Chapter XIV: Medicines From the Metals 376 (3)

I quote the letter as Gerard gives it without quite understanding it, and I have not been able to trace its origin. But it is clear that if St. Augustine thought it was such a small matter he would hardly have quarrelled so violently with St. Jerome about it. Probably, however, the story of the quarrel is founded on this letter. Moreover the conclusion seems to be that the gourd was not a cucurbita but the Palma Christi.

The importance of Jerome’s translation of the word representing the plant to be Ivy (Hedera) is that he incorporated it into his Latin version of the Bible known as the Vulgate. The much older Septuagint (Greek) translation gives “kolokyntha,” the bottle gourd, as the rendering of the Hebrew kikaion. The Swedish botanist and theologian Celsius strongly supported the view that Jonah’s gourd was the Palma Christi in his “Hierobotanicon; sive de Plantis Sacrae Scripturae,” 1746. But though this tree is of very rapid growth, and is planted before houses in the East for its shade, and though philological arguments are in its favour, Dr. Hastings (“Encyclopædia Biblica”) rejects the suggestion and prefers the Septuagint version because he thinks the passage clearly indicates that a vine is intended. He considers there is no support, either botanical or etymological, for the selection of ivy to represent the gourd.

THE WILD GOURDS

mentioned in 2 Kings, iv, 39, are generally supposed to have been colocynth fruit, though the squirting cucumber (Ecbalium purgans) has also been suggested. The plant on which this grows, however, would hardly be called a wild vine, for it has no tendrils. The Jews were in the habit of shredding various kinds of gourds in their pottage, and as narrated, someone had brought a lapful of these gourds, the fruit of a wild vine, and shredded them into the pottage which was being prepared for the sons of the prophets. The mistake could hardly have been made with the squirting cucumber, which is very common throughout Palestine, but the colocynth only grew on barren sands like those near Gilgal, and might easily be mistaken for the globe cucumber. The mistake was discovered as soon as the pottage was tasted, and the alarm of “death in the pot” was raised. Elisha, however, casting some meal in the pot destroyed the bitter taste, and apparently rendered the pottage quite harmless.

THE HORSE LEECH

mentioned in Proverbs, xxx, 15, “The horse-leech hath two daughters, crying Give, Give,” is a translation of Hebrew Aluka, the meaning of which is not without doubt. The Hebrew word is interpreted by corresponding terms in Arabic, but of these there are two, one meaning the leech, and the other fate or destiny. The latter word is supposed to have been derived from the former from the idea that every person’s fate clings to him. Another similar Arabic word is Aluk, a female ghul or vampire, who, it was believed, sucked the blood of those whom she attacked.

NITRE

is mentioned twice in the Old Testament, first in Proverbs, xxv, 20, “As vinegar upon nitre, so is he that singeth songs to a heavy heart.” In the Revised Version soda is given instead of nitre in the margin. The other reference is in Jeremiah, ii, 22, “Though thou wash thee with nitre, and take thee much sope.” In this passage the Revised Version changes nitre to lye. The Hebrew word is Nether, the natrum of the East, an impure carbonate of sodium which was condensed from certain salt lakes, or obtained from marine plants. Vinegar would cause effervescence with this substance, but not with nitrate of potash. The soap in the same passage in Jeremiah, in Hebrew Borith, was either the soap wort or a salt obtained from the ashes of herbs by lixiviation.

MUSTARD SEEDS

are mentioned twice by the Saviour as illustrations of something very small: first as the small seed which grows into a tree, and second as the measure of even a minute degree of faith. The weed did in fact grow in Palestine to some ten or twelve feet in height.

VINEGAR.

Homez in Hebrew, Oxus in Greek, is mentioned five times in the Old Testament, and five times in the New Testament. It was used as a relish by the Jews, the food being dipped into it before eating. The passages where vinegar is mentioned in the accounts of the Crucifixion in the several Gospels are not fully explained by Biblical scholars. The first administration of vinegar to the Saviour was, according to St. Matthew, vinegar mixed with gall; according to St. Mark, vinegar mixed with myrrh. There are linguistic reasons for assuming that the additional ingredient may have been opium, given with a merciful intention. But both evangelists state that Jesus refused it. The second time vinegar was given to him on a sponge, and St. Luke seems to suggest that this was given in mockery. It is supposed that the vinegar was the posca, a sour wine which was largely drunk by the Roman soldiers.

ANETHON.

All translators agree that dill and not anise was the “anethon” named with mint and cummin in the passage, Matthew, xxiii, 23. Anise was never grown in Palestine. The other herbs were common in gardens, and the allusion to paying tithe on them, and to rue in a similar connection in Luke, xi, 42, appears to refer to the scrupulous observance of the letter of the law by the Pharisees, even down to such an insignificant matter as the tithe on these almost valueless herbs. The law did not, in fact, require tithe to be paid except on productions which yielded income. It was therefore rather to satisfy their own self-righteousness that the Pharisees insisted on paying the contribution on mint and anise and cummin.

SAFFRON

is only mentioned in the Song of Solomon, iv, 14, as one of the many valuable products of an Eastern garden. There is not much doubt that this was the crocus sativa known to medicine from the earliest times. The Hebrew word, karkum, was kurkum in ancient Arabic, and this is given in Arab dictionaries as equivalent to the more modern za-faran from which our word is derived.

POMEGRANATES

are always referred to in the Scriptures as luxuries. The spies sent by Moses to see the land of Canaan brought back pomegranates with figs and grapes (Numbers, xiii, 23); the same fruits are promised in Deut. (viii, 8); the withering of the pomegranate tree is, with that of the vine and fig tree, noted by the prophet Joel (i, 12) as a sign of desolation. It is still highly prized as a fruit in the East.

