Outlines of the history of medicine and the medical profession / by Joh. Hermann Baas ; translated, and in conjunction with the author rev. and enl., by H.E. Handerson.

  • Johann Hermann Baas
Date:
1889
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Outlines of the history of medicine and the medical profession / by Joh. Hermann Baas ; translated, and in conjunction with the author rev. and enl., by H.E. Handerson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

    149/1198 (page 135)
    Publius Terentius Af'er (died B. C. 193), Pacuvius, Cheilitis Statius, Atticus, Horatius, Yergilius, Ovidius and Lucretius (died A. D. 55). Jn philosophy, oratory and historical writing too, the Romans followed the Greeks, as is manifest from Cicero, Livius (B. C. 58-17), Seneca and others. In like manner the most important statesmen, like Sylla, Caesar, Lucullus, and Pompey, embraced the Grecian culture. The latter statesman also transplanted Greek medical literature to Rome, and is of special importance from the fact that he had his freedman Lenams translate some of these writings into Latin.1 Whatever great works in sculpture and painting the Romans possessed were also the creations of Greek artists. Even in the sciences of mathematics, mechanics, botany etc., the Greeks were likewise the teachers of the Romans. In these subjects the latter accomplished as little original work as they did in philosophy, which owes to them not one single original system. On the whole the Romans believed that the higher sciences were brought to perfection by the Greeks, a significant idea, which seems to have been transmitted to the Middle Ages.2 In accordance with this creative faculty of their spiritual being and their great power of intellectual amalgamation, the Greeks, even after the loss of their native nursen- and home, planted among the foreign Romans a new doctrine, whose substance was largely furnished by the acquisitions of the Alexandrian school, and which completely supplanted, and checked the development of, the scanty germs of Roman medicine proper. The}7 gave to ancient medicine a new theoretical foundation ; in place of the humoral pathology which had prevailed since the days of Hippocrates, the}' called into existence its rival Solidism, destined henceforth to struggle with Humorism for the precedence, and thus they awakened between the two ideas a strife which after long centuries is not yet fought to a conclusion. A temporary exchange of the one for the other, as the weight of the spirit of the age has borne down the scale to either side, has been the only result. The author of this new medical theoiy, which in the sequel became the occasion of a school long influential in medicine, and known by the name of 1, THE SCHOOL OF METHODISM, was Asclepiades, of Prusa in Bithynia (B. C. 128-56). He studied under Cleophantus at Alexandria, sojourned also at Athens, where he devoted himself to medicine and rhetoric, and practised then at Parion in the Proponfis and on the Hellespont. After such extensive travels he came to Rome, where at first he taught rhetoric. Subsequent]}- he practised medicine with such suc- cess—a result to which his philosophical education, as well as his adroit conduct and pompous behavior, greatly contributed — that the Romans considered him an angel sent from heaven. He was also on friendly terms with the most distinguished men, such as Cicero, Crassus the Orator, and others. Besides the advantages of such an acquaintance, he increased his fame in the eyes of the masses by the revival of a man apparently dead, as well as by bis vehement repudiation of Hippocrates, whose 1. Many of the more important Latin authors belonged to the class offreedmen. 2. Another weighty fact may be mentioned. The Romans liberated woman from the almost haremdike social position whicli she held among the Greeks, and thus prepared for her complete emancipation under Christianity and her equality in the family.