"[[37]]
Magic was so common a charge that many physicians seemed to
believe it themselves. In the tenth century Gerbert, afterward
known as Pope Sylvester II, was at once suspected of sorcery when
he showed a disposition to adopt scientific methods; in the
eleventh century this charge nearly cost the life of Constantine
Africanus when he broke from the beaten path of medicine; in the
thirteenth, it gave Roger Bacon, one of the greatest benefactors
of mankind, many years of imprisonment, and nearly brought him to
the stake: these cases are typical of very many.
Still another charge against physicians who showed a talent
for investigation was that of Mohammedanism and Averroism; and
Petrarch stigmatized Averroists as "men who deny Genesis and bark
at Christ."[[38]]
The effect of this widespread ecclesiastical opposition was,
that for many centuries the study of medicine was relegated
mainly to the lowest order of practitioners. There was, indeed,
one orthodox line of medical evolution during the later Middle
Ages: St.
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