FOOTNOTES:

FOOTNOTES:[1]A third volume is in course of preparation, but the probable date of its publication has not been announced. An English translation of the first volume (by Ernest Playfair) was published by Hodder and Stoughton, of London, in 1910.[2]Book I., section 197, of Rawlinson’s translation.[3]From the statements just quoted it appears that a certain kind of bronze (an alloy of copper and tin, with the addition perhaps of a little zinc) was used in Assyria, in the manufacture of surgical knives, as early as during the twenty-third century B. C. Dr. Meyer-Steineg, Professor of the History of Medicine in the University of Jena, Germany, assures the writer that knives made of this material are susceptible of being given as keen a cutting edge as are those made of the best of steel. At least one such bronze knife may be seen in the collection of ancient surgical instruments, votive offerings, etc., which he is making for the benefit of the University.[4]A Christian ecclesiastical writer who lived about the year 200 A. D.[5]Lines 285–292 of Book IV. of the Earl of Derby’s translation, first published in 1864.[6]Pason is the same as Apollo, who was believed by the Greeks to have been the inventor or discoverer of the art of medicine.[7]See Le Clerc’sHistoire de la Médecine, Amsterdam, 1723.[8]At bottom of p. 15 of hisHistoire de la Médecine.[9]Papyros Ebers, aus dem Aegyptischen zum ersten Male vollständig ubersetzt von H. Joachim, Berlin, 1890.[10]Book I., p. 96, of George Rawlinson’s translation.[11]Neuburger speaks of the growth of medical knowledge in India as a development that ran parallel with that of ancient Greece.[12]From Neuburger.—Equally crude are their ideas respecting the causes of disease, as shown by the following items selected from quite a long list of etiological factors: errors in diet and in the habits of life, climatic influences, psychic factors, heredity, poison, supernatural influences like the anger of the gods, the evil powers of demons, etc. For purposes of diagnosis the earlier Indian physicians utilized not only inspection, palpation and auscultation, but also the senses of taste and smell. They noted the losses and increases in the weight of the body, changes in the appearance of the skin, the tongue and the excretions, alterations in the configuration of the body, the form and other characteristics of swellings, etc. They also noted changes in the patient’s voice, in the character of the breathing, in the noises accompanying movements of the joints and the twistings of the intestines. The crepitus caused by the rubbing together of the roughened ends of a fractured bone did not escape their notice. At a later period, doubtless through the influence of the teachings of foreign physicians, they attached great importance to the examination of the pulse.[13]Nepenthes, believed to be opium, is the word employed in the original.[14]Aesculapius was held to be the son of Apollo, the god of medicine, and to have been instructed in the art of healing by Chiron, one of the centaurs. Beside his famous sons, Machaon and Podalirius, he had four daughters whose names—Hygieia, Jaso, Panakeia and Aigle—have come down to us through the ages. His wife’s name was Epione, and those of his two younger sons were Telesphorus and Janiscus, but all three of these names are rarely mentioned by the Greek writers.[15]“Kranken-Anstalten im griechisch-römischen Altertum,” von Dr. med. et jur. Theodor Meyer-Steineg, a. o. Professor an der Universität Jena; Verlag von G. Fischer, 1912.[16]“Kranken-Anstalten im griechisch-romischen Altertum,” inJenaer medizin.-historische Beiträge, Jena, 1912.[17]All important traces of the earlier structures seem to have disappeared.[18]The Emperor Antoninus Pius, in order to provide properly for these patients, erected at Epidaurus a special building in which confinement cases and those likely to end fatally might be lodged.[19]The slave of Chremulos.[20]To save space the head of the god alone has been reproduced in Fig. 5.[21]Histoire de la Médecine, Amsterdam, 1723.[22]The word “school,” when employed in the strictly modern sense of that term, means an establishment regularly organized for the purpose of giving instruction. Here, however, it is intended to signify simply that certain places, like Cos, Crotona, Cnidus, etc., had become the rendezvous of men who desired to cultivate—some as teachers, others as disciples or pupils—certain branches of knowledge, or certain doctrines. At a later period (third century B. C.) there was established at Alexandria, Egypt, a well-organized school of medicine closely resembling those of modern times.[23]All of these are translations from the French.[24]The city of Cnidus was situated very close to the Island of Cos, on a peninsula that projects from the coast of Caria, Asia Minor.[25]Black bile, it was believed, comes from the spleen, while the yellow variety is a product of the liver.[26]Daremberg (Hist. de la Méd.) makes the following comments on this sentence: “How many are the occasions when we physicians would have it in our power to avert death, or at least to postpone it for a few hours, if we would only engrave upon our memories these words of the old man of Cos! ‘What a cruel responsibility rests upon those whose duty it is to summon the doctor at the proper moment! And how great must be the remorse if he fails to arrive in time!’ On the other hand, how wise is the remark of Celsus: ‘The best practitioner is he who never loses sight of his patients.’”[27]After Alexandria first came under Roman rule (about 30 B. C.) membership in the Museum was granted to athletes and other men of no education, and it is said that even before that time Ptolemy Euergetes, who had reopened the schools during the latter part of his reign, bestowed some of the important positions upon men who were simply his favorites. The library of the Museum was seriously damaged by fire at the time when Julius Caesar was being besieged in Alexandria by the inhabitants of that city, and was at last wholly destroyed by Amrou, the Lieutenant of the Caliph Omar, in A. D. 651. The truth of this extraordinary tale regarding the burning of books belonging to the library at Alexandria in the seventh century is seriously doubted by Sismondi (Histoire de la Chute de l’Empire Romain, Vol. II., p. 57). “It was,” he says, “published for the first time, by Abulpharagius, about six centuries after the event is supposed to have occurred. And yet the contemporaneous national historians, Entychius and Elmacin, make no mention of it whatever. An act of this nature, furthermore, would be in direct conflict with the precepts of the Koran and with the profound respect which the Mohammedans habitually entertain for every scrap of paper on which the name of God happens to be written.”Under the later rule of the Romans, Alexandria regained a good deal of its literary importance and also became a chief seat of Christianity and theological learning; but as a centre of medical influence its glory had long since departed.[28]Asclepiades was not a descendant of Aesculapius, as one would naturally infer from the name which he bore.[29]It would not be easy to fix, even approximately, the date when remedies of this character ceased to find acceptance in the popular mind of Europeans, but there can be no doubt that they were employed rather frequently even as late as during the eighteenth century;—indeed, measures that strongly smack of superstition are now and then looked upon with favor by the well-educated members of our modern society. For many centuries, however, they have been abandoned by all physicians excepting those who are unworthy to bear that honored title.[30]Neither Haller nor Dezeimeris furnishes any biographical information with regard to Musa.[31]Antoninus Pius, however, established the rule that these privileges were not to be granted to all physicians indiscriminately, but only to a limited number; and, later still, it was decided that only the parish physicians were entitled to receive them.[32]It seems almost unnecessary to call attention to the fact that the subject of these remarks is not to be confounded with Thessalus, the son of Hippocrates.[33]Ἰατρονίκης is the word employed in the original Greek.[34]The word “metasyncrisis,” as we are assured by Le Clerc, was employed first by Cassius, one of the earlier disciples of Methodism, and then, long after the time of Thessalus, by Galen, Oribasius, Aëtius and Paulus Aegineta.[35]Le Clerc calls attention to the incorrectness—etymologically speaking—of the use of the word “Eclectics” in connection with a school or sect. The members of such a body are not, he says, “the chosen ones” as the term signifies, but “the choosers.”[36]Boerhaave, the famous clinician of Leyden, Holland (eighteenth century), was instrumental in having an excellent Latin translation made of this work; and in 1858 a German translation by A. Mann was published in Halle.[37]Translated fromOeuvres de Rufus d’Éphèse; édition Grecque et Française, par Daremberg et Ruelle, Paris, 1879.[38]The term “dogmatists” is also employed by some authorities to designate those physicians who laid great stress upon the importance of following the teachings of Hippocrates and Galen.[39]The majority of the writings of Galen are reported to have been kept, for safe preservation, in the Temple of Peace, near the Forum; and the destruction of this building by fire, during the latter half of the second century, entailed the loss of all these valuable works.[40]Book VI., Chapter XVII. (page 441 of Vol. I. of Daremberg’s version).[41]In his Commentaries on the works of Hippocrates (Epidemic Diseases, III., t. XVII. B. § 4) Galen states that he has often observed this to-and-fro movement of the alae nasi in certain cases of illness and that he has interpreted it as indicating the existence of some serious disorder of the respiratory tract. (Daremberg.)[42]Hippocrates, Herophilus, Erasistratus, Asclepiades, Themison, Celsus, Soranus and Athenaeus. Daremberg calls attention to the fact that, although we possess to-day only a few fragments of the writings of Archigenes, those few are of such a degree of excellence that we may well ask ourselves whether Galen was not perfectly justified in placing such a high estimate as he appears to have done upon the merits of this writer,—and that, too, notwithstanding the unfavorable criticism which he makes in the present paragraph about the author’s failure at times to write with sufficient clearness on medical subjects.