Much doubt exists regarding the derivation of the wordmummy. Bochard, Menage, Vossius, attributed it to the Arabic nounmum, meaningwax. Salmasius derives it frommumia, a body embalmed and aromatized. The Persian wordmúmiyà, means bitumen or mineral pitch. Abd-Allatif, an Arabian physician, describes mummy as a substance flowing from the tops of the mountains, and which mixing with the water that streamed down, coagulates like mineral pitch.
Many are the opinions relating to the custom of embalming men and various animals in ancient Egypt. By some it has been considered a superstitious practice, by others the result of affection. To keep the remains of those we loved upon earth free from the destructive power of death, and preserving in some degree those forms that once flitted before us and around us in all the enjoyments of life, is a natural, one might almost say an instinctive, sentiment;—preserving those fond remains upon earth, exempted from the painful sight of beholding them committed to the earth—earth to earth—for ever! How different must have been the feelings of the relatives of the departed, when leaving the body reposing in the tomb, still preserving the form of its mortal coil—still in the world—where all we loved might be visited and spoken to in the language of affection and regret—how different must have been these feelings when compared to those that compress the respiration and check our utterance, after seeing that body separated from us, and leaving a chasm around us deeper still than the grave. We are, however, to seek in this practice other motives. The wisdom of the theocratic government of ancient Egypt was most admirable, and not founded upon mortal affections and dislikes. The sovereign priesthood had to attend to concerns of greater magnitude. The first inhabitants of Egypt, migrating most probably from the upper regions of Ethiopia, had to colonize an unhealthy region, to struggle with swamps and marshes, and destroy myriads of animals, whose decomposition added to the dangers they had to encounter when settling in such an unhealthy land. Pestilence, no doubt, as in after times, frequently desolated the infant kingdom. Their priests, in whose temples were recorded in mystic legends all the science of the age, must have appliedtheir experience and their judgment to meet the evil, and surmount it, were it possible. The ideas of corruption are closely connected with those of putrescency; and putrescency has ever been considered the chief source and focus of pestilential maladies. To avoid corruption and putrescence, then, became one of the most important Hygienic studies; and, like Moses, who had received his early education in Egypt, its priesthood enforced salutary laws as the injunction of the Creator; nor was the task as difficult as it might have proved in a more extensive and more diversified region. The population resided in a land of no very great extent; their climate did not vary according to prominent topographical circumstances; and the produce of the soil, as regarded alimentary substances, admitted of little variety. Thus it became easy to establish salutary institutions to regulate the mode of living of the obedient people, who looked upon the commands of their sainted legislators as dictates from the eternal throne.
Impressed with the conviction of the immortality of the soul, the Egyptian priesthood imagined, or, at any rate, endeavoured to persuade the multitude that the immortal part of our being was retained within its earthly house so long as the corporal form could be preserved entire, and if (which is most probable) they believed in the resurrection of the soul either in its human form or that of some other animal, this doctrine may be easily accounted for as founded upon reason, and grateful to the sensitive feelings. A belief in the transmigration of souls naturally led to the desire of retaining them as long as it was possible in their former abodes; and the lines of Virgil—
Animamque sepulchro,Condimus,
would seem to warrant this belief amongst the ancients. St. Augustine clearly tells us that the Egyptians did believe in a resurrection.
Amongst other prophylactic means to resist epidemic diseases the embalming of the dead must naturally have occurred to the sacred college as one of the most effectual means of checking or preventing contagion. Not only was man submitted to this process, but every animal, domestic or obnoxious, was equally preserved. It may be said, if destruction was rendered a prudent step, why were not these bodies consumed by fire? The reason appears to me obvious. It was necessary to check the consumption of animal food; therefore were various animals considered sacred, and not allowed to be immolated for the useof the multitude; other animals were considered noxious, and as such their use was forbidden. Religion thus stamped them with the irrevocable dye of holiness or corruption. Mystic characters were traced upon their remains. The sanctity of these animals sometimes varied in different districts, and the ibis was venerated where the serpent was disregarded. When we contemplate the thousands of crocodiles in the caverns of Samoun, the myriads of the ibis in the desert of Hermopolis, Antinoë, Memphis,—when we behold even the eggs that were destined to perpetuate their race thus preserved,—had not these animals been thus respected, they would have become the food of the inhabitants, and, both from their abundance and their unwholesome qualities, have added to the frequent scourges that desolated the land.
Here again we find that this anomaly was unavoidable: those myriads of animals, from the nature of the climate and the soil would have increased to such numbers as to overrun the land. What was to be done? Had they been considered edible, most unquestionably they would have been devoured as food; it therefore became necessary to destroy and embalm them: this destruction was no doubt inculcated as a religious duty; otherwise, how should we find even to the present day, such numbers of these creatures, preserved through the lapse of ages, with their very eggs,—another proof that even their incubation was checked. Placed between the desolate desert and the sea, numerous must have been the races of animals who sought refuge in this wondrous region; and, as Lagasquie observes, in the Necropolis of Alexandria and Memphis, at Arsinoë, Charaounah, Achmin, Beni-Hacan, Samoun, Hermopolis, Thebes, and in innumerable hypogean monuments, we find the remains of thousands—nay of millions—of ibises, crocodiles, cats, rats, dogs, jackals, wolves, monkeys, serpents, nay, fishes of various kinds. Passalacqua found at Thebes numbers of birds, rats, mice, toads, adders, beetles and flies, all embalmed together. Nay, Herodotus informs us that the animals considered sacred in one city, were held in abhorrence in others, a difference of opinion that not unfrequently occasioned bitter hostilities. Thus the Ombites fought with the Tentyrites on account of the sparrowhawks, and the Cynopolitans waged war with the Oxyrhynchites from disputes about dogs and pikes. These schisms no doubt arose from priestly ambition, each temple claiming its especial shrine of adoration, for whatever might have been the original motive that led to those theological practices, there is no doubt but all these animals were to a certain degree typical of the good and evilpropensities of the various deities, as manifested in their several habits, whence they were selected in the symbols and attributes of the sovereign powers. Abbé Banier endeavours to prove that the bull was the symbol of Osiris and Isis, and that these divinities were themselves symbolic of the sun and moon. Thus the worship of the bull, Mnévis and Apis. The inhabitants of Mendes adored the god Pan, and worshipped him under the figure of a goat, and Mercury is represented with the head of a dog, the most intelligent of animals. Thus in time people lost sight of the origin of the worship, and transferred their adoration to the symbols, as many Roman Catholics transfer their worship of the saints to their wooden images.
