Old-Time Makers of Medicine — Ap. 3 Medieval Popularization of Science and Footnotes

APPENDIX III

MEDIEVAL POPULARIZATION OF SCIENCE

The idea of collecting general information from many sources, of bringing it together into an easily available form, so as to save others labor, of writing it out in compendious fashion, so that it could readily pass from hand to hand, is likely to be considered typically modern.

As a matter of fact, the Middle Ages furnish us with many examples of the popularization of science, of the writing of compendia of various kinds, of the gathering of information to save others the trouble, and, above all, of the making of what, in the modern time, we would call encyclopedias.

Handbooks of various kinds were issued, manuals for students and specialists, and many men of broad scholarship in their time devoted themselves to the task of making the acquisition of knowledge easy for others.

This was true not only for history and philosophy and literature, but also for science.

It is not hard to find in each century of the Middle Ages some distinguished writer who devoted himself to this purpose, and for the sake of the light that it throws on these scholars, and the desire for information that must have existed very commonly since they were tempted to do the work, it seems worth while to mention here their names, and those of the books they wrote, with something of their significance, though the space will not permit us to give here much more than a brief _catalogue raisonne_ of such works.

Very probably the first who should be mentioned in the list is Boethius, who flourished in the early part of the sixth century.

He owed much of his education to his adoptive father, afterwards his father-in-law, Symmachus, who, with Festus, represented scholarship at the court of the Gothic King, Theodoric of Verona.

These three--Festus, Symmachus, and Boethius--brought such a reputation for knowledge to the court that they are responsible for many of the wonderful legends of Dietrich of Bern, as Theodoric came to be called in the poems of the medieval German poets.

The three distinguished and devoted scholars did much to save Greek culture at a time when its extinction was threatened, and Boethius particularly left a series of writings that are truly encyclopedic in character.

There are five books on music, two on arithmetic, one on geometry, translations of Aristotle's treatises on logic, with commentaries; of Porphyry's "Isagoge," with commentaries, and a commentary on Cicero's "Topica."

Besides, he wrote several treatises in logic and rhetoric himself, one on the use of the syllogism, and one on topics, and in addition a series of theological works.

His great "Consolations of Philosophy" was probably the most read book in the early Middle Ages.

It was translated into Anglo-Saxon by King Alfred, into old German by Notker Teutonicus, the German monk of St. Gall, and its influence may be traced in Beowulf, in Chaucer, in High German poetry, in Anglo-Norman and Provencal popular poetry, and also in early Italian verse.

Above all, the "Divine Comedy" has many references to it, while the "Convito" would seem to show that it was probably the book that most influenced Dante.

Though it is impossible to confirm by documentary evidence the generally accepted idea that Boethius died a martyr for Christianity, the tradition can be traced so far back, and it has been so generally accepted that this seems surely to have been the case.

The fact is interesting, as showing the attitude of scholars towards the Church and of the Church towards scholarship thus early.

The next great name in the tradition should probably be that of Cassiodorus, the Roman writer and statesman, prime minister of Theodoric, who, after a busy political life, retired to his estate at Vivarium, and, in imitation of St. Benedict, who had recently established a monastery at Monte Cassino, founded a monastery there.

He is said to have lived to the age of ninety-three.

His retirement favored this long life, for, after the death of Theodoric, troublous times came, and civil war, and only his monastic privileges saved him from the storm and stress of the times.

He had been interested in literature and the collection of information of many kinds before his retirement, and it is not unlikely that his recognition of the fact that the monastic life offered opportunities for the pursuit of this, under favorable circumstances, led him to take it up.

While still a statesman he wrote a series of works relating to history and politics and public affairs generally.

These consisted mainly of chronicles and panegyrics, and twelve books of miscellanies called Variae.

After his retirement to the monastery, a period of ardent devotion to writing begins, and a great number of books were issued.

He evidently gathered round him a number of men whom he inspired with his spirit, or, perhaps, selected, because he found that, while they had a taste for a quiet, peaceful spiritual life, they were also devoted to the accumulation and diffusion of knowledge.

A series of commentaries on portions of the Scriptures was written, the Jewish antiquities of Josephus translated, and the ecclesiastical histories of Theodoric, Sozomen, and Socrates made available in Latin.

Cassiodorus himself is said to have made a compendium of these, called the "Historia Tripartita," which was much used as a manual of history during succeeding centuries.

Then there were treatises on grammar, on orthography, and a series of works on mathematics.

In all of his writings Cassiodorus shows a special fondness for the symbolism of numbers.

There is a well-grounded tradition that he insisted on the study of the Greek classics of medical literature, especially Hippocrates and Galen, and awakened the interest of the monks in the necessity for making copies of these fathers of medicine.

The tradition that he established at Vivarium is also found to have existed at Monte Cassino among the Benedictines, and, doubtless, to this is to be attributed the foundation of the medical school of Salerno, where Benedictine influence was so strong.

It is probable, therefore, that to Cassiodorus must be attributed the preservation in as perfect a state as we have them of the old Greek medical writers.

His main idea was, of course, the study of Scriptures, but with just as many helps as possible.

He thought that commentators, and historians, not alone Christian, but also Hebrew and Pagan, should be studied to illustrate it, and then the commentaries of the Latin fathers, so that a thoroughly rounded knowledge of it should be obtained.

