MEDIA ATROPATENE.

See ATROPATENE.

MEDIÆVAL, Belonging to the.

See MIDDLE AGES.

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MEDICAL SCIENCE:

Chronology of Development.

Renouard, in his "History of Medicine," arranges the

chronology of the development of medical knowledge in three

grand divisions or Ages, subdivided into eight periods. "The

First Age commences with the infancy of society, as far back

as historic tradition carries us, and terminates toward the

end of the second century of the Christian era, at the death

of Galen, during the reign of Septimus Severus. This lapse of

time constitutes, in Medicine, the Foundation Age. The germ of

the Healing Art, concealed, at first, in the instincts of men,

is gradually developed; the basis of the science is laid, and

great principles are discussed. … The Second Age, which may

be called the Age of Transition, offers very little material

to the history of Medicine. We see no longer the conflicts and

discussions between partisans of different doctrines; the

medical sects are confounded. The art remains stationary, or

imperceptibly retrogrades. I can not better depict this epoch

than by comparing it to the life of an insect in the nympha

state; though no exterior change appears, an admirable

metamorphosis is going on, imperceptibly, within. The eye of

man only perceives the wonder after it has been finished. Thus

from the 15th century, which is the beginning of the third and

last Age of Medicine, or the Age of Renovation, Europe offers

us a spectacle of which the most glorious eras of the

republics of Greece and Rome only can give us an idea. It

would seem as if a new life was infused into the veins of the

inhabitants of this part of the world; the sciences, fine

arts, industry, religion, social institutions, all are

changed. A multitude of schools are open for teaching

Medicine. Establishments which had no models among the

ancients, are created for the purpose of extending to the

poorer classes the benefits of the Healing Art. The ingenious

activity of modern Christians explores and is sufficient for

everything. These three grand chronological divisions do not

suffice to classify, in our minds, the principal phases of the

history of Medicine; consequently, I have subdivided each age

into a smaller number of sections, easy to be retained, and

which I have named Periods. The first Age embraces four

periods, the second and third ages, each, two. … The first

period, which we name Primitive Period, or that of instinct,

ends with the ruin of Troy, about twelve centuries before the

Christian era. The second, called the Mystic or Sacred Period,

extends from the dissolution of the 'Pythagorean Society' to

about the year 500 A. C. The third period, which ends at the

foundation of the Alexandrian Library, A. C., 320, we name the

Philosophic Period. The fourth, which we designate the

Anatomic, extends to the end of the first age, i. e., to the

year 200 of the Christian era. The fifth is called the Greek

Period; it ends at the destruction of the Alexandrian Library,

A. D. 640. The sixth receives the surname of Arabic, and

closes with the 14th century. The seventh period, which begins

the third age, comprises the 15th and 16th centuries; it is

distinguished as the Erudite. Finally, the eighth, or last

period, embraces the 17th and 18th centuries [beyond which the

writer did not carry his history]. I call it the Reform

Period."

_P. V. Renouard,

History of Medicine,

introduction._

MEDICAL SCIENCE:

Egyptian.

"Medicine is practised among them [the Egyptians] on a plan of

separation; each physician treats a single disorder, and no

more: thus the country swarms with medical practitioners, some

undertaking to cure diseases of the eye, others of the head,

others again of the teeth, others of the intestines, and some

those which are not local."

_Herodotus,

History,

translated by Rawlinson,

book 2, chapter 84._

{2121}

"Not only was the study of medicine of very early date in

Egypt, but medical men there were in such repute that they

were sent for at various times from other countries. Their

knowledge of medicine is celebrated by Homer (Od. iv. 229),

who describes Polydamna, the wife of Thonis, as giving

medicinal plants 'to Helen, in Egypt, a country producing an

infinite number of drugs … where each physician possesses

knowledge above all other men.' 'O virgin daughter of Egypt,'

says Jeremiah (lxvi. 11), 'in vain shalt thou use many

medicines.' Cyrus and Darius both sent to Egypt for medical

men (Her. iii. 1, 132): and Pliny (xix. 5) says post mortem

examinations were made in order to discover the nature of

maladies. Doctors received their salaries from the treasury;

but they were obliged to conform in the treatment of a patient

to the rules laid down in their books, his death being a

capital crime, if he was found to have been treated in any

other way. But deviations from, and approved additions to, the

sacred prescriptions were occasionally made; and the

prohibition was only to prevent the experiments of young

practitioners, whom Pliny considers the only persons

privileged to kill a man with impunity. Aristotle indeed says

'the Egyptian physicians were allowed after the third day to

alter the treatment prescribed by authority, and even before,

taking upon themselves the responsibility' (Polit. iii. 11).

Experience gradually taught them many new remedies; and that

they had adopted a method (of no very old standing in modern

practice) of stopping teeth with gold is proved by some

mummies found at Thebes. Besides the protection of society

from the pretensions of quacks, the Egyptians provided that

doctors should not demand fees on a foreign journey or on

military service, when patients were treated free of expense

(Diod. i. 82); and we may conclude that they were obliged to

treat the poor gratis, on consideration of the allowance paid

them as a body by government. … Poor and superstitious

people sometimes had recourse to dreams, to wizards, to

donations to sacred animals, and to exvotos to the gods. …

Charms were also written for the credulous, some of which have

been found on small pieces of papyrus, which were rolled up

and worn as by the modern Egyptians. Accoucheurs were women;

which we learn from Exodus i. 15, and from the sculptures, as

in modern Egypt. … The Egyptian doctors were of the

sacerdotal order, like the embalmers, who are called (in

Genesis l. 2) 'Physicians,' and were' commanded by Joseph to

embalm his father.' They were of the class called Pastophori,

who, according to Clemens (Strom. lib. 6), being physicians,

were expected to know about all things relating to the body,

and diseases, and remedies, contained in the six last sacred

books of Hermes. Manetho tells us that Athothes, the second

king of Egypt, who was a physician, wrote the anatomical

books; and his name, translated Hermogenes, may have been the

origin of the tradition that ascribed them to Hermes, the

Egyptian Thoth. Or the fable may mean that they were the

result of intellect personified by Thoth, or Hermes."

_Herodotus,

History,

translated by Rawlinson,

Note._

"The ancient Egyptians, though medical science was zealously

studied by them, also thought that the efficacy of the

treatment was enhanced by magic formulæ. In the Ebers Papyrus,

an important and very ancient manual of Egyptian medicine, the

prescriptions for various medicaments are accompanied by the

forms of exorcism to be used at the same time, and yet many

portions of this work give evidence of the advanced knowledge

of its authors."

_G. Ebers,

Egypt,

volume 2, pages 61-62._

"Works on medicine abounded in Egypt from the remotest times,

and the great medical library of Memphis, which was of

immemorial antiquity, was yet in existence in the second

century before our era, when Galen visited the Valley of the

Nile. … Ateta, third king of the First Dynasty, is the

reputed author of a treatise on anatomy. He also covered

himself with glory by the invention of an infallible

hair-wash, which, like a dutiful son, he is said to have

prepared especially for the benefit of his mother. No less

than five medical papyri have come down to our time, the

finest being the celebrated Ebers papyrus, bought at Thebes by

Dr. Ebers in 1874. This papyrus contains one hundred and ten

pages, each page consisting of about twenty-two lines of bold

hieratic writing. It may be described as an Encyclopædia of

Medicine as known and practised by the Egyptians of the

Eighteenth Dynasty; and it contains prescriptions for all

kinds of diseases—some borrowed from Syrian medical lore, and

some of such great antiquity that they are ascribed to the

mythologic ages, when the gods yet reigned personally upon

earth. Among others, we are given the recipe for an

application whereby Osiris cured Ra of the headache. The

Egyptians attached great importance to these ancient medical

works, which were regarded as final. The physician who

faithfully followed their rules of treatment might kill or

cure with impunity; but if he ventured to treat the patient

according to his own notions, and if that patient died, he

paid for the experiment with his life. Seeing, however, what

the canonical remedies were, the marvel is that anybody ever

recovered from anything. Raw meat; horrible mixtures of nitre,

beer, milk, and blood, boiled up and swallowed hot; the bile

of certain fishes; and the bones, fat, and skins of all kinds

of unsavory creatures, such as vultures, bats, lizards and

crocodiles, were among their choicest remedies."

_A. B. Edwards,

Pharaohs, Fellahs and Explorers,

chapter 6._

"In Egypt … man does not die, but some one or something

assassinates him. The murderer often belongs to our world, and

can be easily pointed out. … Often, though, it belongs to

the invisible world, and only reveals itself by the malignity

of its attacks: it is a god, a spirit, the soul of a dead man,

that has cunningly entered a living person, or that throws

itself upon him with irresistible violence. … Whoever treats

a sick person has therefore two equally important duties to

perform. He must first discover the nature of the spirit in

possession, and, if necessary, its name, and then attack it,

drive it out, or even destroy it. He can only succeed by

powerful magic, so he must be an expert in reciting

incantations, and skilful in making amulets. He must then use

medicine to contend with the disorders which the presence of

the strange being has produced in the body; this is done by a

finely graduated régime and various remedies. The cure-workers

are therefore divided into several categories.

{2122}

Some incline towards sorcery, and have faith in formulas and

talismen only; they think they have done enough if they have

driven out the spirit. Others extol the use of drugs; they

study the qualities of plants and minerals, describe the

diseases to which each of the substances provided by nature is

suitable, and settle the exact time when they must be procured

and applied: certain herbs have no power unless they are

gathered during the night at the full moon, others are

efficacious in summer only, another acts equally well in

winter or summer. The best doctors carefully avoid binding

themselves exclusively to either method."

_G. Maspéro,

Life in Ancient Egypt and Assyria,

chapter 7._

"The employment of numerous drugs in Egypt has been mentioned

by sacred and profane writers; and the medicinal properties of

many herbs which grow in the deserts, particularly between the

Nile and Red Sea, are still known to the Arabs, though their

application has been but imperfectly recorded and preserved.

