previous next

CHAP. 7. (3.)—TE NEW SYSTEM OF MEDICINE: ASCLEPIADES THE PHYSICIAN.

Still, however, the ancient theories remained unshaken, based as they were upon the still existing grounds of universally acknowledged experience; until, in the time of Pom- peius Magnus, Asclepiades,1 a professor of rhetoric, who considered himself not sufficiently repaid by that pursuit, and whose readiness and sagacity rendered him better adapted for any other than forensic practice, suddenly turned his attention to the medical art. Having never practised medicine, and being totally unacquainted with the nature of remedies—a knowledge only to be acquired by personal examination and actual experience—as a matter of course, he was obliged to renounce all previously-established theories, and to trust rather to his flowing periods and his well-studied discourses, for gaining an influence upon the minds of his audience.

Reducing the whole art of medicine to an estimation solely of primary causes, he made it nothing but a merely col- jectural art, and established it as his creed, that there are five great principles of' treatment for all diseases in common; diet, use or non-use of wine, frictions, exercise on foot, and ex- ercise2 in a carriage or on horseback. As every one perceived that each of these methods of treatment lay quite within his own reach, all, of course, with the greatest readiness gave their assent, willing as they were to believe that to be true which was so easy of acquisition; and hence it was that he attracted nearly all the world about him, as though he had been sent among mankind on a special mission from heaven.

1 See end of B. vii.

2 "Gestationes;" exercise on horseback, in a litter, or in a carriage drawn by horses.

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.

load focus Latin (Karl Friedrich Theodor Mayhoff, 1906)
hide Places (automatically extracted)

View a map of the most frequently mentioned places in this document.

hide References (5 total)
hide Display Preferences
Greek Display:
Arabic Display:
View by Default:
Browse Bar: