Mainmonides
The life of one of the great Jewish physicians, who has come to be known
in history as Maimonides, is of such significance in medical biography
that he deserves to have a separate sketch. Born in Spain, his life was
lived in the East, where his connection as royal physician with the
great Sultan Saladin of Crusades fame made his influence widely felt. He
is a type of the broadly educated man, conversant with the culture of
often impressed himself deeply on medical practice. While the narrow
specialists in each generation, the men who are quite sure that they are
curing the special ills of men to which they devote themselves, have
always felt that whatever of progress there was in any given time was
due to them, they occupy but little space as a rule in the history of
medicine. The men who loom large were the broad-minded, humanely
sympathetic, deeply educated physicians, who treated men and their ills
rather than their ills without due consideration of the individual, and
who not only relieved the discomfort of their patients and greatly
lessened human suffering, and added to the sum of human happiness in
their time, but also left precious deeply significant lessons for
succeeding generations of their profession. Hippocrates, Galen,
Sydenham, Auenbrugger, Morgagni, these are representatives of this great
class, and Maimonides must be considered one of them.
Moses Ben Maimum, whose Arabic name was Abu Amran Musa Ben Maimum Obaid
Alla el-Cordovi, who was called by his Jewish compatriots Ramban or
Rambam, was born at Cordova in Spain, on the 30th of March in 1135 or
1139, the year is in doubt. It might not seem of much import now after
nearly eight centuries, but not a little ink is spilt over it yet by
devoted biographers.
We are rather prone to think in our time that the conditions in which
men were born and reared before what we are pleased to call modern
times, and, above all, in the Middle Ages, must have made a distinct
handicap for their intellectual development. Most of us are quite sure
that the conditions in medieval cities were eminently unsuited for the
stimulation of the intellect, for incentive to art impulse, for uplift
in the intellectual life, or for any such broad interest in what has
been so well called the humanities--the humanizing things that lift us
above animal necessities--as would make for genuinely liberal education.
We are likely to be set in the opinion that the environment of the
growing youth of an old-time city, especially so early as the middle of
the twelfth century, was poor and sordid. The cares of the citizens are
presumed to have been mainly for material concerns, and, indeed, mostly
for the wants of the body. They were only making a start on the way from
barbarism to something like our glorious culmination of civilization. As
the heirs to all the ages in the foremost files of time we are
necessarily far in advance of them, and we are only sorry that they did
not have the opportunity to live to see our day and enjoy the benefits
of the evolution of humanity that is taking place during the eight
centuries that have elapsed.
As a matter of fact, there was much more of abiding profound interest in
real civilization in many a medieval city, much more general
appreciation of art, much more breadth of intelligence and sympathy with
what we call the humanities, than in most of our large cities. The large
city, as we know it, is eminently a discourager of breadth of
intelligence. Specialism in the various phases of money-making obscures
culture. Maimonides, born in Cordova, was brought up amid surroundings
that teemed with incentives of every kind to the development of
intelligence, of artistic taste, and everything that makes for
cultivation of intellect rather than of interest in merely material
things.
It is well said that it is hard to judge the Cordova of old by its
tawdry ruins of to-day. The educated visitor still stands in awe and
admiration of the great mosque which expressed the high cultivation of
the Moors of this time. It is a never-ending source of wonder to
Americans. The city itself has many reminders of that fine era of
Moorish culture and refinement of taste and of art expression, which
made it in the best sense of the word a city beautiful. The Arab
invaders had found a great prosperous country which had been the most
cultured province of the Roman Empire, and on this foundation they made
a marvellous development. The banks of the Guadalquivir, says Mr. S.
Lane-Poole in The Moors in Spain (London, 1887), were bright with
marble houses, mosques, and gardens, in which the rarest flowers and
trees of other countries were carefully cultivated, and the Arabs
introduced their system of irrigation which the Spaniards both before
and since have never equalled. The greatest beauty of the city, of
course, had come, and some of it had gone, before Maimonides' time. So
much remains in spite of time and war, and many unfortunate influences,
that we can have some idea how beautiful it must have been in his youth
seven centuries ago, and how even more beautiful in the foretime. Of the
great mosque writers of travel can scarcely say enough. Mr. Lane-Poole
says: Travellers stand amazed among the forest of columns which open
out apparently endless vistas on all sides. The porphyry, jasper, and
marbles are still in their places; the splendid glass mosaics, which
artists from Byzantium came to make, still sparkle like jewels in the
walls; the daring architecture of the sanctuary, with its fantastic
crossed arches, is still as imposing as ever; the courtyard is still
leafy with the orange trees that prolong the vistas of columns. As one
stands before the loveliness of the great mosque, the thought goes back
to the days of the glories of Cordova, the palmy days of the Great
Khalif, which will never return.
