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CHAP. 8.—TIE CHANGES EFFECTED BY ASCLEPIADES IN THE PRACTICE OF MEDICINE.

In addition to this, he had a wonderful tact in gaining the full confidence of his patients: sometimes he would make then a promise of wine, and then seize the opportune moment for administering it, while on other occasions, again, he would prescribe cold water: indeed, as Herophilus, among the ancients, had been the first to enquire into the primary causes of disease, and Cleophantus had brought into notice the treat- ment of diseases by wine, so did Asclepiades, as we learn from M. Varro, prefer to be indebted for his surname and repute to the extensive use made by him of cold water as a remedy. He employed also various other soothing remedies for his patients; thus, for instance, it was he that introduced swinging beds, the motion of which might either lull the malady, or induce sleep, as deemed desirable. It was he, too, that brought baths into such general use,—a method of treatment that was adopted with the greatest avidity—in addition to numerous other modes of treatment of a pleasant and soothing nature. By these means he acquired a great professional reputation, and a no less extended fame; which was very considerably enhanced by the following incident: meeting the funeral procession of a person unknown to him, he ordered the body to be removed from the funeral pile1 and carried home, and was thus the means of saving his life. This circumstance I am the more desirous to mention, that it may not be imagined that it was on slight grounds only that so extensive a revolution was effected in the medical art.

There is, however, one thing, and one thing only, at which we have any ground for indignation,-the fact, that a single individual, and he belonging to the most frivolous nation2 in the world, a man born in utter indigence, should all on a sudden, and that, too, for the sole purpose of increasing his income, give a new code of medical laws to mankind; laws, however, be it remembered, which have been annulled by numerous authorities since his day. The success of Asclepiades was considerably promoted by many of the usages of ancient medicine, repulsive in their nature, and attended with far too much anxiety: thus, for instance, it was the practice to cover up the patient with vast numbers of clothes, and to adopt every possible method of promoting the perspiration; to order the body to be roasted before a fire; or else to be continually sending the patient on a search for sunshine, a thing hardly to be found in a showery climate like that of this city of ours; or rather, so to say, of the whole of Italy, so prolific3 as it is of fogs and rain.4 It was to remedy these inconveniences, that he introduced the use of hanging baths,5 an invention that was found grateful to invalids in the very highest degree.

In addition to this, he modified the tortures which had hitherto attended the treatment of certain maltdies; as in quinzy for instance, the cure of which before his time had been usually effected by the introduction of an instrument6 into the throat. He condemned, and with good reason, the indiscriminate use of emetics, which till then had been resorted to in; most extraordinary degree. He disapproved also of the practice of administering internally potions that are naturally injurious to the stomach, a thing that may truthfully be pronounced of the greater part of them. Indeed it will be as well to take an early opportunity of stating what are the medicaments which act beneficially upon the stomach.

1 See B. vii. c. 37. Apuleius gives the story at considerable length, in the Florida, B. iv.

2 Asia Minor. Asclepiades was a native of Prusa in Bithynia.

3 We adopt Sillig's suggestion, and read "nimiborum altrice," the word "imperatrice" being evidently out of place. The climate of Italy seems to have changed very materially since his day.

4 See B.ii.c.51

5 See B.ix.c.79

6 "organo"

The Natural History. Pliny the Elder. John Bostock, M.D., F.R.S. H.T. Riley, Esq., B.A. London. Taylor and Francis, Red Lion Court, Fleet Street. 1855.

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