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+metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be
+in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES.
+
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #69197 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/69197)
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-The Project Gutenberg eBook of Sketches from the history of medicine,
-ancient and modern, by Wm. Sedgwick Saunders
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
-most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
-whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
-of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
-www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you
-will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before
-using this eBook.
-
-Title: Sketches from the history of medicine, ancient and modern
- An oration delivered before the Hunterian Society
-
-Author: Wm. Sedgwick Saunders
-
-Release Date: October 21, 2022 [eBook #69197]
-
-Language: English
-
-Produced by: deaurider, Guus Snijders and the Online Distributed
- Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was
- produced from images generously made available by The
- Internet Archive)
-
-*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SKETCHES FROM THE HISTORY OF
-MEDICINE, ANCIENT AND MODERN ***
-
-
-
- Transcriber's note:
-
- This version of the text cannot represent certain typographical
- effects. Italics are delimited with the '_' character as _italic_.
-
- The few minor errors, attributable to the printer, have been
- corrected. Please see the transcriber's note at the end of this
- text for details regarding the handling of any textual issues
- encountered during its preparation.
-
- ----------------------------------------------------------------
-
-
-
-
- SKETCHES
- FROM
- THE HISTORY OF MEDICINE
-
- Ancient and Modern.
-
-
- =AN ORATION=
-
- DELIVERED BEFORE
-
- THE HUNTERIAN SOCIETY,
-
- AT THE LONDON INSTITUTION,
-
- ON THE 13TH FEBRUARY, 1867,
-
- BY
-
- W^M. SEDGWICK SAUNDERS, M.D.
-
- LICENTIATE OF THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS, EDINBURGH.—VICE-PRESIDENT
- OF THE HUNTERIAN SOCIETY.—TREASURER TO THE NEW SYDENHAM SOCIETY.—
- EXAMINING PHYSICIAN TO THE EAST INDIAN—SCINDE AND DELHI—BOMBAY
- AND BARODA—GREAT SOUTHERN OF INDIA—CALCUTTA AND SOUTH EASTERN
- —AND OUDE AND ROHILKUND RAILWAY COMPANIES.—MEDICAL OFFICER
- TO THE CITY OF GLASGOW LIFE ASSURANCE CORPORATION AND THE
- METROPOLITAN FIRE BRIGADE, &c.—AUTHOR OF THE “CAUSES
- AND PREVENTION OF CHOLERA” AND “REPORTS ON
- CHOLERA IN THE CITY OF LONDON, 1866.”
-
- PRINTED AT THE REQUEST OF THE COUNCIL.
-
- _For Private Circulation._
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
- LONDON:
-
- PRINTED BY M. & W. COLLIS. 50, BOW LANE, CHEAPSIDE, E.C.
-
- 1868.
-
-
-
-
- ORATION.
-
-
-Mr. President,
-
-I purpose to devote the time, which your indulgence has placed at my
-disposal this evening, to laying before you the results of some
-inquiries into the origin and history of medicine and of the medical
-profession; regarding the subject rather from a _social_ than from a
-_scientific_ point of view.
-
-My scheme will introduce you to some of your old acquaintances; not for
-instruction, but to remind you of those passages in their lives which
-may have been pressed out of your memories by the sterner realities of
-professional duties.
-
-An inquiry into the origin of medicine must begin with the history of
-man himself, since pain and death are the inevitable conditions of his
-existence; and the desire to mitigate the former, and postpone the
-triumphs of the latter arose from, and has kept pace with, the
-development of the various diseases to which time and circumstances have
-subjected him.
-
-The _primal man_, we know, was created pure and innocent, free from
-liability to pain, and possessed of unmixed capacity for the enjoyment
-of the pleasures that surrounded him; glowing with health, and with
-every emotion redolent of new delight. At sight of him,
-
- Each hill gave sign of gratulation,
- Joyous the birds; fresh gales and gentle airs
- Whisper’d it to the woods; and from their wings
- Flung rose, flung odours from the spicy shrub:—
-
-Apprehension of the miseries to which his progeny were doomed, would
-have marred this happiness; hence his ignorance of evil, and his belief
-that the felicity he enjoyed would be as permanent as it was perfect.
-But our business is with man in his _actual_ condition; the sport of
-
- “All maladies
- Of ghastly spasm, or racking torture, qualms
- Of heart-sick agony, all feverous kinds,
- Convulsions, epilepsies, fierce catarrhs,
- Intestine stone, and ulcer, colic pangs,
- Demoniac phrensy, moping melancholy,
- And moon-struck madness, pining atrophy,
- Marasmus and wide wasting pestilence,
- Dropsies and asthmas, and joint-racking rheums,
- And over them triumphant Death his dart
- Shook, but delayed to strike.”——
-
-Undertaking to examine the subject _ab initio_, we must take into
-account the sources of our information, and as our knowledge of every
-event _antecedent to the discovery of writing_ must have been
-transmitted by oral or traditional agencies, we have to settle, in some
-degree, how far such evidence is worthy of credence.
-
-According to popular belief, the Noahic flood destroyed the whole human
-race, with the exception of Noah and his family; who were therefore the
-sole depositories of the traditions of the events which had occurred
-between the time of Adam and themselves. The great longevity of these
-antediluvian fathers made this oral transmission easy; and we know, that
-the sons of Noah lived to see the birth of Abraham, whom, as the founder
-of circumcision, we claim as the first operative surgeon on record.
-
-In dealing with dates, I adopt the commonly accepted chronology, unmoved
-by those refined speculations so much in favour at this time.
-
-I begin with Moses, for whatever evidence may be urged upon us in the
-shape of marbles, or monuments, claiming an antiquity anterior to the
-advent of the Jewish lawgiver, it is a positive and unimpeachable fact,
-that no _writings_ are in existence, which in point of age reach within
-many centuries of the Pentateuch; indeed, as we shall presently see, the
-oldest of the Greek writers are, in comparison with Moses, but as the
-children of yesterday.
-
-The five books of Moses were written 1500 years before Christ. Hesiod,
-the father of Greek literature, flourished 500 years later; and Homer,
-the next in succession, nearly a century after Hesiod.
-
-Herodotus places Homer 400 years before himself; thus bringing the
-“father of history,” as he is termed by Cicero, to about 500 years
-before the advent of our Saviour, so that the difference of date between
-the author of the Pentateuch and the oldest Greek historian cannot be
-much less than 1000 years.
-
-I pass over the pretended antiquity of the Chinese and Parsis records:
-these have been disposed of very satisfactorily, and however much
-_fancy_ may dwell upon the losses to literature inflicted by the Caliph
-Omar, when he destroyed the Alexandrian library,[1] in the year 640, a
-very little reflection will convince us that as these treasures, real or
-assumed, had been ransacked for ages, by the brightest spirits of Greece
-and Rome, everything worthy of note has been handed down to us.
-
------
-
-Footnote 1:
-
- The library destroyed by the Caliph Omar, was situated in the temple
- of Serapis, and consisted of 300,000 volumes; in addition to which
- there existed in the Bruchion quarter of the city of Alexandria, a
- second collection of 400,000 books, which was accidentally lost by
- fire during the war with Julius Cæsar.
-
- Alexandria (founded 332 B.C.) stood in an intermediate position
- between the east and west, and united the commerce of Europe, Aralia,
- and India; here came first into collision the Greek and Oriental mind;
- here the Septuagint translation of the Old Testament was written; and
- the collections formed by the ancient kings of Egypt were rapidly
- enriched and enlarged by the interchange of ideas with the Greek
- philosophers.
-
------
-
-The _learned_ talk about the writings of the Assyrians, the Babylonians,
-and the Egyptians; but they do not produce a single scrap of tangible
-evidence in support of these pretensions.
-
-It may, however, be contended, that although there are no _writings_
-extant, _traditional_ evidence is very strong; and this establishes a
-high antiquity for Lycurgus, who lived 900 years before the Christian
-era. The more, therefore, we inquire, the stronger the proof becomes,
-that Moses as a lawgiver flourished 600 years before the highest
-claimant to our veneration on the grounds of primitiveness; and thus we
-are entitled to assume that the Greek legislator took much that is
-excellent, in the laws ascribed to him, from his Jewish predecessor.
-
-Lycurgus lived about the time that Shishak, king of Egypt, destroyed the
-temple of Solomon, and carried away many captives: it is therefore no
-very extravagant supposition, that the Pentateuch of Moses was known to
-the great lawgiver. During the peaceful reign of king Solomon, the
-intercourse between the Jews and the Egyptians was frequent and
-extensive, for the great monarch, needing the assistance of skilful
-artificers for the construction of the Temple at Jerusalem, broke down
-that barrier of exclusiveness that had previously isolated his people.
-
-Now the _learned_ of that day were seekers after wisdom wherever it was
-to be found; and moreover, as the fame of Solomon was co-extensive with
-the then existing world, so acute an observer as the _founder_ of the
-Grecian law could not fail to use the materials which the wide spread
-knowledge of the Jewish kings sayings and doings had placed within his
-reach.
-
-Every Jew was required to read the law, or hear it read, once a
-year—each individual therefore became a living depository of its truths,
-and, consequently, a somewhat competent teacher of those who might
-desire to be instructed in such matters.
-
-_Moses_ then comes before us as the first _writer_, and the first
-_lawgiver_; and we shall now proceed to show that to these titles he
-added the still greater distinction of being the first _physician_, and
-promulgator of sanitary precautions.
-
-At present, however, I will not further intrude upon your patience, but
-leaving his claims where I have placed them, pass on to the
-consideration of the character of the laws themselves;—and here we
-arrive at a body of enactments so excellent, so well adapted, not only
-to the requirements of a nomadic people wandering in a wild country, but
-to that _same_ people when they subsequently became dwellers in cities,
-and suffered all the encumbrances of a more advanced civilization.
-_Moses_ made laws for _all_ times and for _all_ communities, _general_
-as well as _particular_, reaching the _nation_ through every individual
-member thereof; his rules for the preservation of health embraced the
-consideration of personal cleanliness enforced as a _religious_
-obligation in order that he might thereby enlist the unvarying
-co-operation of the priesthood.
-
-In a climate incentive to animal enjoyments he placed strict barriers
-for the preservation of _chastity_, and decreed that matters relating to
-sexual intercourse should be under the surveillance of the priest;
-directions were also given to the _menstruous_ woman, and for her
-conduct during _pregnancy_ and in _childbed_. The ordinance of
-circumcision was devised not alone for ablutionary purposes, but for
-_other well understood_ objects conducive to purity. Further, it was
-directed how the man should order himself in affections of the virile
-organs; and more emphatically, what he was bound to observe when the
-terrible _leprosy_ afflicted him. In such a calamity he was compelled to
-withdraw from his house, to be separated from society, and present
-himself to the priest at various periods during the progress of the
-disease; he was also to remain in a cheerless exclusion, where, if by
-chance any unwary passenger came in sight, the sufferer was commanded to
-cry aloud, _unclean! unclean!_ When convalescence and health returned,
-the _priest_ pronounced him cured of his leprosy, and he was then
-permitted to return to his home; but if the leprosy was supposed to
-cling to the _habitation_, _that_, too, was subjected to isolation, and
-in some instances to total destruction.
-
-The _same precautions_ obtain in our own times, although nearly 3400
-years have elapsed since they were first insisted upon by Moses.
-
-Thus, we are told by Dr. Thompson, an eminent American writer on the
-Holy Land (where he resided many years), that lepers are everywhere
-regarded as unclean, and that at Jerusalem (where there is always a
-considerable number of them) a separate quarter in the city is assigned
-to them, to which they are rigidly confined. Dr. Thompson says: “I have
-seen them cast out of the villages where they resided, and no healthy
-person would touch them, eat with them, or use any of their clothes or
-utensils, and even the Arab tent dwellers cast them out of camp. The
-leper beggars stand apart, and never attempt to touch you, even as it
-was in the time of the Saviour, when the ten lepers stood afar off and
-lifted up their voice of entreaty.”
-
-The same writer furnishes us with the following graphic description,
-which, as coming from an eye witness, we have deemed worthy of notice:—
-
-“Sauntering down the Jaffa road, on my way to the Holy City, I was
-startled by the sudden apparition of a crowd of beggars, sans eyes, sans
-nose, sans hair, sans everything; they held up their handless arms,
-unearthly sounds gurgled through throats without palates, and, in a
-word, I stood horrified, when, for the first time, I found myself face
-to face with a leper.” He then goes on to say: “For many years I have
-sought to get at the mystery of its origin, but neither books nor
-learned physicians have thrown any light upon it. I have suspected that
-this remorseless enemy originates in some self-propagating animalcules,
-and thus I can conceive the possibility of the contagion reaching the
-walls of a dwelling. No one has spoken with authority, as to what it
-proceeds from or how it is generated.
-
-“New born babes of leprous parents are often as pretty and healthy in
-appearance as other children, but the ‘_scab_’ comes on by degrees, the
-hair falls off, joint after joint of the fingers and toes shrink up, the
-gums are absorbed, and the teeth fall out and disappear; the nose, the
-eyes, the palate are slowly consumed, and finally the wretched victim
-sinks into the earth under a disease beyond the control of medicine,
-which cannot even mitigate its tortures.
-
-“To my mind there is no conceivable manifestation of Divine power more
-triumphantly confirmatory of Christ’s divinity than the cleansing of a
-leper with a word.”[2]
-
------
-
-Footnote 2:
-
- The contagiousness of Leprosy was held in universal belief up to the
- seventeenth century, when certain writers on the subject began to
- question the validity of a doctrine which had been handed down to them
- through successive ages, by all the early observers of the Jewish,
- Egyptian, Arabian, Grecian, and Hindoo countries, and the view then
- advanced has been confirmed by the report of the Committee recently
- appointed by the College of Physicians, who state that:—“The all but
- unanimous conviction of the most experienced observers in different
- parts of the world, is quite opposed to the belief that leprosy is
- _contagious_ or _communicable_ by _proximity_ or _contact_.”
-
- On the other hand we have to consider the testimony afforded us by the
- shrewd and intelligent teachers of ancient times. Thus, Aretæus
- believed it to be as contagious as the _plague_, and like _it_
- communicable by respiration; and _Œtius_, following _Archigenes_,
- thought that “the air became contaminated through the effluvia of the
- sores.” _Avicenna_ believed leprosy to be contagious in the _general_
- sense of that term; _Avenzoar_ by contact; _Haly Abbas_ and
- _Alsaharavius_ through the respiration; and _Rogerius_ “_per coitum_.”
-
- [These interesting facts are taken from an able article in the Lancet,
- February 9, 1867.]
-
------
-
-The initiatory rite of circumcision was, by Divine command, first
-performed by Abraham in the year of the world 2107, or about 1897 years
-before Christ:—At the age of 99 years, Abraham, together with his son
-Ishmael and all his dependents were circumcised.
-
-Ishmael at this time was thirteen years old, and, as we are informed by
-Josephus, was the founder of the Arabian nation, who to this day do not
-circumcise until after the thirteenth year.
-
-Isaac, the child of promise, the heir who was to carry on the race of
-the patriarch, was circumcised on the eighth day after his birth, and
-this, among the Hebrews, became a law, and a statute for ever.
-
-One of the tapestries at Hampton Court, in the time of Holbein,
-represents the operation being performed upon Isaac, with what appears
-to be a knife made of stone, which was the instrument used for many ages
-for this purpose.
-
-By the kindness of my friend, the Rev. William Sparrow Simpson, the
-learned Librarian and Minor Canon of St. Paul’s Cathedral, I am enabled
-to show you some of these knives of stone; and further evidence of the
-employment of such implements will be found in Exodus 4th chapter and
-25th verse, where it is written—“Then Zipporah took a sharp stone and
-cut off the foreskin of her son and cast it at his (Moses) feet.”[3]
-
------
-
-Footnote 3:
-
- _Pliny_ tells us that the priests of _Cybele_, the mother of the gods
- had sharp stones with which they cut themselves in their extasies.
- _Catullus_ says, that _Atys_ emasculated himself with such an
- instrument.
-
- The Rabbinical law stands thus: “we may circumcise with anything, even
- with a flint, with crystal (glass) or with anything that cuts, _except
- with the sharp edge of a reed_, because the _enchanters_ make use of
- that, or it may bring on a disease.” Again we have the evidence of
- _Leutholf_ that the Æthopians used _stone knives_ for circumcision in
- his time, 1581. Speaking of the _Alnajah_, an Æthopian race, he
- says:—“Alnajah gens Æthiopum cultris lapideis circumcisionem peragit.”
-
- Mr. E. B. Tylor in his “Researches into the Early History of Mankind,”
- has suggested as the probable reason why stone was used as a cutting
- instrument, that it was less likely to cause inflammation than either
- bronze or iron. And _Pliny_ states that the mutilation of the priests
- of _Cybele_ was done with a sherd of Samian ware to avoid the same
- danger.
-
------
-
-Some writers believe that the practice of circumcision existed for ages
-amongst the Heathens before the time of Abraham, whilst others have not
-hesitated to date its origin as far back as our first fathers, asserting
-that Adam was taught by the angel Gabriel to satisfy an oath he had made
-to cut off that flesh, which after his fall had rebelled against his
-spirit.
-
-Much has been written with regard to the comparative _antiquity_ of this
-custom among the Egyptians and Ethiopians; a point upon which the
-erudite Herodotus leaves us in doubt.
-
-Circumcision of _both_ sexes exists amongst the Abyssinians, Nubians,
-Egyptians (both ancient and modern), Hottentots, and probably many other
-nations. But in Turkey, Persia, and in the South Sea Islands, and those
-of the Indian Seas, the practice is confined to the _male_ sex. The
-Mohammedans adopt the rite of circumcision, and Mahomet himself was
-circumcised, although no mention is made of the fact in the Koran.
-
-Doubtless, the so-called circumcision of women, as it is practised in
-some countries, is a modification of what _we_ understand by the term,
-and involves structures other than the clitoris or nymphæ; and it is
-equally true that the custom is adopted by many races totally
-irrespective of any religious significance.
-
-Sonnini de Manoncourt, a distinguished traveller and naturalist of the
-eighteenth century “having examined a young girl of Egyptian origin,
-about eight years old, found a thick, flabby, and fleshy excrescence,
-covered with skin, which grew above the commissure of the labia, and
-hung down half an inch, resembling in size and shape the caruncle
-pendent from the bill of a turkey cock.”
-
-Conditions of a similar nature are said to exist among the women of the
-interior of Africa, and are probably due to climatic influences, but the
-more common forms of disease are those of simple hypertrophy of the
-external parts of generation; and it is not unreasonable to suppose that
-the surgical interference necessary for their removal has given rise to
-the general term of circumcision.
-
-“Simple _excision_ of the _clitoris_ has been practised for very many
-centuries by certain nations,” and I purpose quoting some interesting
-observations just published by Dr. T. H. Tanner, upon the subject. His
-first extract is from Strabo, the geographer, A.D. 21, who, in speaking
-of the Egyptians, says:—“They _circumcise_ the males and _excise_ the
-females, as is the custom also among the Jews, who are of Egyptian
-extraction.” The custom appears to have been continued down to a recent
-period, and Mr. W. G. Brown,[4] who resided for some time at Darfour,
-North Africa, writing in 1779, thus alludes to it:—“The excision of
-females is a peculiarity with which the northern nations are less
-familiar; yet it would appear that this usage is more evidently founded
-on physical causes, and is more clearly a matter of convenience, than
-the circumcision of males, as it seems not to have been ordained by the
-precept of any inspired writer.”
-
------
-
-Footnote 4:
-
- Travels in Africa, Egypt, and Syria, from the year 1792 to 1798, p.
- 347. London, 1799.
-
------
-
-“This excision is termed in Arabic ‘_chafadh_.’ It consists of cutting
-off the clitoris a little before the period of puberty, or at about the
-age of _eight_ or _nine_ years.”
-
-Again, the Nubian traveller[5] _Burckhardt_ tells us—“The daughters of
-the Arabs _Ababde_, and _Djaafere_, who are of Arabian origin, and
-inhabit the western bank of the Nile from Thebes, as high as the
-cataracts, and generally those of all the people to the south of _Kenne_
-and _Esne_ (as far as Sennaar) undergo circumcision, or rather
-_excision_ (excisio-clitoridis,) at the age of from _three_ to _six_
-years: Girls thus treated are called _mukhaeyt_.”
-
------
-
-Footnote 5:
-
- Travels in Nubia, by the late John Lewis Burckhardt, p. 332. London,
- 1819.
-
------
-
-But perhaps the most trustworthy account of the circumcision of females
-in Western Africa is that given by the late Mr. W. F. Daniel, who was a
-distinguished member of our own profession. He tells us that “The
-excisive process in Western Africa is variously performed in accordance
-with the usages of the different districts where it is resorted to. The
-operation consists either of:—
-
-“1. Simple excision of the clitoris; 2. excision of the nymphæ; 3.
-excision of both nymphæ and clitoris; 4. excision of a portion of the
-labia pudendi, with either or all of the preceding structures.
-
-“The history of the operation is involved in obscurity; that it was
-secretly inculcated as one of those gloomy rites which the female
-proselyte had to undergo, as a preliminary measure, prior to her
-initiation into those dread mythological creeds, which, in Egypt and the
-adjoining countries were swathed in the folds of an allegorical and
-almost impenetrable mysticism, is the most likely inference.”
-_Eventually_ the progressive decay of the religious institutions,
-gradually led to its promulgation and practice among the masses of the
-people; for the _priests_, who, independent of their scientific
-attainments, were also well versed in medicine, might have advocated its
-use both in a moral and hygienic point of view, as conducive to the
-welfare of the female population.
-
-I have been led into this digression by reflecting over the barbarous
-and unphilosophical meddling of certain practitioners of our metropolis
-who are, in effect, degrading our practice of surgery to the level of
-that of the savages we have just described, without possessing the same
-claim to our consideration on the score of ignorance, barbarism, and
-superstition. The modern antic yclept “_clitoridectomy_” (to which I
-refer), is, as the “Lancet” says, “a proceeding which, if it be
-_useless_, is a _lamentable mistake_, and if it be _unnecessary_, _a
-cruel outrage_.”
-
-The next proposition we may fairly look for will be to imitate still
-further the customs of these Western Africans who, in certain tribes,
-whenever a girl shows any very strong indication of sexual feeling
-(before she is betrothed), at once proceed to produce an obliteration of
-her vagina by the intense inflammatory action set up by the forcible
-introduction of a mass of the “capsicum fructescens,” or bird pepper—to
-my mind not one shade more inhuman or barbarous than unsexing a woman
-for ever, upon an assumption which grossly libels our female population.
-
-The position taken by the early Christians in reference to the practice
-of circumcision was decidedly antagonistic, so far as any value, in a
-_religious_ point of view, should be ascribed to it; nevertheless, their
-apostles and teachers permitted it to continue, at the discretion or
-inclination of those who chose to submit to it.
-
-It is an interesting fact to note that the Copts, whose Christianity
-dates back from the persecution of Diocletian (called the era of
-martyrs) in 303, and the Abyssinian Christians, who also reckon from the
-fourth century, adopt the custom to this day, from a belief that it
-gives them a further chance of entering Paradise, beyond the baptism
-they receive as Christians. It is also singular that these sects accept
-several other doctrines and precepts of the Mohammedans and Jews, among
-whom they dwell.
-
-The precise mode of operating upon males varies in different countries.
-In Madagascar three separate and distinct operations are inflicted upon
-the individual. In the South Sea Islands the natives simply slit up the
-prepuce on its dorsal aspect, and in earlier times the practice was to
-cut the prepuce all round the corona, avoiding the frœnum. In the Fiji
-Islands the instrument used is a sharp splinter of bamboo.
-
-Upon females the process of excision is performed by aged women. In
-Egypt the custom is still maintained; and the women of the _Said_ travel
-about from town to village, crying out “Circumcisor! who wants a
-circumcisor?” In Old Calabar, Mr. Daniel had the opportunity of
-witnessing the operation, which is likewise performed _there_ by aged
-females. The girl having been placed on the knees of a woman, with the
-legs apart, the clitoris was seized, _forceps-like_, by two pieces of
-bamboo or palm-sticks, and being gently drawn forth, was severed with a
-sharp razor.
-
-Among the Jews the peculiar and distinctive mark of circumcision is
-perpetuated in our days, and without any material change of ceremonial.
-The _modus operandi_ is as follows:—The godfather being seated, takes
-the child on his knees, and the operator (who may be the father of the
-child, if capable, or some friend of the family, or a professed expert)
-takes up with his fingers, or a pair of tweezers, as much of the prepuce
-as he intends to cut off, and, on applying the knife, says—“Blessed be
-Thou, O God, who hast commanded us to use circumcision.” He then sucks
-the blood, and spits it into a cup of wine, and having applied styptics
-to the wound, retakes the cup, and having blessed _it_ and the child,
-pronounces the name of the child, and moistens his lips with the
-contents of the cup. Various prayers are then said, and the ceremony is
-concluded.
-
-Though the modern Jews generally use a steel instrument, there is this
-remarkable exception—that, when a male child dies before the eighth day,
-it is circumcised prior to burial, and this is done, not with the
-ordinary instrument, but with a fragment of glass or flint.
-
-The practice extended to the Ishmaelites, and, as we have already
-stated, was subsequently adopted by Mahomet, so that a very large
-section of the human race are to this day, participators of a rite
-established considerably more than 3000 years ago.
-
-The subject cannot be dismissed without noticing the fact that the Jews
-under their various captivities, subjugations, and persecutions,
-endeavoured, in some instances, to obliterate the marks of circumcision.
-This is abundantly proved, not only by contemporary writers, but by the
-evidence of Epiphanius, Celsus, Galen, Paulus Ægineta, Fallopius, and
-others, who have enlarged upon the means adopted for the accomplishment
-of this object. It is, further, a noteworthy circumstance that the Jews
-_entirely_ suspended the practice of circumcision during the forty years
-of their wanderings in the wilderness.
-
-In contemplating the sufferings of this unfortunate race, the heart
-sickens at the punishments which resulted from their resistance to
-foreign usurpation. Unable to discern the hand of God in their
-humiliation, their struggles were, indeed, hopeless, but not the less
-heroic. Captives in Babylon, after a long and cruel servitude, they were
-restored only to be again scattered by the destruction of Jerusalem,
-under Titus. Through the varying fortunes of the Romans, no
-resting-place seems to have been vouchsafed to them; plundered and
-disgraced, the fall of Rome only eventuated, as far as _they_ were
-concerned, in a change of masters. Ruthless persecutors tracked them
-through the dark ages, and what Heathenism spared, Christianity
-despoiled; our pious ancestors praising God when they had a chance of
-maltreating an Israelite.
