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
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.
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![and Salerno, which in the darkest periods of the Middle Ages preserved for medicine a secure but narrow place of refuge, until through the Ital- ians in the 14th century human anatomy was created to furnish a founda- tion for a new science of medicine. The new epoch was also specially in- augurated by the Greeks banished from Byzantium on the capture of this city by the Turks (1453). Henceforth, however, medicine entered upon a broader road and extended its influence over a larger number of people. Among the French, Pare, about the middle of the 16th centur}', created modern surgery in a method characteristic and valid even down to the present day, while the Englishman Harvey in the following century by his discovery of the circulation laid the foundation of physiology, and Para- celsus, earlier than either, created among the Germans a new science of medicine. Thus general medicine in these lands celebrated a new Spring- time and a veritable Easter festival, while preserving the impulse for fur- ther development—a development which in power and extent left far behind that of the earlier ages, and seems in our own age to be passing through its proper fructification. In the most recent times, however, the advanc- ing wave of medical culture, chiefly by the aid of American and Australian representatives of the white race, has reached Japan, one of the oldest homes of medicine in eastern Asia, and thus the circuit of the world is being completed, centuries after its commencement. The form of development of medicine in its entirety ma}, accordingly, be compared to a tree, whose perennial stem is formed by the Egyptians, Indians. Babylonians, Persians, Chinese, etc., and its tap-root, by which the stock is continued, is represented by the Greeks. From this stock, which first pushed forth the barren shoot of Roman medicine, and subsequently that of the Arabians during its miserable existence in the course of the Middle Ages, there finally developed a powerful branch at the beginning of the modern era, and after its transplantation into the soil of the West. Gradually there appeared five main branches, the Italian, the French, the German, and the English, with the less vigorous Spanish, which originally promised so much, but jet remained feeble and miserable. These first four main branches, with their dependent twigs, now tower above all small and modern civilized peoples and states. But in the formation of the complete crown, as in the system of universal medicine, all people will, at some time, take part. Till-] DIVISION OF MEDICAL HISTORY INTO PERIODS is commonly made in such a way that the era of Antiquity closes with Galen ; then follow the Middle Ages of medicine, and the modern history of this science begins with Harvey. If we look upon the history of medicine as a department entirely separable from the general history of civilization, it is justifiable to fix upon special epochs, and to regard particular services of representative persons within these epochs as special landmarks. The propriety of this](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21035258_0022.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