He thus began an "Encyclopedia Biblica," and set a host of workers at its accomplishment.

Every country in Europe shared this movement for the diffusion of information during the early Middle Ages, and the works of men from each of these countries in succeeding centuries has come down to us, preserved in spite of all the vicissitudes to which they were so liable during the centuries before the invention of printing and the easy multiplication of books.

To many people it will seem surprising to learn that the next evidence of deep broad interest in knowledge is to be found in the next century in the distant west of Europe, in the Spanish Peninsula.

It is a long step from the semi-barbaric splendor of the Gothic court at Verona, to the bishop's palace in Seville in Andalusia.

The two cities are separated by what is no inconsiderable distance in our day.

In the seventh century they must have seemed almost at the other end of the world from each other.

Those who recall what we have insisted on in several portions of the body of this work with regard to the high place Spanish genius won for itself in the Roman Empire, and how much of culture among the Spaniards of that time the occurrence of so many important writers of that nationality must imply, will not be surprised at the distinguished work of a great Christian Spanish writer of the seventh century.

Indeed, it would be only what might be expected for evidences of early awakening of the broadest culture to be found in Spain.

The important name in the popularization of science in the seventh century is St. Isidore of Seville.

He made a compendium of all the scattered scientific traditions and information of his time with regard to natural phenomena in a sort of encyclopedia of science.

This consisted of twenty books--chapters we would call them now--treating almost _de omni re scibili et quibusdam aliis_ (everything knowable and a few other things besides).

It is possible that the work may have been written by a number of collaborators under the patronage of the bishop, though there is no sure indication of this to be found either in the volume itself or even contemporary history.

All the ordinary scientific subjects are treated.

Astronomy, geography, mineralogy, botany, and even man and the animals have each a special chapter.

Pouchet, in his "History of the Natural Sciences During the Middle Ages," calls attention to the fact that, in grouping the animals for collective treatment in the different chapters, sometimes the most heterogeneous creatures are brought under a common heading.

Among the fishes, for instance, are classed all living things that are found in water.

The whale and the dolphin, as well as sponges, and oysters, and crocodiles, and sea serpents, and lobsters, and hippopotamuses, all find a place together, because of the common watery habitation.

The early Spanish Churchman would seem to have had an enthusiastic zeal for complete classification that would surely have made him a strenuous modern zooelogist.

The next link in the tradition of encyclopedic work is the Venerable Bede, whose character was more fully honored by the decree on November 13, 1899, by Pope Leo XIII declaring him a Doctor of the Church.

Bede was the fruit of that ardent scholarship which had risen in England as a consequence of the introduction of Christianity.

It had been fostered by the coming of scholar saints from Ireland, but was, unfortunately, disturbed by the incursions of the Danes.

While Bede is known for his greatest work, the "Ecclesiastical History of the English People," which gives an account of Christianity in England from its beginning until his own day, he wrote many other works.

His history is the foundation of all our knowledge of early British history, secular as well as religious, and has been praised by historical writers of all ages, who turned to it for help with confidence.

He wrote a number of other historical works.

Besides, he wrote books on grammar, orthography, the metrical art, on rhetoric, on the nature of things, the seasons, and on the calculation of the seasons.

These latter books are distinctly scientific.

His contributions to Gregorian Music are now of great value.

After this, Alcuin and the monks, summoned by Charlemagne, take up the tradition of gathering and diffusing information, and the great monasteries of Tours, Fulda, and St. Gall carry it on.

Besides these, in the ninth century Monte Cassino comes into prominence as an institution where much was done of what we would now call encyclopedic work.

After his retirement from Salerno Constantine Africanus made his translations and commentaries on Arabian medicine, constituting what was really a medical encyclopedia of information not readily available at that time.

After this, of course, the tradition is taken up by the universities, and it is only when, with the thirteenth century, there came the complete development of the university spirit, that encyclopedias reached their modern expression.

Three great encyclopedists, Vincent of Beauvais, Thomas of Cantimprato, and Bartholomaeus Anglicus, are the most famous.

Vincent consulted all the authors sacred and profane that he could lay hold on, and the number was, indeed, prodigious.

I have given some account of him in "The Thirteenth Greatest of Centuries" (Catholic Summer School Press, New York, third edition, 1910).

It would be very easy to conclude that these encyclopedias, written by clergymen for the general information of the educated people of the times, contain very little that is scientifically valuable, and probably nothing of serious medical significance.

Any such thought is, however, due entirely to unfamiliarity with the contents of these works.

They undoubtedly contain absurdities, they are often full of misinformation, they repeat stories on dubious authority, and sometimes on hearsay, but usually the source of their information is stated, and especially where it is dubious, as if they did not care to state marvels without due support.

Books of popular information, however, have always had many queer things,--queer, that is, to subsequent generations,--and it is rather amusing to pick up an encyclopedia of a century ago, much less a millennium ago, and see how many absurd things were accepted as true.

The first edition of the "Encyclopedia Britannica," issued one hundred and fifty years ago, furnishes an easily available source of the absurdities our more recent forefathers accepted.

The men of the Middle Ages, however, were much better observers as a rule, and used much more critical judgment, according to their lights, than we have given them credit for.