-
-For these reasons, and with such incentives, can we doubt that the timid
-amongst them would endeavour to remove the means of identity which
-circumcision afforded.
-
-We have so refined away the simplicity of the patriarchal times, that it
-is almost necessary to apologise for alluding to the reverential awe
-with which all matters relating to the seed of Abraham were regarded. It
-was a solemn and impressive act when the Patriarch, believing that the
-time was come for his son Isaac to have a wife, sent for his chief
-servant, and said, “Put, I pray thee, thy hand under my thigh, and swear
-by the Lord that thou wilt choose a wife for my son out of mine own
-kindred;” and the servant, with his hand on his master’s genitals, took
-the required oath; and we all know how faithfully he performed it.
-Whilst this simple, but deeply significant ceremony was being enacted,
-the heart of the father of the faithful was doubtless filled with
-contemplations of the great purposes for the accomplishment of which the
-organs of generation were appropriately considered as the direct agents.
-
-This mode of taking the oath is further adverted to in the 47th chapter
-of Genesis, when Jacob is taking his farewell of his children.
-
-In our blind adoration of classical heathenism we undervalue the sublime
-and not less poetical incidents which mark the rise, progress,
-culmination, and decay of that people with whom our highest interests
-are identified. If, for instance, the Book of Job had not been written
-under inspiration, and had been accidentally discovered among the ruins
-of the _first_ Babylon, our antiquarians would have regarded it as the
-loftiest of epics; and especially so if, instead of inculcating the
-worship of the true God, its subject had been the glorification of
-whatever false deity might have been in the ascendant when this most
-ancient poem was composed.
-
-The prejudices of education subjugate the judgment, and the gross and
-sensual attributes with which the Greek poets invested their deities,
-are accepted with complacency, if not with admiration; even Pope, their
-great panegyrist, describes their heroes thus:—
-
- “Gods, partial, changeful, profligate, unjust,
- Whose attributes were _rage_, _revenge_, and _lust_.”
-
-This, of course, will be set down for rank blasphemy against the canons
-of taste. We are exuberant in our praises of the _genius_ of Homer, and
-not to worship his _inventive_ powers is an offence of the deepest dye;
-but when we are barbarous enough to critically examine this wonderful
-mythology, and to determine the claims to applause—say of supreme
-Jove—we are rather troubled by the difficulty of reconciling the ways of
-the first intelligence with our commonplace notions of decency. The
-intrigues of the father of the gods, the artifices by which he eludes
-the jealousy of his wife Juno, his incestuous, and, if they were not
-classical, we should call them filthy debaucheries, draw largely upon
-our faith in the beauties of these records of high Olympus; and our
-admiration for the poet is sadly tinctured with disgust for the images
-in which his creative powers are developed.
-
-Thus much of the ceremonial laws. Of the moral law, the law of God, it
-becomes me not to speak; its obligations are as eternal as its author;
-the everlasting truths of the decalogue have been incorporated more or
-less into every system of religion and ethics which has been enunciated
-during the ages interposing between us and the period in which they were
-first promulgated on Mount Sinai.
-
-In dismissing Moses and his times, I crave your particular attention to
-the manner in which the characters of priest and physician met in the
-same person. As we proceed we shall find that this junction of
-attributes continues through all the variations of time and
-circumstances. The terrors of the _unseen_, overawing the ignorant,
-placed them at the mercy of those daring minds which in every age have
-assumed the office of interpreters of the will of the _demon_, or the
-behests of the benign Deity. To deal as a mediator between the threats
-of the terrible avenger and the awe-stricken victim of his own
-bewildered imagination, to avert the consequences of the threatened
-storm, or to turn aside any other manifestation of approaching evil is
-the office of the _medicine-man_ of the North American Indian and the
-_Obeah_ doctor of the African. Shrewd observers of nature, these
-wretched impostors monopolize the whole of the intelligence, such as it
-is, of the hordes of the human race upon whom the light of reason has
-never dawned, or has dawned in vain.
-
-There is yet another aspect of the medical character, infinitely more
-agreeable and important, and the consideration of it will bring us to
-the times immediately preceding the days of the father of medicine. I do
-not propose to penetrate into the story of Esculapius and his divine
-origin, which probably, in an esoteric sense, merely meant that the
-Giver of all good had inspired him with a knowledge of the healing art;
-but (with a passing glance at Homer, the greatest poet of his own or any
-subsequent age), proceed to offer some general observations on the
-position which the study of medicine acquired under the tutorship of the
-philosophers.
-
-The siege of Troy is supposed to have taken place about three hundred
-years before the _Iliad_ was sung, and in that early time it appears
-that the cultivation of our art formed part of the general education of
-kings and warriors.[6]
-
------
-
-Footnote 6:
-
- “As for Medicine, something of it must have been understood in that
- age, though it was so far from perfection, that, according to Celsus,
- (book i.) what concerned _diet_ was invented long after by
- Hippocrates. The accidents of life make the search after remedies too
- indispensable a duty to be neglected at any time; accordingly, he
- tells us, that the Egyptians, who had many medicinal plants in their
- country, were all Physicians, and perhaps he might have learnt his own
- skill from his acquaintance with that nation.
-
- “The state of war in which Greece lived, required a knowledge in the
- healing of wounds, and this might make him breed his princes,
- Achilles, Patroclus, Podalirius and Machaon, to the science; what
- Homer thus attributes to others he himself knew, and he has given us
- reason to believe, not slightly, for if we consider his insight into
- the structure of the human body, it is so nice, that he has been
- judged by some to have wounded his heroes with too much science; or,
- if we observe his cure of wounds, which are the accidents proper to an
- epic poem, we find him directing the chirurgical operations, sometimes
- infusing lenitives, at other times bitter powders, when the effusion
- of blood required astringent qualities.”—_Pope’s Essay on the
- Character of Homer._
-
------
-
-Homer introduces us to Machaon the son of Esculapius, who, when Menelaus
-was treacherously wounded by Pandarus, is called to his aid:
-
- “When the wound appeared in sight, where struck
- The stinging arrow, from the clotted blood
- He cleansed it, and applied with skilful hand
- The healing ointments, which, in friendly guise,
- The learned _Chiron_ to his father gave.”[7]
-
------
-
-Footnote 7:
-
- Lord Derby’s Translation.
-
------
-
-Making due allowance for the debasing fable with which every great name
-or talent is overlaid, it is rational to suppose that Chiron, the
-teacher of Esculapius, was one of those shepherd philosophers, who like
-their Babylonian brethren absorbed all the knowledge of the times; but
-Homer gives us other examples in support of this idea. Chiron was the
-preceptor of Achilles, and when Machaon is himself wounded, Patroclus is
-sent by Achilles to his assistance; on his arrival he is urged by
-Eurypylus, to
-
- “Draw the deadly dart,
- With luke-warm water wash the gore away:
- With healing balm the raging smart allay,
- Such as sage _Chiron_, sire of pharmacy,
- Once taught Achilles, and Achilles thee.”—_Pope._
-
-He also complains that
-
- “Of two great _surgeons_, Podalirius stands
- This hour surrounded by the Trojan bands,
- And great _Machaon_ wounded in his tent
- Now wants the succour which so oft he lent.”
-
-Then
-
- “Patroclus cut the forky steel away,
- And in his hand a bitter root he pressed,
- The wound he washed and styptic juice infused,
- The closing flesh that instant ceased to glow,
- The wound to torture and the blood to flow.”
-
-Machaon seems to have largely shared the goodwill of the Grecian hosts.
-Nestor, in his anxiety, says:—
-
- A wise Physician skilled in wounds to heal,
- Is more than _armies_ to the public weal.
-
-Military leaders in our days have no such weakness as this. Studied
-neglect seems to them the befitting recompense of those on whom they
-must necessarily rely for the health and sanitary welfare of their
-troops.
-
-As we are still in the age of fable, it may not be out of place to
-notice with what tenacity the human mind clings to those delusions which
-fear engenders, and weak hopes sustain: with all our boasted
-enlightenment, the _marvellous_ and the _incredible_ have more
-worshippers than the _real_ and the _true_. Let us not wonder then, that
-the pure monotheism enunciated in the Holy Scriptures had so little
-charm for the sensuous and imaginative Greeks. Socrates, who, by the
-simple force of reason and philosophy had reached the very portals of
-the temple in which was enshrined the idea of the unity of God, in his
-_last hour_ “sacrifices a cock to Esculapius.” The reputed offspring of
-an impure deity, History is unhappily more abundant in records of human
-folly and superstition, than in examples of purity of thought and
-action—simplicity is everywhere despised—facts are distorted or made
-subservient to sensations; for example:—It is not enough to tell us that
-Chiron was skilled in physic, but to suit the depraved appetites of the
-vulgar he is a _centaur_, and Esculapius a _god_. It is therefore with
-something like relief that the name of Hippocrates comes before us, for
-in him we have a _reality_, and in his works a remarkable record of the
-condition of medical science in the fifth century before Christ. He was
-born at Cos, a small island off the coast of Caria, not in Greece
-proper, in the first year of the 80th Olympiad.
-
-Hippocrates was descended from Esculapius by his father’s side, and from
-Hercules by his mother’s, and was the son of Heraclides, a physician of
-the family of the Asclepiadæ, who furnish us with the very earliest
-instance of a body of philosophers devoting themselves to the healing
-art; for, although Pythagoras, who lived immediately before Hippocrates,
-and Democritus, who was his contemporary, were both learned physicians,
-yet, whatever fame they acquired, was ascribed to their powers as mental
-philosophers and rhetoricians.
-
-It has been urged by way of apology for the mystery in which the
-philosophers shrouded their wisdom, that “science, like modesty, should
-cover itself with a veil to increase the charms of the treasure it
-conceals;” and this principle has been, throughout all ages, more
-generally acted upon than avowed.
-
-The character of Hippocrates is at once a study for the physician and
-the moralist; the former will appreciate the astonishing evidences which
-his works afford, of a deep acquaintance with the whole subject of
-medicine, and his admiration will be increased by the remembrance that
-all the principles laid down by this great and good man, were the
-results of his own experience.
-
-No treatises on disease existed anterior to his time to aid him in his
-investigations of the phenomena of nature, although it is true that in
-the Asclepion or temple of Esculapius at Cos, records were kept and
-votive tablets preserved commemorative of cures performed, and of the
-remedies by which they were effected. But if the physician admires his
-talents, the moralist does honour to the qualities of his mind and the
-goodness of his heart. Benevolent and disinterested, pious towards the
-gods, and incorruptibly devoted to his country, he instructed his fellow
-men, not by shedding maudlin tears over their follies, like Heraclides,
-nor by the coarse laughter of his friend Democritus, but by a calm and
-even walk of life, mitigating sorrow by his skill, and showing the form
-and beauty of virtue by his example.
-
-His portrait of a worthy physician may well serve for his own likeness,
-and in its description we shall observe that the exalted principles of
-professional ethics therein inculcated, are as strictly applicable to
-our own times as they were to those which he himself enlightened and
-adorned. His words are:—“The physician who is an honour to his
-profession, is he who has merited the public esteem by profound
-knowledge, long experience, consummate integrity, and irreproachable
-life; who, esteeming all the wretched as equals in the eyes of the
-Divine Being, hastens to their assistance, speaks with mildness, listens
-with attention, bears with their impatience, and inspires that
-confidence which sometimes of itself restores life; sensibly alive to
-their sufferings, carefully studies the causes and progress of the
-complaint; not disconcerted by unforseen accidents, but, in emergencies,
-having exhausted his own resources, holds it a duty to call in his
-brethren of the healing art to assist him with their advice. Having
-struggled with all his strength against the malady, he is happy and
-modest in success, and in failure congratulates himself that he has, at
-least, alleviated the sufferings of his patient.”
-
-One of the great obstacles to the advancement of anatomy and physiology
-was the universal reverence for the dead which the Greeks and Romans
-shared in common with all the people of antiquity. Among the Jews, to
-touch a dead body exposed the offender to a penance of seven days’
-exclusion and privation from the ordinary comforts of life; and it is
-almost superfluous to add, that the Egyptians made this reverence a part
-of their religion.
-
-He, then, who ventured on the dissection of the human body, did so at
-great personal risk, and for more than 600 years after the foundation of
-Rome, no instance is known of the existence of any public professor of
-anatomy. About that time Archagathus, a Greek, practised surgery in
-Rome; and it appears that his use of the knife, and the actual cautery,
-was so abhorrent to the general feeling, that he was saluted with the
-opprobrious title of “Carnifex.” Even in later days the learned
-Tertullian classed anatomists and butchers together in a philippic he
-pronounced against Herophilus, whom he charged with having tried
-experiments on the living body. He commences:—“Herophilus, the
-physician, or butcher, whichever you please, who to become better
-acquainted with men, ripped them up alive,” &c. &c.
-
-Of this same Herophilus, who appears to have been a man of humour, as
-well as genius, there is an excellent story told:—A certain _Diodorus_,
-a contemporary philosopher and teacher of paradoxes, declared that there
-was no such thing as _motion_. “If a body _moves_,” says he, “it moves
-into the place where it _is_, _or_ into the place where it _is not_; now
-it does not move into the place where it _is_, for what is _in_ a place
-_remains_ there, and, consequently, one cannot say that _it moves_. It
-also cannot move in a place where _it is not_; and therefore, it does
-not move at all.” This acute gentleman having dislocated his arm, begged
-the services of Herophilus, who, smiling, said:—“Either the bone of your
-arm is moved into the place where it _was_, or into the place where it
-_was not_; now it cannot move, according to your principles, either in
-one place or another, consequently it is not displaced at all.” The poor
-teacher of paradoxes saw that Herophilus was laughing at him, and in an
-agony cried out:—“Leave, I pray you, _dialectics_ and _sophisms_ to me,
-and treat me according to the laws of medicine.”
-
-The inference that dissection was not openly allowed, will be
-strengthened by a short reference to the subject of the embalmment of
-the dead—the first mention of this custom is found in the 50th Chapter
-of Genesis; where, at the second verse, we read:—That “Joseph commanded
-his servants, the physicians, to embalm his father, and the physicians
-embalmed Israel;” and at 26th verse of the same chapter it is
-written:—“So Joseph died, being an hundred and ten years old, and they
-embalmed him.”
-
-The Egyptians believed that so long as the human body could be saved
-from putrefaction or decay, the soul of that body continued in
-existence; and from this feeling arose the custom of embalming, so
-common in remote ages. The embalmer was, in a certain sense, a _sacred_
-functionary; nevertheless, it was the fashion to make a show of
-resistance, when he began his operation, in order to mark the innate
-horror of any, however necessary, profanation of the dead body.
-Herodotus relates that in Egypt the mummy embalmers made the incision in
-the side of the corpse with a sharp æthiopic stone. Of these stones two
-varieties have been found in the tombs in Egypt, both of chipped flint,
-and very neatly made. One kind is like a very small cleaver; the other
-has more of the character of a lancet. The account given by Diodorus
-Siculus of the resistance offered to the embalmer is, as follows:—“And
-first, the body being laid on the ground, he who is called the scribe
-marks on its left side how far the incision is to be made; then the
-so-called slitter (paraschistes) having an æthiopic stone, and cutting
-the flesh as far as the law allows, instantly runs off, the bystanders
-pursuing him, and pelting him with stones, cursing him, and, as it were,
-turning the horror of the deed upon him, for he who hurts a citizen is
-held worthy of abhorrence.”[8] Immediately after death the corpse was
-put into the hands of the embalmer, who in the presence of the friends
-of the deceased, made an incision into the left side, as above
-described, through which he extracted all the intestines, leaving the
-heart and kidneys; the intestines were then washed in palm wine, and a
-solution of astringent gums. The _brain_ was removed through the
-nostrils by means of a hooked instrument, contrived for the purpose, and
-the cavity filled with aromatic oils. The body was now anointed with
-spice-oils and balsamic gums (frankincense being prohibited), and
-allowed to remain for thirty days, after which it was immersed in a
-solution of nitre for from forty to seventy days (the latter being the
-extreme limit allowed); it was then enveloped in aromatised cere-cloths,
-and all being ready, consigned to the coffin, on which were painted
-emblems indicative of the condition of the deceased. The process is said
-to have cost £300 of our money, and was, of course, only applicable to
-the rich. The fee for embalmment alone, varied from a _Talent_ (which
-has been estimated by some as equivalent to £193 15s., and by others to
-£243 15s. of our present money) to a _Mina_, in value about £3 4s. 7d.
-
------
-
-Footnote 8:
-
- Taken from E. B. Tylor—“Early History of Mankind,” p. 217.
-
------
-
-The embalmment of the middle classes was, in some degree, regulated by
-their means; the simplest form being, the destruction of the intestines
-with strong oil of tar, and after their removal soaking the body in a
-strong solution of nitre for a period not exceeding seventy days.
-
-Some have ascribed the practice of embalming to the fact of the
-periodical inundations of the Nile rendering interment impossible at
-such seasons, and hence have thought that necessity had quite as much to
-do with the custom as the religious principle: but this idea is not well
-founded, for although the Nile continues to overflow, embalmings have
-ceased for ages.
-
-After Hippocrates the name of Aristotle comes before us. Aristotle, the
-pupil and friend of the venerable Plato, whose doctrines he adopted and
-developed, lectured at Athens 370 years before Christ. As a physician
-and naturalist he was far in advance of his contemporaries, and as a
-mathematician and moral philosopher, his transcendent learning was, for
-ages, the theme of every scholar; and his “System of the Universe”
-adopted by the whole of the civilized world. These great qualities
-attracted the attention of Philip of Macedonia, who chose him as the
-tutor of his son Alexander (the Great). Ignorance and superstition were,
-however, omnipotent, and for having enunciated the doctrine of one God,
-and a supreme first cause, the priests of the various temples seeing
-their craft in danger, excited the populace, who threatened his life.
-Warned by the fate of Socrates, he retired to Chalcis to wear away a
-life embittered by personal suffering, and sorrow for the folly and
-ingratitude of his countrymen.
-
-The heart’s deepest feelings are roused at the remembrance of the deeds
-of violence perpetrated against every benefactor of mankind who has had
-the courage to promulgate truths beyond the comprehension of the vulgar
-on the one hand, and opposed to the vested interest of established
-errors on the other. The fate of Aristotle is a common result, not
-confined to the dark ages, nor without examples amongst ourselves.
-
-The learned Philo of Alexandria, who lived A.D. 40, has given us an
-interesting account of the very remarkable sect living in Egypt in his
-day, known as the “Theraputæ,” or “healers.” He describes them as a
-confraternity who, after having received a special training in the
-University of Alexandria, devoted themselves to the healing art; they
-led a secluded, contemplative life, and laid the foundation of the
-monastic system. Eusebius calls them Christians, but this is not
-confirmed by Philo, who was a member of the sect; they were, probably,
-Platonists, or philosophical pagans. They ascribed their cures to
-prayers, fastings, and incantations, eschewed all material remedies, and
-medicaments, but made free use of magical rites of both forms—the
-leucomancy, or white magic, used in invoking the gods, and necromancy
-when the demons were to be propitiated or coerced. St. Luke, before his
-conversion, is supposed to have been a Therapeut; and St. Paul denounces
-some of their errors. Of their faults we cannot judge, but we may admire
-the benevolence with which they devoted themselves alike to the physical
-and moral welfare of their fellow men—in this respect, no unworthy
-forerunners of Him who commanded his disciples, not only to “instruct
-the ignorant,” but to “heal the sick.”
-
-We pass over three centuries to come to the time of Celsus, who, in the
-reign of Tiberius and the first century of our Lord, was established at
-Rome; where he acquired great honour and renown. To these he was fairly
-entitled by the extent of his learning and the especial attention he
-paid to surgery and medicine. His principles governed the medical world
-without a rival until the time of Galen, who divided the empire with him
-for centuries.
-
-Celsus was the first native Roman physician whose name has been
-transmitted to us: the practice of medicine and surgery being, prior to
-his time, in the hands of eminent Greeks and Asiatics, excepting that
-there existed in Rome (at that period) a race of native practitioners,
-who belonged to the class of slaves[9] or persons of low degree; and to
-whom were entrusted only the subordinate branches of the healing art.
-
------
-
-Footnote 9:
-
- See Notes and Letters of Pliny.
-
------
-
-The great proficiency of Celsus on the subjects of rhetoric, philosophy,
-military tactics, and rural economy, as mentioned by Quintilian, has
-induced many of our older writers to doubt whether he ever really
-practised medicine and surgery, or, whether, like the elder Cato, he
-simply studied them as a branch of general knowledge; and this
-scepticism has been favoured by the fact of his name being omitted by
-Pliny, in his “Treatise on the History of Medicine.”
-
-On the other hand, no one, I think, can rise from the perusal of his
-celebrated work, “De Medicina,” without being thoroughly convinced that
-his intimate acquaintance with the theory and practice of medicine,
-surgery, and pharmacy, could only have resulted from close bedside
-observation.
-
-Galen was born at Pergamos, in Asia, in the second century; his learning
-was great, and his literary labours enormous. Having traversed Egypt and
-Greece, and acquired a knowledge of every science taught in the schools
-there, he settled in Rome. His works have been estimated at over 300
-volumes—medical, physical, and metaphysical. He practised bleeding more
-frequently than his predecessors, but he gave very careful directions as
-to the conditions under which venesection should be resorted to, as well
-as to the quantity of blood to be taken.
-
-Averroes, Avicenna, and other Arabian physicians held him in great
-veneration; and Dr. Alison says:— “For centuries after his death his
-doctrines and tenets were regarded in the light of oracles, which few
-persons had the courage to oppose; and the authority of Galen alone was
-estimated at a much higher rate than that of all the medical writers
-combined, who flourished during a period of more than twelve centuries.”
-
-Rome, in its decadence, was too much occupied with the intrigues and
-villainies of the factions by which it was ultimately destroyed, to
-spare any time for the culture of science. It was not until after the
-total disappearance of the Eastern Empire, and the hollow tranquillity
-which succeeded the triumphs of Mahomet, and the subsequent subjugation
-of Spain by the Moors, that learning reared its head in Alexandria, and
-the Arabian physicians came into view.
-
-Although Greece had disappeared, even in the noonday of its glory, its
-literature never possessed more devoted admirers, nor more faithful
-exponents than are to be found among the Arabian philosophers, and yet
-what a striking contrast is exhibited in the characters of the two
-people. Whilst making the philosophy of Greece their own, they by no
-means lost their distinctiveness and individuality. The Greeks delighted
-in all that was brilliant and fascinating, like the beautiful scenery of
-Attica and Asia Minor. The Arabs were thoughtful and grave, monotonous
-and arid, like the deserts they inhabited. The genius of poetry
-illumined all the meditations of the former, and their thoughts were
-graceful, even in their errors; whilst the reflections of the latter
-were dull and melancholy, albeit they were based on truths.
-
-A dreary night now ensues—we have no name of note until Paulus Ægineta
-in 640—but what a series of historically grand events interpose: The
-invasion of Europe by the Huns—Division of the Roman Empire—Taking of
-Rome by Alaric—Visigoths established in Spain—Saxon heptarchy
-begun—Conquest of Italy by Totila—Birth of Mahomet, down to the taking
-of Alexandria by the Arabs—Greece and Rome having virtually disappeared;
-and our next author (Paulus) probably present at the burning of the
-great library of the Ptolemies.
-
-Paulus Ægineta is entitled to our homage, as the author of an abridgment
-of the works of Galen, and many excellent treatises on medical subjects,
-especially on those incident to childbed, and the diseases of women; he
-was the first writer upon _small-pox_ and _measles_, and the originator
-of the theory of _zymosis_, which has received so much attention of
-late. Paulus died about the middle of the seventh century, and with him
-expired the last of the Greek writers upon medicine. His labours have
-been thought worthy of being translated by the Sydenham Society.
-
-Avicenna, who lived in the year 980, deserves a fuller notice than we
-can afford him; his works are said to present great clearness and
-acuteness. At the early age of eighteen he was chosen Physician to the
-Court of the Caliph of Bagdad, where for some offence he was imprisoned,
-and ultimately died. He has been called the “Hippocrates of the Arabs.”
-
-Rhazes was contemporary with Avicenna, and has attracted the respectful
-attention of the lovers of ancient medicine. His most esteemed work is a
-treatise on small-pox, which was translated by Dr. Mead in 1548.
-
-I will conclude these sketches of the Arabian schoolmen with a brief
-notice of Averroes, the most eminent of them:—
-
-This profound scholar was born at Cordova, in Spain, of which city his
-father was the alcade, about the year 1120. He was educated in Morocco,
-then in its glory, and in the celebrated schools there studied law,
-philosophy, and medicine. His admiration for Aristotle was unbounded,
-and his unwearied application to the examination of that great man’s
-works, secured for him the reputation of being the ablest commentator on
-the Aristotelian philosophy. He rose to the dignity of a judge in
-Morocco, but the freedom of his opinions being in advance of the age, he
-was imprisoned for some years, and only released on recanting his
-errors; he died 1206, during the Caliphate of Almanzer.
-
-The glories of the Moorish power now began to wane, and after repeated
-discomfitures in 1516, that intelligent and highly civilized people were
-finally expelled by Ferdinand the Catholic: the cross triumphs—the
-crescent retires, and takes with it all that is admirable in arts, or
-humanizing in science; the Spaniard has chased away Mahomet, and
-receives the Inquisition as the first-fruits of his conquest.
-
-The war against opinion was carried on so vigorously that Copernicus,
-whose acute perception had discovered the errors of Aristotle’s theory
-of heavenly bodies, was fiercely denounced. Copernicus was born in
-Westphalia in 1473, he studied at Cracow, where he received the degree
-of Doctor of Medicine; at Bologna his piercing genius discovered that
-the sun was the centre of the planetary system, that the earth was a
-planet and revolved round the sun like other planets, and thus was first
-made known the true system of the universe. These discoveries being
-distasteful to the church, the Pope issued a sentence of
-excommunication; and the great astronomer died with a heart oppressed by
-such unmerited persecution.
