Introductory lecture before the medical class of the Kentucky School of Medicine : on the truth of medicine as evinced by its origin, progress and present condition / by N. B. Marshall.

  • Marshall, N. B.
Date:
1860
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Introductory lecture before the medical class of the Kentucky School of Medicine : on the truth of medicine as evinced by its origin, progress and present condition / by N. B. Marshall. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    cussions and controversies engaged so large a share of public attention as for a time to silence all other investigation, causing neglect of medicine and other sciences, and, at a later day, leading to those errors and abuses in re- ligion which gradually overwhelmed the church and introduced an idolatry scarcely better than the ancient worship of the heathen gods. Secondly, the high position which medicine had already attained, and therefore the lucrative inducements it thus held out, had attracted, as it has in our own day, swarms of traders in the profession, whose only object, first, last and always, was money. These vampires, as we see around us now, threw discredit on a profession which, above all others, demands self-denial, honest effort, and true philan- thropy. But the very evil which was thus created, becoming in time entirely insufferable, worked to some extent its own cure. At an early period of the Christian era, certain wholesome restrictions were imposd upon the prac- tice of medicine, and Antoninus Pius originated a system of protection for the community, which might most advantageously be imitated at the present day. Under this rescript no one was allowed to practice who had not, by examination and otherwise, exhibited capability and good character. How such requisites would now curtail the number of doctors and how the com- munity would be blessed ! But although during the early part of the Chris- tian era there was no rapid extension of medical knowledge and discovery, there was nevertheless a step toward the establishment of a broader and surer foundation for its future growth and prosperity, while its passage through, and revival of, the period extending to the fourteenth or fifteenth century, and termed very properly its period of transition,'' go far with all candid and reflecting minds to establish the value and truth of the sci- ence. But if medicine suffered through the abnormal application and influ- ence of Christianity in one direction, in another, and through its natural, healthy and legitimate tendency, it experienced a valid and lasting aid, which gave and gives assistance to its advance by the sure and reliable light of clinical observation. To the proper appreciation and application of that rarest and most Christian of all virtues, charity, is due the establish- ment of hospitals, by which was gained a systematic observation and treat- ment of disease, and an opportunity of testing theories which, instead of preceding, should always follow, facts, only to explain what experience has already established; and to the effort of woman, ever more ready than the other sex to sympathize with, and alleviate, the sufferings of humanity, is attributable the origination of that happy idea, the establishment of hos- pitals. A noble Roman lady, led by devotion to religion to take up her abode at Jerusalem, was touched with pity at witnessing the sufferings from unseated disease among the crowds who visited that city for the purpose of beholding the spot and scenes hallowed by the bodily presence and death of their crucified Lord, and, to relieve them as far as possible, she united with a few others, under the direction of St. Jerome, in the erection and maintenance of a hospital for the sick, ajid another receptacle for the con- valescent. This system was further enlarged and acted upon at a subse- quent date by Emperors and Kings, and thus that which was the conception of the purest charity and benevolence resulted in great and lasting benefit to the science of medicine. Among the writers of the period extending from the third to the four- teenth century there is but little mark of originality, most of them being content with blindly following in the footsteps of their predecessors, and especially Galen, the last of the Latin authors who made contributions of any extent to our science. For several centuries after the time of Galen there were only three or four authors in the western empire whose works have been deemed worthy of preservation.! Sereuus Sammonicus, Theo- dore Priscian, Marcellus Empiricus and Vegetius are the last writers of note before the second burning of the Alexandrian libraries, and their con- <:Benouard. f Watson's discourse.