Of all the countries in which the Jews all down the centuries have lived
there is probably none of which they have been more loud in praise than
Spain. Their poets sang of it as if it were their own country; for
centuries the people were happier here than probably they have been
anywhere else for so long a period. Elsewhere in this book I have called
attention to all that Spain meant in Europe during all the centuries
from the beginning of the Roman Empire down to the end of the Middle
Ages. Maimonides was fortunate in his birthplace, then, and while
circumstances compelled the family to move away, this change did not
come until a good effect had been produced on the mind of the growing
youth. Even when persecution came, Maimonides clung to Spain with a
tenacity born of deep affection and emphasized by admiration for all
that she was and had been. Cordova was the jewel of the Spain of this
time, and though much less than she had been in the long preceding time,
when she was the birthplace of Lucan and the two Senecas, or even than
what she had been in Abd-er-Rahman's days, or when she was the
birthplace of Averroes, still she remained wonderfully beautiful and
attractive, winning and holding the affections of men.
Maimonides' father, Maimum Ben Joseph, was a member of the Rabbinical
College of Cordova, and famous for his knowledge of the Talmud. There
are some writings of his on mathematics and astronomy extant. He
directed the education of his son, who, like many another distinguished
scholar in later life, seems to have exhibited very little talent in his
early years. There is no rule in the matter. Precocity often
disappoints. Genius is often dull in childhood, but there are exceptions
that prove both rules. The basis of education in Spain at that time
among the Jews was the Bible, the Talmud, mathematics, and astronomy, a
good rounded education in literature, the basis of law, and some exact
physical science. After his preliminary education at home Maimonides
studied the natural sciences and medicine with Moorish teachers.
Nature-study, in spite of frequent expressions that declare it new in
modern times, is as old as man. He also received a grounding in
philosophy as a preparation for his scientific studies. At the age of
twenty-three he began the composition of a commentary on the Talmud,
which he continued to work at on his journeys in Spain and in Egypt.
This is considered to be one of the most important of this class of
works extant, though, almost needless to say, similar writings are very
numerous.
In the light of wanderings in philosophy during the centuries since, it
is rather interesting to quote from that work the end of man as this
Jewish philosopher of the middle of the twelfth century saw it. Recent
teleological tendencies in biology add to the interest of his views.
According to Maimonides, Man is the end of the whole creation, and we
have only to look to him for the reason for its existence. Every object
shows the end for which it was created. The palm-trees are there to
provide dates; the spider to spin her webs. All the properties of an
animal or a plant are directed so as to enable it to reach its purpose
in life. What is the purpose of man? It cannot lie alone in eating and
drinking or yielding to passion, nor in the building of cities and the
ruling of others, since these objects lie outside of him, and do not
touch his essential being. Such material striving he has in common with
the animal. A man is lifted from a lower to a higher condition by his
reason. Only through his reason is he placed above the animals. He is
the only reasonable animal. His reason enables him to understand all
things, especially the Unity of God, and all knowledge and science serve
only to direct man to the knowledge of God. Passions are to be subdued,
since the man who yields to passion subjects his spirit to his body, and
does not reveal in himself the divine power which in him lies in his
reason, but is swallowed up in the ocean of matter.
Not long after Maimonides passed his twentieth year the family,
consisting of the father and his two sons, Moses and David, and a
daughter, moved from Cordova to Fez, compelled by Jewish persecutions.
Here it is said that they had to submit to wearing the mask of Islam in
order to lead a peaceful existence. This has been doubted, however, and
his whole life is in flagrant contradiction with any such even apparent
apostasy from the faith of his fathers. Father and son took advantage of
the opportunity of intercourse with Moorish physicians and philosophers
to increase their store of knowledge, but could not be content in the
political and religious conditions in which they were compelled to live.
About 1155, then, they went to Jerusalem, but found conditions even more
intolerable there, and turned back to Egypt, where they settled down in
Old Cairo. In 1166 the father died, and after this we learn that the
sons made a livelihood, and even laid the foundation of a fortune, by
carrying on a jewelry trade. Moses still devoted most of his time to
study, while his brother did most of the business, but the brother was
lost in the Indian Ocean, and with him went not only a large sum of his
own money, but also much that had been entrusted to him by others.