Often the information that they have to convey is not only valuable, but well digested, thoroughly practical, and sometimes a marvellous anticipation of some of our most modern thoughts.

There is one of these encyclopedias which, because it was written in my favorite thirteenth century, I have read with some care.

It is simply a development of the work of preceding clerical encyclopedists, and often refers to them.

Because it contains some typical examples of the better sorts of information in these works, I have thought it worth while to quote two passages from it.

The author is Bartholomaeus Anglicus, and the quaint English in which it is couched is quoted from "Medical Lore" (London, 1893).

The book is all the more interesting because in a dear old English version, issued about 1540, the spellings of which are among the great curiosities of English orthography, it was often read and consulted by Shakespeare, who evidently quotes from it frequently, for not a little of the quaint scientific lore that he uses for his figures can be traced to expressions used in this book.

The first of the paragraphs that deserves to be quoted, discusses madness, or, as we would call it, lunacy, and sums up the causes, the symptoms, and the treatment quite as well as that has ever been done in the same amount of space: Madness cometh sometime of passions of the soul, as of business and of great thoughts, of sorrow and of too great study, and of dread: sometime of the biting of a wood hound, or some other venomous beast; sometime of melancholy meats, and sometime of drink of strong wine.

And as the causes be diverse, the tokens and signs be diverse.

For some cry and leap and hurt and wound themselves and other men, and darken and hide themselves in privy and secret places.

The medicine of them is, that they be bound, that they hurt not themselves and other men.

And namely, such shall be refreshed, and comforted, and withdrawn from cause and matter of dread and busy thoughts.

And they must be gladded with instruments of music, and some deal be occupied.'

The second discusses in almost as thorough a way the result of the bite of a mad dog.

The old English word for mad, wood, is constantly used.

The causes, the symptoms, and course of the disease, and its possible prevention by early treatment, are all discussed.

The old tradition was already in existence that sufferers from rabies or hydrophobia, as it is called, dreaded water, when it is really only because the spasm consequent upon the thought even of swallowing is painful that they turn from it.

That tradition has continued to be very commonly accepted even by physicians down to our own day, so that Bartholomew, the Englishman, in the thirteenth century, will not be blamed much for setting it forth for popular information in his time some seven centuries ago.

The idea that free bleeding would bring about the removal of the virus is interesting, because we have in recent years insisted in the case of the very similar disease, tetanus, on allowing or deliberately causing wounds in which the tetanus microbe may have gained an entrance, to bleed freely.

The biting of a wood hound is deadly and venomous.

And such venom is perilous.

For it is long hidden and unknown, and increaseth and multiplieth itself, and is sometimes unknown to the year's end, and then the same day and hour of the biting, it cometh to the head, and breedeth frenzy.

They that are bitten of a wood hound have in their sleep dreadful sights, and are fearful, astonied, and wroth without cause.

And they dread to be seen of other men, and bark as hounds, and they dread water most of all things, and are afeared thereof full sore and squeamous also.

Against the biting of a wood hound wise men and ready use to make the wounds bleed with fire or with iron, that the venom may come out with the blood, that cometh out of the wound.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: "Medicinisches aus der Aeltesten Kirchen Geschichte."

Leipzig, 1892. ] [Footnote 2: Foulis, London and Edinburgh, 1910. ] [Footnote 3: My attention was called to the interesting story of the Jewish physicians of the Middle Ages and their scientific accomplishment while writing the article on Joseph Hyrtl for the Catholic Encyclopedia.

His "Das Arabische und Hebraeische in der Anatomie" (Wien, 1879) has some interestingly suggestive material on these important chapters of the history of medicine.

(I owe my opportunity to consult it to the courtesy of the Surgeon-General's library.

) Biographic material has been obtained from Carmoly's "History of the Jewish Physicians," translated by Dr. Dunbar for the _Maryland Medical and Surgical Journal_, some extra copies of which were printed by John Murphy and Co. , Baltimore, about the middle of the nineteenth century.

Baas and Haeser's Histories of Medicine and Puschmann and Pagel's "Handbook" provided additional material, and I have found Landau's "Geschichte der Juedischen Aerzte" (Berlin, 1895) of great service.

] [Footnote 4: Of course there are many absurd things recommended in the Talmud.

We cannot remind ourselves too often, however, that there have been absurd things at all times in medicine, and especially in therapeutics.

It is curious how often some of these absurdities have repeated themselves.

We are liable to think it very queer that men should have presumed, or somehow jumped to the conclusion, that portions of animals might possess wonderful virtue for the healing of diseases of the corresponding special parts of man.

We ourselves, however, within a little more than a decade, had a phase of opotherapy--how much less absurd it seems under that high-sounding Greek term--that was apparently very learned in its scientific aspects yet quite as absurd as many phases of old-time therapy, as we look at it.

We administered cardin for heart disease and nephrin for kidney trouble, cerebrin for insanity (save the mark!

), and even prostate tissue for prostatism--and with reported good results!

How many of us realize now that in this we were only repeating the absurdities, so often made fun of in old medicine, with regard to animal tissue and excrement therapeutics?

The Talmud has many conclusions with regard to the symptoms of patients drawn from dreams; as, for instance, it is said to be a certain sign of sanguineous plethora when one dreams of the comb of a cock.

