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.
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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.
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   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.
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   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).
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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.
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   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,