author of one of the Hippocratic treatises, would seem to have confounded mind with heat, and the same idea runs through the present work, where it certainly appears that Hippocrates (or whoever was the author of the work) expresses himself as if he held the opinion that breath and soul are the same thing.' This, I say, would seem to be the doctrine which our author holds, but, as we stated before, his ideas on abstruse points of philosophy are not always so well defined as could have been wished; in short, he had not learned, like his immediate successor, Aristotle, to distinguish accurately between the immaterial principle and its primary instrument. Nor is this to be wondered at, when we reflect that a similar confusion of ideas prevails with many writers of the present day who maintain that some electrical or magnetical substance is the principle of life in all animals, and do not perceive the necessity of admitting an immaterial principle, as the conductor of its operations. Altogether, it is impossible not to remark a most striking coincidence between the tenets of the ancient philosophers regarding a pneuma, and those of certain modern mesmerists respecting a magnetical principle existing in the microcosm. With regard to the cause of epilepsy, it will be remarked that our author assigns its seat to the brain, and holds that the materies morbi is a cold phlegm or pituita, secreted in that organ, which passing down into the blood-vessels, and encountering the pneuma, or principle of life, produces those dreadful convulsions to which epileptics are subject. I may be permitted to state, that this doctrine of our author's, respecting a cold pituitous humor or phlegm secreted in the brain, is decidedly adopted by Aristotle, who probably received this, as he did most of his physiological opinions, from Hippocrates. Lucretius, the Epicurean De Generatione. A tenet, which has been always reckoned peculiar to him, is that the spirit is analogous to the substance of which the stars are composed, by which he probably meant ether, that is to say, light or heat, This would appear to have been a doctrine very generally maintained in ancient times; it forms part of the popular philosophy of the Augustan age, as expounded by Virgil in the Sixth Eneid, 1. 724. The poet here describes the pneuma as being “aurai simplicis ignem;" and in the Georgics he calls it "æthereos haustus." (iv., 220.) The best modern exposition of the ancient doctrines regarding the pneuma, is that by Abraham Kaau, in his work, Respiratio Dicta Hippocrati, which is replete with acute and profound views on many points connected with philosophy and physiology. The reader will also find much delightful information on the higher philosophy of the ancients in Berkeley's Siris, a most profound and original work. The doctrine of the pneuma thus broached by Hippocrates gave rise, several centuries afterwards, to a very important sect called the Pneumatic. On it, see in particular the French edition of Sprengell's Hist. of Med., tom. ii., p. 69; and the Preliminary Disquisition to Boerhaave's edition of Aretæus. 1 Moses would seem to identify breath and the vital principle. See Genesis, ii., 7. 332 GENUINE WORKS OF HIPPOCRATES. poet, also, although he rejects the mental philosophy of the Platonists and Peripatetics, espouses an hypothesis quite similar to our author's, in order to account for the phenomena of epilepsy. The description is so striking, that I subjoin a literal translation of it, by Mason Good: "Oft too some wretch, before our startled sight, Foams through each wave beneath the tempest's ire. He raves since soul and spirit 1 are alike Disturbed throughout, and severed each from each But when, at length, the morbid cause declines, Flow back-with staggering foot the man first treads, (De Rerum Natura, iii., 1. 486-504.) I may just mention further, that this doctrine of a pneuma, or animal spirits, was adopted by all the Arabian authorities, of which I shall only take time to refer to Avicenna, iii., 1, 4. It has also been held under a variety of shapes, by some of the first names in ancient and modern philosophy, as is correctly stated in the following interesting extract: "Hippocrates, Galen, and Vieussens, thought that the spirits are formed of an aerial principle. Van Helmont, Willis, and Stenon assimilated them to light. Newton said that they consist of part of that very elastic ele. ment upon which the reflection and rarefaction of the solar rays depend. Descartes regarded them as an igneous principle; Boerhaave thought that they approach to the nature of water. Saussure and De Haen confound them with