The Popes and Science Part 23

Alexander VI (1492-1503).--The first of the Papal Physicians of Pope Alexander VI (Alexander de Espinosa) was like that Pontiff himself of a family of Castilian origin though long enough in Italy to have become thoroughly Italianized and even to have received the Roman citizens.h.i.+p. He is mentioned in terms of praise by Baldus Baldi in his work on "The Oriental Opobalsam." Mandosius speaks of him as "a man of great erudition endowed with high intelligence and with a great zeal for promoting the health of humanity."

Gaspar Torella, also a Spaniard, was another of the physicians of Pope Alexander VI, and wrote a series of books on the venereal diseases which attracted so much attention in Italy about this time, and which are supposed to have been imported from America, though there is no doubt now of their existence in Europe and in Asia long before. He also wrote a book on "Portents, Prodigies and Prophecies" and another "On Diet or the Preservation of Health" in the form of a dialogue on eating and drinking which became rather popular. Torella was made a bishop under Pope Julius II and his volume on diet is dedicated to that Pope.

Another of the Papal Physicians of the end of the fifteenth century was Petrus Pintor, a Spaniard from Valencia, who was "the beloved friend and physician" of Pope Alexander VI. He wrote a {441} "Compilation of the Opinions of All the Doctors on the Prevention and Cure of the Pestilence" (under the word pestilence was included at that time any form of epidemic) which was published at Rome in 1499 and was very well known by his contemporaries.

Julius II (1503-13).--One of the Papal Physicians of Pope Julius II was Horatio Lancillotti, of whom it is declared that his whole delight was in books. "Constantly he was occupied with the thought of helping his patients and he practised medicine with liberality and good will, kindly caring for the infirmities of the poor and of friends so that he rendered himself worthy of every praise." He is spoken of as a man of sublime intellect who gave himself to medicine with his whole heart, but whose prudence, wisdom and conduct gave him a reputation even beyond that which he enjoyed as a physician. His son was made a Cardinal by Gregory XIII and other sons of his reached distinction.

Another of the physicians of Pope Julius II was Scipio Lancillotti, the brother of Horatio just mentioned. It is related of him that once when the Pope was severely ailing and on the fourth day of his illness was overcome by so deep a coma that for some hours he was considered dead, Scipio Lancillotti administered some medicine, and not only brought the Pontiff back to consciousness, but freed him from danger of death and restored him sufficiently to take up his work again.

Another of the physicians of Julius II was Joannes Bodier, whose tomb in the Church of Saint Sebastian on the _Via Appia_ outside the Porta Capena is well known. He was a scholarly ecclesiastic who because of his intellectual and religious distinction was made the Abbot of the Monastery of San Sebastiano by the Pope.

One hears much of Jewish physicians in attendance on the Popes, but the records do not bear out the generally received opinion that there were many of them. Occasionally there is mention of one and usually he is some distinguished medical scientist well known in his time whose services were asked also for the Pope. Evidently even the Christian intolerance toward the Jews at this time was not sufficient to prevent such relations on the part of the Popes. Indeed the tradition of the frequency of Jewish physicians to Popes is probably due to the reaction produced by the surprise of finding that there were any Jewish physicians in attendance at the Papal Court. One of those who attended Pope Julius II was Samuel Sarfadi or Sarfati, a Spanish Rabbi who was looked upon as a leader of his people in Rome. It was he who as their {442} representative greeted Pope Julius during the procession when the Pontiff took possession of the city and in accordance with the ancient usage presented him with a copy of the Old Testament. Julius' reply was in the formula of the Roman Ordo commending the Law but condemning the religious practice that did not go beyond the Old Testament, which had reached completion in the New.

The Pope and the rabbi continued on terms of intimate friends.h.i.+p and as Papal Physician he was able to protect his people and secure them in the rights that were more freely granted them at Rome than elsewhere in Europe.

Pius III.--One of the Papal Physicians of Pius III was Antonius Petrutius, Doctor of Philosophy and of Medicine, of whom Mandosius in his Lives of the Papal Physicians says that "he was the most excellent physician of his time."

