An oration on the improvements in medicine : delivered before the Philadelphia Medical Society, twelfth month, 13th, 1837 / by Joseph Warrington ; published by order of the Society.

  • Warrington, Joseph, -1888.
Date:
1837
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An oration on the improvements in medicine : delivered before the Philadelphia Medical Society, twelfth month, 13th, 1837 / by Joseph Warrington ; published by order of the Society. 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.)

    15/36
    overcome, the intellect bursts forth in its brightness and shines till its glory is clouded by life-destroying dissipation ; it then declines, and leaves a blank to be filled up by some succeeding aspirant. 'Tis thus— the circling hunt of busy men Burst law's enclosure, leap the mounds of right, Pursuing and pursued each other's ptey, Till DEATH that mighty hunter earths them all. It is not to be supposed that during the period to which we have above alluded, there were no pretenders to the cure of such diseases as might occur amongst the citizens of Rome. Were this the case, that rapidly growing Republic would pre- sent a phenomenon unknown in the history of nations. Our inference from the assertion of so intelligent a writer as Pliny, only can be, that medicine was not cultivated as a science by those who were capable of advancing it. The Romans drew most of their learning directly from the Greeks, and it is likely that what little they knew of medicine, was borrowed from the same source. History indeed informs us, that notwithstanding the policy of this nation, kept the nerves and muscles of her sons trained to the arts of war, and a contempt of disease, when an epidemic of a somewhat malignant character, swept over her domain, the worship of Esculapius was introduced into Rome by a forma] embassy deputed to Greece for the purpose of obtaining the god himself; but he being unwilling to leave his favorite country, for one, which had hitherto despised his offices, the deputation returned with a factitious deity, under the form of a serpent, into Italy, where he was received with unbounded transport, by the citizens of Rome. A temple was erected for him on an island in the Tiber; the usual appendages of priests, with all their ceremonies, were appointed, and the plague was stayed. Such was the superstition of the Roman people, at this period of their ignorance, that they absolutely proscribed every practitioner of medicine, who did not deal in the incan- tations of this pretended Esculapian art.