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SEPT. 1936 LINACRE AND THE SCHOLAR-PHYSICIANS OF OXFORD <THEBRITISH 550 12, MNEDICAL JOURNAL I These conditions could not endure. Arabian-taught medicine was scholastic and sterile. Powerful thinkers Nova et Vetera .of the times recognized the necessity of direct contact with the Hellenic writings. John Basingstoke, an Oxford man, travelled to Greece, and there learnt Greck THOMAS LINACRE AND THE FIRST from a learned Athenian woman, Constantina. He re- soon * turned to England with Greek manuscripts, and was SCHOLAR-PHYSICIANS OF OXFORD in contact with the great churchman and scholar Robert BY Grosseteste (1175-1253). Grosseteste's life is in large part bound up with Oxford, where he was educated. A. P. CAWADIAS, O.B.E., M.D., F.R.C.P. Wishing to increase his knowledge of true science he PHYSICIAN TO TIIE ST. JOHN CLINIC AND INSTITUTE OF PHYSICAL MEDICINE studied Greek not only at second hand in Paris but at Oxford with a native Greek, Nicolas or Elicheros, and began to translate Greek authors, unfortunately not im- Thomas Linacre and Leonicenus were the greatest portant writers. His friend and Oxford contemporary, physicians of the early Renaissance. Around the former Roger Bacon, the Doctor mirabilis, with the courage radiated a group of other eminent physicians who, with and energy which characterized his whole life, pointed the exception of Caius, were all of Oxford. The studies out that the knowledge received from the Arabian writers and medical preparation of Linacre belong to the last was imperfect because of faulty translation, and he quarter of the fifteenth the period of active century; blamed the professors for not learning Greek so as to life, as in the case of the other great Oxford scholar- be able to read Aristotle and other writers in the original. physicians, belongs to the first quarter of the sixteenth This thirte2nth century revival of the Greek language century. Thomas Linacre and his satellites represent and of science at Oxford did not long continue. was that period of Oxford in which Greek learning Grosseteste was too much occupied with political activi- introduced and modern or Western European medicine ties, and Roger Bacon was too much persecuted by the originated. Church. The movement, however, was the beginning of Greek Learning and that greater renaissance at the same university in the Medicine days of Linacre. Greek learning was intimately bound up with the in- ception and development of modern medicine, and Thomas Linacre Thomas Linacre was a great Greek scholar as well as Thomas Linacre was fortunate in his studies, in his a great physician-a combination exhibited also by his Oxford contempararies and associates, Edward Wotton, teachers, and in his fellow-students. His first teacher John Clement, Richard Bartlot, Thomas Bentley, John at the school of the Christchurch convent of Canterbury was an man a Chambre, as well as by his Cambridge counterpart, William Selling, Oxford and Fellow of All Caius. It is easy to understand the relation between Souls. Selling had travelled in Italy at a time when that was a Greek learning and medicine if we follow in broad out- country fostering great renaissance of Greek line the history of our science. teaching under Greek scholars. He had thus learned Medicine-scientific medicine and not the mystical magic Greek at first hand, and he had brought back with him and empirical healing art of the ancient Eastern-peoples- Greek manuscripts. The teaching he gave his favourite began with the ancient Greeks. From the seventh cen- pupil was not the scholastic teaching of the period but tury B.C. to the seventh century of our era, from the more classical. At the age of 20 Linacre went to Oxford, Ionian physiologists, Pythagoras and Alcmaeon, to and although we do not know his first college we find Alextnder of Tralles and Paul of Aegina, medicine was him four years later a Fellow of All Souls. At Oxford essentially Greek. The Romans had no medicine as he continued his Greek studies under the Italian, Vitelli, a man they had no science, and the only medical work in Latin, of noble birth, who had learned Greek from Greeks and was that of Celsus, was an elegant compilation of Greek medi- probably the first teacher of that language in cine written by a dilettante. When, in the eighth century the university. At Oxford Linacre became intimately A.D., the Arabs felt the urge to practise and develop acquainted with William Grocyn and William Latimer, who were medicine their only source was the writings of the pursuing classical studies, and who, like Linacre, Greek physicians and scientists. Under the Abbasides in were among the principal figures in the revival of Greek Bagdad remarkable translations were made of the Hellenic language and learning in England. writings, of which the Arabian physicians gave various A few