… Homer, in the Odyssey, describes the many valuable

medicines given by Polydamna, the wife of Thonis, to Helen,

while in Egypt, 'a country whose fertile soil produces an

infinity of drugs, some salutary and some pernicious, where

each physician possesses knowledge above all other men'; and

Pliny makes frequent mention of the productions of that

country, and their use in medicine. He also notices the

physicians of Egypt; and as if their number was indicative of

the many maladies to which the inhabitants were subject, he

observes that it was a country productive of numerous

diseases. In this, however, he does not agree with Herodotus,

who affirms that, 'after the Libyans, there are no people so

healthy as the Egyptians, which may be attributed to the

invariable nature of the seasons in their country.' In Pliny's

time the introduction of luxurious habits and excess had

probably wrought a change in the people; and to the same cause

may be attributed the numerous complaints among the Romans,

'unknown to their fathers and ancestors.' The same author

tells us that the Egyptians examined the bodies after death,

to ascertain the nature of the diseases of which they had

died; and we can readily believe that a people so far advanced

in civilization and the principles of medicine as to assign

each physician his peculiar branch, would have resorted to

this effectual method of acquiring knowledge and experience

for the benefit of the community. It is evident that the

medical skill of the Egyptians was well known even in foreign

and distant countries; and we learn from Herodotus, that Cyrus

and Darius both sent to Egypt for medical men. … The

Egyptians, according to Pliny, claimed the honour of having

invented the art of curing diseases."

_Sir J. G. Wilkinson,

Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians,

chapter 10 (volume 2)._

"The Ptolemies, down to the very termination of their dominion

over Egypt, appear to have encouraged the curative art, and

for the purpose of restoring declining health, surrounded

themselves with the most illustrious physicians of the age.

… The science of medicine of the period was fully

represented at the Museum by distinguished professors, who,

according to Athenæus, restored the knowledge of this art to

the towns and islands of the Grecian Archipelago. … About

the period of the absorption of the Egyptian kingdom into the

expanding dominion of the Romans, the schools of Alexandria

still continued to be the centre of medical studies; and

notwithstanding the apparent dissidence between the demands of

a strict science and public affairs, its professors exhibited,

equally with their brother philosophers, a taste for

diplomacy. Dioscorides and Serapion, two physicians of

Alexandria, were the envoys of the elder Ptolemy to Rome, and

at a later date were bearers of dispatches from Cæsar to one

of his officers in Egypt."

_G. F. Fort,

Medical Economy During the Middle Ages,

chapter 3._

MEDICAL SCIENCE:

Babylonian.

The Babylonians "have no physicians, but when a man is ill,

they lay him in the public square, and the passers-by come up

to him, and if they have ever had his disease themselves or

have known anyone who has suffered from it, they give him

advice, recommending him to do whatever they found good in

their own case, or in the case known to them. And no one is

allowed to pass the sick man in silence without asking him

what his ailment is."

_Herodotus,

History,

translated by G. Rawlinson,

book 1, chapter 197 (volume 1)._

"The incantations against diseases describe a great variety of

cases. … But the most numerous are those which aim at the

cure of the plague, fever, and 'disease of the head;' this

latter, judging from the indications which are given of its

symptoms and its effects, appears to have been a sort of

erysipelas, or cutaneous disease. … These are the principal

passages of a long incantation against 'the disease of the

head:' the tablet on which we find it bears six other long

formulæ against the same evil. 'The disease of the head exists

on man. The disease of the head, the ulceration of the

forehead exists on man. The disease of the head marks like a

tiara, the disease of the head from sunrise to sunset. In the

sea and the vast earth a very small tiara is become the tiara,

the very large tiara, his tiara. The diseases of the head

pierce like a bull, the diseases of the head shoot like the

palpitation of the heart. … The diseases of the head, like

doves to their dove-cotes, like grasshoppers into the sky,

like birds into space may they fly away. May the invalid be

replaced in the protecting hands of his god!' This specimen

will give the reader an idea of the uniform composition of

these incantations against diseases, which filled the second

book of the work under consideration. They all follow the same

plan throughout, beginning with the definition of the disease

and its symptoms, which occupies the greater part of the

formula; and ending with a desire for deliverance from it, and

the order for it to depart. Sometimes, however, the

incantation of the magician assumes a dramatic form at the

end. … We must add … the use of certain enchanted drinks,

which, doubtless, really contained medicinal drugs, as a cure

for diseases, and also of magic knots, the efficacy of which

was so firmly believed in, even up to the middle ages. Here is

a remedy which one of the formulæ supposes to have been

prescribed by Hea against a disease of the head: 'Knot on the

right and arrange flat in regular bands, on the left a woman's

diadem; divide it twice in seven little bands; … gird the

head of the invalid with it; gird the forehead of the invalid

with it; gird the seat of life with it; gird his hands and his

feet: seat him on his bed; pour on him enchanted waters. Let

the disease of his head be carried away into the heavens like

a violent wind; … may the earth swallow it up like passing

waters!' Still more powerful than the incantations were

conjurations wrought by the power of numbers."

_F. Lenormant,

Chaldean Magic,

chapters 1 and 3._

{2123}

MEDICAL SCIENCE:

Finnish.

"The Finnish incantations for exorcising the demons of

diseases were composed in exactly the same spirit, and founded

upon the same data, as the Accadian incantations destined for

the like purpose. They were formulæ belonging to the same

family, and they often showed a remarkable similarity of

language; the Egyptian incantations, on the contrary, having

been composed by people with very different ideas about the

supernatural world, assumed quite another form. This is an

incantation from one of the songs of the Kalevala: 'O malady,

disappear into the heavens; pain, rise up to the clouds;

inflamed vapour, fly into the air, in order that the wind may

take thee away, that the tempest may chase thee to distant

regions, where neither sun nor moon give their light, where

the warm wind does not inflame the flesh. O pain, mount upon

the winged steed of stone, and fly to the mountains covered

with iron. For he is too robust to be devoured by disease, to

be consumed by pains. Go, O diseases, to where the virgin of

pains has her hearth, where the daughter of Wäinämöinen cooks

pains, go to the hill of pains. There are the white dogs, who

formerly howled in torments, who groaned in their

sufferings.'"

_F. Lenormant,

Chaldean Magic,

chapter 17._

MEDICAL SCIENCE:

Hindu.

"There is reason to … conclude, from the imperfect

opportunities of investigation we possess, that in medicine,

as in astronomy and metaphysics, the Hindus once kept pace

with the most enlightened nations of the world; and that they

attained as thorough a proficiency in medicine and surgery as

any people whose acquisitions are recorded, and as indeed was

practicable, before anatomy was made known to us by the

discoveries of modern enquirers. It might easily be supposed

that their patient attention and natural shrewdness would

render the Hindus excellent observers; whilst the extent and

fertility of their native country would furnish them with many

valuable drugs and medicaments. Their Nidana or Diagnosis,

accordingly, appears to define and distinguish symptoms with

great accuracy, and their Dravyabhidhana, or Materia Medica,

is sufficiently voluminous. They have also paid great

attention to regimen and diet, and have a number of works on

the food and general treatment, suited to the complaint, or

favourable to the operation of the medicine administered. This

branch they entitle Pathyapathya. To these subjects are to be

added the Chikitsa, or medical treatment of diseases—on which

subject they have a variety of compositions, containing much

absurdity, with much that is of value; and the Rasavidya, or

Pharmacy, in which they are most deficient. All these works,

however, are of little avail to the present generation, as

they are very rarely studied, and still more rarely

understood, by any of the practising empirics. The divisions

of the science thus noticed, as existing in books, exclude two

important branches, without which the whole system must be

defective—Anatomy and Surgery. We can easily imagine, that

these were not likely to have been much cultivated in

Hindustan. … The Ayur Veda, as the medical writings of

highest antiquity and authority are collectively called, is

considered to be a portion of the fourth or Atharva Veda, and

is consequently the work of Brahma—by him it was communicated

to Daksha, the Prajapati, and by him the two Aswins, or sons

of Surya, the Sun, were instructed in it, and they then became

the medical attendants of the gods—a genealogy that cannot

fail recalling to us the two sons of Esculapius, and their

descent from Apollo. Now what were the duties of the Aswins,

according to Hindu authorities?—the gods, enjoying eternal

youth and health, stood in no need of physicians, and

consequently they held no such sinecure station. The wars

between the gods and demons, however, and the conflicts

amongst the gods themselves, in which wounds might be

suffered, although death might not be inflicted, required

chirurgical aid—and it was this, accordingly, which the two

Aswins rendered. … The meaning of these legendary

absurdities is clear enough, and is conformable to the tenor

of all history. Man, in the semi-barbarous state, if not more

subject to external injuries than internal disease, was at

least more likely to seek remedies for the former, which were

obvious to his senses, than to imagine the means of relieving

the latter, whose nature he could so little comprehend.

Surgical, therefore, preceded medicinal skill; as Celsus has

asserted, when commenting on Homer's account of Podalirius and

Machaon, who were not consulted, he says, during the plague in

the Grecian camp, although regularly employed to extract darts

and heal wounds. … We may be satisfied that Surgery was once

extensively cultivated, and highly esteemed by the Hindus. Its

rational principles and scientific practice are, however, now,

it may be admitted, wholly unknown to them. … It would be an

enquiry of some interest to trace the period and causes of the

disappearance of Surgery from amongst the Hindus: it is

evidently of comparatively modern occurrence, as operative and

instrumental practice forms so principal a part of those

writings, which are undeniably most ancient; and which, being

regarded as the composition of inspired writers, are held of

the highest authority."

_H. H. Wilson,

Essays on Sanskrit Literature,

pages 269-276, and 391._

"The number of medical works and authors is extraordinarily

large. The former are either systems embracing the whole

domain of the science, or highly special investigations of

single topics, or, lastly, vast compilations prepared in modern

times under the patronage of kings and princes. The sum of

knowledge embodied in their contents appears really to be most

respectable. Many of the statements on dietetics and on the

origin and diagnosis of diseases bespeak a very keen

observation. In surgery, too, the Indians seem to have

attained a special proficiency, and in this department

European surgeons might perhaps even at the present day still

learn something from them, as indeed they have already

borrowed from them the operation of rhinoplasty. The

information, again, regarding the medicinal properties of

minerals (especially precious stones and metals), of plants,

and animal substances, and the chemical analysis and

decomposition of these, covers certainly much that is

valuable. Indeed, the branch of Materia Medica generally

appears to be handled with great predilection, and this makes

up to us in some measure at least for the absence of

investigations in the field of natural science. On the

diseases, &c., of horses and elephants also there exist very

special monographs.

