Antall József szerk.: Orvostörténeti közlemények 89-91. (Budapest, 1980)
KISEBB KÖZLEMÉNYEK - ELŐADÁSOK - Schultheisz, Emil: Az élettani korszak kezdete (angol nyelven)
from different part of the world. Then the subject shifts to specific gravities of various substances, woods, oils, liquors, metals, and precious stones, and to the measurement of the attractive power of the magnet. Later the Orator asks, "There is a Saying that no pure Element is to be given, how is this prov'd by the Ballance?" The Idiot replies: "If a man should put an hundred weight of earth into a great earthen pot, and then should take some Herbs, and Seeds, and weigh them, and then plant or sow them in that pot, and then should let them grow there so long, until! hee had succesively by little and little, gotten an hundred weight of them, hee would finde the earth but very little diminished, when he came to weigh it againe: by which he might gather, that all the aforesaid herbs, had their weight from the water. Therefore the waters being engrossed (or impregnated) in the earth, attracted a terrestreity, and by the operation of the Sunne, upon the Herb were condensed (or were condensed into an Herb). If those Herbs bee then burrít to ashes, mayest not thou guesse by the diversity of the weights of all; How much earth thou foundest more then the hundred weight, and then conclude that the water brought all that ? For the Elements are convertible one into another by parts, as wee finde by a glass put into the snow, where wee shall see the aire condensed into water, and flowing in the glass. So wee finde by experience, that some water is turned into stones, as some is into Ice; and that there is in some fountaines a hardening and petrifying vertue, which turnes the things that are put into them, into stone. For so say they, there is a certaine water found in Hungary, which through the power of the vitriall which is in it, turneth Iron into Copper; for by such powers and vertues, it is manifest that the waters are not purely elementary, but elementated." 15 Finally the Idiot says: "Experimental knowledge requiereth longe writings, for the more they are, so much the more easily may wee come from the experiments, to the Art which is drawn from them". 16 After the 13th century there was a pause in the intellectual development of western Europe as written by Garrison. 11 Nevertheless, Dampier 18 reported that there was a continual process of change in the intellectual outlook of mankind and we may trace throughout this period of transition the various systems of thought, which, when they met in full vigour, formed the great flood of Renaissance. The Renaissance was very far from being exlusively literary. Renaissance medicine has its roots in the sprint of logical analysis as well as in certain empiric studies. As soon as they had thrown the shackles of scholastic authorithy, the men of Renaissance used the lessons which scholastic method had taught them. They began observing in the faith that nature was consistent and intelligible and, when they had framed hypotheses by induction to explain their observations, they deduced by logical reasoning consequences which could be tested by experiment. Scholasticism had trained them to destroy itself. The aim of this paper is to outline some of the literary data which came to shape in the late medieval and renaissance conception of a scientific development in the beginnings of quantified medical theory and to illustrate them in the later development of Barock medicine. 15 Ibid. pp. 188—190 16 Ibid. p. 191 17 Garrison, F. H.: History of Medicine, New-York, 1924. p. 197 18 Dampier, W. C. : A. History of Science, Cambridge, 1966. p. 97
