FOOTNOTES

FOOTNOTES[1]H. N., xxix, 5.

[1]H. N., xxix, 5.

Athenæus — Pneumatism — Eclectics — Agathinus — Aretæus — Archigenes — Dioscorides — Cassius Felix — Pestilence in Rome — Ancient surgical instruments — Herodotus — Heliodorus — Cælius Aurelianus — Soranus — Rufus of Ephesus — Marinus — Quintus.

Athenæus, of Cilicia, a Stoic and Peripatetic, founded in Rome the sect of thePneumatistsabout the yearA.D.69. It was inspired by the philosophy of Plato. The pneuma, or spirit, was in their opinion the cause of health and of disease. They believed that dilatation of the arteries drives onward the pneuma, and contraction of the arteries drives it in a contrary direction. The pneuma passes from the heart to the arteries. Their theories also had reference to the elements. Thus, the union of heat and moisture maintains health; heat and dryness cause acute diseases; cold and moisture cause chronic diseases; cold and dryness cause mental depression, and at death there are both dryness and coldness. In spite of these strange opinions the Pneumatists made some scientific progress, and recognized some diseases hitherto unknown. Galen wrote of the Pneumatists: "They would rather betray their country than abjure their opinions." The founderof the sect of Pneumatists was a very prolific writer, for the twenty-ninth volume of one of his works is quoted by Oribasius. The teaching of the Pneumatists speedily gave way to that of theEclectics, of whom Galen was by far the most celebrated. They tried to reconcile the teaching of the Dogmatists, Methodists, and Empirics, and adopted what they considered to be the best teaching of each sect. The Eclectics were very similar to, if not identical with, theEpisynthetics, founded by a pupil of Athenæus, by name,Agathinus. He was a Spartan by birth. He is frequently quoted by Galen, but none of his writings are extant.

Aretæus, the Cappadocian, practised in Rome in the first century of our era, in the reign of Nero or Vespasian. He published a book on medicine, still extant, which displays a great knowledge of the symptoms of disease very accurately described, and reliable for purposes of diagnosis. He was the first to reveal the glandular nature of the kidneys, and for the first time employed cantharides as a counter-irritant (Portal, vol. i, p. 62). It is not surprising that Aretæus followed rather closely the teaching of Hippocrates, but he considered it right to check some of "the natural actions" of the body, which Hippocrates thought were necessary for the restoration of health. He was not against phlebotomy, and used strong purgatives and also narcotics. He was less tied to the opinions of any sect than the physicians of his time, and was bothwonderfully accurate in his opinions and reliable in treatment. Aretæus condemned the operation of tracheotomy first proposed by Asclepiades, and held "that the heat of the inflammation becomes greater from the wound and contributes to the suffocation, and the patient coughs; and even if he escapes this danger, the lips of the wound do not unite, for both are cartilaginous and unable to grow together." He believed, also, that elephantiasis was contagious. The writings of Aretæus consist of eight books, and there have been many editions in various languages. Only a few chapters are missing.

Archigeneswas a pupil of Agathinus, and is mentioned by Juvenal. He was born in Syria and practised in Rome in the reign of Trajan,A.D.98-117. He introduced new and very obscure terms into his writings. He wrote on the pulse, and on this Galen wrote a commentary. He also proposed a classification of fevers, but his views on this subject were speculative theories, and not based upon practical experience and observation. To him is due the credit of suggesting opium for the treatment of dysentery, and he also described accurately the symptoms and progress of abscess of the liver. By some authorities he is thought to have belonged to the sect of the Pneumatici.

Dioscorideswas the author of a famous treatise on Materia Medica. At different times there were several physicians of this name. He lived shortly after Pliny in the first century, but there is somedoubt as to the exact time. His five books were the standard work on Materia Medica for many centuries after his death. He compiled an account of all the materials in use medicinally, and gave a description of their properties and action. This entailed great knowledge and industry, and is of value as showing what drugs were used in his time. Since then practically the whole of Materia Medica has been changed. He held largely to the orthodox beliefs of Dogmatism, but a great deal of what he recommends is not comprised in the doctrines of this sect, and is decidedly Empirical. It is difficult or impossible to identify many of the drugs referred to by Dioscorides, partly because his descriptions are brief, partly because the mistakes of his predecessors are found in his book.

He exercised as much authority in Materia Medica as Galen did in the practice of medicine, and the successors of each were content, in the main, to follow blindly. A large work was published in England in 1806 to illustrate the plants of Greece described in the treatises of Dioscorides.

Cassius Felixis supposed to have lived in the first century of our era, but practically nothing is known of his history. He wrote a book on medicine consisting of eighty-four questions on medical and physical subjects and the answers to them.

InA.D.79, after the eruption of Vesuvius, there was a great pestilence in Rome, which historians ascribed to the pollution of the air by the eruption.Fugitives crowded into Rome from the devastated part of the country, and there was great poverty and an accumulation of filth in the city, which was, doubtless, the true cause of the pestilence. Treatment of fever at that time was very imperfect at the best, and proper means of prevention and treatment were entirely absent in time of pestilence. It has been computed that ten thousand people died daily at that time in Rome and the surrounding district. Excavations at Pompeii have done a great deal to reveal the state of surgical knowledge towards the end of the first century of our era. Professor Vulpes has written an account of the surgical instruments recovered from the ruins, and there is a collection of ancient surgical instruments in the Naples museum. Vaginal and rectal specula have been found: also a forceps for removing fractured pieces of bone from the surface of the brain. There is an instrument considered by Professor Vulpes to have been used as an artery forceps. Other instruments discovered are: Forceps for removing tumours; instruments for tapping in cases of dropsy (such an instrument was described by Celsus); seven varieties of probes; bronze catheters; 89 specimens of pincers; various kinds of knives, bone-elevators, lancets, spatulas, cauteries, saws, and trephines.[1]

There were several physicians and surgeons of the name ofHerodotus. A famous surgeon of that name lived in Rome aboutA.D.100. He was a pupil of Athenæus, and is quoted by Galen and Oribasius. This Herodotus, according to Baas, was the discoverer of pomegranate root as a remedy for tapeworm.

