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 pile
1 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 nation
2 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 prolific
3 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 instrument
6 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.