{2124}

For the rest, during the last few centuries medical science

has suffered great detriment from the increasing prevalence of

the notion, in itself a very ancient one, that diseases are

but the result of transgressions and sins committed, and from

the consequent very general substitution of fastings, alms,

and gifts to the Brahmans, for real remedies. … The

influence … of Hindu medicine upon the Arabs in the first

centuries of the Hijra was one of the very highest

significance; and the Khalifs of Bagdad caused a considerable

number of works upon the subject to be translated. Now, as

Arabian medicine constituted the chief authority and guiding

principle of European physicians down to the seventeenth

century, it directly follows—just as in the case of

astronomy—that the Indians must have been held in high esteem

by these latter; and indeed Charaka is repeatedly mentioned in

the Latin translations of Avicenna (Ibn Sina), Rhazes (Al

Rasi), and Serapion (Ibn Serabi)."

_A. Weber,

History of Indian Literature,

pages 269-271._

MEDICAL SCIENCE:

Jewish.

"If we are to judge from the frequent mention of physicians

(Exodus xv. 26; Isaiah iii. 7; Jeremiah viii. 22; Sirach x.

11, xxxviii. 1 ff.; Matthew ix. 12; Mark v. 26; Luke iv. 23,

etc.), the Israelites must have given much attention to

medicine from ancient times. The physicians must have

understood how to heal wounds and external injuries with

bandaging, mollifying with oil (Isaiah i. 6; Luke x. 34),

balsam (Jeremiah xlvi. 11, li. 8), plasters (2 Kings xx. 7),

and salves prepared from herbs (Sirach xxxviii. 8; Exodus xxi.

19; 2 Kings viii. 29; Ezekiel xxx. 21). The ordinances

respecting leprosy also show that the lawgiver was well

acquainted with the various kinds of skin eruptions (comp.

section 114). And not only Moses, but other Israelites also

may have acquired much practical knowledge of medicine in

Egypt, where the healing art was cultivated from high

antiquity. But as to how far the Israelitish physicians

advanced in this art, we have not more exact information. From

the few scattered hints in the Old and New Testaments, so much

only is clear, that internal diseases were also treated (2

Chronicles xvi. 12; Luke viii. 43), and that the medicinal

springs which Palestine possesses were much used by invalids.

It by no means follows from the fact that the superintendence

of lepers and the pronouncing of them clean are assigned by

the law to the priests, that these occupied themselves chiefly

with medicine. The task which the law laid on them has nothing

to do with the healing of leprosy. Of the application of

charms, there is not a single instance in Scripture."

_C. F. Keil,

Manual of Biblical Archæology,

volume 2, pages 276-277._

The surgery of the Talmud includes a knowledge of dislocations

of the thigh, contusions of the head, perforation of the lungs

and other organs, injuries of the spinal cord and trachea, and

fractures of the ribs. Polypus of the nose was considered to

be a punishment for past sins. In sciatica the patient is

advised to rub the hip sixty times with meat-broth. Bleeding

was performed by mechanics or barbers. The pathology of the

Talmud ascribes diseases to a constitutional vice, to evil

influences acting on the body from without, or to the effect

of magic. Jaundice is recognized as arising from retention of

the bile, dropsy from suppression of the urine. The Talmudists

divided dropsy into anasarca, ascites, and tympanites. Rupture

and atrophy of the kidneys were held to be always fatal.

Hydatids of the liver were more favourably considered.

Suppuration of the spinal cord, induration of the lungs, etc.,

are incurable. Dr. Baas says that these are 'views which may

have been based on the dissection of (dead) animals, and may

be considered the germs of pathological anatomy.' Some

critical symptoms are sweating, sneezing, defecation, and

dreams, which promise a favourable termination of the disease.

Natural remedies, both external and internal, were employed.

Magic was also Talmudic. Dispensations were given by the

Rabbis to permit sick persons to eat prohibited food. Onions

were prescribed for worms; wine and pepper for stomach

disorders; goat's milk for difficulty of breathing; emetics in

nausea; a mixture of gum and alum for menorrhagia (not a bad

prescription); a dog's liver was ordered for the bite of a mad

dog. Many drugs, such a assafœtida, are evidently adopted from

Greek medicine. The dissection of the bodies of animals

provided the Talmudists with their anatomy. It is, however,

recorded that Rabbi Ishmael, at the close of the first

century, made a skeleton by boiling the body of a prostitute.

We find that dissection in the interests of science was

permitted by the Talmud. The Rabbis counted 252 bones in the

human skeleton."

_E. Berdoe,

The Origin and Growth of the Healing Art,

book 2, chapter 2._

MEDICAL SCIENCE:

Greek.

"It is well known that the oldest documents which we possess

relative to the practice of Medicine, are the various

treatises contained in the Collection which bears the name of

Hippocrates. Their great excellence has been acknowledged in

all ages, and it has always been a question which has

naturally excited literary curiosity, by what steps the art

had attained to such perfection at so early a period. … It

is clearly established that, long before the birth of

philosophy, medicine had been zealously and successfully

cultivated by the Asclepiadæ, an order of priest-physicians

that traced its origin to a mythical personage bearing the

distinguished name of Æsculapius. Two of his sons, Podalirius

and Machaon, figure in the Homeric poems, not however as

priests, but as warriors possessed of surgical skill in the

treatment of wounds, for which they are highly complimented by

the poet. It was probably some generations after this time (if

one may venture a conjecture on a matter partaking very much

of the legendary character) that Æsculapius was deified, and

that Temples of Health, called 'Asclepia,' presided over by

the Asclepiadæ, were erected in various parts of Greece, as

receptacles for the sick, to which invalids resorted in those

days for the cure of diseases, under the same circumstances as

they go to hospitals and spas at the present time. What

remedial measures were adopted in these temples we have no

means of ascertaining so fully as could be wished, but the

following facts, collected from a variety of sources, may be

pretty confidently relied upon for their accuracy. In the

first place, then, it is well ascertained that a large

proportion of these temples were built in the vicinity of

thermæ, or medicinal springs, the virtues of which would no

doubt contribute greatly to the cure of the sick. At his

entrance into the temple, the devotee was subjected to

purifications, and made to go through a regular course of

bathing, accompanied with methodical frictions, resembling the

oriental system now well known by the name of shampooing.

{2125}

Fomentations with decoctions of odoriferous herbs were also

not forgotten. A total abstinence from food was at first

prescribed, but afterwards the patient would no doubt be

permitted to partake of the flesh of the animals which were

brought to the temples as sacrifices. Every means that could

be thought of was used for working upon the imagination of the

sick, such as religious ceremonies of an imposing nature,

accompanied by music, and whatever else could arouse their

senses, conciliate their confidence, and, in certain cases,

contribute to their amusement. … It is also well known that

the Asclepiadæ noted down with great care the symptoms and

issue of every case, and that, from such observations, they

became in time great adepts in the art of prognosis. … The

office of priesthood was hereditary in certain families, so

that information thus acquired would be transmitted from

father to son, and go on accumulating from one generation to

another. Whether the Asclepiadæ availed themselves of the

great opportunities which they must undoubtedly have had of

cultivating human and comparative anatomy, has been much

disputed in modern times. … It is worthy of remark, that

Galen holds Hippocrates to have been a very successful

cultivator of anatomy. … Of the 'Asclepia' we have mentioned

above, it will naturally be supposed that some were in much

higher repute than others, either from being possessed of

peculiar advantages, or from the prevalence of fashion. In the

beginning of the fifth century before the Christian era the

temples of Rhodes, Cnidos, and Cos were held in especial

favour, and on the extinction of the first of these, another

rose up in Italy in its stead. But the temple of Cos was

destined to throw the reputation of all the others into the

background, by producing among the priests of Æsculapius the

individual who, in all after ages, has been distinguished by

the name of the Great Hippocrates. … That Hippocrates was

lineally descended from Æsculapius was generally admitted by

his countrymen, and a genealogical table, professing to give a

list of the names of his forefathers, up to Æsculapius, has

been transmitted to us from remote antiquity. … Of the

circumstances connected with the life of Hippocrates little is

known for certain. … Aulus Gellius, … in an elaborate

disquisition on Greek and Roman chronology, states decidedly

that Socrates was contemporary with Hippocrates, but younger

than he. Now it is well ascertained that the death of Socrates

took place about the year 400 A. C., and as he was then nearly

seventy years old, his birth must be dated as happening about

the year 470 A. C. … It will readily occur to the reader,

then, that our author flourished at one of the most memorable

epochs in the intellectual development of the human race. …

From his forefathers he inherited a distinguished situation in

one of the most eminent hospitals, or Temples of Health, then

in existence, where he must have enjoyed free access to all

the treasures of observations collected during many

generations, and at the same time would have an opportunity of

assisting his own father in the management of the sick. Thus

from his youth he must have been familiar with the principles

of medicine, both in the abstract and in the concrete. …

Initiated in the theory and first principles of medicine, as

now described, Hippocrates no doubt commenced the practice of

his art in the Asclepion of Cos, as his forefathers had done

before him. Why he afterwards left the place of his nativity,

and visited distant regions of the earth, whither the duties

of his profession and the calls of humanity invited him,

cannot now be satisfactorily determined. … According to all

the accounts which have come down to us of his life, he spent

the latter part of it in Thessaly, and died at Larissa, when

far advanced in years. … As a medical author the name of

Hippocrates stands pre-eminently illustrious. … Looking upon

the animal system as one whole, every part of which conspires

and sympathises with all the other parts, he would appear to

have regarded disease also as one, and to have referred all

its modifications to peculiarities of situation. Whatever may

now be thought of his general views on Pathology, all must

admit that his mode of prosecuting the cultivation of medicine

is in the true spirit of the Inductive Philosophy; all his

descriptions of disease are evidently derived from patient

observation of its phenomena, and all his rules of practice

are clearly based on experience. Of the fallaciousness of

experience by itself he was well aware, however. … Above all

others Hippocrates was strictly the physician of experience

and common sense. In short, the basis of his system was a

rational experience, and not a blind empiricism, so that the

Empirics in after ages had no good grounds for claiming him as

belonging to their sect. What he appears to have studied with

particular attention is the natural history of diseases, that

is to say, their tendencies to a favorable or fatal issue. …

One of the most distinguishing characteristics, then, of the

Hippocratic system of medicine, is the importance attached in

it to prognosis, under which was comprehended a complete

acquaintance with the previous and present condition of the

patient and the tendency of the disease. … In the practice

of surgery he was a bold operator. He fearlessly, and as we

would now think, in some cases unnecessarily, perforated the

skull with the trepan and the trephine in injuries of the

head. He opened the chest also in empyema and hydrothorax. His

extensive practice, and no doubt his great familiarity with

the accidents occurring at the public games of his country,

must have furnished him with ample opportunities of becoming

acquainted with dislocations and fractures of all kinds; and

how well he had profited by the opportunities which he thus

enjoyed, every page of his treatises 'On Fractures,' and 'On

the Articulations,' abundantly testifies."