Leo X (1513-21).--One of the physicians of Pope Leo X who served also in the conclave after his death was Dioscorides da Velletri, to whom we owe a series of monographs on medicine that are of special interest. He wrote on diet, _De Ordine Cibandi;_ on diagnosis, _De Cognitione Naturae Aegritudinis_ (literally on the recognition of the nature of disease), and on stone in the kidney, _De Lapide Renum._

Another of the physicians of Pope Leo X was Bartholomeo of Pisa. He is mentioned by Carolus Cartharius in the _Athenaeo Romano_ as a physician of great skill. He was professor in the Roman Archigymnasium and is the author of an Epitome of the Theory and Practice of Medicine issued at Florence early in the sixteenth century. This epitome is said to have been of special service because it contained in brief a great deal of information gathered from books and ill.u.s.trated by Bartholomeo's own experience.

Still another of the physicians of Pope Leo X was Bernardinus Speronius, a Paduan by birth and a professor of high esteem in the University of Padua. Angelus Portenarius in his work _Della Felicita di Padova_ says of him that he was a physician of such great skill and reputation that Pope Leo selected him for his physician while he was lecturing at Padua, and Bernardinus felt himself highly honored by the selection and accepted the post.

The fourth of the physicians of Pope Leo X was Jerome Sessa, Doctor of Philosophy and Medicine, who was afterwards the particular friend and physician of Pope Paul IV. He is the author of a treatise on medical matters, _De Re Medica_, and was singularly respected for his kindness to the poor, and for the {443} self-sacrifice with which he gave himself to the more difficult duties of his profession.

The fifth physician of Pope Leo X was Clementius Clementinus, noted in distinction from many of his colleagues as a Doctor of Arts and Medicine instead of the usual combination with philosophy. Van der Linden declares that "he was second to none in the opinion of Rome and the whole of Italy in his knowledge of medicine though he was at the same time a very celebrated astronomer." He had been professor of philosophy and mathematics at Padua. He is the author of a work on The Precepts of Medicine published by Jacob Mazzocchium at Rome, 1512. He also wrote a work on astronomy, and a monograph on fevers.

Adrian VI (1522-23), the distinguished Belgian scholar elected to the Papacy to succeed Leo X, had the honor of having dedicated to him a monograph, _De Pestilentia_, written by the well-known Bartholomeo Montagnana, who is one of the great Renaissance physicians of Italy.

The almost equally famous John Battista Elisio dedicated to him his work _De Praesagiis Sapientum,_ On the Prognosis of the Wise. Some of Adrian's physicians were among the most widely known members of the medical profession at this time. To one of them, Giovanni Antracino, John De Vigo dedicated his treatise _De Morbo Gallico_ in words of the highest praise. Latin dedications lend themselves to flattery, but with even all due discount for this, Vigo's expressions show how much Antracino must have been appreciated at the time. He praises him for "his singular wisdom, marvellous perspicacity, rightness of judgment and serious purpose," and recalls that in many consultations where they had been present together Antracino had excelled not only in medical theory, but in medical practice.

Another of the physicians of Pope Adrian VI was Francesco Fusconi, whose name is sometimes wrongly given as Frasconi. Amato Lusitano calls him "a most famous physician," and Marsilio Cagnati in his work _De Aeris Romani Salubritate_ notes that Francesco was the first to recognize that starving a fever and especially the malarial fevers of the neighborhood of Rome, though it had been the custom for a long time for physicians to advise it, did much more harm than good. He insisted that the ailing should be more richly nourished and that above all they should be fed on chopped meats which would make it easier for them to ingest such quant.i.ties as would be good for them.

Cagnati says that many Roman physicians followed this teaching and saved much {444} suffering and many lives. Fusconi is the physician whom Benvenuto Cellini praises for having saved his life. The famous sculptor was taken with a very severe fever and the "first physicians"

of Rome were called to see him, among them Master Francesco (Fusconi) Da Norcia, who was a very old man, but of great reputation. The fever increased to such a degree that the professors held the disease for desperate, but not Norcia. He took charge of the case and by the most careful treatment succeeded in freeing Benvenuto from an illness which did not seem as though it could possibly come to an end without fatal issue.

