The dissensions, the animosities, the professional jealousies, the bickerings, the distrust and disfavor among us lead the public to question our sincerity, capacity, and integrity, conserve to our own hurt and injury, lessen us in the public confidence and esteem, weaken our cause and cast reproach and obloquy upon the science we should love, honor, and cherish. They bring unkindly and ungenerous feelings, pervert our judgment, warp and distort our sense of justice, deaden the kindlier and finer feelings of the soul, and burden us with a load of prejudice, avarice, greed, and professional distrust, that will militate against not only us but our chosen profession as well. Let us suffer ignominy and contumely ourselves and forever remain unrecognized by the world, rather than betray the confidence imposed in us by a professional brother. Let a spirit of fairness, of justice, of right prevail; let it actuate us in all our professional intercourse with each other. Rather suffer wrong ourselves than inflict it upon those who call upon us to share their burdens and responsibilities. Then will the shadows of discontent flee away and the cheering sunlight of professional peace and prosperity dawn upon us to light our pathway, lighten our burdens, and gladden our lives. The physician's life, like a kaleidoscope, is set in the mirror of time subject to the changes of the present and the reflections of the past. These may come at unseasonable hours and in unexpected places. Thus he knows not the time nor the place that he may need the good opinion and offices of his associates. He should therefore carefully cultivate his eye and hand, his mind and heart, in professional morals as a part of his medical education, that the call for help will not go unheeded, and, if necessary, his honor and integrity be defended from the conspiracy of slander and falsehood.

"Whatsoever a man soweth that shall he reap" is a divine injunction, and the thistles of unprofessional conduct will be blown by the whirlwind of resentment to the outermost edge of the ever-widening circle of life, and the thorns of retaliation be thrust deeper when the occasion comes, which it is sure to do.

To the ideal, or true physician, humanity is the same, whether in the palace of the prince or millionaire, or in the lowest depths of squalid poverty. He sees oftener than any one else the grandeur and elevation that hide in the cabin or lowly cottage, as well as the vices and evil passions of the great. With nature his God, duty his watchword, and an approving conscience his guide, he has faced the King of Terrors in every form, and through all has been the soul of honor-no

trust betrayed, no confidence wronged nor duty violated. The life of the physician who is true to the ethical laws of his profession and to its traditions is a benediction, and he who lives it crowns himself and those to whom he ministers with unfading blessings; and when at last the summons comes it will be said of him, "Well done; thou hast served thy fellow-men well," and a quiet voice will whisper in the chamber of thought:

HUMPHREY, Ky.

"Fold the white vesture, snow on snow,
And lay him where the violets blow."

ANCIENT MEDICINE.*

BY. A. E. GARDNER, M. d.

So much is being said of modern medicine and surgery, and so many new remedies, methods, and operations are daily presented for our observation, comment, and consideration, and so much of our time and minds have been absorbed in their discussion and application, that we have comparatively lost sight of ancient medicine and its relations and importance to us. While it is important for us to become versatile in these things, I think it would not be amiss for us to devote at least a part of our time to the important question of Ancient Medicine. That this subject is of interest to us no one with a moment's reflection will deny. How many of us know any thing of the lives and works of Hippocrates, Galen, Paracelsus, and Sydenhan? Who were Boerhaave, Fallopius, and Versalius, and what did they do to perfect the magnificent foundation of medicine on which we stand? Certainly every physician should be familiar with the illustrious name of that great Kentuckian, Ephraim McDowell, who boldly performed the first ovariotomy without an anesthetic, his patient making a timely recovery and living for thirty-two years. The ecclesiastical part has entirely faded out of medicine, and an era of scientific investigation which long since dawned is now seemingly at its height, since it is difficult under existing circumstances to conceive of any more improvement in its methods or to excite any greater enthusiasm than has already been manifested. It is entirely disrobed of its ignorance, bigotry, and superstition. The dogmatism, realism, mesmerism, and all the other "isms " have vanished, and to-day we stand upon the very pinnacle of medical

success.

*Read before the Southern Kentucky Medical Association, at Hopkinsville, Ky., May 24, 1898.

But while this is true it may not be amiss for us to reflect and look for a few moments upon the chaos of antiquity from which this great art which we practice originated. For, as we all know, present and future activities are guided by past experiences and our views of the present are modified only by the mistakes and failures of the past. The study of this subject is of interest because it supplies us with examples of mistaken observation, judgment, and deduction. Patrick Henry said, "I have nothing to guide my feet except the lamp of experience." Guy de Chauliac is quoted as having said, "The sciences are created by successive editions; the same man can not lay the foundation and perfect the superstructure. We are as children carried upon the neck of a giant; aided by the labors of our predecessors we see all that they have seen and something besides." Ancient medicine is only the recorded experience of our predecessors, and by it we learn to avoid the costliest and most painful mistakes. Who among us to-day would use the actual cautery in checking hemorrhage from an amputated limb? or who would attempt such an operation without the use of an anesthetic? "Not to know what happened before we were born is to remain always a child, for what were the life of a man did he not combine present events with the recollections of the past." A study of the writings of Hippocrates, Paracelsus, and Galen stimulates in us a veneration for our profession, which is one of the noblest in which man can engage. "To-day is the pupil of yesterday; and it is because to-day learns wisdom from yesterday that it is able to teach wisdom to to-morrow." Ancient medicine is only an object lesson, and a study of it is only a study of human nature. The man who only knows what is immediately around him bears about the same relations to past events as the man who has never traveled does to space. In other words, history is to time what travel is to space. Dr. Geitz says, "The past satisfies our curiosities, the present modifies our views, the future guides us by past experiences."

