THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY.
Faith Healing.—Charms and Astrology in Medicine.—The Revival of
Learning.—The Humanists.—Cabalism and Theology.—The Study of Natural
History.—The Sweating Sickness.—Tarantism.—Quarantine.—High Position
of Oxford University.
FAITH-HEALING.
Medicine in mediæval Christian history is simply the history of
miracles of healing wrought by saints or by their relics. Bede’s
_Ecclesiastical History_, for example, is full of saintly cures
and marvels of healing. The study of medical science under such
circumstances could have had but little encouragement. Doctors were but
of secondary importance where holy relics and saintly personages were
everywhere present to cure.
In the Catholic Church there are special saints who are invoked for
almost every sort of disease.
St. Agatha, against sore breast.
St. Agnan and St. Tignan, against scald head.
St. Anthony, against inflammations.
St. Apollonia, against toothache.
St. Avertin, against lunacy.
St. Benedict, against the stone, and also for poisons.
St. Blaise, against the quinsey, bones sticking in the throat, etc.
St. Christopher and St. Mark, against sudden death.
St. Clara, against sore eyes.
St. Erasmus, against the colic.
St. Eutrope, against dropsy.
St. Genow and St. Maur, against the gout.
St. Germanus, against children’s diseases.
St. Giles and St. Hyacinth, against sterility.
St. Hubert, against hydrophobia.
St. Job and St. Fiage, against syphilis.
St. John, against epilepsy and poison.
St. Lawrence, against diseases of the back and shoulders.
St. Liberius, against the stone and fistula.
St. Maine, against the scab.
St. Margaret and St. Edine, against danger in child-bed.
St. Martin, against the itch.
St. Marus, against palsy and convulsions.
St. Otilia and St. Juliana, against sore eyes and the headache.
St. Pernel, against the ague.
St. Petronilla, St. Apollonia, and St. Lucy, against the toothache.
—— and St. Genevieve, against fevers.
St. Phaire, against hæmorrhoids.
St. Quintam, against coughs.
St. Rochus and St. Sebastian, against the plague.
St. Romanus, against demoniacal possession.
St. Ruffin, against madness.
St. Sigismund, against fevers and agues.
St. Valentin, against epilepsy.
St. Venise, against chlorosis.
St. Vitus, against madness and poisons.
St. Wallia and Wallery, against the stone.
St. Wolfgang, against lameness.
Pettigrew[803] gives the above list, but probably it might be
considerably extended.
CHARMS AND ASTROLOGY.
A curious little MS. volume was discovered amongst the MSS. at Loseley,
which contained a Latin grammar, a Treatise on Astrology, various
medical recipes and precautions, with forms for making wills. It
had probably been a monk’s manual. The writing was the character of
the fifteenth century. Some of the medical recipes and astrological
precautions are said to be taken from “Master Galien (Galen), leche,”
thus:—“_For all manner of fevers._ Take iii drops of a woman’s mylke yt
norseth a knave childe, and do it in a hennes egge that ys sedentere
(or sitting), and let hym suppe it up when the evyl takes hym.—_For
hym—that may not slepe._ Take and wryte yese wordes into leves of
lether: Ismael! Ismael! adjuro te per Angelum Michaelum ut soporetur
homo iste; and lay this under his bed, so yt he wot not yerof, and
use it all-way lytell, and lytell, as he have nede yerto.” Under the
head,—“_Here begyneth ye waxingge of ye mone, and declareth in dyvers
tymes to let blode, whiche be gode._ In the furste begynynge of the
mone it is profetable to yche man to be letten blode; ye ix of the
mone, neyther be (by) nyght ne by day, it is not good.”[804]
One Simon Trippe, a physician, writing to a patient to excuse himself
for not being able to visit him, says: “As for my comming to you
upon Wensday next, verely my promise be past to an old pacient of
mine, a very good gentlewoman, one Mrs. Clerk, wch now lieth in great
extremity. I cannot possibly be with you till Thursday. On Fryday and
Saterday the signe wilbe in the heart; on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday,
in the stomake; during wch tyme it wilbe no good dealing with your
