Esculapius flourished fifty years before the Trojan war; and we find that his two sons distinguished themselves in that war by their valour, and by their skill in curing wounds. Homer, describing Eurypylus wounded and under the care of Patroclus, says, "Patroclus cut the forky steel away, When in his hand a bitter root he bruised, The wound he washed, the styptic juice infused, Hippocrates, who has justly been styled the "Father of Medicine," was born in the island of Cos, situated in the Egean sea, at no great distance from Rhodes. Celsus remarks, that Hippocrates was the first person who emancipated medicine from the trammels of superstition and the delusions of false philosophy. He considered the doctrine, inculcated by physicians, of the celestial origin of disease, as paralysing the efforts of the physician, and proving highly detrimental to the patient. While the vain hopes it held out of recovery, through the medium of prayers, sacrifices, and bribes for the intercessions of priests, could not fail to bring both religion and medicine into contempt. His works, which have descended to us, are very much contaminated by interpolation. He died at the age of 100, three hundred and sixty years before the birth of Christ. Contemporaneously with Hippocrates lived Democritus of Abdera, a zealous anatomist. Thessalus and Dacro, two sons of Hippocrates, founded, with Poly bus, his son-in-law, the Dogmatic School. Their leading tenets are recorded in the book, "On the Nature of Man." This school applying, or, rather misapplying, the mystical speculations of the Platonian philosophy to the study of medicine, adopted this most pernicious principle, that, "when observation failed, reason might suffice." Their doctrine was utterly subversive of the first principle of that illustrious reformer, who, by bringing every fact to the test of the most rigorous observation, and ridding the science of medicine of the gross absurdities which had so long disfigured and perplexed it, succeeded in extricating it from the chaos of confusion in which he found it involved, and elevating it to its true rank among the higher branches of human knowledge. Contemporaneously with the establishment of the Dogmatists, Eudoxus founded the Pythagorean system, the disciples of which directed their attention principaily to the dietetic part of medicine. Then followed the Empyrical school, relying solely on facts, and setting principles entirely aside, in their estimation of disease and administration of remedies. The establishment of the Alexandrian sect formed an important epoch in the history of medicine. Erastratus and Herophilus were the first physicians of note in this school. But we have to regret that the destruction of its splendid library, by the hands of the barbarous conquerors, has left us little to relate concerning its doctrine or practice. Pliny informs us that the Romans were 600 years without physic, if not without physicians. All opera tions in surgery were performed by slaves and freedmen. The first man who practised at Rome, as a regular man, was Archagathus, a Greek. The too frequent use of the knife, and the actual cautery, caused him to be banished from the capital of the Roman empire. Asclepiodes, a student from the Alexandrian school, was the next physician of note who appeared at Rome. He commenced as a teacher of rhetoric; but abandoned it for medicine; and, by his eccentric address, in a short time brought himself into notice. The prototype of all succeeding Quacks, he affected to contemn every thing that had been done before him. "Omnia abdi cavit; totamque medicinam ad causam revocando, conjecturam fecit.”* He ridiculed Hippocrates, and nicknamed his system Gavarov peλnrn, "A Meditation on Death." He attempted to explain all the phenomena of health and disease, by the doctrine of atoms and pores. He opposed bleeding, and depended principally upon gestation, friction, wine, and the internal and external application of cold water. He first divided disease into chronic and acute, and was the first originator of the Balinea pensilis, or shower bath; on his principle was established a sect called the Methodics. They divided disease into two divisions; first, those which proceeded from stricture, and those which were the consequence of relaxation. The celebrated Themeson, a pupil of Asclepiodes, * Celsus. B 3 founded this sect. Although Themeson was held in high estimation by some, he was discarded by others, as will appear by the well-known lines of Juvenal: "How many sick in one short autumn fell, Let Themeson, their ruthless slayer, tell." Sat. 10, v. 221. It was the custom of the Roman physicians to visit their patients attended by all their pupils; in allusion to which practice we have the epigram of Martial : "I'm ill. I send for Symmachus; he's here, All feel my pulse, with hands as cold as snow; Among the most distinguished medical writers of the first century, was Aurelius Cornelius Celsus. He has been termed the "Latin Hippocrates." According to good authority, he wrote upon several subjects; in one of his works, now extant, in a passage which deserves to be quoted, as it shows his generous and enlarged mind, he says, "Hippocrates, knowing and skilful as he was, once mistook a fracture of the skull for a natural suture; and was afterwards so ingenuous as to confess his mistake, and to leave it on record." This," says Celsus, "was acting like a truly great man; little geniuses, conscious to themselves that they have nothing to spare, cannot bear the least diminution of their prerogative, nor suffer themselves to depart from any opinion which they have embraced, how false and pernicious soever that opinion may be, while the man of real ability is always ready to make 66 a frank acknowledgment of his errors, especially in a profession where it is of importance to posterity to read the truth." The medical writings of Celsus are considered only as inferior to those of Hippocrates, over which they possess this advantage, that they have descended to us free from those interpolations and corruptions of the text, which detract so much from the authority and utility of the latter. Galen flourished 130 years after Celsus, and was physician to the Emperor Marcus Aurelius. He was considered for many years an infallible authority on all matters relating to Pathology. Galen exhibited from earliest infancy evidence of uncommon sagacity. He detected the futility of prevailing systems. Dissatisfied with what his master taught him, as incontrovertible truths and immutable principles, he was filled, as it were, with a new light on studying the writings of Hippocrates, his admiration of which increased on comparing them with the works of nature. Much has been said of the influence which the study of anatomy had on Galen's mind. After contemplating the structure of the bones of a skeleton, and their adaptation to their different functions, he breaks out into an apostrophe, which has been much admired, and in which he is said to have exceeded any other ancient in pointing out the nature, attributes, and proper worship of the DEITY. "In explaining these things (he says), I esteem myself as composing a solemn hymn to the Author of our bodily frame; and in this, I think, there is more true |