THE POULTICE OF FIGS

applied to Hezekiah’s boil (2 Kings, xx, 7) is an interesting reminiscence of Israelitish home medicine. The fig tree often appears in the Bible. Some very learned Biblical commentators (Celsius, Gesenius, Knobel, among them) have believed that the fig leaves with which Adam and Eve made aprons were in fact the very long leaves of the banana tree. This, however, is scarcely possible, as the banana is a native of the Malay Archipelago, and there is no evidence that it was known to the Jews at the time when the Pentateuch was written.

SPIKENARD

is mentioned three times in the Song of Songs (i, 12, iv, 13, iv, 14), and in the New Testament on two occasions (Mark xiv, 3, and John xii, 3), a box of spikenard ointment, “very costly” and “very precious” is, in the instance recorded by St. Mark, poured on the Saviour’s head, and in the narrative of St. John, is used to anoint His feet. On both occasions we are told that the value of this box or vase was three hundred pence. It is explained in the Revised Version that the coin named was equivalent to about 8½d. The price of the ointment used was therefore over ten pounds.

In the Greek text the word used is nardos pitike. It has been variously conjectured that the adjective may have meant liquid, genuine or powdered; the word lends itself to either of those meanings. Or it may have been a local term, or possibly it may have been altered from a word which would have meant what we understand by “spike” in botany. The most likely meaning is “genuine,” for we know that this product was at that period a perfume in high esteem, and that there were several qualities, the best, and by far the costliest, being brought from India. The ointment employed was really an otto, and it was imported into Rome and other cities of the Empire in alabaster vessels. Dioscorides and Galen refer to it as nardostachys. The Arab name for it was Sumbul Hindi, but this must not be confounded with the sumbul which we know. The word sumbul simply means spike. The botanical origin of the Scripture spikenard, the nardostachys of Dioscorides, was cleared up, it is generally agreed, by Sir William Jones in 1790. He traced it to a Himalayan plant of the valerian order which was afterwards exactly identified by Royle. A Brahman gave some of the fibrous roots to Sir William Jones, and told him it was employed in their religious sacrifices.

Pliny mentions an ointment of spikenard composed of the Indian nard, with myrrh, balm, custos, amomum, and other ingredients, but the “genuine” nard alluded to in the Gospels was probably the simple otto. Pliny also states that the Indian nard was worth, in his time, in Rome, one hundred denarii per pound.

Horace mentions an onyx box of nard which was considered of equal value with a large vessel of wine:

Nardo vinum merebere
Nardi parvus onyx eliciet cadum.

EASTERN IMAGERY.

In Ecclesiastes, xii, 5, the familiar words “and desire shall fail,” have been changed in the Revised Version to “the caper-berry shall fail.” This alteration does not strike the ordinary reader as an improvement, but it appears that the Revised Version translation is a reversion to that of the Septuagint, and is probably exactly correct. It is supposed to mean the same thing. The caper has always been recognised as a relish to meat, as we use it; and there is evidence that it was given as a stimulating medicine among the Arabs in the Middle Ages, and perhaps from very ancient times. The idea would be therefore that even the caper-berry will not now have any effect. The Revisers also suggest in the margin “burst” for “fail.” It is only a question of points in Hebrew which word is intended, and some think that the berry when fully ripe and bursting may have been an emblem of death.

The other clauses in the same verse have given rise to much difference of opinion. “The almond tree shall flourish” is generally supposed to indicate the white locks of the old man. But against this it is objected that the almond blossom is not white, but pink; and by a slight alteration of the original it is possible to read “the almond (the fruit) shall be refused” or rejected; it is no longer a tempting morsel.

The almond and the almond tree (the same word may mean either) are mentioned several times in the Bible. Jacob’s gifts to Joseph from Canaan to Egypt included almonds. They were grown in Canaan and were a luxury in Egypt. In Jeremiah, i, 11, the almond branch is used as symbolical of hastening or awakening, which is the primary meaning of the word, derived from the early appearance of the blossoms on the almond tree.

The third clause, “the grasshopper shall be a burden,” similarly presents difficulties, but these hardly concern us here. Probably all the metaphors conveyed distinct ideas to Eastern readers at that time, but have lost their point to us.

The interpretation of the beautiful Hebrew poetry of the twelfth chapter of Ecclesiastes, as given in Leclerc’s “History of Medicine,” may be of interest. Leclerc says the chapter is an enigmatic description of old age and its inconveniences, followed by death. The sun, the light, the moon, and the stars are respectively the mind, the judgment, the memory, and the other faculties of the soul, which are gradually fading. The clouds and the rain are the catarrhs and the fluxions incident to age. The guards of the house and the strong man are the senses, the muscles, and the tendons. The grinders are the teeth; those who look out through the windows is an allusion to the sight. The doors shall be shut in the streets, and the sound of the grinding is low, means that the mouth will scarcely open for speaking, and that eating must be slow and quiet. The old man must rise at the voice of the bird, for he cannot sleep. There is no more singing, and reading and study are no longer pleasures. The fear of climbing, even of walking, are next expressed; the white hair is signalised by the almond blossom, and the flesh falling away by the grasshopper, though the word burden may indicate the occasional unhealthy fattening of old persons. The caper failing indicates the loss of the various appetites. The silver cord represents the spinal marrow, the golden bowl the brain or the heart; the pitcher, the skull; and the wheel, the lung. The long home is the tomb.

IV

THE PHARMACY OF HIPPOCRATES.

When we search into the history of medicine and the
commencement of science, the first body of doctrine that
we meet with is the collection of writings attributed to
Hippocrates. Science ascends directly to that origin and there
stops. Everything that had been learned before the physician
of Cos has perished; and, curiously, there exists a great
gap after him as well as before him.... So that the writings
of Hippocrates remain isolated amongst the ruins of ancient
medical literature.--LITTRÉ. Introduction to the
_Translation of the Works of Hippocrates_.