The priesthood of Egypt sought not their power in terror, but in affection and gratitude. They strove to convince the people that they were their true friends and real benefactors; their sole study was their welfare, their greatest pride the nation’s prosperity. Gratitude appears to be the sentiment they most sought to inculcate. The serpent was held in veneration, because it destroyed noxious vermin; the ibis was respected from the same motive; the crocodile for the protection it afforded their navigable waters; yet, by one of those strange anomalies that we find in most mythologicalreveries, animals were held sacred, although they constantly destroyed other sacred creatures; and while the crocodile was worshipped, the ichneumons that destroyed its eggs were also entitled to respect. Such was the value of the remains of departed relatives and friends, that their embalmed bodies were often pledged for large sums. The more readily advanced, since their redemption was considered a sacred duty. Thus do we find worldly regulations, bearing the sanctity of a theologic seal. Then again how mighty must have been the hierarchy from whose doctrines emanated the Pharaonic splendour of their stupendous monuments—works of art, that attracted the notice and the admiration of all the civilized part of the globe, whose travellers while they flocked to view their magnificence, were taught to cultivate the sciences and arts, which the priesthood professed, smatterings of which those visiters proudly carried back as a precious gift to their country. Moreover what occupation must have been afforded to the people and to their numerous captives, whom they continually dreaded, from the apprehension that in their constant wars, their prisoners might join their enemies—a circumstance fully proved in Holy Writ, where we find, in Exodus i. 10, that the Hebrews were oppressed, “lest when there falleth out any war, they join also unto our enemies and fight against us.”
This overwhelming power, most fortunately wise and humane,was maintained by every artifice that ingenuity could devise. Egypt has justly been denominated theAlma Materof superstition, since we have every reason to suppose, that with much less wisdom and learning, every successive hierarchy has sought by similar means to retain an equal sway. In Egypt this influence must have been amazing, they held the first rank after the sovereign, whom they assisted in the performance of all his public duties, were present in all his councils, and directed his judgment from the lessons which were laid down for his conduct in the sacred records. All the judges and principal officers of state were also selected in the priesthood; their number must also have been very considerable, since we find them classed as chief priests or pontiffs, and inferior priests of various grades belonging to the sacred deities, prophets, judges, hierophants, magistrates, hierogrammats, or sacred scribes; Basilico grammats, or royal scribes; Sphragistæ, whose office it was to examine the victims, and to put a seal of approbation on them before the sacrifice. Hierostoli, who had access to the Adytum, to clothe the statues of the gods; doctors, embalmers; hierophori, or the bearers of sacred emblems; pterophori, or bearers of the fans carried before the gods; præcones, or pastophori, bearers of the holy images, and keepers of the sacred animals; hierolaotomi, or masons of the priestly order, besides innumerable painters, sculptors, sprinklers of holy water, and flappers to drive away the flies.
Kings were chiefly selected from the priestly order, and when they had been members of the military class, they were obliged to enter a sacerdotal college before they could ascend the throne; even then, they were only allowed to be attended by the children of families belonging to the priesthood.
If such was the influence of priests, that of the priestesses were not the less powerful. The Pellices, or Pallacides of Amun, filled offices of the highest importance, and not unfrequently queens and princesses prided themselves in performing their duties. The subdivision of the female attendants of the temples was also sanctified, and they were chiefly selected in the families of priests. If we are to believe the Grecian accounts, these holy women were not remarkable for their chastity; their indiscretions, however, were confined to their own circle. These assertions, have been by no means general, nor is it probable that a class of men who affected so much purity, and observed such a rigid abstinence to obtain the character of sanctity to which their power was due, would have exposed themselves to the results of such an improvident mode of living.
My view of the origin of embalming both men and animals is borne out by another striking circumstance. The moment the practice of embalming the bodies of men and animals ceased in Egypt, pestilence appeared. At the period when Christianity was introduced into Egypt, the new religion had to encounter many obstacles in overcoming the obstinate prejudices of the ancient creed. During the four first centuries of its propagation, the ancient customs were persevered in; at last the cross triumphed and was enthroned, and the practice of embalming was abolished. In 356, St. Anthony, upon his death-bed, anathematised it as sacrilegious; his last injunction according to St. Athanasius, his historian, had such an effect, that an injudicious zeal prevailed in Rome, in Constantinople, and other large cities, and led to the practice of inhuming bodies in churches and cemeteries, notwithstanding the prohibition of the magistracy. While the dead were interred in towns, or their vicinity, in dwelling houses and gardens, the remains of animals were scattered abroad to become part of the soil, and thus this most dangerous innovation hurried on the development of the most dangerous of diseases. In 1542, under Justinian, Egypt was avoided as the focus of pestilence. It would be difficult to point out the exact period when the custom of embalming fell into disuse; but it had ceased to be practised at the time when pestilence burst forth over the land in all its irresistible horrors. The coincidence was too remarkable not to have been noticed.
It is certainly true that the plague had visited Egypt at former periods, recorded in holy writ, when we know not to what extent the preparation of mummies might have been carried, although we find that Jacob was embalmed by physicians; but when we consider the topography of Egypt presenting a vast plain exposed to a yearly inundation, its soil preserved for centuries from the admixture of animal substances, but of a sudden changed into a mass of corrupted bodies of men and animals, acted upon by heat and moisture,—when the inhumation of man was neglected, and the offals of beasts and reptiles accumulated in pestilential heaps,—we may easily imagine what a luxuriant field was submitted to the scythe of death.
The Egyptians had, no doubt, introduced the practice of embalming the dead from Ethiopia, a country abounding in various gums, which served them to preserve the remains of their relatives. The transparency of these substances had induced some travellers to assert that the bodies were imbedded in glass, like insects found in amber. De Pau, and many otherwriters, have exposed the absurdity of such a report, since it is more than probable that glass was scarcely, if at all, known amongst them. The Persians enveloped their dead in wax; and the Scythians sewed them up in skins.
While the foresight and wisdom of the Egyptian sacerdocy was thus distinguished by Hygienic institutions, their interests were not neglected; and the art of embalming, which they monopolized with every other branch of learning, tended not a little to add to their emoluments. Every dead body was their property. Herodotus tells us, that if the corpse of an Egyptian, or a stranger, was found in the Nile, or cast upon its banks, the priests alone had the power to touch it, and afford it a sepulture. This interesting, although not very veracious author, gives the following account of the process. There are in Egypt a particular class of people whose sole business consists in embalming bodies. When a corpse is shown them, they exhibit models of mummies depicted upon wood. These models are of three kinds, and vary in prices. The bargain being concluded, the embalmers commence their labours. The brains are first extracted through the nose with a crooked iron instrument; an incision is then made in the side of the body with a sharpened Ethiopian stone, through which the viscera are drawn. These are cleansed out, washed in palm wine, and then strewed with pulverized aromatic substances. The abdomen is stuffed with powdered myrrha, cinnamon, and other perfumes, but without incense. After these manipulations, the body is sewn up, and salted with natrum for seventy days. This period elapsed, the corpse is again washed, and swaddled up with rollers of linen, covered with gum, which the Egyptians commonly use instead of glue. The relations, after this operation, carry home the body, and place it in a wooden case resembling the human form; afterwards locking it up in chambers destined for the purpose, and placing it upright against the wall. This is the most expensive process. The next is more economical. Syringes are filled with an unctuous fluid, extracted from the cedar; this liquor is thrown into the body through an incision performed in the side, and is of such a nature that it gradually corrodes and destroys the viscera: after the body has been duly salted, nothing then remains but the bones and skin, which this substance does not affect.
Diodorus Siculus gives an account somewhat similar, but adds some curious particulars. The first class of funerals cost a silver talent; the second twenty minæ; and the third scarcely any thing. The embalmers divide their labours into variousoffices. The first, or the scrivener, points out the part of the body on the left side where the incision is to be made. The next operator is the incisor, who uses for the purpose a sharp Ethiopian pebble; the viscera are then drawn out, with the exception of the heart and kidneys; and the body is then washed with palm wine and aromatics. The corpse is afterwards inuncted with the gum of cedar, and strewed with myrrha, cinnamon, and various spices. It is ultimately returned to the family of the deceased, in such preservation that the eyebrows and eyelids are uninjured, and the countenance preserves the character that distinguished it during life.