One phase of our psycho-analysis in the modern time, however, has taken us back to an interpretation of dreams different of course from this, yet analogous enough to be quite striking.

] [Footnote 5: "Maimonides," by David Yellin and Israel Abrahams, Philadelphia, 1903. ] [Footnote 6: "Das Arabische und Hebraeische in der Anatomie," Dr. Joseph Hyrtl, Wien, 1879. ] [Footnote 7: "Anat.

Antiq.

Rariores," Vienna, 1835. ] [Footnote 8: It seems hard to understand how so useful an auxiliary to the surgeon as the ligature,--it seems indispensable to us,--could possibly be allowed to go out of use and even be forgotten.

It will not be difficult, however, for anyone who recalls the conditions that obtained in old-time surgery.

The ligature is a most satisfying immediate resource in stopping bleeding from an artery, but a septic ligature inevitably causes suppuration and almost inevitably leads to secondary hemorrhage.

In the old days of septic surgery secondary hemorrhage was the surgeon's greatest and most dreaded bane.

Some time from the fifth to the ninth day a septic ligature came away under conditions such that inflammatory disturbance had prevented sealing of the vessel.

If the vessel was large, then the hemorrhage was fast and furious and the patient died in a few minutes.

After a surgeon had had a few deaths of this kind he dreaded the ligature.

He abandoned its use and took kindly to such methods as the actual cautery, red-hot knives for amputations, and the like, that would sear the surfaces of tissues and the blood-vessels, and not give rise to secondary hemorrhage.

A

little later, however, someone not familiar with secondary risks would reinvent the ligature.

If he were cleanly in his methods and, above all, if he were doing his work in a new hospital, the ligature worked very well for a while.

If not, it soon fell into innocuous desuetude again.

] [Footnote 9: Puschmann: "Handbuch der Geschichte der Medizin," Vol. I,

page 652. ] [Footnote 10: The first dentist who filled teeth with amalgam in New York, some eighty years ago, had to flee for his life, because of a hue and cry set up that he was poisoning his patients with mercury.

] [Footnote 11: "Storia de la Scuola di Salerno."

] [Footnote 12: It is probably interesting to note that the word _universitas_ as used here has no reference to our word university, but refers to the whole world of students as it were.

In the Middle Ages universities were called _studia generalia_, general studies--that is, places where everything could be studied and where everyone from any part of the world could study.

Our use of the word university in the special modern sense of the term comes from the formal mode of address to the faculty of a university when Popes or rulers sent them authoritative documents.

Such documents began with the expression _Universitas vestra_, all of you (in the old-time English, as preserved in the Irish expression, "the whole of ye"), referring to all the members of the faculty.

The transfer to our term and signification university was not difficult.

] [Footnote 13: Physicians wore a particular garb consisting of a cloak and often a mask, supposed to protect them from infections at this time, so that it was not difficult to make a characteristic picture as a sign for a pharmacy.

These symbolic signs were much commoner and very necessary when people generally were not able to read.

It is from that period that we have the mortar and pestle as also the colored lights in the windows of the drug stores, and the many-colored barber-pole.

Also the big boot, key, watch, hat, bonnet, and the like, the last symbolic sign invention apparently being the wooden Indian for the tobacco store.

] [Footnote 14: _The Medical Library and Historical Journal_, Brooklyn, December, 1906. ] [Footnote 15: Taddeo, who was born in 1215, according to our usually accepted traditions in the matter, would have been seventy-five years of age when Mondino as a youth of scarcely more than fifteen went to the University.

It might seem that so old a man would have very little influence over the young man.

Taddeo, however, had, as we have said, a very strenuous old age.

Everything in life had come to him late.

He was well past thirty before he began to study philosophy and medicine, having been a seller of candles from necessity because of poverty in his younger years.

His great success in practice came when he was past forty.

He first began to teach when he was forty-five, and he was nearly fifty-five before he began to write.

According to tradition he married when he was nearly eighty--whether for the first or second time is not said--and while this might be considered, and would in some cases be, an indication of weakness of character (it would probably depend on whether he married or was married), it seems in his case to have indicated a vigor of body and character which shows very clearly how great was the possibility of his influence as a teacher having been maintained even up to this late time of life, and thus influencing a pupil who is to represent the most potent influence at the beginning of the next century.

] [Footnote 16: _Medical Library and Historical Journal_, 1906. ] [Footnote 17: Pilcher (_loc.

cit.

_) tells of her tomb.

I venture to change his translation of the inscription in certain unimportant particulars.

He says: "We know the very place where she was buried in front of the Madonna delle Lettre in the Church of San Pietro e Marcellino of the Hospital of Santa Maria de Mareto, where her associate, Agenio, mourning and inconsolable, placed a tablet with this inscription: D .

O .

M .

Vrceo .

Contenti Alexandrae .

Galinae .

Pvellae .

Persicetanae Penicillo .

Egregiae .

Ad .

Anatomen .

Exhibendam Et .

Insignissimi .

Medici .

Mundini .

Lucii Paucis .

Comparandae .

Discipulae .

Cineres Carnis .

Hic .

Expectant .

Resurrectionem Vixit .

Ann .

XIX .

Obiit .

Studio .

Absunta Die XXVI Martii .

A .

S .

MCCCXXVI

Otto .

Agenius .

Lustrulanus .

Ob .