About eight hundred years separated the periods of Æsculapius and Hippocrates. During that long time the study of medicine in all its branches was proceeding in intimate association with the various philosophies for which Greece has always been famous. Intercourse between Greece and Egypt, Persia, India, and other countries brought into use a number of medicines, and probably these were introduced and made popular by the shopkeepers and the travelling doctors, market quacks as we should call them.

Leclerc has collected a list of nearly four hundred simples which he finds alluded to as remedies in the writings of Hippocrates. But these include various milks, wines, fruits, vegetables, flits, and other substances which we should hardly call drugs now. Omitting these and certain other substances which cannot be identified I take from the author named the following list of medicines employed or mentioned in that far distant age;--

Abrotanum.
Absinthe.
Adiantum (maidenhair).
Agnus castus.
Algae (various).
Almonds.
Althaea.
Alum.
Amber.
Ammoniac.
Amomum.
Anagallis (a veronica).
Anagyris.
Anchusa.
Anemone.
Anethum.
Anise.
Anthemis.
Aparine (goose grease).
Aristolochia.
Armenian stone.
Asphalt.
Asphodel.
Atriplex.
Baccharis.
Balm.
Basil.
Bistort.
Blite.
Brass (flowers, filings, ashes).
Briar.
Bryony.
Burdock.
Cabbage.
Cachrys.
Calamus aromaticus.
Cantharides.
Capers.
Cardamom.
Carduus benedictus.
Carrot.
Castoreum.
Centaury.
Centipedes.
Chalcitis (red ochre).
Chenopodium.
Cinnamon.
Cinquefoil.
Clove.
Colocynth.
Coriander.
Crayfish.
Cress.
Cucumber (wild).
Cummin.
Cyclamen.
Cytisus.
Dictamnus.
Dog.
Dracontium.
Earths (various).
Elaterium.
Elder.
Erica.
Euphorbia.
Excrement of ass, goat, mule, goose, fox.
Fennel.
Fig tree (leaves, wood, fruit).
Foenugreek.
Frankincense.
Frogs.
Galbanum.
Galls.
Garlic.
Germander.
Goat (various parts).
Hawthorn.
Heather.
Hellebore (white and black).
Hemlock.
Henbane.
Honey.
Horehound.
Horns of ox, goat, stag.
Hyssop.
Isatis.
Ivy.
Juniper.
Laserpitium.
Laurel.
Lettuce.
Licorice.
Linseed.
Loadstone.
Lotus.
Lupins.
Magnesian stone.
Mallow.
Mandragora.
Mecon (?).
Melilot.
Mercurialis.
Minium.
Mints (various).
Mugwort.
Myrabolans.
Myrrh.
Myrtle.
Narcissus.
Nard.
Nitre.
Oak.
Oenanthe.
Oesypus.
Olive.
Onions.
Origanum.
Orpiment.
Ostrich.
Ox-gall.
Ox (liver, gall, urine).
Panax.
Parthenium.
Pennyroyal.
Peony.
Pepper.
Persea (sebestens).
Persil.
Peucedanum.
Phaseolus.
Philistium.
Pine.
Pitch.
Pomegranate.
Poppy.
Quicklime.
Quince.
Ranunculus.
Red spider.
Resin.
Rhamnus.
Rhus.
Ricinus.
Rock rose.
Rose.
Rosemary.
Ruby.
Rue.
Saffron.
Sagapenum.
Sage.
Salt.
Samphire.
Sandarach.
Scammony.
Sea water.
Secundines of a woman.
Sepia.
Serpent.
Sesame.
Seseli.
Silver.
Sisymbrium.
Solanum.
Spurge.
Squill.
Stag (horns, &c.).
Stavesacre.
Styrax.
Succinum.
Sulphur.
Sweat.
Tarragon.
Tetragonon.
Thaspia.
Thistles (various).
Thlapsi.
Thuja.
Thyme.
Torpedo (fish).
Trigonum.
Tribulus.
Turpentine.
Turtle.
Umbilicus veneris.
Verbascum.
Verbena.
Verdigris.
Verjuice.
Violet.
Wax.
Willow.
Woad.
Worms.
Worm seed.

This list may be taken to have comprised pretty fairly the materia medica of the Greeks as it was known to them when Hippocrates practised, and as it is not claimed that he introduced any new medicines it may be assumed that these formed the basis of the remedies used in the temples of Æsculapius, though perhaps some of them were only popular medicines.

The temples of Æsculapius were in all those ages the repositories of such medical and pharmaceutical knowledge as was acquired. The priests of these temples were called Asclepiades, and they professed to be the descendants of the god. Probably the employment of internal medicines was a comparatively late development. Plato remarks on the necessarily limited medical knowledge of Æsculapius. Wounds, bites of serpents, and occasional epidemics, he observes, were the principal troubles which the earliest physicians had to treat. Catarrhs, gout, dysentery, and lung diseases only came with luxury. Plutarch and Pindar say much the same. The latter specially mentions that Æsculapius had recourse to prayers, hymns, and incantations in mystic words and in verses called epaioide, or carmina, from which came the idea and name of charm.

In later times these temples were beautiful places, generally situated in the most healthy localities, and amid lovely scenery. They were either in forests or surrounded by gardens. A stream of pure water ran through the grounds, and the neighbourhood of a medicinal spring was chosen if possible. The patients who resorted to them were required to purify themselves rigorously, to fast for some time before presenting themselves in the temple, to abstain from wine for a still longer preliminary period, and thus to appreciate the solemnity of the intercession which was to be made for them. On entering the temple they found much to impress them. They were shown the records of cures, especially of diseases similar to their own; their fasts had brought them into a mental condition ready to accept a miracle, the ceremonies which they witnessed were imposing, and at last they were left to sleep before the altar. That dreams should come under those circumstances was not wonderful; nor was it surprising that in the morning the priests should be prepared to interpret these dreams. Not unfrequently the patients saw some mysterious shapes in their dreams which suggested to the priests the medicines which ought to be administered. For no doubt they did administer medicines, though for many centuries they observed the strictest secrecy in reference to all their knowledge and practices.