[43]John the Grammarian, whose nativity is not stated by Le Clerc, was at first a simple boatman who ferried back and forth those who attended a school which was located on one of the islands at Alexandria. As a result of his frequent talks with these men, he became enamored with philosophy and decided, notwithstanding his age (forty years), to devote himself entirely to the study of the subject. Accordingly, he sold his boat and attended the lectures regularly, becoming at last an expert in philosophy. He wrote several important treatises and commentaries, some of them dealing with medical topics, and he also made a number of translations from the Greek into Arabic.[44]Third edition, London, 1726.[45]Anthemius is also credited with being the inventor of the principle of dome construction in architecture.[46]Also written Paulus Aeginetes.[47]The account which is given in this and the following chapters is based largely on Dr. Lucien Le Clerc’sHistoire de la Médecine Arabe, Paris, 1876.[48]Le Clerc and Freind mention both Nishapur and Djondisabour as the name of the capital of the Province of Khorassan in northeast Persia.[49]The drachma was a silver coin worth about 9¾ pence English money. The fee paid to Gabriel for his surgical services amounted, therefore, to a little less than £2000 or $10,000.[50]To distinguish him from Mesué the Younger, who lived at Cairo, Egypt, about one hundred years later, and who attained considerable celebrity on account of the treatises which he wrote on materia medica.[51]For further remarks concerning the origin of the Teïssir see page 229.[52]According to tradition the medical school at Salerno was founded by four physicians—Adela, an Arab; Helinus, a Jew; Pontus, a Greek; and Salernus, a Latin.[53]Perhaps the French title “sage-femme” originated from this.[54]There can be no question, says Neuburger (in agreement with Daremberg), about the truth of the statement that Constantinus allowed the authorship of several of the treatises issued at Salerno under his name to be attributed to himself—as, for example, the “Liber Pantegni” (Pantechni), which is in reality the “Liber Regalis” of Haly Abbas; the “Pieticum,” which is fundamentally the work of Ibn-al-Dschezzar; the “De Oculis,” which is based upon Honein ben Ischak’s treatise on opthalmology; and still other works which it is not necessary to specify.[55]Under the heading “Epilogus” on pages 268 and 269 of Meaux Saint-Marc’s version.[56]Examples of leonine versification: “Contra vimmortis, nulla est herba inhortis”; (p. 155 of Saint-Marc’s version) and (from Shelley’sCloud) “I am thedaughterof the earth andwater.”[57]The term “praepositus” means the president or the dean of the school with which the person named is connected.[58]The Opus majus, ed. J. H. Bridges, Oxford, 1897 (2d edition, 1900); opera hactenus inedita, ed. B. Steele, Fasc. I., London.[59]Aurei. The aureus is said to have been worth about 16 shillings, English money.[60]A church official to whom was intrusted the duty of granting dispensations; “Almoner” is perhaps the equivalent term in English.[61]“Non enim est necesse saniem—sicut Rogerius et Rolandus scripserunt et plerique eorum discipuli docent, et fere omnes cururgici moderni servant—in vulneribus generare. Iste enim error est major quam potest esse. Non est enim aliud, nisi impedire naturam, prolongare morbum, prohibere conglutinationem et consolidationem vulneris.” (II., cap. 27.)[62]The most recent edition of this work is a French translation made by P. Pifteau and published at Toulouse, in 1898.[63]According to Daremberg (Histoire des Sciences Médicales, Vol. I., p. 264) the title “Doctor” appears for the first time in the Preface of Roger’s treatise (1180 A. D.).[64]“La Grande Chirurgie de Guy de Chauliac,” Paris, 1890.[65]The distinguishing sign of the barbers was the shaving dish, made ofpewterand hung up at the door of the shop; that employed by the surgeons was also a shaving dish, but made of polished brass. Those surgeons who had received their training at the school of Saint Cosmas and Saint Damian were permitted to display at the window a banner bearing the coat of arms of this institution.[66]The surgeons Cosmas and Damian were chosen patron saints of the new organization. They were born in Arabia in the third century, and are said to have been educated there. After having practiced medicine for a certain length of time in Sicily, they were tortured and killed, because of their Christian faith, by order of the Emperor Diocletian, 303 A. D. Hence the title “Saints.”[67]Guy de Chauliac, who wrote a treatise on surgery in the latter half of the fourteenth century, also speaks of the value of this diagnostic sign.[68]See remarks on the subject of amulets, etc., on pages 197, 198.[69]A small town in the Department of Lot, France. The earliest Norman ancestors of the Gurdon family in England are said to have derived their name from that of this town.[70]Introduction to the “Oeuvres d’Ambroise Paré,” Paris, 1840.[71]“Gaddesden had for a long time been troubled how to cure stone: ‘At last,’ says he, in hisRosa Anglica, ‘I thought of collecting a good quantity of those beetles which in summer are found in the dung of oxen, also of the crickets which sing in the fields. I cut off the heads and the wings of the crickets and put them with the beetles and common oil into a pot; I covered it and left it afterwards for a day and night in a bread oven. I drew out the pot and heated it at a moderate fire, I pounded the whole and rubbed the sick parts; in three days the pain had disappeared;’ under the influence of the beetles and the crickets the stone was broken into bits. It was almost always thus, by a sudden illumination, that this doctor discovered his most efficacious remedies: Madame Trote [Trotula] of Salerno never confided to her agents in various parts of the world the secret of more marvelous and unexpected recipes.” (From Jusserand’s “English Wayfaring Life in the Middle Ages.”)