Eam .

Demptam Sui .

Potiori .

Parte .

Spoliatus .

Sodali .

Eximiae Ac .

De .

Se .

Optime .

Meritae .

Inconsolabilis .

M .

P .

This inscription may be translated as follows: In this urn enclosed The ashes of the body of Alexandra Giliani, a maiden of Periceto;

Skilful with her brush in anatomical demonstrations And a disciple equalled by few, Of the most noted physician, Mundinus of Luzzi, Await the resurrection.

She lived 19 years: she died consumed by her labors March 26, in the year of grace 1326. Otto Agenius Lustrulanus, by her taking away Deprived of his better part, his excellent companion, Deserving of the best, Has erected this tablet."

] [Footnote 18: This is so striking that I quote their actual words from Gurlt, p. 704: "_Multoties fit percussio in anteriori parte cranei et craneum in parte frangitur contraria.

_"] [Footnote 19: "Historical Relations of Medicine and Surgery Down to the Sixteenth Century," London, 1904. ] [Footnote 20: Of course, for any extended knowledge of Mondeville, a modern reader must turn to Nicaise's translation of his "Chirurgia," which, with an introduction and a biography, was published at Paris in 1893. Nicaise's publication of this and of Guy de Chauliac's treatise has worked a revolution in medical history and, above all, has made these old authors available for those who hesitate to take up a work written entirely in Latin.

] [Footnote 21: In the very first book containing some account of human anatomy, a German volume by Conradus Mengenberger, called "Puch der Natur," the date of printing of which is about 1478,--that is, less than ten years after the printing of the very first book, the "Biblia pauperum," which appeared in 1470,--there are, according to Haller in his "Bibliotheca Anatomica," a series of illustrations.

This is the first illustrated medical work ever published.

] [Footnote 22: Fordham University Press, New York, 1908. ] [Footnote 23: Fordham University Press, New York, 1908. ] [Footnote 24: See picture of the hospital ward at Tonnerre, in "The Thirteenth Greatest of Centuries," 3rd edit.

, New York, 1911. ] [Footnote 25: "The Historical Relations of Medicine and Surgery," by T. Clifford Allbutt, M. A.

, M.

D.

London: Macmillan & Co. , Ltd. , 1905. ] [Footnote 26: The beginning of the manuscript copy in the "Bibliotheque Nationale" is extremely interesting as an example of the English of the period, and alongside of it it seems worth while to quote the closing sentence as Nicaise reproduces them: "In godes name here bygyneth the inventarie of gadryng to gedre medecyne in the partye of cyrurgie compilede and fulfilled in the zere (yere?

) of our Loord 1363 by Guide de Cauliaco cirurgene and doctor of physik in the fulclere studye of Mountpylerz.

"On page 191, verso.

--Here endeth the cyrurgie of Maistre Guyd' de Cauliaco dottoure of phisik."

The University of Cambridge copy has the title in the colophon.

It runs as follows: "Ye inventorye of Guydo de Caulhiaco Doctor of Phisyk and Cirurgien in Ye Universitie of Mount Pessulanee of Montpeleres."

The fly-leaf contains the words, "Jesu Christ save ye soule of mich."

It is rather interesting to note how much closer to modern English is this copy, made probably not much more than half a century later than the first one and, above all, how much more nearly the spelling has come.

At this time, however, and, indeed, for more than a century later, spelling had no fixed rule, and a man might spell the same word quite differently even on the same page.

The difference between doctor spelled thus in the early edition, and doctours in the later one, probably means nothing more than personal peculiarities of the original translator or copyist.

] [Footnote 27: In Nicaise this last word is written _crapte_.

I have ventured to suggest _crafte_, since a misreading between the two letters would be so easy.

In the same way I have suggested tentatively a changing of the _z_ in the title of the Bibliotheque Nationale copy to _y_, making the word _yere_ instead of _zere_.

] [Footnote 28: "A History of Dentistry from the Most Ancient Times Until the End of the Eighteenth Century," by Dr. Vincenzo Guerini, editor of the Italian Review _L'Odonto-Stomatologia_, Philadelphia and New York, Lea and Febriger, 1909. ] [Footnote 29: The first printed edition of Arculanus is that of Venice, 1542, bearing the Latin title, "Joannis Arculani Commentaria in Nonum Librum Rasis," etc. ] [Footnote 30: It is curious to trace how old are the traditions on which some of these old stories, that must now be rejected, are founded.

I

have come upon the story with regard to Basil Valentine and the antimony and the monks in an old French medical encyclopedia of biography, published in the seventeenth century, and at that time there was no doubt at all expressed as to its truth.

How much older than this it may be I do not know, though it is probable that it comes from the sixteenth century, when the _kakoethes scribendi_ attacked many people because of the facility of printing, and when most of the good stories that have so worried the modern dry-as-dust historian in his researches for their correction became a part of the body of supposed historical tradition.

It is probably French in origin because in that language _antimoine_ is a tempting bait for that pseudo-philology which has so often led to false derivations.

] [Footnote 31: There is in the New York Academy of Medicine a thick 24mo volume in which three of the classics of older medicine are bound together.