It need hardly be added that offerings were made to the god, to the service of the temple, and to the priests personally by grateful patients who had obtained benefit. At one of the temples it is said it was the custom to throw pieces of gold or silver into a well for the god. At others pieces of carving representing the part which had been the seat of disease were sold to those who had been cured, and these were again presented to the temple, and, it may be surmised, sold again. That cures were effected is likely enough. The excitement, the anticipation, the deep impressions made by the novel surroundings had great influence on many minds, and through the minds on the bodies. Records of these cures were engraved on tablets and fixed on the walls of the temples.

Sprengel gives a translation of four of these inscriptions found at the Temple of Æsculapius which had been built on the Isle of the Tiber, near Rome. The first relates that a certain Gaius, a blind man, was told by the oracle to pray in the temple, then cross the floor from right to left, lay the five fingers of his right hand on the altar, and afterwards carry his hand to his eyes. He did so, and recovered his sight in the presence of a large crowd. The next record is also a cure of blindness. A soldier named Valerius Aper was told to mix the blood of a white cock with honey and apply the mixture to his eyes for three successive days. He, too, was cured, and thanked the god before all the people. Julian was cured of spitting of blood. His case had been considered hopeless. The treatment prescribed was mixing seeds of the fir apple with honey, and eating the compound for three days. The fourth cure was of a son of Lucius who was desperately ill with pleurisy. The god told him in a dream to take ashes from the altar, mix them with wine, and apply to his side.

The legend of the foundation of this Roman temple is curious. In the days of the republic on the occasion of an epidemic in the city the sibylline books were consulted, with the result that an embassy was sent to Epidaurus to ask for the help of Æsculapius. Quintus Ogulnius was appointed for this mission. On arriving at Epidaurus the Romans were astonished to see a large serpent depart from the temple, make its way to the shore, and leap on the vessel, where it proceeded at once to the cabin of Ogulnius. Some of the priests followed the serpent and accompanied the Romans on the return journey. The vessel stopped at Antium, and the serpent left the ship and proceeded to the Temple of Æsculapius in that city. After three days he returned, and the voyage was continued. Casting anchor at the mouth of the Tiber the serpent again left the vessel and settled itself on a small island. There it rolled itself up, thus indicating its intention of settling on that spot. The god, it was understood, had selected that island as the site for his temple, and there it was erected.

As might be expected, some of the less reverent of the Greek writers found subjects for satire in the worship of Æsculapius. Aristophanes in one of his comedies makes a servant relate how his master, Plautus, who was blind, was restored to sight at the Æsculapian temple. Having placed their offerings on the altar and performed other ceremonies, this servant says that Plautus and he laid down on beds of straw. When the lights were extinguished the priest came round and enjoined them to sleep and to keep silence if they should hear any noise. Later the god himself came and wiped the eyes of Plautus with a piece of white linen. Panacea followed him and covered the face of Plautus with a purple veil. Then on a signal from the deity two serpents glided under the veil, and having licked his eyes Plautus recovered his sight.

It cannot be doubted that in the course of the centuries a large amount of empiric knowledge was accumulated at these temples, and probably the pretence of supernatural aid was far more rare than we suppose. In an exhaustive study of the subject recently published by Dr. Aravintinos, of Athens, that authority expresses the opinion that the temples served as hospitals for all kinds of sufferers, and that arrangements were provided in them for prolonged treatment. He thinks that in special cases the treatment was carried out during the mysterious sleep, when it was desired to keep from the patient an exact knowledge of what was being done; but generally he supposes a course of normal medication or hygiene was followed. Forty-two inscriptions have been discovered, but on analysing these Dr. Aravintinos comes to the conclusion that they record in most cases only cures effected by rational means, and not by miracles. He finds massage, purgatives, emetics, diaphoresis, bleeding, baths, poulticing, and such like methods indicated, and though the sleeps, possibly hypnotic, are often mentioned, this is not by any means the case invariably.

About a century before Hippocrates wrote and practised, the Asclepiads began to reveal their secrets. The revolt against the mysteries and trickeries of the temples was incited by the infidelity to their oaths of certain of the Italian disciples of Pythagoras. The school of philosophy and medicine founded by that mystic aimed also to keep his doctrines secret, but when the colony he had established at Crotona, in South Italy, was dispersed by the attacks of the mob, a number of the initiates travelled about under the title of Periodeutes practising medicine often in close proximity to an Æsculapian temple. The first of the Asclepiads to yield to this competition were those of Cnidos, but the school of Cos was not long after them. The direct ancestors of Hippocrates were among the teachers of the temple who became eager to make known the accumulated science in their possession, and thus by the time when the famous teacher was born (460 B.C.) the world was ripe for his intellect to have free play.

HIPPOCRATES.

Hippocrates was born in Cos, as far as can be ascertained, about the year 460 B.C., and is alleged to have lived to be 99, or, as some say, 109 years of age. It is claimed that his father, Heraclides, was a direct descendant of Æsculapius, and that his mother, Phenarita, was of the family of Hercules. His father and his paternal ancestors in a long line were all priests of the Æsculapian temples, and his sons and their sons after them also practised medicine in the same surroundings. The family, traceable for nearly 300 years, among whom were seven of the name of Hippocrates, were all, it would appear, singularly free from the charlatanism which the Greek dramatists attributed to the Æsculapian practitioners, from the superstition which overlaid the medical science of so many older and later centuries, and especially from the fantastic pharmacy which was to develop to such an absurd extent in the following five hundred years.