Heliodoruswas a famous surgeon of Rome, and lived about the same time as Herodotus. He was the contemporary of Juvenal. He performed internal urethrotomy, and wrote on amputations, injuries of the head, and hernia.

Cælius Aurelianusprobably lived in the first century of the Christian era, but some writers believe that he was a contemporary of Galen and a rival, because the one never mentions nor is mentioned by the other; but this view is unnecessarily severe upon the standard of medical ethics attained by the leaders of the profession in early times. From the style of his writings, it has been deduced that Cælius Aurelianus was not a native of Greece or of Rome. He belonged strictly to the sect of the Methodici, and his writings are important as revealing very fully the teaching of this sect. He mentions some diseases not previously described, and had a good knowledge of symptoms. He divided diseases into two classes, acute and chronic, or, more in conformity with the terminology of the Methodici, those of constriction and those of relaxation. Aurelianus did notconcern himself with inquiring into the causation of diseases. His method was to find out the class to which a disease belonged, and to treat it accordingly. He was very practical in his views, and did a great deal to place treatment upon a satisfactory basis. His chief weakness was his failure to recognize the various differences and gradations, and he attached far too much importance to the two classes recognized by his school. He withheld active treatment until he had ascertained to his own satisfaction the class to which the disease belonged. Cælius Aurelianus wrote three books on acute diseases and five on chronic diseases. He cites the case of a patient who was cured of dropsy by tapping, and of a person who was shot through the lungs with an arrow and recovered. He agreed with Aretæus in condemning tracheotomy. His books are not written in a good literary style.

Soranus, of Ephesus, was an eminent physician of the Methodist school, who practised in Rome in the reigns of Trajan and Hadrian. He wrote a great work on diseases of women, of which a Greek manuscript, copied in the fifteenth century, was discovered in La Bibliothèque Royale in Paris by Dietz, who was commissioned by the Prussian Government to explore the public libraries of Europe. The same investigator also discovered another copy of the work, in a worse state of preservation however, in the Vatican library. Partsof the writings of Soranus are preserved in the writings of Oribasius. There is no doubt that Soranus was a very accomplished obstetrician and gynæcologist. His description of the uterus and its ligaments and the displacements to which the organ is liable reveals a practical knowledge of anatomy. Unlike most medical writers of ancient times, he did not adopt the method of recording various methods of treatment copied from previous writers, but his textbook is systematic. In writing about a disease he begins with a historical introduction, and proceeds to describe its causation, symptoms, and course, and the treatment of its various phases. His account of obstetrics shows that the art was well understood in his time. His work on the subjects of dystocia, inflammation of the uterus, and prolapse is perhaps the best. He refers also to hysterectomy. It is interesting to note that he used the speculum. He describes the qualifications of a good midwife. She need not know very much anatomy, but should have been trained in dietetics, materia medica, and minor surgical manipulations, such as version. She should be free from all corrupt and criminal practices, temperate, and not superstitious or avaricious.

In dealing with the subject of inversion of the uterus, Soranus points out that this condition may be caused by traction on the cord. It is noteworthy that he recognized the method of embryotomy as necessary when other measures had failed.

In his time leprosy was very prevalent. It had probably been brought in the first place from the East into Italy by Pompey. Some of the remedies used by Soranus for this disease are to be found in the works of Galen. Soranus wrote books on other medical subjects, but there is difficulty in deciding as to what is spurious and what is genuine in the works attributed to his authorship. There were other physicians of the same name. Galen quotes a book by Soranus on pharmacy, and Cælius Aurelianus one on fevers. He is also quoted by Tertullian, and by Paulus Ægineta, who writes that Soranus was one of the first Greek physicians to describe the guinea-worm. Soranus, in the opinion of St. Augustine, wasMedicinæ auctor nobilissimus. He was far removed from the prejudices and superstitions of his time, as is shown by his denunciation of magical incantations.

Rufus, of Ephesus, also lived in the reign of Trajan (A.D.98-117). His books reveal the state of anatomical knowledge at Alexandria before the time of Galen. The recurrent nerves were then recently discovered. He considered the spleen a useless organ. He understood that pressure on the nerves and not on the carotid arteries causes loss of voice, and that the nerves proceed from the brain, and are sensory and motor. The heart, he considered, was the seat of life, and he observed that its left ventricle is smaller and thicker than the right. The method of checking bleeding from blood-vessels by torsion was known to him. Hedemonstrated the investing membrane of the crystalline lens of the eye.[2]He wrote also a treatise in thirty-seven chapters on gout. Many of the works of Rufus are lost, but fragments are preserved in other medical writings.

Marinuswas an anatomist and physician who lived in the first and second centuries after Christ. Quintus was one of his pupils.

Marinus wrote twenty volumes on anatomy, of which Galen gives an abridgment and analysis. Galen says that Marinus was one of the restorers of anatomical science. Marinus investigated the glands and compared them to sponges, and he imagined that their function was to moisten and lubricate the surrounding structures. He discovered the glands of the intestines. He also wrote a commentary on the aphorisms of Hippocrates. It is uncertain if he is the Postumius Marinus who was physician to the younger Pliny.

