Nevertheless it does seem somewhat incredible that the physicians were so late in taking up the practice of human dissection. While it is always dangerous to exceed the limits of evidence, this peculiar situation in regard to the College of Physicians of London requires that attention be called to a statute of the college reproduced by Munk who gives it the date 1569-70.[41] According to this authority, the terms employed in the statute, reproduced below in translation, suggest that human anatomical dissection was already being employed by the physicians of the college at the time, although it seems impossible to determine whether or not the reference is to a period earlier than 1565 when Elizabeth granted them four bodies annually for anatomical purposes.[42] However, it seems unlikely that the college, which was so concerned with the enforcement of laws concerning medicine would itself perform an illegal action and therefore that Elizabeth’s grant to the college most likely introduced it to human dissection. Furthermore, one wonders just how frequently the college employed its new right, and in this respect it is interesting to note that there is no reference either to Elizabeth’s grant or to any dissection at all in the _Annals_ of the college as written by John Caius.[43] Although the study of human anatomy was now officially recognized and regularly pursued, at least in London, it would be incorrect to believe that native English anatomical writings would be forthcoming to continue the course modestly established by David Edwardes. The apathy or even hostility of physicians toward anatomical studies was an obstacle experienced earlier on the Continent and referred to by Vesalius who contributed no small share to the growth of anatomy’s respectability in the eyes of physicians. However, the time lag between the Continent and England had resulted in a disregard of anatomical studies by English physicians at the very times when continental physicians had begun to interest themselves in the subject and publish anatomical studies. As a result it was inevitable that for such Englishmen as were interested in anatomy it was easier to import the more advanced and elaborate continental texts, and dependence on such alien works was for long to be the regular pattern. But even with these advanced, contemporary works available, the practice continued among the surgeons of republishing old and obsolete anatomico-surgical treatises of late medieval times. If such a practice was dictated by an elementary knowledge, certainly the continuance of it would not lead to any development.