-
-These discoveries were further pursued by another learned physician,
-Galileo, who was born at Pisa in 1564. He entered the university there
-in 1581, and prosecuted his studies with such zeal and success, that in
-a very few years he became Professor of Mathematics. He now began his
-career as a teacher of the philosophy of Copernicus, and soon received
-unpleasant evidences that the disciple of truth must be ready to suffer.
-A congregation of cardinals, monks, and mathematicians of the old
-school, determined that his works were heretical and dangerous, and the
-holy inquisition sentenced him to prison. After remaining incarcerated
-some months he was taken before his judges, and required to renounce his
-errors, and with his hand upon the Gospel, to swear that they were
-sinful and detestable. Having performed this horrid penance, his
-conscience upbraided him, and as he rose from his knees, he exclaimed,
-“yet it does move,” for which relapse he was further sentenced to
-perpetual imprisonment. He continued thus secluded for many years,
-during which time blindness, deafness, and pains in his limbs embittered
-his existence, and death at length, more merciful than the Holy See,
-released him from his trials. Newton was born in the year in which this
-noble martyr died.
-
-For the edification of the worshippers of the “good old times,” a few
-more instances of the loving kindness which prevailed may be acceptable.
-
-The clerical sages of the University of Salamanca pronounced that the
-assertion of Christopher Columbus, that a continent existed beyond the
-seas, was blasphemous and feloniously wicked. A bishop of Salsburg
-expressing his belief in the existence of the antipodes was denounced by
-the bishop of Mentz as a dangerous heretic, and committed to the flames.
-
-Bigotry, however, is not confined to any one creed, since we know that
-Calvin the reformer, a man who had suffered persecution without learning
-mercy, no sooner found himself invested with the power to punish the
-freedom of thought in which he had himself indulged, than he persecuted
-to death the learned physician, Michael Servetus, not for any immoral
-proclivity, but because he believed him to be unsound on the doctrine of
-the Trinity. Servetus took the degree of Doctor of Medicine at the
-University of Paris about the year 1535. He is the author of some
-medical treatises on the circulation of the blood, and also translated
-Ptolemy’s geography; he was for some time in constant correspondence
-with Calvin, but as the “Odium theologicum” is the bitterest, Calvin
-shewed his christian charity by causing his antagonist to be consigned
-to the flames.
-
-But I must hasten forward, Fallopius looms in the distance, and with him
-our medical celebrities come fast and numerous. Gabriel Fallopius was
-born at Modena about the year 1523, and was one of the great triad of
-anatomists in Italy who, at the close of the 16th century, laid the
-foundation of the modern science of anatomy. Fallopius succeeded
-Vesalius in the chair of anatomy and surgery at Padua in 1557. His
-career was brilliant but short, and he died in 1562. It should be
-mentioned that Fallopius shared the usual fate of great discoverers; his
-originality was disputed, and his learning questioned; but it has been
-always so, and in appreciating the works of our predecessors, we must
-keep in view the enormous difficulties by which every onward step,
-whether in art or science, is beset:
-
- “Envy doth merit, as its shade pursue.”
-
-truth does indeed ultimately prevail, but too frequently the heart of
-the discoverer is broken before the obtuseness of the mediocrities in
-power, by whom it is obstructed, can be overcome.
-
-Although a little diverging from the strict chronological order, I must
-here introduce to you our old acquaintance, Paracelsus; this eccentric
-genius had too little virtue to be admired, and too much talent to be
-despised. He was born at Zurich, in Switzerland, in 1493, and was
-consequently contemporary with many more learned, but less celebrated
-men; an unblushing and presumptuous egotist, he presents himself, in a
-moral point of view, as the exact antithesis of the amiable and virtuous
-Hippocrates. That he made some very useful discoveries must be granted
-to him; he introduced the use of opium into Germany, and was the first
-practitioner who employed preparations of mercury, antimony, sulphur,
-iron, and other remedies.
-
-Van Helmont is the most indulgent of his biographers, and Lord Bacon the
-most severe; but perhaps the description given by Zimmerman comes
-nearest the truth—“Paracelsus burnt publicly at _Bàle_ the works of
-Galen, Avicenna, and other eminent predecessors, because, he said, ‘they
-knew nothing of the cabballa and magic,’ which lay at the root of all
-medical and natural laws. He undertook to cure all diseases by the use
-of certain words and charms. He enjoined secresy on his disciples, and
-certainly was the first _great quack_ from whom the numerous band of
-Charlatans have proceeded.”
-
-He has left his mantle behind him, and his descendants, with none of his
-brains, have largely inherited his presumption. On the occasion of his
-inauguration in the Chair of Medicine, he thus expresses himself:—
-
-“Know,” says he, “that my _cap_ has more learning than all your
-professors, and my beard more experience than all your academies! I
-speak to you Greeks, Latins, Frenchmen, Italians, &c. &c. _You_ will
-follow _me_, _I_ shall not follow _you_. You, I say, doctors of Paris,
-Montpellier, Dalmatia, of Athens; you Jews, Arabs, Spaniards, English, I
-tell you all that nature obeys me; and if God does not deign to assist,
-I have yet the devil to resort to. I am king of all science, and command
-all the hosts of hell.”
-
-We have in this impostor the very embodiment of the true quacks of
-to-day; their language is indeed a little subdued, but their pretensions
-are as large; and, let me add, that whereas Paracelsus, in his days, had
-the countenance and support of many persons of rank, so in ours, there
-does not exist an ignorant pretender without the patronage of the great,
-and this patronage, too often, in the exact ratio of his presumption and
-falsehood.
-
-It must not be overlooked that this arch imposter died miserably, in
-poverty, induced by dissipation, and the possessor of the “elixir of
-immortality” breathed out his drunken soul at the age of fifty.
-
-We have a lively picture of the state of things begotten of this man in
-the pages of Burton, an example in himself of the power of credulity,
-and a proof that great scholastic learning was by no means at variance
-with the wild vagaries of the times. He appears not unconscious of his
-peculiarities, and offers the following apology for his frequent
-reference to callings other than his own:—
-
-“If any physician shall infer ‘ne sutor ultra crepidam,’ and be grieved
-that I have intruded into his profession, I tell him, in brief, he does
-the same by us:—I know many of his sect who have taken Orders in hope of
-a Benefice—’tis a common transaction; and why may not a melancholy
-divine, who can get nothing but by _Simony_, profess _Physic_? Marsilius
-Ficinus was ‘semel et simul,’ a priest and physician, at once ‘sacerdos
-et medicus;’ and also divers Jesuits are at this time ‘permissu
-superiorem,’ chirurgeons, panders, bawds and midwives. Many poor vicars,
-for want of other means, are driven to turn mountebanks, quacksalvers
-and empirics; and in every village have we not wizards, alchymists,
-barbers, goodwives, Paracelsians (as they call themselves), possessing
-great skill, and in such numbers that I marvel how they shall all find
-employment?”
-
-Burton lived about 1576, and was consequently of the same age as our own
-great Harvey, of whom we shall speak presently.
-
-Let me offer you one specimen on the subject of demoniacal possession,
-first introducing you to a new character, Cornelius Gemma, who was born
-at Louvain in 1535, and was one of the greatest scholars of his age, a
-professor of medicine in his native town (the chair having been
-conferred upon him by the great Duke of Alva, who governed the low
-countries), and whose writings embrace the subjects of medicine,
-mathematics, magic, and spiritual possession. Like Cardan, he was
-thought a little extreme in some views, but this one example suffices to
-demonstrate the evil influences of Paracelsus. Gemma, in his second book
-on natural miracles, says:—“A young maid, called Katherine Gualter, a
-cooper’s daughter, in the year 1571, had such strange passions that
-three men could not hold her. She purged a live eel—I myself saw and
-touched—a foot and a half long; she vomited twenty-four pounds of
-fulsome stuff of all colours twice a day for fourteen days, and after
-that great _balls of hair_, _pieces of wood_, _pigeons’ dung_, _coals_,
-and after them _two pounds_ of pure blood, and then again coals and
-stones (_of which some had inscriptions_) bigger than a walnut. All this
-I saw with horror. Physic could do no good, so she was handed over to
-the clergy.”
-
-Marcellus Donatus relates a story of a country fellow who had four
-knives in his belly, every one a span long, and indented like a saw;
-also a wreath of hair, and much other baggage. How they “came into his
-guts” he knew not.
-
-This personal testimony of Gemma is a melancholy proof that the light of
-christianity, during fifteen centuries, had done but little towards the
-emancipation of the human mind from the trammels of superstition, for,
-we find Josephus, who lived A.D. 30, also favoring us with his
-_personal_ testimony to facts quite as marvellous, and no doubt as
-veracious, as those recorded by our Dutch philosopher. Yet although
-common sense rejects such “materials of history” where shall we look for
-better evidence of authenticity than is thus furnished by two men of
-unimpeachable integrity. The pride of enlightenment is indeed checked by
-the reflection that A.D. 1867 we hear of believers in “Spiritual
-Manifestation” not only among the vulgar but in classes of society where
-the yearning after the mysterious sets both reason and philosophy at
-defiance.
-
-The universality of belief in the existence of demons, and their
-occasional possession of the bodies of men, pervades the whole course of
-sacred and profane history, and Josephus, in enumerating the great
-qualities of King Solomon, bears testimony to the power of the Jewish
-Monarch as an “_Exorcist_:”—After informing us that Solomon exceeded all
-men in knowledge of natural things, that he was familiar with every sort
-of tree, from the cedar to the hyssop on the wall; that he knew the
-habits of every living creature, whether upon the earth, or in the seas,
-or in the air, and described their several attributes like a
-philosopher, and demonstrated his exquisite knowledge of them; he goes
-on to say:—“God also gave him understanding to attain to skill against
-demons for the benefit of mankind; for having composed incantations,
-whereby diseases are removed, he also left behind him certain kinds of
-exorcisms whereby demons may be expelled so as never to return, and this
-method of cure is effectual or prevails much among us to this day: for
-_I saw_ one Eleazar, my countryman, in the presence of Vespasian and his
-sons, and many tribunes and other soldiers, deliver men who were seized
-by these demons. The cure was in this manner:—Applying to the nostrils
-of the demoniacs a ring, having under the seal one of those roots of
-which Solomon taught the virtues, he drew out the demon from the
-nostrils of the man who smelled to it:—The man presently falling down,
-the Exorcist mentioned the name of _Solomon_, and reciting the charms
-composed by _him_, adjured the demon never to return:—Moreover Eleazar,
-to satisfy all the company of his power, placed a small vessel full of
-water, in which feet are washed, and commanded the demon as he went out
-of the man to overthrow it, that all present might be sensible that he
-had left the man: this being done the wisdom of Solomon was manifest.”
-
-In the seventh book of his “Wars of the Jews,” he gives us the following
-account of one of the roots employed by Exorcists:—“On the north side of
-the City of Machœrus there is a valley, in which is a place called
-Baaras, in which is found a plant bearing the same name: it is of a
-flaming colour and towards evening shines very bright: it is not easy to
-be gathered for it withdraws itself and does not stay unless one pours
-upon it the urine of a woman, or menstruous blood, and even then it is
-certain death to him who takes it unless he carries the root hanging
-down upon the hand—There is another way of getting it without
-danger:—They dig all round it, so that a very little bit of the root is
-left in the ground, then they tie a dog to it, and the dog attempting to
-follow him who tied it, the root is easily pulled up, but the dog dies
-presently, as it were, instead of the man who would get the plant,
-afterwards there is no danger to those who touch it. With all these
-dangers the root is desirable, for demons, as they are called, who are
-the spirits of wicked men entering into the living, and killing those
-who have no help, this root presently expels; if it be only brought near
-to them who are diseased.”
-
-We have already shewn how it took the devils by the nose.
-
-Before we proceed, it may not be out of place to notice the general
-belief in astrology, and especially lunar influences, which prevailed at
-this period. Herbs and roots had their several patrons, and it was only
-when gathered and preserved under certain prescribed circumstances that
-their specific virtues were assured.
-
-Similar superstitions are not yet extinct; even in this year of grace,
-1867, we are not quite emancipated from the ignorance of the middle
-ages, and it is not a very unusual thing to see an advertisement in the
-_Times_ announcing a “child’s caul” for sale. These and such like
-absurdities,
-
- “Though it make the unskilful laugh,
- Cannot but make the judicious grieve.”
-
-Nor is this credulity confined to the illiterate classes. The dupes of
-St. John Long, as many of us may remember, included “potent, grave, and
-reverend signiors,” and on his memorable trial, a certain noble lord[10]
-gave evidence that Mr. Long had extracted a piece of lead from his head.
-Some scoffers think it a pity that the quack, having succeeded to some
-extent, left so much behind.
-
------
-
-Footnote 10:
-
- The Earl of Shrewsbury.
-
------
-
-In speaking of Harvey, it is difficult to strike out any new path in a
-tale that has been told so often. Yet, we may extract something out of
-the consideration of the times in which he lived, and the men by whom he
-was surrounded. He was born at Folkestone, in 1578, and commenced his
-travels at 19 years of age. What his previous education had been does
-not appear, but we find him at the age of 24 elected Doctor of Medicine
-at Padua—then the most famous University in the world. On his return to
-England he received the honour of the degree of Doctor of Medicine at
-Cambridge. James the First, and his son, Charles the First, favoured him
-with their countenance, and in 1628 he was induced to publish an account
-of his great discovery. As a matter of course he was at once denounced
-as a visionary; personal abuse was unsparingly poured upon him; but as
-the grand fact enunciated was not to be shaken, his enemies turned round
-and discovered that, after all, it was not new, and had been the
-doctrine of many eminent physicians from the earliest days. The old, old
-story: the same sickening detraction—the same miserable envy rife in
-every age and clime. Harvey died in 1658.
-
-Shakespeare was 14 years old when Harvey was born, and the garrulous but
-erudite Burton was about the same age, yet strange to say, the great
-poet seems to have been unknown to the men of his own generation:
-scholars knew nothing of poor players, and he who was born to delight
-and instruct the future of mankind shone with but small lustre then.
-
-The history of medicine in England now begins, although for some time
-subsequently medical instruction was sought for in the schools of Italy,
-France and Holland. The Reformation had swept away the monastic
-institutions; but during the depressing middle ages, all the learning
-that barbarism had spared took refuge in the cloister. The monks
-practised physic very extensively, and considering the ignorance and
-superstition of the period, it was natural that the vulgar should prefer
-the medical assistance of those who arrogated to themselves the
-immediate assistance of Heaven in the preparation of their remedies. The
-women were especially fond of consulting the monks, if there be any
-truth in the old epigram:—
-
- “To Esculapian monks the good wives roam
- What marvel, they have husbands sick at home.”
-
-The alchymists again, like their lineal descendants in our days,
-professed to have discovered the philosophers stone, and _universal
-specifics_, and they were, as they are now, believed in proportion to
-their presumption. The practice of medicine being chiefly engrossed by
-empirics and monks, the latter very readily obtained licenses from the
-Bishops of the various dioceses who had authority to examine candidates,
-without having themselves any knowledge of the subjects in question,
-beyond that acquired in their general education.
-
-By the 5th Henry VIII., chap. vi., we find there were but twelve regular
-Surgeons practising in all London, and about the same number of
-Physicians.
-
-The college of Physicians in London owes its foundation to Dr. Thomas
-Linacre, of All Soul’s, Oxford, a man of profound learning, who had won
-honours at Rome, Bologna, and Florence.
-
-Linacre, through his interest with Wolsey, a wise and liberal patron of
-learning, obtained, in 1518, letters patent from Henry the Eighth,
-constituting a corporate body of regular Physicians in London. He was
-elected the first president, and meetings were held at his house in
-Knight Ryder Street until his death. With a munificence not without many
-worthy imitators in our profession, as we shall presently point out, he
-bequeathed this house to the College.
-
-His successor in the presidential chair was one of those bright lights
-who have contributed largely to the fame of medicine, in what I have
-already called its social and scientific aspect, and therefore deserves
-a passing notice. Dr. John Caius Kaye, of Gonville Hall, Cambridge, was
-Court Physician to Edward the Sixth, and as he retained the favour of
-Mary, after the demise of the pious young King, he procured from her a
-license to advance Gonville Hall into a _College_ under the name of
-Gonville and Caius College, on condition of enlarging the institution at
-his own expense. In order to devote himself to this object, he resigned
-the presidency of the College of Physicians, and completed his buildings
-at Cambridge. The mansion of learning thus raised by his liberality,
-became the retreat of his old age, and having given up the dignified
-position of _Master_, with a disinterestedness equalled only by his
-generosity, he continued to reside there as a gentleman commoner until
-his death in 1573.
-
-Harvey was elected president of the College of Physicians in 1654, but
-excused himself on account of his age and infirmities. Such, however,
-was his attachment to that body (best evinced by _donationes inter
-vivos_), that in 1656, he made over his personal estate in perpetuity
-for its use, having previously (on the occasion of the College being
-removed from Knight Ryder Street to Amen Corner) built them a library
-and public hall,[11] which he granted for ever to the corporation,
-together with his own valuable collection of books and instruments.
-Harvey’s grand result was the work of a quarter of a century of
-unremitting toil. An admirer wrote:—
-
- “There didst thou trace the blood, and first behold
- What dreams mistaken sages coined of old.
- For till thy Pegasus the fountain brake,
- The crimson blood was but a crimson lake,
- Which first from thee did tyde and motion gaine,
- And veins became its channel, not its chaine.
- With _Drake_ and _Ca’ndish_ hence thy bays are curl’d,
- Fam’d circulator of the lesser world.”
-
-He died in 1658.
-
------
-
-Footnote 11:
-
- Now the site of Stationers’ Hall.
-
------
-
-I may here mention, that, after the fire of London, the College of
-Physicians was rebuilt on a site in Warwick Lane, which, until the
-erection there of the palatial residence of Guy of Warwick, the King
-maker, was called Eldenesse Lane.
-
-Sir Christopher Wren was the architect of the new College, and its
-burnished dome gave Garth the opportunity of displaying his powers of
-satire thus:—
-
- “Witness a dome, majestic to the sight,
- And sumptuous arches bear its oval height;
- A golden globe, placed high, with artful skill,
- Seems to the distant sight—a gilded pill.”
-
-Amongst the remarkable men of Harvey’s time were Shakespeare, Bacon, Van
-Helmont, and Sydenham, all of whom had personal intercourse with him; of
-these we shall first notice Thomas Sydenham, who was born in 1624.
-Boerhaave called him the second Hippocrates on account of his close
-observation of the natural phenomena of disease, but he is too well
-known to us to require any detailed description either of his method, or
-of his general knowledge. The story of his reply to Dr. Blackmore, when
-asked by him what books he should read, that “Don Quixote was a very
-good book” has been erroneously supposed to express his contempt for
-learning, but the joke was a personal one. Blackmore was a poet, and
-Sydenham saw that the man who consulted him did not possess the stuff of
-which doctors are made, he therefore referred him to the most lively
-piece of writing then in existence, as furnishing fitter pabulum for a
-poet, than the dry discussions of medical subjects could afford. To
-describe the character of Sydenham, it would be necessary to call to our
-aid the highest forms of panegyric; a good and honourable man, living in
-harmony with his brethren, and as far as the troubled state of the
-country would allow, in peace with all men. He lived to see the
-revolution of 1688 accomplished, and his aspirations as a patriot being
-thus gratified, he died in the following year.
-
-Contemporary with Sydenham, we find the celebrated Sir Wm. Petty, the
-founder of the Lansdowne family. He was the eldest son of Anthony Petty,
-who, Aubrey the Antiquary tells us, was a clothier in Romsey. In his
-early days he showed great liking for all mechanical operations, and at
-twelve years of age had acquired considerable skill in carpentry and
-smiths’ work. Educated at the free school of his native place, at the
-age of fifteen he began his remarkable career as a self-helping man;
-from his own account, we learn that he went over to Caen, in Normandy,
-with a little stock of merchandise, and had such good success that out
-of the profits he educated himself in the French tongue, and perfected
-his knowledge of classics and mathematics. In his twentieth year he had
-saved about three-score pounds, and acquired as much progress in
-mathematics as any of his age: to his love of learning was joined the
-desire to acquire wealth; he was at all times _practical_, and seems to
-have held pecuniary advantage to be the most comprehensive form of the
-practical. He tells us that when the civil wars between the King and
-Parliament grew hot “I had _sixty pounds_ in money and went into the
-Netherlands and France for three years, and vigorously pursued my
-studies, especially that of medicine at Utrecht, Leyden, Amsterdam, and
-Paris. I returned to Romsey with about _ten pounds more_ than I had
-carried out of England.” In Paris, Petty made the acquaintance of
-Hobbes, who retired early from the civil wars. Hobbes soon discovered
-the capacity of his young friend, and read with him the Anatomy of
-Vesalius. He entered at Brazennose College, Oxford, in April, 1648, and
-took his degree there as Doctor of Physic, in March, 1649. The date of
-his admission to the College of Physicians is 25 June, 1650. He had been
-previously deputy to Doctor Thomas Clayton, Professor of Anatomy at
-Oxford, who laboured under the singular disqualification of having an
-insurmountable aversion to the sight of a mangled corpse. On the
-resignation of Clayton in 1651, Petty became Anatomical Professor, and
-about the same time he succeeded Dr. Knight in the Professorship of
-Music in Gresham College. About the year 1645, the Royal Society was
-formed, and Petty was one of the earliest members of the Oxford branch.
-
-In 1652 he was appointed Physician to the Army in Ireland, which post he
-retained for seven years, at a salary of twenty shillings a day, while
-his practice produced him £400 a year more. His first great step to
-wealth, however, arose from his dealings with the forfeited lands in
-Ireland, and in a few years he managed his financial affairs so
-skilfully that he acquired a rental of £18,000 a year; part of this he
-was dispossessed of at the Restoration, as being unfairly obtained. He,
-however, had still a large fortune at his command, and bought the Earl
-of Arundel’s house and gardens in Lothbury, and erected thereupon the
-buildings forming Tokenhouse Yard, which was partly destroyed by the
-great fire. Petty had the tact to make his peace with the new
-government, and became a favourite with Charles II., who knighted him,
-and bestowed on him the place of Surveyor General for Ireland; and it is
-said, by Aubrey, that he was created Earl of Kelmore, though he never
-assumed the title. When the College of Physicians obtained its new
-Charter his name was published in the list of Fellows, although he had
-then resigned practice. The universality of his genius is clearly shewn
-by the list of his published works. He was a man of a genial character
-and handsome person:—“If he has a mind to it,” says Aubrey, “he will
-preach extempore, either as a Presbyterian, Independent, or as a Capucin
-friar, or Jesuit.” As a proof of his humour, when he was challenged to
-fight by Sir H. Sankey, he told his opponent, that as his short sight
-would not allow of the usual mode of warfare, he would meet him, if he
-was so minded, in a dark cellar, each to have a carpenter’s axe for his
-weapon: this the knight declined. He died in 1687 of a gangrene of the
-foot, and was buried at Romsey, by the side of his father and mother:
-there lie his remains, covered with a flat stone, on which an illiterate
-workman has cut these words:—“_Here layes Sir William Pety._”
-
-The part played by the Good-Wives and Ladies Bountiful in this age
-deserves a passing notice, and we will make one or two quotations from
-books especially devoted to their use. Thus: “To make Oil of
-Swallows:—Take lavender cotton, spikenut grass, ribwort, and twenty
-other simples, of each a handful, sage of virtue, camomiles and red
-roses, of each two handsful, _twenty live_ swallows; beat all together
-in a mortar, add a quart of neatsfoot oyl or May-butter, and mix. This
-oyl is exceeding sovereign for any broken bones, bones out of joint, or
-any grief of the sinews.”
-
-“The ‘_Usnea Humana_’[12] described as a moss two lines long, grown on
-the skulls of malefactors who have been a long time exposed to the air.
-This little plant is found chiefly in England and Ireland, where the
-bodies of men are left hanging in chains for many years after their
-execution. It is of a volatile astringent nature, good for bleeding of
-the nose, and of use internally for epilepsy.” The writer adds, “I have
-seen in the apothecaries’ shops in London these skulls exposed with the
-Usnea upon them.” Then again we have a whole tribe of “holy remedies”
-and cabalistic charms, &c.
-
------
-
-Footnote 12:
-
- Corroborative evidence of the esteem in which this remedy was held
- will be found in Macaulay’s account of the death scene of Charles
- II.:—“All the medical men of note in London were summoned. Several of
- the prescriptions have been preserved; one of them is signed by
- fourteen doctors. The patient was bled largely. Hot iron was applied
- to his head. A loathsome volatile salt, _extracted from human skulls_,
- was forced into his mouth.”
-
- [This volatile salt is thus described in the Dictionares des Drogues:
- Amsterdam, 1716. “L’Usnée humaine contient beaucoup de sel volatil et
- d’huile; elle ne bouillonne point avec les acides.”]
-
------
-
-Hiera Picra and Solomon’s seal are used to this day. The charm for burns
-is as follows:—“In the name of, &c. There came two angels from the East,
-one brought fire, the other water; I command them both: out fire!! in
-water!! and so I say _Amen_.” This is mumbled by the charmer, and the
-sufferer is relieved without daring to doubt, for if he _doubts_ the
-charm is destroyed. Warts and wens are disposed of by a similar process.
-
-So much for the march of intellect; in its progress very much like the
-military goose step.
-
-A belief in the curative power of the Royal touch over scrofulous
-affections continued to be universally held so late as the time of
-William III. Shakespeare gives us an account of it in the tragedy of
-Macbeth, which I have thought worth transcribing. In the 4th Act, Scene
-3rd, a room in the King, of England’s palace:—
-
-
- Enter a Doctor.
-
- Malcolm. Comes the king forth, I pray you?
-
- Doctor. Ay sir: There are a crew of wretched souls
- That stay his cure. Their malady convinces
- The great assay of art: but, at his touch,
- Such sanctity hath heaven given his hand,
- They presently amend. [Exit Doctor.
-
- Macduff. What’s the disease he means?
-
- Malcolm. ’tis called the Evil:
- A most miraculous work in this good king;
- Which often, since my here-remain in England,
- I have seen him do. How he solicits heaven,
- Himself best knows: but strangely-visited people;
- All swoln and ulcerous, pitiful to the eye,
- The mere despair of surgery, he cures;
- Hanging a golden stamp about their necks,
- Put on with holy prayers; and ’tis spoken,
- To the _succeeding_ royalty he leaves
- The healing benediction.
