Читать книгу The Mystery and Romance of Alchemy and Pharmacy - C. J. S. Thompson - Страница 8

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Though Æsculapius is said to have lived so near to the time of the Trojan war, yet the Greeks knew very little about him. The superstition of the time gave him a position among the gods, and as he was adored under the character of the genius of physic, it came at last to be doubted whether he was ever a mortal; consequently his priests were obliged for their own sakes to make themselves masters of all the physic that the master could teach, that they might be qualified to give advice to those who applied to them; their prescriptions passed for the suggestions of the gods, the cures for the miraculous. But both diseases and remedies were carefully recorded. Strabo tells us that from these registers in the temple of Æsculapius at Cos, Hippocrates formed his plan for a proper diet.

Hippocrates, the wise physician and father of medicine, was according to Soranus the son of Heraclides and Phænaretes, descended from Hercules and Æsculapius. He was a Coan by birth, and was first instructed by his father, and then by Herodicus, and Democritus of Abdua, the philosopher. He flourished at the time of the Peloponnesian war, and after being instructed in physic and the arts, left his own country for Thessaly, where his fame soon became known, even as far as Persia. He was sent for by Perdiccás, King of Macedonia, who was then thought to be consumptive, but Hippocrates diagnosed it to be a disease of the mind, and soon cured the king. He is also said to have delivered his own country from a war with the Athenians by prevailing upon the Thessalians to come to their assistance, for which he received great honours from the Coans. He taught his art with great candour and liberality to those who were desirous to learn, and at length died full of honours, it is said, in his ninetieth year, and was buried between Gyrton and Larissa. A quaint old tradition states that at his tomb a swarm of bees settled and made their honey for a long time, with which children troubled with aphthas, anointed by their nurses at the grave, were easily cured.

He was by no means covetous of money, but grave in his behaviour and a lover of Greece, as appears from his curing those of that nation with the utmost diligence, and freeing many of their cities from the plague, for which he acquired great honours.

At first the art of healing was accounted a branch of philosophy, so that the cure of diseases and the study of nature owed their rise to the same persons. Among the many philosophers skilled in the art the most celebrated were Pythagoras, Empedocles, Democritus, and Hippocrates of Cos. After them came Diodes the Carystian, Praxagoras, and Chrysippus, with Hierphilus and Erasistratus, many of whom practised their art in entirely different ways. At this period physic was divided into three schools; the first cured by diet, the second by medicines, the third by manual operations. Those who treated by dietetic methods endeavoured to extend their views farther with the assistance of natural philosophy. Then came Serapion, the apostle of practice and experience, and afterwards Asclepiades, who worked a revolution in medical science as then practised.

The knowledge of both surgery and medicine even in the time of Celsus is very remarkable, and many of the forms of administration of medicine are employed at the present day. The enema was largely used by the ancients, a common one being hydromel, described by Dioscorides as being made by mixing two parts of water to one of honey; sea-water was also employed for the same purpose, and Celsus recommends the copious drinking of hot water as a laxative remedy.

Asclepiades was the originator of massage and friction, and in his book of general remedies describes his treatment, which is similar to that performed to-day. Poultices of meal of various descriptions were commonly employed, linseed or fenugreek being the favourite media.

Asclepiades studied in Alexandria, and after practising in Greece and Asia Minor, finally settled in Rome in the early part of the first century B.C. Here he soon met with success, and established a reputation for great skill. He was the physician and friend of Cicero, and probably also the instructor of Lucretius in the Epicurean philosophy, of which he was an enthusiastic advocate.

He believed the body to be composed of atoms or particles, with spaces between, through which, like a sieve, various atoms of other shapes were continually passing in and out of the body.

In practice he believed in curing his patients with as little discomfort as possible, which doubtless helped to make him popular. He was averse to the employment of violent remedies and the excessive use of emetics and purgatives so much favoured by his fellow-practitioners.

He advocated the use of music as a soothing agent, and was strongly in favour of bathing frequently and of massage.

He strongly believed in wine as a remedial agent, which it has been said may have accounted for his popularity with the Roman ladies, with whom as a physician he was in great demand. He lived to a very advanced age, and died it is stated from the effects of a fall.

Galen, born at Pergamus in the year A.D. 131, studied in the school of Alexandria, which then had a considerable reputation, and there he formulated his system of treatment founded on his knowledge of anatomy and on observation. His fame having spread abroad, he travelled to Rome and became physician to the Emperor Marcus Aurelius. According to Galen, the health of the body depended on an equal and uniform mixture of solids and liquids, and its sickness arose from their inequality; consequently, the physician should foresee illness. He was a profound student of anatomy in his early career, and afterwards turned his attention to physiology. His views as to inflammation, intermittent fevers, and his system of antipathies and sympathies, place him very much above his predecessors.

“In the beginning of the fifth century,” says Lacroix, “the practice of medicine, like that of surgery, which was not yet a distinct branch, continued to be free without any authorisation being required. There were even women who, like the Druidesses of the Gauls, treated the sick.” Charmers, unconscious, no doubt, of the occult forces which they set to work, attempted to cure neuralgic pains, country bone-setters to mend fractured limbs, while oculists and impostors of the worst kind travelled the country.

It was not until the close of the eighth century that a regular course of medical instruction was founded, the first of the kind being organised at Salerno, in the kingdom of Naples.

Alexander of Tralles, a noted physician, flourished in the middle of the sixth century. No Greek doctor equalled him since the days of Hippocrates in regard to his knowledge of his art in those primitive days. He is said to have possessed to a high degree the art of diagnosis, and he laid down as a principle, that no decision should be arrived at as to the treatment of a case until the specific causes of disease had been carefully considered. His depreciation of violent aperients, his views on melancholia and gout, and his generally common-sense treatment, stamped him as a man of superior attainments and ability. He was the first to resort to bleeding from the jugular vein, and to use iron in certain diseases affecting the blood.