It is not possible to distinguish with any confidence the genuine from the spurious writings attributed to Hippocrates which have come down to us. But the note which even his imitators sought to copy was one of directness, lucidity, and candour. He tells of his failures as simply as of his successes. He does not seek to deduce a system from his experience, and though he is reputed to be the originator of the theory of the humours, he does not allow the doctrine to influence his treatment, which is based on experience.

This portrait of Hippocrates, which is given in Leclerc’s
“History of Medicine,” is stated to be copied from a medal
in the collection of Fulvius Ursinus, a celebrated Italian
connoisseur. It is believed that the medal was struck by the
people of Cos at some long distant time in honour of their
famous compatriot. A bust in the British Museum, found near
Albano, among some ruins conjectured to have been the villa
of Marcus Varro, is presumed to represent Hippocrates on the
evidence of the likeness it bears to the head on this medal.
]

The medical views of Hippocrates do not concern us here except as they affect his pharmaceutical practice; but a very long chapter might be written on his pharmacy, that is to say, on the use he made of drugs in the treatment of disease. Galen believed that he made his preparations with his own hand, or at least superintended their preparation. Leclerc’s list of the medicaments mentioned as such in the works attributed to Hippocrates have been already quoted, and it will be found that after deducting the fruits and vegetables, the milks of cows, goats, asses, mules, sheep, and bitches, as well as other things which perhaps we should hardly reckon as medicaments, there remain between one hundred and two hundred drugs which are still found in our drug shops. There are a great many animal products, some copper and lead derivatives, alum, and the earths so much esteemed; but evidently the bulk of his materia medica was drawn from the vegetable kingdom.

Hippocrates was considerably interested in pharmacy. Galen makes him say, “We know the nature of medicaments and simples, and make many different preparations with them; some in one way, some in another. Some simples must be gathered early, some late; some we dry, some we crush, some we cook,” &c. He made fomentations, poultices, gargles, pessaries, katapotia (things to swallow, large pills), ointments, oils, cerates, collyria, looches, tablets, and inhalations, which he called perfumes. For quinsy, for example, he burned sulphur and asphalte with hyssop. He gave narcotics, including, it is supposed, the juice of the poppy and henbane seeds, and mandragora; purgatives, sudorifics, emetics, and enemas. His purgative drugs were generally drastic ones: the hellebores, elaterium, colocynth, scammony, thapsia, and a species of rhamnus.

Hippocrates describes methods for what he calls purging the head and the lungs, that is, by means of sneezing and coughing. He explains how he diminishes the acridity of spurge juice by dropping a little of it on a dried fig, whereby he gets a good remedy for dropsy. He has a medicine which he calls Tetragonon, or four-cornered. Galen conjectures that this was a tablet of crude antimony. Leclerc more reasonably suggests that it was a term for certain special kinds of lozenges, and points out that not long after Hippocrates physicians used a trochiscus trigonus, or three-cornered lozenge for another purpose.

Although he used many drugs, Hippocrates is especially insistent on Diet as the most important aid to health. He claims to have been the first physician who had written on this subject, and this assertion is confirmed by Plato, who, however, somewhat grimly commends the ancient doctors for neglecting this branch of treatment, for, he says, the modern ones have converted life into a tedious death. Barley water is repeatedly recommended by the physician of Cos, with various additions to suit the particular case under consideration. Oxymel is the usual associate, but dill, leeks, oil, salt, vinegar, and goats’ fat also figure.

Particular instructions are also given about the wine to be drunk, the kind, and the quantity of water with which it is to be diluted in spring, summer, autumn, and winter. In one place, at the end of the 3rd Book on Diet, a word is used which apparently means that persons fatigued with long labour should “drink unto gaiety” occasionally; but there is some doubt about the correct translation of that word.

V

FROM HIPPOCRATES TO GALEN.

Medicine is a science which hath been more professed
than laboured, and yet more laboured than advanced; the
labour having been, in my judgment, rather in circle than
in progression. For I find much iteration, but small
addition.--BACON, “Advancement of Learning.”--Book 2.

The fame of Hippocrates caused naturally a great multiplication of works attributed to him. The Ptolemies when founding the Library of Alexandria, which they were determined should be more important than that of Pergamos, commissioned captains of ships and other travellers to buy manuscripts of the Greek physician at almost any price; an excellent method of encouraging forgeries. The works attributed to Hippocrates have been subject to the keenest scrutiny by scholars, but even now the verdict of Galen in regard to their genuine or spurious character is the consideration which carries the greatest weight. Even the imitations go to prove how free the physician of Cos was from superstitious practices or prejudiced theories.

Between him and Galen an interval of some six hundred years elapsed and, especially in the latter half of that period, pharmacy developed into enormous importance. Not that it necessarily advanced. But the faith in drugs, and especially in the art of compounding them, and the wild polypharmacy which grew up in Alexandria and Rome in the first two centuries of our era, of which Galen shows so much approval, add inestimably to the chronicles of pharmacy. It was during the interval between Hippocrates and Galen that the many sects of ancient medicine, the Dogmatics, the Stoics, the Empirics, the Methodics, and the Eclectics were born and flourished. Some of these encouraged the administration of special remedies. But probably a far greater influence was exercised on the pharmacy of the ancient world by the new commerce with Africa and the East which the Ptolemies did so much to foster, and by the travelling quacks and the prescribing druggists who exploited the drugs of foreign origin which now came into the market.

Serapion of Alexandria, one of the most famous of the Empirics, who is supposed to have lived in the second century, was largely responsible for the introduction of the animal remedies which were to figure so prominently in the pharmacy of the succeeding seventeen centuries. Among his specifics were the brain of a camel, the excrements of the crocodile, the heart of the hare, the blood of the tortoise, and the testicles of the wild boar.