years after the beginning of his Oxford life interpretations, without, however, adding any original Thomas Linacre was again blessed by fortune. His work. From the eighth century to the end of the twelfth teacher, William Selling, was sent on a mission to and the learned man medicine was again Greek, but in Arab dress. The Italy, took with him his favourite Arabian interpretation of medicine was inferior to the pupil. This Italian journey is the crux of Linacre's life. In purely Hellenic healing art, not only because it was not Florence and in Rome he was in touch witb original but because Greek writers taught, besides facts, the three great humanists, Demetrius Chalcocondylis, and Hermolaus was a technique of reasoning and observation, whereas the Politian, Barbarus. It the Greek art of reasoning cannot be found among Arabian Chalcocondylis who exercised the greatest influence on Linacre. Chalcocondylis was one of those whom the physicians. Greeks call " teachers of When in the thirteenth century men appeared who great the race." His learning was extensive but his felt the need to develop medicine two routes lay open teaching was not purely philo- to them: they could read and study medicine in the logical. His aim was to inspire his pupils, some of whom illustrious original Greek, or study it through Arabian interpreta- became men, with the spirit of clear tions. They chose the latter, and from the end of the thinking and of logic, and with the high ideals of thirteenth century to the end of the fifteenth European ancient Greece. He was a great character as well as a at medicine was Arabian-that is, second-hand Greek. The great scholar, and this time was director of the Greek school of " reason for this devious method of study can be found Florence founded by another great teacher in the fact that it was difficult for Western Europeans of the race," Emanuel Chrysoloras. He was also of those days to study Greek. The mediaeval Church had tutor to the sons of Lorenzo de' Medici. The other set its face against Greek. Knowledge of that language teacher of Linacre, Politian, was a man of considerable meant studying Greek science and enlightenment, and learning too, but his character and moral standards fell the Church stood firm against science and enlighten- short of the ideals of the classical thinkers whose princi- Hermolaus a ment. Greek was the language of a great Christian ples he taught. Barbarus, lover of natural Graeco-Byzantine empire, Christian but not bowing to history and translator of Dioscorides, was an eruAite the Roman pontiff. and slightly epicurean dilettante. From Florence Linacre proceeded to Venice, where he * Read in the Section of History of Medicine at the Annual helped Aldus Manutius, the famous printer, in the cor- Meeting of the British Medical Association, Oxford, 1936. rection of Greek texts, and thence to Padua, where he THE BRITISH 551 SEPT. 12, 1936 LINACRE AND THE SCHOLAR-PHYSICIANS OF OXFORD MEDICAL JOURNAL a crowned this period of study in Italy by completing his reform by giving it a safe organization. Through his scientific and medical studies and graduating M.D. After influence with Henry VIII and Cardinal Wolsey he graduation, probably in 1490, Linacre returned to Oxford, obtained in 1518 letters patent for the foundation of the where he continued teaching Greek and medicine. He and College of Physicians of London. He probably took as his friends Grocyn and Latimer fought for the introduc- a model similar institutions existing in Italian towns. tion of Greek classical teaching. The fight was hard, His object was to incorporate the physicians practising because the Church continued its opposition. It is even in London into one body which would promote the said that a monk was preaching so vehemently in Oxford advancement of science and would control medical prac- against Greek teaching that he was stopped by Royal tice, which was then very irregular and had fallen into command. The early Tudors showed great interest in the hands of quacks and the ignorant. Through this the renaissance of learning. Oxford, with Linacre aild foundation Linacre initiated the history of British medi- his circle, became a centre of classical learning, and cine. Later in life he founded the Linacre lectureships, Erasmus himself came there to learn Greek with Grocyn, two at O:tford and one at Cambridge. This he did at Latimer, and Linacre. The fame of Linacre as scholar a time of suffering, which for long periods made him an and physician, however, was already very considerable, invalid, and which he bore with great fortitude until his and led to the interruption of his academic career, for he death in 1524. was called to London as tutor and physician to Prince On the flyleaf of the remarkable Life of Thomas Linacre Arthur, the first-borm son of Henry VII.

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