Maimonides undertook to pay off these debts and at the same time had to
meet the necessities not only of himself and sister, but also of the
family of his dead brother. It was then that he took up the practice of
medicine and succeeded in making a great name and reputation for
himself. He continued to write, however, and completed his commentary on
the Talmud.
About the age of fifty Maimonides, as seems to be true of a good many
men who live to old age, became rather discouraged and despondent about
himself. He refers to himself in his letters and writings rather
frequently as an old and ailing man. He had nearly twenty years of
active life ahead of him, but he had the persuasion that comes to many
that he was probably destined to an early death. His son was born
shortly after this time, and that seems to have had not a little to do
with brightening his life. While in Egypt Maimonides married the sister
of one of the royal secretaries, who, in turn, wedded Maimonides'
sister. Maimonides took on himself the education of his son, who also
became a physician, though his father was not to have the satisfaction
of watching his success in the practice of his chosen profession. This
son, Abraham, became the physician of Malie Alkamen, the brother of
Saladin, and, besides, was a physician to the hospital at Cairo. His
son, David, the grandson of Maimonides, practised medicine also at Cairo
till 1300. He in turn left two sons, Abraham and Solomon, who achieved
reputation in the chosen profession of their great-grandfather.
Maimonides, after the birth of his son, became one of the busiest of
practising physicians. Indeed, it is hard to understand how he had the
time to do any writing in his busy life. Still less can we understand
his time for teaching. He was the physician to Saladin, whose relations
with Richard Coeur de Lion have made him known to English-speaking
people. Every morning, as the Court physician, Maimonides went to the
palace, situated half a mile away from his dwelling, and if any of the
many officials and dependents that then, as now, were at Oriental
courts, were ill, he stayed there for some time. As a rule he could only
get back to his own home in the afternoon, and then he was, as he says
himself, almost dying with hunger. Knowing the scantiness of the
Oriental breakfast, we are not surprised. There he found his
waiting-room full of patients, Jews and Mohammedans, prominent and
unimportant, friends and enemies, he says himself, a varied crowd, who
are looking for my medical advice. There is scarcely time for me to get
down from my carriage and wash myself and eat a little, and then until
night I am constantly occupied, so that, from sheer exhaustion, I must
lie down. Only on the Sabbath day have I the time to occupy myself with
my own people and my studies, and so the day is away from me. What a
picture it is of the busy medical teacher at all times in the world's
history, yet it must not be forgotten that it is from these busy men
that we have derived our most precious lessons in caring for patients
rather than disease, in the art of medicine rather than medical
science--and their practical lessons have been valuable long after the
fine-spun theories of the scientist that took so long to elaborate have
been placed definitely in the lumber room.
His reputation as a writer on medical topics is not as great as that
which has been accorded him for his writings on philosophy and in
Talmudic literature, but he well deserves a place among the great
practical masters of medicine, as well as high rank among the physicians
of his time. There is little that is original in his writing, but his
thoroughgoing common sense, his wide knowledge, and his discriminating,
eclectic faculty make his writings of special value. As might have been
expected, the Aphorisms of Hippocrates attracted his attention, and,
besides, he wrote a series of aphorisms of his own. The most interesting
of his writings, however, is a series of letters on dietetics written
for the son of his patron Saladin. The young prince seems to have
suffered from one of the neurotic conditions that so often develop in
those who have their lives all planned for them, and little incentive to
do things for themselves. The main portion of his complaints centred, as
in the case of many another individual of leisure, in disturbances of
digestion. Besides, he suffered from constipation and feelings of
depression. Doubtless, like many a young person of the modern time, he
was quite sure that these symptoms portended some insidious organic
ailment that would surely bring an early death. When fathers, having
done all that there is to do, just expect their sons to enjoy the
fruits of the paternal accomplishments, conditions of this kind very
often develop, unless the young man proceeds to occupy himself with even
more dangerous distractions than he finds in unending thought about his
own feelings.
The rules of life and health that Maimonides laid down in these letters
have become part of our popular medical tradition. Probably more of the
ordinarily current maxims as to health have been derived from them than
would possibly be suspected by anyone not familiar with them. In various
forms his rules have been published a number of times. A good idea of
them can be obtained from the following compendium of them, which I
abbreviate from a biographical sketch of Maimonides by Dr. Oppler, which
appeared in the Deutsches Archiv fuer Geschichte der Medizin und
Medicinische Geographie (Bd. 2, Leipzig, 1879).
