lections of Nicetas, and is mostly made up of definitions. This second Soranus is not to be confounded with still another of the same name, also of Ephesus, a writer of later date, and the reputed author of a memoir on the life of Hippocrates. The works of the second Soranus, though mostly lost, served as the model for those of Cælius Aurelianus, who is supposed to have embodied the greater part of them in a translation. To him, therefore, we must next direct our attention.*

Cælius Aurelianus, sometimes called Lucius Cælius Arianus, was a native of Sicca in Numidia. He appears to have been a voluminous writer. Besides his work on Acute and Chronic Diseases, which is preserved entire,t he was the author of Greek Epistles addressed to Prætextatus; of a work on Fevers, and of another on Diseases of Females; of distinct treatises on the Causes of Disease, on Surgery, on the Rules of Health, on Adjuvants or the General Remedies of the Methodic sect, and on Medicaments; besides several books of Medical Interrogations and Responses; and a book of Problems; all of which have perished. His work on Acute and Chronic Diseases is written in impure Latin; and much of it, as the author admits, has. been borrowed from Soranus. But it can hardly be considered a translation, since much of it was evidently the result of the author's own observation and experience. Of the eight books consti

Cælius Aurelianus, and Galen in several places.

+ Cælii Aureliani Ciccensis de Morbis Acutis et Chronicis libri viii.

4to.. Amstelædami, 1722.

tuting this work, three are devoted to the history and treatment of acute, and five to the history and treatment of chronic diseases. The several maladies. are arranged in the usual order from head to foot, considered in their relation to concomitant constitutional disturbances, and spoken of as accompanied or not accompanied with fever. This valuable summary of theory and practice, can scarcely be considered as advocating only the doctrines of the Methodic sect. Though its author is a favorer of these doctrines, he speaks as an independent observer, criticises the leading writers of his own party, and, in disposing of his materials, gives first his own proper opinions on the history or pathology of the disease in question, and afterwards those of the several leading writers of the other sects; drawing, however, almost exclusively from the Greeks, and furnishing a systematic exposition of the theory and practice of physic, both of his own and previous times. But in referring to his predecessors he is much more solicitous to give their treatment than their pathological opinions; which, however, he does not entirely overlook. Cælius Aurelianus, quoting from Soranus, is the first writer in whom I remember to have met with a practical distinction between what he calls the signs and the symptoms of disease, a distinction still worthy of remembrance: the signs being always present during the existence of the disease; the symptoms being mere accidents, that may or may not be observable, without necessarily implying any essential modification in the disease itself. His chapters on diseases of the head are ably written, and evince much prac

tical acquaintance with the subject. In his chapter on Cynanche he says, some forms of Cynanche are without visible manifestations; others are visible and manifest, either within the fauces, or externally, or both externally and internally, and in one or both sides. The transition from this description to that of the monkish writers of the middle of the thirteenth century, Roger, Roland, and the author of the Four Masters, is curious and amusing. Thus, says Roland, Squinantia is an aposthem of the throat, of which there are three sorts; and hence the verse,

“Qui (nancia) latet, squi (nancia) patet, si (nancia) manet intus et extra.” While on diseases of the throat, Cælius Aurelianus takes occasion to criticise Hippocrates, particularly in reference to the inhalation of vapors medicated with hyssop, sulphur, or bitumen, by means of a tube introduced within the fauces, for the relief of threatened suffocation; a practice against which he speaks in the strongest terms; judging it impossible to insert a tube. into the fauces already so much obstructed as not to admit even air, or to inject thick smoke where thin air is unable to penetrate.*

As Soranus and Cælius Aurelianus are considered the ablest exponents of the Methodic doctrines; and as we learn from them what would be sought in vain elsewhere concerning Asclepiades, Themison, Thessalus, and others of this sect, it may bẹ proper here to give a Summary of their practice at the period of its greatest eminence.

They confined themselves as much as possible to

See his works, p. 191.

general remedies; to the exclusion of specifics, or · particular remedies for particular ailments. In the management of disease their first care was that the chamber of the patient, the air surrounding him, and the arrangements of his bedding, should be well selected. Food and drink were allowed in moderation, provided the circumstances of the case did not clearly prohibit these. Under this course the tendencies of the disease were for some days sedulously watched. A generous or supporting diet was rarelyemployed within the first three days, during which time they watched for the concoction of such crudities as might have existed in the primæ viæ; and partly by abstinence, partly by friction, fomentation, and inunction, they looked for the removal of these. During the second period of three days, unless the urgency of the case called for greater expedition, they employed venesection when indicated; or cupping, if necessary, over every part of the body; sometimes with scarification, sometimes dry, and sometimes in connection with leeches. Among their general remedies for resolving constriction were, warm and sunny air, a soft couch, gargarisms of tepid water or of fresh and fragrant oil, fasting, watching, inunction, emollient cataplasms, fomentations and baths, humid cupping, venesection, gestation, and passive motion generally, emollient clysters, and emetics. For astringing the body, already too much relaxed, they employed cold air, a shaded position, a hard couch, gargarism of vinegar and water, or vinegar and posca (dilute aromatic wine) applied with a sponge, cold lotions

containing the juice of plantain, of portulaca, or sempervirens; a diet of barley meal, of lentils, or of quinces, or toasted bread moistened with vinegar, sound sleep, repose, dry-cupping. They rarely resorted to purgatives except in dropsies; they were equally opposed to diuretics and sudorifics, to irritating clysters, to opiates, and to the abstraction of blood from the sublingual vessels, as others had recommended, ad deliquium animi. Nor would they resort to measures likely to jeopardize the safety of their patient. In the treatment of tumors, a term applied by them to all inflammatory swellings, while the disease was on the increase, they employed moderate astringents; when stationary, relaxing and assuaging remedies; when on the decline, emollients. In diseases attended with distinct remissions or intermissions, particularly with regularly recurring paroxysms, they employed recuperatives, called also metasyncratica, by which they meant fortifying and analeptic agents; among which were included violent exercises, hoping thereby to expel from the body while relaxed, the worn-out or diseased flesh, and to replace this by new and healthy tissues. For checking profuse sweating, they sprinkled the surface of the body with powdered chalk or alum, and with various other astringents.

The obstetric art among the ancients was usually in the hands of illiterate females, who acquired their information by experience.. But for the instruction of the better sort of them, as well as of the matrons who had occasion for their services, several works