Volume 1

Pharmacologia; comprehending the art of prescribing upon fixed and scientific principles; together with the history of medicinal substances / By J.A. Paris.

  • Paris, John Ayrton, 1785-1856.
Date:
1823-1824 [vol. I, 1824]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Pharmacologia; comprehending the art of prescribing upon fixed and scientific principles; together with the history of medicinal substances / By J.A. Paris. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    and even errors in the choice and preparation of aliments, must have gradually unfolded the remedial powers of many natural substances ; these were recorded, and the authentic history of medicine may date its commencement from the period when such records began. The Chaldeans and Babylonians, we are ^ told by Herodotus, carried their sick to the public roads and markets, that travellers might converse with them, and commu¬ nicate any remedies, which had been successfully used in simi¬ lar cases ; this custom continued during many ages in Assyria ; and Strabo states that it prevailed also among the ancient Lusitanians, or Portuguese : in this manner, however, the re¬ sults of experience descended only by oral tradition ; it was in the temple of Esculapius in Greece, that medical information was first recorded ; diseases and cures were there registered on durable tablets of marble ; the priests* and priestesses, who were the guardians of the temple, prepared the remedies and directed their application, and thus commenced the profession of physic. With respect to the actual nature of these remedies, it is useless to inquire ; the lapse of ages, loss of records, change of language, and ambiguity of description, have render¬ ed every learned research unsatisfactory ; indeed we are in doubt with regard to many of the medicines which even Hip¬ pocrates employed. It is however clearly shown by the earliest records, that the ancients were in the possession of many powerful remedies thus Melampus of Argos, the most ancient Greek physician with whom we are acquainted, is said to have cured one of the Argonauts of sterility, by administer¬ ing the rust of iron in wine for ten days ; and the same physi¬ cian used hellebore as a purge, on the daughters of king Prsetus, who were afflicted with melancholy. Venesection was also a remedy of very early origin, for Podalirius, on his return from the Trojan war, cured the daughter of Damethus, who had fall¬ en from a height, by bleeding her in both arms. Opium, or a preparation of the poppy, was certainly known in the earliest as an illustration. We are told, that an Indian being ill of a fever, quench-V ed his thirst at a pool of water, strongly impregnated with the bark from some trees having accidentally fallen into it, and that he was in consequence cured. * As these persons were ambitions to pass for (he descendants of Escuia- pins, they assumed the name of The Ascjlepiades. The writings of Pausa- nius, Philostratus, and Plutarch, abound with the artifices of those early phy¬ sicians. Aristophanes describes in a truly comic manner the craft and pious avarice of these godly men, and mentions the dexterity and promptitude with which they collected, and put into their bags, the offerings on the altar. The patients, during (his period, reposed on the skins of sacrificed rams, in order that they might procure celestial visions. As soon as they were believed to be asleep, a priest, clothed in the dress of Esculapius, imitating his manners, and accompanied by the daughters of the god, that is, by young actresses, thoroughly instructed in their parts, entered, and delivered a medical opinion.