what experiment meant in the development of human knowledge, and he was obsessed with the idea, so commonplace to us, that knowledge should have its utility and its practical bearing.  “His chief merit is that he was one of the first to point the way to original research—­as opposed to the acceptance of an authority—­though he himself still lacked the means of pursuing this path consistently.  His inability to satisfy this impulse led to a sort of longing, which is expressed in the numerous passages in his works where he anticipates man’s greater mastery over nature."(23)

     (23) Dannemann:  Die Naturwissenschaften in ihrer Entwicklung und
     in ibrem Zusammenhange, Leipzig, 1910, Vol.  I, pp. 278-279.

Bacon wrote a number of medical treatises, most of which remain in manuscript.  His treatise on the “Cure of Old Age and the Preservation of Youth” was printed in English in 1683.(24) His authorities were largely Arabian.  One of his manuscripts is “On the Bad Practices of Physicians.”  On June 10, 1914, the eve of his birth, the septencentenary of Roger Bacon will be celebrated by Oxford, the university of which he is the most distinguished ornament.  His unpublished MSS. in the Bodleian will be issued by the Clarendon Press (1915-1920), and it is hoped that his unpublished medical writings will be included.

(24) It may be interesting to note the three causes to which he attributes old age:  “As the World waxeth old, Men grow old with it:  not by reason of the Age of the World, but because of the great Increase of living Creatures, which infect the very Air, that every way encompasseth us, and Through our Negligence in ordering our Lives, and That great Ignorance of the Properties which are in things conducing to Health, which might help a disordered way of Living, and might supply the defect of due Government.”

What would have been its fate if the mind of Europe had been ready for Roger Bacon’s ferment, and if men had turned to the profitable studies of physics, astronomy and chemistry instead of wasting centuries over the scholastic philosophy and the subtleties of Duns Scotus, Abelard and Thomas Aquinas?  Who can say?  Make no mistake about the quality of these men—­giants in intellect, who have had their place in the evolution of the race; but from the standpoint of man struggling for the mastery of this world they are like the members of Swift’s famous college “busy distilling sunshine from cucumbers.”  I speak, of course, from the position of the natural man, who sees for his fellows more hope from the experiments of Roger Bacon than from the disputations of philosophy on the “Instants, Familiarities, Quiddities and Relations,” which so roused the scorn of Erasmus.

MEDIAEVAL MEDICAL STUDIES