[72]Some weeks later our fellow voyager, Thomas Schoepfius, wrote to me that, on the return journey, he learned at Berne that “Long Peter,” the leader of the Mézières robbers, had been apprehended by the authorities and executed for his crimes; and that, when stretched on the rack, he had confessed, among other things, that he had tried to murder and rob some students who passed through Mézières on their way to Lausanne.[73]Also often spelled “Falloppius.”[74]The meaning of this Latin inscription can best be appreciated by those physicians who have, through a long period of years, practiced their profession largely among the well-to-do classes of a metropolitan city. They alone, I believe, would understand the significance of “lucrum neglectum” as applied to a large proportion of the gifts which a practitioner of medicine receives from grateful patients; and it is not at all likely that a layman who is not familiar with this aspect of a physician’s life would, under the circumstances mentioned, have the slightest suspicion that the device quoted above could possibly bear the meaning that I have given to it.[75]See F. Loeffler: “Vorlesungen uber die geschichtliche Entwickelung der Lehre von den Bakterien,” Leipzig, 1887, Th. 1; and also p. 310 of Puschmann’s “Geschichte des Medicinischen Unterrichts,” Leipzig, 1889.[76]The iatrophysicists and the iatromathematicians constituted apparently two kindred branches of the same school.[77]An edition of the completed set of these plates was published by Lancisi at Rome in 1714.[78]Translated from the French version printed by Daremberg in hisHistoire de la Médecine, Vol. II, p. 706. The originals of Sydenham’s writings are all in Latin.[79]Pronounced by Haeser to be a compilation, and not one of Sydenham’s genuine writings.[80]Physicians who maintain that all physiological and pathological phenomena may be explained by the laws of physics.[81]“Gründliches Bedenken und physicalische Anmerkungen von dem tödtlichen Damff der Holzkohlen,” Halle, 1716.[82]Probably this refers simply to a brazier containing burning charcoal, the light emitted by which would doubtless be sufficient to answer the purpose of a night lamp.[83]A small seaport town located on the Zuider Zee, about thirty miles northeast of Amsterdam. The university, which was founded there in 1648, was abandoned in 1818.[84]Quoted from the English translation mentioned above.[85]Bread boiled in water to the consistence of pulp.[86]The modern operation known as litholapaxy.[87]The word “centuria” is employed here in the sense of “a group of one hundred.”[88]Not Amatus, but a specialist. See remark near the top of page 488.[89]Orange, which is only a short distance from Avignon and Turriers, was ceded to France in 1713.[90]In the absence of a more fitting place in which to speak of the employment of urethral bougies, it seems permissible to state here that the first mention (in medical literature) of these instruments occurs in Chapter XV. of the treatise of Guainerio, Professor of Medicine at the University of Pavia. This work, which was first published in 1439, bears the title: “Practica Antonii Guainerii,” and a later edition was issued at Venice in 1508. Speaking of a case of stone in the bladder, Guainerius says: “And if the urine does not flow from the bladder ... introduce a slender flexible rod of tin or silver into the urethra.”[91]Franco calls it the “high operation” or “hypogastric lithotomy.”[92]After I had written the preceding description of Franco’s new method of extracting a calculus from the urinary bladder, I learned, from Haeser’s account of the surgical writings of Susrutas in the Ayur-Veda (Sanscrit), that already before the Christian era (the exact date is not known) the surgeons of East India had performed this very operation. This fact, however, could not possibly have been known to Franco, who—so far as modern surgeons are concerned—should continue to be looked upon as the real inventor of suprapubic cystotomy.—Author.[93]The fact that bullets are not hot when they inflict a wound was proven experimentally by Bartolommeo Maggi several years earlier, but Paré makes no reference to this fact.[94]Johann Jacob Wecker (1528–1586), born at Basel, Switzerland, and author of a treatise entitled “Practica medicinae generalis” (Basel, 1585).[95]In this instance I have thought it best to modernize the spelling of several of the words.[96]Not healing in a healthy manner.[97]Driving back.[98]Haeser speaks of Wiseman as having gained considerable distinction by the careful manner in which he made provision for the flaps in his amputations.[99]“Observations diverses sur la stérilité, etc.,” Paris, 1609.[100]For a confirmation of this statement see the poem on syphilis (“Enfermedad de las Bubas”) written by the Spanish physician Francesco Lopez de Villalobos and published by him in 1498 at Salamanca. The employment of mercurial inunctions is also mentioned in this poem.[101]Physicians who had served at Rome as the regular medical attendants of Pope Alexander the Sixth.[102]“Die Geschichte der venerischen Krankheiten,” Bonn, 1895.[103]“Zur Geschichte der Syphilis,” Breslau, 1870.

