College Addresses 
BY 
JOHN B. HAMILTON, M. D. GEORGETOWN COLLEGE. 
Alumni Dinner at the Arlington Hotel, June 23d, 1886. 
ADDRESS 
IN 
RESPONSE TO A TOAST, " TWA MEDICAL FACULTY." 
THE NEW MEDICAL COLLEGE BUILDING. 
[From the Georgetown College Journal.} 
Professor Hamilton said : 
Gentlemen : Why our venerable and witty toast-master 
should have singled out the junior member of the Faculty to 
respond in its behalf is a mystery I shall not attempt to fathom, 
unless it is that the modesty of the seniors prompted each of 
them separately to decline the proffered honor. It is, however, 
a task of no light import to speak appropriately while the air 
is still laden with the earnest eloquence of our President, and 
when the speaker will be followed by one so famous for his 
forensic skill and legal lore as the distinguished member of the 
Law Faculty, Prof. Hoffman. But, sir, it needs neither silver 
tongue nor fluent speech to utter the language of the heart, and 
the words of welcome which I here speak, if unstrained, are 
from the heart. 
We rejoice in your presence here to-night; in your prosperity 
and the increasing power and influence of your great Alma 
Mater. We welcome you as worthy representatives of the 
growing numbers of the brotherhood, owing allegiance to the 
University whose jewels are the bright minds she has trained, 
and whose crowning glory is your success. A thousand wel- 
comes to our banquet hall, and the welcome can only deepen 2 
with each recurring season when commencements are ripe, and 
the clinking glasses and wassail-bowl usher in the human har- 
vest. 
I presume, sir, that I might, as my friend Judge Merrick 
would say, " rest our case " here with the assurance that the 
visiting alumni fully appreciate the length, breadth, and depth 
of the welcome with which the Medical Faculty join in greet- 
ing them ; but as the meat of a letter is frequently in its post- 
script, so, in the few moments left me, I shall for once unfold 
a professional secret which will no doubt be public property in 
due course. 
The Medical School looked over to New York and saw the 
great laboratory founded by the Pittsburgh iron merchant 
Andrew Carnegie ; the five hundred thousand dollar college 
building given by Vanderbilt; the two hundred thousand dollar 
building now nearing completion in Cleveland, and we felt 
that unless help came from some quarter we could no longer 
with credit to the University, maintain a separate department. 
The ill-provided building on E street, occupied for so many 
years, was inadequate for the purposes of medical teaching; 
this age of learning had left our school behind in the march or 
progress. Just here the University lent a helping hand, and 
now, I am happy to say, we have bought the site, matured the 
plans, and expect, Providence willing, to have a new building 
ready to receive our medical classes next October. 
It will, indeed, be a modest building compared with some 
of the mammoth structures lately erected for similar purposes ; 
but after all, gentlemen, it takes something more than bricks 
and mortar to make a successful medical college, and while 
ours will be comparatively small, yet it will be ample for the ac- 
commodation of the class, and will, in fact, be a "grander temple 
than of old was erected to FEsculapius and Hygeia, for it shall 
be dedicated to the sacred cause of truth and humanity 
a fitting cause in which the Medical Faculty can labor as part 
and parcel of our grand old University, whose spires glow with 
brightness in the morning sun and cast their evening shadows 
on the placid bosom of the Potomac, and the music of whose 
chimes will ever ring with silvery sweetness in the ears of its 
alumni while memory holds its sway. INTRODUCTORY LECTURE 
DELIVERED MONDAY, OCTOBER 4, 1886, IN THE NEW MEDICAL 
COLLEGE BUILDING, 
JOHN B. HAMILTON, M. D. 
PROFESSOR OF SURGERY, MEDICAL DEPARTMENT, GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY. 
(From the National Republican.} 
AN EPITOME OF THE HISTORY OF MEDICINE. 
Ladies and Gentlemen : That distinguished physician 
whom we all admire and love; Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, 
once compared the ceremonies at the commencement exercises 
of a medical college to that other ceremony which united a man 
and woman for life ; on the one hand he pictured the bride and 
the bridegroom, the bridal veil, the orange flower-garland, the 
giving and the receiving of the ring, the mysterious whisper 
of the clergyman in the ear of the maiden, the curious look of 
the spectators ; and on the other, the simple ceremony that 
united his young friends to the profession of their choice. So, 
now, in giving a variation to the keynote so well sounded by 
the venerable autocrat, we might easily say that as the cere- 
monies attending the graduation of our young men reminded 
us of a wedding, so those attending the introductory exercises 
remind us of a betrothal; we see here the young men full of 
love for their chosen profession, burning with laudable senti- 
ments of faith in mankind, hope for the future, and boundless 
enthusiasm. They here in your presence formally plight their 
troth. That they are in earnest is manifest from the public 
character of the ceremony, and the invitation they have ex- 
tended to you to be witnesses. But we must not be unmindful 
of the real nature of this occasion. This is no time for mere 
speculation, for stage whispers among ourselves, as to the char- 4 
acter and physical peculiarities of our neophytes. This lecture 
is introductory to the general course of lectures for this thirty- 
eighth annual session, and in order to comply with the terms 
of the ante-nuptial contract it must have some connection, di- 
rect or indirect, with the subject-matter of the course, or consist 
of preliminary hints for their future guidance. During the 
courtship they frequently need guidance, for not every one that 
signs the betrothal papers finally wins the bride. She is a bit 
of a jade at times, and if the young lover devote the passing 
hour to pool rooms and billiards and politics, instead of paying 
her his undivided attention, the wedding may never take place. 