_F. Adams,

Preliminary Discourse (Genuine Works of Hippocrates),

section 1._

"The school of the Asclepiadæ has been responsible for certain

theories which have been more or less prominent during the

earlier historical days. One of these which prevailed

throughout the Hippocratic works is that of Coction and

Crisis. By the former term is meant thickening or elaboration

of humors in the body, which was supposed to be necessary for

their elimination in some tangible form. Disease was regarded

as an association of phenomena resulting from efforts made by

the conservative principles of life to effect a coction, i.

e., a combination, of the morbific matter in the economy, it

being held that the latter could not be properly expelled until

thus united and prepared so as to form excrementious material.

{2126}

This elaboration was supposed to be brought about by the vital

principles which some called nature (Phusis), some spirit

(Psyche), some breath (Pneuma), and some heat (Thermon). The

gradual climax of morbid phenomena has, since the days of

Hippocrates, been commonly known as Crisis. All this was

regarded as the announcement of the completion of this union

by coction. The day on which it was accomplished was termed

'critical,' as were also the signs which preceded or

accompanied it, and for the crisis the physician anxiously

watched. Coction having been effected and crisis occurring, it

only remained to evacuate the morbific material, which nature

sometimes spontaneously accomplished by the critical sweat,

urination, or stools; or sometimes the physician had to come

to her relief by the administration of diuretics, purgatives,

et cetera. The term 'critical period' was given to the number

of days necessary for coction, which in its perfection was

supposed to be four, the so-called quaternary, while the

septenary was also held in high consideration. … This

doctrine of crisis in disease left an impress upon the medical

mind not yet fully eliminated."

_Roswell Park,

Lectures on the History of Medicine (in MS.)._

"Making no pretension … to describe the regular medical

practice among the Greeks, I shall here, nevertheless,

introduce some few particulars more or less connected with it,

which may be regarded as characteristic of the age and people.

Great were the virtues which they ascribed to the herb

alysson, (biscutella didyma,) which, being pounded and eaten

with meat cured hydrophobia. Nay, more, being suspended in the

house, it promoted the health of its inhabitants; it protected

likewise both man and cattle from enchantment; and, bound in a

piece of scarlet flannel round the necks of the latter, it

preserved them from all diseases. Coriander-seed, eaten in too

great quantity, produced, they thought, a derangement of the

intellect. Ointment of saffron had an opposite effect, for the

nostrils and heads of lunatics being rubbed therewith they

were supposed to receive considerable relief. Melampos the

goatherd was reported to have cured the daughters of Prætos of

their madness by large doses of black hellebore, which

thereafter received from him the name of Melampodion.

Sea-onions suspended over the doors preserved from

enchantment, as did likewise a branch of rhamnus over doors or

windows. A decoction of rosemary and of the leaves and stems

of the anemone was administered to nurses to promote the

secretion of milk, and a like potion prepared from the leaves

of the Cretan dittany was given to women in labour. This herb,

in order to preserve its virtues unimpaired, and that it might

be the more easily transported to all parts of the country,

was preserved in a joint of a ferula or reed. A plaster of

incense, Cimolian earth, and oil of roses, was applied to

reduce the swelling of the breasts. A medicine prepared from

mule's fern, was believed to produce sterility, as were

likewise the waters of a certain fountain near Pyrrha, while

to those about Thespiæ a contrary effect was attributed, as

well as to the wine of Heraclea in Arcadia. The inhabitants of

this primitive region drank milk as an aperient in the Spring,

because of the medicinal herbs on which the cattle were then

supposed to feed. Medicines of laxative properties were

prepared from the juice of the wild cucumber, which were said

to retain their virtues for two hundred years, though simples

in general were thought to lose their medicinal qualities in

less than four. The oriental gum called kankamon was

administered in water or honeyed vinegar to fat persons to

diminish their obesity, and also as a remedy for the

toothache. For this latter purpose the gum of the Ethiopian

olive was put into the hollow tooth, though more efficacy

perhaps was attributed to the root of dittander which they

suspended as a charm about the neck. A plaster of the root of

the white thorn or iris roots prepared with flour of copper,

honey, and great centaury, drew out thorns and arrow heads

without pain. An unguent procured from fern was sold to

rustics for curing the necks of their cattle galled by the

yoke. A decoction of marsh-mallow leaves and wine or honeyed

vinegar was administered to persons who had been stung by bees

or wasps or other insects; bites and burns were healed by an

external application of the leaf smeared with oil, and the

powdered roots cast into water caused it to freeze if placed

out during the night in the open air; an unguent was prepared

with oil from reeds, green or dry, which protected those who

anointed themselves with it from the stings of venomous

reptiles. Cinnamon unguent, or terebinth and myrtle-berries,

boiled in wine, were supposed to be a preservative against the

bite of the tarantula or scorpion, as was the pistachio nut

against that of serpents. Some persons ate a roasted scorpion

to cure its own bite; a powder, moreover, was prepared from

sea-crabs supposed to be fatal to this reptile. Vipers were

made to contribute their part to the materia medica; for,

being caught alive, they were enclosed with salt and dried

figs in a vase which was then put into a furnace till its

contents were reduced to charcoal, which they esteemed a

valuable medicine. A. considerable quantity of viper's flesh

was in the last century imported from Egypt into Venice, to be

used in the composition of medicinal treacle. From the flowers

of the sneezewort, a sort of snuff appears to have been

manufactured, though probably used only in medicines. The

ashes of old leather cured burns, galls, and blistered feet.

The common remedy when persons had eaten poisonous mushrooms

was a dose of nitre exhibited in vinegar and water; with water

it was esteemed a cure for the sting of a burncow, and with

benzoin it operated as an antidote against the poison of

bulls' blood."

_J. A. St. John,

The Hellenes,

book 6, chapter 6 (volume 3)._

{2127}

MEDICAL SCIENCE:

The Hippocratic Oath.

"Medical societies or schools seem to have been as ancient as

Hippocrates. The Hippocratic oath, as it is called, has been

preserved, and is one of the greatest curiosities we have

received from antiquity:

'I swear by Apollo the physician, by Æsculapius, by Hygeia, by

Panacea, and by all gods and goddesses, that I will fulfil

religiously, according to the best of my power and judgment,

the solemn vow which I now make.

I will honour as my father the master who taught me the art of

medicine; his children I will consider as my brothers, and

teach them my profession without fee or reward.

I will admit to my lectures and discourses my own sons, my

master's sons, and those pupils who have taken the medical

oath; but no one else.

I will prescribe such medicines as may be best suited to the

cases of my patients, according to the best of my judgment;

and no temptation shall ever induce me to administer poison.

I will religiously maintain the purity of my character and the

honour of my art.

I will not perform the operation of lithotomy, but leave it to

those to whose calling it belongs.

Into whatever house I enter, I will enter it with the sole

view of relieving the sick, and conduct myself with propriety

towards the women of the family.

If during my attendance I happen to hear of anything that

should not be revealed, I will keep it a profound secret.

If I observe this oath, may I have success in this life, and

may I obtain general esteem after it; if I break it, may the

contrary be my lot.'"

_Ancient Physic and Physicians

(Dublin University Magazine, April, 1856)._

MEDICAL SCIENCE: 1st Century.

Greek physicians in Rome.

Pliny's Picture.

Pliny's account of the Greek physicians in Rome in his time

(first century) is not flattering to the profession. He says:

"For the cure of King Antiochus—to give our first

illustration of the profits realized by the medical

art—Erasistratus received from his son, King Ptolemæus, the

sum of one hundred talents. … I pass over in silence many

physicians of the very highest celebrity, the Cassii, for

instance, the Calpetani, the Arruntii, and the Rubrii, men who

received fees yearly from the great, amounting to no less than

250,000 sesterces. As for Q. Stertinius, he thought that he

conferred an obligation upon the emperors in being content

with 500,000 sesterces per annum; and indeed he proved, by an

enumeration of the several houses, that a city practice would

bring him in a yearly income of not less than 600,000

sesterces. Fully equal to this was the sum lavished upon his

brother by Claudius Cæsar; and the two brothers, although they

had drawn largely upon their fortunes in beautifying the

public buildings at Neapolis, left to their heirs no less than

30,000,000 of sesterces! such an estate as no physician but

Arruntius had till then possessed. Next in succession arose

Vettius Valens, rendered so notorious by his adulterous

connection with Messalina, the wife of Claudius Cæsar, and

equally celebrated as a professor of eloquence. When

established in public favour, he became the founder of a new

sect. It was in the same age, too, during the reign of the

Emperor Nero, that the destinies of the medical art passed

into the hands of Thessalus, a man who swept away all the

precepts of his predecessors, and declaimed with a sort of

frenzy against the physicians of every age; but with what

discretion and in what spirit, we may abundantly conclude from

a single trait presented by his character—upon his tomb,

which is still to be seen on the Appian Way, he had his name

inscribed as the 'Iatronices'—the 'Conqueror of the

Physicians.' No stage-player, no driver of a three-horse

chariot, had a greater throng attending him when he appeared

in public: but he was at last eclipsed in credit by Crinas, a

native of Massilia, who, to wear an appearance of greater

discreetness and more devoutness, united in himself the

pursuit of two sciences, and prescribed diets to his patients

in accordance with the movements of the heavenly bodies, as

indicated by the almanacks of the mathematicians, taking

observations himself of the various times and seasons. It was

but recently that he died, leaving 10,000,000 of sesterces,

after having expended hardly a less sum upon building the

walls of his native place and of other towns. It was while

these men were ruling our destinies, that all at once,

Charmis, a native also of Massilia, took the City by surprise.