Porphyrius informs us that the embalmers, after having extracted the intestines, exposed them to the sun, putting up a prayer to that luminary, and declaring that if the deceased had ever been guilty of any act of gluttony, the intestines alone were guilty, and they were therefore cast into the Nile. Plutarch alludes to a similar ceremony. Theincisorappears to have been considered a degraded being, for Diodorus tells us, that, after the operation, he was pursued by the relations of the defunct, and pelted with stones, as having polluted the remains of the dead.
These accounts of the ancients have been warmly impugned by modern antiquaries, who maintained that the various substances stated to have been made use of in the process of embalming, did not possess the qualities attributed to them,—especially the liquor calledcedria, drawn from the cedar-tree. Rouyer, a member of the Egyptian commission of sciences and arts, corroborates in a great measure the accounts of ancient historians; and, in a very interesting paper on the subject, we find that the bones of the nose are destroyed in some mummies, but left intact in others,—a circumstance that would lead us to think that on such occasions the brain was left in the cranium. The opening in the side did not appear to have been sewn up, but the lips of the incision merely brought into apposition. He divides mummies into those in which tanno-balsamic substances had been introduced, and those that had merely been salted. The first species were found stuffed either with aromatic resinous substances, or asphaltum and pure bitumen. These resinous substances emitted no odour, but, when cast into the fire, a thick smoke arose, and a strong aroma became evident. The mummies thus preserved were light, dry, and fragile; preserved their teeth, their hair, and eyebrows. Some of them had been gilded all over; in others, the gold had only been applied to the face, the hands, and the feet, and other parts. This practice ofgilding was so general, that it does not warrant the belief that it was only the remains of the illustrious and wealthy that were thus ornamented. These mummies, so long as they were kept in a dry place, were unaltered; but were soon decomposed, and emitted an unpleasant effluvium, when exposed to atmospheric moisture. The mummies thus prepared were of an olive colour, while those preserved with bituminous substances were of a reddish tinge; the integuments hard and shining, as if varnished. The features were not altered, and the cavities were filled with a black, hard, and inodorous resinous substance. The ingredients thus employed were similar to the bitumen of Judea; most of them were gilded.
Other mummies were found without any lateral incision, when, most probably, the intestines were drawn out through the rectum. These cavities were filled with the substance termed by historiansPissasphaltos. In the mummies merely cured with salt, when this ingredient is abundant, the features are obliterated, the surface of the body having been smeared with bitumen. These mummies which of course are the remains of the poorer classes, are the most common. They are heavy, hard, and black, and shed an unpleasant odour. They boast of no gilding; only the palms of the hands, the soles of the feet, and the nails, had frequently been decorated with a red tinge; most probably by the application of thehenne. These were the mummies which were sold by the Arabs in former times for medicinal purposes. For a further description of the mode of enveloping the bodies and the history of embalming, I must refer to the valuable labours of Mr. Pettigrew.[52]The process of embalming appears to have consisted simply in extracting the viscera, or destroying them by some corrosive injection; dissolving the mucous and fatty matter by the long application of natrum; and, finally, in desiccating the corpse by exposure to air or stoving.
Mummies have been also found in the Canary islands, where they were named by the Guanchixaxos. They were light, dry, of a yellow colour, shedding a slight aroma, and carefully enclosed in goat-skins. The operation was also performed with a sharpened Ethiopian stone, calledtabona. Humboldt found numerous mummies in Mexico, where desiccated bodies have not unfrequently been seen in the open air.
Certain soils appear to possess a preservative quality, without any apparent preparation having been made use of. In the catacombs of Bordeaux and Toulouse, these dried bodies maybe seen, the hair and eyebrows still intact; but they are dark and shrivelled, and it does not appear that the contents of the cavities had been extracted or heeded, the process of desiccation being general. The miraculous conservation of bodies recorded by Calmet in his History of Vampires was nothing more than instances of a similar preservation.
Various experiments have proved that the progress of chemistry has been so great, that we might equal the Egyptians in the preparation of mummies, if ever such an absurd practice were introduced.
In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries mummies formed one of the ordinary drugs found in Apothecaries shops, and as considerable sums were expended in its purchase as had been laid out upon thebesoardsof various rare animals. It became a lucrative branch of trade to the Jews. The demand not being easily supplied from the vigilance of the Egyptian Government, various frauds were introduced. So powerful were the supposed qualities of mummies, that Francis I. always carried a small parcel of it about him mixed with rhubarb. Lord Bacon tells us that mummy has great force in stanching of blood. Boyle assures us that it is one of the useful medicines commended and given for falls and bruises. The Arabs to this day make use of mummy powder mixed up with bitters. This preparation is calledmantey, and is esteemed a sovereign remedy for bruises.
This term has been erroneously applied to the disease arising from the bite of a rabid animal, since many instances are recorded of mad dogs not only drinking freely of water and other fluids, but actually swimming across rivers; while, on the other hand, the horror of water has attended maladies totally unconnected with rabid injuries: Sauvages plainly expresses himself on this subject. “Apud Gallo-provincales, experientiâ, canes lubosque rabidos bibisse, munducasse, flumen transnasse, ut olim Maralogis et bis Forolivii observatum, adeoque nec potum aversari.” Dr. James relates the case of amad dog that drank both milk and water, and swam through a pond. Similar cases are recorded of mankind.
This disease was known to the ancients, and the Greek term for rabies waslyssa, referred to several times by Homer, when Hector is compared to a mad dog by Teucer and Ulysses. It was also known by the name ofcynolisson,phobodipson, andhygrophobia. According to Plutarch, the disease was first observed in the time of Asclepiades. Cœlius Aurelianus is the most correct of the ancient writers on the subject. This disease, although it may appear in every climate, is far less common in hot regions than in those of a moderate temperature. In the West Indies it is unknown; nor has it been observed in South America. In Egypt and Syria it has never been seen. Mr. Barrow informs us that at the Cape of Good Hope, and amongst the Caffres, their dogs are exempt from the malady, although constantly fed upon putrid meat.
Water-dread has been observed in various rheumatic and inflammatory affections, and frequently arises in a spontaneous manner; while many cases are recorded of the alarming symptoms being witnessed when no rabid bite has been inflicted. Violent passions, both in men and animals, seem to impart a peculiar acrimony to the saliva. Meekren, Wolff, Zacutus Lusitanus, mention fatal cases after the bite of a man in a passionate fit. Le Cat gives a case of death produced by the bite of an enraged duck. Thiermayer gives us two fatal cases of the bite of a hen and a goose, and Camararius has an instance of epilepsy produced by the bite of a horse.
