrines of Hippocrates and Plato, Vol. I

they had opened a human corpse, they seemed to themselves to see all that Galen had handed down about the construction of the human body proved and confirmed by experience, although he had taught many things that were false and full of error, since he had never dissected a human body: with such darkness had the authority of Galen blinded both eyes and minds even then! What more? When Vesalius, the most famous anatomist of the sixteenth century, had demonstrated from dissected human bodies that the sternum consists of three parts, not seven as Galen had taughtCf. Galen, On Bones, Vol. II, 763, ed. K.: 'The bones of the sternum are articulated with each other, and they are seven in number, as many as the ribs articulated to it.' On the Use of Parts, Vol. III, 599: 'Why from seven? The number of the articulated ribs is the cause; for there is one bone of the sternum for each of them.' (On Anatomical Procedures, Vol. II, 653 sqq.)., Jacobus Sylvius, his teacher, in order to protect the doctrine of Galen, judged that the human race as it now exists is small and puny compared to the ancient race that Galen had once seen, and therefore has a sternum shorter than it should be. He, therefore, having preferred the authority of Galen to the truth of things, invented such absurd claims. Thus, the empire of the Greeks seemed no less burdensome than that of the Arabs. But it only seemed so; for those same Greeks, especially Hippocrates, just as they themselves strove to follow nature as the teacher of the art, so they had instructed their disciples not to swear rashly by the words of the master, but to hold that method by which they might distinguish the true from the false by their own judgment, in order to investigate the truth aloneCf. Hippocrates, Epidemics 1, 5: 'The natures of diseases are physicians.' Galen, That the Qualities of the Soul Follow the Temperaments of the Body, Vol. IV, 805: 'Hippocrates is a most credible witness, if one were to make use of a witness, as is the custom for some, for the truth of dogmas. But I do not trust the man as a witness in the same way as many do, but because I see his proofs are solid; for that reason, I myself praise Hippocrates.' Idem, Commentary II on Hippocrates' Sixth Book of Epidemics, Vol. XVII, 1, 951: 'I do not simply trust what one of them (i.e., the ancients) might say, but I myself test by experience and reason whether what they have written is true or false.' Cf. also On the Constitution of the Medical Art, Vol. I, 244.. The more this was understood by the physicians and natural scientists of the sixteenth century, the less they feared to free themselves from the shackles of ancient traditions,