Quintuswas renowned in Rome in the first half of the second century after Christ. Like Galen he suffered from the jealousy and persecution of his professional rivals, who trumped up a charge against him of killing his patients, and he had to flee from the city. He was known as an expert anatomist, but published no medical writings. It has been stated by some of the writers on the history of medicine that Quintus was the tutor of Galen, but this statement is lacking in definite proof.

FOOTNOTES[1]For full description and plates see Dr. John Stewart Milne's "Surgical Instruments in Greek and Roman Times" (Clarendon Press, 1907).[2]"Portal," vol. i, p. 74.

[1]For full description and plates see Dr. John Stewart Milne's "Surgical Instruments in Greek and Roman Times" (Clarendon Press, 1907).

[2]"Portal," vol. i, p. 74.

His life and works — His influence on Medicine.

Claudius Galenus, commonly known as Galen, has influenced the progress of medical science by his writings probably more than any other medical writer. His influence was paramount for fourteen centuries, and although he made some original contributions, his works are noteworthy mainly as an encyclopædia of the medical knowledge of his time and as a review of the work of his predecessors. There is a great deal of information in his books about his own life. He was born at Pergamos inA.D.130 in the reign of Hadrian. His father was a scholar and his mother somewhat of a shrew. Galen, in his boyhood, learned much from his father's example and instruction, and at the age of 15 was taught by philosophers of the Stoic, Platonist, Peripatetic, and Epicurean schools. He became initiated, writes Dr. Moore, into "the idealism of Plato, the realism of Aristotle, the scepticism of the Epicureans, and the materialism of the Stoics." At the age of 17 he was destined for the profession of medicine by his father in consequence of a dream. He studiedunder the most eminent men of his day. He went to Smyrna to be a pupil of Pelops, the physician, and Albinus the platonist; to Corinth to study under Numesianus; to Alexandria for the lectures of Heraclianus; and to Cilicia, Phœnicia, Palestine, Crete, and Cyprus. At the age of 29 Galen returned from Alexandria to Pergamos (A.D.158), and was appointed doctor to the School of Gladiators, and gained much distinction.

He went to Rome for the first time inA.D.163-4, and remained for four years; and during this period he wrote on anatomy and on the teaching of Hippocrates and Plato. He acquired great fame as a practitioner and, if he had so desired, might have attended the Emperor; but it is probable that Galen thought that the office of physician to the Emperor might prevent him from leaving Rome if he wished to do so. He also gave public lectures and disputations, and was called not only the "wonder-speaker" but the "wonder-worker." His success gave rise to envy, and he was afraid of being poisoned by his less successful rivals. The reason why he left Rome is not certain, and the possible causes of his departure are discussed by Dr. Greenhill in the "Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology." A pestilence raged in Rome at this time, but it is unlikely that Galen would have deserted his patients for that reason. Probably he disliked Rome, and longed for his native place. He had been in Pergamos only avery short time when he was summoned to attend the Emperors Marcus Aurelius and L. Verus in Venetia. The latter died of apoplexy on his way home to Rome, and Galen followed Marcus Aurelius to the capital. The Emperor soon thereafter set out to prosecute the war on the Danube, and Galen was allowed to remain in Rome, as he had stated that such was the will of Æsculapius. The Emperor's son Commodus was placed under the care of Galen during the father's absence, and at this time also (A.D.170) Galen prepared the famous medicinetheriacafor Marcus Aurelius, who took a small quantity daily. The Emperor Septimius Severus employed the same physician and the same medicine about thirty years afterwards. It is recorded that the philosopher Eudemius was successfully treated by Galen for a severe illness caused by an overdose of theriaca, and that the treatment employed was the same drug in small doses.

Galen stayed several years in Rome, and wrote and practised as on his former visit. He again returned to Pergamos, and probably was in Rome again at the end of the second century. It is certain he was still alive in the year 199, and probably lived in the reign of the Emperor Caracalla.

He was not only a great physician, but a man of wide culture in every way. In matters of religion he was a Monotheist. There was persecutionof the Christians in his day, and it is likely that he came little into contact with the disciples of the new religion, and heard distorted accounts of it, but in one of his lost books, quoted by his Arabian biographers, Galen praises highly the love of virtue of the Christians.

He no doubt found the practice of medicine lucrative when he had gained pre-eminence, and it is recorded that he received £350 for curing the wife of Boetius, the Consul.

Galen wrote no less than five hundred treatises, large and small, mostly on medical subjects, but also on ethics, logic, and grammar. His style is good but rather diffuse, and he delights in quoting the ancient Greek philosophers. Before his time, as we have seen, there were disputes between the various medical sects. The disciples of Dogmatism and of Empiricism had been opposed to each other for several centuries, and the Eclectics, Pneumatists, and Episynthetics had arisen shortly before his time. Galen wrote against slavish attachment to any sect, but "in his general principles he may be considered as belonging to the Dogmatic sect, for his method was to reduce all his knowledge, as acquired by the observation of facts, to general theoretical principles. These principles he, indeed, professed to deduce from experience and observation, and we have abundant proofs of his diligence in collecting experience, and his accuracy in making observations; but still in a certain senseat least, he regards individual facts and the details of experience as of little value, unconnected with the principles which he had laid down as the basis of all medical reasoning. In this fundamental point, therefore, the method pursued by Galen appears to have been directly the reverse of that which we now consider as the correct method of scientific investigation; and yet, such is the force of natural genius, that in most instances he attained the ultimate object in view, although by an indirect path. He was an admirer of Hippocrates, and always speaks of him with the most profound respect, professing to act upon his principles, and to do little more than expound his doctrines, and support them by new facts and observations. Yet, in reality, we have few writers whose works, both as to substance and manner, are more different from each other than those of Hippocrates and Galen, the simplicity of the former being strongly contrasted with the abstruseness and refinement of the latter."[1]

A list of the various editions of Galen's works is given in Dr. Smith's "Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology" (1890 edition, vol. ii, pp. 210-12), and also the titles of the treatises classified according to the branch of medical science with which they deal, and it is convenient to follow this classification.