ordinary physicke untill Wensday come sevenight at the nearest, and
from that time forwards for 15 or 16 days passing good.”[805]
This is very similar to what we find in Bede’s _Ecclesiastical
History_, where (A.D. 686) “a holy Bishop having been asked to bless
a sick maiden, asked ‘when she had been bled?’ and being told that it
was on the fourth day of the moon, said: ‘You did very indiscreetly and
unskilfully to bleed her on the fourth day of the moon; for I remember
that Archbishop Theodore, of blessed memory, said that bleeding at that
time was very dangerous, when the light of the moon and the tide of the
ocean is increasing; and what can I do to the girl if she is like to
die?’”[806]
Holinshed says[807] that a lewd fellow, in the sixth year of Richard
the Second, “took upon him to be skilful in physick and astronomy,”
predicted that the rise of a “pestilent planet” would cause much
sickness and death amongst the people; but as the pestilence did not
appear, the fellow was punished severely. Stow records[808] that one
Roger Bolingbroke, in the second year of Henry the Sixth (1423), was
accused of necromancy and endeavouring by diabolical arts to consume
the king’s person. He was seized with all his instruments of magic
and set upon a scaffold in St. Paul’s Churchyard, where he abjured
his diabolical arts in the presence of the Archbishop of Canterbury
and many other prelates. The punishment for witchcraft was hanging or
burning alive.
Strutt says[809] that it was extremely dangerous in those days to
pretend to any supernatural knowledge; as every one believed in the
influence of malignant spirits, and that they were obedient to the call
of the necromancers. “No contagion could happen among the cattle of a
farmer, but the devil was the cause, and some conjurer was sought out;
so that if any wretched vagabonds of fortune-tellers could be found,
they were instantly accused of this horrid crime, and perhaps burnt
alive.”[810]
THE REVIVAL OF LEARNING.
POPE NICHOLAS V. (1389-1455) was a man of great intellectual
sympathies. He was not devoted to any one branch of learning, but
was “a well-informed _dillettante_, wandering at will wherever his
fancy led him.” Æneas Sylvius said of him: “From his youth he has
been initiated into all liberal arts; he is acquainted with all
philosophers, historians, poets, cosmographers, and theologians; and
is no stranger to civil and canon law, or even to medicine.” He was
the patron of scholars, and was equally devoted to ecclesiastical and
profane literature. Although he was the son of a physician, it is
not true that he was ever one himself, as has been stated.[811] It
is pleasant, however, to reflect that this pope, whose name is most
intimately associated with the revival of learning, probably imbibed
much of the scientific lore of his time which his father’s profession
would encourage, and that taste for learning and that liberal spirit
which has always been associated with the medical profession. The
Humanists—as those who devoted themselves to the Humanities, such as
philology, rhetoric, poetry, and the study of the ancient classes, were
called—found a friendly reception at the papal court.
NICHOLAS OF CUSA was the reforming Cardinal Bishop of Brixen
(1401-1464). Giordano Bruno called him “the divine Cusanus.” In
physical science he was greatly in advance of his age, and he united
moral worth with intellectual gifts of the highest order.
POPE PIUS II., better known in literature as Æneas Sylvius, pope from
1458 to 1464, was also a great friend to the Humanists, a man of
great intellectual power. He stands forth in history as “the figure
in whom the mediæval and the modern spirit are most distinctly seen
to meet and blend,” ere the age of science begins to strangle the age
of superstition. Professor Creighton says that Pius II. is the first
writer “who consciously applied a scientific conception of history to
the explanation and arrangement of passing events.”[812]
LEONARDO DA VINCI (1452-1519), “the Faust of the Renaissance,” excelled
not only as an artist, but in all kinds of experimental investigation.