They are Kerckringius's "Commentary on the Triumphal Chariot of Antimony," published at Amsterdam, 1671; Steno's "Dissertation on the Anatomy of the Brain," published in Leyden in 1671, and Father Kircher's "Scrutinium Physico Contagiosae Luis quae dicitur Pestis" (Physico-medical Discussions of the Contagious Disease which is called Pest).

This was published at Leipzig in 1659. Just how the three works came to be bound together is hard to say.

Very probably they belonged to some old-time scholar, though there is nothing about the books to tell anything of the story.

The fact that all three of the authors were ecclesiastics of the Catholic Church, Valentine a Monk, Steno a Bishop, and Kircher a Jesuit, would seem to be one common bond and perhaps a reason for the binding of these rather disparate treatises together.

In that case it is probable that the book came from an old monastic library dispersed after the suppression of the order by some government.

It seems not unlikely that the volume belonged at some time to an old Jesuit library, for they have suffered the most in that way.

That these three classics of medicine should have been republished in handy volume editions within practically ten years shows an interest in medical literature that has not existed again until our own time, for during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries there was almost utter neglect of them.

] [Footnote 32: Paper read before the first meeting of the American Guild of St. Luke.

] [Footnote 33: Published by Putnams, New York, 1909. ] [Footnote 34: Dublin, 1882. ] [Footnote 35: The material for this chapter was gathered for a paper read before the Medical Improvement Society of Boston in the spring of 1911. In nearly its present form it was published in _The Popular Science Monthly_ for May, 1911, and thanks are returned to the editor of that magazine for permission to reprint it here.

The additions that have been made refer particularly to the estimation of Aristotle in the Middle Ages.

] [Footnote 36: New York, Putnam, 1908. ] [Footnote 37: "De Coelo et Mundo," 1, tr.

iv.

, x. ] INDEX

=A=

Abbassides, 73 Abba Oumna, 70 Abbas, 324 Abelard, 189 Abraham, 97, 98 Abu Dschafer, 173 Abulcasis, 123, 170, 226, 317, 318, 323 Abul Farag, 51 Abulkasim, 124 Academy of Bagdad, 135 Acid, hydrochloric, 369 Ackermann, 302 Adalberon, 145 Adelard of Bath, 134 Adhesions, 128 AEgidius, 150 Aetius, 10, 117, 180, 317 Aetius, Amidenus, 28 Afflacius, 151, 171 Affinity, 372 Agenius, Otto, 227 Agricola, 345 A Kempis, Thomas, 345, 361 Alanfrancus, 260 Albertus Magnus, 267, 306, 356, 403 Alchemist, 354 Alcuin, 432 Alderotti, 213 Alexander II, Pope, 83 Alexander of Hales, 108 Alexander of Tralles, 10, 28, 39 Alexandria, 135, 385 Allbutt, Sir Clifford, 247, 254, 257, 304, 355, 421 Ali Abbas, 121, 173, 266, 323 Ali Ben el Abbas, 170 Almansor, 132 Alphanus, 143, 145 Amandaville, 264 Anaesthesia, 17;

inhalation of, 295, 296 Anaesthetics, 246 Anathomia, 203 Anatomy, ignorance of, 289;

of the teeth, 326 Anatomical material, 224 Anatomical injection, 227 Anatomical preparations, 277 Andrew of Piacenza, 248 Animals, motion of, 414 Anthemios, 40 Angelico, Fra, 360 Angina, 32, 44, 332 Anthon, 407 Antimony, 362 Antiseptic, 253 Antisepsis, 17, 246 Apocalypse, the chemical, 376 Aquinas, 306, 403 Arabian lack of originality, 140 Arabian words in anatomy, 138 Arabs, 7 Arabisms, 237 Archimattheas, 160 Arcoli, John of, 208 Arculanus, 323 Arezzo, 248 Arithmetical complements, 340 Armandaville, 264 Arnold of Villanova, 290, 358 Arrows, extraction of, 270 Arpinum, 4 Arsenic, 335 _Artemisia maritima_, 50 Arterial hemorrhage, 126 Arthur Legends, 218, 375, 392 Arts, 7;

liberal, 149;

and crafts, 425 Asepsis, 17, 244, 246, 387 Aspasia, 180 Astrology, 105;

and astronomy, 106, 418 Asylums, 8 Auenbrugger, 91, 166 Authority, 269, 292, 404 Authorship, dual, 391 Automobile, 415 Avenzoar, 80, 123, 130, 132 Averroes (Averrhoes), 80, 123, 132, 230, 267 Avicenna, 80, 128, 170, 266, 268, 331 Avignon, 16, 233 =B=

Baas, 61, 63 Bachtischua, 56 Bacon, Roger, 107, 306, 356, 361, 403 Bagdad, 110, 111, 115, 134, 135 Barbarians, 5 Bartholomaeus Anglicus, 433 Bartholomew, 172 Basilios, 26 Basil.

