MEDICI´NA
MEDICI´NA (
ο_ατρική),
the name of that science which, as Celsus says (
de Medic.
lib. i. Praef.), promises health to the sick, and whose object is defined in
one of the Hippocratic treatises (
de Arte, vol.
i. p. 7, ed. Kühn) to be “the delivering sick persons from
their sufferings, and the diminishing the violence of diseases, and the
not undertaking the treatment of those who are quite overcome by
sickness, as we know that medicine is here of no avail.” This and
other definitions of the art and science of Medicine are critically examined
in Pseudo-Galen (
Introduct. 100.6, vol. xiv. pp. 686-8, ed.
Kühn). The invention of medicine was almost universally attributed
by the ancients to the gods. (Hippoc.
de Prisca Medic. vol.
i. p. 39; Pseudo-Galen,
Introd. c. i. p. 674;
Cic. Tusc. Dis. 3.1;
Plin. Nat. 29.2.) So also in Aeschylus
(
Pr. 478) we have the claim advanced for Prometheus, that
he first taught men the art of medicine both externally applied and as
potions, and there is a remarkable passage in Pindar (
Pind. N. 3.45) where Aesculapius is taught by
Chiron the triple art of healing by drugs, incantations, and surgical
operations. Another source of information too was observing the means
resorted to by animals when labouring under disease. Pliny (
Plin. Nat. 8.97) gives many instances in
which these instinctive efforts taught mankind the properties of various
plants, and the more simple surgical operations. The wild goats of Crete
pointed out the use of the dictamnus and vulnerary herbs; dogs when
indisposed sought the
triticum repens, and the
same animal taught the Egyptians the use of purgatives, constituting the
treatment called syrmaïsm. The hippopotamus introduced the practice
of bleeding, and it is affirmed that the employment of clysters was shown by
the ibis. (Compare Pseudo-Galen,
Introd. c. i. p. 675.) Sheep
with worms in their liver were seen seeking saline substances, and cattle
affected with dropsy anxiously looked for chalybeate waters. We are told
(
Hdt. 1.197;
Strabo xvi. p.348) that the Babylonians and Chaldaeans had no
physicians, and that in cases of sickness the patient was carried out and
exposed on the highway, in order that any of the passers-by, who had been
affected in a similar manner, might give some information respecting the
means that had afforded them relief. (Comp. Plut.
de
occulte vivendo, § 21.) Shortly afterwards, these
observations of cures were suspended in the temples of the gods, and we find
that in Egypt the walls of their sanctuaries were covered with records of
this description. The priests of Greece adopted the same practice, and some
of the curious tablets suspended in their temples will illustrate the
custom. The following votive memorials are given by Hieron. Mercurialis
(
de Arte Gymnast. Amstel. 4to. 1672, pp. 2,
3):--“Some days back a certain Caius, who was blind, was ordered
by an oracle that he should repair to the sacred altar and kneel in
prayer, then cross from right to left, place his five fingers on the
altar, then raise his hand and cover his eyes. [He obeyed,] and his
sight was restored in the presence of the multitude, who congratulated
each other that such signs [of the omnipotence of the gods] were shown
in the reign of our emperor Antoninus.”
“A blind soldier named Valerius Aper was ordered by the oracle to mix
the blood of a white cock with honey, to make up an ointment to be
applied to his eyes, for three consecutive days: he received his sight,
and came and returned public thanks to the god.”
“Julian appeared lost beyond all hope from a spitting of blood. The
god ordered him to take from the altar some seeds of the pine, and to
mix them with honey, of which mixture he was to eat for three days. He
was saved, and gave thanks in presence of the people.”