1. Man is bound to lead a life pleasing to God if he wants to
have a healthy body, and he must hold himself far from
everything that can hurt his health and accustom himself to
whatever renews his strength. He should eat and drink only
when hungry and thirsty and should be particularly careful of
the regular evacuation of his bowels and of his bladder. He
must not delay either of these operations, but as far as
possible satisfy the inclination at once.
2. A man must not overload his stomach but be content always
with something less than is necessary to make him feel quite
satisfied. He should not drink much during the meal and only
of water and wine mixed, taking somewhat more after digestion
has begun and after digestion is completed, in moderation
according to his needs. Before a man sits down to table he
should note whether he has any tendency to evacuation and
should make the body warm by movement and activity. After this
exercise he should rest a little before taking food. It is
very beneficial after work to take a bath and then the meal.
3. Food should be taken always in the sitting position. There
should be no riding nor walking, nor movements of the body
until digestion is finished. The man who takes a walk or any
strenuous occupation immediately after eating subjects himself
to serious dangers of disease.
4. Day and night should be divided into twenty-four hours. Men
should sleep for eight hours, and so arrange their sleep that
the end of it comes with the dawn, so that from the beginning
of sleep until sunrise there should be an eight-hour interval.
We should all leave our beds about the time that the sun
rises.
5. During sleep a man should lie neither on his face nor on
his back but on his side, the beginning of the night on his
left and at the end on his right. He should not go to sleep
for three or four hours after eating and should not sleep
during the day.
6. Fruits that are laxative, as grapes, figs, melons, gourds,
should be taken only before meal time and not mixed with other
food. It would be better to let these get into the abdominal
organs and then take other food.
7. Eat what is easily digestible before what is difficult of
digestion. The flesh of birds before beef and the flesh of
calves before that of cows and steers. (Birds were then
thought more digestible than other flesh; we have reversed the
ruling. The note shows how light and digestible their flesh
was considered and the reason therefor.)
8. In summer eat cooling food, acids, and no spices. In
winter, on the contrary, eat warming foods, rich in spices,
mustard, and other heating substances. In cold and warm
climates one should eat according to the climatic conditions.
9. There are certain harmful foods that should be avoided.
Large salt fish, old cheese, old pickled meat, young new wine,
evil-smelling and bitter foods are often poisonous. There are
also some which are less harmful, but are not to be
recommended as ordinary nutritive materials. Large fish,
cheese, milk more than twenty-four hours after milking, the
flesh of old oxen, beans, peas, unleavened bread, sauerkraut,
onions, radishes and the like. These are to be taken only in
small quantities and only in the winter time and they should
be avoided in the summer. Beans and lentils are to be
recommended neither in winter nor summer.
10. As a rule one should avoid the eating of tree fruits, or
not eat much of them, especially when they are dry and even
less when they are green. If they are unripe they may cause
serious damage. Johannesbrod is very harmful at all times, as
are also all the sour fruits, and only small amounts of them
should be eaten in summer or in warm countries.
11. The fruits that are to be recommended dry as well as
fresh, are figs, grapes, and almonds. These may be eaten as
one has the appetite for them, but one should not accustom
himself to eat them much, though they are healthier than all
other fruits.
12. Honey and wine are not good for children, though they are
beneficial for older people, especially in winter. In summer
one-third less of them should be eaten than in winter.
13. Special care should be taken to have regular movements of
the bowels that carry off the impurities of the body. It is an
axiom in medicine, that so long as evacuations are absent, or
difficult, or require strong efforts, the individual is liable
to serious disease. Every medical means should be taken to
overcome constipation in order to escape its dangers. For
this purpose young people should be given salty food,
materials that have been soaked in olive oil, salt itself, or
certain vegetable soups with olive oil and salt. Older people
should take honey mixed with warm water early in the morning
and four hours later should take their breakfast. This
proceeding should be followed up from one to four days until
the constipation is overcome.
14. Another axiom of medicine is that so long as a man is able
to be active and vigorous, does not eat until he is over-full,
and does not suffer from constipation, he is not liable to
disease. Even such men, however, are much safer if they do not
take food that may disagree with them.
15. Whoever gives himself up to inactivity, or puts off
evacuations of the bowels, or suffers from constipation, will
be sure to suffer from many diseases and will see his strength
disappear even should he eat the best food in the world and
make use of all the remedies that physicians have. Immoderate
eating is a poison for men and the cause of many diseases
which attack them. Most diseases come from either eating too
much or partaking of unsuitable food. That was what Solomon
meant with his proverb: He who puts a guard over his mouth
and his tongue protects himself from many evils, that is to
say, whoever protects his mouth from the overindulgence in
food and his tongue from unsuitable speech protects himself
from many evils.