Galen insisted upon the study of anatomy as essential, and in this respect was in conflict with the view held by the Methodists and the Empirics who believed that a physician could understand diseases without any knowledge of the exact structure of the body. His books on anatomy were originally fifteen in number. The last six of these are now extant only in an Arabic translation, two copies of which are preserved in the Bodleian Library at Oxford.

The directions he gives for dissection show that he was a master of the art. In dissecting out the portal vein and its ramifications, for instance, he advises that a probe should be inserted into the vein, and the point of the probe gradually advanced as the surrounding tissue is cut away, so that finally the minute branches are exposed; and he describes the use of the blowpipe, and other instruments used in dissection. He carried out the experiment of tying the iliac and axillary arteries in animals, and found that this procedure stopped the pulse in the leg and arm, but caused no serious symptoms, and he found that even the carotid arteries could be tied without causing death. He also pointed out that tying the carotid artery did not cause loss of voice, but that tying the artery carelessly so as to include the nerve had this effect. He was the first to describe the ductus arteriosus, and the three coats of the arteries.

It is highly improbable that Galen dissected human bodies in Rome, though he dissected a great variety of the lower animals. He writes that the doctors who attended Marcus Aurelius in the German wars dissected the dead bodies of the barbarians. The chief mistakes made by Galen as an anatomist were due to his assumption that what is true of the anatomy of a lower animal is true also when applied to man.

Galen greatly assisted the advance of physiology by recognizing that every part of the body exists for the purpose of performing a definite function. Aristotle, like Plato, had taught that "Nature makes nothing in vain," and Galen's philosophy was greatly influenced by the teaching of Aristotle. Galen regarded his work as "a religious hymn in honour of the Creator, who has given proof of His Omnipotence in creating everything perfectly conformable to its destination."

He regarded the structure of various parts, such as the hand and the membranes of the brain, as absolute perfection, although his idea of the human hand was derived from a study of the ape's, and he had no knowledge of the arachnoid membrane of the brain, but it would be unfair to criticize his conclusions because of his failure to recognize a few comparatively unimportant details. He discovered the function of the motor nerves by cutting them experimentally, and so producing paralysis of the muscles; the platysma,interossei, and popliteus muscles were first described by him. He was the greatest authority on the pulse, and he recognized that it consisted of a diastole (expansion) and a systole (contraction) with an interval after the diastole, and another after the systole. Aristotle thought that arteries contained air, but Galen taught that they contained blood, for, when an artery was wounded, blood gushed out. He was not far from the discovery of the circulation. He described the heart as having the appearance of a muscle, and considered it the source of natural heat, and the seat of violent passions. He knew well the anatomy of the human skeleton, and advised students to go to Alexandria where they might see and handle and properly study the bones. He recognized that inspiration is associated with enlargement of the chest, and imagined that air passed inside the skull through the cribriform plate of the ethmoid bone, and passed out by the same channel, carrying off humours from the brain into the nose. But some of this air remained and combined with the vital spirits in the anterior ventricles of the brain, and finally exuded from the fourth ventricle, the residence of the soul. Aristotle had taught that the heart was the seat of the soul, and the brain relatively unimportant.

Galen was a strong advocate of exercises and gymnastics, and eulogizes hunting specially. Herecommends cold baths for people in the prime of life. As old age is "cold and dry," this is to be treated with hot baths and the drinking of wine. He thought that wine was particularly suitable for the aged, and that old people required three meals a day, others two meals. He had a very high opinion of pork as an article of diet, and said that the strength of athletes could not be maintained without this form of food.

Galen believed in the doctrine of the four elements, and his speculations led him into a belief in a further subdivision. "Fire is hot and dry; air is hot and moist; for the air is like a vapour; water is cold and moist, and earth is cold and dry." He held that there were three principles in man—spirits, solids, and humours—and eight temperaments ranging between health and disease and compatible with life. He retained a good deal of the teaching of the Pneumatic school, and believed that thepneumawas different from the soul, but the vehicle for the interaction of soul and body. From his theory of the action of the air through the nose on the contents of the ventricles of the brain is explained his use of sternutatories, and his belief in the efficacy of sneezing. Galen's classification of inflammations shows that his pathology was not nearly so accurate as his anatomy and physiology. He described (a) simple inflammationcaused by excess of blood alone; (b) inflammation the result of excess of both pneuma and blood; (c) erysipelatous inflammation when yellow bile gains admission, and (d) scirrhous or cancerous when phlegm is present. He did good service by dividing the causes of disease into remote and proximate, the former subdivided into two classes—predisposing and exciting.

He relied greatly on the doctrine of "critical days," which were thought to be influenced to some extent by the moon. His studies of the pulse were very useful to him in diagnosis. No doubt, he was an expert diagnostician mainly owing to his long, varied, and costly medical education, and his great natural powers of judgment. He asserted that with the help of the Deity he had never been wrong, but even his most ardent admirers would not be wanting in enthusiasm if they amended "never" into "hardly ever."

