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
Catalogue details

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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    [ ; ] All the authentic knowledge of Chronology, if we except India and China, is come down to us either from Scripture, or from the Greek authors : in thefc records we muft feek for antient erudition and hiftory* Homer, the Greek Poet, who lived five hundred years only after Mofes, fmgs of proud Thebes, the miftrefs of the Egyptian plain : the walls, columns, porticos, and exten- five edifices, now crumbling into duft, prove the former opulence and fplendor of this ancient city. The era or firft foundation of thofe ftupenduous piles of building, the Pyramids of Egypt, of the catacombs, grottos, artificial lakes, labyrinths, and fubterranean excavations, with many other vaft monuments of magnificence, human labour and expence, were lofl: when the firft Greek, Phi- lofophers travelled into that country. Lycurgus, Solon, Thales, and Pythagoras, had vifited E- gypt five, fix, and feven hundred years before Chrift. Herodotus, a native of a Greek Colony in LefiTer Afia, who lived about four hundred years after the poets, Hefiod and Homer, and a little before the invafion of Greece by Xerxes, is the moft ancient profane hiftorian : Cicero ftiles him' the Father of Hifiory. This venerable author, who had travelled through various nations to acquire information, and to coHedt materials for his hiftory, afiures us, that, in his days, tire Egyptian Priefts reckoned up three hundred and thirty Kings who had reigned over that nation-, eighteen of whom were Ethiopians. Some-of the
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