The Origin and Growth of the Healing Art: A Popular History of Medicine in All Ages and CountriesBerdoe, Edward
History
The Origin and Growth of the Healing Art: A Popular History of Medicine in All Ages and Countries
Berdoe, Edward
Medicine -- History
Hippocrates speaks of leprosy as more a blemish than a disease; it
is probable, however, that the works in which he is supposed to
allude to it are not genuine. He points out the danger of opening
the round tumour on tendons, called a ganglion. In his book called
_Prognostics_, he refers to the danger of an erysipelas being
translated to an internal part. Cold applications, he says, are useful
in this disease when there is no ulceration, but prejudicial when
ulceration is present. Struma or scrofula is described by Hippocrates
(_De Glandulis_) as being one of the worst diseases of the neck. In
the treatise (_De Ulceribus_) on ulcers, he particularly praises wine
as a lotion for ulcers, and there is good reason to believe that we
might advantageously revert to this treatment. Some of the drugs
which he recommends for foul ulcers, such as frankincense and myrrh,
are excellent, and owe their efficacy to their “newly discovered”
antiseptic action. He recommends also arsenic and verdigris. The
actual cautery or burning applied freely to the head is recommended
in diseases of the eyes and other complaints. He describes water on
the brain in the treatise _De Morbis_, ii. 15, and even recommends
perforation of the skull or trephining quite in the modern way. Opening
the temporal veins is advised for obstinate headaches. Although no
express treatise on bleeding is found amongst the works of Hippocrates,
he practised venesection freely in various diseases. He forbids the
surgeon to interfere with non-ulcerated cancers, adding that if the
cancer be healed the patient soon dies, while if let alone he may live
a long time (_Aph._, vi. 38). He warns us that the sudden evacuation of
the matter of empyema or of the water in dropsy proves fatal. He speaks
of evacuating the fluid with an instrument similar to that which we
call a trochar. He approves of scarification of the ankles in dropsy
of the lower extremities; this is quite modern treatment. In cases of
dislocation of the hip-joint from the formation of a collection of
humours, he recommends burning so as to dry up the redundant humours.
He minutely describes the cure of fistula with the ligature in his work
_De Fistulis_, which, even if not a genuine treatise of Hippocrates, is
extremely ancient, and was considered authentic by Galen. Hæmorrhoids
or piles are to be ligatured with very thick thread, or destroyed with
red-hot irons. Varicose veins are to be treated by small punctures,
not freely opened (_De Ulceribus_, 16). Hippocrates considered the
extraction of weapons to be one of the most important departments of
surgery. In his treatise _De Medico_, he says that surgery can only be
properly learned by attaching one’s self to the army. Homer said,—
“The man of medicine can in worth with many warriors vie,
Who knows the weapons to excise, and soothing salves apply.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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