In these subjects Galen was not as proficient as Dioscorides, whose teaching he adopted with that of other medical authors. In Galen's works there are lengthy lists of compound medicines, several medicines being recommended for the same disease,and never with very marked confidence. He paid high prices for various nostrums, and, sad to relate, placed great faith in amulets, belief in which was general in his time, and nowhere held more strongly than in superstitious Rome. Medicines were classified by him according to their qualities, by which he meant, not their therapeutic effects, but their inherent dryness or moistness, coldness or heat. A medicine might be cold in the first degree, and not in the second degree. Paulus Ægineta followed this strange and foolish doctrine of Galen very closely, as the following extracts from his book on Materia Medica will show:—

"Cistus (rock-rose).—It is an astringent shrub of gently cooling powers. Its leaves and shoots are so desiccative as to agglutinate wounds; but the flowers are of a more drying nature, being about the second degree; and hence, when drunk, they cure dysenteries and all kinds of fluxes."[2]

"Ferrum (iron).—When frequently extinguished in water, it imparts a considerable desiccative power to it. When drunk, therefore, it agrees with affections of the spleen."[3]

Many features, however, of Galen's teaching and practice of therapeutics are worthy of praise. He enunciated two fundamental principles: (1) That disease is something contrary to Nature, and is tobe overcome by that which is contrary "to the disease itself"; and (2) that Nature is to be preserved by what has relation with Nature. He recognized that while the invading disease was to be repelled, the strength and constitution of the patient should be preserved, and that in all cases the cause of the disease was to be treated and not the symptoms. Strong remedies should not be used on weak patients.

Galen conformed to the custom of the physicians in Rome, and did not practise surgery to any extent, although he used the lancet in phlebotomy, and defended this practice against the followers of Erasistratus in Rome. He is said to have resected a portion of the sternum for caries, and also to have ligatured the temporal artery.[4]

Galen had little more than a superficial knowledge of this subject, and was quite ignorant of the surgery of diseases of women. He was not so well informed as Soranus was as to the anatomy of the uterus and its appendages, but deserves credit for having been better acquainted with the anatomy of the Fallopian tubes than his predecessors.He had erroneous views on the causation of displacements of the uterus. Several of the books inaccurately attributed to the authorship of Galen deal with the medical treatment of various minor ailments of women.

Galen was a man of wide culture, and one of his essays is written for the purpose of urging physicians to become acquainted with other branches of knowledge besides medicine. As a philosopher he has been quoted in company with Plato and Aristotle, and his philosophical writings were greatly used by Arabic authors. In philosophy, as in medicine, he had studied the teachings of the various schools of thought, and did not bind himself to any sect in particular. He disagreed with the Sceptics in their belief that no such thing as certainty was attainable, and it was his custom in cases of extreme difficulty to suspend his judgment; for instance, in reference to the nature of the soul, he wrote that he had not been able to come to a definite opinion.

Galen mentions the discreditable conduct of physicians at consultations. Sometimes several doctors would hold a consultation, and, apparently forgetting the patient for the time, would hold violent disputations. Their main object was to display their dialectical skill, and their arguments sometimes led to blows. These discreditable exhibitions were rather frequent in Rome in his time.

With Galen, as with Hippocrates, it is sometimes impossible to tell what works are genuine, and what are spurious. He seemed to think that he was the successor of Hippocrates, and wrote: "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 distinctions, 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." Galen strictly followed Hippocrates in the latter's humoral theory of pathology, and also in therapeutics to a great extent.

It is a speculation of much interest how it was that Galen's views on Medicine received universal acceptance, and made him the dictator in this realm of knowledge for ages after his death. He was not precisely a genius, though a very remarkable man, and he established no sect of his own. The reason of his power lay in the fact that his writings supplied an encyclopædic knowledge of the medical art down to his own time, with commentaries and additions of his own, written with great assurance and conveying an impression of finality, for he asserted that he had finished whatHippocrates had begun. The world was tired of political and philosophical strife, and waiting for authority. The wars of Rome had resulted in placing political power in the hands of one man, the Emperor; the disputations and bickerings of philosophers and physicians produced a similar result, and Galen, in the medical world was invested with the purple.

The effect, therefore, of Galen's writings was, at first, to add to and consolidate medical knowledge, but his influence soon became an obstacle to progress. Even in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Galenism held almost undisputed sway.

The house of Galen stood opposite the Temple of Romulus in the Roman Forum. This temple, inA.D.530, was consecrated by Pope Felix IV to the honour of the saints, Cosma and Damiano, two Arabiananargyri(unpaid physicians) who suffered martyrdom under Diocletian.

The date of Galen's death is not exactly known, but was probablyA.D.200.

FOOTNOTES[1]Dr. Bostock's "History of Medicine."[2]"Paulus Ægineta," vol. iii, p. 74.[3]Ibid., p. 242.[4]"Encyl. Brit.," Surgery.

[1]Dr. Bostock's "History of Medicine."

[2]"Paulus Ægineta," vol. iii, p. 74.

[3]Ibid., p. 242.

[4]"Encyl. Brit.," Surgery.

Beginning of Decline — Neoplatonism — Antyllus — Oribasius — Magnus — Jacobus Psychristus — Adamantius — Meletius — Nemesius — Ætius — Alexander of Tralles — The Plague — Moschion — Paulus Ægineta — Decline of Healing Art.