16. Every week at least a man should take a warm bath. One
should not bathe when hungry, nor after eating until the food
is digested, and bathe the whole body in warm but not too hot
water and the head in hot water. Afterwards the body should be
washed in lukewarm and cool water until finally cold water is
used. One should pour neither cold nor even lukewarm water on
the head, nor bathe in cold water in the winter time, nor when
the body is tired and in perspiration. At such times the bath
should be put off for a while.
17. As soon as one leaves the bath one should cover oneself,
and especially cover the head, so that no draught may strike
it. Even in summer, care must be taken to observe this rule.
After this one should rest for a while until the heat of the
body passes off and then should go to table. If one could
sleep a little just before a meal it is often very beneficial.
Neither during the bath nor immediately after it should cold
water be drunk, and if there is an inappeasable thirst a
little wine and water or water and honey should be taken. In
winter it is beneficial to rub the body with oil after the
bath.
18. Venesection should not be practised frequently, for it is
only meant for serious illness. It should not be permitted in
winter or summer, nor during the months of April or September
(the r months). After passing his fiftieth year an
individual should abstain from venesection. Venesection should
not be practised on the day when one takes a bath or goes on a
journey or returns from it. On the day when it is practised
less than usual should be eaten and drunk, and the patient
should give himself to rest, undertake no work nor bothersome
occupation, and take no walk.
19. Whoever observes these rules of life faithfully I
guarantee him a long life without disease. He shall reach a
good old age, and when he comes to die will not need a
physician. His body will remain always strong and healthy,
unless of course he has been born with a weak nature, or has
had an unfortunate bringing up, or should be attacked by
epidemic disease or by famine.
20. Only the healthy should keep these rules. Whoever is ill
or a sufferer from any injuries, or has lost his health
through bad habits, for him there are special rules for each
disease, only to be found in the medical books. Let it be
remembered that every change in a life habit is the beginning
of an ailment.
21. If no physician can be secured, then ailing people may use
these rules as well as the healthy.
These rules are, of course, full of the common sense of medicine that
endures at all times. For the tropical climate of the Eastern countries
they probably represent as good advice as could be given even at the
present time. With them before us it is not surprising to find that on
other subjects Maimonides was just as sensible. Perhaps in nothing is
this more striking than in his complete rejection of astrology.
Considering how long astrology, in the sense of the doctrine of the
stars influencing human health and destinies, had dominated men's minds,
and how universal was the acceptance of it, Maimonides' strong
expressions show how much genius lifts itself above the popular
persuasions of its time, even among the educated, and how much it
anticipates subsequent knowledge.
It is well to remind ourselves that as late as the middle of the
eighteenth century Mesmer's thesis on The Influence of the Stars on
Human Constitutions was accepted by the faculty of the University of
Vienna as a satisfactory evidence not only of his knowledge of medicine,
but of his power to reason about it. At the end of the twelfth century
Maimonides was trying to argue it out of existence on the best possible
grounds. Know, my masters, he writes, that no man should believe
anything that is not attested by one of these three sanctions:--rational
proof as in mathematical science, the perception of the senses, or
traditions from the prophets and learned men. His biographer in the
monograph Maimonides, published by the Jewish Publication Society of
America[5], expresses his further views on the subject in compendious
form, and then gives his final conclusion as follows:
'Works on astrology are the product of fools, who mistook
vanity for wisdom. Men are inclined to believe whatever is
written in a book, especially if the book be ancient; and in
olden times disaster befell Israel because men devoted
themselves to such idolatry instead of practising the arts of
martial defence and government.' He says, that he had himself
studied every extant astrological treatise, and had convinced
himself that none deserved to be called scientific. Maimonides
then proceeds to distinguish between astrology and astronomy,
in the latter of which lies true and necessary wisdom. He
ridicules the supposition that the fate of man could be
dependent on the constellations, and urges that such a theory
robs life of purpose, and makes man a slave of destiny. 'It is
true,' he concludes, 'that you may find strange utterances in
the Rabbinical literature which imply a belief in the potency
of the stars at a man's nativity, but no one is justified in
surrendering his own rational opinions because this or that
sage erred, or because an allegorical remark is expressed
literally. A man must never cast his own judgment behind him;
the eyes are set in front, not in the back.'