-
-
-Macaulay gives us the following graphic account of the practice of
-touching for the scrofula, as performed by that _most religious_ and
-_gracious_ King Charles the Second.
-
-“This ceremony had come down almost unaltered from the darkest of the
-dark ages to the time of Newton and Locke. The Stuarts frequently
-dispensed the healing influences in the Banqueting House. The days on
-which this miracle was to be wrought were fixed at sittings of the Privy
-Council, and were solemnly notified by the clergy in all the parish
-churches of the realm. When the appointed time came, several divines in
-full canonicals stood round the canopy of state. The surgeon of the
-royal household introduced the sick. A passage from the sixteenth
-chapter of the Gospel of St. Mark was read. When the words ‘They shall
-lay their hands on the sick, and they shall recover’ had been
-pronounced, there was a pause, and one of the sick was brought up to the
-King. His Majesty stroked the ulcers and swellings, and hung round the
-patient’s neck a white ribbon, to which was fastened a gold coin. The
-other sufferers were then led up in succession; and, as each was
-touched, the chaplain repeated the incantation, ‘They shall lay their
-hands on the sick, and they shall recover.’ Then came the epistle,
-prayers, antiphones and a benediction.... Theologians of eminent
-learning, ability, and virtue gave the sanction of their authority to
-this mummery; and, what is stranger still, medical men of high note
-believed, or affected to believe, in the balsamic virtues of the royal
-hand. We must suppose that every surgeon who attended Charles the Second
-was a man of high repute for skill; and more than one of the surgeons
-who attended Charles the Second, has left us a solemn profession of
-faith in the King’s miraculous power.... We cannot wonder that, when men
-of science gravely repeated such nonsense, the vulgar should believe it.
-Still less can we wonder that wretches tortured by a disease over which
-natural remedies had no power should eagerly drink in tales of
-preternatural cures: for nothing is so credulous as misery. The crowds
-which repaired to the palace on the days of healing were immense.
-Charles the Second, in the course of his reign, touched near a hundred
-thousand persons. The number seems to have increased or diminished as
-the King’s popularity rose or fell.
-
-“In 1682, he performed the rite eight thousand five hundred times. In
-1684, the throng was such that six or seven of the sick were trampled to
-death. James, in one of his progresses, touched eight hundred persons in
-the choir of the Cathedral of Chester. The expense of the ceremony was
-little less than ten thousand pounds a year, and would have been much
-greater but for the vigilance of the royal surgeons, whose business it
-was to examine the applicants, and to distinguish those who came for the
-cure from those who came for the gold.” (_History of England, Vol. III.,
-p. 478._)
-
-William the Third gave great offence to the nonjurors by sneering at a
-practice sanctioned by the highest ecclesiastical authorities; yielding
-to importunity, he once consented to lay his hands on a patient, but his
-good sense compelled him to exclaim:—“God give you better health and
-more wisdom, my friend.”
-
-Shortly after the death of Sydenham came Dr. Freind, who was born in
-1675. Being a man of worth and learning, he soon acquired a leading
-position in his profession, and having devoted himself early in life to
-the study of politics, he was returned to Parliament as member for
-Launceston, where, having warmly espoused the cause of the amiable
-Atterbury, he fell under the censure of Walpole, who sent him to the
-Tower on a charge of treason. This misfortune gave rise to one of the
-finest instances of devotion, on the part of his friend Mead, that has
-ever been recorded for the honour of human nature. Walpole was taken
-seriously ill, and of course sent for Mead, who at that time was the
-most popular physician. The doctor is reported to have addressed the
-minister thus:—“You are very ill, Sir Robert, and I can cure you; but
-one condition is indispensable. Dr. Freind has been in prison some
-months, and my esteem for him is so great that I will not prescribe a
-single thing for you until he is set at liberty.” Walpole hesitated, but
-Mead was resolute, and at length the tyrant gave way. Freind was
-released, and Mead when he paid his first visit of congratulation, took
-with him a considerable sum of money, the produce of fees he had
-received from Freind’s patients during his incarceration. Freind was a
-voluminous writer, and compiled a history of medicine in which he
-attacked some of the opinions of Leclerc, who had gone more extensively
-and accurately into the subject.
-
-Next in order, we must say a few words of Dr. Mead. Richard Mead was
-born in 1673, at Stepney. Political troubles drove his father, who was
-rector of the parish, into Holland, where this future ornament of the
-medical profession was educated, at Utrecht, under Grœvius. He continued
-his studies at Leyden, and travelling into Italy, took his degree of
-doctor at Padua. On his arrival in England, whither his fame had
-preceded him, the University of Oxford confirmed his title, and the
-College of Physicians received him with applause, as did the Royal
-Society (then but recently established.) He soon became the leading
-practitioner of the day, and in course of time Physician to George the
-Second. For more than half a century he attended at St. Thomas’s
-Hospital, and is said to have suggested to Guy the foundation of the
-hospital known by that name. A more noble, disinterested, and generous
-man than Mead never lived. His emoluments were very large, and his
-benevolence and hospitality kept pace with his income. It is stated that
-no poor applicant ever left his door unrelieved.
-
- “Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere,
- Heaven did a recompense as largely send.”
-
-After a life of 80 years, he died full of honours, leaving his many
-literary labors as monuments of his talents and industry.
-
-The reign of Queen Anne has been called the Augustan age of literature
-in England, and was in no less degree looked upon as the great day of
-medical science. Amongst the literary men we have to name Swift,
-Addison, Warburton, Pope, Steele, Parnell, Rowe, Gay, and others; and
-amongst Physicians—Freind, Mead, Radcliffe, Cheselden, Arbuthnot, Garth,
-&c. &c.
-
-Radcliffe next comes under notice; he was a man cast in a rougher mould
-than Mead. John Radcliffe was born at Wakefield, in Yorkshire, in 1650,
-and educated at Oxford, where he became a Fellow of Lincoln College;
-after a two years residence he resigned his Fellowship and devoted
-himself to physic, removed to London, and settled in Bow-street, Covent
-Garden. He was a man of ready wit, and great conversational powers, with
-much pleasantry and frankness. In 1686 he was appointed physician to
-Princess Anne of Denmark, and after the revolution was often consulted
-by William the Third; the latter on his return from Holland sent for
-Radcliffe, and shewing him his ankles swollen, and his body emaciated,
-the doctor brusquely said, “Truly I would not have your Majesty’s two
-legs for your three kingdoms.” This sally lost him the king’s favour,
-nevertheless he still prospered, and sat in Parliament for the borough
-of Buckingham.
-
-In the last illness of Queen Anne, Radcliffe was sent for, but excused
-his attendance on account of indisposition; the Queen died the next day,
-and Radcliffe was greatly censured, which is said to have hastened his
-own death, which took place three months after.
-
-There is a story told of his quarrel with Sir Godfrey Kneller, the
-celebrated painter. They were next door neighbours, and enjoyed a
-certain garden in common. Kneller complained that Radcliffe took no care
-that the door leading into this garden should be kept properly shut, and
-sent a snappish message to the doctor, that if he were not more mindful
-he would shut up the door and keep the key. Radcliffe’s answer was,
-“Tell Sir Godfrey Kneller he may do what he likes with the door provided
-he does not paint it.” Kneller retorted to this sarcasm, “Tell the
-doctor I will take anything from him except his physic.”
-
-I cannot find that Radcliffe ever published any work; but at his death
-he left the munificent sum of £40,000 to the University of Oxford for
-the formation of a public library of medical and philosophical science,
-and a further considerable sum to provide for an annual augmentation of
-books and instruments. Garth, in allusion to this bequest, remarked that
-for Radcliffe to found a library was as if an Eunuch should establish a
-Seraglio.
-
-Samuel Garth was among the celebrities of this time: the correspondent
-of Bolingbroke, the friend of Swift and Addison, and the patron of Pope,
-he must have possessed great merit to have reached such a position. He
-was born of a good family in Yorkshire: the date of his birth I have
-been unable to discover, but he was admitted a Fellow of the College of
-Physicians in 1693. Johnson classes him with the English Poets, and in
-his description of him says, “He is always mentioned as a man of
-benevolence, and it is just to suppose that his desire to help the
-helpless disposed him with so much zeal to undertake the founding of a
-dispensary:—Whether physicians have, as Temple says, _more_ learning
-than the other faculties I will not stay to inquire, but I believe every
-man has found in physicians great liberality and dignity of sentiment,
-very prompt effusion of benevolence, and willingness to exert a
-lucrative art, where there is no hope of lucre.”
-
-Garth was an active and zealous Whig, and consequently familiarly known
-to all the great men of that party; his orthodoxy was questioned, but it
-was the fashion of the times to be a free thinker. Pope apostrophises
-him in his second pastoral:—
-
- “Accept, O! Garth, the muses early lays,
- That add this wreath of ivy to thy bays.”
-
-And again, in conjunction with Arbuthnot, in “the Farewell to London:”—
-
- “Farewell Arbuthnot’s raillery
- On every learned sot,
- And Garth the best good Christian he
- Although he knows it not.”
-
-Pope’s favourite physician was Dr. John Arbuthnot, and never was
-grateful affection better bestowed. He was the son of an Episcopal
-clergyman in Scotland, born in 1675, and went through a course of
-academical studies at Aberdeen, where he also took the degree of Doctor
-of Physic. On his arrival in London he supported himself as a teacher of
-mathematics, in which he was a great proficient, and became known to the
-world of letters by his examination of Dr. Woodward’s “Account of the
-Deluge,” and by an able treatise on the “Advantages of Mathematical
-Learning.” The first book of the memoirs of “Martinus Scriblerus” has
-also been attributed to him. An accident introduced him to Prince George
-of Denmark, and led the way to his appointment as Physician to Queen
-Anne; he retained the favour of the Court until the death of the Queen,
-when, being more than suspected of Jacobite proclivities, he was
-compelled to leave his quarters in St. James’s Palace, and retired to a
-small house in Dover Street.
-
-Pope dedicated to him the prologue to his satires, and thus gracefully
-mentions him:—
-
- “Friend to my life (which did not you prolong,
- The world had wanted many an idle song.”)
-
-The concluding stanzas are so full of tenderness that I venture to give
-them:—
-
- “Oh! friend, may each domestic bliss be thine,
- Be no unpleasing melancholy mine,
- Me, let the tender office long engage
- To rock the cradle of reposing age,
- With lenient arts extend a mother’s breath,
- Make langour smile and smooth the bed of death.
- Explore the thought, explain the asking eye,
- And keep a while one parent from the sky!
- On cares like these, if length of days attend,
- May Heaven, to bless those days, preserve my friend,
- Preserve him social, cheerful, and serene,
- And just as rich as when he served a Queen.”
-
-About the time of his preferment he made the acquaintance of the great
-luminaries of art and learning, particularly Swift, (the mad parson as
-he was first designated) Pope, Gay, Parnell, Atterbury, Congreve, &c.,
-and greatly assisted, with his ready and witty pen, the ambitious
-Bolingbroke.
-
-What is greatly to his honour, in the midst of an age of scoffers, he
-retained a deep sense of the importance of personal religion, and seems
-to have lived in the affectionate esteem and remembrance of his friends;
-Swift said of him, “Oh! if the world had a dozen Arbuthnots in it, I
-would burn my travels” (Gulliver’s); and on another occasion expresses
-himself thus, “Arbuthnot has more wit than all we have, and his humanity
-is equal to his wit.”
-
-For some time before his death he suffered from asthma and dropsy, and
-bore his affliction with characteristic fortitude and resignation. He
-died in 1734, leaving a son, who was one of Pope’s executors, and two
-daughters.
-
-Next to the illustrious Scotchman whom we have just dismissed, comes a
-very worthy native of the Emerald Isle—Hans Sloane, the son of Alexander
-Sloane, the head of a colony of Scotchmen, who, in the reign of James I.
-settled in the north of Ireland. Hans was born at Killileagh, in the
-year 1660. He very early showed a liking for Natural History, and on his
-arrival in London attended lectures on Anatomy, Botany, and their
-kindred sciences, and formed a close intimacy with Boyle and Ray. After
-four years study he visited Paris and Montpellier, in which places he
-took his degrees in Medicine. In 1684 he returned to London and
-commenced practice, being a Fellow of the Royal Society and of the
-College of Physicians. On the appointment of the Duke of Albemarle to
-the government of Jamaica he accompanied that nobleman, and thus
-acquired a rich addition to his Museum of Natural History. George the
-First created him a Baronet, and on the death of Sir Isaac Newton, he
-became President of the Royal Society—estimable as a man, and eminent in
-science, he lived to a great age, and at his decease, bequeathed his
-museum to the nation, conditionally on the sum of £20,000 being paid to
-his executors for the benefit of his survivors: this sum bore no
-proportion to the value of his collection, and as it laid the foundation
-of the British Museum, it must ever be regarded as a patriotic and
-generous act.
-
-A curious illustration of the observant mind of Sir H. Sloane is
-furnished by the fact of his having noticed that the natives of the West
-Indian Islands, who eat much of the green fat of the turtle, perspired a
-yellow oil; the explanation being that the true green fat of the turtle
-is a green-coloured cellular tissue enclosing a yellow oil, which passes
-through the system undigested. The anatomical data on which this
-statement is advanced have been, at a comparatively recent period,
-verified by actual experiments performed by the late Dr. Pereira,
-assisted by our much esteemed former President, Dr. Daldy. It occurred
-to my mind that this fact in dietetics might present a lesson of caution
-to an audience peculiarly exposed, as citizens of London, to the
-temptation of eating a material, which, however appetising, is incapable
-of healthy assimilation.
-
-In a sketch of such limited pretension we are compelled to pass over
-names well deserving a niche in the temple of Esculapius:—every letter
-of the alphabet furnishes its contingent. To many of the men, into whose
-labours we have here entered, the civilised world is indebted for their
-contributions to general literature, as well as to the science of
-medicine; and in our endeavour to chronicle their importance, we can
-never cease to admire the fertility of their talents, and the extent of
-their industry in bringing to light so much useful knowledge out of the
-scanty materials by which their enquiries were aided:—Akenside, Bacon,
-Boyle, Blackmore, Cheselden, Darwin, Petty, Ray, among others, may be
-noted as examples.
-
-We have now reached the period at which legitimate medicine was
-established in this country; and as my discourse has already exceeded
-the assigned limits, it remains only to record our solemn tribute of the
-affectionate remembrance we all entertain towards those members of our
-society whose faces we shall so sadly miss in our next sessional
-meetings. Constituted as our cherished society is, as a friendly
-gathering of kindred spirits, actuated by mutual necessities, meeting as
-brothers, knowing no rivalry but the desire to impart, each to other,
-the results of our matured experience, it is with more than ordinary
-grief that we bow submissively when Providence sees fit to lessen our
-numbers by death.
-
-But it is not we alone who have sustained a loss. The name of Barlow
-will live for ages to come as the type of the scientific physician of
-the nineteenth century. A man of cultivated intellect, of elegant mind
-and blameless life, of calm judgment and exalted feeling, I look upon
-his death as nothing less than a calamity to the whole medical
-profession.
-
-Too soon, alas! after him, we were shocked by the almost sudden removal
-of the accomplished and genial Jeaffreson, endeared to his brethren by
-those solid endowments which mark and govern the high minded
-practitioner and amiable gentleman—no less than to the public by those
-qualities that are inherent in a warm, kindly, and generous nature. And,
-what then shall we say of our dear friend, Henry Blenkarne, so recently
-carried to his rest. Who can ever forget his pure and simple nature, his
-spotless life, and those endearing virtues which attached him so closely
-to all whose privilege it was to enjoy his friendship—one of Nature’s
-gentlemen, delicate and considerate of the feelings of others, generous
-to the poor at the sacrifice of his valuable life, ready at all seasons
-to give his time for the promotion of any and every benevolent scheme in
-connexion with our calling; we shall long mourn over the good old man.
-As I stood by and saw his remains committed to the ground but the other
-day, my mind reverted to the other honoured members I have mentioned,
-and I felt that one and all had realized and fulfilled to the letter the
-following monition of Bacon:—
-
-“I hold every man a debtor to his profession, from the which as men of
-course do seek to receive countenance and profit, so ought they of duty
-to endeavour themselves, by way of amends, to be a help and ornament
-thereunto.”
-
-I now beg permission to draw the curtain. I have laid before you, with
-but little skill, some rapid sketches of our illustrious predecessors. I
-have shown how worthily they have fulfilled their mission; and, having
-approached the advent of that great man, to whose memory we dedicate
-this evening, I make my bow and retire, first thanking you for the
-attention you have accorded to my dull recital. I pause now because I
-can add nothing to your knowledge of the character and labours of John
-Hunter. His patience under such difficulties as would have destroyed an
-ordinary worker, and his sublime indifference to personal comfort and
-advantage when the interest of that science, which he so well loved was
-in question—are “familiar in your ears as household words.”
-
-But, whilst we honour him by these periodical meetings, and by the
-discussion of subjects the elaboration of which formed the happiness of
-his life, it is only in the great museum, founded by his energy, that
-the grandeur of his character can be felt.
-
-In that hallowed path, in which he delighted to tread, the mantle of his
-genius has fallen upon one who, with a kindred love, aided by the
-marvellous instinct of his own original mind, still follows out the
-investigations of the great author, adding each day something to the
-knowledge which went before, and still turning over some new page of the
-book of Nature, wherein the finger of God has written, in characters
-hitherto undeciphered, fresh evidences of His glorious infinity. Under
-the auspices of our honorary member, Professor Owen, we gaze and admire.
-
-
-
-
- THE END.
-
-
-
-
- Transcriber’s notes:
-
- ● The errors deemed most likely to be the printer’s have been
- corrected, and are noted here.
- ● Where hyphenation occurs on a line break, the decision to retain
- or remove is based on occurrences elsewhere in the text.
- ● Errors in punctuation and quotes have been silently restored.
- ● The footnotes were moved near the corresponding paragraph.
- ● The numbers below reference the page or footnote and line in the
- original book.
-
-
- reference correction original text
- 5.24 lawgiver Jewish law-giver, it is a positive
- fn3.11 Alnajah Speaking of the alnajah, an
- 34.13 fellow men he instructed his fellow-men,
- fn8.1 Tylor Taken from E. B. Tyler—“Early History
- 56.11 Harvey our own great Hervey, of whom we
- 60.10 menstruous menstrous blood, and even then it is
- 68.23 carpentry skill in carpentery and smiths’ work.
- 92.6 knowledge something to the knowlege which went
-
- ----------------------------------------------------------------
-
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-<p style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Sketches from the history of medicine, ancient and modern, by Wm. Sedgwick Saunders</p>
-<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
-most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
-whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
-of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
-at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you
-are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the
-country where you are located before using this eBook.
-</div>
-
-<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: Sketches from the history of medicine, ancient and modern</p>
-<p style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:0; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:1em;'>An oration delivered before the Hunterian Society</p>
-<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Wm. Sedgwick Saunders</p>
-<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: October 21, 2022 [eBook #69197]</p>
-<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</p>
- <p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em; text-align:left'>Produced by: deaurider, Guus Snijders and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)</p>
-<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SKETCHES FROM THE HISTORY OF MEDICINE, ANCIENT AND MODERN ***</div>
-
-<div class='tnotes'>
-
-<div class='nf-center-c1'>
-<div class='nf-center c000'>
- <div>Transcriber's note:</div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c001'>The few minor errors, attributable to the printer, have been corrected. Please
-see the <a href='#endnote'>transcriber's note</a> at the end of this text
-for details regarding the handling of any textual issues encountered
-during its preparation.</p>
-
-<div class='htmlonly'>
-
-<p class='c001'>Corrections in spelling are indicated using an <ins class='correction' title='original spelling'>underline</ins>
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-
-</div>
-<div class='epubonly'>
-
-<p class='c001'>Corrections in spelling are indicated as hyperlinks, which will navigate the
-reader to the corresponding entry in the corrections table in the
-note at the end of the text.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<div>
- <span class='pageno' id='Page_1'>1</span>
- <h1 class='c002'>SKETCHES<br> <span class='xsmall'>FROM</span><br> THE HISTORY OF MEDICINE</h1>
-</div>
-
-<div class='nf-center-c1'>
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-<div class='nf-center-c1'>
- <div class='nf-center'>
- <div class='c003'><em class='gesperrt'>AN ORATION</em></div>
- <div class='c003'><span class='xsmall'>DELIVERED BEFORE</span></div>
- <div class='c003'>THE HUNTERIAN SOCIETY,</div>
- <div class='c003'><span class='sc'>at the london institution</span>,</div>
- <div class='c003'>ON THE <span class='fss'>13TH</span> FEBRUARY, 1867,</div>
- <div class='c003'><span class='xsmall'>BY</span></div>
- <div class='c003'><span class='sc'>W<sup>m</sup>.</span> SEDGWICK SAUNDERS, M.D.</div>
- <div class='c003'><span class='xsmall'>LICENTIATE OF THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS, EDINBURGH.—VICE-PRESIDENT</span></div>
- <div><span class='xsmall'>OF THE HUNTERIAN SOCIETY.—TREASURER TO THE NEW SYDENHAM SOCIETY.—</span></div>
- <div><span class='xsmall'>EXAMINING PHYSICIAN TO THE EAST INDIAN—SCINDE AND DELHI—BOMBAY</span></div>
- <div><span class='xsmall'>AND BARODA—GREAT SOUTHERN OF INDIA—CALCUTTA AND SOUTH EASTERN</span></div>
- <div><span class='xsmall'>—AND OUDE AND ROHILKUND RAILWAY COMPANIES.—MEDICAL OFFICER</span></div>
- <div><span class='xsmall'>TO THE CITY OF GLASGOW LIFE ASSURANCE CORPORATION AND THE</span></div>
- <div><span class='xsmall'>METROPOLITAN FIRE BRIGADE, &#38;c.—AUTHOR OF THE “CAUSES</span></div>
- <div><span class='xsmall'>AND PREVENTION OF CHOLERA” AND “REPORTS ON</span></div>
- <div><span class='xsmall'>CHOLERA IN THE CITY OF LONDON, 1866.”</span></div>
- <div class='c003'><i>PRINTED AT THE REQUEST OF THE COUNCIL.</i></div>
- <div class='c003'><i>For Private Circulation.</i></div>
- <div class='c004'><span class='pageno' id='Page_2'>2</span><span class='small'>LONDON:</span></div>
- <div class='c003'><span class='small'>PRINTED BY M. &#38; W. COLLIS. 50, BOW LANE, CHEAPSIDE, E.C.</span></div>
- <div class='c003'><span class='small'>1868.</span></div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<div class='chapter'>
- <span class='pageno' id='Page_3'>3</span>
- <h2 class='c005'>ORATION.</h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c006'><span class='sc'>Mr. President,</span></p>
-<p class='c007'>I purpose to devote the time, which your indulgence
-has placed at my disposal this evening, to laying before
-you the results of some inquiries into the origin and
-history of medicine and of the medical profession;
-regarding the subject rather from a <i>social</i> than from
-a <i>scientific</i> point of view.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>My scheme will introduce you to some of your old
-acquaintances; not for instruction, but to remind you
-of those passages in their lives which may have been
-pressed out of your memories by the sterner realities of
-professional duties.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>An inquiry into the origin of medicine must begin
-with the history of man himself, since pain and death
-are the inevitable conditions of his existence; and the
-desire to mitigate the former, and postpone the triumphs
-of the latter arose from, and has kept pace with, the
-development of the various diseases to which time and
-circumstances have subjected him.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The <i>primal man</i>, we know, was created pure and
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_4'>4</span>innocent, free from liability to pain, and possessed of
-unmixed capacity for the enjoyment of the pleasures
-that surrounded him; glowing with health, and with
-every emotion redolent of new delight. At sight of him,</p>
-
-<div class='lg-container-b c003'>
- <div class='linegroup'>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>Each hill gave sign of gratulation,</div>
- <div class='line'>Joyous the birds; fresh gales and gentle airs</div>
- <div class='line'>Whisper’d it to the woods; and from their wings</div>
- <div class='line'>Flung rose, flung odours from the spicy <span class="nowrap">shrub:—</span></div>
- </div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c009'>Apprehension of the miseries to which his progeny were
-doomed, would have marred this happiness; hence his
-ignorance of evil, and his belief that the felicity he
-enjoyed would be as permanent as it was perfect. But
-our business is with man in his <i>actual</i> condition; the
-sport of</p>
-
-<div class='lg-container-b c003'>
- <div class='linegroup'>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line in20'>“All maladies</div>
- <div class='line'>Of ghastly spasm, or racking torture, qualms</div>
- <div class='line'>Of heart-sick agony, all feverous kinds,</div>
- <div class='line'>Convulsions, epilepsies, fierce catarrhs,</div>
- <div class='line'>Intestine stone, and ulcer, colic pangs,</div>
- <div class='line'>Demoniac phrensy, moping melancholy,</div>
- <div class='line'>And moon-struck madness, pining atrophy,</div>
- <div class='line'>Marasmus and wide wasting pestilence,</div>
- <div class='line'>Dropsies and asthmas, and joint-racking rheums,</div>
- <div class='line'>And over them triumphant Death his dart</div>
- <div class='line'>Shook, but delayed to strike.”——</div>
- </div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c009'>Undertaking to examine the subject <i>ab initio</i>, we must
-take into account the sources of our information, and as
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_5'>5</span>our knowledge of every event <i>antecedent to the discovery
-of writing</i> must have been transmitted by oral or traditional
-agencies, we have to settle, in some degree, how
-far such evidence is worthy of credence.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>According to popular belief, the Noahic flood destroyed
-the whole human race, with the exception of Noah and
-his family; who were therefore the sole depositories of
-the traditions of the events which had occurred between
-the time of Adam and themselves. The great longevity
-of these antediluvian fathers made this oral transmission
-easy; and we know, that the sons of Noah lived to
-see the birth of Abraham, whom, as the founder of
-circumcision, we claim as the first operative surgeon on
-record.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>In dealing with dates, I adopt the commonly accepted
-chronology, unmoved by those refined speculations so
-much in favour at this time.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>I begin with Moses, for whatever evidence may be
-urged upon us in the shape of marbles, or monuments,
-claiming an antiquity anterior to the advent of the
-Jewish <a id='corr5.24'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='original: law-giver'>lawgiver</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_5.24'>lawgiver</a></span>, it is a positive and unimpeachable
-fact, that no <i>writings</i> are in existence, which in point of
-age reach within many centuries of the Pentateuch;
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_6'>6</span>indeed, as we shall presently see, the oldest of the
-Greek writers are, in comparison with Moses, but as
-the children of yesterday.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The five books of Moses were written 1500 years
-before Christ. Hesiod, the father of Greek literature,
-flourished 500 years later; and Homer, the next in
-succession, nearly a century after Hesiod.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Herodotus places Homer 400 years before himself;
-thus bringing the “father of history,” as he is termed
-by Cicero, to about 500 years before the advent of our
-Saviour, so that the difference of date between the author
-of the Pentateuch and the oldest Greek historian cannot
-be much less than 1000 years.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>I pass over the pretended antiquity of the Chinese
-and Parsis records: these have been disposed of very
-satisfactorily, and however much <i>fancy</i> may dwell upon
-the losses to literature inflicted by the Caliph Omar,
-when he destroyed the Alexandrian library,<a id='r1'></a><a href='#f1' class='c010'><sup>[1]</sup></a> in the year
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_7'>7</span>640, a very little reflection will convince us that as these
-treasures, real or assumed, had been ransacked for ages,
-by the brightest spirits of Greece and Rome, everything
-worthy of note has been handed down to us.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The <i>learned</i> talk about the writings of the Assyrians,
-the Babylonians, and the Egyptians; but they do not
-produce a single scrap of tangible evidence in support
-of these pretensions.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>It may, however, be contended, that although there
-are no <i>writings</i> extant, <i>traditional</i> evidence is very
-strong; and this establishes a high antiquity for Lycurgus,
-who lived 900 years before the Christian era.
