Introductory lecture before the medical class of the Kentucky School of Medicine : on the truth of medicine as evinced by its origin, progress and present condition / by N. B. Marshall.

  • Marshall, N. B.
Date:
1860
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Introductory lecture before the medical class of the Kentucky School of Medicine : on the truth of medicine as evinced by its origin, progress and present condition / by N. B. Marshall. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    It has been frequently remarked, and is unquestionably true, that the arts and sciences, though cradled in the east, have yet attained their mag- nitude and power in the west. The Egyptians, Phenicians and Chaldeans had been, before the Trojan war, at the head of existing civilization, sur- passing all other nations, except the Jews, in the extent and value of their knowledge and discoveries. Medicine was much further advanced among these nations than among the Greeks, who subsequently took the lead and transmitted even to the present age a great deal that is valuable not only in this but other arts and sciences. Among the Jews arose one whose name is almost synonymous with wisdom, and who attained an amount of knowl- edge in regard to medicine, as well as other things, far exceeding the men of his time. Solomon, we are told, spake of trees, from the cedar tree that is Lebanon even unto the hyssop that springeth out of the wall; he spake also of beasts and of fowl, and of creeping things and of fishes.* That he was acquainted with the medicinal character of many of these trees and herbs, we cannot doubt, and indeed the most eminent historian of antiquity remarks that the sagacity and wisdom which God had bestowed on Solomon was so great that he exceeded the ancients, insomuch that he was no way inferior to the Egyptians, who are said to have been beyond all men in understanding, and, that he spake a parable upon every sort of tree, from the hyssop to the cedar; and in like manner also about beasts, about all sorts of living creatures, whether upon the earth, or in the seas, or in the air; for he was not unacquainted with any of their natures, nor omitted inquiries about them, but described them all like a philosopher, and demonstrated his exquisite knowledge of their several properties ;''t and he further adds that he availed himself of this knowledge to compound remedies, which were extremely useful for various purposes. Thus we see that at a time when the Jews had advanced in the knowledge of mathe- matics, architecture and decoration, sufficiently to build a temple unsur- passed in magnificence and taste by anything that the present age can ex- hibit, medicine having outlived the superstitions incidental to the infancy of a people, was acknowledged and practiced by the wisest prince that ever filled a throne. After this period, when the kingdom of Priam had been crushed, we must look to the Greeks, to ascertain the condition of medi- cine, and through them we are enabled to trace its progress with a great deal of certainty. For a period of about three hundred years after the fall of Troy, all knowledge of medicine, so far as it may then be considered a science, was confined to the priests of Esculapius, and the practice of it was exclusively in their hands. Dark as this period was for our science, it was unquestionably the best arrangement under existing circumstances, and the popular mind, yet sadly under the thraldom of superstition, was in the fittest state to tolerate the impositions of those priests, shrouded in mystery and clothed with the sanctity of religion. Temples were built in various places, but always the most salubrious localities were selected, where the sick might be surrounded by every circumstance most conducive to health. To these temples, sacred to the God of Medicine, flocked the people who were suffering with disease, invariably with offerings of some kind, and not unfrequently of great value, without which the god might not be consulted with any expectation of success. Admitted within the precincts of these sacred dispensaries, the sick found themselves surrounded by scenes of diversion, while carefully prescribed regimen, pure air, the strictest attention to cleanliness, and especially the strong hope of relief, and a high degree of faith, kept alive by the remarkable instances of cure which were constantly sounded in their ears, produced that happy influ- ence on the mind and feelings which might naturally be expected, very efficiently to co-operate with the simple medicines which were adminis- tered. But the cure of diseases was by no means trusted to these assisting