The Empirics were the boldest users of drugs, and so far as can be judged, were the practitioners who brought opium into general medicinal esteem. One of the most famous doctors of this sect, Heraclides, made several narcotic compounds which are commended by Galen. One of these formulæ prescribed for cholera was 2 drms. of henbane seeds, 1 drm. of anise, and ½ drm. of opium, made into 30 pills, one for a dose. Another which was recommended for coughs was composed of 4 drms. each of juice of hemlock, juice of henbane, castorum, white pepper, and costus; and 1 drm. each of myrrh and opium.

Musa, a freed slave of Augustus, and apparently a sort of medical charlatan, but a great favourite with the Emperor, is alleged to have introduced the flesh of vipers into medical use especially for the cure of ulcers.

Celsus, Dioscorides, and Pliny, whose works are recognized as the storehouses of the science of Imperial Rome, belonged to the period under review. Celsus wrote either a little before or a little after the commencement of our era. He was the first eminent author who wrote on medicine in Latin. Pliny died A.D. 79, suffocated by the gases from Vesuvius, which in his eagerness to observe he had approached too near during an eruption. Dioscorides is supposed to have lived a little before Pliny, who apparently quotes him, but curiously never mentions his name, though usually most scrupulous in regard to his authorities.

Themison, who lived at Rome in the reign of Augustus Cæsar, and who is said to have been the first physician to have distinguished rheumatism from gout, is noted in pharmacy as the author of the formulæ for Diagredium and Diacodium. He praised the plantain as a universal remedy, and is also the earliest medical writer to mention the use of leeches in the treatment of illness.

Several of the writers on medical subjects of this period adopted the method of prescribing their formulas and the instructions for compounding them in verse. The most famous instance is that of Andromachus, physician to Nero, whose elegiac verses describing the composition of his Theriakon are quoted by Galen. The idea was that the formula thus presented was less likely to be tampered with. Theriakon as invented contained 61 ingredients. Its principal improvement on the more ancient Mithridatum was the addition of dried vipers. Andromachus appears to have acquired a large and lucrative practice in Rome at the time when wealth was most lavishly squandered.

Among other medical verse writers were Servilius Damocrates, who lived in the reign of the Emperor Tiberius, and who invented a famous tooth powder, a number of malagmata, (emollient poultices), acopa (liniments for pains), electuaries, and plasters; and Herennius Philon, a physician of Tarsus (about A.D. 50), whose fame rests on his philonium, a compound designed to relieve colic pains, which appear to have been specially frequent at that period. This philonium was composed of opium, saffron, pyrethrum, euphorbium, pepper, henbane, spikenard, and honey.

Menecrates, physician to Tiberius, and said to have written 155 works, was the inventor of diachylon plaster, but his diachylon was a compound of many juices (as the name implies) along with lead plaster.

The Romans were curiously badly off for regular doctors until Julius Cæsar specially tempted some to come from Greece and Egypt by offers of citizenship. Augustus, too, warmly encouraged the settlement in the city of trained medical men.

PHARMACY IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE.

The separation of the practices of medicine, pharmacy, and surgery, which became general though never universal, was of course a gradual process. Galen expresses the opinion that Hippocrates prepared the medicines he prescribed with his own hands, or at least superintended the production of them. According to Celsus, it was in Alexandria and about the year 300 B.C. that the division of the practice of medicine into distinct branches was first noticeable. The sections he names were Dietetics, Surgery and Pharmaceutics.

The physicians who practised dietetics were like our consultants, only more so. They were above all things philosophers, the recognised successors of the Greek thinkers and theorists, and but too often their imitators. Although they owed their designation to their general authority on régime, they prescribed and invented medicines. The pharmaceutical section came to be called in Latin medicamentarii, and their history corresponds closely with that of our English apothecaries. At first they prepared and administered the medicines which the physicians ordered. But in Alexandria and Rome they gradually assumed the position of general practitioners. To another class, designated by Pliny Vulnerarii, was left the treatment of wounds, and probably of tumours and ulcers. The necessity of a lower grade of medical practitioners in Rome is manifest from a remark of Galen’s to the effect that no physician, meaning a person in his own rank, would attend to diseases of minor importance.

It is worthy of note that the Latin designation medicamentarius, which was nearly equivalent to the Greek pharmacopolis, was similarly used to mean a poisoner, while pharmakon in Greek and medicamentus in Latin might mean either a medicine or a poison.

It is noted elsewhere (page 52) that the word pharmakeia when it occurs in the New Testament is universally translated in our versions by the term sorcery or some similar word. At the time when the Apostles wrote this was evidently the prevalent meaning attached to the term. But in earlier Greek literature the reputable and the disgraceful ideas associated with the word seem to have run side by side for centuries. Homer uses pharmakon in both senses; Plato makes pharmakeuein mean to administer a remedy, while Herodotus adopts it to signify the practice of sorcery. Apparently this word came from an earlier, pharmassein, which was derived from a root implying to mix, and the gradual sense development was that of producing an effect by means of drugs. They might produce purging, they might produce a colour, or they might produce love.

The multiplication of names for the various classes connected with medicine and pharmacy in the Roman world is rather confusing. As the language of medicine up to and including Galen was largely Greek, many of the designations employed were those which had been drawn from that tongue. The name Pharmacopeus, used in Greek to denote certain handlers of drugs, had always a sinister signification. It suggested a purveyor of noxious drugs, a compounder of philtres, a vendor of poisons. The men who kept shops for the sale of drugs generally were called pharmacopoloi. This term was not free from reproach, because it was a common appellation, not only of the shopkeepers strictly so-called, but was also applied to the periodeutes, or agyrtoi, travelling quacks or assembly gatherers, or as they came to be named in Latin, circulatores or circumforanei.