We know but little of the origin of medicine, but it must have been contemporaneous with the origin of civilization. Observation has shown that the lower animals when sick would instinctively lessen or lower their diet, seek seclusion and rest, even in certain instances would seek out some particular herb or substance. Experience and superstition have also led the savage to do the same. In fact the early history of medicine is enveloped in profound obscurity and so mingled with myth, fable, and ignorance as to render it very uncertain. The sacred Scriptures contain many rules of hygiene and public health by which

the ancients were governed. Especially is this true of the writings of Moses. Solomon was also noted for his ability in compounding certain medicaments, some of which had even the virtues necessary for casting out devils. The Indians had many vague and peculiar ideas about the anatomy and physiology of the human body. They believed the body to be made of many thousands of tubes and vessels which were separate and distinct, each containing various kinds of air and gases which, if by accident commingled, would cause disease. They believed the heart to be a large organ situated in the abdominal cavity and consisting of many thousands of canals which were distributed to all parts of the body. The medicine-man, as he was called, examined the pulse, noted the flight of birds and consulted the stars. Specific gravity was taken by allowing a drop of oil to fall into a vessel containing the patient's urine. If the oil was precipated and attached to the bottom of the vessel an unfavorable prognosis was given. If it floated on the surface, on the contrary, a favorable prognosis was given.

The origin of Chinese medicine is supposed to have gone back to more than two thousand years before the Christian era. The Chinese physician was expected to know, after his examination, the cause, nature, duration, and prognosis of his patient's disease. They were replete with errors and their principal remedies consisted of lotions, plasters, and baths. The moxa was in constant use, and the country was infested with quacks and charlatans who dealt out poison and death with impunity. They practiced the most murderous methods instead of the principles of surgery and midwifery, and only within the last few years has their modus operandi been altered, and for this they are indebted to the genial influence of civilized missionaries.

As in all other arts, Greece furnishes us with the most interesting and significant remains of ancient medicine But here as elsewhere it consisted of myth and tradition. Here lived the great Esculapius, the god of medicine, to whom so many marvelous powers were imputed because of his reputation for healing so many desperate diseases; and it is even recorded in one instance that he restored the dead to life. This man was worshiped, and on him were heaped honor upon honor. His descendants believed in a well-regulated dietary, pure air, temperate habits, and faith in the medical god stimulated to a fanatical degree. These measures alone sufficed for the cure of diseases which nowadays would be regarded as wonderful. This practice was at first very popular, but it soon sank deeper in mystery and mystic symbolism where superstition

was played upon and credulity made to pay its reward. Not until the time of Hippocrates was the practice of medicine placed upon a philosophical foundation. His was the great and golden age of science, and especially that of medicine. He was the central figure of ancient medicine, and well he may be called its father. Notwithstanding the fact that his knowledge of anatomy and physiology was very meager, owing to the fact that dissection of the human body was prohibited, he described lesions, such as "wounds of the head, the heart, the glands, and the bones." His writings were not surpassed by any of his contemporaries, and some of his rules of hygiene and regimen are valuable even to-day. It was Hippocrates who first classified diseases into internal or medical and external or surgical. This, however, is not a philosophical division, but it is a very convenient one. We are also indebted to him for the terms, sporadic, endemic, epidemic, acute, and chronic. That he ascribed great importance to prognosis appears from the following from his own pen: "The best physician is the one who can establish a prognosis penetrating and exposing, first of all at the bedside, the present, the past, and the future of his patient's disease, and adding what they omit from their statements. He gains their confidence, and, being convinced of his superiority of knowledge, they do not hesitate to commit themselves entirely into his hands. He can also treat their present condition in proportion as he shall be able from it to foresee the future." Notwithstanding that he was the Great Physician of his day, and that he contributed so many valuable things to ancient medicine. and placed it upon a more substantial basis and paved the way for greater attainments in this the greatest of all the sciences, his writings are complicated and disfigured with many erroneous ideas and vague terms. For instance, he placed great stress upon the "vital spirits; the four elements, earth, air, water, and fire; four elementary qualities, heat, cold, dryness, and moisture, and the four cardinal humors, blood, bile, atrabile, and phlegm.

Galen, was a conspicuous character in ancient medicine. He is said to have written fifteen volumes on anatomy alone, and is credited with having introduced the term "symphysis" and divided the muscles into "flexors" and "extensors," and the body into "cranial," "thoracic," and abdominal cavities, yet his writings are tinctured with a great many follies. He believed that there were three sorts of principles in man, spirits, humors, and solids. He believed the human soul had three faculties or parts, the vegetable, the seat of