Clement VII (1523-34), who was of the Medici family, had a number of physicians and on one occasion when ill no less than eight were in attendance on him. This gave occasion to the satiric poet Berni to declare in verse that when the Pope after his recovery went to make his thanksgiving to Our Lady he might indeed have felt that it was a miraculous event to have been saved from the hands of eight physicians all at once. At least three of these physicians of Pope Clement are famous in the history of medicine; that is to say, they wrote books frequently referred to by their medical colleagues. One of these, Andrea Cibo, or Andreas Cibbo, was also physician to Pope Paul III and will be mentioned under his name. Cibo had been a professor at the University of Perugia before being made Papal Physician. One of his contemporaries refers to him as "the secure health of the sick."

Another of Clement's physicians was Andrea Turini, who had been a professor at Pisa. He seems afterwards to have been royal physician to Louis XII, King of France. There are two books of his, _De Embrochia_ and _De Curatione Pleuritidis_ published at Lyons in 1537, in which Andrea gives himself the t.i.tles of physician and counsellor of the Pope and the King. Andrea was something of a wit and is quoted in the _Facetiae_ of Domenichi. After a visit to Pisa he declared that "Pisa was a maritime city without fish, having a handsome Cathedral without a sacristy, a leaning tower which did not fall, a well without any buckets, and a university without professors."

Ludovico Augeni, another of the physicians of Pope Clement VII, taught for a while at Perugia and is said to have written a book on the use of wines in health and disease, but he is famous princ.i.p.ally as the father of Orazio Augeni, professor at the Sapienza at Rome, who dedicated to his father his commentary on the nine books of Rhazes. A nephew of his, Sabastiano, issued a volume, _De Catarrho_, which he dedicated to Paul IV.

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One of the most famous of the Papal Physicians, though he is known much more for his work in history and literature than in medicine, is Paulus Jovius, another of the physicians to Clement VII. His "Histories of Ill.u.s.trious Men" and his "Eulogies of Men Distinguished in Letters and in War," as well as his other writings, are well-known sources of historical material. He is besides the author of a series of volumes on natural history that are not so widely known, but deserve a place in the history of science. They include a book on Roman fishes and another on marine fishes and sh.e.l.lfish as well as descriptions of Lake Como, of England, Scotland and Ireland and the Orkney Islands that have a niche of their own in natural history. He had been the intimate friend of Pope Leo X, Pope Adrian VI made him a canon of the Cathedral of Como and he was one of the close a.s.sociates and a domestic prelate of Clement VII, who a.s.signed him apartments in the Vatican. Jovius made a magnificent collection of memorials of the ill.u.s.trious men whose lives he wrote, and we owe to him the preservation of many historical materials that would otherwise almost inevitably have been lost.

Still another of the physicians of Clement VII was Matteo Corti, of whom Aller declares that "he was as great in speech as with the scalpel, read the Greek authors and taught his colleagues to prefer them to the Arabs and recalled Galen into the schools." He was summoned from Venice to be physician to Pope Clement because of "the great reputation for knowledge of disease and skill in the treatment of patients that he had gained." He is noted for having modified the habits of the Romans by advising them to take less food in the middle of the day and to take a better meal at night. This putting back of the princ.i.p.al meal gradually spread in the cities of the world until the present custom of evening dinner became established. He wrote a series of books, but his constant insistence was on the avoidance of disease by careful attention to diet and mode of living rather than by the cure of it. He made it his special boast that many of those who followed his directions were either not ill for years or else were afflicted with but minor ailments. After the death of Pope Clement he was professor of medicine in Bologna and then the physician of Cosimo de Medici in Florence and at the end of his life held a professor's chair in medicine at Pisa. Ghilinus in his work The Theatre of Literary Men (_Teatro d'Uomini Letterati_) talks of Matteo Corti (in Latin, Matthaeus Curtius), as "a very celebrated doctor of medicine who as a professor was the peer of all and the superior {446} of most of his colleagues and who revived with benefit to his students and their patients the true manner of treating illness according to Hippocrates and Galen." He was looked upon as one of the distinguished physicians of his time. He wrote concerning the manner of dining and supping, (_De Prandio et Coena_), a commentary on Mondino's anatomy and a book On Venesection and another On Dosage.