Of the cause of this disease we are utterly ignorant: thirst, without the means of quenching it,—the use of putrid food,—sultry weather, have been considered as producing the fearful disorder; but no one instance is recorded that can justify the opinion. The streets of Lisbon are crowded with dogs, feeding upon disgusting offal, under a burning sky, yet rabies is scarcely ever observed among them. It is more probable that certain mental emotions, such as anger and fear, have a peculiar influence on the animal. All the aggregate symptoms of the disease show that the nervous system is disturbed; and the singular effect of confidence in the treatment of persons bitten by a rabid animal, confirms the fact. This is further proved by many cases of hydrophobia unconnected with rabid bites. Marcel Donat relates the case of a woman who complained of pains in the neck and right arm, with constant trembling. In three days the pain ceased, but the tremor continued; a sense of suffocation followed, which was attended with a horror ofwater and every liquid, although the throat was burning. In five days she died in excruciating agonies, but preserving her senses until the last. Kœhler saw a young soldier, who, having fallen asleep against a stove, was suddenly awakened with a sensation of intense thirst, which he quenched with a draught of cold water. Hydrophobia immediately ensued, and the next day terminated his existence. Selig relates the case of a man at Neukirchen, who was attacked with all the alarming symptoms of this malady after having laboured in the fields on a very hot day, and bathed in the river. The following day he was affected with violent rheumatic pains, which shortly ushered in an intolerance of fluids, and inability of swallowing. In the course of twenty-four hours he expired. It appeared upon inquiry that a year before he had purchased from the hangman of the town some dog’s grease, to rub himself to relieve some troublesome affection; and it was stated that the dog had been killed by a gamekeeper, who suspected him of being mad.
Cases of plague have been attended with water-dread. Lalius Diversus saw a woman labouring under the epidemic, who was thrown into agonies when she even saw other persons drinking. Sarcotius, in his history of the epidemic diseases of Naples, informs us that the fever was invariably attended with hydrophobic symptoms. The fever that prevailed at Breslau in 1719, presented the same peculiarity.
Various venene substances have also been known to give rise to this disease. Professor Brera, of Pavia, witnessed it after the use of stramonium. Rancid oils have caused similar accidents. In regard to the causes that produced madness in dogs, numerous experiments have been made, particularly in the Veterinary School of Alfort: one dog was fed with salted meat, and totally restrained from drinking; another was allowed nothing but water; and the third was not allowed food or drink of any kind. The first died on the forty-first day; the second on the thirty-third; and the third on the twenty-fifth; not one of them evincing any symptoms of rabies.
It appears that a peculiar predisposition renders some individuals more subject to the accidents that follow the bite of rabid animals than others. Mr. Hunter gives an instance in which, out of twenty persons who were bitten by the same dog, only one received the disease. It appears, however, that this virus is less volatile than most others, and is capable of remaining in a dormant state for a very long period; and if we are to give credence to many reports on the subject, it maylinger in the system for several years. At other times, its destructive nature has proved immediately injurious. Heisler has given a case where a man was affected by merely putting into his mouth the cord by which the mad dog had been confined. Palmarius relates the case of a peasant, who, in the last stage of the disease, communicated it to his children by kissing them. It has, however, been clearly demonstrated, that inoculation of rabid saliva does not propagate the distemper. Experiments were made both by Magendie and Breschet in 1813. In 1800, when a dresser in the Hôtel Dieu of Paris, I witnessed several experiments of the kind, and with similar results. At the same period, I had occasion to observe the effect of imagination in many cases. Several persons had been bitten by a rabid dog in the Faubourg St. Antoine, and three of them had died in our wards; a report, however, was prevalent that we kept a mixture that would effectually prevent these accidents; no less than six applicants were served with a draught of coloured water, and in no one instance did any accident ensue.
The period of the development of the accidents after the bite in animals is various. According to Meynall, the disease appears amongst dogs from ten days to eight months after the injury. In the hounds of Earl Fitzwilliam, who were bitten in June 1791, the intervals varied from six weeks to six months. Dr. James made a similar observation in Mr. Floyer’s pack.
No malady has been submitted to more curious and fearful modes of treatment than hydrophobia; and in many cases such has been the dread of the disease, that patients have been smothered or drowned. Dioscorides seared the wound with irons heated to whiteness; other practitioners first excised the wounded part, and then applied fire or caustic. While fire was resorted to by some practitioners, water was recommended by others, and submersion in a river or a pond has frequently been urged as an effectual remedy. In the time of Celsus, the miserable sufferer was thrown without any warning into a fishpond, alternately plunging his head under water and raising it: when the poor wretch could swim, he was forcibly kept immersed until filled with water. After this experiment, which Celsus terms theunicum remedium, for fear that the patient might be attacked with convulsions, he was taken out of the pond, and soused in warm oil. Van Helmont recommended that the poor devil should be kept under water while the psalmMisererewas sung, and most probably the terrified choristers were not expeditious in their performance. Morin relates thecase of a young woman, twenty years old, who was plunged in a tub of water, with a bushel of salt dissolved in it, and dipped repeatedly, until she became insensible; however, much to the surprise of the bystanders, who thought her dead, she recovered, and could not only look upon water, but was able to drink it. Bleeding nearly to death, mercury, cantharides, and various medicines, have been also called into aid; but none have appeared to prove effectual in curing this dreadful disorder. One of the most singular modes of treatment was the introduction of rabid blood into the system of the patient,—in fact, a homœopathic plan of Dr. Rithmeister of Powlowsk, in Finland, who has recorded several cases to prove that the blood of a rabid animal, when drunk, is a specific against canine hydrophobia. The doctor communicates a letter from Dr. Stockmann, a Russian physician, stating this practice to be both common and effectual in White Russia.
With a view of producing a fresh poisonous action that might neutralize the former one, it has also been proposed that a venomous serpent should be made to inflict a wound under the bite of the mad dog. I do not believe that this experiment has ever been tried; and, as Good observes, the claim of ingenuity is, most probably, the only one it will ever have to receive. This fatal disease is enveloped in so much darkness, both as regards its causes and its treatment, that it may well be considered one of the opprobriums of the profession. The experiments of my late friend Sir David Barry are, however, of great importance; and in many cases of poisonous wounds, the application of cupping-glasses has been followed by evident favourable results.
To ascertain the existence of rabies in animals, more especially in dogs, is a matter of great importance, as being frequently the source of moral depression or of sanguine hope, that may tend to increase or diminish the severity of the accidents. One may apprehend madness in a dog when we see the animal dull, and seeking solitude and darkness, his sleep disturbed, and when awakened refusing food or drink. Its head droops, the tail hangs between the legs. The animal soon quits the abode of his master, the mouth secreting a viscid foam, the tongue pendulous and dry, the eyes bright and sparkling. His gait soon becomes uncertain; now precipitate, then slow and undecided. Impatient, and parched with a burning thirst, he cannot rest; and the sight of any fluid occasions an instinctive shudder. The rabid symptoms now become more violent; the animal will attack and bite other dogs, although much superior in strength.It is asserted that dogs avoid him with terror. On these occasions the fury of the animal is not to be controlled; all ties of attachment are dissolved; and his master is but too frequently the first victim of his indiscriminate rage. Hence the absurd popular notion that mad dogs inflict their first bite on those to whom they are attached,—a circumstance that simply can be attributed to the natural endeavours of a master to check the violence of a domestic creature whom he generally can control. Mad dogs seldom bark, but express their angry uneasiness with a growl, which gradually becomes weaker, until the animal staggers, droops, and dies. Yet as there may exist many maladies amongst animals in which these symptoms are observed, to destroy them, as is usually the case, is a most absurd practice, since the individuals whom they may have bitten will sink into a fatal despondency; whereas, by allowing them to live, if they recover, it is evident that the patient will be easily persuaded that the dog was not in a rabid state.
