Sydenham was vehemently opposed by Richard Morton (1625-1648), of London, who, like Fernel, considered all diseases to be a poisoning of the vital spirits. Sydenham was also antagonized by Gideon Harvey, who ridiculed his medical contemporaries without stint, because most of them, for febrile disease, gave cathartics from the second day, and began treatment with emetics. With delightful satire Harvey divided the physicians of the day into six classes: the Ferrea, Asinaria, Jesuitica, Aquaria, Laniaria, and Stercoraria, according as their favorite systems of treatment were the administration of iron, asses' milk, cinchona, mineral water, venesection, or purgatives. Sir Thomas Browne (1605-1682), who still enjoys a great reputation, was the author of the works entitled _Religlo Medici and Inquiries into Vulgar and Common Errors_. The latter appeared in 1646, but does not seem to have protected its author from the worst error of his age,--viz., superstition,--since, in 1664, he swore that two condemned old women were actual witches. Having{176} considered the progress of medicine during the seventeenth century, it may be well to glance likewise at surgical progress. Among the Italians Santoro, already spoken of as the inventor of various instruments, should be mentioned; also Valsalva, who obtained a sound reputation as an operator, employed the ligature, and recommended a starvation plan for treating aneurism; Magati (1579-1647). who contended against the abuses of treating wounds by filling them with plasters, balsam, poultices, tents, etc., and of changing the dressing several times a day.--once in four days was better, he said; Severino (1580-1656), first a lawyer, then a professor at Xaples, and later an eminent surgeon, a good anatomist, and a particular friend of the actual cautery; Marchetti (1589-1673), a bold, versatile operator of Padua; and Borri, of Milan (1625-1695), skilled as an operator and an oculist but better known because of his sad fate, since he died in the prison of the Inquisition, alter a prison-life of twenty-five years, on account of too liberal religious views. There were also numerous other Italian surgeons who made a name, especially in plastic surgery, and particularly in that branch of it named rhinoplasty, by whose efforts one method of manufacturing a new nose came to be known as the "Italian method."