Not content with condemning the practice of preceding

physicians, he proscribed the use of warm baths as well, and

persuaded people, in the very depth of winter even, to immerse

themselves in cold water. His patients he used to plunge into

large vessels filled with cold water, and it was a common

thing to see aged men of consular rank make it a matter of

parade to freeze themselves; a method of treatment, in favour

of which Annæus Seneca gives his personal testimony, in

writings still extant. There can be no doubt whatever, that

all these men, in the pursuit of celebrity by the introduction

of some novelty or other, made purchase of it at the downright

expense of human life. Hence those woeful discussions, those

consultations at the bedside of the patient, where no one

thinks fit to be of the same opinion as another, lest he may

have the appearance of being subordinate to another; hence,

too, that ominous inscription to be read upon a tomb, 'It was

the multitude of physicians that killed me.' The medical art,

so often modified and renewed as it has been, is still on the

change from day to day, and still are we impelled onwards by

the puffs which emanate from the ingenuity of the Greeks. …

Cassius Hemina, one of our most ancient writers, says that the

first physician that visited Rome was Archagathus, the son of

Lysanias, who came over from Peloponnesus, in the year of the

City 535, L. Æmilius and M. Livius being consuls. He states

also, that the right of free citizenship was granted him, and

that he had a shop provided for his practice at the public

expense in the Acilian Cross-way; that from his practice he

received the name of 'Vulnerarius'; that on his arrival he was

greatly welcomed at first, but that soon afterwards, from the

cruelty displayed by him in cutting and searing his patients,

he acquired the new name of 'Carnifex,' and brought his art

and physicians in general into considerable disrepute. That

such was the fact, we may readily understand from the words of

M. Cato, a man whose authority stands so high of itself, that

but little weight is added to it by the triumph which he

gained, and the Censorship which he held. I shall, therefore,

give his own words in reference to this subject. 'Concerning

those Greeks, son Marcus, I will speak to you more at length

on the befitting occasion. I will show you the results of my

own experience at Athens, and that, while it is a good plan to

dip into their literature, it is not worth while to make a

thorough acquaintance with it. They are a most iniquitous and

intractable race, and you may take my word as the word of a

prophet, when I tell you, that whenever that nation shall

bestow its literature upon Rome it will mar everything; and

that all the sooner, if it sends its physicians among us. They

have conspired among themselves to murder all barbarians with

their medicine; a profession which they exercise for lucre, in

order that they may win our confidence, and dispatch us all

the more easily. They are in the common habit, too, of calling

us barbarians, and stigmatize us beyond all other nations, by

giving us the abominable appellation of Opici.

{2128}

I forbid you to have anything to do with physicians.' Cato,

who wrote to this effect, died in his eighty-fifth year, in

the year of the City 605; so that no one is to suppose that he

had not sufficient time to form his experience, either with

reference to the duration of the republic, or the length of

his own life. Well then—are we to conclude that he has

stamped with condemnation a thing that in itself is most

useful? Far from it, by Hercules! … Medicine is the only one

of the arts of Greece, that, lucrative as it is, the Roman

gravity has hitherto refused to cultivate. It is but very few

of our fellow-citizens that have even attempted it."

_Pliny,

Natural History

(Bohn's translation),

book 29, chapters 3-8 (volume 5)._

MEDICAL SCIENCE: 2d Century.

Galen and the development of Anatomy and Pathology.

"In the earliest conceptions which men entertained of their

power of moving their own members, they probably had no

thought of any mechanism or organization by which this was

effected. The foot and the hand, no less than the head, were

seen to be endowed with life; and this pervading life seemed

sufficiently to explain the power of motion in each part of

the frame, without its being held necessary to seek out a

special seat of the will, or instruments by which its impulses

were made effective. But the slightest inspection of dissected

animals showed that their limbs were formed of a curious and

complex collection of cordage, and communications of various

kinds, running along and connecting the bones of the skeleton.

These cords and communications we now distinguish as muscles,

nerves, veins, arteries, &c.; and among these, we assign to

the muscles the office of moving the parts to which they are

attached, as cords move the parts of a machine. Though this

action of the muscles on the bones may now appear very

obvious, it was, probably, not at first discerned. It is

observed that Homer, who describes the wounds which are

inflicted in his battles with so much apparent anatomical

precision, nowhere employs the word muscle. And even

Hippocrates of Cos, the most celebrated physician of

antiquity, is held to have had no distinct conception of such

an organ. … Nor do we find much more distinctness on this

subject even in Aristotle, a generation or two later. … He

is held to have really had the merit of discovering the nerves

of sensation, which he calls the 'canals of the brain' … ,

but the analysis of the mechanism of motion is left by him

almost untouched. … His immediate predecessors were far from

remedying the deficiencies of his doctrines. Those who

professed to study physiology and medicine were, for the most

part, studious only to frame some general system of abstract

principles, which might give an appearance of connexion and

profundity to their tenets. In this manner the successors of

Hippocrates became a medical school, of great note in its day,

designated as the Dogmatic school; in opposition to which

arose an Empiric sect, who professed to deduce their modes of

cure, not from theoretical dogmas, but from experience. These

rival parties prevailed principally in Asia Minor and Egypt,

during the time of Alexander's successors,—a period rich in

names, but poor in discoveries; and we find no clear evidence

of any decided advance in anatomy. … The victories of

Lucullus and Pompeius, in Greece and Asia, made the Romans

acquainted with the Greek philosophy; and the consequence soon

was, that shoals of philosophers, rhetoricians, poets, and

physicians streamed from Greece, Asia Minor, and Egypt, to

Rome and Italy, to traffic their knowledge and their arts for

Roman wealth. Among these was one person whose name makes a

great figure in the history of medicine, Asclepiades of Prusa

in Bithynia. This man appears to have been a quack, with the

usual endowments of his class. … He would not, on such

accounts, deserve a place in the history of science, but that

he became the founder of a new school, the Methodic, which

professed to hold itself separate both from the Dogmatics and

the Empirics. I have noticed these schools of medicine,

because, though I am not able to state distinctly their

respective merits in the cultivation of anatomy, a great

progress in that science was undoubtedly made during their

domination, of which the praise must, I conceive, be in some

way divided among them. The amount of this progress we are

able to estimate, when we come to the works of Galen, who

flourished under the Antonines, and died about A. D. 203. The

following passage from his works will show that this progress

in knowledge was not made without the usual condition of

laborious and careful experiment, while it implies the curious

fact of such experiment being conducted by means of family

tradition and instruction, so as to give rise to a caste of

dissectors. In the opening of his Second Book on Anatomical

Manipulations, he speaks thus of his predecessors: 'I do not

blame the ancients, who did not write books on anatomical

manipulation; though I praise Marinus, who did. For it was

superfluous for them to compose such records for themselves or

others, while they were, from their childhood, exercised by

their parents in dissecting, just as familiarly as in writing

and reading; so that there was no more fear of their

forgetting their anatomy, than of forgetting their alphabet.

But when grown men, as well as children, were taught, this

thorough discipline fell off; and, the art being carried out

of the family of the Asclepiads, and declining by repeated

transmission, books became necessary for the student.' That

the general structure of the animal frame, as composed of

bones and muscles, was known with great accuracy before the

time of Galen, is manifest from the nature of the mistakes and

deficiencies of his predecessors which he finds it necessary

to notice. … Galen was from the first highly esteemed as an

anatomist. He was originally of Pergamus; and after receiving

the instructions of many medical and philosophical professors,

and especially of those of Alexandria, which was then the

metropolis of the learned and scientific world, he came to

Rome, where his reputation was soon so great as to excite the

envy and hatred of the Roman physicians. The emperors Marcus

Aurelius and Lucius Verus would have retained him near them;

but he preferred pursuing his travels, directed principally by

curiosity. When he died, he left behind him numerous works, an

of them of great value for the light they throw on the history

of anatomy and medicine; and these were for a long period the

storehouse of all the most important anatomical knowledge

which the world possessed. In the time of intellectual

barrenness and servility, among the Arabians and the Europeans

of the dark ages, the writings of Galen had almost unquestioned

authority; and it was only by an uncommon effort of

independent thinking that Abdollatif ventured to assert, that

even Galen's assertions must give way to the evidence of the

senses. In more modern times, when Vesalius, in the sixteenth

century, accused Galen of mistakes, he drew upon himself the

hostility of the whole body of physicians."

_W. Whewell,

History of the Inductive Sciences,

book 17, chapter 1, section 1 (volume 2)._

{2129}

"Galen strongly denied being attached to any of the sects of

his day, and regarded as slaves those who took the title of

Hippocratists, Praxagoreaus, or Herophilists, and so on.

Nevertheless his predilection in favor of the Hippocratic

writings is well marked, for he explains, comments upon them,

and amplifies them at length, refutes the objections of their

adversaries and gives them the highest place. He says, 'No one

before me has given the true method of treating disease;

Hippocrates, I confess, has heretofore shown the path, but as

he was the first to enter it he was not able to go as far as

he wished. … He has not made all the necessary distinction,

and is often obscure, as is usually the case with ancients

when they attempt to be concise. He says very little of

complicated diseases; in a word, he has only sketched what

another was to complete; he has opened the path, but has left

it for a successor to enlarge and make it plain.' This implies

how he regarded himself as the successor of Hippocrates, and

how little weight he attached to the labors of others. He held

that there were three sorts of principles in man—spirits,

humors, and solids. Throughout his metaphysical speculations

Galen reproduces and amplifies the Hippocratic dogmatism.

Between perfect health and disease there were, he thought,

eight kinds of temperaments or imperfect mixtures compatible

with the exercise of the functions of life. With Plato and

Aristotle he thought the human soul to be composed of three

faculties or parts, the vegetive, residing in the liver; the

irascible, having its seat in the heart, and the rational,

which resided in the brain. He divided diseases of the solids

of the body into what he called distempers; he distinguished

between the continued and intermittent fevers, regarding the

quotidian as being caused by phlegm, the tertian as due to

yellow bile, and the quartan due to atrabile. In the doctrine

of coction, crises, and critical days, he agreed with

Hippocrates; with him he also agreed in the positive statement

that diseases are cured by their contraries."

_Roswell Park,

Lectures on the History of Medicine (in MS.)._

MEDICAL SCIENCE: 7-11th Centuries.

Medical Art of the Arabs.

"It probably sounds paradoxical (though it is not) to affirm

that, throughout the first half of the Middle Ages, science

made its home chiefly with the Semites and Græco-Romans (its

founders), while, in opposition to the original relations,

faith and its outgrowths alone were fostered by the Germans.