The following cases, recorded by Dr. Perceval, are curious instances of the dormant state of this fearful virus, the effects of which are accidentally developed.
A wine-porter was labouring under a low fever; after a time appeared some symptoms of hydrophobia, and much inquiry elicited the recollection of his having been slightly bitten by a dog six weeks before. In the interval he was convicted of some fraudulent practice in the cellar of his master, to whom he owed great obligation, and was dismissed with disgrace. Anxiety on this event seemed to produce the fever, which terminated in rabies.
Lately an officer was bitten by a dog, whose madness being recognised, the bitten part was excised immediately: after an undisturbed interval of two months, he was advised to go to England to dissipate the recollection of the accident. There he exercised himself violently in hewing wood, felt pain in the hand which had been bitten, embarked for Ireland, had symptoms of hydrophobia on board the packet, and died soon after his arrival. From the varying period of attack, we might infer that the influence of occasional causes is very considerable. In the last patient, hydrophobia supervened exactly five weeks from the time of the bite: he lost one hundred and twenty ounces of blood in twelve hours, which sunk him much; violent perspiration, and at length delirium, attended the water-dread; during the last twenty-four hours he swallowed, and recovered his senses; and died slightly convulsed, whilstcutting an egg. These cases seem to point out agitation of mind and feverish excitation as powerful occasional causes.
Herman Strahl has recently related the following case of rabies in which the dog that had bitten the patient was not mad. In the month of January, 1833, an innkeeper was taken ill. The doctor found him dressed, and stretched upon his bed. He did not complain of any particular ailment, but loathed all food. He at last admitted that he experienced some difficulty in swallowing; and his mother having offered him a cup of tea, he refused it with a sense of horror, and his countenance immediately assumed a character of ferocity that terrified the bystanders. An apple having been given to him, he ate it without repugnance. It was now discovered that, five weeks before, he had been bitten by a dog he was training; and the wound was slow in healing. The dog was sought, and did not show the slightest sign of disease,—barking, playing, and drinking freely. In the evening the patient’s case was aggravated; and it was with the utmost difficulty that he was made to swallow a spoonful of ptisan. The next day he was seized with a violent attack of rabies: seeing one of his sisters drinking, he fell into a furious rage, dashed a looking-glass to pieces, and entreated his relatives to withdraw, as he otherwise would inevitably bite them. This outrageous paroxysm lasted half an hour; at its expiration he fell into a tranquil sleep. But at night he was seized with another attack; and he began to howl and imitate the barking of a dog, and commenced breaking every thing in the room of a shining appearance. His sisters fled in dismay; but he seized his mother, a woman of sixty-five years of age, cast her on the ground, and bit her in the cheek. After this desperate act, he seemed to be struck with a conviction of what he had done, and became more tranquil; but, half an hour after, on entering his chamber, he was found dead, his head under the bedclothes. His mother did not experience any accidents from the injury.
It is singular that, in this miserable condition, the patients will frequently show singular partialities; and, although repulsing any fluid offered to them by some individuals, will take it from others, and attempt, however vainly, to drink. In the Hôtel Dieu of Paris, a young girl, affected with hydrophobia, would only take a cup of ptisan from me; but with looks of inexpressible anxiety returned it to me, after having struggled to moisten her burning lips. At Boulogne, a postilion, bitten by a mad dog, was violent with every one but one of my nephews: from him he also accepted drink, although unableto swallow it; before dying in excruciating agonies, he repeatedly asked for him, and begged that he might be sent for. He would not allow, even in his last moments, any other person to come near him;—another striking instance of that unknown power of sympathy to which I have frequently alluded in the preceding pages.
In a former paper I have given a sketch of the progress of the Chirurgical profession, relating the many difficulties its members had to encounter in their endeavours to attain that degree of perfection to which surgery has risen; a perfection which we have every reason to believe will still continue to be improved by the daily discoveries of the Physiologist, whose labours may be considered the theoretical guide of the practitioner. The history of medicine is equally fraught with much interest, since its being a science more or less conjectural, it has opened a vast career to the speculative mind, and a wide field for the ambitious. Having been long considered a divine inspiration, priesthood in every age considered this science an attribute of their vocation, adding to their spiritual and temporal power.
In a rude state of society it is more than probable that the art of curing diseases, as well as that of healing injuries, did not constitute a special profession, but was practised indiscriminately by all persons whose experience and position in the midst of their uncivilized kinsfolks, gave some weight and importance to their advice. Warriors attended their wounded companions in arms. Parents sought to relieve their offspring, and children endeavoured to alleviate the sufferings of their aged and infirm sires. Thus, I may say, was the art of healing instinctively taught, and not unfrequently the brute creation guided the efforts of humanity; when man contemplated the means animals resorted to when labouring under disease. Plutarch affirms that it is to these instinctive efforts of animals that we are indebted for the knowledge of the various properties of plants. The wild goats of Crete pointed out the use of theDictamusand vulnerary herbs—dogs when indisposed soughttheTriticum repens, and the same animal taught to the Egyptians the use of purgatives constituting the treatment calledSyrmaïsm. The hippopotamus introduced the practice of bleeding, and it is affirmed that the employment of enemata was shown by the ibis. Sheep with worms in their liver were seen seeking saline substances, and cattle affected with dropsy anxiously looked for chalybeate waters. This study might therefore have been called an instinctive school.
Herodotus tells us that the Babylonians and Chaldeans had no physicians, and in cases of sickness the patient was carried out and exposed on the highway, that any persons passing by who had been affected in a similar manner, might give some information regarding the means that had afforded them relief. Shortly, these observations of cures were suspended in the temples of the gods, and we find that in Egypt the walls of their sanctuaries were covered with records of this description. The priests of these shrines soon considered these treasures as their property, and turned their possession to a good account. Amongst the Hebrews we find that the Levites were considered as the only persons who could cure leprosy, and the practice of medicine became their province.
The priests of Greece adopted the same practice, and some of the tablets suspended in their temples are of a curious character which will illustrate the custom. The following votive memorials are given by Gurter: “Some days back, a certain Caius, who was blind, learned from an oracle, that he should repair to the temple, put up his fervent prayers, cross the sanctuary from right to left, place five fingers on the altar, then raise his hand and cover his eyes. He obeyed, and instantly his sight was restored amidst the loud acclamations of the multitude. These signs of the omnipotence of the gods were shown in the reign of Antoninus.”
“A blind soldier named Valerius Apes, having consulted the oracle, was informed that he should mix the blood of a white cock with honey, to make up an ointment to be applied to his eyes, for three consecutive days: he received his sight and returned public thanks to the gods.”
“Julian appeared lost beyond all hope, from a spitting of blood. The god ordered him to take from the altar some seeds of the pine, and to mix them with honey, of which mixture he was to eat for three days. He was saved, and came to thank the gods in presence of the people.”
TheEx volosof modern times suspended at the altars of saints in Catholic churches, are similar testimonials ofsuperstitious credulity, and priestly fraud, and constitute a lucrative branch of business, more particularly to waxchandlers, who fabricate simulacra of every organ or member of the body that may be diseased.
