Zorastro : a romance / by Creswick J. Thompson [pseud.].

  • Charles Thompson
Date:
1899
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Zorastro : a romance / by Creswick J. Thompson [pseud.]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    the larger cities were pompous personages, puffed up with self-conceit and importance, and played on the ignorance and credulity of the people; while the apothecaries, who formed a lower class of practitioners, were mostly empirics, whose chief aim was to mystify their patients and induce them to swallow as much physic as possible. Perhaps the most conscientious practi- tioners of the time were the monks, who ad- ministrated to the wants of the poor people living in the neighbourhood of the monastries throughout the country. Some of them were well versed from experience in the use of medicinal herbs, which were cultivated in the monastery gardens. Many were also pro- found students of alchemy and astrology, and contributed much of value to the science of the time, as instanced by the discoveries of Raymund Lully, Roger Bacon, Trithemius, and many others. The same period also saw the birth of a new era of thought. The world seemed to wake as if from a long sleep, and begin to shake off many of the dark shadows and superstitions which had stopped the progress