375.
IX.

THE SCIENTIFIC STRUGGLE FOR ANATOMY.
We may now take up the evolution of medical science out of the medieval view and its modern survivals.

All through the Middle Ages, as we have seen, some few laymen and ecclesiastics here and there, braving the edicts of the Church and popular superstition, persisted in medical study and practice: this was especially seen at the greater universities, which had become somewhat emancipated from ecclesiastical control.

In the thirteenth century the University of Paris gave a strong impulse to the teaching of medicine, and in that and the following century we begin to find the first intelligible reports of medical cases since the coming in of Christianity.
In the thirteenth century also the arch-enemy of the papacy, the Emperor Frederick II, showed his free-thinking tendencies by granting, from time to time, permissions to dissect the human subject.

In the centuries following, sundry other monarchs timidly followed his example: thus John of Aragon, in 1391, gave to the University of Lerida the privilege of dissecting one dead criminal every three years.( 319) (319) For the promotion of medical science and practice, especially in the thirteenth century, by the universities, see Baas, pp.