PER [NOTEO] hath its own physician, who confines himself to the study and cure of that, and meddles with no other; so that all places are crowded with physicians: for one class hath the care of the eyes, another of the head, another of the teeth, another of the region of the belly, and another of OCCULT DISTEMPERS [AQANEON NOTION.]" Notwithstanding all this, by every distemper, is meant, it seems, each part of a dead body: death, indeed, has been often called a remedy, but never, I believe, a disease, before. But the subsequent words, he says, lead us to this sense. The reader will suspect by this, that I have not given him the whole of the account: but the subsequent words, whereby our author would support his interpretation, are the beginning of a new chapter about funeral rites:-As to their mournings for the dead, and funeral rites, they are of this kind,* &c. Now because Herodotus speaks next of their obsequies, which, methinks, was methodical enough, after his account of their physicians, this writer would have the foregoing chapter an anticipation of the following; and the historian to treat of his subject before he comes to it. He goes on:-For so indeed they had [i. e. a different physician for each different part of the body] not to cure the diseases of it, but to embalm it when dead. How comes he to know this? Doth scripture inform him that they had a different physician for every different part of a dead body? No. They are only the Greek writers (in his opinion) misunderstood, who are supposed to say it. But why will he depend so much upon them in their account of funeral rites, and so little in their account of physicians? Scripture, which says they used embalming, and had many physicians, is equally favourable to both accounts: but it may be, one is, in itself, more credible than the other. It is so; but surely it is that which tells us they had a different physician to every different distemper; for we see great use in this; it being the best, nay perhaps the only expedient of advancing medicine into a science. On the other hand, what is said of the several parts assigned to several men, in the operation of embalming, appears, at first view, much more wonderful. 'Tis true, it may be rendered credible; but then. it is only by admitting the other account of the Egyptian practice of physic, which the learned writer hath rejected: for when each disorder of the body had a several physician, it was natural, it was expedient, that each of these who were the embalmers likewise should inspect that part of the dead corpse to which his practice was confined; partly to render the operation on the dead body more complete, but principally, by an anatomical inspection, to benefit the living. On this account every interment required a number, as their work was to be divided in that manner which best suited the ends of their inspection. It is true, subsequent superstitions might introduce various practices in the division of this task amongst the operators, which had no relation to the primitive designs. These I imagine, concludes our writer, were the offices of the EgypΘρήνοι δὲ καὶ ταφαὶ σφέων, εἰσὶ ἅδε.—Lib. ii. cap. 85. tian physicians, in the early days; there were an order of the ministers of religion. He then employs some pages (pp. 361-364) to prove that the Egyptian physicians were an order of religious; and the whole amount comes to this, that their practice was intermixed with superstitions; a circumstance which hath attended medicine through all its stages; and shall be accounted for in the progress of this inquiry. But their office of embalming is likewise much insisted on: for this being part of the Egyptian funeral rites, and funeral rites being part of their religion; the consequence is, that these were religious ministers. The physicians had indeed the care of embalming; and it was, as we have hinted above, a wise designation, if ever there was any: for, first, it enabled the physicians, as we have observed, to discover something of the causes of the à Pariwv voúcar, the unknown diseases, which was the district of one class; and, secondly, to improve their skill by anatomical