St. , 24 Basila, 180 Basil Valentine, 20, 180, 349 Basra, 111 Bath, 103 Bath, milk, 131;

in fever, 172;

of the soul, 25 Baverius, 209 Baynes, Henry Samuel, 390 Bede, 432 Benedict, St. , 178 Benedictines, 12, 164 Benedictine Nuns, 191 Beowulf, 428 Berengarius, 209 Bernard of Clairvaux, 192 Bernard, St. , 85 Bertruccio, 209, 287 Bertruccius, 229 Binz, Prof. Carl, 333 Birthplace, Latin writers, 4 Black Death, 304 Boccaccio, 183, 306 Body-snatching, 224 Boerhaave, 38 Boethius, 427 Bokhara, 111 Bologna, 16, 142, 202, 206, 248 Book-learning, 371 Botany, 413;

medieval, 414, 418 Botticelli, 360 Bracton, 419 Brain substance, loss of, 294 Brant, 361 Brethren of the Common Life, 344 Bridgework, dental, 315 Broeck, 277 Bronchoceles, 34 Bruno da Longoburgo, 245, 248 Bubonocele, 53 Buffon, 406 Bull, supposed against dissection, 424 Busche, 344 Bzowski, S. J.

, 181 =C=

Caesalpinus, 2, 209 Caius, 360 Calenda, Constance, 187 Calendar, correction of, 340 Calvo, 302 Cancer, 255 Cantor, 346 Carmoly, 61 Carthage, 165 Cases, desperate, 262 Cassiodorus, 12, 429 Cataract, 300 Cato, 267 Chanina Ben Chania, 66, 69 Charlatans, numbers of, 274 Charters, medical school, 420 Charts, 19 Chasdai Ben Schaprut, 79 Chaucer, 306, 428 Chauliac, 18, 285, 301, 319 Chauliac, bibliography, 308;

editio princeps, 312 Chemical compounds, artificial, 376 Chirurgia Magna, 261, 284 Chirurgy, 19 Chosroes I, 109 Church and Jews, 80;

and anatomy, 234;

and surgery, 234 Cicatrices, beautiful, 255 Cicero, 4, 427 Cid, The, 218, 375, 392 Cimabue.

211 Circulation of the blood, 147 Cities, large, 5 City hospitals, 8;

for the sick, 24, 296 City physician, 251 Clavius, S. J.

, Father, 340 Classics of Medicine, 165 Clement of Alexandria, 83;

VI, Pope, 83 Cleopatra, 179 Clepsydra, 341 Clinical experience, 378 Clitoris hypertrophy, 37 Clysters, 279 Cnidos, 135 Colic, 279 Collectio Salernitana, 143, 238 College of St. Come, 26 Colpeurynter, 128 Columbus, 2, 209, 327, 329, 359 Conception, 35 Constantine Africanus, 5, 24, 123, 134, 145, 151, 163, 236, 266, 433 Constitution of the sun, 339 Consolations, 428 Consumption, 44 Conrad, 192 Conrad Mutianus, 344 _Contrecoup_, 240 _Convito_, 428 Copernicus, 346 Copho, 154, 205 Cordova, 75, 92, 134, 135 Cornelius, 38 Corrosive sublimate, 335 Cos, 135 Cosmas and Damian, 26 Criticism, higher, 7 Crown, dental, 316;

cap, 316 Cusanus, 336 Cures of Afflacius, 171 Cuvier, 406 Cycloid curve, 346 =D=

Da Lucca, 246 Damascus, 111 Daniel Morley, 134 Dante, 183, 211, 306, 407, 417 Daremberg, 180, 303 Darwin, 355, 399 David, 97 Decadence, 6 De Renzi, 143, 162, 182, 238, 239 Dental appliances, 316;

decay, 318;

hygiene, 325;

surgery, 327;

instruments, 320 _Dentatores_, 320 Dentrifices, 316 Descartes, 133 Desiderius, 145, 164, 168 Deventer, 344 Dezimeris, 302 Diaphoresis, 47 Diarbekir, 28 Didacus Lopez, 130 Diet, 46, 116 Dietetics, 99, 157 Di Liucci, 205 Dinus de Garbo, 130 Diogenes, 267 Dioscorides, 79, 266, 385 Diphtheria, 32 Diseases made incurable, 274;

eye, 300 D'Israeli, 76 Dissecting material, 134;

wounds, 227 Dissection, 224;

supposed prohibition of, 424 Divine Comedy, 428 Divorce, 5 Djondisabour, 71, 109 Dock (Miss), 401 Dog, rabid, 31 Donolo, 78 Drainage, 241, 249 Dreams, 68 Driesch, 399 Dschibril, 57 Dschordschis, 56 Du Bouley, 199 Duke, Robert, 167 Duns Scotus, 108 =E=

Eclecticism, 248 Eclipse, 22 _Ecstasis_, 386 Eddyites, 385 Edessa, 9 Egidius, 134 Elixir of immortal life, 25 Embryology, 28 Encyclopedia biblica, 430 Energy, Conservation of, 417 Epilepsy, 43 Epiplocele, 53 Epiplo-enterocele, 53 Epithelioma, 37 Epulis, 32 Erasistratus, 221, 385 Erasmus, 344, 361 Esophagus, 33 Ethics, medical, 77 Ethnography, 414 Etruscans, 315 Eusebius, 26 Eustachius, 2, 209 Eustachian canal, 327, 329 Examinations, 136 Experience, 403 Experiment, master of, 404 =F=