While Maimonides could be so positive in his opinions with regard to a
subject on which he felt competent to say something, he was extremely
modest with regard to many of the great problems of medicine. He often
uses the expression in his writings, I do not see how to explain this
matter. He quotes with approval from a Rabbi of old who had counselled
his students, teach thy tongue to say, I do not know. In this, of
course, he has given the best possible evidence of his largeness of mind
and his capacity for making advance in knowledge. It is when men are
ready to say, I do not know, that progress becomes possible. It is
very easy to rest in a conscious or unconscious pretence of knowledge
that obscures the real question at issue. A great thinker, who lived in
the century in which Maimonides died, Roger Bacon, set down as one of
the four principal obstacles to advance in knowledge indeed, as the
one of the four that hampered intellectual progress the most, the fact
that men feared to say, I do not know.
One of the most interesting features of Maimonides' career for the
modern time is the influence that his writings exerted over the rising
intellectual life of Europe within a half century after his death. Most
people would be rather inclined to think that this Jewish author of the
East would have very little influence over the thinkers and teachers of
Europe within a generation after his death. He died in 1204, just at the
beginning of one of the great productive centuries of humanity, perhaps
one of the greatest of them all. In literature, in art, in architecture,
in philosophy, and in education, this century made wonderful strides.
Two of its greatest teachers, Albertus Magnus and his pupil, Thomas
Aquinas, quote from Moses AEgyptaeus, the European name for Maimonides at
that time, and evidently knew his writings very well. Maimonides was for
them an important connecting link with the world of old Greek thought.
Others of the writers and teachers of this time, as William of Auvergne,
and the two great Franciscans, Alexander of Hales and Duns Scotus, were
also influenced by Maimonides. In a word, the educational world of that
time was much more closely united than we might think, and it did not
take long for a great writer's thoughts to make themselves felt several
thousand miles away. Maimonides was, then, in his own time one of the
world teachers, and, in a certain sense, he must always remain that, as
representing a special development of what is best in human nature.
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Another of the distinguished Arabian physicians was Avenzoar--the transformation of his Arabic family name, Ibn-Zohr. He was probably born in Penaflor, not far from Seville. He died in Seville in 1162 at the age, it is said, of ninety-two years. He ... Averroes
Among the distinguished contributors to medicine at this time, though more a philosopher than a physician, is the famous Averroes, whose full Arabic name among his contemporaries was Abul-Welid Mohammed Ben Ahmed Ibn Roschd el-Maliki. Like Avenzoar,... Avicenna
Undoubtedly the most important of Abulcasis' contemporaries is the famous physician whose Arabic name, Ibn Sina, was transformed into Avicenna. He was born toward the end of the tenth century in the Persian province of Chorasan, at the height of Ara... Bruno Da Longoburgo
The first of this important group of north Italian surgeons who taught at these universities was Bruno of Longoburgo. While he was born in Calabria, and probably studied in Salerno, his work was done at Vicenza, Padua, and Verona. His text-book, the... Constantine Africanus
Probably the most important representative of the medical school at Salerno, certainly the most significant member of its faculty, if we consider the wide influence for centuries after his time that his writings had, was Constantine Africanus. He ... Cusanus And The First Suggestion Of Laboratory Methods In Medicine
As illustrating how, as we know more about the details of medical history, the beginnings of medical science and medical practice are pushed back farther and farther, a discussion in the Berliner klinische Wochenschrift a dozen years ago is of inter... Early Greek Medicine
Apollo--AEsculapius--Temples--Serpents--Gods of Health--Melampus--Homer--Machaon--Podalarius--Temples of AEsculapius--Methods of Treatment--Gymnasia--Classification of Renouard--Pythagoras--Democedes--Greek Philosophers. The... Early Roman Medicine
Origin of Healing--Temples--Lectisternium--Temple of AEsculapius--Archagathus--Domestic Medicine--Greek Doctors--Cloaca Maxima--Aqueducts--State of the early Empire. The origin of the healing art in Ancient Rome is shrouded in un... Fees In Ancient Times
The professional incomes of doctors in ancient Greece and Rome varied greatly as at the present day. A few were paid very large fees, but the rank and file did not make more money than was equal to keeping them in decency. Seleucus paid Erasist... Further Christian Physicians
