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
a lady he found her suffering from general malaise without any fever
or increased action of the pulse. He saw at once that her trouble was
mental and, like a wise physician, engaged her in general conversation.
Quite possibly he knew her story, for the name of a certain actor,
Pylades, was mentioned, and he noticed that her pulse at once increased
in rapidity and became irregular. On the next day he arranged that the
name of another actor, Morphus, should be mentioned, and on the third
day the experiment was repeated but without effect. Then on the fourth
evening it was again mentioned that Pylades was dancing, and the pulse
quickened and became irregular, so he concluded that she was in love
with Pylades. He tells how he was first called to treat the Emperor
Marcus Aurelius, who had a stomach-ache after eating too much cheese. He
treated the case so successfully that the Emperor remarked, "I have but
one physician, and he is a gentleman." He seems to have had good fees,
as he received 400 aurei (about 2000) for a fortnight's attendance upon
the wife of Boethus.
He left Rome for a time in 168 A. D. and returned to Pergamon, but was
recalled to Rome by the Emperor, whom he accompanied on an expedition
to Germany. There are records in his writings of many journeys, and busy
with his practice in dissections and experiments he passed a long and
energetic life, dying, according to most authorities, in the year 200
A.D.
A sketch of the state of medicine in Rome is given by Celsus in the
first of his eight books, and he mentions the names of many of the
leading practitioners, particularly Asclepiades, the Bithynian, a man
of great ability, and a follower of the Alexandrians, who regarded all
disease as due to a disturbed movement of the atoms. Diet, exercise,
massage and bathing were his great remedies, and his motto--tuto, cito
et jucunde--has been the emulation of all physicians. How important
a role he and his successors played until the time of Galen may be
gathered from the learned lectures of Sir Clifford Allbutt(32) on "Greek
Medicine in Rome" and from Meyer-Steineg's "Theodorus Priscianus und die
romische Medizin."(33) From certain lay writers we learn that it was the
custom for popular physicians to be followed on their rounds by crowds
of students. Martial's epigram (V, ix) is often referred to:
Languebam: sed tu comitatus protinus ad me
Venisti centum, Symmache, discipulis.
Centum me tegigere manus Aquilone gelatae
Non habui febrem, Symmache, nunc habeo.
(32) Allbutt: British Medical Journal, London, 1909, ii, 1449;
1515; 1598.
(33) Fischer, Jena, 1909.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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