Such was the study and practice of medicine, until the days of Hippocrates, justly named the father of medicine. But even this great man in his study of the problematic science, attributed to divine influence all that could not be comprehended and explained, giving the appellation of sacred, to that which appeared prodigious and inexplicable. This divine influence which was considered as invincible, setting at nought all human speculation and mortal efforts, he denominated the τὸ θεῖον theDivinum quid, he also fancied that the principle of fire was the source of all animation; for the which opinion, more modern writers pronounced him an atheist, amongst other bigots, who thus accused him, we find Gundling and Drelincourt, and even Mosheim; while on the other hand, Will Schmidt, Fabricius, and Bellunensi have sought to reconcile his doctrine with the scriptures; and so far from this accusation being founded, it is well known that Hippocrates had such an implicit belief in the power of the gods, that he got himself initiated in the Eleusinian mysteries at Athens. We find in his Prænotum the following singular passage: “Nevertheless, there does exist in all diseases something of a divine nature, and the physician who is able to foresee their results, must be admired for his judgment.”
This divinesomething, has been the subject of much research and angry disputation. Galen considered it to reside in the atmosphere. Fernel considered it the principle of putrefaction and disorganization. Mercuriali placed it in sideral influence, while Professor Martianus maintained that Hippocrates had a firm belief in demons and malevolent spirits. It would be endless to recount all the idle disquisitions on this matter, which have too frequently converted universities into Pandemoniums.
The earliest teachers of medicine were the philosophers, amongst whom we must remark Pythagoras, who founded the school of Crotona, where assuming the sanctity of the priesthood he obtained such an authority over his disciples, that it gave rise to the common expression ofjurare in verba magistri. This truly wonderful man had learnt in Egypt the secret symbolic mode of writing of the priests, and he certainly did apply his extensive acquirements to the welfare of his country and the benefit of mankind; according at least to his views of the subject, which we have every reason to believe were conscientious. From his youth, when he bore away the prize in the Olympicgames, his lofty ambition, which scarcely knew any bounds, constantly urged him on in a career of perfection in every branch of learning, which ultimately placed him on the highest ground that ever philosopher attained.
After Pythagoras, we find medicine taught by Anaxagoras, Democritus, Heraclitus; but Hippocrates was justly considered the father of medicine, and deserved the name ofgreat—every line of his immortal works breathes a deep knowledge of the phenomena of nature, and an ardent desire to release the most important of all human sciences from the degrading trammels of ignorance and imposture. Nothing can afford a more convincing proof of the purity of his motives, and the integrity of his principles than the formula of the oath which he exacted from his disciples, and which runs as follows:
“I swear by Apollo, by Esculapius, by Hygeia, and all the gods, to fulfil religiously the solemn promise which I now do make.
“I will honour as my father, the master who shall teach me the art of healing, and convince him of my gratitude, by endeavouring to minister to all his necessities. I will consider his children as my own, and will gratuitously teach them my profession should they express a desire to follow it.
“I shall act in a similar manner to all my brethren who are bound by a similar engagement, but shall not admit any other to my lessons, my discourses, or the exercises of my profession.
“I shall prescribe to my patients, such a course of regimen as I may consider best suited to their condition, according to the best of my judgment and capacity, seeking to preserve them from any thing that might prove injurious.
“No inducement shall ever lead me to administer poison, nor shall I ever give a criminal advice, or contribute to an abortion.
“My sole end shall be to relieve and cure my patients, to render myself worthy of their confidence, and not to expose myself, even to the suspicion of having abused this influence, more especially when a woman is in the case.
“I shall seek to maintain religiously both the integrity of my conduct, and the honour of my art.
“I will not operate for the stone, but leave that operation to those who cultivate it.
“To whatever dwelling I may be called, I shall cross its threshold with the sole view of succouring the sick, abstaining from all injurious views and corruption, especially from any immodest action.
“If during my attendance, or even after a recovery, I happen to become acquainted with any circumstances of the patient’s life which should not be revealed, I shall consider this knowledge a profound secret, and observe on the subject a religious silence.
“May I as a rigid observer of this my oath, reap the fruit of my labours, enjoy a happy life, and obtain general esteem—should I become a perjurer, may the reverse be my lot.”
At this period the physician who founded a school taught every branch of the science, and after examining his disciples, gave them a permission to practise the profession when properly qualified. Hippocrates was succeeded by his sons Thessalus and Draco.
The school of Hippocrates was followed by that of Plato who founded the dogmatic sect, but his speculative views were succeeded by the more sound doctrines of Aristotle, who was one of the first philosophers who applied himself to practical anatomy in the frequent dissections of various animals, and he struck out the important path which his successor Herophilus was fortunate enough to follow for the welfare of mankind, by submitting human bodies to the scrutinizing scalpel under the protection of Ptolemy Lagus, a protection which became the more necessary as he had been actually accused of having dissected living subjects. Tertullian affirms that he had thus sacrificed six hundred victims; but what faith can we place in such an absurd charge, which very probably arose from envy or prejudice; although his successor Erasistratus, was accused of a similar offence, and in more modern times Mondini, who was the first to reintroduce human dissections was exposed to a like charge. It was Herophilus who founded the celebrated school of Alexandria, where under the auspices of Ptolemy Philadelphus, Erasistratus succeeded him, followed by Strabo of Berytus, Strabo of Lampsacus, Lycon of Troas, Apollonius of Memphis, and many other distinguished philosophers.
It was at this period that physicians began to practise surgery, which was first taught with great repute in the Alexandrian school, and where Ammonicus and Sostrates, surnamed the lythotomists, first distinguished themselves by this important operation.
While the science of medicine thus flourished in Greece and Egypt it was scarcely known in Rome, where the first physician who ventured to practise was Archagathus from Peloponnesus. At first the bold adventurer was favourably received, but his operations having shocked a people who constantly glutted their eyes in scenes of horror, and who beheld the blood ofgladiators flowing in their arena or streaming under the lictors axe! the imprudent practitioner was stoned to death by the populace, and a hundred and fifty years elapsed ere another physician could be induced to visit the ungrateful country, nor was it until the time of Pompey and of Cæsar that any medical men dared to visit the “eternal city.”
The first of these was Asclepiades, who commenced by giving lessons of rhetoric, which were succeeded by lectures on physic, in the first school of medicine which he founded in Rome. It was on these benches that Aufidius and Nico, Artonius and Niceratus were initiated in the art of healing, while Asclepiades formed his celebrated disciple Themison founder of the sect of the Methodists or Solidists. To this school are we also indebted for the learned Celsus justly called theCicero of medicine. Under Trajan and Adrian the medical profession had attained great celebrity and splendour, and under M. Antoninus, and Marcus Aurelius the world became indebted to the glorious labours of Galen—but the bright days of the healing art were sinking with the star of Rome in the dark horizon of barbarism, and the works of these illustrious masters were sacrificed at the shrine of astrology, magic, and Eastern theosophy.
From this period we find Eastern superstitions mingled with the early practices and creed of Christianity, when, to use the words of Sprengel, “An allegorical explanation of words and even of the scriptures, was carried so far by the Jews that it was considered the utmost perfection of human learning. The essence of every science, and the only method of obtaining, without laborious studies, and in a state of idle contemplation, a degree of wisdom beyond the reach of all other mortals. It is thus that during the first century of our era the science of Cabala arose, a tissue of all the chimeras of Zoroaster, Pythagoras, and the Jews, and which in time, to the shame of human intellect, invaded the domain of learning, and became closely connected with medicine.”
