PREFACE.
In this essay I have treated, as the title indicates, of medical symbolism in connection with studies, essentially historical, in the arts of healing and hygiene. Some parts of it bear only indirectly on the main subject; but they serve to render the whole more complete and interesting. Doubtless the reader will not be inclined to find much fault with any of the apparent digressions.
In the score of chapters into which the essay is divided, attention is invited to numerous more or less remarkable matters pertaining to medicine, most of them of very ancient date, and some of practical importance. Medical mythology is treated of very fully; and, on this, as indeed on all points, the results of the most recent archæological and other investigations are given. All I have said is deserving, I believe, of the consideration of educated physicians.[1]“The wise man will seek out the wisdom of all the ancients,” says the author of “Ecclesiasticus,”[2]one who had the tastes of a cultivated medical man.
Although the essay is mainly on old things, I venture to hold that it contains much which a fairly well-read physician will find fresh. The ground gone over has been little trodden before. It may be said, as Pliny did, by way of suggestion of difficulties to be overcome,when he sat down to write his sketch of the history of the art of medicine, “that no one has hitherto treated of this subject.”[3]But just as Pliny overlooked what Celsus had done, and done well, so in this case, some worthy author may have been overlooked; still, this is improbable. What is here presented, and in part coherently, is gathered from manifold sources. I have limited my references as much as possible to works in the English language, or translations. The statements of authors are given in their own words; but quotations of wearisome length have been avoided.
The possibility of research in respect to the themes treated of, and allied ones, not being limited, the essay cannot be expected to be either perfect or complete. Whatever its merits or shortcomings may be, however, it is an outcome of congenial studies pursued for their own sake. I believe it contains a fund of information which deserves to be widely known. The perusal of it may, at least, serve to excite an interest in the ample literature and long and remarkable history of the benevolent and learned profession of medicine.
T. S. S.