Paul III (1534-49).--One of the distinguished consultant physicians of the mid-sixteenth century was Antonio Musa Brasavola (sometimes written Brasovola), whose years run with the century. His studies were made with the famous Leonicenus at Ferrara. He became the physician in ordinary and personal friend of Hercules II, Duke of Este, and accompanied him to France when the Duke espoused the daughter of Louis XII. He was at various times the physician to four Popes and was called in consultation to Henry VIII of England and Francis I of France. He devoted himself particularly to medical botany and pharmacology and was one of the first to hold a professors.h.i.+p in these subjects. He was well known for his life-saving practice of tracheotomy and he restored _paracentesis thoracis_ as a standard remedy. He introduced the use of _radix chinae_, a kind of smilax related to sarsaparilla, and put _lignum guiaci_ into the pharmacology of the day. He wrote a series of monographs on botanical subjects which have given him an enduring place in the history of that time. A distinguished group of men were near the Popes in Rome at this time with whom Brasavola was in close relations. They included Eustachius the great anatomist, Columbus, discoverer of the circulation in the lungs, Caesalpinus and Fallopius, who was a professor at the University of Bologna, that city being at this time in the Papal States.

One of the great Renaissance physicians and surgeons well known in our histories of medicine for an important contribution to the treatment of gunshot wounds, is Alfonso Ferri, a Neapolitan, who, after some years of professors.h.i.+p in surgery in Naples, became the physician of Pope Paul III. His book, which is founded on his "experience at home and at war," went through a number of editions at Rome, at Antwerp and Frankfurt and other places, and he was evidently widely read and considered an important authority. He invented some instruments for the removal of bullets and has many practical hints with regard to the treatment of gunshot wounds. He was the professor of surgery at the Sapienza, {447} Rome, and has written a volume on the carunculae, or hard multiplex tumors, which arise at the vesical neck.

Silvius Zeffiri, another of the physicians of Pope Paul III, is the author of a volume on "Putrefaction or The Best Method of Protracting Life," which was published at Rome in 1536. Zeffiri seems to have antic.i.p.ated the modern popular notion of the putrefactive conditions in the human system as one of the most important factors in shortening life, and he discusses various means of preventing them.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Ferri's Instruments:--20 a, hollow probe or canula with screw; b, canula with rounded end alone; c, screw; 21, 22, Alphonsinum or grasping instrument for the removal of foreign bodies; 23, curved needle.]

Another of the physicians of Pope Paul III was Andreas Cibbo, Doctor of Arts and Medicine, of whom Caesar Crispoltus in his work on distinguished Perugians called _Perugia Augusta_ (Book III, P. 335) tells that having lectured for many years on medicine at the University of Perugia and practised his profession with great reputation, Andreas was called to Rome by Clement VII as Papal Physician, and also occupied that post under Pope Paul III. He accompanied Pope Paul on a journey to Nice on the occasion {448} when the Emperor Charles V and King Francis I of France met, and he was chosen by special honor to a.s.sist at the banquet given these sovereigns.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Maggi's Bullet Extractors and Needles:--10, 11, 12, shot borer (canula with screw); 11, screw alone; 12, canula alone; 13, protective tube for the introduction of boring instrument; 14, 15, lance needles; 16, 17, fistula scalpels.]

Another of the physicians of Pope Paul III was Jacobus Bonacossus, of whom Mandosius says that "he was famous for his wide knowledge not only in science, but on all culture subjects, as well as for his magnanimity, his affability of manners and his careful attention in his professional work to the poor as well as to the rich." He came of a distinguished family of Ferrara and is given an important place in the list of "Ill.u.s.trious Men of the City of Ferrara" published by Augustin Superbo.

