Dr. Meryon points out[510] that Gregory the Great enunciated one great doctrine of homœopathy: “Mos medicinæ est ut aliquando similia similibus, aliquando contraria contrairiis curet. Nam sæpe calida calidis, frigida frigidis, sæpe autem frigida calidis, calida frigidis sanare consuevit.”
Alexander of Tralles, though one of the most eminent ancient physicians, believed in charms and amulets. Here are a few specimens. For a quotidian ague, “Gather an olive leaf before sunrise, write on it with common ink κα, ροι, α, and hang it round the neck” (xii. 7, p. 339); for the gout, “Write on a thin plate of gold, during the waning of the moon, μεί, θρεύ, μόρ, φόρ, τεύξ, βαίν, χωώκ” (xi. l. p. 313). He exorcised the gout thus: “I adjure thee by the great name Ἰαὼ Σαβαώθ,” that is, יְהֹוָה צְבָאוֹת and a little further on: “I adjure thee by the holy names Ἰαὼ, Σαβαὼθ, Ἀδωναὶ, Ἐλωὶ,” that is יְהֹוָה צְבָאוֹת אֲדֹנָי אֱלֹהָי.[511]
Neoplatonism had its influence on medicine. Plotinus (A.D. 205-270), its great father, said, when dying, “I am striving to bring the God which is in us into harmony with the God which is in the Universe.” The early Christians began to tell the world that the God within the soul of man and the God which is in the Universe are one and the same being, of absolute righteousness, power and love. Plotinus preached a gospel to the philosophic world; the first Christians preached theirs to every creature. Neoplatonism taught the world that spirit was meant to rule matter: it was not enough that the early Christian exhibited to mankind man transformed as the result of his intimate relationship to the Divine, the philosophic world demanded wonders, something above nature, as a proof of the Divine character of the revelation; then, as Kingsley explains,[512] we begin to enter “the fairy land of ecstasy, clairvoyance, insensibility to pain, cures produced by the effect of what we now call mesmerism. They are all there, these modern puzzles, in those old books of the long bygone seekers for wisdom.” Thus mankind, for ever wandering in a circle, began by these ecstasies and cures to retrace its steps towards the ancient priestcraft. These wonders were nothing to the Egyptian, Babylonian, and Jewish sorcerers; they had traded in them for ages.
Antyllus (circ. 300 A.D.) is mentioned by Oribasius, and is said by Häser to have been one of the greatest of the world’s surgeons; for aneurism he tied the artery above and below the sac, and evacuated its contents; for cataract, and for the cure of stammering, he invented appropriate treatment; and he employed something very much like tenotomy for contractures. He is the earliest writer whose directions are extant for performing the operation of tracheotomy. He must have been a man of great talent and originality. He practised the removal of glandular swellings of the neck and ligatured vessels before dividing them, giving directions for avoiding the carotid artery and the jugular vein. It is a striking proof of the high state which surgery had reached at this period that bones were resected with freedom; the long bones, the lower jaw, and the upper jaw were dealt with in a manner generally considered to be brilliant examples of modern surgery.
Oribasius (A.D. 326-403) was born at Pergamos. By command of the Emperor Julian the Apostate he made a summary from the works of all preceding physicians who had written upon the Healing Art. Having made a collection of some seventy medical treatises, he reduced them into one, adding thereto the results of his own observations and experience. He also wrote for his friend Eunapius two books on diseases and their remedies, besides treatises on anatomy and an epitome of the works of Galen.[513] He was called the Ape of Galen, and Freind says the title was not undeserved. He wrote in Greek, and though a mere compiler was capable of better things. His pharmacy was that of Dioscorides. He did some original work, as he was the first to write a description of the drum of the ear and the salivary glands. In his works also, we find the first description of the wonderful disease called lycanthropy, a form of melancholia, or insanity,[514] in which the affected persons believe themselves to be transformed into wolves, leaving their homes at night, imitating the behaviour of those animals, and wandering amongst the tombs. His great work he entitled Collecta Medicinalia. When Julian died, Oribasius fell into disgrace, and was banished. He bore his misfortunes with great fortitude, and so gained the esteem and love of the “barbarians” amongst whom he lived that he was almost adored as a god. He was ultimately restored to his property and honour.
Jacobus Psychristus lived in the time of Leo I. Thrax (A.D. 457-474), was a very famous physician of Constantinople, who was called “the Saviour,” on account of his successful practice.
Adamantius of Alexandria, an Iatrosophist, was a Jewish physician, who was expelled, with his co-religionists, from Alexandria, A.D. 415. He embraced Christianity at Constantinople. He wrote on physiognomy.
Iatrosophista was the ancient title of one who both taught and practised medicine.
Archiater (chief physician) was a medical title under the Roman Empire, meaning “the chief of the physicians,” and not “physician to the prince,” as some have explained.[515]
Meletius (4th cent. A.D.), a Christian monk, wrote on physiology and anatomy.