Text book of comparative general pathology for practitioners and students of veterinary medicine / by Th. Kitt; authorized translation by William W. Cadbury ; edited with notes and additional illustrations by Allen J. Smith.

  • Kitt, Th. (Theodor), 1858-1941.
Date:
1906
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Text book of comparative general pathology for practitioners and students of veterinary medicine / by Th. Kitt; authorized translation by William W. Cadbury ; edited with notes and additional illustrations by Allen J. Smith. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    30/504 (page 10)
    HISTORY OF PATHOLOGY Much of our experience and knowledge of the diseases of man and of the lower animals has come down to us from antiquity. The gift of observation and the faculty of reasoning, as well as his desire to restore impaired health, impelled primitive man to formu- late some kind of ideas regarding the origin and nature of disease. And as the grade of individual and populär intelligence advanced and as experience grew in value with its transmission from genera- tion to generation by traditions and records, so our conceptions of disease expanded and our knowledge advanced, or on the other hand mistaken ideas took deeper hold or false notions once discarded again came into prominence. History informs us that for some thousands of years there had been attained considerable skill in the art of healing among the Babylonians, Persians, Egyptians, Hindoos, Israelites, Greeks and Romans both among the priests and in the hands of a special dass of physicians; and althöugh religion and Superstition, mysticism and philosophical speculation had much in- fluence over it, medicine really was possessed of a very notable fund of Information. In the fourth and fifth centuries before Christ considerable work was done by physicians and naturalists like Alkmseon (B. C. 54°) > Hippocrates II, the son of Pleraclides (B. C. 46°375) a°d Aristotle (B. C. 384-323) in the line of dissection of animals for inference to the supposedly similar structure of the human body, human cadavers being but rarely obtained for purposes of dissection. Dis- semination of the knowledge of medicine which existed was ad vanced by the great schools of learning, like the Museum and Serapeum in Alexandria with their magnificent libraries (700,000 rolls of papyrus in the Museum and 300,000 in the Serapeum), and by the profuse literature of the Greeks and Romans. I o some extent, doubtless, veterinary medicine sharcd in this, being practised both by the general physicians and bv a special dass of vetei inarians, known as mulomedici, hippiatrcs (tirn-os, horse; iarpis, physician), ktenlatres (/cr^os, domestic animal; larpbs, physician) and veterinarii;