Volume 1

Medical portrait gallery : Biographical memoirs of the most celebrated physicians, surgeons, etc., etc., who have contributed to the advancement of medical science. / By Thomas Joseph Pettigrew.

  • Thomas Pettigrew
Date:
1839
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Medical portrait gallery : Biographical memoirs of the most celebrated physicians, surgeons, etc., etc., who have contributed to the advancement of medical science. / By Thomas Joseph Pettigrew. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Leeds Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Leeds Library.

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    for this author describes Thoth, or Hermes, as holding a palm-branch, emble- matic of a year and a month; and to this is attached the symbol of life and man in embryo, under the form of a frog. The mythological veil under which all traces of the history of Egyptian medicine are to be found, serves only to demonstrate that the whole is to be regarded as allegorical, as far as relates to the personages mentioned. No human being was ever admitted into the order of the Egyptian gods, and no Egyptian god could ever have lived upon earth. The whole matter, then, reduces itself to fabulous history. Medicine, however, took its rise in the East, passed into Egypt, thence into Greece, and so was disseminated throughout the civilized world. The profession of medicine in Egypt was confined to the priests, and it descended hereditarily with them. If the account of the Hermetic books is to be relied on, there were treatises on different parts of the body, the structure and diseases of the eye, and the operations necessary for their cure. Every Egyptian was required to follow the profession of his father; and Herodotus tells us,* that the science of medicine was distributed into different parts; every physician was for one disease—not more: so that every place was full of physicians; for some were doctors for the eyes, others for the head; some for the teeth, others for the belly; and some for occult disorders. Their number must neces- sarily have been very great. Herodotus says, -rravra ht irfrpuv epnrXea. The ^sculapius of Greece must date at least 1000 years posterior to the Egyp- tian. The celebrated mythologist, Jacob Bryant, makes him to be the same as Jupiter and Apollo—the same as Osiris, Hermes, Thoth, and Apis the physician. Many temples were dedicated to him in Asia Minor: he had several temples at Pergamus; f and Aristides reports that he was worshipped under the title of Zeve Ao-j^XjjTrtoe, or Jupiter ^sculapius. At Memphis, the ancient Misr, the capital of Egypt, a live serpent, as the ^sculapian emblem, was kept, and treated with religious reverence. Serpent worship, however, was very general, not confined to one part of the globe, and it may be traced in almost every religion, through ancient Asia, Europe, Africa, and America.;]: The serpent has been employed as the symbol both of Good and Evil: the Egyptians used it as typical of the good demon (Agathodgemon). Thoth is not the only Egyptian deity symbolized by the serpent; Kneph, and Isis, and many others, were also distinguished by it. How the serpent applied to Hygaeia, is to be considered as the symbol of * Euterpe. f Lucian. i See the Rev. J. B Deane's excellent work on the Worship of the Serpent, 8vo. 2d edit. Lend. 1833. 5 1