-The more, therefore, we inquire, the stronger the proof
-becomes, that Moses as a lawgiver flourished 600 years
-before the highest claimant to our veneration on the
-grounds of primitiveness; and thus we are entitled to
-assume that the Greek legislator took much that is
-excellent, in the laws ascribed to him, from his Jewish
-predecessor.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_8'>8</span>Lycurgus lived about the time that Shishak, king of
-Egypt, destroyed the temple of Solomon, and carried
-away many captives: it is therefore no very extravagant
-supposition, that the Pentateuch of Moses was known
-to the great lawgiver. During the peaceful reign of
-king Solomon, the intercourse between the Jews and
-the Egyptians was frequent and extensive, for the great
-monarch, needing the assistance of skilful artificers for
-the construction of the Temple at Jerusalem, broke
-down that barrier of exclusiveness that had previously
-isolated his people.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Now the <i>learned</i> of that day were seekers after
-wisdom wherever it was to be found; and moreover, as
-the fame of Solomon was co-extensive with the then
-existing world, so acute an observer as the <i>founder</i> of
-the Grecian law could not fail to use the materials
-which the wide spread knowledge of the Jewish kings
-sayings and doings had placed within his reach.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Every Jew was required to read the law, or hear it
-read, once a year—each individual therefore became a
-living depository of its truths, and, consequently, a
-somewhat competent teacher of those who might desire
-to be instructed in such matters.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'><i>Moses</i> then comes before us as the first <i>writer</i>, and
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_9'>9</span>the first <i>lawgiver</i>; and we shall now proceed to show
-that to these titles he added the still greater distinction
-of being the first <i>physician</i>, and promulgator of sanitary
-precautions.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>At present, however, I will not further intrude upon
-your patience, but leaving his claims where I have
-placed them, pass on to the consideration of the character
-of the laws themselves;—and here we arrive at a
-body of enactments so excellent, so well adapted, not
-only to the requirements of a nomadic people wandering
-in a wild country, but to that <i>same</i> people when they
-subsequently became dwellers in cities, and suffered all
-the encumbrances of a more advanced civilization.
-<i>Moses</i> made laws for <i>all</i> times and for <i>all</i> communities,
-<i>general</i> as well as <i>particular</i>, reaching the <i>nation</i> through
-every individual member thereof; his rules for the
-preservation of health embraced the consideration of
-personal cleanliness enforced as a <i>religious</i> obligation
-in order that he might thereby enlist the unvarying
-co-operation of the priesthood.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>In a climate incentive to animal enjoyments he placed
-strict barriers for the preservation of <i>chastity</i>, and
-decreed that matters relating to sexual intercourse
-should be under the surveillance of the priest; directions
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_10'>10</span>were also given to the <i>menstruous</i> woman, and for her
-conduct during <i>pregnancy</i> and in <i>childbed</i>. The ordinance
-of circumcision was devised not alone for ablutionary
-purposes, but for <i>other well understood</i> objects
-conducive to purity. Further, it was directed how the
-man should order himself in affections of the virile
-organs; and more emphatically, what he was bound to
-observe when the terrible <i>leprosy</i> afflicted him. In such
-a calamity he was compelled to withdraw from his
-house, to be separated from society, and present himself
-to the priest at various periods during the progress of
-the disease; he was also to remain in a cheerless exclusion,
-where, if by chance any unwary passenger came
-in sight, the sufferer was commanded to cry aloud,
-<i>unclean! unclean!</i> When convalescence and health
-returned, the <i>priest</i> pronounced him cured of his leprosy,
-and he was then permitted to return to his home; but
-if the leprosy was supposed to cling to the <i>habitation</i>,
-<i>that</i>, too, was subjected to isolation, and in some
-instances to total destruction.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The <i>same precautions</i> obtain in our own times,
-although nearly 3400 years have elapsed since they
-were first insisted upon by Moses.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Thus, we are told by Dr. Thompson, an eminent
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_11'>11</span>American writer on the Holy Land (where he resided
-many years), that lepers are everywhere regarded as
-unclean, and that at Jerusalem (where there is always
-a considerable number of them) a separate quarter in
-the city is assigned to them, to which they are rigidly
-confined. Dr. Thompson says: “I have seen them cast
-out of the villages where they resided, and no healthy
-person would touch them, eat with them, or use any of
-their clothes or utensils, and even the Arab tent
-dwellers cast them out of camp. The leper beggars
-stand apart, and never attempt to touch you, even as it
-was in the time of the Saviour, when the ten lepers
-stood afar off and lifted up their voice of entreaty.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The same writer furnishes us with the following
-graphic description, which, as coming from an eye
-witness, we have deemed worthy of <span class="nowrap">notice:—</span></p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Sauntering down the Jaffa road, on my way to the
-Holy City, I was startled by the sudden apparition of a
-crowd of beggars, sans eyes, sans nose, sans hair, sans
-everything; they held up their handless arms, unearthly
-sounds gurgled through throats without palates, and, in
-a word, I stood horrified, when, for the first time, I
-found myself face to face with a leper.” He then goes
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_12'>12</span>on to say: “For many years I have sought to get at
-the mystery of its origin, but neither books nor learned
-physicians have thrown any light upon it. I have
-suspected that this remorseless enemy originates in
-some self-propagating animalcules, and thus I can
-conceive the possibility of the contagion reaching the
-walls of a dwelling. No one has spoken with authority,
-as to what it proceeds from or how it is generated.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“New born babes of leprous parents are often as
-pretty and healthy in appearance as other children,
-but the ‘<i>scab</i>’ comes on by degrees, the hair falls off,
-joint after joint of the fingers and toes shrink up, the
-gums are absorbed, and the teeth fall out and disappear;
-the nose, the eyes, the palate are slowly consumed,
-and finally the wretched victim sinks into the
-earth under a disease beyond the control of medicine,
-which cannot even mitigate its tortures.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“To my mind there is no conceivable manifestation
-of Divine power more triumphantly confirmatory of
-Christ’s divinity than the cleansing of a leper with a
-word.”<a id='r2'></a><a href='#f2' class='c010'><sup>[2]</sup></a></p>
-
-<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_13'>13</span>The initiatory rite of circumcision was, by Divine
-command, first performed by Abraham in the year of
-the world 2107, or about 1897 years before <span class="nowrap">Christ:—</span>At
-the age of 99 years, Abraham, together with his
-son Ishmael and all his dependents were circumcised.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Ishmael at this time was thirteen years old, and, as
-we are informed by Josephus, was the founder of the
-Arabian nation, who to this day do not circumcise until
-after the thirteenth year.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_14'>14</span>Isaac, the child of promise, the heir who was to
-carry on the race of the patriarch, was circumcised
-on the eighth day after his birth, and this, among the
-Hebrews, became a law, and a statute for ever.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>One of the tapestries at Hampton Court, in the time
-of Holbein, represents the operation being performed
-upon Isaac, with what appears to be a knife made of
-stone, which was the instrument used for many ages
-for this purpose.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>By the kindness of my friend, the Rev. William
-Sparrow Simpson, the learned Librarian and Minor
-Canon of St. Paul’s Cathedral, I am enabled to show
-you some of these knives of stone; and further evidence
-of the employment of such implements will be
-found in Exodus 4th chapter and 25th verse, where
-it is written—“Then Zipporah took a sharp stone and
-cut off the foreskin of her son and cast it at his (Moses)
-feet.”<a id='r3'></a><a href='#f3' class='c010'><sup>[3]</sup></a></p>
-
-<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_15'>15</span>Some writers believe that the practice of circumcision
-existed for ages amongst the Heathens before the time
-of Abraham, whilst others have not hesitated to date
-its origin as far back as our first fathers, asserting
-that Adam was taught by the angel Gabriel to satisfy
-an oath he had made to cut off that flesh, which after
-his fall had rebelled against his spirit.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Much has been written with regard to the comparative
-<i>antiquity</i> of this custom among the Egyptians and
-Ethiopians; a point upon which the erudite Herodotus
-leaves us in doubt.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Circumcision of <i>both</i> sexes exists amongst the Abyssinians,
-Nubians, Egyptians (both ancient and modern),
-Hottentots, and probably many other nations. But in
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_16'>16</span>Turkey, Persia, and in the South Sea Islands, and those
-of the Indian Seas, the practice is confined to the <i>male</i>
-sex. The Mohammedans adopt the rite of circumcision,
-and Mahomet himself was circumcised, although
-no mention is made of the fact in the Koran.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Doubtless, the so-called circumcision of women, as it
-is practised in some countries, is a modification of what
-<i>we</i> understand by the term, and involves structures other
-than the clitoris or nymphæ; and it is equally true
-that the custom is adopted by many races totally irrespective
-of any religious significance.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Sonnini de Manoncourt, a distinguished traveller and
-naturalist of the eighteenth century “having examined
-a young girl of Egyptian origin, about eight years old,
-found a thick, flabby, and fleshy excrescence, covered
-with skin, which grew above the commissure of the
-labia, and hung down half an inch, resembling in size
-and shape the caruncle pendent from the bill of a
-turkey cock.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Conditions of a similar nature are said to exist among
-the women of the interior of Africa, and are probably
-due to climatic influences, but the more common forms
-of disease are those of simple hypertrophy of the
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_17'>17</span>external parts of generation; and it is not unreasonable to
-suppose that the surgical interference necessary for
-their removal has given rise to the general term of
-circumcision.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Simple <i>excision</i> of the <i>clitoris</i> has been practised for
-very many centuries by certain nations,” and I purpose
-quoting some interesting observations just published by
-Dr. T. H. Tanner, upon the subject. His first extract
-is from Strabo, the geographer, <span class="nowrap"><span class='fss'>A.D.</span> 21,</span> who, in speaking
-of the Egyptians, <span class="nowrap">says:—</span>“They <i>circumcise</i> the males
-and <i>excise</i> the females, as is the custom also among the
-Jews, who are of Egyptian extraction.” The custom
-appears to have been continued down to a recent period,
-and Mr. W. G. Brown,<a id='r4'></a><a href='#f4' class='c010'><sup>[4]</sup></a> who resided for some time at
-Darfour, North Africa, writing in 1779, thus alludes to
-<span class="nowrap">it:—</span>“The excision of females is a peculiarity with which
-the northern nations are less familiar; yet it would
-appear that this usage is more evidently founded on physical
-causes, and is more clearly a matter of convenience,
-than the circumcision of males, as it seems not to have
-been ordained by the precept of any inspired writer.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_18'>18</span>“This excision is termed in Arabic ‘<i>chafadh</i>.’ It consists
-of cutting off the clitoris a little before the period
-of puberty, or at about the age of <i>eight</i> or <i>nine</i> years.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Again, the Nubian traveller<a id='r5'></a><a href='#f5' class='c010'><sup>[5]</sup></a> <i>Burckhardt</i> tells us—“The
-daughters of the Arabs <i>Ababde</i>, and <i>Djaafere</i>,
-who are of Arabian origin, and inhabit the western bank
-of the Nile from Thebes, as high as the cataracts, and
-generally those of all the people to the south of <i>Kenne</i>
-and <i>Esne</i> (as far as Sennaar) undergo circumcision, or
-rather <i>excision</i> (excisio-clitoridis,) at the age of from
-<i>three</i> to <i>six</i> years: Girls thus treated are called
-<i>mukhaeyt</i>.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>But perhaps the most trustworthy account of the circumcision
-of females in Western Africa is that given by
-the late Mr. W. F. Daniel, who was a distinguished
-member of our own profession. He tells us that “The
-excisive process in Western Africa is variously performed
-in accordance with the usages of the different
-districts where it is resorted to. The operation consists
-either <span class="nowrap">of:—</span></p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“1. Simple excision of the clitoris; 2. excision of
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_19'>19</span>the nymphæ; 3. excision of both nymphæ and clitoris;
-4. excision of a portion of the labia pudendi, with
-either or all of the preceding structures.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“The history of the operation is involved in obscurity;
-that it was secretly inculcated as one of those
-gloomy rites which the female proselyte had to undergo,
-as a preliminary measure, prior to her initiation into
-those dread mythological creeds, which, in Egypt and
-the adjoining countries were swathed in the folds of an
-allegorical and almost impenetrable mysticism, is the
-most likely inference.” <i>Eventually</i> the progressive
-decay of the religious institutions, gradually led to its
-promulgation and practice among the masses of the
-people; for the <i>priests</i>, who, independent of their scientific
-attainments, were also well versed in medicine,
-might have advocated its use both in a moral and
-hygienic point of view, as conducive to the welfare of
-the female population.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>I have been led into this digression by reflecting over
-the barbarous and unphilosophical meddling of certain
-practitioners of our metropolis who are, in effect, degrading
-our practice of surgery to the level of that of
-the savages we have just described, without possessing
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_20'>20</span>the same claim to our consideration on the score of
-ignorance, barbarism, and superstition. The modern
-antic yclept “<i>clitoridectomy</i>” (to which I refer), is, as
-the “Lancet” says, “a proceeding which, if it be
-<i>useless</i>, is a <i>lamentable mistake</i>, and if it be <i>unnecessary</i>,
-<i>a cruel outrage</i>.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The next proposition we may fairly look for will be
-to imitate still further the customs of these Western
-Africans who, in certain tribes, whenever a girl shows
-any very strong indication of sexual feeling (before she
-is betrothed), at once proceed to produce an obliteration
-of her vagina by the intense inflammatory action
-set up by the forcible introduction of a mass of the
-“capsicum fructescens,” or bird pepper—to my mind
-not one shade more inhuman or barbarous than unsexing
-a woman for ever, upon an assumption which
-grossly libels our female population.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The position taken by the early Christians in reference
-to the practice of circumcision was decidedly antagonistic,
-so far as any value, in a <i>religious</i> point of view,
-should be ascribed to it; nevertheless, their apostles
-and teachers permitted it to continue, at the discretion
-or inclination of those who chose to submit to it.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_21'>21</span>It is an interesting fact to note that the Copts, whose
-Christianity dates back from the persecution of Diocletian
-(called the era of martyrs) in 303, and the
-Abyssinian Christians, who also reckon from the fourth
-century, adopt the custom to this day, from a belief
-that it gives them a further chance of entering Paradise,
-beyond the baptism they receive as Christians. It
-is also singular that these sects accept several other
-doctrines and precepts of the Mohammedans and Jews,
-among whom they dwell.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The precise mode of operating upon males varies in
-different countries. In Madagascar three separate and
-distinct operations are inflicted upon the individual.
-In the South Sea Islands the natives simply slit up the
-prepuce on its dorsal aspect, and in earlier times the
-practice was to cut the prepuce all round the corona,
-avoiding the frœnum. In the Fiji Islands the instrument
-used is a sharp splinter of bamboo.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Upon females the process of excision is performed by
-aged women. In Egypt the custom is still maintained;
-and the women of the <i>Said</i> travel about from town to
-village, crying out “Circumcisor! who wants a circumcisor?”
-In Old Calabar, Mr. Daniel had the
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_22'>22</span>opportunity of witnessing the operation, which is likewise
-performed <i>there</i> by aged females. The girl having been
-placed on the knees of a woman, with the legs apart,
-the clitoris was seized, <i>forceps-like</i>, by two pieces of
-bamboo or palm-sticks, and being gently drawn forth,
-was severed with a sharp razor.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Among the Jews the peculiar and distinctive mark
-of circumcision is perpetuated in our days, and without
-any material change of ceremonial. The <i>modus operandi</i>
-is as <span class="nowrap">follows:—</span>The godfather being seated, takes the
-child on his knees, and the operator (who may be the
-father of the child, if capable, or some friend of the
-family, or a professed expert) takes up with his fingers,
-or a pair of tweezers, as much of the prepuce as he
-intends to cut off, and, on applying the knife, says—“Blessed
-be Thou, O God, who hast commanded us to
-use circumcision.” He then sucks the blood, and spits
-it into a cup of wine, and having applied styptics to the
-wound, retakes the cup, and having blessed <i>it</i> and the
-child, pronounces the name of the child, and moistens
-his lips with the contents of the cup. Various prayers
-are then said, and the ceremony is concluded.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Though the modern Jews generally use a steel
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_23'>23</span>instrument, there is this remarkable exception—that, when a
-male child dies before the eighth day, it is circumcised
-prior to burial, and this is done, not with the ordinary
-instrument, but with a fragment of glass or flint.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The practice extended to the Ishmaelites, and, as we
-have already stated, was subsequently adopted by
-Mahomet, so that a very large section of the human
-race are to this day, participators of a rite established
-considerably more than 3000 years ago.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The subject cannot be dismissed without noticing the
-fact that the Jews under their various captivities,
-subjugations, and persecutions, endeavoured, in some
-instances, to obliterate the marks of circumcision. This
-is abundantly proved, not only by contemporary writers,
-but by the evidence of Epiphanius, Celsus, Galen,
-Paulus Ægineta, Fallopius, and others, who have
-enlarged upon the means adopted for the accomplishment
-of this object. It is, further, a noteworthy circumstance
-that the Jews <i>entirely</i> suspended the practice
-of circumcision during the forty years of their wanderings
-in the wilderness.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>In contemplating the sufferings of this unfortunate
-race, the heart sickens at the punishments which
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_24'>24</span>resulted from their resistance to foreign usurpation.
-Unable to discern the hand of God in their humiliation,
-their struggles were, indeed, hopeless, but not the less
-heroic. Captives in Babylon, after a long and cruel
-servitude, they were restored only to be again scattered
-by the destruction of Jerusalem, under Titus. Through
-the varying fortunes of the Romans, no resting-place
-seems to have been vouchsafed to them; plundered and
-disgraced, the fall of Rome only eventuated, as far as
-<i>they</i> were concerned, in a change of masters. Ruthless
-persecutors tracked them through the dark ages, and
-what Heathenism spared, Christianity despoiled; our
-pious ancestors praising God when they had a chance
-of maltreating an Israelite.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>For these reasons, and with such incentives, can we
-doubt that the timid amongst them would endeavour to
-remove the means of identity which circumcision afforded.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>We have so refined away the simplicity of the patriarchal
-times, that it is almost necessary to apologise
-for alluding to the reverential awe with which all
-matters relating to the seed of Abraham were regarded.
-It was a solemn and impressive act when
-the Patriarch, believing that the time was come for
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_25'>25</span>his son Isaac to have a wife, sent for his chief servant,
-and said, “Put, I pray thee, thy hand under my thigh,
-and swear by the Lord that thou wilt choose a wife for
-my son out of mine own kindred;” and the servant,
-with his hand on his master’s genitals, took the required
-oath; and we all know how faithfully he performed
-it. Whilst this simple, but deeply significant
-ceremony was being enacted, the heart of the father of
-the faithful was doubtless filled with contemplations of
-the great purposes for the accomplishment of which
-the organs of generation were appropriately considered
-as the direct agents.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>This mode of taking the oath is further adverted to
-in the 47th chapter of Genesis, when Jacob is taking
-his farewell of his children.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>In our blind adoration of classical heathenism we
-undervalue the sublime and not less poetical incidents
-which mark the rise, progress, culmination, and decay
-of that people with whom our highest interests are
-identified. If, for instance, the Book of Job had not
-been written under inspiration, and had been accidentally
-discovered among the ruins of the <i>first</i> Babylon, our
-antiquarians would have regarded it as the loftiest of
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_26'>26</span>epics; and especially so if, instead of inculcating the
-worship of the true God, its subject had been the
-glorification of whatever false deity might have been
-in the ascendant when this most ancient poem was
-composed.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The prejudices of education subjugate the judgment,
-and the gross and sensual attributes with which the
-Greek poets invested their deities, are accepted with
-complacency, if not with admiration; even Pope, their
-great panegyrist, describes their heroes <span class="nowrap">thus:—</span></p>
-
-<div class='lg-container-b c003'>
- <div class='linegroup'>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>“Gods, partial, changeful, profligate, unjust,</div>
- <div class='line in1'>Whose attributes were <i>rage</i>, <i>revenge</i>, and <i>lust</i>.”</div>
- </div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c008'>This, of course, will be set down for rank blasphemy
-against the canons of taste. We are exuberant in our
-praises of the <i>genius</i> of Homer, and not to worship his
-<i>inventive</i> powers is an offence of the deepest dye; but
-when we are barbarous enough to critically examine
-this wonderful mythology, and to determine the claims
-to applause—say of supreme Jove—we are rather
-troubled by the difficulty of reconciling the ways of
-the first intelligence with our commonplace notions of
-decency. The intrigues of the father of the gods, the
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_27'>27</span>artifices by which he eludes the jealousy of his wife
-Juno, his incestuous, and, if they were not classical,
-we should call them filthy debaucheries, draw largely
-upon our faith in the beauties of these records of high
-Olympus; and our admiration for the poet is sadly tinctured
-with disgust for the images in which his creative
-powers are developed.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Thus much of the ceremonial laws. Of the moral
-law, the law of God, it becomes me not to speak; its
-obligations are as eternal as its author; the everlasting
-truths of the decalogue have been incorporated more or
-less into every system of religion and ethics which has
-been enunciated during the ages interposing between
-us and the period in which they were first promulgated
-on Mount Sinai.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>In dismissing Moses and his times, I crave your
-particular attention to the manner in which the characters
-of priest and physician met in the same person.