He was an anatomist, botanist, physiologist, and chemist. Had he
applied himself wholly to science, he would have been foremost in that
branch to which he devoted his wonderful energies. He was one of the
greatest and earliest of natural philosophers. He has been declared
to have been “the founder of the study of the anatomy and structural
classification of plants, the founder, or at least the chief reviver,
of the science of hydraulics—[the discoverer of] the molecular
composition of water, the motion of waves, and even the undulatory
theory of light and heat. He discovered the construction of the eye
and the optical laws of vision, and invented the camera obscura. He
investigated the composition of explosives and the application of steam
power.”[813]
MATTHEW DE GRADIBUS, of Fiuli, near Milan, in 1480 composed treatises
on the anatomy of the human body. He first described the ovaries of the
female correctly.
GABRIEL DE ZERBIS (about 1495), of Verona, an eminent but verbose
anatomist, dissected the human subject, and recognised the olfactory
nerves. He mentioned the oblique and circular muscular fibres of the
stomach.
ALEXANDER ACHILLINI (1463-1512), of Bologna, the pupil of Mondino, is
known in the history of anatomy as the first who described the two
bones of the ear (tympanal bones), the malleus and incus. In 1503
he showed that the tarsus (or ankle and instep bones) were seven in
number, so painfully and slowly was such a simple thing in human
anatomy settled in those times. He was more accurately acquainted with
the intestines than any of his predecessors.
CORNELIUS AGRIPPA (1486-1536) was born at Cologne, and was a profound
student of what is known as “Occult Philosophy,” a strange jumble
of astrology, alchemy, cabalism, theology, and the teaching of the
so-called “Hermetic Books.” This sort of thing has of late years again
become fashionable under the revived name of Theosophy.
He seems to have been sufficiently harmless; but as he knew much
more of physical science than was considered consistent with good
churchmanship in those times, he was persecuted by the monk Catilinet,
and was forced to fly from place to place.
JOHANN REUCHLIN (1455-1522) was the first great German humanist. His
services to learning were chiefly in connection with the restoration
of Hebrew and Greek letters in Germany. He worshipped truth as his
god, was interested in philosophy, especially in that of the Cabala,
in which he sought a theosophy which should reconcile science
with religion. His sentiments brought him into conflict with the
Inquisition, but by appeal to Rome, after a long and tedious process,
the trial was quashed; the consequence being that the lovers of
learning and progress banded themselves together against the opponents
of learning, and assured the progress of the principles of the
Renaissance in Germany. Reuchlin was the author of a celebrated work,
entitled _De Verbo Mirifico_.
THE SWEATING SICKNESS.
The disease known as the sweating sickness first made its appearance
in England in 1485, after the battle of Bosworth. It followed in
the rear of Henry’s victorious army, and spread in a few weeks from
Wales to the metropolis. It is described by Hecker[814] as being “a
violent inflammatory fever, which, after a short rigor, prostrated the
powers as with a blow; and amidst painful oppression at the stomach,
headache, and lethargic stupor, suffused the whole body with a fetid
perspiration.”
Holinshed[815] describes it thus: “Suddenlie a deadlie burning sweat so
assailed their bodies and distempered their blood with a most ardent
heat, that _scarce one amongst an hundred_ that sickened did escape
with life; for all in maner as soone as the sweat took them, or within
a short time after, yeelded the ghost. Two lord mayors and six aldermen
died within one week. Many who went to bed at night perfectly well
were dead on the following morning; the victims, for the most part,
were the robust and vigorous. One attack gave no security against a
second; many were seized even a third time.” The whole of England was
visited by this plague by the end of the year. When it reached Oxford,
professors and students fled in all directions, and the University was
entirely deserted for six weeks. Medicine afforded little or no relief.