These itinerant drug sellers are occasionally referred to by the classic authors. Lucian speaks of one hawking a cough mixture about the streets; and Cicero, in his Oratia pro Cluentio, suggests that the travelling pharmacopolists who attended the markets of country towns were not unwilling to sell poisons as well as medicines when they were wanted. One of these is specifically named, Lucius Clodius, and the orator suggests that he was bribed to supply medicines to a certain lady which were to have a fatal effect.

The designation Periodeutes meant originally, and always in strict legal terminology, physicians who visited their patients. The term was also used among the Christians to describe the ministers charged to visit the sick and poor in their dioceses.

The tramp doctor in time gets tired of his vagabond life, and, it may be, a little weary of hearing his own voice. If he has saved a little money, therefore, the attractions of a shop in the city, where he can exercise his healing on people who seek him, appeal strongly to him. So in Greece and in the Roman Empire the charlatans settled in little shops and were called iatroi epidiphrioi or sellularii medici, meaning sedentary doctors. But all these were pharmacopoloi.

Peculiarly interesting is the suggestion made by Epicurus and intended as a sneer, that Aristotle was one of these pharmacopoloi in his younger days. According to Epicurus the philosopher having first wasted his patrimony in riotous living and then served as a soldier, afterwards sold antidotes in the markets up to the time when he joined Plato’s classes.

Seplasia was the ordinary name in Rome for a druggist’s shop, and those who kept them were designated Seplasiarii or Pigmentarii. These names appear to have been used without much recognition of their original meanings. Strictly the Seplasiarii were ointment makers, and though the Pigmentarii were no doubt at first sellers of dyes and colours, they evidently came to include medicines in their stocks of pigments, and Coelius Aurelianus, in writing on stomach complaints, alludes to aloes as a pigment. Greek designations corresponding to those just quoted were Pantopoloi and Kadolikoi (the latter used by Galen in referring to the trader who supplied the drugs for the theriacum prepared in the palace of the Emperor Antoninus). Kopopoloi, and Migmatopoloi, both of which words meant dealers in all sorts of small wares, were like the mercers in this country when shopkeeping first began. The shops of perfumers were myropolia or myrophecia, the perfumers themselves were myrepsi. A general term in Latin for any sort of shop where medicines were sold or surgical operations performed was Medicina. This was in the days before the Empire, when there was no usual distinction between the branches of the healing art.

Pharmacotribae, strictly drug-grinders, may have been compounders, and it has also been conjectured that they were the assistants employed by the Seplasiarii or Roman druggists.

Herbalists were of very ancient Greek lineage, under the names of Botanologoi, who were collectors of simples, and who, to enhance the price of their wares, pretended to have to gather them with many superstitious observances; and Rhizotomoi, or root-cutters. The name Apothek, which came to be appropriated to the warehouse where medicinal herbs were kept, and which is to-day the German equivalent of our pharmacy, or chemist’s shop, meant originally any warehouse, and from it has been derived the French boutique and the Spanish bodega.

The earlier Greek and Roman physicians were in the habit of themselves preparing the medicines they prescribed for their patients. But naturally they did not gather their own herbs, and as many of those used for medicine were exotics, it is obvious that they could not have done so if they had wished. The herbalists who undertook this duty (botanologoi in Greek) developed into the seplasiarii, pharmacopoloi, medicamentarii, and pigmentarii already mentioned. Beckmann says they competed with the regular physicians, having acquired a knowledge of the healing virtues of the commodities they sold, and the methods of compounding them. This could not help happening, but it ought to be remembered that the physicians of all countries had themselves developed from herbalists, that is, if we abandon the theories of miraculous instruction which are found among the legends of Egypt, Assyria, India, and Greece.

How similar the relations of the doctors and druggists of ancient Rome were with those still prevailing in this country may be gathered from a reproach levelled by Pliny against physicians contemporary with him (Bk. xxxiv, 11) to the effect that they purchased their medicines from the seplasiarii without knowing of what they were composed.

VI

ARAB PHARMACY.

In the science of medicine the Arabians have been deservedly
applauded. The names of Mesua and Geber, of Razis and
Avicenna, are ranked with the Grecian masters; in the city
of Bagdad 860 physicians were licensed to exercise their
lucrative profession; in Spain the lives of the Catholic
princes were entrusted to the skill of the Saracens;
and the School of Salerno, their legitimate offspring,
revived in Italy and Europe the precepts of the healing
art.--GIBBON: “Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,”
Chap. LII.

No period of European history is more astonishing than the records of the triumphant progress of the Arab power under the influence of the faith of Islam. From the earliest times this grand Semitic race was distinguished for learning of a certain character, for gravity, piety, superstition, a poetic imagination, and eloquence. Centuries of independence, jealously guarded, and innumerable local feuds made the material of perfect soldiers, and when Mohammed had grafted on the native religious character his own faith and missionary zeal the Arab army, the Saracens, as they came to be called, filled with fanatic fervour, and utterly indifferent to death, or, rather, eager for it as the introduction to the Paradise which their prophet had seen and told them of, formed such an irresistible force as on a small scale has only been reproduced by Cromwell in our nation.

But the rapidity of the conquests of Mohammedanism was perhaps less remarkable than the extraordinary assimilation of ancient learning and the development of new science among these hitherto unlettered Arabs. Mohammed was born in the year 569 of our era. The Koran was the first substantial piece of Arabic literature. Alexandria was taken and Egypt conquered by the Moslems under Amrou in A.D. 640, Persia and Syria having been previously subdued. Amrou was himself disposed to yield to the solicitations of some Greek grammarians, who implored him to spare the great Library of the city, the depository of the learning of the ancient world. But he considered it necessary to refer the request to the Caliph Omar. The reply of the Commander of the Faithful is one of the most familiar of the stories in Gibbon’s fascinating history. “If the writings support the Koran they are superfluous; if they oppose it they are pernicious; burn them.” It is declared that the papers and manuscripts served as fuel for the baths of the city for six months.

