Outlines of the ancient history of medicine ; being a view of the progress of the healing art among the Egyptians, Greeks, Romans and Arabians / By D.M. Moir.

  • Moir, D. M. (David Macbeth), 1798-1851.
Date:
1931 [i. e. 1831]
    of two rivers, produced a current which removed the source of infection. Every thing considered, the philosophy of this step cannot be sufficiently ad- mired. (1) His ideas regarding the formation of ani- mals were not widely different from those afterwards more popularly promulgated by Lucretius and Har- vey ; nor is his theory of the physiology of hearing almost at all different from that which at present obtains. (2) His contemporary Alcmseon made an al- most equal approach to truth in his physiology of the sense of taste. (3) Alcmseon deserves particular celebration from his being the reported father of Comparative Anatomy. Religious prejudices so completely standing in the way of human dissection, he is said to have applied himself assiduously to the study of the organization of such of the lower animals as might he supposed more nearly to resemble man in their structure. Empedocles was horn at Agrigentum, in Sicily, and flourished about the 84th Olympiad. He per- ished by an irruption of Mount /Etna, having heed- (1) “ He is said,” writes Dr Henderson, “ to have freed his country from pestilence, by closing certain apertures in a mountain through which the Si- rocco blew upon the plain.”—Notes on Cabanis, p. 404. I ide etiam Plutarch De Curiositate, Op. tom. viii. et lib. Adversus Calotem, p. 1126. Clemens Alexandrinus, Strom, lib. vi. p. 630, Galen de Dogmat. Hippoc. et Platon, lib. iv. c. 16. (2) Plutarch, Placit. Philosoph. lib. iv. c. 16. (3) Sprengel is of opinion, from certain circumstances, that Alcmteon was acquainted with the extension of the passage from the internal ear to the pharynx, which afterwards received the name of the Eustachian tube. (Hist, vol. i. p. 240.) Pliny attributes this discovery to Archelaus, (lib. viii. c. 50.) and Mercurialis (Vari® Lectiones, lib. ii. c. 10.) is of the same opinion. 1- or his account of the physiology of hearing, see Plutarch, Physic. Phil. Decret. lib. iv. c. 17-
    lessly made too near an approach, in his eagerness to examine the nature of the molten lava. Nearly contemporary with Pythagoras lived He- raclitus the Ephesian, a person so austere and sullen in his temper, as to give rise to the supposition that he always wept. Along with some peculiar tenets in philosophy, he entertained one or two medical opi- nions of his own. When seized with dropsy, he is said to have shut himself up in a stable, and covered himself over with manure, to consume, says Le Clerc, the superfluous moisture that was in his intestines ;(1> but more likely with the intention of producing a copious perspiration ; thus forestalling, as it were, the doctrine of the absorbents and exhalants. In his case, the resource proved unavailing, and he died. The leading philosophical theory of Heraclitus was, that all the phenomena of the universe were resolvable by fire, which is the creative and preser- vative principle of life.*(I) 2) Before winding up this era with Democritus, two other physicians, that seem to require a passing no- tice, are Acrou and Herodicus; the former reputed to be the chief of the Empirical School, as that which >ased medicine on experience alone; the other the founder of the Gymnastic exercises, as applicable to the healing art. The tradition that Acron was the originator of the empirical sect, seems chiefly to rest on the authority (I) Histoire de la Medecine, p. 2. liv. ii. chap. vi. (2 Diogenes, lib. ix. sect. 8, et Plutarch de Ei aP. p. 302.
