The Funny Side of Physic: Or, The Mysteries of Medicine, Presenting the Humorous and Serious Sides of Medical Practice. An Exposé of Medical Humbugs, Quacks, and Charlatans in All Ages and All Countries. — John Shaqi
The Funny Side of Physic: Or, The Mysteries of Medicine, Presenting the Humorous and Serious Sides of Medical Practice. An Exposé of Medical Humbugs, Quacks, and Charlatans in All Ages and All Countries.Crabtre, Addison Darre
History
The Funny Side of Physic: Or, The Mysteries of Medicine, Presenting the Humorous and Serious Sides of Medical Practice. An Exposé of Medical Humbugs, Quacks, and Charlatans in All Ages and All Countries.
Crabtre, Addison Darre
Medicine -- Anecdotes; Quacks and quackery
"Down they fell, and mumbled over their Latin, but declared the gods had
sent them nothing.
"'I do not believe you,' said Robin; 'you ever were a pack of liars. Let
each stand a search, that we deceive not each other.' So Robin turned his
own empty pockets wrong side out, then compelled the friars to follow
suit, when lo! out fell five hundred pieces of gold.
"When Robin saw this glorious sight, he berated the priests soundly, and
taking the gold, went away to Sherwood, and made merry at the expense of
the church."
About 1185 B. C. we find among the Grecians some traces of what was termed
the healing art. But fact and fable, history and mythology, are so mixed
and blended, that it is impossible to gain any reliable information so far
back.
Chiron is made mention of as having acquired much celebrity as a
physician. It is claimed that he was learned in the arts and sciences,
that he taught astronomy to Hercules, music to Apollo, and medicine to
Æsculapius, who came from Egypt. From what can be gleaned, of reliability,
it seems that he employed simple medicines, and possessed some knowledge
of dressing wounds and reducing fractures and dislocations; but no doubt
he pretended to greater things than the times would warrant, for, when
shot by an arrow from the bow of Hercules, his former pupil, he was unable
to heal the wound, and begged Jupiter to "set him up" among the stars,
which request was complied with, and Chiron was translated to the heavens,
where he still shines in the constellation Sagittarius, represented as a
centaur, with drawn bow, driving before him the other eleven signs of the
zodiac.
We have alluded to Æsculapius, and, passing over all others of his class,
we come to the times of Hippocrates.
Hippocrates is rightly called the "Father of Medicine," for he was the
first to raise medicine to a science. We mention him without classing him
with humbugs; but Menecrates, who flourished about the same time, arrived
at great notoriety by ruse and deception. He was "famous for vanity and
arrogance." He went about accompanied by some patients, whom he claimed to
have cured, as proofs of his great ability. One he disguised as Apollo,
another he arrayed in the habit of Æsculapius, and sent them abroad to
sound his praise, while he took upon himself the garb, and assumed the
character, of Jupiter.
Pliny says that medicine was the last of the sciences introduced into
Rome, and that the Septimont City was six hundred years without a regular
physician. Archagathus, a Grecian, settled in Rome about 300 B. C., and if
he was a fair sample of those who followed him, it had been better for
Rome that it had remained another six hundred years "without a regular
physician." He introduced cruel and painful escharotics, and made free use
of the knife and the lancet. He was a humbug of the first water, and a
quack besides, and as such he was banished in a few years.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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