schools.  A strong revulsion of feeling arose against the Arabians, and Avicenna, the Prince, who had been clothed with an authority only a little less than divine, became anathema.  Under the leadership of the Montpellier School, the Arabians made a strong fight, but it was a losing battle all along the line.  This group of medical humanists—­men who were devoted to the study of the old humanities, as Latin and Greek were called—­has had a great and beneficial influence upon the profession.  They were for the most part cultivated gentlemen with a triple interest—­literature, medicine and natural history.  How important is the part they played may be gathered from a glance at the “Lives” given by Bayle in his “Biographic Medicale” (Paris, 1855) between the years 1500 and 1575.  More than one half of them had translated or edited works of Hippocrates or Galen; many of them had made important contributions to general literature, and a large proportion of them were naturalists:  Leonicenus, Linacre, Champier, Fernel, Fracastorius, Gonthier, Caius, J. Sylvius, Brasavola, Fuchsius, Matthiolus, Conrad Gesner, to mention only those I know best, form a great group.  Linacre edited Greek works for Aldus, translated works of Galen, taught Greek at Oxford, wrote Latin grammars and founded the Royal College of Physicians.(*) Caius was a keen Greek scholar, an ardent student of natural history, and his name is enshrined as co-founder of one of the most important of the Cambridge colleges.  Gonthier, Fernel, Fuchs and Mattioli were great scholars and greater physicians.  Champier, one of the most remarkable of the group, was the founder of the Hotel Dieu at Lyons, and author of books of a characteristic Renaissance type and of singular bibliographical interest.  In many ways greatest of all was Conrad Gesner, whose mors inopinata at forty-nine, bravely fighting the plague, is so touchingly and tenderly mourned by his friend Caius.(2) Physician, botanist, mineralogist, geologist, chemist, the first great modern bibliographer, he is the very embodiment of the spirit of the age.(2a) On the flyleaf of my copy of the “Bibliotheca Universalis” (1545), is written a fine tribute to his memory.  I do not know by whom it is, but I do know from my reading that it is true: 

     (*) Cf.  Osler:  Thomas Linacre, Cambridge University Press,
     1908.—­Ed.

     (2) Joannis Caii Britanni de libris suis, etc., 1570.

     (2a) See J. C. Bay:  Papers Bibliog.  Soc. of America, 1916, X,
     No. 2, 53-86.

“Conrad Gesner, who kept open house there for all learned men who came into his neighborhood.  Gesner was not only the best naturalist among the scholars of his day, but of all men of that century he was the pattern man of letters.  He was faultless in private life, assiduous in study, diligent in maintaining correspondence and good-will with learned men in all countries, hospitable—­though his means were small—­to every scholar that came into Zurich.  Prompt to serve all, he was an editor of other men’s volumes, a writer of prefaces for friends, a suggestor to young writers of books on which they might engage themselves, and a great helper to them in the progress of their work.  But still, while finding time for services to other men, he could produce as much out of his own study as though he had no part in the life beyond its walls.”