A brief sketch of the ancient history of medicine, &c., being the annual oration delivered before the Hunterian Society at the London Institution, on February 13th, 1878 / by P. Lodwick Burchell.

  • Burchell, Peter Lodwick.
Date:
1878
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A brief sketch of the ancient history of medicine, &c., being the annual oration delivered before the Hunterian Society at the London Institution, on February 13th, 1878 / by P. Lodwick Burchell. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    purpose of returning thanks, paying their vows, and offering gifts for their recovery, to bring with them a History of the symptoms of their disorder, and an account of the curative means that had been used for their restoration. These documents were preserved in the AsclepicBy or Temples of Health, and one of the most famous of these Temples existed in Cos, the birthplace and chief residence of Hippocrates. These Temples were presided over by an order of Priest Physicians Asclepiadce, to whom was intrusted the care, and no doubt, the arrangement of these votive Tablets, into series suitable for reference, and adapted to practical purposes. Thus was accumulated an immense store of facts relating to diseases and their treatment, to which he had ready access, and thus was laid the foundation of rational medicine; at first but a very simple art, consisting entirely of ''dietetic and therapeutic precepts^' drawing no aid whatever from science, existing, in fact, before science dawned, or authentic history began. It is not very clear, from the imperfect sketch of the life of Hippocrates that we possess, whether he was himself actually enrolled as a member of this order or not; but as the Asclepiadce were the direct descendants from HJsculapius, and as Hippocrates