Note 1388 — Chapter VIII · (continued 2)

So late as 1787, Townsend, a very accomplished man, who travelled through Spain with the express object of noting the state of knowledge, as well as the economical condition of the country, and who, by previous study, had well qualified himself for such an undertaking, says, ‘I have observed in general, that the physicians with whom I have had occasion to converse, are disciples of their favourite doctor Piquer, who denied, or at least doubted of, the circulation of the blood.’ Townsend's Journey through Spain, 2d ed., London, 1792, vol. iii. p. 281. At that time, the Spanish physicians were, however, beginning to read Hoffmann, Cullen, and other heretical speculators, in whose works they would find, to their astonishment, that the circulation of the blood was assumed, and was not even treated as a debatable question. But the students were obliged to take such matters on trust; for, adds Townsend, p. 282, ‘In their medical classes, they had no dissections.’ Compare Laborde's Spain, vol. i. p. 76, vol. iii. p. 315, London, 1809, and Godoy's Memoirs, London, 1836, vol. ii. p. 157. Godoy, speaking of the three colleges of surgery at Madrid, Barcelona, and Cadiz, says that until his administration in 1793, ‘In the capital, even that of San Carlos had not a lecture-room for practical instruction.’