-As we proceed we shall find that this junction of attributes
-continues through all the variations of time
-and circumstances. The terrors of the <i>unseen</i>, overawing
-the ignorant, placed them at the mercy of those daring
-minds which in every age have assumed the office of
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_28'>28</span>interpreters of the will of the <i>demon</i>, or the behests of
-the benign Deity. To deal as a mediator between the
-threats of the terrible avenger and the awe-stricken
-victim of his own bewildered imagination, to avert the
-consequences of the threatened storm, or to turn aside
-any other manifestation of approaching evil is the office
-of the <i>medicine-man</i> of the North American Indian and
-the <i>Obeah</i> doctor of the African. Shrewd observers of
-nature, these wretched impostors monopolize the whole
-of the intelligence, such as it is, of the hordes of the
-human race upon whom the light of reason has never
-dawned, or has dawned in vain.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>There is yet another aspect of the medical character,
-infinitely more agreeable and important, and the consideration
-of it will bring us to the times immediately
-preceding the days of the father of medicine. I do not
-propose to penetrate into the story of Esculapius and
-his divine origin, which probably, in an esoteric sense,
-merely meant that the Giver of all good had inspired
-him with a knowledge of the healing art; but (with a
-passing glance at Homer, the greatest poet of his own
-or any subsequent age), proceed to offer some general
-observations on the position which the study of medicine
-acquired under the tutorship of the philosophers.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_29'>29</span>The siege of Troy is supposed to have taken place
-about three hundred years before the <i>Iliad</i> was sung,
-and in that early time it appears that the cultivation of
-our art formed part of the general education of kings
-and warriors.<a id='r6'></a><a href='#f6' class='c010'><sup>[6]</sup></a></p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Homer introduces us to Machaon the son of
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_30'>30</span>Esculapius, who, when Menelaus was treacherously wounded
-by Pandarus, is called to his aid:</p>
-
-<div class='lg-container-b c003'>
- <div class='linegroup'>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>“When the wound appeared in sight, where struck</div>
- <div class='line in1'>The stinging arrow, from the clotted blood</div>
- <div class='line in1'>He cleansed it, and applied with skilful hand</div>
- <div class='line in1'>The healing ointments, which, in friendly guise,</div>
- <div class='line in1'>The learned <i>Chiron</i> to his father gave.”<a id='r7'></a><a href='#f7' class='c010'><sup>[7]</sup></a></div>
- </div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c008'>Making due allowance for the debasing fable with
-which every great name or talent is overlaid, it is
-rational to suppose that Chiron, the teacher of Esculapius,
-was one of those shepherd philosophers, who like
-their Babylonian brethren absorbed all the knowledge
-of the times; but Homer gives us other examples in
-support of this idea. Chiron was the preceptor of
-Achilles, and when Machaon is himself wounded, Patroclus
-is sent by Achilles to his assistance; on his
-arrival he is urged by Eurypylus, to</p>
-
-<div class='lg-container-b c003'>
- <div class='linegroup'>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>“Draw the deadly dart,</div>
- <div class='line in1'>With luke-warm water wash the gore away:</div>
- <div class='line in1'>With healing balm the raging smart allay,</div>
- <div class='line in1'>Such as sage <i>Chiron</i>, sire of pharmacy,</div>
- <div class='line in1'>Once taught Achilles, and Achilles thee.”—<i>Pope.</i></div>
- </div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_31'>31</span>He also complains that</p>
-
-<div class='lg-container-b c003'>
- <div class='linegroup'>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>“Of two great <i>surgeons</i>, Podalirius stands</div>
- <div class='line in1'>This hour surrounded by the Trojan bands,</div>
- <div class='line in1'>And great <i>Machaon</i> wounded in his tent</div>
- <div class='line in1'>Now wants the succour which so oft he lent.”</div>
- </div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c009'>Then</p>
-
-<div class='lg-container-b c003'>
- <div class='linegroup'>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>“Patroclus cut the forky steel away,</div>
- <div class='line in1'>And in his hand a bitter root he pressed,</div>
- <div class='line in1'>The wound he washed and styptic juice infused,</div>
- <div class='line in1'>The closing flesh that instant ceased to glow,</div>
- <div class='line in1'>The wound to torture and the blood to flow.”</div>
- </div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c009'>Machaon seems to have largely shared the goodwill of
-the Grecian hosts. Nestor, in his anxiety, <span class="nowrap">says:—</span></p>
-
-<div class='lg-container-b c003'>
- <div class='linegroup'>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line in1'>A wise Physician skilled in wounds to heal,</div>
- <div class='line in1'>Is more than <i>armies</i> to the public weal.</div>
- </div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c009'>Military leaders in our days have no such weakness as
-this. Studied neglect seems to them the befitting
-recompense of those on whom they must necessarily
-rely for the health and sanitary welfare of their troops.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>As we are still in the age of fable, it may not be out
-of place to notice with what tenacity the human mind
-clings to those delusions which fear engenders, and
-weak hopes sustain: with all our boasted
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_32'>32</span>enlightenment, the <i>marvellous</i> and the <i>incredible</i> have more
-worshippers than the <i>real</i> and the <i>true</i>. Let us not
-wonder then, that the pure monotheism enunciated in
-the Holy Scriptures had so little charm for the sensuous
-and imaginative Greeks. Socrates, who, by the
-simple force of reason and philosophy had reached the
-very portals of the temple in which was enshrined the
-idea of the unity of God, in his <i>last hour</i> “sacrifices
-a cock to Esculapius.” The reputed offspring of an
-impure deity, History is unhappily more abundant in
-records of human folly and superstition, than in examples
-of purity of thought and action—simplicity is
-everywhere despised—facts are distorted or made subservient
-to sensations; for <span class="nowrap">example:—</span>It is not enough
-to tell us that Chiron was skilled in physic, but to suit
-the depraved appetites of the vulgar he is a <i>centaur</i>,
-and Esculapius a <i>god</i>. It is therefore with something
-like relief that the name of Hippocrates comes before
-us, for in him we have a <i>reality</i>, and in his works a
-remarkable record of the condition of medical science
-in the fifth century before Christ. He was born at Cos,
-a small island off the coast of Caria, not in Greece
-proper, in the first year of the 80th Olympiad.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_33'>33</span>Hippocrates was descended from Esculapius by his
-father’s side, and from Hercules by his mother’s, and
-was the son of Heraclides, a physician of the family
-of the Asclepiadæ, who furnish us with the very
-earliest instance of a body of philosophers devoting
-themselves to the healing art; for, although Pythagoras,
-who lived immediately before Hippocrates, and
-Democritus, who was his contemporary, were both
-learned physicians, yet, whatever fame they acquired,
-was ascribed to their powers as mental philosophers
-and rhetoricians.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>It has been urged by way of apology for the mystery
-in which the philosophers shrouded their wisdom, that
-“science, like modesty, should cover itself with a veil
-to increase the charms of the treasure it conceals;”
-and this principle has been, throughout all ages, more
-generally acted upon than avowed.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The character of Hippocrates is at once a study for
-the physician and the moralist; the former will appreciate
-the astonishing evidences which his works afford,
-of a deep acquaintance with the whole subject of medicine,
-and his admiration will be increased by the remembrance
-that all the principles laid down by this
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_34'>34</span>great and good man, were the results of his own experience.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>No treatises on disease existed anterior to his time
-to aid him in his investigations of the phenomena of
-nature, although it is true that in the Asclepion or
-temple of Esculapius at Cos, records were kept and
-votive tablets preserved commemorative of cures performed,
-and of the remedies by which they were
-effected. But if the physician admires his talents,
-the moralist does honour to the qualities of his mind
-and the goodness of his heart. Benevolent and disinterested,
-pious towards the gods, and incorruptibly
-devoted to his country, he instructed his <a id='corr34.13'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='original: fellow-men'>fellow men</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_34.13'>fellow men</a></span>,
-not by shedding maudlin tears over their follies, like
-Heraclides, nor by the coarse laughter of his friend
-Democritus, but by a calm and even walk of life, mitigating
-sorrow by his skill, and showing the form and
-beauty of virtue by his example.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>His portrait of a worthy physician may well serve for
-his own likeness, and in its description we shall observe
-that the exalted principles of professional ethics therein
-inculcated, are as strictly applicable to our own times
-as they were to those which he himself enlightened
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_35'>35</span>and adorned. His words <span class="nowrap">are:—</span>“The physician who is
-an honour to his profession, is he who has merited the
-public esteem by profound knowledge, long experience,
-consummate integrity, and irreproachable life; who,
-esteeming all the wretched as equals in the eyes of the
-Divine Being, hastens to their assistance, speaks with
-mildness, listens with attention, bears with their impatience,
-and inspires that confidence which sometimes
-of itself restores life; sensibly alive to their sufferings,
-carefully studies the causes and progress of the complaint;
-not disconcerted by unforseen accidents, but,
-in emergencies, having exhausted his own resources,
-holds it a duty to call in his brethren of the healing
-art to assist him with their advice. Having struggled
-with all his strength against the malady, he is happy
-and modest in success, and in failure congratulates
-himself that he has, at least, alleviated the sufferings
-of his patient.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>One of the great obstacles to the advancement of
-anatomy and physiology was the universal reverence
-for the dead which the Greeks and Romans shared in
-common with all the people of antiquity. Among the
-Jews, to touch a dead body exposed the offender to a
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_36'>36</span>penance of seven days’ exclusion and privation from
-the ordinary comforts of life; and it is almost superfluous
-to add, that the Egyptians made this reverence
-a part of their religion.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>He, then, who ventured on the dissection of the
-human body, did so at great personal risk, and for
-more than 600 years after the foundation of Rome,
-no instance is known of the existence of any public
-professor of anatomy. About that time Archagathus,
-a Greek, practised surgery in Rome; and it appears
-that his use of the knife, and the actual cautery, was
-so abhorrent to the general feeling, that he was saluted
-with the opprobrious title of “Carnifex.” Even in
-later days the learned Tertullian classed anatomists
-and butchers together in a philippic he pronounced
-against Herophilus, whom he charged with having
-tried experiments on the living body. He <span class="nowrap">commences:—</span>“Herophilus,
-the physician, or butcher,
-whichever you please, who to become better acquainted
-with men, ripped them up alive,” &#38;c. &#38;c.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Of this same Herophilus, who appears to have been
-a man of humour, as well as genius, there is an excellent
-story <span class="nowrap">told:—</span>A certain <i>Diodorus</i>, a contemporary
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_37'>37</span>philosopher and teacher of paradoxes, declared that there
-was no such thing as <i>motion</i>. “If a body <i>moves</i>,” says
-he, “it moves into the place where it <i>is</i>, <i>or</i> into the
-place where it <i>is not</i>; now it does not move into the
-place where it <i>is</i>, for what is <i>in</i> a place <i>remains</i> there,
-and, consequently, one cannot say that <i>it moves</i>. It
-also cannot move in a place where <i>it is not</i>; and therefore,
-it does not move at all.” This acute gentleman
-having dislocated his arm, begged the services of Herophilus,
-who, smiling, <span class="nowrap">said:—</span>“Either the bone of your
-arm is moved into the place where it <i>was</i>, or into the
-place where it <i>was not</i>; now it cannot move, according
-to your principles, either in one place or another, consequently
-it is not displaced at all.” The poor teacher
-of paradoxes saw that Herophilus was laughing at him,
-and in an agony cried <span class="nowrap">out:—</span>“Leave, I pray you, <i>dialectics</i>
-and <i>sophisms</i> to me, and treat me according to
-the laws of medicine.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The inference that dissection was not openly allowed,
-will be strengthened by a short reference to the subject
-of the embalmment of the dead—the first mention of this
-custom is found in the 50th Chapter of Genesis; where,
-at the second verse, we <span class="nowrap">read:—</span>That “Joseph
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_38'>38</span>commanded his servants, the physicians, to embalm his
-father, and the physicians embalmed Israel;” and at
-26th verse of the same chapter it is <span class="nowrap">written:—</span>“So
-Joseph died, being an hundred and ten years old, and
-they embalmed him.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The Egyptians believed that so long as the human
-body could be saved from putrefaction or decay, the
-soul of that body continued in existence; and from
-this feeling arose the custom of embalming, so common
-in remote ages. The embalmer was, in a certain
-sense, a <i>sacred</i> functionary; nevertheless, it was the
-fashion to make a show of resistance, when he began
-his operation, in order to mark the innate horror of
-any, however necessary, profanation of the dead body.
-Herodotus relates that in Egypt the mummy embalmers
-made the incision in the side of the corpse with a sharp
-æthiopic stone. Of these stones two varieties have
-been found in the tombs in Egypt, both of chipped
-flint, and very neatly made. One kind is like a very
-small cleaver; the other has more of the character of a
-lancet. The account given by Diodorus Siculus of the
-resistance offered to the embalmer is, as <span class="nowrap">follows:—</span>“And
-first, the body being laid on the ground, he
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_39'>39</span>who is called the scribe marks on its left side how far
-the incision is to be made; then the so-called slitter
-(paraschistes) having an æthiopic stone, and cutting
-the flesh as far as the law allows, instantly runs off,
-the bystanders pursuing him, and pelting him with
-stones, cursing him, and, as it were, turning the horror
-of the deed upon him, for he who hurts a citizen is
-held worthy of abhorrence.”<a id='r8'></a><a href='#f8' class='c010'><sup>[8]</sup></a> Immediately after death
-the corpse was put into the hands of the embalmer,
-who in the presence of the friends of the deceased,
-made an incision into the left side, as above described,
-through which he extracted all the intestines, leaving
-the heart and kidneys; the intestines were then washed
-in palm wine, and a solution of astringent gums. The
-<i>brain</i> was removed through the nostrils by means of a
-hooked instrument, contrived for the purpose, and the
-cavity filled with aromatic oils. The body was now
-anointed with spice-oils and balsamic gums (frankincense
-being prohibited), and allowed to remain for
-thirty days, after which it was immersed in a solution
-of nitre for from forty to seventy days (the latter being
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_40'>40</span>the extreme limit allowed); it was then enveloped in
-aromatised cere-cloths, and all being ready, consigned
-to the coffin, on which were painted emblems indicative
-of the condition of the deceased. The process is said
-to have cost £300 of our money, and was, of course,
-only applicable to the rich. The fee for embalmment
-alone, varied from a <i>Talent</i> (which has been estimated
-by some as equivalent to £193 15s., and by others to
-£243 15s. of our present money) to a <i>Mina</i>, in value
-about £3 4s. 7d.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The embalmment of the middle classes was, in some
-degree, regulated by their means; the simplest form
-being, the destruction of the intestines with strong oil
-of tar, and after their removal soaking the body in a
-strong solution of nitre for a period not exceeding
-seventy days.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Some have ascribed the practice of embalming to the
-fact of the periodical inundations of the Nile rendering
-interment impossible at such seasons, and hence have
-thought that necessity had quite as much to do with
-the custom as the religious principle: but this idea is
-not well founded, for although the Nile continues to
-overflow, embalmings have ceased for ages.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_41'>41</span>After Hippocrates the name of Aristotle comes
-before us. Aristotle, the pupil and friend of the
-venerable Plato, whose doctrines he adopted and developed,
-lectured at Athens 370 years before Christ.
-As a physician and naturalist he was far in advance
-of his contemporaries, and as a mathematician and
-moral philosopher, his transcendent learning was, for
-ages, the theme of every scholar; and his “System
-of the Universe” adopted by the whole of the civilized
-world. These great qualities attracted the attention
-of Philip of Macedonia, who chose him as the
-tutor of his son Alexander (the Great). Ignorance
-and superstition were, however, omnipotent, and for
-having enunciated the doctrine of one God, and a
-supreme first cause, the priests of the various temples
-seeing their craft in danger, excited the populace, who
-threatened his life. Warned by the fate of Socrates,
-he retired to Chalcis to wear away a life embittered
-by personal suffering, and sorrow for the folly and ingratitude
-of his countrymen.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The heart’s deepest feelings are roused at the remembrance
-of the deeds of violence perpetrated against
-every benefactor of mankind who has had the courage
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_42'>42</span>to promulgate truths beyond the comprehension of the
-vulgar on the one hand, and opposed to the vested
-interest of established errors on the other. The fate
-of Aristotle is a common result, not confined to the
-dark ages, nor without examples amongst ourselves.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The learned Philo of Alexandria, who lived <span class="nowrap"><span class='fss'>A.D.</span> 40,</span>
-has given us an interesting account of the very remarkable
-sect living in Egypt in his day, known as
-the “Theraputæ,” or “healers.” He describes them
-as a confraternity who, after having received a special
-training in the University of Alexandria, devoted themselves
-to the healing art; they led a secluded, contemplative
-life, and laid the foundation of the monastic
-system. Eusebius calls them Christians, but this is
-not confirmed by Philo, who was a member of the
-sect; they were, probably, Platonists, or philosophical
-pagans. They ascribed their cures to prayers, fastings,
-and incantations, eschewed all material remedies, and
-medicaments, but made free use of magical rites of
-both forms—the leucomancy, or white magic, used in
-invoking the gods, and necromancy when the demons
-were to be propitiated or coerced. St. Luke, before
-his conversion, is supposed to have been a Therapeut;
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_43'>43</span>and St. Paul denounces some of their errors. Of their
-faults we cannot judge, but we may admire the benevolence
-with which they devoted themselves alike to
-the physical and moral welfare of their fellow men—in
-this respect, no unworthy forerunners of Him who
-commanded his disciples, not only to “instruct the
-ignorant,” but to “heal the sick.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>We pass over three centuries to come to the time
-of Celsus, who, in the reign of Tiberius and the first
-century of our Lord, was established at Rome; where
-he acquired great honour and renown. To these he
-was fairly entitled by the extent of his learning and
-the especial attention he paid to surgery and medicine.
-His principles governed the medical world without a
-rival until the time of Galen, who divided the empire
-with him for centuries.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Celsus was the first native Roman physician whose
-name has been transmitted to us: the practice of
-medicine and surgery being, prior to his time, in the
-hands of eminent Greeks and Asiatics, excepting that
-there existed in Rome (at that period) a race of native
-practitioners, who belonged to the class of slaves<a id='r9'></a><a href='#f9' class='c010'><sup>[9]</sup></a> or
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_44'>44</span>persons of low degree; and to whom were entrusted
-only the subordinate branches of the healing art.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The great proficiency of Celsus on the subjects of
-rhetoric, philosophy, military tactics, and rural economy,
-as mentioned by Quintilian, has induced many
-of our older writers to doubt whether he ever really
-practised medicine and surgery, or, whether, like the
-elder Cato, he simply studied them as a branch of
-general knowledge; and this scepticism has been
-favoured by the fact of his name being omitted by
-Pliny, in his “Treatise on the History of Medicine.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>On the other hand, no one, I think, can rise from
-the perusal of his celebrated work, “De Medicina,”
-without being thoroughly convinced that his intimate
-acquaintance with the theory and practice of medicine,
-surgery, and pharmacy, could only have resulted from
-close bedside observation.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Galen was born at Pergamos, in Asia, in the second
-century; his learning was great, and his literary labours
-enormous. Having traversed Egypt and Greece, and
-acquired a knowledge of every science taught in the
-schools there, he settled in Rome. His works have
-been estimated at over 300 volumes—medical,
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_45'>45</span>physical, and metaphysical. He practised bleeding more
-frequently than his predecessors, but he gave very
-careful directions as to the conditions under which
-venesection should be resorted to, as well as to the
-quantity of blood to be taken.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Averroes, Avicenna, and other Arabian physicians
-held him in great veneration; and Dr. Alison <span class="nowrap">says:—</span>
-“For centuries after his death his doctrines and tenets
-were regarded in the light of oracles, which few persons
-had the courage to oppose; and the authority of
-Galen alone was estimated at a much higher rate than
-that of all the medical writers combined, who flourished
-during a period of more than twelve centuries.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Rome, in its decadence, was too much occupied with
-the intrigues and villainies of the factions by which it
-was ultimately destroyed, to spare any time for the
-culture of science. It was not until after the total
-disappearance of the Eastern Empire, and the hollow
-tranquillity which succeeded the triumphs of Mahomet,
-and the subsequent subjugation of Spain by the Moors,
-that learning reared its head in Alexandria, and the
-Arabian physicians came into view.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Although Greece had disappeared, even in the
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_46'>46</span>noonday of its glory, its literature never possessed more
-devoted admirers, nor more faithful exponents than
-are to be found among the Arabian philosophers,
-and yet what a striking contrast is exhibited in the
-characters of the two people. Whilst making the
-philosophy of Greece their own, they by no means lost
-their distinctiveness and individuality. The Greeks
-delighted in all that was brilliant and fascinating, like
-the beautiful scenery of Attica and Asia Minor. The
-Arabs were thoughtful and grave, monotonous and
-arid, like the deserts they inhabited. The genius of
-poetry illumined all the meditations of the former,
-and their thoughts were graceful, even in their errors;
-whilst the reflections of the latter were dull and melancholy,
-albeit they were based on truths.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>A dreary night now ensues—we have no name of
-note until Paulus Ægineta in 640—but what a series
-of historically grand events interpose: The invasion
-of Europe by the Huns—Division of the Roman Empire—Taking
-of Rome by Alaric—Visigoths established
-in Spain—Saxon heptarchy begun—Conquest of Italy
-by Totila—Birth of Mahomet, down to the taking of
-Alexandria by the Arabs—Greece and Rome having
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_47'>47</span>virtually disappeared; and our next author (Paulus)
-probably present at the burning of the great library of
-the Ptolemies.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Paulus Ægineta is entitled to our homage, as the
-author of an abridgment of the works of Galen, and
-many excellent treatises on medical subjects, especially
-on those incident to childbed, and the diseases
-of women; he was the first writer upon <i>small-pox</i> and
-<i>measles</i>, and the originator of the theory of <i>zymosis</i>,
-which has received so much attention of late. Paulus
-died about the middle of the seventh century, and with
-him expired the last of the Greek writers upon medicine.
-His labours have been thought worthy of being
-translated by the Sydenham Society.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Avicenna, who lived in the year 980, deserves a
-fuller notice than we can afford him; his works are
-said to present great clearness and acuteness. At the
-early age of eighteen he was chosen Physician to the
-Court of the Caliph of Bagdad, where for some offence
-he was imprisoned, and ultimately died. He has been
-called the “Hippocrates of the Arabs.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Rhazes was contemporary with Avicenna, and has
-attracted the respectful attention of the lovers of
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_48'>48</span>ancient medicine. His most esteemed work is a
-treatise on small-pox, which was translated by Dr.
-Mead in 1548.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>I will conclude these sketches of the Arabian schoolmen
-with a brief notice of Averroes, the most eminent
-of <span class="nowrap">them:—</span></p>
-
-<p class='c008'>This profound scholar was born at Cordova, in Spain,
-of which city his father was the alcade, about the year
-1120. He was educated in Morocco, then in its glory,
-and in the celebrated schools there studied law, philosophy,
-and medicine. His admiration for Aristotle was
-unbounded, and his unwearied application to the examination
-of that great man’s works, secured for him
-the reputation of being the ablest commentator on the
-Aristotelian philosophy. He rose to the dignity of a
-judge in Morocco, but the freedom of his opinions
-being in advance of the age, he was imprisoned for
-some years, and only released on recanting his errors;
-he died 1206, during the Caliphate of Almanzer.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The glories of the Moorish power now began to wane,
-and after repeated discomfitures in 1516, that intelligent
-and highly civilized people were finally expelled
-by Ferdinand the Catholic: the cross triumphs—the
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_49'>49</span>crescent retires, and takes with it all that is admirable
-in arts, or humanizing in science; the Spaniard has
-chased away Mahomet, and receives the Inquisition as
-the first-fruits of his conquest.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The war against opinion was carried on so vigorously
-that Copernicus, whose acute perception had discovered
-the errors of Aristotle’s theory of heavenly bodies,
-was fiercely denounced. Copernicus was born in Westphalia
-in 1473, he studied at Cracow, where he received
-the degree of Doctor of Medicine; at Bologna his piercing
-genius discovered that the sun was the centre of
-the planetary system, that the earth was a planet and
-revolved round the sun like other planets, and thus
-was first made known the true system of the universe.
-These discoveries being distasteful to the church, the
-Pope issued a sentence of excommunication; and the
-great astronomer died with a heart oppressed by such
-unmerited persecution.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>These discoveries were further pursued by another
-learned physician, Galileo, who was born at Pisa in
-1564. He entered the university there in 1581, and
-prosecuted his studies with such zeal and success, that
-in a very few years he became Professor of
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_50'>50</span>Mathematics. He now began his career as a teacher of
-the philosophy of Copernicus, and soon received unpleasant
-evidences that the disciple of truth must be
-ready to suffer. A congregation of cardinals, monks,
-and mathematicians of the old school, determined that
-his works were heretical and dangerous, and the holy
-inquisition sentenced him to prison. After remaining
-incarcerated some months he was taken before his
-judges, and required to renounce his errors, and with
-his hand upon the Gospel, to swear that they were
-sinful and detestable. Having performed this horrid
-penance, his conscience upbraided him, and as he rose
-from his knees, he exclaimed, “yet it does move,”
-for which relapse he was further sentenced to perpetual
-imprisonment. He continued thus secluded for many
-years, during which time blindness, deafness, and pains
-in his limbs embittered his existence, and death at
-length, more merciful than the Holy See, released him
-from his trials. Newton was born in the year in which
-this noble martyr died.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>For the edification of the worshippers of the “good
-old times,” a few more instances of the loving kindness
-which prevailed may be acceptable.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_51'>51</span>The clerical sages of the University of Salamanca
-pronounced that the assertion of Christopher Columbus,
-that a continent existed beyond the seas, was
-blasphemous and feloniously wicked. A bishop of
-Salsburg expressing his belief in the existence of the
-antipodes was denounced by the bishop of Mentz as a
-dangerous heretic, and committed to the flames.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Bigotry, however, is not confined to any one creed,
-since we know that Calvin the reformer, a man who had
-suffered persecution without learning mercy, no sooner
-found himself invested with the power to punish the
-freedom of thought in which he had himself indulged,
-than he persecuted to death the learned physician,
-Michael Servetus, not for any immoral proclivity, but
-because he believed him to be unsound on the doctrine
-of the Trinity. Servetus took the degree of Doctor of
-Medicine at the University of Paris about the year
-1535. He is the author of some medical treatises on
-the circulation of the blood, and also translated Ptolemy’s
-geography; he was for some time in constant
-correspondence with Calvin, but as the “Odium theologicum”
-is the bitterest, Calvin shewed his christian
-charity by causing his antagonist to be consigned to
-the flames.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_52'>52</span>But I must hasten forward, Fallopius looms in the
-distance, and with him our medical celebrities come
-fast and numerous. Gabriel Fallopius was born at
-Modena about the year 1523, and was one of the great
-triad of anatomists in Italy who, at the close of the
-16th century, laid the foundation of the modern science
-of anatomy. Fallopius succeeded Vesalius in the
-chair of anatomy and surgery at Padua in 1557. His
-career was brilliant but short, and he died in 1562. It
-should be mentioned that Fallopius shared the usual
-fate of great discoverers; his originality was disputed,
-and his learning questioned; but it has been always
-so, and in appreciating the works of our predecessors,
-we must keep in view the enormous difficulties by
-which every onward step, whether in art or science,
-is beset:</p>
-
-<div class='lg-container-b c003'>
- <div class='linegroup'>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>“Envy doth merit, as its shade pursue.”</div>
- </div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c009'>truth does indeed ultimately prevail, but too frequently
-the heart of the discoverer is broken before
-the obtuseness of the mediocrities in power, by whom
-it is obstructed, can be overcome.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Although a little diverging from the strict chronological
-order, I must here introduce to you our old
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_53'>53</span>acquaintance, Paracelsus; this eccentric genius had
-too little virtue to be admired, and too much talent
-to be despised. He was born at Zurich, in Switzerland,
-in 1493, and was consequently contemporary
-with many more learned, but less celebrated men;
-an unblushing and presumptuous egotist, he presents
-himself, in a moral point of view, as the exact antithesis
-of the amiable and virtuous Hippocrates. That
-he made some very useful discoveries must be granted
-to him; he introduced the use of opium into Germany,
-and was the first practitioner who employed preparations
-of mercury, antimony, sulphur, iron, and other
-remedies.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Van Helmont is the most indulgent of his biographers,
-and Lord Bacon the most severe; but
-perhaps the description given by Zimmerman comes
-nearest the truth—“Paracelsus burnt publicly at <i>Bàle</i>
-the works of Galen, Avicenna, and other eminent
-predecessors, because, he said, ‘they knew nothing
-of the cabballa and magic,’ which lay at the root of
-all medical and natural laws. He undertook to cure
-all diseases by the use of certain words and charms.