Another distinguished Christian medical scientist was Theophilus Protosbatharius, who belonged to the court of the Greek Emperor Heraclius, in the seventh century. He seems to have had a life very full of interest and surprisingly varied duties. He ... Galen
His life and works--His influence on Medicine. Claudius Galenus, commonly known as Galen, has influenced the progress of medical science by his writings probably more than any other medical writer. His influence was paramount for fourteen c... Great Arabian Physicians
In order to understand the place of the Arabs in medicine and in science, a few words as to the rise of this people to political power, and then to the cultivation of literature and of science, are necessary. We hear of the Arabs as hireling soldi... Great Jewish Physicians
Any account of Old-Time Makers of Medicine without a chapter on the Jewish Physicians would indeed be incomplete. They are among the most important factors in medieval medicine, representing one of the most significant elements of medical progress... Great Physicians In Early Christian Times
What we know of the life of the Founder of Christianity and how much He did for the ailing poor would make us expect that the religion that He established would foster the care and the cure of suffering humanity. As we have outlined in the Introdu... Great Surgeons Of The Medieval Universities
Strange as it may appear to those who have not watched the development of our knowledge of the Middle Ages in recent years the most interesting feature in the medical departments and, indeed, of the post-graduate work generally of the medieval unive... Guy De Chauliac
One of the most interesting characters in the history of medieval medicine, and undoubtedly the most important and significant of these Old-Time Makers of Medicine, is Guy de Chauliac. Most of the false notions so commonly accepted with regard to th... Gymnasia And Baths
Gymnastics--Vitruvius--Opinions of Ancient Physicians on Gymnastics--The Athletes--The Baths--Description of Baths at Pompeii--Thermae--Baths of Caracalla. GYMNASTICS. Gymnastics were held in such high repute in ancient Greece ... Hippocrates
His life and works--His influence on Medicine. Hippocrates, the Father of Medicine, was born at Cos during the golden age of Greece, 460 years before Christ. He belonged to the family of the Asclepiadae, and, according to tradition, could t... Hugh Of Lucca
Bruno brought up with him the methods and principles of surgery from the south of Italy, but there seems to have been already in the north at least one distinguished surgeon who had made his mark. This was Ugo da Lucca or Ugo Luccanus, sometimes kno... In The Reign Of The Caesars To The Death Of Nero
Augustus--His illnesses--Antonius Musa--Maecenas--Tiberius-- Caligula--Claudius--Nero--Seneca--Astrology--Archiater--Women poisoners--Oculists in Rome. Long before the settlement of the constitutional status of Augustus in 27 B.C... Influence Of Christianity On Altruism And The Healing Art
Essenes--Cabalists and Gnostics--Object of Christ's Mission--Stoics--Constantine and Justinian--Gladiatorial Games--Orphanages--Support of the Poor--Hospitals--Their Foundation--Christianity and Hospitals--Fabiola--Christian ... John Ardern
In English-speaking countries of course we are interested in what was done by Englishmen at this time. Fortunately we have the record of one great English surgeon of the period worthy to be placed beside even the writers already mentioned. This is J... Lanfranc
After Salicet's lifetime the focus of interest in surgery changes from Italy to France, and what is still more complimentary to William, it is through a favorite disciple of his that the change takes place. This was Lanfranchi, or Lanfranco, sometim... Mainmonides
The life of one of the great Jewish physicians, who has come to be known in history as Maimonides, is of such significance in medical biography that he deserves to have a separate sketch. Born in Spain, his life was lived in the East, where his co... Medieval Dentistry - Giovanni Of Arcoli
If there is one phase of our present-day medicine and surgery that most of us are likely to be quite sure is of very recent development it is dentistry. Probably most people would declare at once that they had every reason to think that the scienc... Medieval Popularization Of Science
The idea of collecting general information from many sources, of bringing it together into an easily available form, so as to save others labor, of writing it out in compendious fashion, so that it could readily pass from hand to hand, is likely t... Medieval Surgery
Even this brief account of the surgeons who taught and studied at the medieval universities demonstrates what fine work they did. It is surely not too much to say that the chapter on university education mainly concerned with them is one of the most... Medieval Women Physicians
Very probably the most interesting chapter for us of the modern time in the history of the medical school at Salerno is to be found in the opportunities provided for the medical education of women and the surrender to them of a whole department in... Mondeville