Another of the physicians of Pope Paul III was Joannes {449} Franciscus Emanuelis, also called Manovelli. He is mentioned in the volume of Statutes of the College of Physicians of Florence and was looked upon by his contemporaries, according to Baldo Baldi, as a very learned man whose knowledge was only surpa.s.sed by his cultivation of the social virtues. He was a professor at Florence when he was summoned to Rome to become Papal Physician.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Maggi's Instruments for Gunshot Wounds:--6 a, b, c, separable bullet forceps; 7, bullet spatula; 8, 9, anserine bullet forceps, separable and with a screw-crus.h.i.+ng arrangement.]

A very distinguished man who also occupied the post of physician to Pope Paul III was Thomas Cadimustus, a Belgian, who, after securing the doctorate in medicine and philosophy with distinction at Louvain, came to Rome and soon secured a place among the {450} teachers there and attained a reputation for great learning and successful care of his patients. He became Secretary Apostolic as well as physician to the Pope, and evidently enjoyed the close friends.h.i.+p of the Pontiff.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Some Instruments of Maggi:--1, surgical hook; 2, double hook for the extraction of bullets; 3, concave toothed forceps; 4, straight-toothed forceps; 5, crow-beak forceps.]

Another of the physicians of Pope Paul III was Tiberius Palella, famous for his knowledge of medicine and with a special reputation for information with regard to plants. He is known for his many friends.h.i.+ps with men of learning and left behind {451} him the reputation, according to Mandosius, of being "a physician of the highest integrity interested above all in the health of the poor as well as the rich, without envy for others and a constant diligent seeker of the right."

Another of the physicians of Pope Paul III who as the great friend of the Jesuits might possibly be expected by those who misunderstand that Order to be opposed to Science, but proves to have been a great patron and friend of a whole series of the most prominent scientists of the time, was Joannes Aquilinus, or John of Aquila, a noted Neapolitan physician, who, after acquiring a great reputation in Naples, was called to the Professors.h.i.+p of Medicine at Pisa when that University was at the climax of its development. There he achieved so great a reputation that his contemporaries referred to him as a "second AEsculapius." Lacuna, who published a famous edition of Galen in 1548 which went through a series of editions, dedicated one portion of the edition to Aquilinus out of deference to his "love for good literature."

Another of the physicians to Pope Paul III was Franciscus Frigimelica, who, after having acquired extraordinary fame as a teacher, having been made professor at the University of Padua at the early age of twenty-eight, received offers from many of the Italian princes to become their physician. De Renzi in his _Storia della Medicina in Italia_ says that he refused them all, but yielded to the solicitation of Pope Paul III, and seems to have been tempted by the atmosphere of intense medical science that had been created at Rome at this time.

Frigimelica is famous for his study of baths and his treatise on the making of artificial baths with metallic salts. _De Balneis Metallicis Artificio Parandis_ is an early cla.s.sic in balneology. He also wrote a volume "On Various Medical Questions," a _Pathologia Parva_, and a number of his consultations were published.

Julius III (1550-55).--A very important Papal Physician is Maggi, who had been the professor of anatomy and surgery at Bologna, the uncle and teacher of the celebrated anatomist Aranzi. He became physician to Pope Julius III about 1550. His book on gunshot wounds is dedicated to Prince Giovanni Battista De Monte, nephew of Pope Julius and General-in-Chief of the Papal Army. Gurlt, in his great History of Surgery, declares that Maggi was the first who showed very clearly that shot wounds neither caused burning nor poisoning. To demonstrate this he made a series of carefully planned, most ingenious experiments and {452} observations which were repeated hundreds of years afterwards, but only to confirm his conclusions. His method of handling gunshot wounds was very simple, and he laid the greatest weight on treatment directed to permitting the free exit of pus. He was the inventor of a series of instruments, the pictures of which we have and some of which are here reproduced. They show his ingenuity and antic.i.p.ate a good many ideas that are supposed to be much more modern than his time. Gurlt has devoted more than eight pages of rather small type to a summarization of Maggi's work so that there is no doubt about its great importance in the history of surgery.