The death of Galen marks the beginning of the decline of medical science in ancient times, and this decline was contemporaneous with the overthrow of the Roman State. As everybody knows, the decline and fall of the Roman Empire resulted from the profligacy and incapacity of the emperors, luxurious living and vice among the people, tyranny of an overbearing soldiery at home, and the attacks of barbarian foes gradually increasing in strength. Rome fell quickly into the hands of the barbarians, and her power was broken. InA.D.395, was founded the Byzantine Empire, also styled the East Roman, Greek, or Lower Empire, which lasted for more than a thousand years, and took its name from the capital, Byzantium or Constantinople. In this empire medical science maintained a feeble and sickly existence. During thisByzantine Periodthere were a few physicians of note, but they were mainly commentators, and medical science retrograded rather than progressed.

Neoplatonismexerted a powerful influence upon the healing art. It was founded by Plotinus, and was for three centuries a formidable rival to Christianity. The Neoplatonists believed that man could intuitively know the absolute by a faculty calledEcstasy. Neoplatonism is a term which covers a very wide range of varying thought; essentially, it was a combination of philosophy and religion, arising from the intellectual movement in Alexandria. It covered a great deal of mysticism, magic and spiritualism, and the followers of the system, as it developed, became believers in the efficacy of certain exercises and symbols to cure diseases. They entered as Kingsley wrote, "the fairy land of ecstasy, clairvoyance, insensibility to pain, cures produced by the effect of what we now call mesmerism. They are all there, these modern puzzles, in those old books of the long bygone seekers for wisdom." It is wonderful how mankind in their pursuit of knowledge seem to have progressed in a circle.

The influence which Christianity exerted upon the investigation of medical science during the early centuries of our era will be considered at length in a subsequent chapter.

Antylluswas perhaps the greatest surgeon of antiquity. He lived before the end of the fourth centuryA.D., for he is quoted by Oribasius, but is not mentioned by Galen. The time in which he lived was about the yearA.D.300. He was a voluminouswriter, but his works have perished except for quotations by later writers. The fragments of his writings were collected and published in 1799. Antyllus performed an operation for aneurism, which consisted in laying open the sac, turning out the clots, securing the vessels above and below, and allowing the wound to heal by granulation. As this operation was performed without anæsthetics or antiseptics it was attended with great mortality, and the risk of secondary hæmorrhage was very great. Antyllus had operations for the cure of stammering, for cataract, and for the treatment of contractures by the method of tenotomy. He also removed enlarged glands of the neck. It was part of the practice of Antyllus to ligature arteries before cutting them, a method which was subsequently "rediscovered" owing to neglect of the study of the history of medicine. He gave directions for avoiding the carotid artery and internal jugular vein in operations upon the neck.

A fragment of the writings of Antyllus is preserved by Paulus Ægineta,[1]and shows the quality of the work done in bygone ages. It is his description of the operation of tracheotomy, and runs as follows:—

"When we proceed to perform this operation we must cut through some part of the windpipe, below the larynx, about the third or fourth ring;for to divide the whole would be dangerous. This place is commodious, because it is not covered with any flesh, and because it has no vessels situated near the divided part. Therefore, bending the head of the patient backward, so that the windpipe may come more forward to the view, we make a transverse section between two of the rings, so that in this case not the cartilage but the membrane which unites the cartilages together, is divided. If the operator be a little timid, he may first stretch the skin with a hook and divide it; then, proceeding to the windpipe, and separating the vessels, if any are in the way, he may make the incision." This operation had been proposed by Asclepiades about three hundred years before the time of Antyllus.

Oribasiuswas born at Pergamos, the birthplace of Galen, aboutA.D.326. He studied underZenon, who lectured and practised at Alexandria, and was expelled by the bishop, but afterwards reinstated by command of the Emperor Julian (A.D.361). When Julian was kept in confinement in Asia Minor, Oribasius became acquainted with him, and they were soon close friends. When Julian was raised to the rank of Cæsar, Oribasius accompanied him into Gaul. During this journey Oribasius, at the request of his patron, made an epitome of the writings of Galen, and then extended the work by including a collection of the writings of all preceding medical authors. When this work was finallycompleted it consisted of seventy books under the title "Collecta Medicinalia." He wrote also for his friend and biographer Eunapius two books on diseases and their treatment, and treatises on anatomy and on the works of Galen. He earned for himself the title of the Ape of Galen. In the "Life of Oribasius," by Eunapius, we find that Julian created Oribasius Quæstor of Constantinople, but after the death of Julian, Oribasius was exiled, and practised among the "barbarians," attaining great fame. In his exile he married a rich woman of good family, and to one of his sons, Eustathius by name, he addressed an abridgment of his first great book, the smaller work being called the "Synopsis." He ultimately returned from exile, and again reached a very honourable position, to which he was well entitled in virtue of the great fortitude with which he had borne adversity.

An edition of Oribasius was published at Paris between 1851 and 1876, in six volumes, by Daremberg and Bussemaker, under the patronage of the French Government. The authors of this edition took infinite pains to show the sources from which the writings of Oribasius had been derived, chief of which were the original writings of Galen, Hippocrates, Soranus, Rufus, and Antyllus. Oribasius was almost entirely a compiler, but also did some original work. To him is due the credit of describing the drum of the ear and the salivary glands. He described also the strange diseasecalled lycanthropy, a form of insanity in which the patient thinks himself a wolf, and leaves his home at night to wander amongst the tombs.

Oribasius was held to be the wisest man of his time. There was something very charming in his manner and conversation, and the barbarians considered him as little less than a god.

Magnus, a native of Mesopotamia, was a pupil of Zenon and lectured at Alexandria. He was famous for his eloquence and dialectical skill, and wrote a book on "Urine" which is referred to by Theophilus.

