(18) Charleton:
Of the Magnetic Cure of Wounds, London, 1650, p.
13.
Equally in the history of science and of medicine,
1542 is a starred year, marked by a revolution in
our knowledge alike of Macrocosm and Microcosm.
In Frauenburg, the town physician and a canon, now
nearing the Psalmist limit and his end, had sent to
the press the studies of a lifetime—“De
revolutionibus orbium coelestium.” It was
no new thought, no new demonstration that Copernicus
thus gave to his generation. Centuries before,
men of the keenest scientific minds from Pythagoras
on had worked out a heliocentric theory, fully promulgated
by Aristarchus, and very generally accepted by the
brilliant investigators of the Alexandrian school;
but in the long interval, lapped in Oriental lethargy,
man had been content to acknowledge that the heavens
declare the glory of God and that the firmament sheweth
his handiwork. There had been great astronomers
before Copernicus. In the fifteenth century Nicholas
of Cusa and Regiomontanus had hinted at the heliocentric
theory; but 1512 marks an epoch in the history of science,
since for all time Copernicus put the problem in a
way that compelled acquiescence.
Nor did Copernicus announce a truth perfect and complete,
not to be modified, but there were many contradictions
and lacunae which the work of subsequent observers
had to reconcile and fill up. For long years
Copernicus had brooded over the great thoughts which
his careful observation had compelled. We can
imagine the touching scene in the little town when
his friend Osiander brought the first copy of the
precious volume hot from the press, a well enough printed
book. Already on his deathbed, stricken with
a long illness, the old man must have had doubts how
his work would be received, though years before Pope
Clement vii had sent him encouraging words.
Fortunately death saved him from the “rending”
which is the portion of so many innovators and discoverers.
His great contemporary reformer, Luther, expressed
the view of the day when he said the fool will turn
topsy-turvy the whole art of astronomy; but the Bible
says that Joshua commanded the Sun to stand still,
not the Earth. The scholarly Melanchthon, himself
an astronomer, thought the book so godless that he
recommended its suppression (Dannemann, Grundriss).
The church was too much involved in the Ptolemaic system
to accept any change and it was not until 1822 that
the works of Copernicus were removed from the Index.
VESALIUS
The same year, 1542, saw a very different picture
in the far-famed city of Padua, “nursery of
the arts.” The central figure was a man
not yet in the prime of life, and justly full of its
pride, as you may see from his portrait. Like
Aristotle and Hippocrates cradled and nurtured in an
AEsculapian family, Vesalius was from his childhood
a student of nature, and was now a wandering scholar,
