Outlines of the ancient history of medicine ; being a view of the progress of the healing art among the Egyptians, Greeks, Romans and Arabians / By D.M. Moir.

  • David Macbeth Moir
Date:
1931 [i. e. 1831]
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Licence: In copyright

Credit: Outlines of the ancient history of medicine ; being a view of the progress of the healing art among the Egyptians, Greeks, Romans and Arabians / By D.M. Moir. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    22/300 (page 4)
    OUTLINES OF THE all arts, and, among1 2 3 other things, taught men the existence of medicinal substances capable of curing every disease. In fact, the Prometheus of the poets is nothing more than a prosopopeia of the intellect and indus- try (1) of man—of his faculties, and their develop- ment. In this idea we are borne out by all the at- tributes ascribed to him ; and of the same nature are the claims set up for Hermes, Mercury, or Thoth, whether regarded as the same or different persons. The same imaginative faculty, which can make Diodorus Siculus believe that Hermes was one of the counsellors of Saturn, reconciles Euse- bius to the idea that he was in fact no other than Moses.(3> Were such the case, his claims to the in- vention of physic must he set aside, as we read in the last verse of the last chapter of Genesis, that there were physicians in Egypt long before his time, the corpse of Joseph having been embalmed pre- vious to interment. Moses for himself, indeed, sets up no such claim. On the contrary, he acknow- ledges that he acquired knowledge from the people among whom he sojourned in captivity,—that he was learned in all the learning of the Egyptians. (1) Prometheus n’est autre qu’un embleme ou une prosopopee de l’esprit, et de VIndustrie de l’homme, ou de sa prevoyance, fotcz), quj ]ui 3 fait decouvrit tout ce qui etoit utile pour la vie et pour la societe. Le Clerc, lib. i. chap. 8. (2) See Bibliotheque Universelle et Historique, tome iii.; Cicero de Na- ture Deorum, lib. iii.; Diodorus Siculus, lib. i. cap. 15.; and Sanconia- thon, lib. i. (3) Eusebii Prseparationes Evangelicse, lib. ix. Bochart, in his Phaleg, identifies Cronos, or Saturn, with Noah.