[1]A third volume is in course of preparation, but the probable date of its publication has not been announced. An English translation of the first volume (by Ernest Playfair) was published by Hodder and Stoughton, of London, in 1910.

[2]Book I., section 197, of Rawlinson’s translation.

[3]From the statements just quoted it appears that a certain kind of bronze (an alloy of copper and tin, with the addition perhaps of a little zinc) was used in Assyria, in the manufacture of surgical knives, as early as during the twenty-third century B. C. Dr. Meyer-Steineg, Professor of the History of Medicine in the University of Jena, Germany, assures the writer that knives made of this material are susceptible of being given as keen a cutting edge as are those made of the best of steel. At least one such bronze knife may be seen in the collection of ancient surgical instruments, votive offerings, etc., which he is making for the benefit of the University.

[4]A Christian ecclesiastical writer who lived about the year 200 A. D.

[5]Lines 285–292 of Book IV. of the Earl of Derby’s translation, first published in 1864.

[6]Pason is the same as Apollo, who was believed by the Greeks to have been the inventor or discoverer of the art of medicine.

[7]See Le Clerc’sHistoire de la Médecine, Amsterdam, 1723.

[8]At bottom of p. 15 of hisHistoire de la Médecine.

[9]Papyros Ebers, aus dem Aegyptischen zum ersten Male vollständig ubersetzt von H. Joachim, Berlin, 1890.

[10]Book I., p. 96, of George Rawlinson’s translation.

[11]Neuburger speaks of the growth of medical knowledge in India as a development that ran parallel with that of ancient Greece.

[12]From Neuburger.—Equally crude are their ideas respecting the causes of disease, as shown by the following items selected from quite a long list of etiological factors: errors in diet and in the habits of life, climatic influences, psychic factors, heredity, poison, supernatural influences like the anger of the gods, the evil powers of demons, etc. For purposes of diagnosis the earlier Indian physicians utilized not only inspection, palpation and auscultation, but also the senses of taste and smell. They noted the losses and increases in the weight of the body, changes in the appearance of the skin, the tongue and the excretions, alterations in the configuration of the body, the form and other characteristics of swellings, etc. They also noted changes in the patient’s voice, in the character of the breathing, in the noises accompanying movements of the joints and the twistings of the intestines. The crepitus caused by the rubbing together of the roughened ends of a fractured bone did not escape their notice. At a later period, doubtless through the influence of the teachings of foreign physicians, they attached great importance to the examination of the pulse.

[13]Nepenthes, believed to be opium, is the word employed in the original.

[14]Aesculapius was held to be the son of Apollo, the god of medicine, and to have been instructed in the art of healing by Chiron, one of the centaurs. Beside his famous sons, Machaon and Podalirius, he had four daughters whose names—Hygieia, Jaso, Panakeia and Aigle—have come down to us through the ages. His wife’s name was Epione, and those of his two younger sons were Telesphorus and Janiscus, but all three of these names are rarely mentioned by the Greek writers.

[15]“Kranken-Anstalten im griechisch-römischen Altertum,” von Dr. med. et jur. Theodor Meyer-Steineg, a. o. Professor an der Universität Jena; Verlag von G. Fischer, 1912.

[16]“Kranken-Anstalten im griechisch-romischen Altertum,” inJenaer medizin.-historische Beiträge, Jena, 1912.

[17]All important traces of the earlier structures seem to have disappeared.

[18]The Emperor Antoninus Pius, in order to provide properly for these patients, erected at Epidaurus a special building in which confinement cases and those likely to end fatally might be lodged.

[19]The slave of Chremulos.

[20]To save space the head of the god alone has been reproduced in Fig. 5.

[21]Histoire de la Médecine, Amsterdam, 1723.

[22]The word “school,” when employed in the strictly modern sense of that term, means an establishment regularly organized for the purpose of giving instruction. Here, however, it is intended to signify simply that certain places, like Cos, Crotona, Cnidus, etc., had become the rendezvous of men who desired to cultivate—some as teachers, others as disciples or pupils—certain branches of knowledge, or certain doctrines. At a later period (third century B. C.) there was established at Alexandria, Egypt, a well-organized school of medicine closely resembling those of modern times.

[23]All of these are translations from the French.

[24]The city of Cnidus was situated very close to the Island of Cos, on a peninsula that projects from the coast of Caria, Asia Minor.

[25]Black bile, it was believed, comes from the spleen, while the yellow variety is a product of the liver.

[26]Daremberg (Hist. de la Méd.) makes the following comments on this sentence: “How many are the occasions when we physicians would have it in our power to avert death, or at least to postpone it for a few hours, if we would only engrave upon our memories these words of the old man of Cos! ‘What a cruel responsibility rests upon those whose duty it is to summon the doctor at the proper moment! And how great must be the remorse if he fails to arrive in time!’ On the other hand, how wise is the remark of Celsus: ‘The best practitioner is he who never loses sight of his patients.’”

