Curiosities of Medical Experience

by J. G. Millingen

The progress of the science of medicine under the Moorish government was so rapid in Spain, that we find one hundred and fifty medical writers in the schools of Cordova, and sixty-two in Murcia. While the Moors thus encouraged these important studies, the priests in the western states kept the nations under their control in a state of dense ignorance, and the practice of medicine such as it was, was confined within the cloisters of monasteries and nunneries. There does still exist a treatise of medicine written by Hildegarde, Abbess of a convent at Rupertsberg. Monks opened medical schools in several cathedrals, and we find Gregory I. sending one of these medical propagators to Canterbury, where Theodore, one of its archbishops, practised the healing art.

While the study of medicine had become a privilege of ignorant friars, it was destined to assume a semblance of learning in Italy, where some intelligent Benedictines founded a school at Salerno. Here the works of the Greeks, and Romans, and Arabian physicians were once more brought to light, and in the eighth century we find Salerno crowded with students, pilgrims, and invalids. In the eleventh century, this school had obtained a pre-eminence over every other medical institution, and at the period of the crusades its fame was universal—not that the ignorant and barbarous crusaders were capable of shedding any light on the improvement of their several countries from what they might have learned in Holy Land, but many of them who had happily returned to Europe, and been landed in the kingdom of Naples, were cured of their wounds and infirmities by these Benedictine doctors, who themselves owed much of their erudition to an African of the name of Constantine, who had studied at the school of Bagdad, and translated for the monks, who had offered him an asylum, Greek, Latin, and Arabian works, which to them were sealed volumes. Amongst the celebrated adventurers of rank who had escaped from the holy wars, was Robert, son of William the Conqueror, who was cured at Salerno of a supposed incurable wound in the arm. In this manner was the fame of the Salernian school spread far and nigh, and soon Ferdinand II. founded universities at Naples and Messina.

The course of studies in the school of Salerno was three years of logic, and five years of medicine and surgery. At the expiration of these sessions, the student was admitted to examination, and after having passed, was still obliged to practise for another year under the immediate eye of an experienced physician. It was only upon his certificate as to his professional capacities, that a licence to practise was granted, upon his engaging himself by oaths, to observe the laws of the college, to attend the poor gratuitously, and to report to the magistracy all apothecaries that adulterated their drugs or neglected the proper preparation of medicines prescribed.

The custom of granting academic dignities may be traced to the Nestorians and the Jewish professors in the East, where it was carried into the Moorish possessions in Spain. The school of Salerno was the first collegiate body that adopted it in the western Christian institutions. The degree they conferred was that of Magister. Previous to the granting of this distinction seven years study were required, and the candidate was to be upwards of one-and-twenty years of age. He had to explain in a public meeting the Articella of Galen—a passage of the Aphorisms of Hippocrates, and of the first book of Avicenna, after which he was examined in the works of Aristotle, he then received the degree of Magister Artium et Physices. It was only the professors who bore the title of Doctors.

In this manner did the science of medicine struggle for several centuries with obstacles that appeared insurmountable—in turn practised and persecuted—anathematized by the clergy, and soon after becoming a lucrative privilege of the church—prejudice, superstition, and ignorance had closed anatomical theatres, and from the days when flourished the school of Herophilus until the fourteenth century, the dissection of animals was alone permitted, and it was only by stealth that the student sought some knowledge of the human structure, from mouldering bones purloined from the cemetery. A brighter era arose in the year 1315, when Mondini de Luzzi, Professor of Anatomy at Bologna, ventured to dissect human bodies—a bold attempt, as seventeen centuries had elapsed since this investigation of the book of nature, the only record where errors can be detected and truth sought for, had been prohibited. The example of Mondini, who had written a practical anatomical manual was followed in various other schools, but a barber was the person charged with the opening of the subjects, and with no other instrument then his razor he endeavoured to demonstrate the parts which Mondini’s work described.

From this period we may date the revival of medicine, although in the following century it made but little progress, still clogged by astrological absurdities and Arabic errors—and a Florentine physician, Marcillo Ficin, obtained a high repute by promulgating the doctrine that the vital spirits of man were similar to the ether which filled space and directed the planets; concluding that if man could obtain this ethereal principle he might prolong his days beyond human conception, he recommended the use of preparations of gold to obtain longevity and even advised the aged to drink youthful blood to prolong their precarious life. These absurdities were refuted by Chancellor Gerson, and the faculty of Paris condemned the Florentine’s visions as diabolical and perilous—but what could have been the facilities offered at that time for the study of anatomy when we find Professor Montagnana, of Padua, boasting of having examined fourteen subjects.

However the fifteenth century was destined to witness a remarkable event in the annals of medical learning, Emmanuel Chrysolore, embassador of Emmanuel Paleologus, arrived in Italy, to solicit means from the Christian powers against the inroads of the Turks. Chrysolore, during a protracted residence at Venice, employed the leisure which his diplomatic occupations left him to deliver lectures on various branches of science, and not only did he encourage the study of the Greek language, but corrected the many errors that teamed in the Arabic translation of classic works. It was to this learned man that the succeeding century were indebted for their knowledge of the works of Hippocrates, and we find that his doctrine formed the groundwork of medical studies over Europe.

But the study of the phenomena of nature founded on experience and observation was not sufficiently visionary and mystic, and soon we see cabalistic calculation and judicial astrology again subverting all doctrines that might lead to sound conclusions. Cornelius Agrippa of Cologne traversed the fairest cities of Europe, to expound the philosophy of Zamolxis and Abaris; maintaining that every Hebrew character had a natural signification, the Hebrew being, according to his ideas, not only the most ancient but a sacred language. He asserted that the language of demons was the Hebraic, and that all Hebrew letters being either favourable or hostile to these evil spirits, they might be conjured by a proper knowledge of their powers.

This visionary not only fancied that letters possessed this influence, but that it was shared by numbers. Thus to cure a tertian fever he directs the use of Verbena, to be cut at the third articulation of the plant; but in the treatment of a quartern, the disease would only yield to the fourth joints. He added that every man was under the influence of three demons—a sacred demon (a divine gift)—an innate demon—and a professional demon, sent us by the constellations and the celestial intelligences.

These reveries, however, were interrupted by the still greater absurdities of Paracelsus, a man whose ignorance could only be equalled by his vanity, since he maintained that as the genius of Greece had produced Hippocrates, the genius of Germany had created him for the salvation of mankind. He further assured his disciples that all the universities in the world had less knowledge than his beard, and that every hair of his head was more learned than all their writers.