With regard to the medical literature of the ancients: “When”
(says Littré,
Œuvres complètes
d'Hippocrate, tome i. Introd. p. 3) “we search into the
history of medicine and the commencement of science, the first body of
doctrine that we meet with is the collection of writings known under the
name of the works of Hippocrates. Science mounts up directly to that
origin, and there stops. Not that it had not been cultivated earlier,
and had not given rise to even numerous productions; but everything that
had been made before the physician of Cos has perished. We have only
scattered and unconnected fragments remaining of them; the works of
Hippocrates have alone escaped destruction; and by a singular
circumstance there exists a great gap after them, as well as before
them. The medical works from Hippocrates to the establishment of the
school of Alexandria, and those of that school itself, are completely
lost, except some quotations and passages preserved in the later
writers; so that the writings of Hippocrates remain isolated amongst the
ruins of ancient medical literature.” The Asclepiadae, to which
family Hippocrates belonged, were the supposed descendants of Aesculapius
(
Ἀσκλήπιος), and were in a manner the
hereditary physicians of Greece. They professed to have among them certain
secrets of the medical art, which had been handed down to them from their
great progenitor, and founded several medical schools in different parts of
the world. Galen mentions (
de Meth. Med. 1.1, vol. x. pp. 5,
6) three, viz. Rhodes, Cnidos, and Cos. The first of these appears soon to
have become extinct, and has left no traces of its existence behind. From
the second proceeded a collection of observations called
Κνίδιαι Γνῶμαι,
“Cnidian Sentences,” a work of much reputation in early times,
which is mentioned by Hippocrates (
de Rat. Vict. in Morb.
Acut. vol. ii. p. 25), and which appears to have existed in the time
of Galen (
Comment. in Hippocr. lib. cit. vol. xv. p. 427).
The school of Cos, however, is by far the most celebrated, on account of the
greater number of eminent physicians that sprang from it, among whom was the
great Hippocrates. We learn from Herodotus (iii.
[p. 2.153]131) that there were also two celebrated medical schools at Crotona in
Magna Graecia, and at Cyrene in Africa, of which he says that the former was
in his time more esteemed in Greece than any other, and in the next place
came that of Cyrene. In subsequent times the medical profession was divided
into different sects; but a detailed account of their opinions would be out
of place in the present work. The oldest and perhaps the most influential of
these sects was that of the
Dogmatici, founded about B.C. 400
by Thessalus, the son, and Polybus, the son-in-law of Hippocrates, and
thence called also the
Hippocratici. These retained their
influence till the rise of the
Empirici,
founded by Serapion of Alexandria and Philinus of Cos, in the third century
B.C., and so called because they professed to
derive their knowledge from experience only. After this time every member of
the medical profession during a long period ranged himself under one of
these two sects. In the first century B.C.,
Themison founded the sect of the
Methodici, who held
doctrines nearly intermediate between those of the two sects already
mentioned; and who, about two centuries later, were subdivided into numerous
sects, as the doctrines of particular physicians became more generally
received. The chief of these sects were the
Pneumatici and
the
Eclectici; the former founded by Athenaeus about the
middle or end of the first century A.D.; the
latter about the same time, either by Agathinus of Sparta or his pupil
Archigenes.
It only remains to mention the principal medical authors after Hippocrates
whose works are still extant, referring for more particulars respecting
their writings to the articles in the
Dictionary of
Biography. Celsus is supposed to have lived in the Augustan age, and
deserves to be mentioned more for the elegance of his style, and the
neatness and judiciousness of his compilation, than for any original
contributions to the science of Medicine. Dioscorides of Anazarba, who lived
in the first century after Christ, was for many centuries the greatest
authority in Materia Medica, and was almost as much esteemed as Galen in
Medicine and Physiology, or Aristotle in Philosophy. Aretaeus, who probably
lived in the time of Nero, is an interesting and striking writer, both from
the elegance of his language and the originality of his opinions. Caelius
Aurelianus, whose matter is excellent, but the style quite barbarous. The
next in chronological order, and perhaps the most valuable, as he is
certainly by far the most voluminous, of all the medical writers of
antiquity, is Galen, who reigned supreme in all matters relating to medical
science from the third century till the commencement of modern times. After
him the only writers deserving particular notice are Oribasius of Pergamus,
physician to the Emperor Julian in the fourth century; Aëtius of
Amida, who lived probably in the sixth century; Alexander Trallianus, who
lived something later; and Paulus Aegineta, who belongs to the end of the
seventh.
[
W.A.G]
