For us, however, Linacre's most interesting biographic details are those which relate to medicine, for, besides his humanistic studies while in Italy, Linacre graduated in medicine, obtaining the degree of doctor at Padua. The memory of the brilliant disputation which he sustained in the presence of the medical faculty in order to obtain his degree is still one of the precious traditions in the medical school of Padua. He does not seem to have considered his medical education finished, however, by the mere fact of having obtained his doctor's degree, and there is a tradition of his having studied later at Vicenza under Nicholas Leonicenus, the most celebrated {93} physician and scholar in Italy at the end of the fifteenth century, who many years afterwards referred with pardonable pride to the fact that he had been Linacre's teacher in medicine. It may seem strange to many that Linacre, with all his knowledge of the classics, should have devoted himself for so many years to the study of medicine in addition to his humanistic studies. It must not be forgotten, however, that the revival of the classics of Latin and Greek brought with it a renewed knowledge of the great Latin and Greek fathers of medicine, Hippocrates and Galen. This had a wonderful effect in inspiring the medical students of the time with renewed enthusiasm for the work in which they were engaged. A knowledge of the classics led to the restoration of the study of anatomy, botany, and of clinical medicine, which had been neglected in the midst of application to the Arabian writers in medicine during the preceding centuries. The restoration of the classics made of medicine a progressive science in which every student felt the possibility of making great discoveries that would endure not only for his own reputation but for the benefit of humanity. These thoughts seem to have attracted many promising young men to the study of medicine. The result was a period of writing and active observation in medicine that undoubtedly makes this one of the most important of literary medical eras. Some idea of the activity of the writers of the time can be gathered from the important {94} medical books--most of them large folios which were printed during the last half of the sixteenth century in Italy. There is a series of these books to be seen in one of the cases of the library of the Surgeon-General at Washington, which, though by no means complete, must be a source of never-ending surprise to those who are apt to think of this period as a _saison morte_ in medical literature.