For the foot-adle (the gout), “Take the herb datulus, or titulosa, which we call greater crauleac—tuberose isis. Take the heads of it and dry them very much, and take thereof a pennyweight and a half, and the pear tree and Roman bark, and cummin, and a fourth part of laurel-berries, and of the other herbs half a pennyweight of each, and six peppercorns, and grind all to dust, and put two egg-shells full of wine. This is true leechcraft. Give it the man till he be well.”
Venesection was in use, but it must have often done more harm than good, as its use was regulated, not so much by the necessities of the case as by the season and courses of the moon. Bede gives a long list of times when bleeding was forbidden. In the Cottonian library there is a Saxon MS., which tells us that the second, third, fifth, sixth, ninth, eleventh, fifteenth, seventeenth, and twentieth days of the month are bad for bleeding.
Medicine of the Welsh.
The Welsh claim that medicine was practised as one of “the nine rural arts,” by the ancient Cymry, before they became possessed of cities and a sovereignty, that is, before the time of Prydain ab Ædd Mawr, that is to say, about a thousand years before the Christian era.[666]
As in other nations of antiquity, the practice of medicine was in the hands of the priests, the Gwyddoniaid, or men of knowledge: they were the depositaries of such wisdom as existed in the land, and they practised almost entirely by means of herbs. The science of plants was one of the three sciences, the others being theology and astronomy.[667]
In the following Triad (one of the poetical histories of the Welsh bards) we learn that,—“The three pillars of knowledge, with which the Gwyddoniaid were acquainted, and which they bore in memory from the beginning: the first was a knowledge of Divine things, and of such matters as appertain to the worship of God and the homage due to goodness; the second, a knowledge of the course of the stars, their names and kinds, and the order of times; the third, a knowledge of the names and use of the herbs of the field, and of their application in practice, in medicine, and in religious worship. These were preserved in the memorials of vocal song, and in the memorials of times, before there were bards of degree and chair.”[668]
The Welsh do not appear to have had any gods of medicine or to have pretended to derive their knowledge of the healing art from any divinities. In the reign of Prydian the Gwyddoniaid were divided into three orders, Bards, Druids, and Ovates. The Ovates occupied themselves especially with the natural sciences. In the Laws of Dyvnwal Moelmud, “medicine, commerce, and navigation” were termed “the three civil arts.”[669]
This legislator lived about the year 430 B.C., at which early period it would seem that the art of medicine was encouraged and protected by the State.[670]
As Hippocrates lived 400 B.C., it has been thought possible that the British Ovates may have learned something of his teaching from the Phoceans, who traded between Marseilles and Britain. Later we have proof that the physicians of Myddvai held the Father of Medicine in great esteem.
It is customary amongst the English to ridicule the pretensions of the Welsh to the high antiquity of their knowledge of the arts and sciences, but classical writers bear witness to the wisdom and learning of the Druids. Strabo speaks of their knowledge of physiology. Cicero was acquainted with one of the Gallic Druids, who was called Divitiacus the Æduan, and claimed to have a thorough knowledge of the laws of nature. Pliny mentions the plants used as medicines by the Druids, such as the mistletoe, called Oll iach, omnia sanantem, or “All heal,” the selago (Lycopodium selago, or Upright Fir Moss), and the Samolus or marshwort (Samolus valerandi, or Water Pimpernel).[671]