Historical Notes — Persecution In The Scientific Community
May 12, 2020 at 7:46 p.m.
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Galileo Galilei
(1564-1642)
The classic case related to persecution, one that many of us may be aware of, was the trial and conviction of the Italian astronomer and physicist, Galileo.
He was charged with publishing a treatise on his observation that the earth revolves around the sun. In 1633, the Inquisition banned his writings and Galileo spent the remainder of his life under house arrest. Specifically, he was charged with heresy by the Holy Inquisition in Rome, as described “he was accused of teaching the Heliocentric System, or that the planets revolve around the sun.”
The Inquisition found that the proposition that the sun is in the center of the world and immovable from its place is absurd, philosophically false and formally heretical because it is expressly contrary to the holy scriptures. He was forbidden to teach this idea as the truth, yet he published a book, the “Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems,” which does, in fact, teach this heretical idea as the truth.
Galileo’s case has nearly always been portrayed as a cosmic struggle between science and religion. According to Thomas F. Mayer in his book, “The Trial of Galileo,” “He stood heroically on the side of modernity, daring to claim that the Earth moved and the sun did not. In revenge, a reactionary church martyred an innocent victim. The only serious variant reverses the black and white hats and blames Galileo for daring to defy the established order.”
Andreas Vesalius (1514-1564)
Andreas Vesalius was a distinguished medical scholar, a great anatomist and founder of modern medical science.
He was a Renaissance figure in the 16th century scientific revolution. Vesalius applied empirical methods while dissecting cadavers in the study of the human body. His revolutionary book, “De Humani Corporis Fabrica,” established anatomy as a scientific discipline.
Fabrica is characterized by a painstaking attention to detail and by marginal notes that refer to each of its precisely executed illustrations. It challenged conventional medical knowledge and thus antagonized the academic establishment, current medical knowledge and often caused controversy.
Nevertheless, his fame as an anatomist became greater with each passing year. Eventually he was appointed a court physician in Spain. By dissecting the body of a Spanish nobleman who died in his care, Vesalius found, when he opened the man’s chest, that the heart was still beating.
Vesalius was accused of murder and like Galileo, was brought before the Inquisition. Fortunately, the king of Spain commuted his death sentence to a pilgrimage of penitence in the Holy Land.
While on the passage back to Spain, his ship was driven ashore on the Greek Island of Zante where he become ill and died suddenly at the age of 49.
Rudolph Virchow (1821-1902)
Virchow was the most celebrated German pathologist and an outspoken champion of social and democratic reforms.
He was the first to discover leukemia in 1845, and the second was his demonstration in early 1846 of the true nature of the process by which blood clots cause thrombosis and embolism, terms which he introduced.
In 1848, Virchow was a leader of an armed revolution in Berlin, demanding constitutional government, freedom of the press and universal healthcare. This short-lived revolution failed. Virchow lost his job as pathologist, was investigated by the police, and banished from Berlin.
To avoid formal prosecution and imprisonment, Virchow moved to Bavaria, where he found an academic position, but had to promise to steer away from politics. He returned to Berlin in 1858, resumed his political activities and was elected a member of the German Reichstag.
Stanley Prusiner (1942 –)
Stanley Prusiner has been credited with the discovery of prions, mysterious infectious agents responsible for several degenerative diseases found in mammals.
The word itself is derived from proteinaceous infectious particle. Prions can reproduce and infect but contain no genetic material, neither DNA or RNA and thus constitute an enigma towards understanding the biological world. (All previous known pathogens, such as bacteria and viruses contain nucleic acids, which enable them to reproduce.)
Fifty years have passed since Prusiner first proposed that a protein could be the sole component of the agent responsible for such diseases. It took that long for his heretical hypothesis to be fully accepted by the scientific community. Naysayers had argued that definitive proof could not be achieved until infectious material is produced from pure prion protein. Such skeptics constitute today’s brand of persecution. Prusiner won the Nobel Prize for medicine in 1997.
Max Sherman is a medical writer and pharmacist retired from the medical device industry. He has taught college courses on regulatory and compliance issues at Ivy Tech, Grace College and Butler University. Sherman has an unquenchable thirst for knowledge on all levels. Eclectic Science, the title of his column, touches on famed doctors and scientists, human senses, aging, various diseases, and little-known facts about many species, including their contributions to scientific research. He can be reached by email at [email protected].
