Volume 1

A system of gynecology / by American authors ; edited by Matthew D. Mann.

Date:
1887-1888
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A system of gynecology / by American authors ; edited by Matthew D. Mann. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Greeks, who wrote in terms of the highest admiration of the skill and the learning of the physicians of Egypt. The physicians under the Ptolemies were required to regulate their practice according to certain books, one of which was devoted to diseases peculiar to women. These books were held as sacred, and their authority was thus unquestionable. Doubtless, there existed among a people, evi- dences of whose greatness have of more recent years been so abundantly revealed, other works on this subject, but Saracen fanaticism in the destruction of the Alexandrian Library with its 600,000 volumes blotted out the story of what Egypt once was, and has left us only to conjecture. When the difference in the language and political complexion of Greece and Egypt is considered in connection with the necessarily limited in- tercommunication of the two peoples, it is but reasonable to suppose that comparatively little of the learning of the older civilization found its way to Greece, and that such inkling as we have received through the Greeks of the status of Egyptian medicine is very meagre when compared with the actual advancement which obtained. The destruction of the Alexandrian Library has left the writings of Hippocrates, written about 450 B. c, the oldest extant containing anything like a systematic consideration of the diseases of women. Moses, who was versed in all the learning of the Egyptians, shows a rem'arkable familiarity with the sexual peculiarities of women, but he treats of them in their physiology, and interests himself m the hygiene of the genitalia rather than in their diseases. In the language of Adams, the learned commentator on the works of Hippocrates, these works furnish the most indubitable proofs that the obstetric art had been cultivated with most extraordinary ability at an early period. In regard to gynecology proper, these works are, however, disappointing to him who has been led to admire and revere the philosopher of Cos through a study of his works on general med- icine Hippocrates advised the use of aromatic fumigations in amenor- rhoea which fumigations he also recommended as a test of fertility in the female. The woman who did not conceive was wrapped m blankets and fumigated from beneath ; if the scent passed through her body o the nostrils and mouth, then it was known that she was not unfruitful! While he recognized a causative relation between the uterus and hys- teria he maintained that the movement of the womb towai-d the head caused pain under the eyes and nose, with abundant and frothy saliva; if it moved toward the hypochondrium, it caused vomiting of an acrid, burning matter; if it moved toward the liver, it caused loss of speech, clenchiL of the teeth, and a livid skin. The ren.edies for these vanous tTe al symptoms ^ere as ludicrous as their etiology. Nullipai^ were herto be more subject to menstrual disorders than women who had borL c^^ for the veins of the woman who has given bnth to a