THE INFLUENCE OF THE LEYDEN SCHOOL UPON SCOTTISH MEDICINE

Abstract

MEDICAL knowledge, from the earliest times, has spread through the world by certain definite routes.Any attempt, therefore, to reconstruct the story of Medical Progress should include a consideration of space as well as time, places as well as dates, and geography as well as history.In ancient times, learning moved slowly from East to West: from China and India to Babylonia and Egypt.How much those early civilizations borrowed from each other is still a matter of uncertainty, but it seems safe to assume that Egypt did contribute to the great climax of cultural activity which coincided with the life and work of Hippocrates about 400 B.C.After the downfall of Greece and Rome, the torch bumned feebly for some centuries, enlightened to some extent by Arab learning, until at Salerno, about A.D. IooO, it again shone brightly, stimulated by the teachers at that famous seat of medical education, the first organized medical school of Europe.From that time, knowledge spread more widely, aided by the travels of wander- ing scholars, the discovery of new countries and increased facilities of transport.The path ofprogress became more easy to trace, especially after the Renaissance: it led from Salerno to Padua: thence to Leyden, and from there to Edinburgh and to Philadelphia.Those were, in succession, the leading schools of medicine, each in turn becoming the main centre.In the present lecture we are concerned with that part of the story which involves the influence of the Leyden School upon British and American medicine.Let us begin with Padua, the direct ancestor of Leyden.The University of Padua was founded in A.D. I2I2.Even in its infancy it was an important school, and naturally, its fame increased in the days of Vesalius and of his follower Fallopius.Many foreign students were attracted: a goodly proportion of them were from England.The Roll of the Royal College of Physicians of London in the years prior to I67I includes the names of fifty-seven Fellows who had taken a medical degree at Padua."Perhaps the most famous of them was Thomas Linacre, who founded the College in I5 i8, and was the first President.The leading classical scholar of his day, he taught Greek at Oxford and was, at the same time, a skilfu physician.

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