Volume 1

Professional anecdotes, or ana of medical literature.

Date:
1825
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Professional anecdotes, or ana of medical literature. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    32/320 (page 18)
    though he had promised himself, by the use of his elixir proprietatis, that ;he should live as long as Mathusalem. No wonder Paracel- sus, in his time, was esteemed an excellent physician and surgeon ; for medicine was then in a low condition: the practice and the very language was all Galenical and Arabian. No- thing was inculcated but Aristotle, Galen, and the Arabs; Hippocrates was not read: nay, there was no edition of his writings; and scarcely was he ever mentioned. Their theory consisted in the knowledge of the four degrees, the temperaments, &c. and their whole practice was confined to bleeding, purging, vomiting, and glyster. What contributed still more to his reputation, was, his becoming acquainted with the excellency of quicksilver in the vene- real disease, which had then newly broke out, and spread itself over Europe. And probably he had the hint of this from Giacomi Carpi, a celebrated anatomist and surgeon at Boulogne, who alone had been master of the cure; which was effected by means of quicksilver, applied so as to raise a salivation. His real merit consisted, 1. In being well skilled in surgery, and practising it with great success. 2. In understanding the common prac- tice of physic, as well as his contemporaries. 3. In being alone master of the powers, pre-