George Ernest Stahl (1660-1734), chemist, was professor of medicine at Halle (1694) and physician to the King of Prussia (1716). He opposed materialism, and substituted “animism,” explaining the symptoms of disease as efforts of the soul to get rid of morbid influences. Stahl’s “anima” corresponds to Sydenham’s “nature” in a measure, and has some relationship to the Archeus of Paracelsus and Van Helmont. Stahl was the author of the “phlogiston” theory in chemistry, which in its time has had important influence on medicine. Phlogiston was a substance which he supposed to exist in all combustible matters, and the escape of this principle from any compound was held to account for the phenomenon of fire. According to Stahl, diseases arise from the direct action of noxious powers upon the body; and from the reaction of the system itself endeavouring to oppose and counteract the effects of the noxious powers, and so preserve and repair itself.[997] He did not consider diseases, therefore, pernicious in themselves, though he admitted that they might become so from mistakes made by the soul in the choice, or proportion of the motions excited to remove them, or the time when these efforts are made. Death, according to this theory, is due to the indolence of the soul, leading it to desist from its vital motions, and refusing to continue longer the struggle against the derangements of the body.[998] Here we have the “expectant treatment” so much in vogue with many medical men. “Trusting to the constant attention and wisdom of nature,” they administered inert medicines as placebos, while they left to nature the cure of the disease. But they neglected the use of invaluable remedies such as opium and Peruvian bark, for which error it must be admitted they atoned by discountenancing bleeding, vomiting, etc.[999] Stahl’s remedies were chiefly of the class known as “Antiphlogistic,” or antefebrile.
De Sauvages (1706-1767), the French physicist, was a disciple of Stahl, and adopted his theory of soul as the cause of the mechanical action of the body. He invented a system of classifying diseases under the title of Nosologia Methodica, founded on the principles of natural history.
Friedrich Hoffman (1660-1742) was a fellow-student with Stahl at Jena. He was the author of a system of medicine in some respects original. He distinguished in the human economy three principal agents: Nature, or the Organic Body; the Sentient Soul; and the Rational Soul; corresponding to the classification of the Scripture of body, soul, and spirit—a classification which originated doubtless in Indian philosophy. Hoffman did not admit with Stahl that the organic functions of the human body depend on the agency of an intelligent soul or any immaterial agent whatsoever, but are merely mechanical and chemical properties of the elements which compose our bodies. The functions most essential to life he considered to be the circulatory, secretory, and excretory motions, and these seemed to him to depend upon the dilating and contracting powers of the muscular fibres of the vascular system. These powers then he held to be the cause of the organic functions which depend on the animal spirits, an ethereal fluid contained in the nerves and the blood.[1000]
Hoffman first made known the virtues of the Seidlitz waters; he also invented a nostrum which was popular for a long time, and called “Hoffman’s Anodyne Liquor.”
Physicians.
Archibald Pitcairn, M.D. (1652-1713), was a famous physician of Edinburgh. In 1692 he occupied a professor’s chair at Leyden with great distinction. Among his pupils were Mead and Boerhaave, who both attributed much of their skill to his tuition. On his return to Edinburgh he greatly interested himself in improving the teaching of anatomy. He begged the Town Council to permit the dissection of the bodies of paupers; and though the chief surgeons of the place did all they could to oppose his efforts, they were successful, and Pitcairn had the credit of laying the foundation of the great Edinburgh school of medicine. He insisted on the strict adherence to Bacon’s method of attending to facts of experience and observation. “Nothing,” he said, “more hinders physic from being improved than the curiosity of searching into the natural causes of the effects of medicines. The business of men is to know the virtues of medicines; but to inquire whence they have that power is a superfluous amusement, since nature lies concealed. A physician ought therefore to apply himself to discover by experience the effects of medicines and diseases, and reduce his observations into maxims, and not needlessly fatigue himself by inquiring into their causes, which are neither possible nor necessary to be known. If all physicians would act thus, we should not see physic divided into so many sects.” In his Dissertations (1701) he discusses the application of geometry to physic, the circulation of the blood, the cure of fevers by purgation, and the effects of acids and alkalis in medicine. A learned and skilful physician, an accomplished mathematician, and a thorough classical scholar, he was not discreet in his political utterances. His library was purchased by Peter the Great of Russia.
John Radcliffe, M.D. (1650-1714), was famous for “his magnificent regard for the advancement of learning and science.” The Radcliffe infirmary and observatory at Oxford were built from funds bequeathed by him.
Sir Hans Sloane, M.D. (1660-1753), was a physician whose noble museum and library were the foundation of the British Museum.
Sir Richard Blackmore, M.D. (1650-1729), wrote on inoculation for small-pox, on consumption, gout, rheumatism, scrofula, diabetes, jaundice, etc.
Walter Needham, M.D. (died 1691), made important investigations in the anatomy of the fœtus, and the changes of the pregnant uterus.