Fabiola, 11 Fabricius de Acquapendente, 125 Fallopius, 302, 327 Faradj Ben Salim, 79, 170 Faragut, 79 Father of Modern Surgery, 283 Faucon, 312 Feminine education, 178, 188;

cycles of, 200 Ferrara, 248, 328 Festus, 428 Filling of the teeth, 335 Finsen, 421 First intention, 18 Fish bones, 51 Florence, 206, 248 Floyer, 336 Forefathers in medicine, 380 Foreign body, 33 Foreign bodies, 48 Forli, 206 Foster, Sir Michael, 354 Foundlings, 8 Foundling asylums, 25 Founder of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, 353 Four Masters, 154, 238, 242, 243, 273 Fractures, 240;

of pubic arch, 128;

of base, 242;

of skull, 244;

split or crack, 243 Francis, Dr. Samuel, 223 Frederick I, 192;

II, 147

Freind, 112, 302 Friedenwald, 64 Friuli, 206 =G=

Gaddesden, 287 Galeatus de Sancta Sophia, 130 Galileo, 355 Galen, 3, 13, 35, 43, 73, 91, 115, 117, 129, 179, 266, 230, 204, 430, 385 Galenists, 120 Galvani, 166, 209 Gario Pontus, 43 Gentilis de Fulgineis, 130 Geography, physical, 413 Geometric transmutation, 340 Gerard of Cremona, 134, 170 Ghetto, 62 Giffert, Prof. , 396 Gilbert, 421 Giliani, Alessandra, 188 Gilles de Corbeil, 134, 150 Giotto, 211, 306 Giovanni of Arcoli, 313, 324, 328 Glands, cervical, 259 Goitre, 33, 151;

cystic, 259 Gold reserve, 316 Gordon, Bernard, 276, 286 Graduate, 208 Graecisms, 237 Granada, 75 Gratz College, 75 Gravity, specific, 342 Greeks, From the, to Darwin, 406 Gregory IX, 83;

of Nazianzen, 24 Gruel, 131 Guadalquivir, 93 Guerini, 315 Guimarus II, 143 Guiscard, 145 Gurlt, 29, 48, 109, 139, 156, 219, 236, 239, 244, 248, 259, 312, 329, 331 Guy de Chauliac, 16, 208, 229, 270, 275, 232, 422 =H=

Haeser, 61 Haliography, 376 Hallam, 85 Hamilton, Sir Wm.

, 407 Harnack, 25, 26, 382, 392 Haroun al-Raschid, 74 Harvey, 166, 209, 355 Harun al-Raschid, 56, 112 Headache, 42 Hegel, 407 _Hegira_, 170 Hegius, 345, 361 Heidelberg, 345 Helena, 24 Heloise, 189 Hemicrania, 42 Hemoptyses, 45 Heraclius, 54 Hermondaville, 264 Hernia, 298;

radical cure of, 299 Herophilus, 221, 384 Hierakas, 26 Hildegarde, 190 Hippocrates, 13, 91, 99, 117, 266, 385, 429 "Histoire des Femmes Medecins," 195 Historia Tripartita, 429 History of the Inductive Sciences, 410 Hobart, 393 Hobeisch, 58 Hollanduses, 358 Homer, 375, 391 Honein Ben Ischak, 57 Honein Ben Ishac, 117 Honey, 103 Horae Lucanae, 390 Horace, 267 _Hortus Deliciarum_, 191 Hospitals, 8 Hospitals for children, 25 Hroswitha, 190 Hugh of Lucca, 257 Hugo of Lucca, 245, 267, 273 Humboldt, 412 Huxley, 150, 307, 412 Hydrocephalus, 257 _Hydropikos_, 385 Hydrophobia, 435 Hysteria, 54 =I=

Ibn Sina, 128 Ibn Zeinel-Taberi, 115 Ibn-Zohr, 130 Ignorance, on learned, 340;

grounds of, 409 _Ignorantia, De Docta_, 339 Iliac passion, 279 Iliad, 375 Illustrations, 230;

dental, 331;

first medical, 275 _Incunabula_, 311, 329 Infection, 241 Innocent III, 83;

IV, 83

Insanity, 434 Inspection, 47 Invasion of the barbarians, 26 Isaac Ben Amram, 76 Isaac Ben Emran, 73 Isaac Ben Soliman, 76 Isaac Judaeus, 170, 173 Isagoge, 58 Ishac Ben Honein, 53 Isidore of Seville, St. , 113, 431 Israels, A. H.

, 66 Israeli, 76 =J=

Jacobus de Forlivio, 130 Jacobus de Partibus, 130 Jewish physicians, 7 Johannes Afflacius, 171 Johannesbrod, 102 Johannitius, 57 John Chrysostom, St. , 11, 181 John de Vigo, 209 John Masuee, 74 John of Arcoli, 18, 209 John of Gaddesden, 286 Josephus, 29 Joshua Ben Nun, 74 Jude Sabatai, 78 Julian the Apostate, 8, 23 Justinian, 26, 23 =K=

Kant, 407 Kerckringius, 366 Kircher, 366 Koran, 106, 139 Kostaben Luka, 58 Kuehns, 418 =L=

Lactantius, 27 Lancisi, 209 Landau, 67 Lane Lectures, 354 Lanfranc, 16, 209, 245, 260, 267 Laurentian Library, 180 Lead pipe, 239 Leo, 55 Leonardo da Vinci, 360 Leonides, 36 Leoparda, 181 Lewes, 406 Libraries, 6 Life, intellectual, 5 Ligatures, 155;