James J. Walsh - Old-Time Makers of Medicine: The Students and Teachers of Medicine During the Middle Ages

To

REVEREND DANIEL J. QUINN, S.J.

The historical material here presented was gathered for my classes atFordham University School of Medicine during your term as president ofthe University. It seems only fitting then, that when put into morepermanent form it should appear under the patronage of your name andtell of my cordial appreciation of more than a quarter of a century ofvalued friendship.

"When we have thoroughly mastered contemporary science it is time toturn to past science; nothing fortifies the judgment more than thiscomparative study; impartiality of mind is developed thereby, theuncertainties of any system become manifest. The authority of facts isthere confirmed, and we discover in the whole picture a philosophicteaching which is in itself a lesson; in other words, we learn to know,to understand, and to judge."LITTR: OEuvresd'Hippocrate, T. I, p. 477.

"There is not a single development, even the most advanced ofcontemporary medicine, which is not to be found in embryo in themedicine of the olden time."LITTR: Introduction to the Worksof Hippocrates.

"How true it is that in reading this history one finds moderndiscoveries that are anything but discoveries, unless one supposes thatthey have been made twice."DUJARDIN: Histoire de laChirurgie, Paris, 1774 (quoted by Gurlt on the post title-page of hisGeschichte der Chirurgie, Berlin, 1898).

The material for this book was gathered partly for lectures on thehistory of medicine at Fordham University School of Medicine, and partlyfor articles on a number of subjects in the Catholic Encyclopedia. Someof it was developed for a series of addresses at commencements ofmedical schools and before medical societies, on the general topic howold the new is in surgery, medicine, dentistry, and pharmacy. Theinformation thus presented aroused so much interest, the accomplishmentsof the physicians and surgeons of a period that is usually thought quitesterile in medical science proved, indeed, so astonishing, that I wastempted to connect the details for a volume in the Fordham UniversityPress series. There is no pretence to any original investigation in thehistory of medicine, nor to any extended consultation of originaldocuments. I have had most of the great books that are mentioned in thecourse of this volume in my hands, and have given as much time to thestudy of them as could be afforded in the midst of a rather busy life,but I owe my information mainly to the distinguished German and Frenchscholars who have in recent years made deep and serious studies of theseOld Makers of Medicine, and I have made my acknowledgments to them inthe text as opportunity presented itself.

There is just one feature of the book that may commend it topresent-day readers, and that is that our medieval medical colleagues,when medicine embraced most of science, faced the problems of medicineand surgery and the allied sciences that are now interesting us, in verymuch the same temper of mind as we do, and very often anticipated oursolutions of themmuch oftener, indeed, than most of us, unless we havepaid special attention to history, have any idea of. The volume does notconstitute, then, a contribution to that theme that has interested thelast few generations so much,the supposed continuous progress of therace and its marvellous advance,but rather emphasizes that puzzlingquestion, how is it that men make important discoveries and inventions,and then, after a time, forget about them so that they have to be madeover again? This is as true in medical science and in medical practiceas in every other department of human effort. It does not seem possiblethat mankind should ever lose sight of the progress in medicine andsurgery that has been made in recent years, yet the history of the pastwould seem to indicate that, in spite of its unlikelihood, it might wellcome about. Whether this is the lesson of the book or not, I shall leavereaders to judge, for it was not intentionally put into it.

OUR LADY'S DAY IN HARVEST, 1911.

"Of making many books there is no end."Eccles. xii, 12 (circa 1000B.C.).

"The little by-play between Socrates and Euthydemus suggests an advancedcondition of medical literature: 'Of course, you who have so many booksare going in for being a doctor,' says Socrates, and then he adds,'there are so many books on medicine, you know.' As Dyer remarks,whatever the quality of these books may have been, their number musthave been great to give point to this chaff."Aequanimitas,WILLIAM OSLER, M.D., F.R.S., Blakistons, Philadelphia, 1906.

"Augescunt aliae gentes, aliae minuuntur;
Inque brevi spatio mutantur saecla animantum,
Et, quasi cursores vitai lampada tradunt."
OVID.

One nation rises to supreme power in the world, while another declines,and, in a brief space of time, the sovereign people change,transmitting, like racers, the lamp of life to some other that is tosucceed them.

"There is one Science of Medicine which is concerned with the inspectionof health equally in all times, present, past and future."

PLATO.

Under the term Old-Time Medicine most people probably think at once ofGreek medicine, since that developed in what we have called ancienthistory, and is farthest away from us in date. As a matter of fact,however, much more is known about Greek medical writers than those ofany other period except the last century or two. Our histories ofmedicine discuss Greek medicine at considerable length and practicallyall of the great makers of medicine in subsequent generations have beeninfluenced by the Greeks. Greek physicians whose works have come down tous seem nearer to us than the medical writers of any but the last fewcenturies. As a consequence we know and appreciate very well as a rulehow much Greek medicine accomplished, but in our admiration for thediligent observation and breadth of view of the Greeks, we are sometimesprone to think that most of the intervening generations down tocomparatively recent times made very little progress and, indeed,scarcely retained what the Greeks had done. The Romans certainly justifythis assumption of non-accomplishment in medicine, but then ineverything intellectual Rome was never much better than a weak copy ofGreek thought. In science the Romans did nothing at all worth whiletalking about. All their medicine they borrowed from the Greeks, addingnothing of their own. What food for thought there is in the fact, thatin spite of all Rome's material greatness and wide empire, her worlddominance and vaunted prosperity, we have not a single great originalscientific thought from a Roman.