The destruction of the Alexandrian Library is often alluded to as a signal triumph of barbarism over civilisation. Gibbon cynically remarks that “if the ponderous mass of Arian and Monophysite controversy were indeed consumed in the public baths a philosopher may allow with a smile that it was ultimately devoted to the benefit of mankind.” But at least the spirit which animated Omar in 640 may be noted for comparison with the encouragement of learning which was soon to characterise the Arab rulers.

Only a lifetime later, in A.D. 711, the sons of the Alexandrian conquerors invaded Spain, and within the same century made their western capital, Cordova, the greatest centre of learning, civilisation, and luxury in Europe. The following quotation from Dr. Draper’s “History of the Intellectual Development of Europe” will give an idea of this achievement:

Scarcely had the Arabs become firmly settled in Spain than
they commenced a brilliant career. Adopting what had become
the established policy of the Commanders of the Faithful
in Asia, the Emirs of Cordova distinguished themselves as
patrons of learning, and set an example of refinement strongly
contrasting with the condition of the native European Princes.
Cordova under their administration, at the highest point of
their prosperity, boasted of more than two hundred thousand
houses, and more than a million inhabitants. After sunset a
man might walk through it in a straight line for ten miles by
the light of the public lamps. Seven hundred years after this
time there was not so much as one public lamp in London. Its
streets were solidly paved. In Paris, centuries subsequently,
whoever stepped over his threshold on a rainy day stepped
up to his ankles in mud. Other cities, as Granada, Seville,
Toledo, considered themselves rivals of Cordova. The palaces
of the Khalifs were magnificently decorated. Those sovereigns
might well look down with supercilious contempt on the
dwellings of the rulers of Germany, France, and England, which
were scarcely better than stables--chimneyless, windowless,
with a hole in the roof for the smoke to escape, like the
wigwams of certain Indians.

About the same time the passion for learning was growing in the East. Bagdad was founded A.D. 762, and about the year 800 Haroun Al-Raschid founded the famous university of that city. Libraries and schools were established throughout the two sections of the Saracenic dominions. Greek and Latin works of philosophy and science were translated, but the licentious and blasphemous mythology of the classical poets was abhorred by this serious nation, and no Arabic versions of Olympian fables were ever made. Astronomy, mathematics, metaphysics, and the arts of agriculture, of horticulture, of architecture, of war, and of commerce, were advanced to an extent which this century does not realise, while amid all this progress the study of chemistry, medicine, and pharmacy was pursued with particular eagerness.

Curiously the Arabs owed their instruction in these branches of knowledge to those whom we are accustomed to regard as their traditional foes. The dispersion of the Nestorians after the condemnation of their doctrines by the Council of Ephesus in A.D. 431 resulted in the foundation of a Chaldean Church and the establishment of famous colleges in Syria and Persia. In these the science of the Greeks, the philosophy of Aristotle, and the medical teaching of Hippocrates were kept alive when they had been banished by the Church from Constantinople. The Jews had also acquired special fame for medical skill throughout the East, and they and the Nestorians appear to have associated in some of the schools. It was to these teachers the Arabs turned when, having assured their military success, they demanded intellectual advancement. The Caliphs not only tolerated, they welcomed the assistance of the “unbelievers,” and, in fact, depended on them for the equipment of their own schools, and for the private tuition of their children. To John Mesuë, a Nestorian, and a famous writer on medicine and pharmacy, Haroun Al-Raschid entrusted the superintendence of the public schools of Bagdad.

The first Nestorian college is believed to have been established in the city of Dschondisabour in Chuzistan (Nishapoor), before the revelation of Mohammed. Theology and Medicine were particularly studied at this seat of learning, and a hospital was established to which the medical students were admitted, but they had first to be examined in the Psalms, the New Testament, and in certain books of prayers.

It was the Caliph Almansor and his immediate successor, Haroun Al-Raschid, who between them made Bagdad a centre of study. Students and professors came thither from all parts of the then civilised world, and the Caliphs welcomed, and indeed invited, both Christians and Jews to teach there. Hospitals were established in the city, and the first public pharmacies or dispensaries were provided in Bagdad by Haroun Al-Raschid. It is on record that in A.D. 807 envoys from that monarch came to the court of Charlemagne bringing gifts of balsams, nard, ointments, drugs, and medicines.

Arabic medicine was based on the works of Hippocrates and Galen, which were for the most part translated first into Syriac, and then into Arabic. It does not come within the scope of this work to narrate or estimate the advance in medicine which may be accredited to the Arabian writers and practitioners. Medical historians do not allow that they contributed much original service to either anatomy, physiology, pathology, or surgery; but it is admitted by every student that their maintenance of scholarship through the half dozen centuries during which Europe was sunk in the most abject ignorance and superstition entitles them to the gratitude of all who have lived since. The medicine of Avicenna was perhaps much the same as that of Galen. Both were accepted by the physicians of England, France, and Germany with the slavish deference which the long burial of the critical faculties had made inevitable, and which needed the vigorous abuse of Paracelsus to quicken into activity.

Whatever may have been the case with medicine it cannot be denied that the Arabs contributed largely to the development of its ministering arts, chemistry and pharmacy. The achievements attributed to Geber in the eighth century were probably not due to any single adept. Tradition assigned the glory to him and, likely enough, if such a chemist really lived and acquired fame, other investigators who followed him for a century or two adopted the pious fraud so frequently met with in other branches of study in the early centuries of our era of attributing theories or discoveries to some venerated teacher in order to assure for them immediate acceptance. However this may be, it is not the less established that the chemistry of Geber, or of Geber and others, was in fact the fruit of Arab industry and genius.