[27]After Alexandria first came under Roman rule (about 30 B. C.) membership in the Museum was granted to athletes and other men of no education, and it is said that even before that time Ptolemy Euergetes, who had reopened the schools during the latter part of his reign, bestowed some of the important positions upon men who were simply his favorites. The library of the Museum was seriously damaged by fire at the time when Julius Caesar was being besieged in Alexandria by the inhabitants of that city, and was at last wholly destroyed by Amrou, the Lieutenant of the Caliph Omar, in A. D. 651. The truth of this extraordinary tale regarding the burning of books belonging to the library at Alexandria in the seventh century is seriously doubted by Sismondi (Histoire de la Chute de l’Empire Romain, Vol. II., p. 57). “It was,” he says, “published for the first time, by Abulpharagius, about six centuries after the event is supposed to have occurred. And yet the contemporaneous national historians, Entychius and Elmacin, make no mention of it whatever. An act of this nature, furthermore, would be in direct conflict with the precepts of the Koran and with the profound respect which the Mohammedans habitually entertain for every scrap of paper on which the name of God happens to be written.”Under the later rule of the Romans, Alexandria regained a good deal of its literary importance and also became a chief seat of Christianity and theological learning; but as a centre of medical influence its glory had long since departed.

Under the later rule of the Romans, Alexandria regained a good deal of its literary importance and also became a chief seat of Christianity and theological learning; but as a centre of medical influence its glory had long since departed.

[28]Asclepiades was not a descendant of Aesculapius, as one would naturally infer from the name which he bore.

[29]It would not be easy to fix, even approximately, the date when remedies of this character ceased to find acceptance in the popular mind of Europeans, but there can be no doubt that they were employed rather frequently even as late as during the eighteenth century;—indeed, measures that strongly smack of superstition are now and then looked upon with favor by the well-educated members of our modern society. For many centuries, however, they have been abandoned by all physicians excepting those who are unworthy to bear that honored title.

[30]Neither Haller nor Dezeimeris furnishes any biographical information with regard to Musa.

[31]Antoninus Pius, however, established the rule that these privileges were not to be granted to all physicians indiscriminately, but only to a limited number; and, later still, it was decided that only the parish physicians were entitled to receive them.

[32]It seems almost unnecessary to call attention to the fact that the subject of these remarks is not to be confounded with Thessalus, the son of Hippocrates.

[33]Ἰατρονίκης is the word employed in the original Greek.

[34]The word “metasyncrisis,” as we are assured by Le Clerc, was employed first by Cassius, one of the earlier disciples of Methodism, and then, long after the time of Thessalus, by Galen, Oribasius, Aëtius and Paulus Aegineta.

[35]Le Clerc calls attention to the incorrectness—etymologically speaking—of the use of the word “Eclectics” in connection with a school or sect. The members of such a body are not, he says, “the chosen ones” as the term signifies, but “the choosers.”

[36]Boerhaave, the famous clinician of Leyden, Holland (eighteenth century), was instrumental in having an excellent Latin translation made of this work; and in 1858 a German translation by A. Mann was published in Halle.

[37]Translated fromOeuvres de Rufus d’Éphèse; édition Grecque et Française, par Daremberg et Ruelle, Paris, 1879.

[38]The term “dogmatists” is also employed by some authorities to designate those physicians who laid great stress upon the importance of following the teachings of Hippocrates and Galen.

[39]The majority of the writings of Galen are reported to have been kept, for safe preservation, in the Temple of Peace, near the Forum; and the destruction of this building by fire, during the latter half of the second century, entailed the loss of all these valuable works.

[40]Book VI., Chapter XVII. (page 441 of Vol. I. of Daremberg’s version).

[41]In his Commentaries on the works of Hippocrates (Epidemic Diseases, III., t. XVII. B. § 4) Galen states that he has often observed this to-and-fro movement of the alae nasi in certain cases of illness and that he has interpreted it as indicating the existence of some serious disorder of the respiratory tract. (Daremberg.)

[42]Hippocrates, Herophilus, Erasistratus, Asclepiades, Themison, Celsus, Soranus and Athenaeus. Daremberg calls attention to the fact that, although we possess to-day only a few fragments of the writings of Archigenes, those few are of such a degree of excellence that we may well ask ourselves whether Galen was not perfectly justified in placing such a high estimate as he appears to have done upon the merits of this writer,—and that, too, notwithstanding the unfavorable criticism which he makes in the present paragraph about the author’s failure at times to write with sufficient clearness on medical subjects.

[43]John the Grammarian, whose nativity is not stated by Le Clerc, was at first a simple boatman who ferried back and forth those who attended a school which was located on one of the islands at Alexandria. As a result of his frequent talks with these men, he became enamored with philosophy and decided, notwithstanding his age (forty years), to devote himself entirely to the study of the subject. Accordingly, he sold his boat and attended the lectures regularly, becoming at last an expert in philosophy. He wrote several important treatises and commentaries, some of them dealing with medical topics, and he also made a number of translations from the Greek into Arabic.

[44]Third edition, London, 1726.

[45]Anthemius is also credited with being the inventor of the principle of dome construction in architecture.

[46]Also written Paulus Aeginetes.