Jacobus Psychristuswas a famous physician who practised at Constantinople,A.D.457-474. He was called "the Saviour" because of the great success of his treatment.

Adamantiusof Alexandria both taught and practised medicine. He was a Jewish physician who was expelled from Alexandria inA.D.415, and settled in Constantinople.

Meletiuswas a Christian monk who lived in the fourth century, according to some authorities, but it is probable that he belonged to a later period, the sixth or seventh century. He wrote on the nature of man, but the book is of no value as a contribution to physiology.

Nemesius, Bishop of Emissa, at the end of the fourth century wrote a book called "De Natura Hominis," and came very close to two important discoveries, namely, the functions of the bile andthe circulation of the blood. Of the former, he wrote, "The yellow bile is constituted both for itself and for other purposes; for it contributes to digestion and promotes the expulsion of the excrements; and therefore it is in a manner one of the nutritive organs, besides imparting a sort of heat to the body, like the vital power. For these reasons, therefore, it seems to be made for itself; but, inasmuch as it purges the blood, it seems to be made in a manner for this also."[2]

With reference to the circulation of the blood, Nemesius wrote: "The motion of the pulse (called also the vital power) takes its rise from the heart and chiefly from its left ventricle. The artery is with great vehemence dilated and contracted, by a sort of constant harmony and order, the motion commencing at the heart. While it is dilated it draws with force the thinner part of the blood from the neighbouring veins, the exhalation or vapour of which blood becomes the aliment for the vital spirit. But while it is contracted it exhales whatever fumes it has through the whole body and by secret passages, as the heart throws out whatever is fuliginous through the mouth and nose by expiration."[3]

This book was first translated into English in 1636.

Nemesius also wrote on religion and philosophy. In regard to his medical writings, although he did not go far enough to anticipate the discovery of Harvey, his contribution to medical science was remarkable.

Ætiuswas born in Mesopotamia and lived at the end of the fifth or the beginning of the sixth century. He studied at Alexandria, and settled at Constantinople, where he attained to the honour of court chamberlain, and physician to the Emperor Justinian. He was the first notable physician to profess Christianity. In compounding medicines, he recommended that the following prayer should be repeated in a low voice: "May the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob deign to bestow upon this medicament such and such virtues." To extract a piece of bone sticking in the throat, the physician should call out loudly: "As Jesus Christ drew Lazarus from the grave, and as Jonah came out of the whale, thus Blasius, the martyr and servant of God, commands, 'Bone, come up or go down.'"

Ætius wrote the "Sixteen Books on Medicine," and these contain original matter, but are of value mainly as being a compilation of the medical knowledge of his time. He was the first writer to mention certain Eastern drugs, such as cloves and camphor, and had a great knowledge of the spells and charms used in the East, more especially by the Egyptian Christians. All the nostrums,amulets and charms that were used at the time are enumerated, and display a gloomy picture of the superstition and ignorance that prevailed. The surgical and gynæcological sections of the writings of Ætius are, in most parts, excellent. He treated cut arteries by twisting or tying, and advised the irrigation of wounds with cold water. In the operation of lithotomy he recommended that the blade of the knife should be guarded by a tube. He used the seton and the cautery, which was much in vogue in his day, especially in cases of paralysis. He quotes Archigenes, who wrote: "I should not at all hesitate to make an eschar in the nape of the neck, where the spinal marrow takes its rise, two on each side of it ... and if the ulcers continue running a good while, I should not doubt of a perfect recovery."

Alexander of Tralleslived fromA.D.525 to 605. He was the son of a physician, and one of five brothers, who were all distinguished for scholarship. He studied philosophy as well as medicine, and travelled in France, Spain, and Italy to extend his knowledge. He took up permanent residence in Rome, and became very celebrated. When he became too old to continue active practice, he found leisure to write twelve books on medical diseases, following to some extent the teaching of Galen. The style of these books is elegant, and his description of diseases accurate. Alexander of Tralles was the first to open the jugular vein indisease, and employed iron and other useful remedies, but he lived in superstitious times, and was very credulous. For epilepsy, he recommended a piece of sail from a wrecked vessel, worn round the arm for seven weeks.[4]For colic, he recommended the heart of a lark attached to the right thigh, and for pain in the kidneys an amulet depicting Hercules overcoming a lion. To exorcise gout, he used incantations, these being either oral or written on a thin sheet of gold during the waning of the moon. Writing a suitable inscription on an olive leaf, gathered before sunrise, was his specific for ague. Alexander appears at times to have doubted the efficacy of such remedies as amulets, for he explains that his rich patients would not submit to rational treatment, and it was necessary, therefore, to use other methods reputed to be curative.