-He enjoined secresy on his disciples, and certainly
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_54'>54</span>was the first <i>great quack</i> from whom the numerous
-band of Charlatans have proceeded.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>He has left his mantle behind him, and his descendants,
-with none of his brains, have largely inherited his
-presumption. On the occasion of his inauguration in
-the Chair of Medicine, he thus expresses <span class="nowrap">himself:—</span></p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“Know,” says he, “that my <i>cap</i> has more learning
-than all your professors, and my beard more experience
-than all your academies! I speak to you Greeks,
-Latins, Frenchmen, Italians, &#38;c. &#38;c. <i>You</i> will follow
-<i>me</i>, <i>I</i> shall not follow <i>you</i>. You, I say, doctors of
-Paris, Montpellier, Dalmatia, of Athens; you Jews,
-Arabs, Spaniards, English, I tell you all that nature
-obeys me; and if God does not deign to assist, I have
-yet the devil to resort to. I am king of all science,
-and command all the hosts of hell.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>We have in this impostor the very embodiment of the
-true quacks of to-day; their language is indeed a little
-subdued, but their pretensions are as large; and, let
-me add, that whereas Paracelsus, in his days, had the
-countenance and support of many persons of rank, so
-in ours, there does not exist an ignorant pretender
-without the patronage of the great, and this patronage,
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_55'>55</span>too often, in the exact ratio of his presumption and
-falsehood.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>It must not be overlooked that this arch imposter
-died miserably, in poverty, induced by dissipation, and
-the possessor of the “elixir of immortality” breathed
-out his drunken soul at the age of fifty.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>We have a lively picture of the state of things
-begotten of this man in the pages of Burton, an
-example in himself of the power of credulity, and a
-proof that great scholastic learning was by no means
-at variance with the wild vagaries of the times. He
-appears not unconscious of his peculiarities, and offers
-the following apology for his frequent reference to
-callings other than his <span class="nowrap">own:—</span></p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“If any physician shall infer ‘<span lang="la" xml:lang="la">ne sutor ultra crepidam,</span>’
-and be grieved that I have intruded into his profession,
-I tell him, in brief, he does the same by <span class="nowrap">us:—</span>I
-know many of his sect who have taken Orders in
-hope of a Benefice—’tis a common transaction; and
-why may not a melancholy divine, who can get nothing
-but by <i>Simony</i>, profess <i>Physic</i>? Marsilius Ficinus was
-‘<span lang="la" xml:lang="la">semel et simul,</span>’ a priest and physician, at once
-‘sacerdos et medicus;’ and also divers Jesuits are
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_56'>56</span>at this time ‘<span lang="la" xml:lang="la">permissu superiorem,</span>’ chirurgeons,
-panders, bawds and midwives. Many poor vicars,
-for want of other means, are driven to turn mountebanks,
-quacksalvers and empirics; and in every
-village have we not wizards, alchymists, barbers,
-goodwives, Paracelsians (as they call themselves),
-possessing great skill, and in such numbers that I
-marvel how they shall all find employment?”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Burton lived about 1576, and was consequently of
-the same age as our own great <a id='corr56.11'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='original: Hervey'>Harvey</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_56.11'>Harvey</a></span>, of whom we
-shall speak presently.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Let me offer you one specimen on the subject of
-demoniacal possession, first introducing you to a new
-character, Cornelius Gemma, who was born at Louvain
-in 1535, and was one of the greatest scholars of his
-age, a professor of medicine in his native town (the
-chair having been conferred upon him by the great
-Duke of Alva, who governed the low countries), and
-whose writings embrace the subjects of medicine,
-mathematics, magic, and spiritual possession. Like
-Cardan, he was thought a little extreme in some
-views, but this one example suffices to demonstrate
-the evil influences of Paracelsus. Gemma, in his
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_57'>57</span>second book on natural miracles, <span class="nowrap">says:—</span>“A young
-maid, called Katherine Gualter, a cooper’s daughter,
-in the year 1571, had such strange passions that three
-men could not hold her. She purged a live eel—I
-myself saw and touched—a foot and a half long; she
-vomited twenty-four pounds of fulsome stuff of all
-colours twice a day for fourteen days, and after that
-great <i>balls of hair</i>, <i>pieces of wood</i>, <i>pigeons’ dung</i>, <i>coals</i>,
-and after them <i>two pounds</i> of pure blood, and then
-again coals and stones (<i>of which some had inscriptions</i>)
-bigger than a walnut. All this I saw with horror.
-Physic could do no good, so she was handed over to
-the clergy.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Marcellus Donatus relates a story of a country fellow
-who had four knives in his belly, every one a span
-long, and indented like a saw; also a wreath of hair,
-and much other baggage. How they “came into his
-guts” he knew not.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>This personal testimony of Gemma is a melancholy
-proof that the light of christianity, during fifteen centuries,
-had done but little towards the emancipation of
-the human mind from the trammels of superstition,
-for, we find Josephus, who lived <span class="nowrap"><span class='fss'>A.D.</span> 30,</span> also favoring
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_58'>58</span>us with his <i>personal</i> testimony to facts quite as marvellous,
-and no doubt as veracious, as those recorded
-by our Dutch philosopher. Yet although common
-sense rejects such “materials of history” where shall
-we look for better evidence of authenticity than is
-thus furnished by two men of unimpeachable integrity.
-The pride of enlightenment is indeed checked by the
-reflection that <span class="nowrap"><span class='fss'>A.D.</span> 1867</span> we hear of believers in
-“Spiritual Manifestation” not only among the vulgar
-but in classes of society where the yearning after the
-mysterious sets both reason and philosophy at defiance.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The universality of belief in the existence of demons,
-and their occasional possession of the bodies of men,
-pervades the whole course of sacred and profane history,
-and Josephus, in enumerating the great qualities of
-King Solomon, bears testimony to the power of the
-Jewish Monarch as an “<i>Exorcist</i>:”—After informing
-us that Solomon exceeded all men in knowledge of
-natural things, that he was familiar with every sort of
-tree, from the cedar to the hyssop on the wall; that he
-knew the habits of every living creature, whether upon
-the earth, or in the seas, or in the air, and described
-their several attributes like a philosopher, and
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_59'>59</span>demonstrated his exquisite knowledge of them; he goes on
-to <span class="nowrap">say:—</span>“God also gave him understanding to attain
-to skill against demons for the benefit of mankind; for
-having composed incantations, whereby diseases are
-removed, he also left behind him certain kinds of
-exorcisms whereby demons may be expelled so as
-never to return, and this method of cure is effectual
-or prevails much among us to this day: for <i>I saw</i> one
-Eleazar, my countryman, in the presence of Vespasian
-and his sons, and many tribunes and other soldiers,
-deliver men who were seized by these demons. The
-cure was in this <span class="nowrap">manner:—</span>Applying to the nostrils
-of the demoniacs a ring, having under the seal one of
-those roots of which Solomon taught the virtues, he
-drew out the demon from the nostrils of the man who
-smelled to <span class="nowrap">it:—</span>The man presently falling down, the
-Exorcist mentioned the name of <i>Solomon</i>, and reciting
-the charms composed by <i>him</i>, adjured the demon never
-to <span class="nowrap">return:—</span>Moreover Eleazar, to satisfy all the company
-of his power, placed a small vessel full of water,
-in which feet are washed, and commanded the demon
-as he went out of the man to overthrow it, that all
-present might be sensible that he had left the man:
-this being done the wisdom of Solomon was manifest.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_60'>60</span>In the seventh book of his “Wars of the Jews,” he
-gives us the following account of one of the roots employed
-by <span class="nowrap">Exorcists:—</span>“On the north side of the City
-of Machœrus there is a valley, in which is a place
-called Baaras, in which is found a plant bearing the
-same name: it is of a flaming colour and towards
-evening shines very bright: it is not easy to be
-gathered for it withdraws itself and does not stay
-unless one pours upon it the urine of a woman, or
-<a id='corr60.10'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='original: menstrous'>menstruous</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_60.10'>menstruous</a></span> blood, and even then it is certain death
-to him who takes it unless he carries the root hanging
-down upon the hand—There is another way of getting
-it without <span class="nowrap">danger:—</span>They dig all round it, so that a
-very little bit of the root is left in the ground, then
-they tie a dog to it, and the dog attempting to follow
-him who tied it, the root is easily pulled up, but the
-dog dies presently, as it were, instead of the man who
-would get the plant, afterwards there is no danger to
-those who touch it. With all these dangers the root is
-desirable, for demons, as they are called, who are the
-spirits of wicked men entering into the living, and
-killing those who have no help, this root presently
-expels; if it be only brought near to them who are
-diseased.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_61'>61</span>We have already shewn how it took the devils by
-the nose.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Before we proceed, it may not be out of place to
-notice the general belief in astrology, and especially
-lunar influences, which prevailed at this period. Herbs
-and roots had their several patrons, and it was only
-when gathered and preserved under certain prescribed
-circumstances that their specific virtues were assured.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Similar superstitions are not yet extinct; even in
-this year of grace, 1867, we are not quite emancipated
-from the ignorance of the middle ages, and it is not
-a very unusual thing to see an advertisement in the
-<i>Times</i> announcing a “child’s caul” for sale. These
-and such like absurdities,</p>
-
-<div class='lg-container-b c003'>
- <div class='linegroup'>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>“Though it make the unskilful laugh,</div>
- <div class='line in1'>Cannot but make the judicious grieve.”</div>
- </div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c008'>Nor is this credulity confined to the illiterate classes.
-The dupes of St. John Long, as many of us may
-remember, included “potent, grave, and reverend
-signiors,” and on his memorable trial, a certain noble
-lord<a id='r10'></a><a href='#f10' class='c010'><sup>[10]</sup></a> gave evidence that Mr. Long had extracted a
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_62'>62</span>piece of lead from his head. Some scoffers think it a
-pity that the quack, having succeeded to some extent,
-left so much behind.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>In speaking of Harvey, it is difficult to strike out
-any new path in a tale that has been told so often.
-Yet, we may extract something out of the consideration
-of the times in which he lived, and the men by
-whom he was surrounded. He was born at Folkestone,
-in 1578, and commenced his travels at 19 years of age.
-What his previous education had been does not appear,
-but we find him at the age of 24 elected Doctor of
-Medicine at Padua—then the most famous University
-in the world. On his return to England he received
-the honour of the degree of Doctor of Medicine at
-Cambridge. James the First, and his son, Charles the
-First, favoured him with their countenance, and in
-1628 he was induced to publish an account of his
-great discovery. As a matter of course he was at
-once denounced as a visionary; personal abuse was
-unsparingly poured upon him; but as the grand fact
-enunciated was not to be shaken, his enemies turned
-round and discovered that, after all, it was not new,
-and had been the doctrine of many eminent physicians
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_63'>63</span>from the earliest days. The old, old story: the same
-sickening detraction—the same miserable envy rife in
-every age and clime. Harvey died in 1658.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Shakespeare was 14 years old when Harvey was
-born, and the garrulous but erudite Burton was about
-the same age, yet strange to say, the great poet seems
-to have been unknown to the men of his own generation:
-scholars knew nothing of poor players, and he
-who was born to delight and instruct the future of
-mankind shone with but small lustre then.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The history of medicine in England now begins,
-although for some time subsequently medical instruction
-was sought for in the schools of Italy, France and
-Holland. The Reformation had swept away the monastic
-institutions; but during the depressing middle
-ages, all the learning that barbarism had spared took
-refuge in the cloister. The monks practised physic
-very extensively, and considering the ignorance and
-superstition of the period, it was natural that the
-vulgar should prefer the medical assistance of those
-who arrogated to themselves the immediate assistance
-of Heaven in the preparation of their remedies. The
-women were especially fond of consulting the monks,
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_64'>64</span>if there be any truth in the old epigram:—</p>
-
-<div class='lg-container-b'>
- <div class='linegroup'>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>“To Esculapian monks the good wives roam</div>
- <div class='line in1'>What marvel, they have husbands sick at home.”</div>
- </div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c009'>The alchymists again, like their lineal descendants in
-our days, professed to have discovered the philosophers
-stone, and <i>universal specifics</i>, and they were, as they
-are now, believed in proportion to their presumption.
-The practice of medicine being chiefly engrossed by
-empirics and monks, the latter very readily obtained
-licenses from the Bishops of the various dioceses who
-had authority to examine candidates, without having
-themselves any knowledge of the subjects in question,
-beyond that acquired in their general education.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>By the 5th Henry VIII., chap. vi., we find there
-were but twelve regular Surgeons practising in all
-London, and about the same number of Physicians.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The college of Physicians in London owes its foundation
-to Dr. Thomas Linacre, of All Soul’s, Oxford, a
-man of profound learning, who had won honours at
-Rome, Bologna, and Florence.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Linacre, through his interest with Wolsey, a wise
-and liberal patron of learning, obtained, in 1518, letters
-patent from Henry the Eighth, constituting a
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_65'>65</span>corporate body of regular Physicians in London. He was
-elected the first president, and meetings were held at
-his house in Knight Ryder Street until his death.
-With a munificence not without many worthy imitators
-in our profession, as we shall presently point out, he
-bequeathed this house to the College.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>His successor in the presidential chair was one of
-those bright lights who have contributed largely to
-the fame of medicine, in what I have already called
-its social and scientific aspect, and therefore deserves
-a passing notice. Dr. John Caius Kaye, of Gonville
-Hall, Cambridge, was Court Physician to Edward the
-Sixth, and as he retained the favour of Mary, after the
-demise of the pious young King, he procured from her
-a license to advance Gonville Hall into a <i>College</i> under
-the name of Gonville and Caius College, on condition
-of enlarging the institution at his own expense. In
-order to devote himself to this object, he resigned the
-presidency of the College of Physicians, and completed
-his buildings at Cambridge. The mansion of learning
-thus raised by his liberality, became the retreat of his
-old age, and having given up the dignified position of
-<i>Master</i>, with a disinterestedness equalled only by his
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_66'>66</span>generosity, he continued to reside there as a gentleman
-commoner until his death in 1573.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Harvey was elected president of the College of Physicians
-in 1654, but excused himself on account of his
-age and infirmities. Such, however, was his attachment
-to that body (best evinced by <i>donationes inter
-vivos</i>), that in 1656, he made over his personal estate
-in perpetuity for its use, having previously (on the
-occasion of the College being removed from Knight
-Ryder Street to Amen Corner) built them a library
-and public hall,<a id='r11'></a><a href='#f11' class='c010'><sup>[11]</sup></a> which he granted for ever to the
-corporation, together with his own valuable collection
-of books and instruments. Harvey’s grand result was
-the work of a quarter of a century of unremitting toil.
-An admirer <span class="nowrap">wrote:—</span></p>
-
-<div class='lg-container-b c003'>
- <div class='linegroup'>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>“There didst thou trace the blood, and first behold</div>
- <div class='line in1'>What dreams mistaken sages coined of old.</div>
- <div class='line in1'>For till thy Pegasus the fountain brake,</div>
- <div class='line in1'>The crimson blood was but a crimson lake,</div>
- <div class='line in1'>Which first from thee did tyde and motion gaine,</div>
- <div class='line in1'>And veins became its channel, not its chaine.</div>
- <div class='line in1'>With <i>Drake</i> and <i>Ca’ndish</i> hence thy bays are curl’d,</div>
- <div class='line in1'>Fam’d circulator of the lesser world.”</div>
- </div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c009'>He died in 1658.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_67'>67</span>I may here mention, that, after the fire of London,
-the College of Physicians was rebuilt on a site in Warwick
-Lane, which, until the erection there of the palatial
-residence of Guy of Warwick, the King maker,
-was called Eldenesse Lane.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Sir Christopher Wren was the architect of the new
-College, and its burnished dome gave Garth the opportunity
-of displaying his powers of satire <span class="nowrap">thus:—</span></p>
-
-<div class='lg-container-b c003'>
- <div class='linegroup'>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>“Witness a dome, majestic to the sight,</div>
- <div class='line in1'>And sumptuous arches bear its oval height;</div>
- <div class='line in1'>A golden globe, placed high, with artful skill,</div>
- <div class='line in1'>Seems to the distant sight—a gilded pill.”</div>
- </div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c008'>Amongst the remarkable men of Harvey’s time were
-Shakespeare, Bacon, Van Helmont, and Sydenham, all
-of whom had personal intercourse with him; of these
-we shall first notice Thomas Sydenham, who was born
-in 1624. Boerhaave called him the second Hippocrates
-on account of his close observation of the natural phenomena
-of disease, but he is too well known to us to
-require any detailed description either of his method, or
-of his general knowledge. The story of his reply to
-Dr. Blackmore, when asked by him what books he
-should read, that “Don Quixote was a very good book”
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_68'>68</span>has been erroneously supposed to express his contempt
-for learning, but the joke was a personal one. Blackmore
-was a poet, and Sydenham saw that the man who
-consulted him did not possess the stuff of which doctors
-are made, he therefore referred him to the most lively
-piece of writing then in existence, as furnishing fitter
-pabulum for a poet, than the dry discussions of medical
-subjects could afford. To describe the character of
-Sydenham, it would be necessary to call to our aid the
-highest forms of panegyric; a good and honourable
-man, living in harmony with his brethren, and as far
-as the troubled state of the country would allow, in
-peace with all men. He lived to see the revolution
-of 1688 accomplished, and his aspirations as a patriot
-being thus gratified, he died in the following year.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Contemporary with Sydenham, we find the celebrated
-Sir Wm. Petty, the founder of the Lansdowne family.
-He was the eldest son of Anthony Petty, who, Aubrey
-the Antiquary tells us, was a clothier in Romsey. In
-his early days he showed great liking for all mechanical
-operations, and at twelve years of age had acquired
-considerable skill in <a id='corr68.23'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='original: carpentery'>carpentry</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_68.23'>carpentry</a></span> and smiths’ work. Educated
-at the free school of his native place, at the age
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_69'>69</span>of fifteen he began his remarkable career as a self-helping
-man; from his own account, we learn that he
-went over to Caen, in Normandy, with a little stock of
-merchandise, and had such good success that out of the
-profits he educated himself in the French tongue, and
-perfected his knowledge of classics and mathematics.
-In his twentieth year he had saved about three-score
-pounds, and acquired as much progress in mathematics
-as any of his age: to his love of learning was joined the
-desire to acquire wealth; he was at all times <i>practical</i>,
-and seems to have held pecuniary advantage to be the
-most comprehensive form of the practical. He tells us
-that when the civil wars between the King and Parliament
-grew hot “I had <i>sixty pounds</i> in money and went
-into the Netherlands and France for three years, and
-vigorously pursued my studies, especially that of medicine
-at Utrecht, Leyden, Amsterdam, and Paris. I
-returned to Romsey with about <i>ten pounds more</i> than I
-had carried out of England.” In Paris, Petty made
-the acquaintance of Hobbes, who retired early from the
-civil wars. Hobbes soon discovered the capacity of
-his young friend, and read with him the Anatomy of
-Vesalius. He entered at Brazennose College, Oxford,
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_70'>70</span>in April, 1648, and took his degree there as Doctor of
-Physic, in March, 1649. The date of his admission to
-the College of Physicians is 25 June, 1650. He had
-been previously deputy to Doctor Thomas Clayton,
-Professor of Anatomy at Oxford, who laboured under
-the singular disqualification of having an insurmountable
-aversion to the sight of a mangled corpse. On
-the resignation of Clayton in 1651, Petty became
-Anatomical Professor, and about the same time he
-succeeded Dr. Knight in the Professorship of Music
-in Gresham College. About the year 1645, the Royal
-Society was formed, and Petty was one of the earliest
-members of the Oxford branch.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>In 1652 he was appointed Physician to the Army in
-Ireland, which post he retained for seven years, at a
-salary of twenty shillings a day, while his practice
-produced him £400 a year more. His first great step
-to wealth, however, arose from his dealings with the forfeited
-lands in Ireland, and in a few years he managed
-his financial affairs so skilfully that he acquired a
-rental of £18,000 a year; part of this he was dispossessed
-of at the Restoration, as being unfairly obtained.
-He, however, had still a large fortune at his command,
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_71'>71</span>and bought the Earl of Arundel’s house and gardens
-in Lothbury, and erected thereupon the buildings
-forming Tokenhouse Yard, which was partly destroyed
-by the great fire. Petty had the tact to make his
-peace with the new government, and became a favourite
-with Charles II., who knighted him, and
-bestowed on him the place of Surveyor General for
-Ireland; and it is said, by Aubrey, that he was created
-Earl of Kelmore, though he never assumed the title.
-When the College of Physicians obtained its new
-Charter his name was published in the list of Fellows,
-although he had then resigned practice. The universality
-of his genius is clearly shewn by the list of his
-published works. He was a man of a genial character
-and handsome <span class="nowrap">person:—</span>“If he has a mind to it,” says
-Aubrey, “he will preach extempore, either as a Presbyterian,
-Independent, or as a Capucin friar, or Jesuit.”
-As a proof of his humour, when he was challenged to
-fight by Sir H. Sankey, he told his opponent, that as
-his short sight would not allow of the usual mode of
-warfare, he would meet him, if he was so minded, in
-a dark cellar, each to have a carpenter’s axe for his
-weapon: this the knight declined. He died in 1687
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_72'>72</span>of a gangrene of the foot, and was buried at Romsey,
-by the side of his father and mother: there lie his
-remains, covered with a flat stone, on which an illiterate
-workman has cut these <span class="nowrap">words:—</span>“<i>Here layes
-Sir William Pety.</i>”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The part played by the Good-Wives and Ladies
-Bountiful in this age deserves a passing notice, and
-we will make one or two quotations from books especially
-devoted to their use. Thus: “To make Oil of
-<span class="nowrap">Swallows:—</span>Take lavender cotton, spikenut grass,
-ribwort, and twenty other simples, of each a handful,
-sage of virtue, camomiles and red roses, of each two
-handsful, <i>twenty live</i> swallows; beat all together in a
-mortar, add a quart of neatsfoot oyl or May-butter,
-and mix. This oyl is exceeding sovereign for any
-broken bones, bones out of joint, or any grief of the
-sinews.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“The ‘<i><span lang="la" xml:lang="la">Usnea Humana</span></i>’<a id='r12'></a><a href='#f12' class='c010'><sup>[12]</sup></a> described as a moss two
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_73'>73</span>lines long, grown on the skulls of malefactors who
-have been a long time exposed to the air. This little
-plant is found chiefly in England and Ireland, where
-the bodies of men are left hanging in chains for
-many years after their execution. It is of a volatile
-astringent nature, good for bleeding of the nose, and
-of use internally for epilepsy.” The writer adds, “I
-have seen in the apothecaries’ shops in London these
-skulls exposed with the Usnea upon them.” Then
-again we have a whole tribe of “holy remedies” and
-cabalistic charms, &#38;c.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Hiera Picra and Solomon’s seal are used to this day.
-The charm for burns is as <span class="nowrap">follows:—</span>“In the name
-of, &#38;c. There came two angels from the East, one
-brought fire, the other water; I command them both:
-out fire!! in water!! and so I say <i>Amen</i>.” This is
-mumbled by the charmer, and the sufferer is relieved
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_74'>74</span>without daring to doubt, for if he <i>doubts</i> the charm is
-destroyed. Warts and wens are disposed of by a
-similar process.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>So much for the march of intellect; in its progress
-very much like the military goose step.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>A belief in the curative power of the Royal touch
-over scrofulous affections continued to be universally
-held so late as the time of William III. Shakespeare
-gives us an account of it in the tragedy of Macbeth,
-which I have thought worth transcribing. In the
-4th Act, Scene 3rd, a room in the King, of England’s
-<span class="nowrap">palace:—</span></p>
-
- <dl class='dl_1 c000'>
- <dt>&#160;</dt>
- <dd>&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;<i>Enter a Doctor.</i>
- </dd>
- <dt><i>Malcolm.</i></dt>
- <dd>Comes the king forth, I pray you?
- </dd>
- <dt><i>Doctor.</i></dt>
- <dd>Ay sir: There are a crew of wretched souls<br> That stay his cure. Their malady
- convinces<br> The great assay of art: but, at his touch,<br> Such
- sanctity hath heaven given his hand,<br> They presently amend.
- &#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;[<i>Exit Doctor.</i>
- </dd>
- <dt><i>Macduff.</i></dt>
- <dd>What’s the disease he means?
- </dd>
- <dt><i>Malcolm.</i></dt>
- <dd> &#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;’tis called the Evil:<br> A most miraculous work in this
- good king;<br> Which often, since my here-remain in England,<br> I
- have seen him do. How he solicits heaven,<br> Himself best knows: but
- strangely-visited people;<br> All swoln and ulcerous, pitiful to the eye,<br>
- The mere despair of surgery, he cures;<br> Hanging a golden stamp
- about their necks,<br> Put on with holy prayers; and ’tis spoken,<br>
- To the <i>succeeding</i> royalty he leaves<br> The healing benediction.
- </dd>
- </dl>
-<p class='c006'><span class='pageno' id='Page_75'>75</span>Macaulay gives us the following graphic account of
-the practice of touching for the scrofula, as performed
-by that <i>most religious</i> and <i>gracious</i> King Charles the
-Second.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“This ceremony had come down almost unaltered
-from the darkest of the dark ages to the time of
-Newton and Locke. The Stuarts frequently dispensed
-the healing influences in the Banqueting House. The
-days on which this miracle was to be wrought were
-fixed at sittings of the Privy Council, and were solemnly
-notified by the clergy in all the parish churches of the
-realm. When the appointed time came, several divines
-in full canonicals stood round the canopy of state. The
-surgeon of the royal household introduced the sick.
-A passage from the sixteenth chapter of the Gospel of
-St. Mark was read. When the words ‘They shall lay
-their hands on the sick, and they shall recover’ had
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_76'>76</span>been pronounced, there was a pause, and one of the sick
-was brought up to the King. His Majesty stroked the
-ulcers and swellings, and hung round the patient’s neck
-a white ribbon, to which was fastened a gold coin. The
-other sufferers were then led up in succession; and, as
-each was touched, the chaplain repeated the incantation,
-‘They shall lay their hands on the sick, and they shall
-recover.’ Then came the epistle, prayers, antiphones
-and a benediction.... Theologians of eminent
-learning, ability, and virtue gave the sanction of their
-authority to this mummery; and, what is stranger still,
-medical men of high note believed, or affected to
-believe, in the balsamic virtues of the royal hand. We
-must suppose that every surgeon who attended Charles
-the Second was a man of high repute for skill; and
-more than one of the surgeons who attended Charles
-the Second, has left us a solemn profession of faith in
-the King’s miraculous power.... We cannot
-wonder that, when men of science gravely repeated
-such nonsense, the vulgar should believe it. Still less
-can we wonder that wretches tortured by a disease over
-which natural remedies had no power should eagerly
-drink in tales of preternatural cures: for nothing is so
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_77'>77</span>credulous as misery. The crowds which repaired to the
-palace on the days of healing were immense. Charles
-the Second, in the course of his reign, touched near a
-hundred thousand persons. The number seems to have
-increased or diminished as the King’s popularity rose
-or fell.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“In 1682, he performed the rite eight thousand
-five hundred times. In 1684, the throng was such that
-six or seven of the sick were trampled to death.
-James, in one of his progresses, touched eight hundred
-persons in the choir of the Cathedral of Chester. The
-expense of the ceremony was little less than ten
-thousand pounds a year, and would have been much
-greater but for the vigilance of the royal surgeons,
-whose business it was to examine the applicants, and
-to distinguish those who came for the cure from those
-who came for the gold.” (<i>History of England, Vol.