Even Thomas Linacre, the founder of the Royal College of Physicians in
1518, does not in his writings say a word about the disease. As the
doctors failed to help the people, their common sense had to suffice
them in their need. They decided to take no violent medicine, but to
apply moderate heat; take little food and drink, and quietly wait for
twenty-four hours—the crisis of the disorder. “Those who were attacked
during the day, in order to avoid any chill, immediately went to bed in
their clothes; and those who sickened by night did not rise from their
beds in the morning; while all carefully avoided exposing to the air
even a hand or foot.”[816]
The five years preceding the outbreak of this epidemic had been
unusually wet, and inundations had been frequent. It is probable that
this was one of the causes which contributed to the unhealthy condition
of the atmosphere. The disease partook of the character of rheumatic
fever, with great disorder of the nervous system.[817] In addition to
the profuse and injurious perspiration, oppressed respiration, extreme
anxiety, nausea, and vomiting, indicating that the functions of the
eighth pair of nerves were disturbed, were the general symptoms of the
malady. A stupor and profound lethargy indicated cerebral disturbance,
possibly from a morbid condition of the blood.
TARANTISM.
Tarantism was a disease somewhat akin to the dancing mania. Nicholas
Perotti (1430-1480) first described it. It was believed to originate
from the bite of the Apulian spider, called the _tarantula_, as it was
named by the Romans. Those who were bitten, or who believed themselves
to have been bitten, became melancholic and stupefied, but greatly
sensible to the influence of music. As soon as they heard their
favourite melodies, they sprang up and danced till they sank exhausted
to the ground. Others became hysterical, and some even died in a
paroxysm of tears or laughter. By the close of the fifteenth century
Tarantism had spread beyond the boundaries of Apulia in which it
originated, and many other cities and villages of Italy were afflicted
with the mania. Thus when the spider made his appearance the merry
notes of the Tarantella resounded as the only cure for its bite, or the
mental poison received through the eye, and thus the _Tarantali_ cure
became established as a popular festival.[818]
* * * * *
Quarantine, according to William Brownrigg, who wrote in 1771 a book on
the plague, was first established by the Venetians in 1484. Dr. Mead
was probably the source of this information.[819]
* * * * *
Theories connected with the origin of the soul have continued to
occupy the attention of theologians, philosophers, and physicians from
the time of Pythagoras to our own day. Up to the ninth century their
speculations were entirely idle, when Theophilus made his discovery
of the capillary vessels of the male organs—a discovery which was
further developed when in the fifteenth century Mattheus de Gradibus
first enunciated the idea that these organs and the ovaria of birds are
homologous structures; and thus originated the knowledge of the germ
cells known as the ova of De Graaf.[820]
* * * * *
The fame of the University of Oxford was so high in the early part of
the fifteenth century (1420) that a MS. in the Bodleian, quoted by
Anthony à Wood,[821] says that other universities were but little stars
in comparison with this sun. “Other studies excel in some particular
science, as Parys, in divinity; Bologna, law; Salerno, physick; and
Toulouse, mathematics; but Oxford as a true well of wisdom doth goe
beyond them in all these. The bright beams of its wisdom spread over
the whole world.”
The practice of medicine became daily more honourable.
Holinshed says,[822] in his description of the people in the
_Commonwealth of England_, that “Who soeur studieth the lawes of the
realme, who so abideth in the vniuersitie giuing his mind to his booke,
or professeth physicke and the liberall sciences—and can liue without
manuell labour, and thereto is able and will beare the port, charge and
countenance of a gentleman, he shall for monie haue a cote and armes
bestowed vpon him by heralds—and reputed for a gentleman euer after.”
Medicine was a flourishing study at Cambridge, especially at Merton
College, in the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries.[823]
* * * * *
The origin of syphilis in Europe has been the subject of much learned
discussion. It appeared with such violence and frequency in the year
1490 in France, Italy, and Spain, that the scourge was considered to
have only then been introduced into Europe from America.
“Its enormous prevalence in modern times,” says Dr. Creighton,[824]
“dates, without doubt, from the European libertinism of the latter
part of the fifteenth century.” It is pretty certain that syphilis
had existed in Europe from ancient times. What appeared with so much
virulence and such wide distribution in 1490 was simply a redevelopment
of the malady on a scale hitherto unknown.