[47]The account which is given in this and the following chapters is based largely on Dr. Lucien Le Clerc’sHistoire de la Médecine Arabe, Paris, 1876.

[48]Le Clerc and Freind mention both Nishapur and Djondisabour as the name of the capital of the Province of Khorassan in northeast Persia.

[49]The drachma was a silver coin worth about 9¾ pence English money. The fee paid to Gabriel for his surgical services amounted, therefore, to a little less than £2000 or $10,000.

[50]To distinguish him from Mesué the Younger, who lived at Cairo, Egypt, about one hundred years later, and who attained considerable celebrity on account of the treatises which he wrote on materia medica.

[51]For further remarks concerning the origin of the Teïssir see page 229.

[52]According to tradition the medical school at Salerno was founded by four physicians—Adela, an Arab; Helinus, a Jew; Pontus, a Greek; and Salernus, a Latin.

[53]Perhaps the French title “sage-femme” originated from this.

[54]There can be no question, says Neuburger (in agreement with Daremberg), about the truth of the statement that Constantinus allowed the authorship of several of the treatises issued at Salerno under his name to be attributed to himself—as, for example, the “Liber Pantegni” (Pantechni), which is in reality the “Liber Regalis” of Haly Abbas; the “Pieticum,” which is fundamentally the work of Ibn-al-Dschezzar; the “De Oculis,” which is based upon Honein ben Ischak’s treatise on opthalmology; and still other works which it is not necessary to specify.

[55]Under the heading “Epilogus” on pages 268 and 269 of Meaux Saint-Marc’s version.

[56]Examples of leonine versification: “Contra vimmortis, nulla est herba inhortis”; (p. 155 of Saint-Marc’s version) and (from Shelley’sCloud) “I am thedaughterof the earth andwater.”

[57]The term “praepositus” means the president or the dean of the school with which the person named is connected.

[58]The Opus majus, ed. J. H. Bridges, Oxford, 1897 (2d edition, 1900); opera hactenus inedita, ed. B. Steele, Fasc. I., London.

[59]Aurei. The aureus is said to have been worth about 16 shillings, English money.

[60]A church official to whom was intrusted the duty of granting dispensations; “Almoner” is perhaps the equivalent term in English.

[61]“Non enim est necesse saniem—sicut Rogerius et Rolandus scripserunt et plerique eorum discipuli docent, et fere omnes cururgici moderni servant—in vulneribus generare. Iste enim error est major quam potest esse. Non est enim aliud, nisi impedire naturam, prolongare morbum, prohibere conglutinationem et consolidationem vulneris.” (II., cap. 27.)

[62]The most recent edition of this work is a French translation made by P. Pifteau and published at Toulouse, in 1898.

[63]According to Daremberg (Histoire des Sciences Médicales, Vol. I., p. 264) the title “Doctor” appears for the first time in the Preface of Roger’s treatise (1180 A. D.).

[64]“La Grande Chirurgie de Guy de Chauliac,” Paris, 1890.

[65]The distinguishing sign of the barbers was the shaving dish, made ofpewterand hung up at the door of the shop; that employed by the surgeons was also a shaving dish, but made of polished brass. Those surgeons who had received their training at the school of Saint Cosmas and Saint Damian were permitted to display at the window a banner bearing the coat of arms of this institution.

[66]The surgeons Cosmas and Damian were chosen patron saints of the new organization. They were born in Arabia in the third century, and are said to have been educated there. After having practiced medicine for a certain length of time in Sicily, they were tortured and killed, because of their Christian faith, by order of the Emperor Diocletian, 303 A. D. Hence the title “Saints.”

[67]Guy de Chauliac, who wrote a treatise on surgery in the latter half of the fourteenth century, also speaks of the value of this diagnostic sign.

[68]See remarks on the subject of amulets, etc., on pages 197, 198.

[69]A small town in the Department of Lot, France. The earliest Norman ancestors of the Gurdon family in England are said to have derived their name from that of this town.

[70]Introduction to the “Oeuvres d’Ambroise Paré,” Paris, 1840.

[71]“Gaddesden had for a long time been troubled how to cure stone: ‘At last,’ says he, in hisRosa Anglica, ‘I thought of collecting a good quantity of those beetles which in summer are found in the dung of oxen, also of the crickets which sing in the fields. I cut off the heads and the wings of the crickets and put them with the beetles and common oil into a pot; I covered it and left it afterwards for a day and night in a bread oven. I drew out the pot and heated it at a moderate fire, I pounded the whole and rubbed the sick parts; in three days the pain had disappeared;’ under the influence of the beetles and the crickets the stone was broken into bits. It was almost always thus, by a sudden illumination, that this doctor discovered his most efficacious remedies: Madame Trote [Trotula] of Salerno never confided to her agents in various parts of the world the secret of more marvelous and unexpected recipes.” (From Jusserand’s “English Wayfaring Life in the Middle Ages.”)