In the commencement of the second century of the church, Acibba published a work calledJezirach, and Cimeon-Ben-Ischai wrote his book entitledSohan, in which their cabalistic labours sought to prove, that there existed a supreme being from whom emanated ten angels, who formed the first world, in which resided three personified abstractions—knowledge, intelligence, and wisdom.—Besides this first or primitive world, there existed three others moving in concentric circles—the world created, the world formed, and the world constructed! So united, so constructed, that whatever might happen in the lastof these worlds had already existed in imagination in the first. From this theory it was maintained that the practice of physic was to call into action all the powers of the superior worlds; a problem that could only be solved by a cabalistic physician, who by his piety and contemplation had succeeded in rendering himself worthy of a communication with celestial agency.
Facts and observations recorded by long experience were now considered useless and contemptibledata, and all terrestrial knowledge despised. Anatomy was deemed worse than useless, and the established doctrines of various schools a dead letter. Chaldean, Phœnician, Hebrew words with mystic significations were introduced as symbolic illustrations of science: no language that could be understood, was deemed intelligible, and any system that could bear the test of reason was denounced as impious.
Thus was the career opened to the craft of priests boundless. It had been believed that the apostles were gifted with the power of healing by the mere apposition of their hands, and their self-named descendants pretended to possess the same divine attributes—and not only beatified monks cured with various oils and ointments; but their very mortal remains, became precious in the hands of their monastic successors. When their mouldering bones had been sold wholesale and retail as precious relics, their very sepulchres and their shadows brought hosts of pilgrims to herd round their shrines.
The study of medicine destroyed with the glories of Rome, was revived in Egypt, where Zeno of Cyprus delivered courses of lectures at Alexandria, a school which soon after dwindled into decay, sinking into obscurity with the once famed academies of Greece.
The Roman empire dismembered, Persia became an asylum for fugitive philosophy, and the Nestorians founded a medical school at Edessa in Mesopotamia, while other sectarians equally oppressed by ostensible orthodoxy, sought a refuge in the city of Dschondi-Sabour, where numbers of Persian and Arabian students flocked to learn their doctrines, and thus we have the origin of the celebrated school of Bagdad under the protection of their caliphs.
This regeneration of science was soon communicated to the shores of Europe, and the Caliph Alhakam founded a school at Cordova possessing upwards of 300,000 volumes, and Seville, Toledo, Saragossa, and Coimbra followed the bright example. Thus was a science, banished from Europe by bigoted andmisguided Christians, restored to its former seat by Mohammedans.
The progress of the science of medicine under the Moorish government was so rapid in Spain, that we find one hundred and fifty medical writers in the schools of Cordova, and sixty-two in Murcia. While the Moors thus encouraged these important studies, the priests in the western states kept the nations under their control in a state of dense ignorance, and the practice of medicine such as it was, was confined within the cloisters of monasteries and nunneries. There does still exist a treatise of medicine written by Hildegarde, Abbess of a convent at Rupertsberg. Monks opened medical schools in several cathedrals, and we find Gregory I. sending one of these medical propagators to Canterbury, where Theodore, one of its archbishops, practised the healing art.
While the study of medicine had become a privilege of ignorant friars, it was destined to assume a semblance of learning in Italy, where some intelligent Benedictines founded a school at Salerno. Here the works of the Greeks, and Romans, and Arabian physicians were once more brought to light, and in the eighth century we find Salerno crowded with students, pilgrims, and invalids. In the eleventh century, this school had obtained a pre-eminence over every other medical institution, and at the period of the crusades its fame was universal—not that the ignorant and barbarous crusaders were capable of shedding any light on the improvement of their several countries from what they might have learned in Holy Land, but many of them who had happily returned to Europe, and been landed in the kingdom of Naples, were cured of their wounds and infirmities by these Benedictine doctors, who themselves owed much of their erudition to an African of the name of Constantine, who had studied at the school of Bagdad, and translated for the monks, who had offered him an asylum, Greek, Latin, and Arabian works, which to them were sealed volumes. Amongst the celebrated adventurers of rank who had escaped from the holy wars, was Robert, son of William the Conqueror, who was cured at Salerno of a supposed incurable wound in the arm. In this manner was the fame of the Salernian school spread far and nigh, and soon Ferdinand II. founded universities at Naples and Messina.
The course of studies in the school of Salerno was three years of logic, and five years of medicine and surgery. At the expiration of these sessions, the student was admitted to examination, and after having passed, was still obliged to practise foranother year under the immediate eye of an experienced physician. It was only upon his certificate as to his professional capacities, that a licence to practise was granted, upon his engaging himself by oaths, to observe the laws of the college, to attend the poor gratuitously, and to report to the magistracy all apothecaries that adulterated their drugs or neglected the proper preparation of medicines prescribed.
The custom of granting academic dignities may be traced to the Nestorians and the Jewish professors in the East, where it was carried into the Moorish possessions in Spain. The school of Salerno was the first collegiate body that adopted it in the western Christian institutions. The degree they conferred was that ofMagister. Previous to the granting of this distinction seven years study were required, and the candidate was to be upwards of one-and-twenty years of age. He had to explain in a public meeting theArticellaof Galen—a passage of theAphorismsof Hippocrates, and of the first book of Avicenna, after which he was examined in the works of Aristotle, he then received the degree ofMagister Artium et Physices. It was only the professors who bore the title of Doctors.
In this manner did the science of medicine struggle for several centuries with obstacles that appeared insurmountable—in turn practised and persecuted—anathematized by the clergy, and soon after becoming a lucrative privilege of the church—prejudice, superstition, and ignorance had closed anatomical theatres, and from the days when flourished the school of Herophilus until the fourteenth century, the dissection of animals was alone permitted, and it was only by stealth that the student sought some knowledge of the human structure, from mouldering bones purloined from the cemetery. A brighter era arose in the year 1315, when Mondini de Luzzi, Professor of Anatomy at Bologna, ventured to dissect human bodies—a bold attempt, as seventeen centuries had elapsed since this investigation of the book of nature, the only record where errors can be detected and truth sought for, had been prohibited. The example of Mondini, who had written a practical anatomical manual was followed in various other schools, but a barber was the person charged with the opening of the subjects, and with no other instrument then his razor he endeavoured to demonstrate the parts which Mondini’s work described.
From this period we may date the revival of medicine, although in the following century it made but little progress, still clogged by astrological absurdities and Arabic errors—and a Florentine physician, Marcillo Ficin, obtained a high reputeby promulgating the doctrine that the vital spirits of man were similar to the ether which filled space and directed the planets; concluding that if man could obtain this ethereal principle he might prolong his days beyond human conception, he recommended the use of preparations of gold to obtain longevity and even advised the aged to drink youthful blood to prolong their precarious life. These absurdities were refuted by Chancellor Gerson, and the faculty of Paris condemned the Florentine’s visions as diabolical and perilous—but what could have been the facilities offered at that time for the study of anatomy when we find Professor Montagnana, of Padua, boasting of having examinedfourteensubjects.