Galileo Galilei
(1564-1642)
The classic case related to persecution, one that many of us may be aware of, was the trial and conviction of the Italian astronomer and physicist, Galileo.
He was charged with publishing a treatise on his observation that the earth revolves around the sun. In 1633, the Inquisition banned his writings and Galileo spent the remainder of his life under house arrest. Specifically, he was charged with heresy by the Holy Inquisition in Rome, as described “he was accused of teaching the Heliocentric System, or that the planets revolve around the sun.”
The Inquisition found that the proposition that the sun is in the center of the world and immovable from its place is absurd, philosophically false and formally heretical because it is expressly contrary to the holy scriptures. He was forbidden to teach this idea as the truth, yet he published a book, the “Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems,” which does, in fact, teach this heretical idea as the truth.
Galileo’s case has nearly always been portrayed as a cosmic struggle between science and religion. According to Thomas F. Mayer in his book, “The Trial of Galileo,” “He stood heroically on the side of modernity, daring to claim that the Earth moved and the sun did not. In revenge, a reactionary church martyred an innocent victim. The only serious variant reverses the black and white hats and blames Galileo for daring to defy the established order.”
Andreas Vesalius (1514-1564)
Andreas Vesalius was a distinguished medical scholar, a great anatomist and founder of modern medical science.
He was a Renaissance figure in the 16th century scientific revolution. Vesalius applied empirical methods while dissecting cadavers in the study of the human body. His revolutionary book, “De Humani Corporis Fabrica,” established anatomy as a scientific discipline.
Fabrica is characterized by a painstaking attention to detail and by marginal notes that refer to each of its precisely executed illustrations. It challenged conventional medical knowledge and thus antagonized the academic establishment, current medical knowledge and often caused controversy.
Nevertheless, his fame as an anatomist became greater with each passing year. Eventually he was appointed a court physician in Spain. By dissecting the body of a Spanish nobleman who died in his care, Vesalius found, when he opened the man’s chest, that the heart was still beating.
Vesalius was accused of murder and like Galileo, was brought before the Inquisition. Fortunately, the king of Spain commuted his death sentence to a pilgrimage of penitence in the Holy Land.
While on the passage back to Spain, his ship was driven ashore on the Greek Island of Zante where he become ill and died suddenly at the age of 49.
Rudolph Virchow (1821-1902)
Virchow was the most celebrated German pathologist and an outspoken champion of social and democratic reforms.
He was the first to discover leukemia in 1845, and the second was his demonstration in early 1846 of the true nature of the process by which blood clots cause thrombosis and embolism, terms which he introduced.
In 1848, Virchow was a leader of an armed revolution in Berlin, demanding constitutional government, freedom of the press and universal healthcare. This short-lived revolution failed. Virchow lost his job as pathologist, was investigated by the police, and banished from Berlin.
To avoid formal prosecution and imprisonment, Virchow moved to Bavaria, where he found an academic position, but had to promise to steer away from politics. He returned to Berlin in 1858, resumed his political activities and was elected a member of the German Reichstag.
Stanley Prusiner (1942 –)
Stanley Prusiner has been credited with the discovery of prions, mysterious infectious agents responsible for several degenerative diseases found in mammals.
The word itself is derived from proteinaceous infectious particle. Prions can reproduce and infect but contain no genetic material, neither DNA or RNA and thus constitute an enigma towards understanding the biological world. (All previous known pathogens, such as bacteria and viruses contain nucleic acids, which enable them to reproduce.)
Fifty years have passed since Prusiner first proposed that a protein could be the sole component of the agent responsible for such diseases. It took that long for his heretical hypothesis to be fully accepted by the scientific community. Naysayers had argued that definitive proof could not be achieved until infectious material is produced from pure prion protein. Such skeptics constitute today’s brand of persecution. Prusiner won the Nobel Prize for medicine in 1997.
Max Sherman is a medical writer and pharmacist retired from the medical device industry. He has taught college courses on regulatory and compliance issues at Ivy Tech, Grace College and Butler University. Sherman has an unquenchable thirst for knowledge on all levels. Eclectic Science, the title of his column, touches on famed doctors and scientists, human senses, aging, various diseases, and little-known facts about many species, including their contributions to scientific research. He can be reached by email at [email protected].
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