    of Pliny, as Dr Henderson remarks, in his excellent notes on Cabanis.*1' Other historians refer its establishment to a much later period, under the auspices of Philinus of Cos.(2) Acron determined to be guided in his medical practice by the results of experience, contemptuous- ly rejecting the theories and mystical doctrines of Enpedocles, and other philosophic spirits of his own age. From the Asclepiades a vast treasury of facts had been handed down, and he preferred the infer- ences to be drawn from a comparison of symptoms, to all conjectural speculations regarding their origin. He composed on medicine and dietetics in the Doric dialect, but his works have long ago perished, and we have no exact information respecting his opi- nions on particular diseases.*3' Of Herodicus, it is reported that he was of a frame naturally weak and delicate, with an inherent ten- dency to consumption. Having overcome this by strict attention to bodily exercise, he set about re- ducing his experiences into a code of precepts. He was a Thracian, educated for the healing art, and opened an academy for the instruction of youth in the gymnasium, as a means of invigorating the con- stitution and preserving health. We are also told (t) Alia factio ab experiments se cognominans Empiricen crr.pit in Sici- lia, Acrone Agrigentino\ Empedoclis physici auctoritate commendato. Hist. Nat. lib. xxxix. c. 1. (2) Vid. Galenl Opera, (Ed. Charterianse,) tom. ii. p. 36a (3) Acron is said to have checked the plague at Athens by fumigations. See Plutarch de Isid. et Osir. Op. tom. vii. Paul. Ogineta De Re Medica, lib. ii. c. 24. Otii Tetrarch. Secund. S. I. C. xciv.
    by Plato, that the dietetic part of medicine could hardly be said to have existed before his time/1* Long before Herodicus flourished there were academies in Greece for instructing the young in military and athletic exercises ; and the merit claim- ed for him is in having been the first to direct at- tention to gymnastics as a curative process. After the manner of most discoverers and reformers, he carried his opinions to an absurd length, and greatly overrated the efficacy of mere bodily exercises, by supposing them capable of counteracting disease, and superseding the necessity for medicine.*2) He laid down rules for the practice of gymnastics, according to temperament and distemper, age and climate ; and, in fact, introduced the art as a distinct branch of medical science.*3) Democritus appears to have attained much greater longevity, by laughing at the follies and infirmi- ties of man, than Heraclitus did by mourning over them ; having died, according to Diogenes Laertes, when more than a hundred years old.*4) Although the attention of Democritus was prin- cipally directed, like some of the distinguished men of whom we have spoken, not so much to medicine as an exclusive pursuit, than as a branch of general philosophy, it appears to have been an especial (1) Plato. Protagor. p. 286. Vide etiam Lucian de Consent, Hist. p. 626. (2) Platon. Phffidr. in principio. (3) Le Clerc, Histoire de la Medecine. Prem. Part. lib. ii. c. 8. (4) Vide Diogenes Laertes, in Democ., Suidas, Glen, Alex. Strom, lib. vi. p. 031. A then. lib. ji. c. 7. C
    favourite witli him; having left treatises on the na- ture of man,—on pestilential diseases,—on diet,— on prognostics,—and on the causes of sickness.® While they exhibit much ingenuity and observa- tion, the doctrines of Democritus are deeply tainted with the superstitions which prevailed in his times, as he appears to have been a firm believer in the magical properties of plants, and the cure of sick- ness by incantations.® It is said that Hippocrates had a great reverence for his genius, and lived in terms of friendship with him.® Of his high intel- lectual powers there could be no doubt; and Celsus, a good, though severe, judge of the claims of the ancient physicians, pronounces Democritus to be a person of deservedly high reputation. (“ Vir jure magni nominis).” The philosophy of Democritus was full of meta- physical subtleties, hut in its tangible points exhi- bited vast ingenuity and genius. He contended that nature required only atoms and a vacuum ;1 2 3 (4) that atoms were indivisible and unalterable; and that their qualities of sweetness, bitterness, acidity, and heat, existed only in relation to our perceptions, and were not inherent; in short, that atoms were tire only realities, and their properties matters of opi- nio^ such properties being dependent on the man- (1) Le Clerc, Histoire, Prem. Part. lib. ii. c. 6. (2) Plinii, Histor. Plantar, lib. xxiv. c. 17. (3) Hippocrat. Opera, tom. ii. Enfield’s History of Philosophy, vol. i. p. 427- (4) Aristot. Metaphys. lib. i. c. 4