The next of the important surgeons who were to bring such distinction to French surgery for five centuries was Henri de Mondeville. Writers usually quote him as Henricus. His latter name is only the place of his birth, which was probably not far fro... Mondino And The Medical School Of Bologna
The most important contributions to medical science made by the Medical School of Salerno at the height of its development were in surgery. The text-books written by men trained in her halls or inspired by her teachers were to influence many succe... Moorish Physicians
After Rhazes, the most important contributors to medical literature from among the Arabs, with the single exception of Avicenna, were born in Spain. They are Albucasis or Abulcasis, the surgeon; Avenzoar, the physician, and Averroes, the philosophic... Paul Of Aegina
Another extremely important writer in these early medieval times, whose opportunities for study in medicine and for the practice of it, were afforded him by Christian schools and Christian hospitals, was Paul of AEgina. He was born on the island of ... Physicians From The Time Of Augustus To The Death Of Nero
Celsus--His life and works--His influence on Medicine--Meges of Sidon--Apollonius of Tyana--Alleged miracles--Vettius Valleus--Scribonius Longus--Andromachus--Thessalus of Tralles--Pliny. Aulus Cornelius Celsus lived in the ... Plato Aristotle The School Of Alexandria And Empiricism
Plato--Aristotle--Alexandrian School--Its Origin--Its Influence-- Lithotomy--Herophilus--Erasistratus--Cleombrotus--Chrysippos-- Anatomy--Empiricism--Serapion of Alexandria. Two very eminent philosophers, Plato and Aristotle, were... Rhazes
The most distinguished of the Arabian physicians was the man whose rather lengthy Arabian name, beginning with Abu Bekr Mohammed, finished with el-Razi, and who has hence been usually referred to in the history of medicine as Rhazes. He was born abo... Roger Roland And The Four Masters
Ruggero, or Rogero, who is also known as Rogerio and Rogerus with the adjective Parmensis, or Salernitanus, of Parma or of Salerno, and often in German and English history simply as Roger, lived at the end of the twelfth or the beginning of the thir... Roman Medicine At The End Of The Republic And The Beginning Of The
EMPIRE. Asclepiades of Prusa--Themison of Laodicea--Methodism--Wounds of Julius Caesar--Systems of Philosophy--State of the country--Roman quacks--Slaves and Freedmen--Lucius Horatillavus. Asclepiades of Prusa, in Bithynia, was a... Sanitation
Water-supply--Its extent--The Aqueducts--Distribution in city--Drainage--Disposal of the Dead--Cremation and Burial--Catacombs--Public Health Regulations. THE WATER-SUPPLY. In ancient Greece, the cities were supplied with water... Science At The Medieval Universities
With the growth of interest in science and in nature study in our own day, one of the expressions that is probably oftenest heard is surprise that the men of preceding generations and especially university men did not occupy themselves more with t... St Luke The Physician
In the midst of what has been called the higher criticism of the Bible in recent times, one of the long accepted traditions that has been most strenuously assailed and, indeed, in the minds of many scholars, seemed, for a time at least, quite disc... The First And Second Centuries Of The Christian Era
Athenaeus--Pneumatism--Eclectics--Agathinus--Aretaeus--Archigenes-- Dioscorides--Cassius Felix--Pestilence in Rome--Ancient surgical instruments--Herodotus--Heliodorus--Caelius Aurelianus--Soranus-- Rufus of Ephesus--Marinus--Qui... The Later Roman And Byzantine Period
Beginning of Decline--Neoplatonism--Antyllus--Oribasius--Magnus-- Jacobus Psychristus--Adamantius--Meletius--Nemesius--AEtius-- Alexander of Tralles--The Plague--Moschion--Paulus AEgineta--Decline of Healing Art. The death o... The Medical School At Salerno
The Medical School at Salerno, probably organized early in the tenth century, often spoken of as the darkest of the centuries, and reaching its highest point of influence at the end of the twelfth century, is of great interest in modern times for ... The North Italian Surgeons
After Roger and Rolando and the Four Masters, who owe the inspiration for their work to Salerno and the south of Italy, comes a group of north Italian surgeons: Bruno da Longoburgo, usually called simply Bruno; Theodoric and his father, Hugo of Lucc... Theodoric
This son, after having completed his medical studies at the age of about twenty-three, entered the Dominican Order, then only recently established, but continued his practice of medicine undisturbed. His ecclesiastical preferment was rapid. He attra... William Of Salicet
The third of the great surgeons in northern Italy was William of Salicet. He was a pupil of Bruno's and the master of Lanfranc. The first part of his life was passed at Bologna and the latter part as the municipal and hospital physician of Verona. H... Yperman
One of the maxims of the old Greek philosophers was that good is diffusive of itself. As the scholastics put it, bonum est diffusivum sui. This proved to be eminently true of the old universities also, and especially of their training in medicine an...