New-York tribune., 1918-08-25
DIR. Rabelais

g. ONE people read Rabelais, some peo
pie say they read Rabelais, and there
are others who never get any further
than a dip now and then into his full
blooded pages at a secondhand book
store. At any rate, it isn't generally
known that Rabelais was physician,
by right of scientific study as well as
physician to the heaviness of his time
DR.. Douglass w. Montgomery, of San
Francisco, presents some highly divert
ing statistics as to evidences of the
Rabelaisians interest in anatomy in an
article in "The Medical Record:
ut has been said that if you wish to
know what people thought in the Middle
Ages consult Rabelais, that incarnation Of
the Middle Ages turning to the light of the
about the year 1900, people had become
nightly interested in bones, and there
we're several very good reasons for this.
Anatomy itself was a new and progress
sive science, and knowledge of it con-
trlbuted to the reputation of a physician
Rabelais's renown as a physician no doubt,
rested to no inconsiderable extent on his
knowledge Of anatomy, on which he at one
time lectured. But probably the study Of
anatomy was then pursued more enthus-
astically by artists than by physicians, as,
for example, by Benvenuto Cellini, Michel
Angelo and especially by Leonardo da
Vinci. In addition to this, many theo-
logians were then striving to find in
anatomy substantial basis for the soul.
1t was old belief, reaching back to the
origin of the Hebrew Scriptures, that the
blood was the seat Of the soul, or aura or
spiritual breath, and it was in Investigate
ing along this line that Michael Servetus
studied the lungs and the pulmonary cir
culation in order to know the exact consti-
tuition of the portal by which this breath
would enter
"While theoogians, artists and ply
sicians were studying anatomy for their
several spiritual, artistic or scientific
since. collecting the bones of the saints
as relics. This peculiar collecting mania
would naturally encourage the study Of
osteology, for, while the Church de-
cidedly opposed to dissection. her encour-
agement IN the trade in relics. mostly
bones, would facilitate their study by stim-
ulating interest and by making them easily
attainable. bone collector of this par
ticular stripe would add the enthusiasm Of
a collector to the fanaticsm of religion
and as the human being is never quite so
funny as when he is in deadly earnest. ynls
contributed to the grotesqueness of the
mania and gave an admirable opportunity
for Rabelais,e the great mocker, to MAKE
sport of it,
Besides this, the enumeration OF long
lists of bones would be quite congenial 10
Rabclais. who liked long lists of things
and he would also like them because many
anatomical structures had high sounding
names derived from the Greek, such a.
lambdoidal.' which would especially appea'
to Greek scholar like Rabeais. who would
De all the more inclined to employ 'ne"
because Greek was especially hated by the
reactionaries.
THE occasion for employing lamodoiua'
was when Friar John, with his cruoi"N
staff, chased the Picrocholian marsuue''
out of the vineyard OF the abbey IL any
one of them wished to save himself oy i""
ming away Friar John broke his heao y,
pieces by hitting him on the iamooo''"'
suture."