[1125] Portal, iii., 219. Sprengel, p. 303.
[1126] Sprengel, p. 309.
[1127] Portal, iii., 246. Biogr. Univ.
[1128] Portal, p. 464. Sprengel, p. 288.
[1129] Portal, p. 176, 181.
[1130] Id. p. 259. Biogr. Univ.
Medical theories. 38. The chemical theory of medicine which had descended from Paracelsus through Van Helmont, was propagated chiefly by Sylvius, a physician of Holland, who is reckoned the founder of what was called the chemiatric— school. His works were printed at Amsterdam, in 1679, but he had promulgated his theory from the middle of the century. His leading principle was that a perpetual fermentation goes on in the human body, from the deranged action of which diseases proceed; most of them from excess of acidity, though a few are of alkaline origin. “He degraded the physician,” says Sprengel, “to the level of a distiller or a brewer.”[1131] This writer is very severe on the chemiatric school, one of their offences in his eyes being their recommendation of tea; “the cupidity of Dutch merchants conspiring with their medical theories.” It must be owned that when we find them prescribing also a copious use of tobacco, it looks as if the trade of the doctor went hand-in-hand with those of his patients. Willis, in England, was a partisan of the chemiatrics,[1132] and they had a great influence in Germany; though in France the attachment of most physicians to the Hippocratic and Galenic methods, which brought upon them so many imputations of pedantry, was little abated. A second school of medicine, which superseded this, is called the iatro-mathematical. This seems to have arisen in Italy. Borelli’s application of mechanical principles to the muscles has been mentioned above. These physicians sought to explain everything by statical and hydraulic laws; they were, therefore, led to study anatomy, since it was only by an accurate knowledge of all the parts that they could apply their mathematics. John Bernouilli even taught them to employ the differential calculus in explaining the bodily functions.[1133] But this school seems to have had the same leading defect as the chemiatric; it forgot the peculiarity of the laws of organisation and life which often render those of inert matter inapplicable. Pitcairn and Boerhaave were leaders of the iatro-mathematicians; and Mead was reckoned the last of its distinguished patrons.[1134] Meantime, a third school of medicine grew up, denominated the empirical; a name to be used in a good sense, as denoting their regard to observation and experience, or the Baconian principles of philosophy. Sydenham was the first of these in England; but they gradually prevailed to the exclusion of all systematic theory. The discovery of several medicines, especially the Peruvian bark, which was first used in Spain about 1640, and in England about 1654, contributed to the success of the empirical physicians, since the efficacy of some of these could not be explained on the hypotheses hitherto prevalent.[1135]
[1131] Vol. v., p. 59. Biogr. Univ.
[1132] Sprengel, p. 73.
[1133] Sprengel, p. 159.