In the sterile wastes of the desert the Arabians constructed a

verdant oasis of science, in lands to-day the home once more

of absolute or partial barbarism. A genuine meteor of

civilization were these Arabians. … The Arabians built their

medicine upon the principles and theories of the Greeks (whose

medical writings were studied and copied mostly in

translations only), and especially upon those of Galen, in

such a way, that, on the whole, they added to it very little

matter of their own, save numerous subtle definitions and

amplifications. But Indian medical views and works, as well as

those of other earlier Asiatic peoples (e. g., the Chaldeans),

exercised demonstrably, but in a subordinate degree, an

influence upon Arabian medicine. The Arabians interwove too

into their medical views various philosophical theorems,

especially those of Aristotle, already corrupted by the

Alexandrians and still further falsified by themselves with

portions of the Neo-Platonic philosophy; and finally they

added thereto a goodly share of the absurdities of astrology

and alchemy. Indeed it is nowadays considered proven that they

even made use of ancient Egyptian medical works, e. g., the

papyrus Ebers. Thus the medicine of the Arabians, like Grecian

medicine its parent, did not greatly surpass the grade of

development of mere medical philosophy, and, so far as regards

its intrinsic worth, it stands entirely upon Grecian

foundations. … Yet they constantly advanced novelties in the

sciences subsidiary to medicine, materia medica and pharmacy,

from the latter of which chemistry, pharmacies and the

profession of the apothecary were developed. … The mode of

transfer of Greek medicine to the Arabians was probably as

follows: The inhabitants of the neighboring parts of Asia,

including both the Persians and Arabians, as the result of

multifarious business connexions with Alexandria, came, even

at an early date, in contact with Grecian science, and by

degrees a permanent alliance was formed with it. In a more

evident way the same result was accomplished by the Jewish

schools in Asia, the great majority of which owed their

foundation to Alexandria. Such schools were established at

Nisibis, at Nahardea in Mesopotamia, at Mathæ-Mechasja on the

Euphrates, at Sura, &c., and their period of prime falls in

the 5th century. The influence of the Nestorian universities

was especially favorable and permanent, particularly the

school under Greek management founded at Edessa, in

Mesopotamia, where Stephen of Edessa, the reputed father of

Alexander of Tralles, taught (A. D. 530). …. Still more

influential in the transfer of Grecian science to the Arabians

was the banishment of the 'heathen' philosophers of the last

so-called Platonic school of Athens, by the 'Christian' despot

Justinian I. (529). These philosophers were well received at

the court of the infidel Chosroës, and in return manifested

their gratitude by the propagation of Grecian science. …

From all these causes it resulted that, even as early as the

time of Mohammed (571-632), physicians educated in the Grecian

doctrines lived among the Arabians. … Arabian culture (and

of course Arabian medicine) reached its zenith at the period

of the greatest power and greatest wealth of the Caliphate in

the 9th and 10th centuries. At that time intellectual life was

rooted in the schools of the mosques, i. e., the Arabian

universities, which the great caliphs were zealous in

founding. Such Arabian universities arose and existed in the

progress of time (even as late as the 14th century) at Bagdad,

Bassora, Cufa, Samarcand, Ispahan, Damascus, Bokhara,

Firuzabad and Khurdistan, and under the scholastic Fatimides

(909-1171) in Alexandria. Under the Ommyiades (755-1031),

after the settlement of the Arabians in Spain in the beginning

of the 8th century, were founded the famous universities of

Cordova (possessing in the 10th century a library of 250,000

volumes), Seville, Toledo, Almeria and Murcia under the three

caliphs named Abderrahman and Al Hakem.

{2130}

Less important were the universities of Granada and Valencia,

and least important of all, those founded by the Edrisi

dynasty (800-986) in the provinces of Tunis, Fez and Morocco.

In spite of all these institutions the Arabians possessed no

talent for productive research; still less, like the ancient

Semites, did they create any arts, save poesy and

architecture. Their whole civilization bore the stamp of its

foreign origin. … 'The Prince of Physicians' (el Sheik el

Reis—he was also a poet) was the title given by the Arabians

to Abu Ali el Hossein ebn Abdallah ebn Sina (Ebn Sina,

Avicenna), 980-1037, in recognition of his great erudition, of

which the chief evidences are stored in his 'Canon.' This

work, though it contains substantially merely the conclusions

of the Greeks, was the text-book and law of the healing art,

even as late as the first century of modern times."

_J. H. Baas,

Outlines of the History of Medicine,

pages 216-229._

"The Saracens commenced the application of chemistry, both to

the theory and practice of medicine, in the explanation of the

functions of the human body and in the cure of its diseases.

Nor was their surgery behind their medicine. Albucasis, of

Cordova, shrinks not from the performance of the most

formidable operations in his own and in the obstetrical art;

the actual cautery and the knife are used without hesitation.

He has left us ample descriptions of the surgical instruments

then employed; and from him we learn that, in operations on

females in which considerations of delicacy intervened, the

services of properly instructed women were secured. How

different was all this from the state of things in Europe: the

Christian peasant, fever-stricken or overtaken by accident,

hied to the nearest saint-shrine and expected a miracle; the

Spanish Moor relied on the prescription or lancet of his

physician, or the bandage and knife of his surgeon."

_J. W. Draper,

History of the Intellectual Development of Europe,

volume 2, chapter 2._

"The accession of Gehwer to the throne of Mussulman Spain,

early in the eleventh century, was marked by the promulgation

of regulations so judiciously planned, touching medical

science and its practice, that he deserves the highest

commendation for the unwavering zeal with which he supervised

this important branch of learning taught in the metropolis.

Those evils which the provinces had suffered previous to his

rule, through the practice of medicine by debased empirics,

were quickly removed by this sagacious Caliph. Upon the

publication of his rescripts, such medical charlatans or

ambulatory physicians as boldly announced themselves to be

medici, without a knowledge of the science, were ignominiously

expelled from the provincial towns. He decreed that a college

of skilled surgeons should be forthwith organized, for the

single specified function of rigidly examining into the

assumed qualifications of applicants for licenses to exercise

the curative art in municipal or rural departments, or sought

professional employment as physicians in the numerous

hospitals upon the Mahometan domains."

_G. F. Fort,

Medical Economy during the Middle Ages,

chapter 17._

"Anatomy and physiology, far from making any conquests under

Arabian rule, followed on the contrary a retrograde movement.

As those physicians never devoted themselves to dissections,

they were under the necessity of conforming entirely to the

accounts of Galen. … Pathology was enriched in the Arabian

writings by some new observations. … The physicians of this

nation were the first … who began to distinguish eruptive

fevers by the exterior characters of the eruption, while the

Greeks paid but little attention to these signs. Therapeutics

made also some interesting acquisitions under the Arab

physicians. It owes to them, among other things, the

introduction of mild purgatives, such as cassia, senna, and

manna, which replaced advantageously, in many cases, the

drastics employed by the ancients; it is indebted to them,

also, for several chemical and pharmaceutical improvements, as

the confection of syrups, tinctures, and distilled waters,

which are very frequently and usefully employed. Finally,

external therapeutics, or surgery, received some minor

additions, such as pomades, plasters, and new ointments; but

these additions were very far from compensating for the

considerable losses which it suffered by their abandoning a

multitude of operations in use among the Greeks."

_P. V. Renouard,

History of Medicine,

page 267._

MEDICAL SCIENCE: 12-17th Centuries.

Mediæval Medicine.

"The difficulties under which medical science laboured may be

estimated from the fact that dissection was forbidden by the

clergy of the Middle Ages, on the ground that it was impious

to mutilate a form made in the image of God. We do not find

this pious objection interfering with such mutilation when

effected by means of the rack and the wheel and such other

clerical rather than medical instruments. But in the reign of

Philip the Second of Spain a famous Spanish doctor was

actually condemned by the Inquisition to be burnt for having

performed a surgical operation, and it was only by royal

favour that he was permitted instead to expiate his crime by a

pilgrimage to the Holy Land, where he died in poverty and

exile. This being the attitude of the all-powerful Church

towards medical progress, it is not surprising that medical

science should have stagnated, and that Galen and Dioscorides

were permitted to lay down the law in the sixteenth century as

they had done since the beginning of the Christian era. Some

light is thrown upon the state of things here from resulting

by a work translated from the German in the year 1561, and

entitled 'A most excellent and perfecte homish apothecarye or

physicke booke, for all the grefes and diseases of the bodye.'

The first chapter is 'Concerning the Head and his partes.'

'Galen sayth, the head is divided into foure partes: in the

fore part hath blood the dominion; Colera in the ryght syde,

Melancholy in the left syde, and Flegma beareth rule in the

hindermost part. If the head doth ake so sore by reason of a

runninge that he cannot snoffe hys nose, bath hys fete in a

depe tub untill the knees and give him this medicine … which

riseth into hys head and dryeth hys moyst braynes. Galen sayth

He that hath payne in the hindermost part of hys head, the

same must be let blood under the chynne, specially on the

right side; also were it good ofte to burn the heyre of a man

before hys nose. The braynes are greved many wayes; many there

are whom the head whyrleth so sore that he thinketh the earth

turneth upsydedoune: Cummin refraineth the whyrling,

comforteth the braynes and maketh them to growe agayne: or he

may take the braynes of a hogge, rost the same upon a grede

yron and cut slices thereof and lay to the greved parts.'

{2131}

This doctrine of like helping like was of universal

application, and in medical works of the Middle Ages we meet

constantly with such prescriptions as these:—'Take the right

eye of a Frogg, lap it in a peece of russet cloth and hang it

about the neck: it cureth the light eye if it bee en flamed or

bleared. And if the left eye be greved, do the like by the

left eye of the said Frogg." Again—'The skin of a Raven's

heel is good against the gout, but the right heel skin must be

laid upon the right foot if that be gouty, and the left upon

the left. … If you would have a man become bold or impudent

let him carry about him the skin or eyes of a Lion or a Cock,

and he will be fearless of his enemies, nay, he will be very

terrible unto them. If you would have him talkative, give him

tongues, and seek out those of water frogs and ducks and such

creatures notorious for their continuall noise making.' On the

same principle we find it prescribed as a cure for the

quartane ague to lay the fourth book of Homer's Iliad under

the patient's head; a remedy which had at least the negative

merit of not being nauseous. … For weak eyes the patient is

to 'take the tounge of a foxe, and hange the same about his

necke, and so long it hangeth there his sight shall not wax

feeble, as sayth Pliny.' The hanging of such amulets round the

neck was very frequently prescribed, and the efficacy of them

is a thing curiously well attested. Elias Ashmole in his diary

for 1681 has entered the following—'I tooke this morning a

good dose of elixir, and hung three spiders about my neck, and

they drove my ague away. Deo gratias!' A baked toad hung in a

silk bag about the neck was also held in high esteem, as was a

toad, either alive or dried, laid upon the back of the neck as

a means of stopping a bleeding at the nose: and again, 'either

frogg or toade, the nails whereof have been clipped, hanged

about one that is sick of quartane ague, riddeth away the

disease forever, as sayth Pliny.' We have even a striking

instance of the benefit derived from an amulet by a horse, who

could not be suspected of having helped forward the cure by

the strength of his faith in it. 'The root of cut Malowe

hanged about the neck driveth away blemishes of the eyen,

whether it be in a man or a horse, as I Jerome of Brunsweig,

have seene myselfe. I have myselfe done it to a blind horse

that I bought for X crounes, and was sold again of XL

crounes'—a trick distinctly worth knowing."

