On the history of epidemiology in England / by Joseph Frank Payne.

  • Joseph Frank Payne
Date:
[1893]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the history of epidemiology in England / by Joseph Frank Payne. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    in his Latin treatise, though in a somewhat ambiguous sense. He does not refer to any distinctive epidemics of this disease, nor does he quote any cases except tlie one of the royal prince already referred to, so that it is impossible to call his work, any more than that of Gilbert, a valu- able contribution to epidemiology. All that we can make out with certainty is that he was acquainted with one or more eruptive diseases, producing red spots or pustules, giving rise to irritation, and likely to leave permanent marks. Those he describes traditionally as variolm and inorbilli. But it .should be borne in mind that the tradi- tional character of these descriptions given by mcdiieval writers is no proof of the absence of direct observation. It only proves that these writers were not accustomed to record their own observations at first hand. These two writers are the chief representatives of medimval medicine in Eno'land, as the celebrated John Ardern was of medimval surgeiy, and there are others whose works still exist oidy in manu.script; but it must be confessed that up till the sixteenth century we have no direct observations either on epidemics or on sick persons which can snpply any material for a knowledge of the diseases of that period.* Revival of Greek Medicine. We must pa.ss on, then, to the time when medicine began to be once again, as it was in the days of Hippocrates, objective, real, and descriptive. European medicine, from the sixteenth century onwards, begins to deserve this character; and in the first place, the question suggests itself. How did the change thus characterised come to be eflected ? The true answer to this question would be a long one, but biiofly we may say that men got out of the habit of slavish respect for written authority, not by neglecting that authority, but by studjnng it more profoundly. _ It was the revival of Greek medical literature in the original which, strange to say, brought medicine back to tlie study of nature. The extraordinary stimulus given by dii-ect study of Greek .scientilic writers is shown by the fact that these who revived the study of anatomy, like Vesalius, or * Since this address w.as delivered, my friend Dr. Norman Moore has kindly given me a reference to the use of the word “ Small-l’ocks in a SI.S. of the Jfrei’inriuni Buvtholoniwi of .John ^lirfeld, who lived in the fonrteentli century. Or. Moore says : “Tlie words ‘ smal [lockcs’ are on fol. 43<t of the I’eniliroko (lollen-e MS. of lUirfeld, near the heading of the chapter ‘ De Variolis et Morbillis’. 1’he late Professor Chandler [of Oxford] thought the entry con- temporaneous.'’
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