electric matter." (Dumas, Physiol., iv., 73.) At present, however, as hinted above, the form which the hypothesis has assumed is that of animal magnetism, which, it is well known, has many intelligent supporters, of whom I shall only mention one, my intelligent countryman, Mr. Colquhoun, the author of Isis Revelata. The other part of our author's hypothesis, I mean the connection of the disease with a pituitous secretion from the brain, however much some 1 The poet applies the term animus to the mind or soul; and anima to the pneuma or spirit. Celsus renders the pneuma of Hippocrates by spiritus. See Præfatio. may be disposed thoughtlessly to deride it, received a most remarkable. confirmation from the observations of the celebrated anatomists, the Wenzels. The following account of their opinions I extract from Dr. Copland's Dictionary of Practical Medicine: "The WENZELS in their numerous dissections, directed attention to the state of the pituitary and pineal glands. These able pathologists found the pituitary glands and infundibulum variously altered in color, consistence, size, and structure, in nearly all the cases of epilepsy they examined. Alterations in the sphenoid bone and pituitary gland have been found also by Geeding, Newman, Sims, and myself." (See under Epilepsy, § 48.') Before concluding, I have a few additional remarks to make on the question whether or not the present treatise be the production of Hippocrates himself. I am aware that many learned critics, such as Gruner and Ackerman, looking to the difference of style and matter between it, and the genuine works of Hippocrates, such as the Prognostics and Aphorisms, have not hesitated to decide that it must be the production of an entirely different mind. But why should it appear incredible that the great master of Grecian medicine should have devoted his leisure hours to the study of the transcendental philosophy then in so high repute, and that he should have displayed the versatility of his genius in the manner he handles the new subject of his research? I have stated in the short biography I have given of him at the commencement of this work, that he was familiarly acquainted with Democritus of Abdera, and it is well known that he visited Athens at the time when Socrates had diverted the minds of his countrymen from verbal disputations to the cultivation of a sound and masculine philosophy. When we reflect how narrow the field of intellectual research then was, compared with what it has now become, it need not appear at all remarkable that the enlarged mind of our author should have ventured to grapple with all those great questions in physical and mental philosophy, which the sages of his time were attempting to solve. Galen, in fact, on many occasions, pronounces Hippocrates to have been a great philosopher, as well as a great physician; and that there is no incompatibility in the two characters is apparent from examples of very recent date. My lamented friend, Dr. Abercrombie, not only wrote elaborate works on Pathology and the Practice of Medicine, but also published treatises on Moral and Intellectual Philosophy. Haller was not only a great physician and physiologist, but also a highly popular poet. Why then should it appear incredible that Hippocrates should have displayed as wide a grasp of mind as a Haller or an Abercrombie? I know that the opinion is now pretty generally propagated, that a medical man ought to be exclusively occupied with professional pursuits, and have no See further, Syder's edition of Sir Astley Cooper's Lectures, p. 20 334 GENUINE WORKS OF HIPPOCRATES. leisure to devote to the cultivation of elegant literature, and it is not unusual to hear of a physician's being run down by the craftsmen of our art, as a person who, it is inferred, must be deficient in a practical acquaintance with medicine, because it is admitted that he has made respectable acquirements in the liberal sciences, and in philosophy. Such members of the medical profession (or, I should rather say, craft), though they can find no time to devote to Homer or Aristotle, to Milton or Kant, find plenty of leisure to frequent all the haunts of fashionable resort, and as Galen somewhere says of his professional contemporaries, when the rich and the noble do not want them in the sick chamber, they are always ready to attend them in the ball or the banquet room. But is such a waste of intellectual existence indispensably necessary, in order to attain success in the practice of our profession? And might not a man become a useful and respectable member of it, by discharging the duties of his profession actively when