An historical sketch of medicine and surgery, from their origin to the present time; and of the principal authors, discoveries, improvements, imperfections and errors / by W. Black.
- Date:
- 1782
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: An historical sketch of medicine and surgery, from their origin to the present time; and of the principal authors, discoveries, improvements, imperfections and errors / by W. Black. 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.
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![1 C IG4 ] We are for fome time to take our leave of mighty Rome, to return back into Greece, which had long continued an humble appendage of Roman fove- reignty. The proud miftrefs of the world, at the end of the fecond century, began to fliow figns of in-^ ternal decline, her conftltution was unfound, and in a few centuries after, entirely worn out. The ambition of Triumvirs, Tribunes, and Generals, had firft gradually levelled all the fences of Roman liberty ; and anarchy at length terminated in the abfolute authority of the fubtle Auguftus. In the three Jaft centuries a few additions and improve■^ ments were made by fome diftinguilhed Greeks, in medicine and furgery: with thefe excep- tions, literature and the arts haftened to decay, throughout the wide dominions of Rome. Civil diffenfions, and the defpotifm of her profligate Emperors, accelerated their downfaL Plato, A- riflotle and Galen, were now the leaders in fci- » ence and medicine : Alexandria was the falhiona- ‘ ble fchool for ftudy, where men were taught to | confume their time and health, in the moft pro- ,i found metaphyfical meditations and verbal difputes, 1 ALCHYMy, a deceitful art, introduced by the Egyptians, had early become an objeft of ftudy, and of infatiable avarice. In the fecond century, a public edi£t of the Emperor Dioclefian, com^ manded, under fevere penalties, all the books on this fcience, to be burnt. In the fourth century fome traces of Alchymy began to revive, and many fruitlefs experiments were made, to change metals 'I](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21909660_0118.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
