“As a point of history pregnant with valuable deductions, it is good to look back upon the conditions of medicine in former times and find that it has always kept pace with the progress of the physical and moral sciences. Where these, however, have been marked by folly and credulity, medicine has exhibited the same imperfections.”
It is difficult to trace the improvement in successive eras, because they melt into one another by indefinable gradations. During the earliest period it was believed that physic was an art which was supposed to be most mysterious, and it was presumed that the practicers held communion with the world of spirits. The practice of medicine in those days consisted in the usage of agents necessarily unreliable, as, for instance, the word abracadabra hung around the neck as an amulet to chase away the ague, etc.
Much time has been wasted in attempting to portray the first origin of medicine. Bambilla, a surgeon of Vienna, has asserted that Tubal Cain was the inventor of cauterizing instruments, apparatus for reducing fractures, and other instruments for surgical procedures, thus endeavoring to prove that surgery antedated medicine. It is evident that medicine must have had a very early origin, for mankind even in the earliest ages suffered pain and the train of sequences due to exposure, and hence soon discovered a method of alleviation. Their category probably consisted of herbs. Unacquainted, however, with the construction and function of the human economy, practitioners were unable to trace the progress of disease, and the more fatal internal maladies were ascribed to the deities whom they feared. Hence, various superstitious practices would arise and be handed down from one generation to another. We may imagine this to have been the origin of the healing art, and such is nearly its present condition amongst the savages of Africa, Australasia, Polynesia, Sumatra, etc.
Later on, the priests became the physicians, from being the oracles of the divinity whom the people wished to consult. The various remedies were handed down from one to another, as medical science did not exist at that time. Herodotus informs us that even in his time the Babylonians, Chaldeans, and other nations had no physicians. When any one was attacked with disease the patient was carried into the public street, and passers-by who had suffered from a similar affection, or nursed one who had, advised the sufferer to employ the measures that proved successful in former cases.
The earliest writers on medicine trace its origin, in common with that of most other branches of knowledge, to the Egyptians. They appear to be the first nation that cultivated medicine and furthered its progress. Many peculiar medical properties were attributed to the deities. All diseases were supposed to originate from the anger of Isis. Resin was burned in the morning, myrrh at noon, and a composition termed cyphy in the evening, in the temples of Isis, and the sick were taken there to sleep, during which the oracles might reveal to them the means which they should employ to effect a cure. This is an illustration of the superstitions which prevailed at that time.
The earliest authentic records which we can ascertain from collateral reading are to be found in the Scriptures. Here it is stated that Joseph commanded his servants and physicians to embalm him (1700 B. C.). This shows that Egypt at that time possessed a set of men who practiced the healing art, and that they embalmed the dead. This must have required an idea of anatomy, which, needless to say, was crude and unscientific, as dissection of the human body at that time was prohibited, the penalty being death.
According to Pliny, the Egyptian kings encouraged post-mortems, for the purpose of ascertaining the cause of diseases; and this method was fostered by the Ptolemies, during whose reigns anatomy was raised to a higher standard.
Through the writings of Moses in the sacred Scriptures, we learn that the medicine of the Hebrews appertained mostly to public hygiene. Meat of the hog and rabbit was forbidden, as being injurious in the Egyptian and Indian climate. The relation of man and wife and the purification of women were regulated. The measures suggested by Moses for the prevention of the spread of leprosy have not yet been surpassed. Next to Moses, Solomon acquired quite an efficient knowledge of compounding remedies.
The Indian races were divided into castes, the priests alone enjoying the privilege of practicing medicine. Their medical knowledge was condensed in a book which they called Vagadasastir. They believed the body gave rise, through seventeen thousand vessels, to ten species of gas which conflicted and engendered disease. So far as we know, they were the first to record a way of testing the specific gravity of urine. Though accused of many absurdities, they claimed to cure the bites of venomous snakes and compounded an ointment which eradicated the cicatrices of smallpox,—a result which has not as yet been attained in the present epoch. The Chinese attribute the invention of medicine to Hoâm-ti, one of their emperors, who lived about 2687 B. C.; but possessing no anatomical knowledge, their surgery, to say the least, was barbarous. For over four thousand years the Chinese were not allowed to communicate with foreigners, and naturally their progress was at a standstill. They used cups, acupuncture, fomentations, lotions, plasters, baths, etc. Their midwifery practice consisted mainly of murderous principles, and it is only since the introduction of missionaries that a reformation in the medical practice of the Chinese empire has been accomplished.
The condition of medicine in Greece did not differ from that of the “rude and uncivilized nations.” But later, Greek physicians are credited with the most brilliant discoveries. The most distinguished of Chiron’s pupils was Æsculapius, who occupies the most conspicuous place in the history of medicine. Æsculapius is always painted with a staff, because the sick have need of a support; and the serpent entwined around it is the symbol of wisdom. The sons of Æsculapius are considered the fathers of surgery, and, for their distinguished valor at the siege of Troy, have been classed by Homer among the Greek heroes.