called upon, and then retiring to the study of the liberal arts and sciences? I shall conclude this Argument and my present task, by quoting the memorable words in which Cicero apologizes for his having spent a certain portion of his time in the cultivation of elegant literature, and of philosophy, leaving the reader to apply the same in the case of Hippocrates, and, I may be permitted to add, in that of the humble Editor of the present volume, who trusts he shall not be set down as an idle and unprofitable practitioner of the Art, because he has found leisure amidst the turmoil and distraction of a professional life, to communicate to his countrymen the important opinions contained in the genuine remains of The Coan Sage:-" Ego vero fateor me his studiis esse deditum; ceteros pudeat, siqui ita se literis abdiderunt, ut nihil possint ex his neque ad communem ferre fructum, neque in adspectum, lucemque proferre. Quare quis tandem me reprehendat, aut quis mihi jure succenseat si, quantûm ceteris ad suas res obeundas, quantum ad festos dies ludorum celebrandos, quantum ad alias voluptates, et ad ipsam requiem animi et corporis conceditur temporum; quantum alii tribuunt tempestivis conviviis; quantum denique aleæ, quantum pilæ, tantum mihi egomet ad hæc studia recolenda sumsero?"1 ON THE SACRED DISEASE. It is thus with regard to the disease called Sacred: it appears to me to be nowise more divine nor more sacred than other diseases, but has a natural cause from which it originates like other affections. Men regard its nature and cause as divine from ignorance and wonder, because it is 1 Pro Archia Poëta. not at all like to other diseases. And this notion of its divinity is kept up by their inability to comprehend it, and the simplicity of the mode by which it is cured, for men are freed from it by purifications and incantations. But if it is reckoned divine because it is wonderful, instead of one there are many diseases which would be sacred; for, as I will show, there are others no less wonderful and prodigious, which nobody imagines to be sacred. The quotidian, tertian, and quartan fevers, seem to me no less sacred and divine in their origin than this disease, although they are not reckoned so wonderful. And I see men become mad and demented from no manifest cause, and at the same time doing many things out of place; and I have known many persons in sleep groaning and crying out, some in a state of suffocation, some jumping up and fleeing out of doors, and deprived of their reason until they awaken, and afterward becoming well and rational as before, although they be pale and weak; and this will happen not once but frequently.' And there are many and various things of the like kind, which it would be tedious to state particularly. And they who first referred this disease to the gods, appear to me to have been just such persons as the conjurors, purificators, mountebanks, and charlatans now are, who give themselves out for being excessively religious, and as knowing more than other people. Such persons, then, using the divinity as a pretext and screen of their own inability to afford any assistance, have given out that the disease is sacred, adding suitable reasons for this opinion, they have instituted a mode of treatment which is safe for themselves, namely, by applying purifications and incantations, and enforcing abstinence from baths and many articles of food which are unwholesome to men in diseases. Of sea substances, the sur-mullet,' the blacktail, the mullet,' and the eel; for these are the fishes most to be guarded against. And of fleshes, those of the goat, the stag, the sow, and the dog: for these are the kinds of flesh which are aptest to disorder the bowels. Of fowls, the cock, the turtle,' and the bustard, and such others. as are reckoned to be particularly strong. And of potherbs, mint, garlic, and onions for what is acrid does not agree with a weak person. And they forbid to have a black robe, because black is expressive of death; and to sleep on a goat's skin, or to wear it, and to put one foot upon another, or one hand upon another; for all these things are held to be hinderances to the cure. All these they enjoin with reference to its divinity, as if 1 Our author in this place evidently alludes to nightmare and somnambulism. 2 Namely, the Mullus barbatus. See under piyλŋ, in the Appendix to Dunbar's Greek Lexicon. 3 Namely, the Sparus melanurus. See under pekávovpos, in the above cited work. 4 Namely, the Mugil cephalus. See under KEGTpevç, as above. 5 Namely, the Columba turtur. See under 7pvyúv, as above. 6 Namely, the Otis tarda. See under ¿riç, as above. |