_E. A. King,

Mediæval Medicine

(Nineteenth Century, July 1893)._

"If we survey the social and political state of Europe from

the twelfth to the sixteenth century, in its relation to the

development of medical art, our attention is at once arrested

by Italy, which at this period was far ahead of the rest of

the world. Taking the number of universities as an index of

civilization, we find that, before the year 1500, there were

sixteen in Italy,—while in France there were but six: in

Germany, including Hungary, Bohemia, Bavaria, &c., there were

eight: and in Britain, two; making sixteen in all,—the exact

number which existed in Italy alone. The Italian Universities

were, likewise, no less superior in number than in fame to

those of the north. … In many of the Italian republics,

during the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries, the

power was chiefly in the hands of the middle classes; and it

is probable that the physicians occupied a high and

influential position among them. Galvanis Flamma describes

Milan in 1288, as having a population of 200,000, among whom

were 600 notaries, 200 physicians, 80 schoolmasters, and fifty

transcribers of manuscripts or books. Milan was about this

period at a pitch of glory which has not been equalled since

the Greek republics."

_J. R. Russell,

History and Heroes of the Art of Medicine,

chapter 5._

"Three schools, as early as 1158, had a reputation which

extended throughout the whole of Europe: Paris for theological

studies, Bologna for Roman or civil law, and Salerno as the

chief medical school of the west."

_G. F. Fort,

Medical Economy during the Middle Ages,

chapter 24._

"In 1215 Pope Innocent III. fulminated an anathema specially

directed against surgery, by ordaining, that as the church

abhorred all cruel or sanguinary practices, no priest should

be permitted to follow surgery, or to perform any operations

in which either instruments of steel or fire were employed:

and that they should refuse their benediction to all those who

professed and pursued it. … The saints have proved sad

enemies to the doctors. Miraculous cures are attested by

monks, abbots, bishops, popes, and consecrated saints. …

Pilgrimages and visits to holy shrines have usurped the place

of medicine, and, as in many cases at our own watering places,

by air and exercise, have unquestionably effected what the

employment of regular professional aid had been unable to

accomplish. St. Dominic, St. Bellinus, and St. Vitus have been

greatly renowned in the cure of diseases in general; the

latter particularly, who takes both poisons and madness of all

kinds under his special protection. Melton says 'the saints of

the Romanists have usurped the place of the zodiacal

constellations in their governance of the parts of man's body,

and that "for every limbe they have a saint." Thus St. Otilia

keepes the head instead of Aries; St. Blasius is appointed to

governe the necke instead of Taurus; St. Lawrence keepes the

backe and shoulders instead of Gemini, Cancer, and Leo: St.

Erasmus rules the belly with the entrayles, in the place of

Libra and Scorpius; in the stead of Sagittarius, Capricornus,

Aquarius, and Pisces, the holy church of Rome hath elected St.

Burgarde, St. Rochus. St. Quirinus, St. John, and many others,

which governe the thighes, feet, shinnes, and knees.' This

supposed influence of the Romish saints is more minutely

exhibited, according to Hone, in two very old prints, from

engravings on wood, in the collection of the British Museum.

Right hand: the top joint of the thumb is dedicated to God,

the second joint to the Virgin; the top joint of the

fore-finger to St. Barnabas, the second joint to St. John, the

third to St. Paul: the top joint of the second finger to Simon

Cleophas, the second joint to Tathideo, the third to Joseph;

the top joint of the third finger to Zaccheus, the second to

Stephen, the third to the evangelist Luke; the top joint of

the little finger to Leatus, the second to Mark, the third to

Nicodemus. Left hand: the top joint of the thumb is dedicated

to Christ, the second joint to the Virgin: the top joint of

the fore-finger to St. James, the second to St. John the

Evangelist, the third to St. Peter; the first joint of the

second finger to St. Simon, the second joint to St. Matthew,

the third to St. James the Great; the top joint of the third

finger to St. Jude, the second joint to St. Bartholomew, the

third to St. Andrew; the top joint of the little finger to St.

Matthias, the second to St. Thomas, the third joint to St.

Philip. …

{2132}

"The credulity of mankind has never been more strongly

displayed than in the general belief afforded to the

authenticity of remarkable cures of diseases said to have been

effected by the imposition of royal hands. The practice seems

to have originated in an opinion that there is something

sacred or divine attaching either to the sovereign or his

functions. … The practice appears to be one of English

growth, commencing with Edward the Confessor, and descending

only to foreign potentates who could show an alliance with the

royal family of England. The kings of France, however, claimed

the right to dispense the Gift of Healing, and it was

certainly exercised by Philip the First; but the French

historians say that he was deprived of the power on account of

the irregularity of his life. Laurentius, first physician to

Henry IV, of France, who is indignant at the attempt made to

derive its origin from Edward the Confessor, asserts the power

to have commenced with Clovis I, A. D. 481, and says that

Louis I, A. D. 814, added to the ceremonial of touching, the

sign of the cross. Mezeray also says, that St. Louis, through

humility, first added the sign of the cross in touching for

the king's evil. … If credit is to be given to a statement

… by William of Malmesbury, with respect to Edward the

Confessor, we must admit that in England, for a period of

nearly 700 years, the practice of the royal touch was

exercised in a greater or lesser degree, as it extended to the

reign of Queen Anne. It must not however be supposed that

historical documents are extant to prove a regular continuance

of the practice during this time. No accounts whatever of the

first four Norman kings attempting to cure the complaint are

to be found. In the reign of William III, it was not on any

occasion exercised. He manifested more sense than his

predecessors, for he withheld from employing the royal touch

for the cure of scrofula; and Rapin says, that he was so

persuaded he should do no injury to persons afflicted with

this distemper by not touching them, that he refrained from it

all his reign. Queen Elizabeth was also averse to the

practice, yet she extensively performed it. It flourished most

in the time of Charles II, particularly after his restoration,

and a public register of cases was kept at Whitehall, the

principal scene of its operation."

_T. J. Pettigrew,

Superstitions connected with the History and Practice

of Medicine and Surgery,

pages 34-37, and 117-121._

MEDICAL SCIENCE: 16th Century.

Paracelsus.

Paracelsus, of whose many names this one stands alone in

history to represent him, was an extraordinary person, born in

Switzerland, in 1493. He died in 1541. "His character has been

very variously estimated. The obstructives of his own age and

many hasty judges since have pronounced him a quack. This is

simply ridiculous. As a chemist, he is considered to have been

the discoverer of zinc, and perhaps of bismuth. He was

acquainted with hydrogen, muriatic, and sulphurous gases. He

distinguished alum from the vitriols; remarking that the

former contained an earth, and the latter metals. He perceived

the part played by the atmosphere in combustion, and

recognized the analogy between combustion and respiration. He

saw that in the organic system chemical processes are

constantly going on. Thus, to him is due the fundamental idea

from which have sprung the chemico-physiological researches of

Liebig, Mulder, Boussingault, and others. By using in

medicine, not crude vegetables, but their active principles,

he opened the way to the discovery of the proximate principles

of vegetables, organic alkalis, and the like. But perhaps the

greatest service he rendered to chemistry, was by declaring it

an essential part of medical education, and by showing that

its true practical application lay not in gold-making, but in

pharmacy and the industrial arts. In medicine he scouted the

fearfully complex electuaries and mixtures of the Galenists

and the Arabian polypharmacists, recommending simpler and more

active preparations. He showed that the idea of poison is

merely relative, and knew that poisons in suitable doses may

be employed in medicine. He prescribed tin as a remedy for

intestinal worms, mercury as an anti-syphilitic, and lead in

the diseases of the skin. He also used preparations of

antimony, arsenic, and iron. He employed sulphuric acid in the

treatment of saturnine affections. The astonishing cures which

he undoubtedly performed were, however, due not so much to his

peculiar medicines, as to his eminent sagacity and insight. He

showed the importance of a chemical examination of urine for

the diagnosis of disease."

_J. W. Slater,

Paracelsus

(Imperial Dict. of Univ. Biog.)._

MEDICAL SCIENCE: 16th Century.

The first English College of Physicians.

"The modern doctor dates only from the reign of Henry VIII.,

when the College of Physicians in England was founded as a

body corporate by letters patent in the tenth year of the

reign. This grant was in response to a petition from a few of

the most notable members of the profession resident in London,

who were perhaps moved by both a laudable zeal in the

interests of science, and a compassion for the sufferings of

the subjects of astrological and toxicological experiments.

The charter thus obtained, though probably drafted by the

promoters themselves, was found to be so inadequately worded

and expressed, that it became necessary to obtain powers to

amend it by Act of Parliament. Among these early members were

Linacre, Wotton, and others, famous scholars beyond doubt,

though possibly but indifferent practitioners. In fact, we are

constantly struck throughout the early history of the

profession by the frequent occurrence of names associated with

almost every other branch of study than that strictly

appertaining to the art of medicine. We have naturalists,

magneticians, astronomers, mathematicians, logicians, and

classical scholars, but scarce one who accomplished anything

worthy to be recorded in the annals of medical science. Indeed

it is difficult to conceive any useful object that could have

been attained by the existence of the College as a

professional licensing body, other than the pecuniary

interests of the orthodox. … It is most significant as to

the social degradation of the science of medicine, that most

of the notorious empirics of the latter half of the sixteenth

century were both highly recommended and strenuously supported

in their resistance to the proctors of orthodoxy by some of

the greatest names of the age. These self-deluded victims of

quackery were not indeed adverse in theory to the pretensions

of more regular members of the profession.

{2133}

They would patronize the Court physicians, or, if favorites of

the Crown, they might even submit to the Sovereign's

recommendation in that behalf; but none the less their family

doctor was in far too many cases some outlandish professor of

occult arts, retained in learned state on the premises, who

undertook the speedy, not to say miraculous, cure of his

patron's particular disease by all the charms of the Cabala."

