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     56. Lord Lister, M.D., D.C.L., LL.D.,............323

AN EPITOME OF THE HISTORY OF MEDICINE.

CHAPTER I.

Medicine Among the Hebrews, the Egyptians, the Orientals, the Chinese, and the Early Greeks.—The Asclepiadæ.—Further Arrangement into Periods ( Renouard's Classification). The Age of Foundation.—The Primitive; Sacred, or Mystic; and Philosophic Periods.—Systems in Vogue: Dogmatism, Methodism, Empiricism, Eclecticism.—Hippocrates, born 460 B.C.

Of the origin of medicine but little need be said by way of preface, save that it must have been nearly contemporaneous with the origin of civilization. The lower animals when sick or wounded instinctively lessen or alter their diet, seek seclusion and rest, and even in certain cases seek out some particular herb or healing substance. Thus, too, does the savage in his primitive state; and experience and superstition together have led nearly all the savage tribes into certain habits and forms in case of injury or disease. For us the history of medicine must necessarily begin with the written history of events, and its earliest endeavors need detain us but a very short time. Its earliest period is enveloped in profound obscurity, and so mingled with myth and table as to be very uncertain. It embraces an indefinite time, during which medicine was not a science, but an undigested collection of experimental notions,—vaguely described, disfigured by tradition, and often made inutile by superstition and ignorance. The earliest records of probable authenticity are perhaps to be met with in the Scriptures, from which may be gathered here and there a fair notion of Egyptian knowledge and practice. Thus we read that Joseph commanded his servants and physicians to embalm him, this being about 1700 B.C.. It shows that Egypt at that time possessed a class of men who practiced the healing art, and that they also embalmed the dead, which must have both required and furnished a crude idea of general anatomy. We are also informed from other sources that so superstitious were the Egyptians that they not only scoffed at, but would stone, the embalmers, for whom they had sent, after the completion of their task. The probably mythical being whom the Egyptians called Thoth, whom the Greeks named Hermes and the Latins Mercury, passed among the Egyptians as the inventor of all sciences and arts. To him are attributed an enormous number of writings concerning all subjects. Some have considered him as identical with Bacchus, Zoroaster, Osiris, Isis, Serapis, Apollo, and even Shem, the son of Xoah. Others have thought him to be a god. It is now almost certain that the books attributed to Hermes were not the work of anyone hand or of any one age. The-last six volumes of the forty-two composing the encyclopaedia, with which Hermes is credited, refer to medicine, and embrace a body of doctrines fairly complete and well arranged. Of these six, the first treats of anatomy; the second, of diseases; the third, of instruments; the fourth, of remedies; the fifth, of diseases of the eye; and the sixth, of diseases of women. In completeness and arrangement it rivals, if not surpasses, the Hippocratic collection, which it antedated by perhaps a thousand years. The Egyptians appear at first to have exposed their sick in public (at least, so says Strabo), so that if any of those who passed by had been similarly attacked they might give their advice for the benefit of the sufferers. In fact, according to Herodotus, the same custom prevailed among the Babylonians and Lusitanians. At a later date all who were thus cured were required to go to the temples and there inscribe their symptoms and what had helped them. The temples of Canopus and Vulcan at Memphis became the principal depots for these records, which were kept as carefully as were the archives of the nation, and were open for public reference. These records, being under the control of the priests, were mainly studied by them, who later collected a great mass of facts of more or less importance, and endeavored to found upon the knowledge thus collected an exclusive practice of the art of medicine. In this way they formed their medical code, which was called by Diodorus the Hiera Sacra, Sacred Book, from whose directions they were never allowed to swerve. It was perhaps this code which was later attributed to Hermes, and that made up the collection spoken of by Clement of Alexandria. If in following these rules they could not save their patients they were held blameless, but were punished with death if any departure from them were not followed by success.

I have spoken of embalming as practiced by the Egyptians. It was of three grades: the first reserved for men of position and means, which cost one talent, and according to which the brain was removed by an opening through the nasal fossæ, and the intestines through an opening on the left side of the abdomen, after which both cavities were stuffed with spices and aromatics; then the body was washed and spread over with gum and wrapped in bandages of linen. The second grade was adopted by families of moderate means; and the third was resorted to by the poor, consisting simply in the washing of the body and maceration in lye for seventy days.

Pliny assures us that the kings of Egypt permitted the opening of corpses for the purpose of discovering the causes of disease, but this was only permitted by the Ptolemies, under whose reign anatomy was carried to a very high degree of cultivation.

The medicine of the Hebrews is known generally through the Sacred Scriptures, especially through the writings attributed to Moses, which embraced rules of the highest sagacity, especially in public hygiene. The book of Leviticus is largely made up of rules concerning matters of public health. In the eleventh chapter, for instance, meat of the rabbit and the hog is proscribed, as apparently injurious in the climate of Egypt and India; it, however, has been suggested that there was such variation of names or interpretation thereof as to make it possible that our rabbit and hog are not the animals alluded to by Moses. The twelfth and fifteenth chapters of the same book were designed to regulate the relation of man and wife and the purification of women, their outlines being still observed in some localities by certain sects, while the hygienic measure of circumcision then insisted upon is still observed as a religious rite among the descendants of Moses. For the prevention of the spread of leprosy, the measures suggested by Moses could not now be surpassed, although ancient authors have confounded under this name divers affections, probably including syphilis, to which, however, the same hygienic rules should apply. Next to Moses in medical lore should be mentioned Solomon, to whom is attributed a very high degree of knowledge of natural history, and who, Josephus claimed, had such perfect knowledge of the properties of all the productions of nature that he availed himself of it to compound remedies extremely useful, some of which had even the virtues necessary to cast out devils.

The most conspicuous feature in the life of the Indian races is their