text: According to historian of atomism Joshua Gregory, there was no serious work done with atomism from the time of Galen until Isaac Beeckman, Gassendi and Descartes resurrected it in the 17th century; "the gap between these two modern naturalists and the ancient Atomists marked "the exile of the atom" and "it is universally admitted that the Middle Ages had abandoned Atomism, and virtually lost it."