_H. Hall,

The Early Medicus

(Merry England; also in Eclectic Magazine, June, 1884)._

MEDICAL SCIENCE: 16th Century.

The System of Van Helmont.

John Baptist van Helmont "was born at Brussels in the year

1577. … His parents were noble, and he was heir to great

possessions. He pursued in Louvain the usual course of

scholastic philosophy. … Becoming accidentally acquainted

with the writings of Thomas à Kempis and John Tauler, he from

that day adopted what goes by the vague term of mysticism.

That is, thoroughly convinced that there was a spiritual world

in intimate and eternal union with the spirit of man; that

this spiritual world was revealed to that human soul which

submitted to receive it in humility; and that the doctrines of

Christianity were not to be looked upon as a system of

philosophy; but as a rule of life, he resolved to follow them

to the letter. The consequence of this resolution was, that he

devoted himself to the art of medicine, in imitation of the

Great Healer of the body as well as of the soul; and as the

prejudices of his time and country made his rank and wealth an

obstacle to his entrance into the medical profession, he made

over all his property, with its honours, to his sister; that,

'laying aside every weight, he might run the race that was set

before him.' He entered on his new studies with all the zeal

of his character, and very soon had so completely mastered the

writings of Hippocrates and Galen, as to excite the surprise

of his contemporaries. But although styled a dreamer, and

having a mind easily moved to belief in spiritual

manifestation, he was not of a credulous nature in regard to

matters belonging to the senses. And as he believed that

Christianity was to be practised, and to be found true by the

test of experiment, so he believed that the doctrines of

Hippocrates and of Galen were to be subjected to a similar

trial. An opportunity soon occurred to himself. He caught the

itch and turned to Galen for its cure. Galen attributes this

disease to overheated bile and sour phlegm, and says that it

is to be cured by purgatives. Van Helmont, with the implicit

faith of his simple nature, procured the prescribed medicines,

and took them as ordered by Galen. Alas, no cure of the itch

followed, but great exhaustion of his whole body: so Galen was

not to be trusted. This was a serious discovery; for if he

could not trust Galen, by whom the whole medical world swore,

to whom was he to turn? … Van Helmont resolved to work out

for himself a solution of the great problem to which he had

devoted his life. Van Helmont's system may be called spiritual

vitalism. The primary cause of all organization was Archæus.

By Archæus, a man is much more nearly allied, he says, to the

world of spirits and the Father of spirits than to the

external world. Archæus is the creative spirit which, working

upon the raw material of water or fluidity, by means of 'a

ferment' excites all the endless actions which result in the

growth and nourishment of the body. Thus, digestion is neither

a chemical nor a mechanical operation; nor is it, as was then

supposed, the effects of heat, for it is arrested instead of

aided by fever, and goes on in perfection in fishes and

cold-blooded animals; but, on the command of Archæus, an acid

is generated in the stomach, which dissolves the food. This is

the first digestion. The second consists in the neutralization

of this acid by the bile out of the gall bladder. The third

takes place in the vessels of the mesentery. The fourth goes

on in the heart, by the action of the vital spirits. The fifth

consists in the conversion of the arterial blood into vital

spirits, chiefly in the brain. The sixth consists of the

preparation of nourishment in the laboratory of each organ,

during which operation Archæus, present everywhere, is itself

regenerated, and superintends the momentary regeneration of

the whole frame. If for digestion we substitute the word

nutrition, we cannot fail to be struck by the near approach to

accuracy in this description of the succession of processes by

which it is brought about. Van Helmont's pathology was quite

consistent with his physiology. As life and all vital action

depended upon Archæus, so the perturbation of Archæus gave

rise to fevers, and derangements of the blood and secretions.

Thus, gout was a disease not confined to the part in which it

showed itself, but was the result of Archæus. It will be seen

that by this theory the entire system of Galen was non-suited.

There is no place for the elements and the humours."

_J. R. Russell,

History and Heroes of the Art of Medicine,

chapter 8._

MEDICAL SCIENCE: 17th Century.

Harvey and the Discovery of the Circulation of the Blood.

William Harvey, "physician and discoverer of the circulation

of the blood, was born at Folkestone, Kent, 1 April 1578, in a

house which was in later times the posthouse of the town and

which still belongs to Caius College, Cambridge, to which

Harvey bequeathed it. His father was Thomas Harvey, a Kentish

yeoman. … In 1588 William was sent to the King's School,

Canterbury. Thence he went to Cambridge, where he was admitted

a pensioner in Gonville and Caius College, 31 May 1593. … He

graduated B. A. 1597, and, determining to study medicine,

travelled through France and Germany to Padua, the most famous

school of physic of that time. … He returned to England,

graduated M. D. at Cambridge 1602, and soon after took a house

in the parish of St. Martin-extra-Ludgate in London. … On 4

August 1615 he was elected Lumleian lecturer at the College of

Physicians, … and in the following April, on the 16th, 17th,

and 18th, he delivered at the college in Knightrider Street,

near St. Paul's Cathedral, the lectures in which he made the

first public statement of his thoughts on the circulation of

the blood. The notes from which he delivered these lectures

exist in their original manuscript and binding at the British

Museum. … In 1628, twelve years after his first statement of

it in his lectures, he published at Frankfurt, through William

Fitzer, his discovery of the circulation of the blood. The

book is a small quarto, entitled 'Exercitatio Anatomica de

Motu Cordis et Sanguinis in Animalibus,' and contains

seventy-two pages and two plates of diagrams. The printers

evidently had difficulty in reading the author's handwriting,

and there are many misprints. …

{2134}

He begins by modestly stating how the difficulties of the

subject had gradually become clear to him, and by expressing

with a quotation from the 'Andria' of Terence, the hope that

his discovery might help others to still further knowledge. He

then describes the motions of arteries, of the ventricles of

the heart, and of its auricles, as seen in living animals, and

the use of these movements. He shows that the blood coming

into the right auricle from the vena cava, and passing then to

the right ventricle, is pumped out to the lungs through the

pulmonary artery, passes through the parenchyma of the lungs,

and comes thence by the pulmonary veins to the left ventricle.

This same blood, he shows, is then pumped out to the body. It

is carried out by arteries and comes back by veins, performing

a complete circulation. He shows that, in a live snake, when

the great veins are tied some way from the heart, the piece of

vein between the ligature and the heart is empty, and further,

that blood coming from the heart is checked in an artery by a

ligature, so that there is blood between the heart and the

ligature and no blood beyond the ligature. He then shows how

the blood comes back to the heart by the veins, and

demonstrates their valves. These had before been described by

Hieronymus Fabricius of Aquapendente, but before Harvey no

exact explanation of their function had been given. He gives

diagrams showing the results of obstructing the veins, and

that these valves may thus be seen to prevent the flow of

blood in the veins in any direction except towards the heart.

After a summary of a few lines in the fourteenth chapter he

further illustrates the perpetual circuit of the blood, and

points out how morbid materials are carried from the heart all

over the body. The last chapter gives a masterly account of

the structure of the heart in men and animals, and points out

that the right ventricle is thinner than the left because it

has only to send the blood a short way into the lungs, while

the left ventricle has to pump it all over the body. This

great and original book at once attracted attention and

excited discussion. In the College of Physicians of London,

where Harvey had mentioned the discovery in his lectures every

year since 1616, the Exercitatio received all the honour it

deserved. On the continent of Europe it was received with less

favour, but neither in England nor abroad did anyone suggest

that the discovery was to be found in other writers. …

Before his death the great discovery of Harvey was accepted

throughout the medical world. The modern controversy … as to

whether the discovery was taken from some previous author is

sufficiently refuted by the opinion of the opponents of his

views in his own time, who agreed in denouncing the doctrine

as new; by the laborious method of gradual demonstration

obvious in his book and lectures; and, lastly, by the complete

absence of lucid demonstration of the action of the heart and

course of the blood in Cæsalpinus, Servetus, and all others

who have been suggested as possible originals of the

discovery. It remains to this day the greatest of the

discoveries of physiology, and its whole honour belongs to

Harvey."

_N. Moore,

Harvey

(Dict. of National Biog., volume 25)._

ALSO IN:

_R. Willis,

William Harvey: A history of the Discovery of

the Circulation of the Blood._

MEDICAL SCIENCE: 17th Century.

Discovery of the Lymphatic Circulation.

"The discovery of the lymphatic vessels and their purpose was

scarcely less remarkable than that of the circulation of the

blood. It has about it less of eclat, because it was not the

work of one man, but was a matter of slow development.

Herophilus and Erasistratus had seen white vessels connected

with the lymph nodes in the mesentery of certain animals, and

had supposed them to be arteries full of air. Galen disputed

this, and believed the intestinal chyle to be carried by the

veins of the mesentery into the liver. In 1563 Eustachius had

described the thoracic duct in the horse; in 1622 Aselli,

professor of anatomy at Milan, discovered the lacteal vessels

in a dog which had been killed immediately after eating.

Having pricked one of these by mistake, he saw a white fluid

issue from it. Repeating the same experiment at other times he

became certain that the white threads were vessels which drew

the chyle from the intestines. He observed the valves with

which they are supplied, and supposed these vessels to all

meet in the pancreas and to be continued into the liver. In

1647 Pecquet, who was still a student at Montpelier,

discovered the lymph reservoir, or receptaculum chyli, and the

canal which leads from it, i. e., the thoracic duct, which he

followed to its termination in the left subclavian vein.

Having ligated it he saw it swell below, and empty itself

above the ligature. He studied the courses of the lacteals,

and convinced himself that they all entered into the common

reservoir. His discovery gave the last blow to the ancient

theory, which attributed to the liver the function of blood

making, and it confirmed the doctrine of Harvey, while, like

it, it had been very strongly opposed. Strangely enough,

Harvey in this instance united with his great opponent,

Riolan, in making common cause against the discovery of

Pecquet and its significance. From that time the lymphatic

vessels and glands became objects of common interest and were

investigated by many anatomists, especially Bartholin, Ruysch,

the Hunters, Hewson, and above all by Mascagni. He was the

first to give a graphic description of the whole lymphatic

apparatus."

_Roswell Park,

Lectures on the History of Medicine (in MS.)._

MEDICAL SCIENCE: 17th Century.

Descartes and the dawn of modern Physiological science.