-III., p. 478.</i>)</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>William the Third gave great offence to the nonjurors
-by sneering at a practice sanctioned by the highest
-ecclesiastical authorities; yielding to importunity, he
-once consented to lay his hands on a patient, but his
-good sense compelled him to <span class="nowrap">exclaim:—</span>“God give you
-better health and more wisdom, my friend.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_78'>78</span>Shortly after the death of Sydenham came Dr.
-Freind, who was born in 1675. Being a man of worth
-and learning, he soon acquired a leading position in
-his profession, and having devoted himself early in life
-to the study of politics, he was returned to Parliament
-as member for Launceston, where, having warmly
-espoused the cause of the amiable Atterbury, he fell
-under the censure of Walpole, who sent him to the
-Tower on a charge of treason. This misfortune gave
-rise to one of the finest instances of devotion, on the
-part of his friend Mead, that has ever been recorded
-for the honour of human nature. Walpole was taken
-seriously ill, and of course sent for Mead, who at that
-time was the most popular physician. The doctor is
-reported to have addressed the minister <span class="nowrap">thus:—</span>“You
-are very ill, Sir Robert, and I can cure you; but one
-condition is indispensable. Dr. Freind has been in
-prison some months, and my esteem for him is so
-great that I will not prescribe a single thing for you
-until he is set at liberty.” Walpole hesitated, but
-Mead was resolute, and at length the tyrant gave way.
-Freind was released, and Mead when he paid his first
-visit of congratulation, took with him a considerable
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_79'>79</span>sum of money, the produce of fees he had received from
-Freind’s patients during his incarceration. Freind was
-a voluminous writer, and compiled a history of medicine
-in which he attacked some of the opinions of Leclerc,
-who had gone more extensively and accurately into the
-subject.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Next in order, we must say a few words of Dr. Mead.
-Richard Mead was born in 1673, at Stepney. Political
-troubles drove his father, who was rector of the parish,
-into Holland, where this future ornament of the medical
-profession was educated, at Utrecht, under Grœvius.
-He continued his studies at Leyden, and travelling into
-Italy, took his degree of doctor at Padua. On his
-arrival in England, whither his fame had preceded him,
-the University of Oxford confirmed his title, and the
-College of Physicians received him with applause, as
-did the Royal Society (then but recently established.)
-He soon became the leading practitioner of the day, and
-in course of time Physician to George the Second. For
-more than half a century he attended at St. Thomas’s
-Hospital, and is said to have suggested to Guy the
-foundation of the hospital known by that name. A
-more noble, disinterested, and generous man than Mead
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_80'>80</span>never lived. His emoluments were very large, and his
-benevolence and hospitality kept pace with his income.
-It is stated that no poor applicant ever left his door
-unrelieved.</p>
-
-<div class='lg-container-b c003'>
- <div class='linegroup'>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>“Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere,</div>
- <div class='line in1'>Heaven did a recompense as largely send.”</div>
- </div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c009'>After a life of 80 years, he died full of honours, leaving
-his many literary labors as monuments of his talents
-and industry.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The reign of Queen Anne has been called the Augustan
-age of literature in England, and was in no less degree
-looked upon as the great day of medical science.
-Amongst the literary men we have to name Swift,
-Addison, Warburton, Pope, Steele, Parnell, Rowe,
-Gay, and others; and amongst Physicians—Freind,
-Mead, Radcliffe, Cheselden, Arbuthnot, Garth, &#38;c. &#38;c.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Radcliffe next comes under notice; he was a man
-cast in a rougher mould than Mead. John Radcliffe
-was born at Wakefield, in Yorkshire, in 1650, and
-educated at Oxford, where he became a Fellow of Lincoln
-College; after a two years residence he resigned
-his Fellowship and devoted himself to physic, removed
-to London, and settled in Bow-street, Covent Garden.
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_81'>81</span>He was a man of ready wit, and great conversational
-powers, with much pleasantry and frankness. In 1686
-he was appointed physician to Princess Anne of Denmark,
-and after the revolution was often consulted by
-William the Third; the latter on his return from Holland
-sent for Radcliffe, and shewing him his ankles
-swollen, and his body emaciated, the doctor brusquely
-said, “Truly I would not have your Majesty’s two legs
-for your three kingdoms.” This sally lost him the
-king’s favour, nevertheless he still prospered, and sat
-in Parliament for the borough of Buckingham.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>In the last illness of Queen Anne, Radcliffe was sent
-for, but excused his attendance on account of indisposition;
-the Queen died the next day, and Radcliffe was
-greatly censured, which is said to have hastened his
-own death, which took place three months after.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>There is a story told of his quarrel with Sir Godfrey
-Kneller, the celebrated painter. They were next door
-neighbours, and enjoyed a certain garden in common.
-Kneller complained that Radcliffe took no care that the
-door leading into this garden should be kept properly
-shut, and sent a snappish message to the doctor, that
-if he were not more mindful he would shut up the door
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_82'>82</span>and keep the key. Radcliffe’s answer was, “Tell Sir
-Godfrey Kneller he may do what he likes with the
-door provided he does not paint it.” Kneller retorted
-to this sarcasm, “Tell the doctor I will take anything
-from him except his physic.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>I cannot find that Radcliffe ever published any work;
-but at his death he left the munificent sum of £40,000
-to the University of Oxford for the formation of a public
-library of medical and philosophical science, and a
-further considerable sum to provide for an annual augmentation
-of books and instruments. Garth, in allusion
-to this bequest, remarked that for Radcliffe to
-found a library was as if an Eunuch should establish
-a Seraglio.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Samuel Garth was among the celebrities of this time:
-the correspondent of Bolingbroke, the friend of Swift
-and Addison, and the patron of Pope, he must have
-possessed great merit to have reached such a position.
-He was born of a good family in Yorkshire: the date
-of his birth I have been unable to discover, but he was
-admitted a Fellow of the College of Physicians in 1693.
-Johnson classes him with the English Poets, and in
-his description of him says, “He is always mentioned
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_83'>83</span>as a man of benevolence, and it is just to suppose that
-his desire to help the helpless disposed him with so
-much zeal to undertake the founding of a <span class="nowrap">dispensary:—</span>Whether
-physicians have, as Temple says, <i>more</i> learning
-than the other faculties I will not stay to inquire, but
-I believe every man has found in physicians great liberality
-and dignity of sentiment, very prompt effusion of
-benevolence, and willingness to exert a lucrative art,
-where there is no hope of lucre.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Garth was an active and zealous Whig, and consequently
-familiarly known to all the great men of that
-party; his orthodoxy was questioned, but it was the
-fashion of the times to be a free thinker. Pope apostrophises
-him in his second <span class="nowrap">pastoral:—</span></p>
-
-<div class='lg-container-b c003'>
- <div class='linegroup'>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>“Accept, O! Garth, the muses early lays,</div>
- <div class='line in1'>That add this wreath of ivy to thy bays.”</div>
- </div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c009'>And again, in conjunction with Arbuthnot, in “the
-Farewell to London:”—</p>
-
-<div class='lg-container-b c003'>
- <div class='linegroup'>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>“Farewell Arbuthnot’s raillery</div>
- <div class='line in1'>On every learned sot,</div>
- <div class='line in1'>And Garth the best good Christian he</div>
- <div class='line in1'>Although he knows it not.”</div>
- </div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_84'>84</span>Pope’s favourite physician was Dr. John Arbuthnot,
-and never was grateful affection better bestowed. He
-was the son of an Episcopal clergyman in Scotland,
-born in 1675, and went through a course of academical
-studies at Aberdeen, where he also took the degree of
-Doctor of Physic. On his arrival in London he supported
-himself as a teacher of mathematics, in which
-he was a great proficient, and became known to the
-world of letters by his examination of Dr. Woodward’s
-“Account of the Deluge,” and by an able treatise on the
-“Advantages of Mathematical Learning.” The first
-book of the memoirs of “Martinus Scriblerus” has also
-been attributed to him. An accident introduced him
-to Prince George of Denmark, and led the way to his
-appointment as Physician to Queen Anne; he retained
-the favour of the Court until the death of the
-Queen, when, being more than suspected of Jacobite
-proclivities, he was compelled to leave his quarters in
-St. James’s Palace, and retired to a small house in
-Dover Street.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Pope dedicated to him the prologue to his satires, and
-thus gracefully mentions <span class="nowrap">him:—</span></p>
-
-<div class='lg-container-b c003'>
- <div class='linegroup'>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>“Friend to my life (which did not you prolong,</div>
- <div class='line in1'>The world had wanted many an idle song.”)</div>
- </div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_85'>85</span>The concluding stanzas are so full of tenderness that
-I venture to give <span class="nowrap">them:—</span></p>
-
-<div class='lg-container-b c003'>
- <div class='linegroup'>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>“Oh! friend, may each domestic bliss be thine,</div>
- <div class='line in1'>Be no unpleasing melancholy mine,</div>
- <div class='line in1'>Me, let the tender office long engage</div>
- <div class='line in1'>To rock the cradle of reposing age,</div>
- <div class='line in1'>With lenient arts extend a mother’s breath,</div>
- <div class='line in1'>Make langour smile and smooth the bed of death.</div>
- <div class='line in1'>Explore the thought, explain the asking eye,</div>
- <div class='line in1'>And keep a while one parent from the sky!</div>
- <div class='line in1'>On cares like these, if length of days attend,</div>
- <div class='line in1'>May Heaven, to bless those days, preserve my friend,</div>
- <div class='line in1'>Preserve him social, cheerful, and serene,</div>
- <div class='line in1'>And just as rich as when he served a Queen.”</div>
- </div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c008'>About the time of his preferment he made the acquaintance
-of the great luminaries of art and learning,
-particularly Swift, (the mad parson as he was first
-designated) Pope, Gay, Parnell, Atterbury, Congreve,
-&#38;c., and greatly assisted, with his ready and witty pen,
-the ambitious Bolingbroke.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>What is greatly to his honour, in the midst of an age
-of scoffers, he retained a deep sense of the importance
-of personal religion, and seems to have lived in the
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_86'>86</span>affectionate esteem and remembrance of his friends;
-Swift said of him, “Oh! if the world had a dozen
-Arbuthnots in it, I would burn my travels” (Gulliver’s);
-and on another occasion expresses himself
-thus, “Arbuthnot has more wit than all we have, and
-his humanity is equal to his wit.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>For some time before his death he suffered from
-asthma and dropsy, and bore his affliction with characteristic
-fortitude and resignation. He died in 1734,
-leaving a son, who was one of Pope’s executors, and
-two daughters.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Next to the illustrious Scotchman whom we have
-just dismissed, comes a very worthy native of the
-Emerald Isle—Hans Sloane, the son of Alexander
-Sloane, the head of a colony of Scotchmen, who, in the
-reign of James I. settled in the north of Ireland.
-Hans was born at Killileagh, in the year 1660. He
-very early showed a liking for Natural History, and on
-his arrival in London attended lectures on Anatomy,
-Botany, and their kindred sciences, and formed a close
-intimacy with Boyle and Ray. After four years study
-he visited Paris and Montpellier, in which places he
-took his degrees in Medicine. In 1684 he returned
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_87'>87</span>to London and commenced practice, being a Fellow of
-the Royal Society and of the College of Physicians.
-On the appointment of the Duke of Albemarle to the
-government of Jamaica he accompanied that nobleman,
-and thus acquired a rich addition to his Museum of
-Natural History. George the First created him a
-Baronet, and on the death of Sir Isaac Newton, he
-became President of the Royal Society—estimable as
-a man, and eminent in science, he lived to a great age,
-and at his decease, bequeathed his museum to the
-nation, conditionally on the sum of £20,000 being paid
-to his executors for the benefit of his survivors: this
-sum bore no proportion to the value of his collection,
-and as it laid the foundation of the British Museum, it
-must ever be regarded as a patriotic and generous act.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>A curious illustration of the observant mind of Sir
-H. Sloane is furnished by the fact of his having noticed
-that the natives of the West Indian Islands, who eat
-much of the green fat of the turtle, perspired a yellow
-oil; the explanation being that the true green fat of
-the turtle is a green-coloured cellular tissue enclosing a
-yellow oil, which passes through the system undigested.
-The anatomical data on which this statement is
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_88'>88</span>advanced have been, at a comparatively recent period,
-verified by actual experiments performed by the late
-Dr. Pereira, assisted by our much esteemed former
-President, Dr. Daldy. It occurred to my mind
-that this fact in dietetics might present a lesson of
-caution to an audience peculiarly exposed, as citizens
-of London, to the temptation of eating a material,
-which, however appetising, is incapable of healthy
-assimilation.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>In a sketch of such limited pretension we are compelled
-to pass over names well deserving a niche in the
-temple of <span class="nowrap">Esculapius:—</span>every letter of the alphabet
-furnishes its contingent. To many of the men, into
-whose labours we have here entered, the civilised world
-is indebted for their contributions to general literature,
-as well as to the science of medicine; and in our endeavour
-to chronicle their importance, we can never
-cease to admire the fertility of their talents, and the
-extent of their industry in bringing to light so much
-useful knowledge out of the scanty materials by which
-their enquiries were <span class="nowrap">aided:—</span>Akenside, Bacon, Boyle,
-Blackmore, Cheselden, Darwin, Petty, Ray, among
-others, may be noted as examples.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_89'>89</span>We have now reached the period at which legitimate
-medicine was established in this country; and as my
-discourse has already exceeded the assigned limits, it
-remains only to record our solemn tribute of the affectionate
-remembrance we all entertain towards those
-members of our society whose faces we shall so sadly
-miss in our next sessional meetings. Constituted as
-our cherished society is, as a friendly gathering of
-kindred spirits, actuated by mutual necessities, meeting
-as brothers, knowing no rivalry but the desire to impart,
-each to other, the results of our matured experience,
-it is with more than ordinary grief that we bow
-submissively when Providence sees fit to lessen our
-numbers by death.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>But it is not we alone who have sustained a loss.
-The name of Barlow will live for ages to come as the
-type of the scientific physician of the nineteenth century.
-A man of cultivated intellect, of elegant mind
-and blameless life, of calm judgment and exalted
-feeling, I look upon his death as nothing less than
-a calamity to the whole medical profession.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Too soon, alas! after him, we were shocked by the
-almost sudden removal of the accomplished and genial
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_90'>90</span>Jeaffreson, endeared to his brethren by those solid endowments
-which mark and govern the high minded
-practitioner and amiable gentleman—no less than to the
-public by those qualities that are inherent in a warm,
-kindly, and generous nature. And, what then shall
-we say of our dear friend, Henry Blenkarne, so recently
-carried to his rest. Who can ever forget his
-pure and simple nature, his spotless life, and those
-endearing virtues which attached him so closely to
-all whose privilege it was to enjoy his friendship—one
-of Nature’s gentlemen, delicate and considerate of
-the feelings of others, generous to the poor at the sacrifice
-of his valuable life, ready at all seasons to give his
-time for the promotion of any and every benevolent
-scheme in connexion with our calling; we shall long
-mourn over the good old man. As I stood by and
-saw his remains committed to the ground but the other
-day, my mind reverted to the other honoured members
-I have mentioned, and I felt that one and all had
-realized and fulfilled to the letter the following monition
-of <span class="nowrap">Bacon:—</span></p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“I hold every man a debtor to his profession, from
-the which as men of course do seek to receive
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_91'>91</span>countenance and profit, so ought they of duty to endeavour
-themselves, by way of amends, to be a help and ornament
-thereunto.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>I now beg permission to draw the curtain. I have
-laid before you, with but little skill, some rapid
-sketches of our illustrious predecessors. I have shown
-how worthily they have fulfilled their mission; and,
-having approached the advent of that great man, to
-whose memory we dedicate this evening, I make my
-bow and retire, first thanking you for the attention you
-have accorded to my dull recital. I pause now because
-I can add nothing to your knowledge of the character
-and labours of John Hunter. His patience under such
-difficulties as would have destroyed an ordinary worker,
-and his sublime indifference to personal comfort and
-advantage when the interest of that science, which he
-so well loved was in question—are “familiar in your
-ears as household words.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>But, whilst we honour him by these periodical meetings,
-and by the discussion of subjects the elaboration
-of which formed the happiness of his life, it is only
-in the great museum, founded by his energy, that
-the grandeur of his character can be felt.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_92'>92</span>In that hallowed path, in which he delighted to
-tread, the mantle of his genius has fallen upon one
-who, with a kindred love, aided by the marvellous
-instinct of his own original mind, still follows out
-the investigations of the great author, adding each
-day something to the <a id='corr92.6'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='original: knowlege'>knowledge</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_92.6'>knowledge</a></span> which went before,
-and still turning over some new page of the book of
-Nature, wherein the finger of God has written, in
-characters hitherto undeciphered, fresh evidences of
-His glorious infinity. Under the auspices of our honorary
-member, Professor Owen, we gaze and admire.</p>
-
-<div class='chapter'>
- <h2 class='c005'>THE END.</h2>
-</div>
-
-<div class='chapter'>
- <h2 class='c005'>Footnotes</h2>
-</div>
-<hr class='c011'>
-<div class='footnote' id='f1'>
-<p class='c008'><a href='#r1'>1</a>. The library destroyed by the Caliph Omar, was situated in the
-temple of Serapis, and consisted of 300,000 volumes; in addition
-to which there existed in the Bruchion quarter of the city of
-Alexandria, a second collection of 400,000 books, which was accidentally
-lost by fire during the war with Julius Cæsar.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Alexandria (founded 332 B.C.) stood in an intermediate position
-between the east and west, and united the commerce of Europe,
-Aralia, and India; here came first into collision the Greek and
-Oriental mind; here the Septuagint translation of the Old Testament
-was written; and the collections formed by the ancient
-kings of Egypt were rapidly enriched and enlarged by the interchange
-of ideas with the Greek philosophers.</p>
-</div>
-<div class='footnote' id='f2'>
-<p class='c008'><a href='#r2'>2</a>. The contagiousness of Leprosy was held in universal belief up
-to the seventeenth century, when certain writers on the subject
-began to question the validity of a doctrine which had been handed
-down to them through successive ages, by all the early observers
-of the Jewish, Egyptian, Arabian, Grecian, and Hindoo countries,
-and the view then advanced has been confirmed by the report of
-the Committee recently appointed by the College of Physicians,
-who state <span class="nowrap">that:—</span>“The all but unanimous conviction of the most
-experienced observers in different parts of the world, is quite
-opposed to the belief that leprosy is <i>contagious</i> or <i>communicable</i>
-by <i>proximity</i> or <i>contact</i>.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>On the other hand we have to consider the testimony afforded
-us by the shrewd and intelligent teachers of ancient times. Thus,
-Aretæus believed it to be as contagious as the <i>plague</i>, and like <i>it</i>
-communicable by respiration; and <i>Œtius</i>, following <i>Archigenes</i>,
-thought that “the air became contaminated through the effluvia
-of the sores.” <i>Avicenna</i> believed leprosy to be contagious in the
-<i>general</i> sense of that term; <i>Avenzoar</i> by contact; <i>Haly Abbas</i> and
-<i>Alsaharavius</i> through the respiration; and <i>Rogerius</i> “<i>per coitum</i>.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>[These interesting facts are taken from an able article in the
-Lancet, February 9, 1867.]</p>
-</div>
-<div class='footnote' id='f3'>
-<p class='c008'><a href='#r3'>3</a>. <i>Pliny</i> tells us that the priests of <i>Cybele</i>, the mother of the
-gods had sharp stones with which they cut themselves in their
-extasies. <i>Catullus</i> says, that <i>Atys</i> emasculated himself with such
-an instrument.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>The Rabbinical law stands thus: “we may circumcise with anything,
-even with a flint, with crystal (glass) or with anything that
-cuts, <i>except with the sharp edge of a reed</i>, because the <i>enchanters</i>
-make use of that, or it may bring on a disease.” Again we have
-the evidence of <i>Leutholf</i> that the Æthopians used <i>stone knives</i> for
-circumcision in his time, 1581. Speaking of the <i><a id='corrfn3.11'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='original: alnajah'>Alnajah</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_fn3.11'>Alnajah</a></span></i>, an
-Æthopian race, he <span class="nowrap">says:—</span>“<span lang="la" xml:lang="la">Alnajah gens Æthiopum cultris
-lapideis circumcisionem peragit.</span>”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>Mr. E. B. Tylor in his “Researches into the Early History of
-Mankind,” has suggested as the probable reason why stone was
-used as a cutting instrument, that it was less likely to cause
-inflammation than either bronze or iron. And <i>Pliny</i> states that
-the mutilation of the priests of <i>Cybele</i> was done with a sherd of
-Samian ware to avoid the same danger.</p>
-</div>
-<div class='footnote' id='f4'>
-<p class='c008'><a href='#r4'>4</a>. Travels in Africa, Egypt, and Syria, from the year 1792 to
-1798, p. 347. London, 1799.</p>
-</div>
-<div class='footnote' id='f5'>
-<p class='c008'><a href='#r5'>5</a>. Travels in Nubia, by the late John Lewis Burckhardt, p. 332.
-London, 1819.</p>
-</div>
-<div class='footnote' id='f6'>
-<p class='c008'><a href='#r6'>6</a>. “As for Medicine, something of it must have been understood
-in that age, though it was so far from perfection, that, according
-to Celsus, (book i.) what concerned <i>diet</i> was invented long after
-by Hippocrates. The accidents of life make the search after
-remedies too indispensable a duty to be neglected at any time;
-accordingly, he tells us, that the Egyptians, who had many
-medicinal plants in their country, were all Physicians, and
-perhaps he might have learnt his own skill from his acquaintance
-with that nation.</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>“The state of war in which Greece lived, required a knowledge
-in the healing of wounds, and this might make him breed his
-princes, Achilles, Patroclus, Podalirius and Machaon, to the
-science; what Homer thus attributes to others he himself knew,
-and he has given us reason to believe, not slightly, for if we
-consider his insight into the structure of the human body, it is
-so nice, that he has been judged by some to have wounded his
-heroes with too much science; or, if we observe his cure of
-wounds, which are the accidents proper to an epic poem, we
-find him directing the chirurgical operations, sometimes infusing
-lenitives, at other times bitter powders, when the effusion of
-blood required astringent qualities.”—<i>Pope’s Essay on the Character
-of Homer.</i></p>
-</div>
-<div class='footnote' id='f7'>
-<p class='c008'><a href='#r7'>7</a>. Lord Derby’s Translation.</p>
-</div>
-<div class='footnote' id='f8'>
-<p class='c008'><a href='#r8'>8</a>. Taken from E. B. <a id='corrfn8.1'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='original: Tyler'>Tylor</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_fn8.1'>Tylor</a></span>—“Early History of Mankind,” p. 217.</p>
-</div>
-<div class='footnote' id='f9'>
-<p class='c008'><a href='#r9'>9</a>. See Notes and Letters of Pliny.</p>
-</div>
-<div class='footnote' id='f10'>
-<p class='c008'><a href='#r10'>10</a>. The Earl of Shrewsbury.</p>
-</div>
-<div class='footnote' id='f11'>
-<p class='c008'><a href='#r11'>11</a>. Now the site of Stationers’ Hall.</p>
-</div>
-<div class='footnote' id='f12'>
-<p class='c008'><a href='#r12'>12</a>. Corroborative evidence of the esteem in which this remedy was
-held will be found in Macaulay’s account of the death scene of
-<span class="nowrap">Charles II.:—</span>“All the medical men of note in London were
-summoned. Several of the prescriptions have been preserved;
-one of them is signed by fourteen doctors. The patient was bled
-largely. Hot iron was applied to his head. A loathsome volatile
-salt, <i>extracted from human skulls</i>, was forced into his mouth.”</p>
-
-<p class='c008'>[This volatile salt is thus described in the Dictionares des
-Drogues: Amsterdam, 1716. “<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">L’Usnée humaine contient beaucoup
-de sel volatil et d’huile; elle ne bouillonne point avec les
-acides.</span>”]</p>
-</div>
-<hr class="c011">
-
-<p class='c012'><a id='endnote'></a></p>
-<div class='tnotes'>
-
-<div class='nf-center-c0'>
- <div class='nf-center'>
- <div><span class='large'>Transcriber’s notes:</span></div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
- <ul class='ul_1'>
- <li>The errors deemed most likely to be the printer’s have been corrected, and are noted
- here.
- </li>
- <li>Where hyphenation occurs on a line break, the decision to retain or remove is based
- on occurrences elsewhere in the text.
- </li>
- <li>Errors in punctuation and quotes have been silently restored.
- </li>
- <li>The footnotes were moved to the end of the e-text.
- </li>
- <li>The numbers below reference the page or footnote and line in the original book.
- </li>
- </ul>
-
-<table class='table0'>
-<colgroup>
-<col class='colwidth15'>
-<col class='colwidth23'>
-<col class='colwidth61'>
-</colgroup>
- <tr>
- <th class='c013'>reference</th>
- <th class='c013'>correction</th>
- <th class='c014'>original text</th>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td class='c013'><a id='c_5.24'></a><a href='#corr5.24'>5.24</a></td>
- <td class='c013'>lawgiver</td>
- <td class='c014'>Jewish law-giver, it is a positive</td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td class='c013'><a id='c_34.13'></a><a href='#corr34.13'>34.13</a></td>
- <td class='c013'>fellow men</td>
- <td class='c014'>he instructed his fellow-men,</td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td class='c013'><a id='c_56.11'></a><a href='#corr56.11'>56.11</a></td>
- <td class='c013'>Harvey</td>
- <td class='c014'>our own great Hervey, of whom we</td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td class='c013'><a id='c_60.10'></a><a href='#corr60.10'>60.10</a></td>
- <td class='c013'>menstruous</td>
- <td class='c014'>menstrous blood, and even then it is</td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td class='c013'><a id='c_68.23'></a><a href='#corr68.23'>68.23</a></td>
- <td class='c013'>carpentry</td>
- <td class='c014'>skill in carpentery and smiths’ work.</td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td class='c013'><a id='c_92.6'></a><a href='#corr92.6'>92.6</a></td>
- <td class='c013'>knowledge</td>
- <td class='c014'>something to the knowlege which went</td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td class='c013'><a id='c_fn3.11'></a><a href='#corrfn3.11'>fn3.11</a></td>
- <td class='c013'>Alnajah</td>
- <td class='c014'>Speaking of the alnajah, an</td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td class='c013'><a id='c_fn8.1'></a><a href='#corrfn8.1'>fn8.1</a></td>
- <td class='c013'>Tylor</td>
- <td class='c014'>Taken from E. B. Tyler—“Early History</td>
- </tr>
-</table>
-
-</div>
-
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