An Epitome of the History of MedicinePark, Roswell
History
An Epitome of the History of Medicine
Park, Roswell
Medicine -- History
There were in vogue during this period numerous other doctrines, some
of which were too puerile or insubstantial to gain any foothold at all;
others exerted a certain amount of influence during the life-time of
their originators or for a generation afterward. With many of these I do
not care in any way to deal. A few others, I think, ought to be at least
mentioned in such a history as I am endeavoring to present.
There was another Hoffmann--Christopher Ludwig
Hoffmann{201} (1721-1807), of Westphalia, who devised a so-called
humoral theory in which the "acridities" of Boer-haave were mingled with
the "putridities" of the pneu-matists and the "irritability" of Glisson.
His treatment and remedies for diseases were supposed to be antiseptic,
as was very proper when dealing with putridities.
The theory known as the "Doctrine of Infarctus" had its origin with
Kampf, who died in 1753. By infarctus Kampf understood impacted fæces,
which he thought originated in the humors of the body, portal vessels,
and intestines; he recognized two kinds,--the black bilious and the
mucous. From this theory a wide-spread clyster fashion developed, and
lords and ladies vied with each other in belaboring their infarcti and
in administering enemas. As Baas says: "We cannot deny to the author
of this doctrine at least an extensive knowledge of human nature. He
supplied a universal remedial procedure, and gratified the apothecaries
with the bulkiness of the herbs required for its practice."
Quite antagonistic to the views of the Vienna School were those of the
School of Montpellier, inaugurated by Bordeu (1732-1796), and generally
known as _vitalism_. Bordeu died in the enjoyment of great reputation,
but at variance with all his colleagues. He maintained the existence
of a general life of the body,--a composite life,--resulting from the
harmonious working of the individual lives and powers of all the organs,
which were supposed to be associated with each other, but each for its
own definite function; the most important organs--the stomach, heart,
and brain--being called "the tripod of life." In pathology he laid great
weight upon crises, which were supposed to proceed from the glands.
The most important representative of vitalism was Barthez (1734-1806),
of Montpellier,--a man of great gifts and eager for knowledge. He
recognized a vital principle as the cause of the phenomena of life, but
acknowledged that{202} its nature was unknown, although he endowed it
with motion and sensibility different from a thinking mind.. Plants were
supposed to possess it likewise. Disease, he believed, was the result of
an affection of this vital principle. Every disease was divisible into
certain disease-elements, viewed as parts of the whole, and these were
again divisible into secondary elements. He explained putrid fevers as
specific vital diseases,--in which view, of course, he embodied humoral
ideas.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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