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VI. THE LINKAGE WITH THE MODERN TIME

I

N WAYS inscrutable as well as in trace­able currents, Greek biology and medicine have entered into their greater modern congeners. There is no unbroken and con­tinuous record. Modern biology starts afresh from observation and experiment, and advances through constantly spreading avenues of scientific research. Medicine and anatomy gather impulse from rebellions against the ancient authorities and rejections of their statements; Paracelsus (1493-1541), but re­cently recognized as a great and original physi­cian, declares against the four humors of the old pathology, asserts that they do not exist, and publicly burns the works of Galen. Vesalius, " founder of modern anatomy," proves that Galen's anatomical descriptions are wrong because based on the dissection of apes and pigs instead of men and women.

Yet even when men think to disavow and reject, they are affected by what has made part [124]