However the fifteenth century was destined to witness a remarkable event in the annals of medical learning, Emmanuel Chrysolore, embassador of Emmanuel Paleologus, arrived in Italy, to solicit means from the Christian powers against the inroads of the Turks. Chrysolore, during a protracted residence at Venice, employed the leisure which his diplomatic occupations left him to deliver lectures on various branches of science, and not only did he encourage the study of the Greek language, but corrected the many errors that teamed in the Arabic translation of classic works. It was to this learned man that the succeeding century were indebted for their knowledge of the works of Hippocrates, and we find that his doctrine formed the groundwork of medical studies over Europe.
But the study of the phenomena of nature founded on experience and observation was not sufficiently visionary and mystic, and soon we see cabalistic calculation and judicial astrology again subverting all doctrines that might lead to sound conclusions. Cornelius Agrippa of Cologne traversed the fairest cities of Europe, to expound the philosophy of Zamolxis and Abaris; maintaining that every Hebrew character had a natural signification, the Hebrew being, according to his ideas, not only the most ancient but a sacred language. He asserted that the language of demons was the Hebraic, and that all Hebrew letters being either favourable or hostile to these evil spirits, they might be conjured by a proper knowledge of their powers.
This visionary not only fancied that letters possessed this influence, but that it was shared by numbers. Thus to cure a tertian fever he directs the use of Verbena, to be cut at the third articulation of the plant; but in the treatment of a quartern, the disease would only yield to the fourth joints. He added that every man was under the influence of three demons—asacred demon (a divine gift)—an innate demon—and a professional demon, sent us by the constellations and the celestial intelligences.
These reveries, however, were interrupted by the still greater absurdities of Paracelsus, a man whose ignorance could only be equalled by his vanity, since he maintained that as the genius of Greece had produced Hippocrates, the genius of Germany had created him for the salvation of mankind. He further assured his disciples that all the universities in the world had less knowledge than his beard, and that every hair of his head was more learned than all their writers.
Paracelsus was perhaps one of the most singular enthusiasts that ever swayed the schools of medicine, or assumed a despotic stand in science. To superstition, credulity, and disreputable living, he certainly did add a certain degree of genius, but more particularly atactwhich established such a reputation, that, without much presumption, he might have claimed the title which he assumed, of “Prince of Medicine,” to which he added the pompous appellation ofAureolus, Philippus, Paracelsus Theophrastus Bombastus ab Hoppenheim.
This strange personage was born in 1493, at Einsidlen, a village near Zurich; he studied under Fugger Schwartz, a celebrated professor of what was then called theSpagyristicschool, orHermetic Medicine, founded on a visionary doctrine that I shall shortly notice. He subsequently travelled over the greater part of Europe, chiefly courting a motley society of physicians, philosophers, old women, and barbers, culling all that he could from pretended science or unblushing ignorance. After having visited the German mines, where he became tainted with the superstition of the credulous workmen, he repaired to Russia, when he was made prisoner by a party of Tartars, who conducted him to their Cham. Taken into favour by their chief, he accompanied his son to Constantinople, where he pretended to have discovered the philosopher’s stone. On his return to his native country, the magistrates of Bale appointed him to the chair of medicine; and in 1527 we find him delivering a course of lectures in the German tongue, being but an indifferent scholar. This sedentary life did not suit his roving habits; and being, moreover, likely to bring his ignorance into its proper light, he set out for Alsace with another enthusiast of the name of Oporinus, with whom however he shortly quarrelled. He continued to wander from town to town, scarcely ever sleeping, or changing his linen, clad in the most slovenlymanner, and generally in a state of intoxication, until at Saltzburg in 1541 he was taken ill at a miserable inn and died in the 48th year of his busy life.
He no doubt had obtained during his adventurous career much experience, having for a long time followed armies and attended at sieges, and during epidemic maladies; but he sought to disguise his want of a proper education by the assumption of a supernatural influence. One of his wildest flights of fancy was, perhaps, his receipt to make a man without conjunction.
His doctrines were founded upon Judicial Astrology, Alchymy, Cabal, and Chemistry. Grossly ignorant in the last science, he pretended that all our diseases depended upon its combinations,—the combustion of sulphur, the effervescence of saline particles, and the coagulation and stagnation of mercury in our humours: all under the influence of theEns Astrorum, theEns Deale, theEns Spirituale, theEns Veneni, and theEns Naturale.Mercurywas evacuated through the pores of the skin;sulphuremanated from the nostrils;deliquescent sulphurwas discharged by the intestines; awatery solution of sulphurarose from the eyes, whilearsenicoozed out of the ears. When these evacuations did not take place, the humour became putrid, and putrescency wasLocaliterorEmunctor labiter—as the humours were either retained or excreted.
This humoral doctrine of Paracelsus, strange to say, obtained for upwards of a century, and many were the learned men who distracted their brains and that of their disciples to multiply his errors, since we find Sanctorius calculates 90,000 morbid alterations in these peccant humours.
In another part of this work, I have related the absurdities of Van Helmont, another visionary of the seventeenth century. Endless would be the task of recording the many systems and doctrines that have in turn ruled the schools of medicine, and been supported both by professors and disciples with a degree of virulent hostility as implacable as religious controversies; and still, while we read with contempt the absurd doctrines of our forefathers, and smile at the folly of their visions, we ourselves are advocating systems which, after a lapse of some few years, will appear just as ridiculous and preposterous to our successors in the doubtful career.
One question naturally arises from all this controversial discrepance—has society benefited by the successive revolutions which have overthrown schools and doctrines, chairs and professors? have the advocates of Sangradian phlebotomy, andthose who considered that the lancet has committed greater havoc than the sword—have the employers of antimony, and those who would have sent to the scaffold opponents who gave an antimonial preparation—have either of these enthusiasts diminished, in any sensible manner, the scale of mortality, or have they influenced the prevalence of disease? This is a most important question, and, however ungracious may be the task, I shall endeavour to consider it.
It is but too true, that, with the exception of the introduction of inoculation and the cowpox, the bills of mortality do not appear, at any period, to have been influenced by the prevalence of any one medical system. This circumstance, however, cannot be admitted as invalidating the claims of medical men to a due consideration of their respective merits. I have endeavoured to show, in a preceding article, that the laws of nature appear to have regulated the equilibrium of life and death and the progress of disease with such harmony, indeed, that we might say that our existence was regulated with arithmetical accuracy. If this is admitted, it might be alleged, that if such be our fated tenure of life, recourse to medical aid becomes useless, and the efforts of physicians must prove effete. Such a deduction would be fatalism in its most absurd form; for, admitting that our days are thus numbered, the human frame may be assailed by many ailments, that may not prove fatal, but admit of relief, if they cannot be cured. It is, therefore, obvious, that the services of a physician are of great value, if he merely can alleviate our sufferings, and render a painful existence tolerable. Daily facts corroborate this assertion, and the most cruel pangs are constantly relieved by professional aid, although it is not equally evident that the same skill can prolong the patient’s life, if “his hour is come;” but, as we know not when that fatal moment may strike, we must clearly seek to wind up the marvellous machinery, and keep it “going” as long as we can. We constantly behold individuals whose existence is most precarious, and yet who linger on for years, frequently to the disappointment of expectant heirs; for there is much truth in the old saying concerning those invalids who are considered to “have one foot in the grave,” they findthat footso very uncomfortable, that they hesitate for a long time ere they thrust in its fellow.