The Evolution of Modern Medicine: A Series of Lectures Delivered at Yale University on the Silliman Foundation in April, 1913Osler, William, Sir
History
The Evolution of Modern Medicine: A Series of Lectures Delivered at Yale University on the Silliman Foundation in April, 1913
Osler, William, Sir
Medicine -- History
(21) Pliny: Natural History, Bk. XVIII, Chap. XXV, Sect.
57.
Cato waged war on the Greek physicians and forbade "his uilicus all
resort to haruspicem, augurem, hariolum Chaldaeum," but in vain; so
widespread became the belief that the great philosopher, Panaetius (who
died about 111 B.C.), and two of his friends alone among the stoics,
rejected the claims of astrology as a science (Garrod). So closely
related was the subject of mathematics that it, too, fell into
disfavor, and in the Theodosian code sentence of death was passed upon
mathematicians. Long into the Middle Ages, the same unholy alliance
with astrology and divination caused mathematics to be regarded with
suspicion, and even Abelard calls it a nefarious study.
The third important feature in Babylonian medicine is the evidence
afforded by the famous Hammurabi Code (circa 2000 B.C.)--a body of laws,
civil and religious, many of which relate to the medical profession.
This extraordinary document is a black diorite block 8 feet high, once
containing 21 columns on the obverse, 16 and 28 columns on the reverse,
with 2540 lines of writing of which now 1114 remain, and surmounted by
the figure of the king receiving the law from the Sun-god. Copies of
this were set up in Babylon "that anyone oppressed or injured, who had
a tale of woe to tell, might come and stand before his image, that of a
king of righteousness, and there read the priceless orders of the King,
and from the written monument solve his problem" (Jastrow). From the
enactments of the code we gather that the medical profession must have
been in a highly organized state, for not only was practice regulated
in detail, but a scale of fees was laid down, and penalties exacted
for malpraxis. Operations were performed, and the veterinary art was
recognized. An interesting feature, from which it is lucky that we have
in these days escaped, is the application of the "lex talionis"--an eye
for an eye, bone for a bone, and tooth for a tooth, which is a striking
feature of the code.
Some of the laws of the code may be quoted:
Paragraph 215. If a doctor has treated a gentleman for a severe wound
with a bronze lances and has cured the man, or has opened an abscess of
the eye for a gentleman with the bronze lances and has cured the eye of
the gentleman, he shall take ten shekels of silver.
218. If the doctor has treated a gentleman for a severe wound with a
lances of bronze and has caused the gentleman to die, or has opened
an abscess of the eye for a gentleman and has caused the loss of the
gentleman's eye, one shall cut off his hands.
219. If a doctor has treated the severe wound of a slave of a poor man
with a bronze lances and has caused his death, he shall render slave for
slave.
220. If he has opened his abscess with a bronze lances and has made him
lose his eye, he shall pay money, half his price.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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