the altars of Science

20:23 Dec 20, 2012 

To answer your question, Mel, I'd have to know who are what the "Cardinals" are/were. Cardinals can be religious figures, birds, etc. There's even a baseball team in the U.S. called the Cardinals. The basic idea (with no further context) is that something/someone is sacrificed because some "authority" deems that sacrifice worth it, or appropriate, to achieve a certain end (appeasing the gods, developing a new vaccine, whatever). As medicine is considered a rather high calling, the temple metaphor also conjures up the idea of doctors being rather like high priests in a world that worships Science.