[72]Some weeks later our fellow voyager, Thomas Schoepfius, wrote to me that, on the return journey, he learned at Berne that “Long Peter,” the leader of the Mézières robbers, had been apprehended by the authorities and executed for his crimes; and that, when stretched on the rack, he had confessed, among other things, that he had tried to murder and rob some students who passed through Mézières on their way to Lausanne.

[73]Also often spelled “Falloppius.”

[74]The meaning of this Latin inscription can best be appreciated by those physicians who have, through a long period of years, practiced their profession largely among the well-to-do classes of a metropolitan city. They alone, I believe, would understand the significance of “lucrum neglectum” as applied to a large proportion of the gifts which a practitioner of medicine receives from grateful patients; and it is not at all likely that a layman who is not familiar with this aspect of a physician’s life would, under the circumstances mentioned, have the slightest suspicion that the device quoted above could possibly bear the meaning that I have given to it.

[75]See F. Loeffler: “Vorlesungen uber die geschichtliche Entwickelung der Lehre von den Bakterien,” Leipzig, 1887, Th. 1; and also p. 310 of Puschmann’s “Geschichte des Medicinischen Unterrichts,” Leipzig, 1889.

[76]The iatrophysicists and the iatromathematicians constituted apparently two kindred branches of the same school.

[77]An edition of the completed set of these plates was published by Lancisi at Rome in 1714.

[78]Translated from the French version printed by Daremberg in hisHistoire de la Médecine, Vol. II, p. 706. The originals of Sydenham’s writings are all in Latin.

[79]Pronounced by Haeser to be a compilation, and not one of Sydenham’s genuine writings.

[80]Physicians who maintain that all physiological and pathological phenomena may be explained by the laws of physics.

[81]“Gründliches Bedenken und physicalische Anmerkungen von dem tödtlichen Damff der Holzkohlen,” Halle, 1716.

[82]Probably this refers simply to a brazier containing burning charcoal, the light emitted by which would doubtless be sufficient to answer the purpose of a night lamp.

[83]A small seaport town located on the Zuider Zee, about thirty miles northeast of Amsterdam. The university, which was founded there in 1648, was abandoned in 1818.

[84]Quoted from the English translation mentioned above.

[85]Bread boiled in water to the consistence of pulp.

[86]The modern operation known as litholapaxy.

[87]The word “centuria” is employed here in the sense of “a group of one hundred.”

[88]Not Amatus, but a specialist. See remark near the top of page 488.

[89]Orange, which is only a short distance from Avignon and Turriers, was ceded to France in 1713.

[90]In the absence of a more fitting place in which to speak of the employment of urethral bougies, it seems permissible to state here that the first mention (in medical literature) of these instruments occurs in Chapter XV. of the treatise of Guainerio, Professor of Medicine at the University of Pavia. This work, which was first published in 1439, bears the title: “Practica Antonii Guainerii,” and a later edition was issued at Venice in 1508. Speaking of a case of stone in the bladder, Guainerius says: “And if the urine does not flow from the bladder ... introduce a slender flexible rod of tin or silver into the urethra.”

[91]Franco calls it the “high operation” or “hypogastric lithotomy.”

[92]After I had written the preceding description of Franco’s new method of extracting a calculus from the urinary bladder, I learned, from Haeser’s account of the surgical writings of Susrutas in the Ayur-Veda (Sanscrit), that already before the Christian era (the exact date is not known) the surgeons of East India had performed this very operation. This fact, however, could not possibly have been known to Franco, who—so far as modern surgeons are concerned—should continue to be looked upon as the real inventor of suprapubic cystotomy.—Author.

[93]The fact that bullets are not hot when they inflict a wound was proven experimentally by Bartolommeo Maggi several years earlier, but Paré makes no reference to this fact.

[94]Johann Jacob Wecker (1528–1586), born at Basel, Switzerland, and author of a treatise entitled “Practica medicinae generalis” (Basel, 1585).

[95]In this instance I have thought it best to modernize the spelling of several of the words.

[96]Not healing in a healthy manner.

[97]Driving back.

[98]Haeser speaks of Wiseman as having gained considerable distinction by the careful manner in which he made provision for the flaps in his amputations.

[99]“Observations diverses sur la stérilité, etc.,” Paris, 1609.

[100]For a confirmation of this statement see the poem on syphilis (“Enfermedad de las Bubas”) written by the Spanish physician Francesco Lopez de Villalobos and published by him in 1498 at Salamanca. The employment of mercurial inunctions is also mentioned in this poem.

[101]Physicians who had served at Rome as the regular medical attendants of Pope Alexander the Sixth.

[102]“Die Geschichte der venerischen Krankheiten,” Bonn, 1895.

[103]“Zur Geschichte der Syphilis,” Breslau, 1870.

Transcriber’s Notes:1. Obvious printers’, punctuation and spelling errors have been corrected silently.2. Some hyphenated and non-hyphenated versions of the same words have been retained as in the original.

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