Galen : a bibliographical demonstration in the Library of the Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow, December 9th, 1891 / [James Finlayson].

Date:
[1892]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Galen : a bibliographical demonstration in the Library of the Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow, December 9th, 1891 / [James Finlayson]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

    15/16 page 15
    violently delirious, jumped up, and ran screaming about out-of-doors, and the attendants had great dilliculty in restraining her violence. She, however, was saved by Nature, through a copious effusion of blood from the nostrils. This was a circumstance which should excite our admira- tion, and at the same time teach us what a powerful influence blood- letting has in such affections, for immediately after the hajmorrhage from the nostrils the woman was freed from all her symptoms. Now, previously to this I had shunned having any communication with the medical men, guessing what they would say against the use of venesec- tion. But since it was so very clear to all that the woman's life was saved by the evacuation of blood, I recalled to their memory the fatal cases [already narrated in the passage] expressing an opinion that perhaps those, too, would have been saved if they had been bled, and I gave sundry reasons for it. But these gentlemen involved the matter in a maze of words, twisting the argument round and round and up and down, came to no conclusion. However, they at last ended by taking refuge in Erasistratus, stating that it was shown by him in his First Book on Loss of Blood, that it was better to apply ligatures to the limbs than to bleed (Kiihn, vol. ii, p. 190). Galen's Use of Medicines.—Theeiaca. Regarding the use of special medicines by Galen I must refer to Dr. Gasquet's article, indicated in the first footnote, where many interesting details and references on this subject may be found; but I cannot pass over the great remedy called Theriaca. For compounding this Galen had a great reputation. This word theriaca (from which our word treacle comes, from a superficial resemblance between them) is de- rived from tiie Greek OrjpiaKa cpap/uaKa, antidotes against the bites of wild beasts—from e-riploy and e-fip, a wild beast. Origin- ally devised as an antidote to such bites, it came to be used, in certain of its forms, as an antidote to other poisonings, to which important people were specially liable; and from this the term came to be applied to remedies regarded as anti- dotal to disease (compare the passage already quoted on jaundice from snake bites). Opium was probably the most important ingredient in many, if not all, the forms of theriaca, and powdered snakes may be regarded as the most striking, from the point of view of curing per similia! The number of ingredients varied, but was always enormous; even in this modern French Codex (1866), which I show you here, the ingredients of th6riaque number 67, including, strange as it may seem, not only opium de Smyrne, but also viperes seches ! Galen informs us that not a few, and among them the Emperor Marcus Aurelius himself, took a daily dose of theriaca as a precaution or antidote.^* Galen as a Teaches.—Pbofession in Eome. Galen was distinguished as a teacher as well as a prac- titioner ; indeed then, as now, reputation as a teacher assisted in gaining practice, perhaps even more so at that time, as the lectures and the displays of surgical operation seem to have been of a more public nature. Puschmann says of Galen : In order to become known there [in Rome] he gave public lectures on the structure and functions of the human body. The interest of the sub- ject, and the practical knowledge of the lecturer, soon attracted a numerous audience composed of representatives of the most distin- guished circles of the capital. Amongst his hearers were men in in- fluential positions, such as the philosopliers Eudemus and Alexander of Damascus, the prefect Sergius, the consuls Boethus and Severus, who afterwards mounted the throne, and Barbarus the Uncle of the Emperor 12 Omnino a lethalibus et deleteriis appellatis medicamentis erit sccurus et immunis (Kiilin, vol. xiv, p. .3). Ad Pisonem de Theriaca, Kuhn, vol. xiv, p. 216 ; see also vol. xiv, p. 3.
    digitised image 1
    digitised image 2
    digitised image 3