Themison, as I have before stated, was an old man when he laid the foundations for Methodism, and it is not probable that it attained much importance as a sect until several years after his death. Then Thessalus, a native of Tralles, a flourishing commercial city of Asia Minor, and a man who had received his medical training in one of the Greek schools, materially added to the body of doctrines held by this sect, and at the same time rendered them more acceptable to physicians generally. He was of humble birth, the son of a wool carder, and his education had been rather neglected; but he nevertheless managed, by his own efforts and in no small degree by the unlimited self-confidence (Galen calls it impudence) which he possessed, to push his way to the top of the ladder.[32] He acquired a large fortune during the reign of Nero (54–68 A. D.) and apparently succeeded in persuading this monarch that he was a great physician. Here are some facts which appear to justify Galen’s dislike for Thessalus: In a letter to Nero the latter writes: “I have founded a new medical sect, the only genuine one in existence. I was forced to do so because the physicians who preceded me had failed to discover anything that is likely to promote health or to drive away disease; even Hippocrates himself having laid down doctrines which are positively harmful.” His vanity, according to Le Clerc, reached such a pitch that he called himself the “conqueror of physicians.”[33] Pliny corroborates the latter statement in the following words: “When he assumed the title of ‘conqueror of physicians,’ a title which was engraved, according to his instructions, on his tomb in the Appian Way.” Notwithstanding his unbounded conceit, Thessalus appears to have made several important improvements in the doctrines of the Methodists. He is also, as it appears, entitled to the credit of having been the first to inaugurate the practice of giving systematic instruction at the bedside; thus establishing for all time a most valuable precedent for the guidance of his successors.

“He was an excellent practitioner and an original thinker.... He was also a prolific writer, as is shown by the number and variety of treatises which—as we are assured by Caelius Aurelianus—were composed by him.” The same authority speaks of him as “a leader among our chiefs,” thus affording good evidence of the degree of esteem in which he was held by the members of his own school. The fact that pupils came in throngs to be taught by him shows clearly how thoroughly he understood the needs of the physicians of Rome. (Meyer-Steineg.)

Thessalus, notwithstanding his declaration that medicine might readily be taught in six months, wrote a larger number of treatises on professional topics than any student of medicine could possibly read and digest in the course of two or three years. They filled several large volumes, but not one of them is known to exist to-day. He wrote at great length, as we are assured, on the subject of surgery, a subject in which he took an active interest. He taught that ulcers, no matter in what part of the body they may be located, require the same kind of treatment.

If an ulcer is excavated, it is necessary to bring about a filling-up of the excavation; if its surface is on a level with the surrounding skin, the aim should be to make it cicatrize; if the growth of new tissue is excessive, the redundant portion should be destroyed by burning with caustic; and, finally, if the ulcer is of recent development and bleeds readily, the attempt should be made, by approximating the edges, to effect an immediate healing.

In the treatment of chronic ulcers which show little or no disposition to heal, and which, when they do finally heal, are very prone to break open afresh, Thessalus urges the great importance of ascertaining, if possible, the cause or causes of this behavior. If it be found that the trouble is due to some weakness or abnormal predisposition of the part in which the ulcer is located, or that the condition of the entire body is probably the real cause of the trouble, he recommends the employment of “metasyncritic remedies”—that is, remedial measures which effect a marked change in the individual’s vital processes throughout the body, and also such as exert an alterative effect upon the ulcer itself. Among the measures of the first class he enumerates the following: Various forms of physical exercise; alternately increasing and diminishing the amount of nourishment taken; and perhaps the taking of an emetic at the very commencement of the treatment. As to the second class of measures—those needed to bring about a change in the ulcer itself—he makes the following recommendations: Remove from the diseased tissues as much as will restore the parts, as nearly as possible, to the condition of a healthy wound, and then adopt the treatment suited for the latter condition. In cases in which the ulcer heals and then subsequently breaks open again, it will sometimes be found beneficial to apply in the neighborhood a plaster containing an irritating substance like mustard, the effect of which is often to change the disposition of the parts. In actual practice he recommends that the local measures should be employed first, and then, if they fail to accomplish the desired purpose, the physician should have recourse to those enumerated in the first class—the strictly metasyncritic remedies.

It is rather difficult to believe that a man so full of conceit and so unjust in his criticisms of his predecessors as Thessalus clearly was, could be capable of formulating such a concise statement of the nature of chronic ulcers and such a practical rule for their proper treatment. His development of the idea of “metasyncrisis”—or renovation of the body (recorporatio), as Caelius Aurelianus translates the word—seems to have been original with Thessalus.[34] The Methodists, it should be added, deserve special credit for having been the first to introduce and carry into effect the systematic treatment of chronic diseases; and, as a general proposition, it may be said that their treatment of all forms of disease was thoroughly practical, free from all tendency to resort to magical methods, and based largely on the employment of such hygienic measures as the use of baths of different kinds (hydrotherapy), massage, moderate outdoor exercise, passive movements, sea voyages, fasting, regulation of the diet, etc. One of the favorite practices—of which Thessalus was said to have been the originator—was to begin the treatment of almost all maladies by prescribing an abstinence from all food for a period of three full days. When I come to speak of Soranus and Caelius Aurelianus I shall probably have occasion to give further details regarding the methods of treatment employed by the Methodists.

As a system, says Neuburger, Methodism was not capable of inaugurating any fundamental advances in medicine; the most that it was able to accomplish was to broaden and otherwise improve the domain of therapeutics, and some of its wiser members were diligent in collecting and sifting critically a large number of valuable experiences, which were then courteously registered by them to the credit of the sect.

CHAPTER XIII
THE FURTHER HISTORY OF METHODISM AT ROME, AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF TWO NEW SECTS, VIZ., THE PNEUMATISTS AND THE ECLECTICS.—A GENERAL SURVEY OF THE SUBJECT OF SECTS IN MEDICINE

Among the Methodists there were many physicians who attained more or less distinction during their professional career, but only two of them, beside those whose contributions to medical knowledge have already been mentioned in these pages, gained sufficient celebrity to justify me in devoting some additional space to the description of the work which they accomplished. Soranus, of Ephesus on the coast of Asia Minor, and Caelius Aurelianus, of Sicca in the north of Africa, are the physicians to whom I have reference.

It was Soranus, says Le Clerc, who gave the finishing touches to the system of the Methodists, and the work which he did was of such excellence that he may with justice be called the ablest and most skilful of all the members of that school. Caelius calls him “a chief among the leaders of our sect.” He received his medical training at Alexandria and came to Rome about the year 100 A. D. His professional career covered the period corresponding to the reigns of Trajan and Hadrian (98–138 A. D.). He is known to posterity chiefly through his two treatises—one on obstetrics and gynaecology and the other on acute and chronic diseases. The first of these treatises, in the original Greek, was rediscovered in 1838 by Reinhold Dietz, Professor of Medicine in the University of Königsberg, Prussia, and a German translation of the work (by Lüneberg and Huber) was published in Munich in 1894. Moschion, who was probably a pupil of Soranus, wrote a popular treatise on the same subject for the use of midwives, and in this book he has reproduced much of the material which is to be found in the work of his master. The treatise written by Caelius Aurelianus on acute and chronic diseases is admitted by him to be founded on that which Soranus wrote on the same subject. In fact, as Daremberg states, the work of the former represents almost a translation (into Latin) of Soranus’ treatise. The sources just named are the principal ones from which our knowledge of this author is derived.