inquiries into the cause of the known, which was the business of the rest. Pliny expressly says, it was the custom of their kings to cause dead bodies to be dissected, to find out the origin and nature of diseases; of which he gives a particular instance:* and Syncellus, from Manetho, relates, that books of anatomy were written in the reign of the second king of the Thinites. -But to make their employment, in a sacred rite, an argument of their being an order of religious, would be just as wise as to make the priests of the church of Rome, on account of their administering extreme unction, an order of physicians. But though the learned writer's arguments to support his fanciful opinions be thus defective, yet what he imagined in this case is very true; these physicians were properly an order of the ministers of religion; which (though it make nothing for his point, for they were still as properly physicians) I shall now show by better arguments than those of system-makers, the testimonies of antiquity. In the most early times of the Egyptian monarchy there was no accurate separation of science † into its distinct branches. The scholiast on Ptolemy's Tetrabiblus expressly tells us, that their ancient writings did not treat separately of medicine, astrology, and religion, but of all these together: and Clemens Alexandrinus says, that of forty-two books of Mercury, which were the bible of the Egyptians, six and thirty contained all their philosophy; and were to be well studied by the several orders of the priesthood, which he before mentions; the other six, which related entirely to medicine, belonged to the TaoTopógo, i. e. such as wore the cloak; § and these, as in another place, he tells us, were an order of Crudos [raphanos] medici suadent ad colligenda acria viscerum dandos cum sale jejunis esse, atque ita vomitionibus præparant meatum. Tradunt et præcordiis necessarium hunc succum : quando phthisim cordi intus inhærentem, non alio potuisse depelli compertum sit in EGYPTO, REGIBUS CORPORA MORTUORUM AD SCRUTANDOS MORBOS INSECANTIBUS. Nat. Hist. lib. xix. cap. 5. * + See Div. Leg. book i. † Οἱ Αἰγύπτιοι οὐκ ἰδίᾳ μὲν τὰ Ἰατρικὰ, ἰδίᾳ δὲ τὰ ̓Αστρολογικὰ, καὶ τὰ Τελεστικὰ, ἀλλὰ ἅμα πάντα συνέγραψαν. - δύο μὲν οὖν καὶ τεσσαράκοντα αἱ πάνυ ἀναγκαῖαι τῷ Ἑρμῇ γεγόνασι βίβλοι· ὧν τὰς μὲν γέ, τὴν πᾶσαν Αἰγυπτίων περιεχούσας φιλοσοφίαν, οἱ προειρημένοι ἐκμανθάνουσι τὰς δὲ λοιπὰς ἕξ, οἱ ΠΑΣΤΟΦΟΡΟΙ, ἰατρικὰς ούσαι, &c.—Lib. vi. Strom. ministers of religion:* and even in Greece, the art of medicine being brought thither from Egypt, went in partnership, during the first ages, with philosophy; though the separation was made long before the time which Celsus assigns to it, as we shall see presently. Thus it appears that these artists were properly both priests and physicians, not very unlike the monk and friar physicians of the late ages of barbarism. Our author now proceeds to the general history of physic. Let us see if he be more happy in his imaginations here. We may be sure, says he, the physicians practised only surgery till after Homer's time. What must we say then to the story of Melampus, who learned the art of physic and divination in Egypt ;§ and cured Prœtus's daughters of an atrabilaire disorder, with hellebore, a hundred and fifty years before the Argonautic expedition? But why not till after the time of Homer, who wrote not of his own time, but of the Trojan, near three hundred years before; and this in a kind of work which requires decorum, and will not suffer a mixture of later or foreign manners to be brought into the scene? the writer, therefore, at least should have said, till after the Trojan times. But how is even this supported? Why we read in Homer, that their WHOLE art consisted in extracting arrows, healing wounds, and preparing anodynes; and again, where Idomeneus says to Nestor, That one physician is worth many other men, for extracting arrows, and applying lenitives to the wound; Ιητρὸς γὰρ ἀνὴρ πολλῶν ἀντάξιος ἄλλων, Ιούς τ' ἐκτάμνειν, ἐπί τ' ἤπια φάρμακα πάσσειν. || Homer's speakers rarely talk impertinently. Idomeneus is showing the use of a physician in an army: now, surely, his