Council of Le Mans forbids monks to perform surgery, the development of which depended on the dissection of cadavers. Also cited was the dictum that "the Church abhors the shedding of blood."
1721
Boston physician Zabdiel Boylston is threatened with prosecution for "poisoning" patients after experimenting with inoculation.
1772
In London, Rev. Edmund Massey preaches on "The Dangerous and Sinful Practice of Inoculation," saying the disease was ordained by the Bible--Job's distemper, he said, was likely the result of smallpox, and that God sends disease to punish sin.
1798
Boston physicians and clergymen found the Anti-vaccination Society to suppress vaccination as "bidding defiance to Heaven."
1847
Scottish doctor James Young Simpson's use of chloroform to alleviate the pain of childbirth is denounced as undoing God's "primeval curse on woman" found in Genesis. Simpson answered that before God took the rib from Adam's side for the creation of Eve, caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam."
1888
A German preacher warns against the use of hypnotism in psychiatry as a state of demonic influence.
