The Reform Period is the name which Renouard has given to the time beginning with the commencement of the seventeenth century,--a time when the domain of natural science was daily enlarged, and when observation had enriched human knowledge with multitudes of new facts, some of which harmonized with, and some of which were in opposition to, prevailing doctrines. Men whose knowledge{151} equaled their genius began to need a radical reform, and by such men intellectual improvement was begun by which the decrepit theories of the schools of the Middle Ages were eradicated and by which there were substituted for them others which harmonized much better with known phenomena. To the period of worship of ancient authority succeeded one characterized by a desire to shake off the yoke of the same, and men now struggled, as it were, to free themselves from the tyranny of the past. As Galileo was the torch-bearer for regeneration of the knowledge of physics, and as Kepler, and others already named, or to be named, did as much for other branches of science, so there were not lacking those who broke away from the restraint of authority in medicine, and began to beat or choose paths for themselves among the facts which experimental science furnished them. With the approach of the seventeenth century there was evident improvement in both the social and mental status of medical men. While political humiliation and exhaustion were everywhere noted, in the field of literature it was evident that the line had advanced. What may have been the effect of thirty years of religious war, with other political struggles carried on under the hypocritical cloak of religion, may be imagined, if not fully described; the devastation of whole countries by disease, and notably by the plague,--the poverty and hunger consequent upon the ravages of perpetual war (it is stated that even so late as 1792 there were still in Saxony 535 wasted and extinct villages), to say nothing of the barbarity and immorality resulting therefrom,--all combined to make the early part of the seventeenth century a most mournful epoch. It is not strange that, with poverty, superstition and great rudeness of manners prevailed, or that trials for witchcraft and persecutions by the Jesuit Inquisition were common. That any advance should{152} have been made under such circumstances speaks well for the progress of the human mind. That this advance was slight in Germany and central Europe is not strange, though other countries were able to quietly enlarge their scientific borders. Now it was that England, Italy, and the Netherlands, which took but little part in the warlike struggles of the century, acquired leadership in medicine, and were seconded by the French. In Great Britain, science had been fostered by various kings, and particularly by Charles II, who professed to be something of a chemist; in fact, an epidemic of scientific interest fell upon the English court.