use on these occasions consists in healing wounds. The poet therefore chose his topic of recommendation with good judgment; and we may be certain, had he spoken of the use of a physician in a peaceable city, he had placed it in the art of curing distempers: and this is no imagination: we shall see presently that he hath in fact done so. In the mean time let me ask, what there is in this passage, which in the least intimates that the WHOLE art consisted in extracting arrows, and applying anodynes. But Pliny says so, who understands Homer to intimate thus much. What then? is not Homer's poem still remaining; and cannot we see, without – ΠΑΣΤΟΦΟΡΟΣ δὲ, ἤ τις ἄλλος τῶν ἱεροποιούντων περὶ τὸ τέμενος, σεμνὸν δεδορκώς, &c. -Pæd. lib. iii. cap. 2. From this passage we understand, that it was an inferior order of the priesthood which practised physic; for such were those who sacrificed. + Hippocrates Cous, primus quidem ex omnibus memoria dignis, ab studio sapientiæ disciplinam hanc separavit.-De Med. lib. i. præf. He adds, we see, to save his credit, ex omnibus memoria dignis; taking it for granted, that those who were not remembered, were not worth remembering. See Div. Leg. book i. See note M, at the end of this book. || Il. xi. ver. 514, 515. Medicina-Trojanis temporibus clara-vulnerum tamen duntaxat remediis. Nat. Hist. lib. xxix. cap. 1. Celsus too talks in the same strain:-Quos tamen Homerus non in pestilentia, neque in variis generibus morborum aliquid attulisse auxilii, sed vulneribus tantummodo ferro et medicamentis mederi solitos esse proposuit. Ex quo apparet has partes medicina solas ab his esse tentatas, easque esse vetustissimas.-De Medicina, lib. i. Præf. Pliny, what inference the rules of good sense authorize us to draw from the poet's words? The general humour of antiquity, which was strangely superstitious with regard to this father of the poets,* may be some excuse for Pliny in concluding so much from his silence; for Homer was their bible; and whatsoever was not read therein, nor could be expressly proved thereby, passed with them for apocryphal. But let us, whose veneration for Homer rises not quite so high, fairly examine the nature of his first great work. This, which is an entire scene of war and slaughter, gave him frequent occasion to take notice of outward applications, but none of internal remedies; except in the history of the pestilence; which being believed to come in punishment from the gods, was supposed to submit to nothing but religious atonements: not to say, that it was the chirurgical part of healing only that could be mentioned with sufficient dignity. The Greeks were large feeders, and bitter railers; for which excesses, I suppose, Machaon, during the ten years' siege, administered many a sound emetic and cathartic: but these were no proper ornaments for an epic poem. I said, his subject did not give him occasion to mention inward applications; nor was this said evasively, as shall now be shown from his second poem, of a more peaceable turn; which admitting the mention of that other part of the art of medicine, the use of internal remedies, he has therefore spoken in its praise. Helen is brought in, giving Telemachus a preparation of opium; which, the poet tells us, she had from Polydamna, the wife of Thon the Egyptian, whose country abounded with medicinal drugs, many of which were salubrious, and many baneful; whence the physicians of that land were more skilful than the rest of mankind. Τοῖα Διὸς θυγάτηρ ἔχε φάρμακα μετιόεντα, Εσθλὰ, τὰ οἱ Πολύδαμνα πόρεν Θῶνος παράκοιτις Φάρμακα, πολλὰ μὲν ἐσθλὰ μεμιγμένα, πολλὰ δὲ λυγρά. ̓Ανθρώπων· ἡ γὰρ Παιήονος εἰσι γενέθλης.† Here then is an express testimony much earlier than the time of Homer, for the Egyptian physicians practising more than surgery; which was the thing to be proved. Our author goes on: In the days of Pythagoras the learned began to form rules of diet for the preservation of health, and to prescribe in this point to sick persons. This is founded on the rules of diet observed in the Pythagoric school. There seems to be something strangely perverse in this writer's way of arguing;-In the case of the Egyptian regimen, though it be expressly delivered by the Greek writers as a -Homerum poëtam multiscium, vel potius cunctarum rerum adprime peritum.