In the age of Justinian great scourges devastated the world. InA.D.526 Antioch was destroyed by an earthquake, and it is said that 250,000 people perished, but the most dreadful visitation on mankind was the great plague which raged inA.D.542 and the following years, and, as Gibbon writes, "depopulated the earth in the time of Justinian and his successors."Procopius, who was versed in medicine, was the historian of the period. This fell disease began between the Serbonian bog andthe eastern channel of the Nile. "From thence, tracing as it were a double path, it spread to the east, over Syria, Persia, and the Indies, and penetrated to the west, along the coast of Africa, and over the continent of Europe. In the spring of the second year, Constantinople, during three or four months, was visited by the pestilence; and Procopius, who observed its progress and symptoms with the eyes of a physician, has emulated the skill and diligence of Thucydides in the latter's description of the plague of Athens. The infection was sometimes announced by the visions of a distempered fancy, and the victim despaired as soon as he had heard the menace and felt the stroke of an invisible spectre. But the greater number, in their beds, in the streets, in their usual occupation, were surprised by a slight fever, so slight, indeed, that neither the pulse nor the colour of the patient gave any signs of the approaching danger. The same, the next, or the succeeding day, it was declared by the swelling of the glands, particularly those of the groin, of the armpits, and under the ear; and when these buboes or tumours were opened they were found to contain acoal, or black substance, of the size of a lentil. If they came to a first swelling and suppuration, the patient was saved by this kind and natural discharge of the morbid humour. But if they continued hard and dry, a mortification quickly ensued, and the fifth day was commonly the term of his life. The fever was often accompaniedwith lethargy or delirium; the bodies of the sick were covered with black pustules or carbuncles, the symptoms of immediate death; and in the constitutions too feeble to produce an eruption, the vomiting of blood was followed by a mortification of the bowels. To pregnant women the plague was generally mortal; yet one infant was drawn alive from its dead mother, and three mothers survived the loss of their infected fœtus. Youth was the most perilous season: and the female sex was less susceptible than the male; but every rank and profession was attacked with indiscriminate rage, and many of those who escaped were deprived of their speech, without being secure from a return of the disorder. The physicians of Constantinople were zealous and skilful, but their art was baffled by the various symptoms and pertinacious vehemence of the disease; the same remedies were productive of contrary effects and the event capriciously disappointed their prognostics of death or recovery. The order of funerals and the right of sepulchres were confounded; those who were left without friends or servants lay unburied in the streets, or in their desolate houses; and a magistrate was authorized to collect the promiscuous heaps of dead bodies, to transport them by land or water, and to inter them in deep pits beyond the precincts of the city.... No facts have been preserved to sustain an account, or even a conjecture, of the number that perished inthis extraordinary mortality. I only find, that during three months 5,000, and at length 10,000, persons died each day at Constantinople; that many cities of the East were left vacant, and that in several districts of Italy the harvest and the vintage withered on the ground."[5]

The spread of disease from East to West was again exemplified in the Middle Ages, in the time of the Crusades, when the Crusaders carried home diseases to their native lands. The Knights of St. John, it is interesting to observe, superintended hospitals at home, and wore the white dress which in earlier times had distinguished the Asclepiades.

Moschionprobably lived in the sixth century, and was a specialist in diseases of women. His writings were studied when Soranus was forgotten, but in course of time it was discovered that Moschion's work was nothing but an abbreviated translation of the works of Soranus. "Further, it is held by Weber and Ermerins that even the original Moschion is not based directly on Soranus, but on a work on diseases of women written in the fourth century by Cælius Aurelianus, who in his turn drew from Soranus.... It is interesting to follow the history of this book through its various stages in the light of these different editions, and we would suggest that the first Latinversion, for the use of Latin-speaking matrons and midwives, was produced before the fall of the Western Empire in the fifth century; its Greek sister just fits in with the development of Eastern or Greek-speaking Empire at Constantinople in the sixth century; and the version in barbarous Latin points to a later period, when learning was beginning to make way again in Western Europe."[6]Moschion's book is a catechism consisting of 152 questions and answers.

Paulus Æginetawas the last, and one of the most famous, of the Greek physicians. He was born probably in the seventh century in the island of Ægina, but there is some doubt as to the exact period in which he lived. He quotes Alexander of Tralles and Ætius, and therefore lived at a later period than they did, either in the sixth or seventh century. The works of Paulus are compilations, but reveal the skill and learning of the author. He wrote several books, but only one, and that the principal, remains, and is known by the title of "De Re Medica Libri Septem." Dr. Adams, of Banchory, translated this book for the Sydenham Society, and the introduction shows the scope of the work: "In the first book you will find everything that relates to hygiene, and to the preservation from, and correction of, distempers peculiar to the various ages, reasons, temperaments,and so forth; also the powers and use of the different articles of food, as is set forth in the chapter of contents. In the second is explained the whole doctrine of fevers, an account of certain matters relating to them being premised, such as excrementitious discharges, critical days, and other appearances, and concluding with certain symptoms which are the concomitants of fevers. The third book relates to topical affections, beginning from the crown of the head and descending down to the nails of thefeet,and so on. Briefly, the fourth book treats of external diseases; the fifth, of wounds and bites from venomous animals; the sixth book is the most important and is devoted to surgery, and contains original observations, and the seventh book contains an account of the properties of medicines." Paulus wrote a famous book on obstetrics, which is now lost, but it gained for him among the Arabs the title of "the accoucheur."

The sixth book on surgery, as has justly been observed by Adams, "contains the most complete system of operative surgery which has come down to us from ancient times." Many important surgical principles are enunciated, such, for instance, as local depletion as against general, and the merit of a free external incision. He first described varicose aneurism, and performed the operation of bronchotomy as described by Antyllus. He favoured the lateral operation for removal of stone from the bladder, and amputated thecancerous breast by crucial incision. He also had an operation, like that of Antyllus, for the cure of aneurism. In brief, Paulus performed many of the operations that are practised at the present day. He travelled in the practice of his calling, and not only had great fame in the Byzantine Empire and in Arabia in his lifetime, but exercised great influence for some centuries. His writings inspired Albucassis, one of the few surgeons and teachers of the Middle Ages.

After the time of Paulus Ægineta the practice of medicine and surgery suffered a very rapid decline, and for five centuries no progress was made. The Middle Ages form a dark and melancholy period in the history of medicine, and we have to come to comparatively recent times before we find the skill and knowledge of the Ancients equalled, while it is only at the present day that they are rapidly being excelled.

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