THE HISTORY OF MEDICINE PROLOGUE PART I THE PREDICATE OF MEDICINE THE history of Medicine is not a biography of men who have distinguished themselves in the science and art of curing disease and the discovery of its natural history; nor is it an account of diseases and their remedies. It is rather a study of the progress of the science and art of caring for living beings in health and disease, and of ideas fundamental to them, and only incidentally of men who distinguished themselves in their advancement. Medicine is founded upon the nature and constitution of man, physically and psychically, in all his phases of existence, and must necessarily be related to all the sciences, with scarcely an exception; since man is a microcosm of the universe, and science and philosophy are exponents of his relation thereto. This is the foundation of Aristotle's epigrammatic phrase: "The philosopher should end with medicine; the physician commence with philosophy." Philosophy, says the distinguished Sprengel, is the mother of medicine, and the perfection of the one is inseparable from that of the other. In connection with the history of the sciences, we undertake to inquire what was known of them in each siècle; to ascertain the knowledge, the prevailing opinions, and the genius of the medical art. Physicians have, as a rule, taken their theories from the philosophers. If partisan demonstrations were waged in the schools here, they were faithfully followed in the schools there, seeking by a show of great words and learned phrases to give to their statements an evidence of truth that they did not have, and that they could never acquire. When the philosophers began to introduce a critical spirit into human knowledge, physicians were also the first not to admit any principle which was not the result of accurate observation. Nothing could be more natural, I "La philosophie est à certains égards la mère de la médecine, et le perfectionnement de l'une est inséparable de celui de l'autre. En combinant l'histoire de ces deux sciences nous apprenons à connaître quelles furent, dans chaque siècle, l'étendue des connaissances, les opinions dominantes, et le génie de l'art. Les Médecins, en effet, ont presque toujours emprunté leurs théories aux philosophes. Si la fureur des démonstrations régnait dans les écoles de ceux-ci, ceux-là suivaient fidèlement la même marche, et cherchaient, par un étalage de grands mots et d'expressions fastueuses, à donner à leurs preuves une évidence qu'elles n'avaient pas, et qu'elles ne pouvaient jamais acquérir. Dès que les philosophes commencèrent à intro |