-And again: Ut omnis vetustatis certissimus auctor Homerus docet. This was said by Apuleius, a very celebrated Platonic philosopher, in a juridical defence of himself before a proconsul of Africa. Odyss. lib. iv. ver. 227, et seq. Clarke on this place of Homer observes that Pliny, lib. xxv. cap. 1, quotes this passage as ascribing a knowledge of medicinal herbs to the Egyptians before Lower Egypt was inhabited. medicinal one, yet by reason of some superstitions in it, our author will have it to be a religious observance; on the contrary, this Pythagoric regimen, though it be generally represented, and even by Jamblichus himself, as a superstitious practice, yet by reason of its healthfulness, he will have to be a course of physic. He proceeds: HIPPOCRATES began the practice of visiting sick-bed patients, and prescribed medicines with success for their distempers. For which Pliny is again quoted; who does indeed say he was the founder of the clinic sect: but it is strange he should say so; since Hippocrates himself, in numerous places of his writings, has informed us that it was founded long before. His tract De diæta in acutis begins in this manner: "Those who have collected what we call the CNIDIAN SENTENCES, have accurately enough registered the various symptoms or affections in the several distempers, with the causes of some of them: thus far might be well performed by a writer who was no physician, if so it were, that he carefully examined each patient about his several affections. But what a physician should previously be well instructed in, and what he. cannot learn from his patient, that, for the most part, is omitted in this work; some things in this place, others in that; several of which are very useful to be known in the art of judging by signs. As to what is said of judging by signs, or how the cure should be attempted, I think very differently from them. And it is not in this particular only that they have not my approbation: I as little like their practice in using so small a number of medicines; for the greatest part they mention, except in acute distempers, are purgatives, and whey, and milk for the time. Indeed, were these medicines proper for the distempers to which they direct them to be applied, I should think them worthy of double praise for being able to attain their purpose so easily; but this I do not apprehend to be the case: however, those who have since revised and new-modeled these sentences, have shown much more of the physician in their prescriptions." From this long passage we may fairly draw these conclusions: 1. That there was a physic-school at Cnidus: this appears from the sentences collected under its name. 2. That the Cnidian school was derived from the Egyptian: this appears from their sole use of evacuants, in all but acute distempers. 3. That it was now of considerable standing; having had a reform in the teaching of more able practitioners. 4. And lastly, which is most to the point, that the Οἱ ξυγγράψαντες τὰς ΚΝΙΔΙΑΣ καλεομένας ΓΝΩΜΑΣ, ὁποῖα μὲν πάσχουσιν οἱ κάμνοντες ἐν ἑκάστοισι τῶν νοσημάτων, ὀρθῶς ἔγραψαν, καὶ ὁκοίως ἔνια ἀπέβαινεν αὐτέων· καὶ ἄχρι μὲν τευτίων καὶ μὴ ἰητρὸς ἂν δύναντο ὀρθῶς ξυγγράψαι, εἰ εὖ παρὰ τῶν καμνόντων ἑκάστου πυθοίατο, ἐκεῖα πάσχουσιν. Οκόσα δὲ προκαταμαθεῖν δεῖ τὸν ἰητρὸν, μὴ λέγοντος τοῦ κάμνοντος, τουτέων τὰ πολλὰ πάρειται· ἄλλα ἐν ἄλλοισι, καὶ ἐπίκαιρα ἔνια ἰόντα ἐς τέκμαρσιν. Ὁκόταν δὲ ἐς τίκο μαρτιν λίγηται ὡς χρὴ ἕκαστα ἱητρεύειν, ἐν τοῦτέασι πολλὰ ἑτεροίως γινώσκω, ἢ ὡς ἐκεῖνοι ἐπεξίεσαν καὶ οὐ μόνον διὰ τοῦτο οὐκ ἐπαινέω, ἀλλ' ὅτι καὶ ὀλίγοισι τὸν ἀριθμὸν τοῖσιν ἀπίεσιν χρέονται τὰ γὰρ πλεῖστα αὐτέοισιν εἰρέαται, πλὴν τῶν ὀξειῶν νούσων, φάρμακα ἐλατήρια διδόναι, καὶ ὄφρον, καὶ γάλα, ἐς τὴν ὥρην πιπίσκειν. Ην μὲν οὖν ταῦτα ἀγαθὰ ἦν, καὶ ἁρμόζοντα τοῖσι νοσήμασιν, ἐφ' εἶσι παρήνιον διδόναι, πολὺ ἂν ἀξιώτερα ἐπαίνου ἦν, ὅτι ὀλίγα ἐόντα αὐταρκιά ἐστι· τῶν δὲ οὐχ οὕτως ἔχει· οἱ μέν τοι ὕστερον ἐπιδιασκευάσαντες ἰητρικώτερον δὴ τι ἐπῆλθον περὶ τῶν spastían ixáSTOISIV. |