It is a mistake to think of the Renaissance as a brief period of sudden fruitfulness in the North Italian cities.

So far as science is concerned, the thirteenth century was an aurora followed by a long period of darkness, but the fifteenth was a true dawn that brightened more and more unto the perfect day.

Always a reflex of its period, medicine joined heartily though slowly in the revolt against mediaevalism.

How slowly I did not appreciate until recently.

Studying the earliest printed medical works to catch the point of view of the men who were in the thick of the movement up to 1480--which may be taken to include the first quarter of a century of printing--one gets a startling record.