You will then, I am sure, excuse me if the remaining portion 
of the hour is devoted exclusively to them. 
Young Gentlemen : On behalf of the college I bid you wel- 
come to these halls, forever dedicated to the search for and the 
promulgation of truth and to the cause of humanity. We 
shall try to guide your pathway to the medical profession so 
that you will be a shining exemplar and a credit to the school 
when you leave us, but there must be active, hearty, sincere 
co-operation on your part. The most brilliant teacher in the 
world can only place treasures in your hands ; he cannot show 
you how to keep them or to multiply them. You must work 
and think, study and think, be sincere and earnest, and, if you 
feel your mind is not clear on a subject laid before you, try to 
master it. Ask your professor, if you cannot master it alone, 
but master it before you let go. Do not attempt too many 
things at once. Keep on at what is once begun until you 
shall have finished, and finally, gentlemen, when you are 
studying medicine study medicine. Do not run after strange 
gods ; keep to your books, and do not fall in love with any- 
body or anything but truth and medicine. A medical student 
in love is not only usually a very foolish lover, but a very 
ridiculous one. He can scarcely indite a "woful ballad to 
his mistress' eyebrow," but anatomy, chemistry, and physi- 
ology combine against cupid, and the combination, as our 
sporting friends would say, is a hard one to beat, and the 
medical student gets laughed at for his pains. Few people 
are enamored of fledglings. 
"■Be lovers indeed," says Bruno, "but love in subordination 5 
to a celestial love, the only affection worthy of the complete 
surrender of a human soul: The love for truth, the search for 
what is true in all the domains of thought and life is the glory 
of existence."-[ W. D. O' Connor, Hamlet's Note Book.~\ 
Now let us turn seriously to the business in hand. I take 
it you wish to know something of the past history of the heal- 
ing art. Its importance has doubtless already engaged you, 
an importance second only to life and strength itself, for these 
frequently depend upon the faithfulness with which the maxims 
of the art are adhered to. 
The present flourishing state of the medical art was not 
reached in a day. On the contrary, centuries have come and 
gone since the first man began the study of medicine, and the 
antiquity of the study is thus added to its other attractions. 
The Mosaic writings, commonly placed at about 1,500 years 
before the Christian era, contained the earliest doctrines ot 
sanitary law known to European civilization until recently. 
The recent researches that have been made in Hindoo lore 
place the medical study in India at a much earlier period. Cen- 
turies before Homer wrote ; and even that period is so thickly 
enveloped in the mists of time as to be problematical as to date, 
the Brahmins taught medicine with their mystic mythology. 
Their books on medicine the Shastres were held sacred, and 
were " not allowed to be read at unseasonable times or unlucky 
days, as on the two first days of a new moon, or when the sun 
is obscured by clouds ; when it thunders ; at the morning 
dawn or evening twilight. The student must not study on 
holidays, or on the day on which he touches a corpse until 
purified, or when the governor of his province is sick, when 
fighting occurs, or when war approaches." 
" The pupils usually remained five or six years reading the 
Shastres, attending oral instructions, which were delivered in 
open places, under the shade of a sacred tree."-( Wise.) Al- 
though the Hindoo thus held medicine so high, it must be con- 
fessed, that when the Aryan race finally overran eastern Europe 
their successors still further exalted the opinion held of medi- 
cine by enrolling their favorite practitioners among the gods. 
The worship of zEsculapius as a god is said to date back 
about fifty years before the destruction of Troy. He was al- 6 
leged to have been the pupil of Chiron the Centaur, who was 
taught by Apollo. Homer, you will remember, makes many 
allusions to the surgeons, and especially to the sons of yEscula- 
pius-Podalirius and Machaon : 
Of two great surgeons Podalirius stands 
This hour surrounded by the Trojan bands, 
And great Machaon, wounded in his tent, 
Now wants the succour which so oft he lent. 
And again to Patroclus : 
Patroclus cut the forky steel away, 
And in his hand a bitter root he pressed; 
The wound he washed and styptic juice infused; 
The closing flesh that instant ceased to glow, 
The wound to torture and the blood to flow. 
In all ages the surgeon has been highly extolled in his mili- 
tary capacity. Thus Homer makes Nestor say- 
A wise physician skilled our wounds to heal 
Is more than armies to the public weal. 
And this sentiment was manifested in a somewhat peculiar 
way when Alexander was approaching India. Taxiles en- 
deavored to conciliate the Greek envoy by presents. He said, 
" I shall send to the great conqueror, your master, my beauti- 
ful daughter ; a goblet made of a ruby that replenishes itself 
with liquid, a philosopher of great knowledge of the sciences, 
and a physician who has such skill that he can restore the 
dead.* 
This indeed was high praise of the physician, but it reminds 
us that history almost repeated itself in the anecdote of the cele- 
brated French surgeon, Pare, who had been surgeon to four 
successive kings of France, and who, when the ancient city of 
Mentz was besieged by an army of 100,000 men, commanded 
by Charles the Fifth in person, was sent by the king to the be- 
leaguered army. Within the walls of Mentz were gathered 
nearly all the nobility and princes of France ; " Decimated by 
famine, disease, and by wounds received in the protracted de- 
fence, the garrison was reduced almost to extremities." Pare 
was introduced into the city at night by an Italian captain, and 
* Malcolm's History of Persia. 7 
on the following morning, being requested by the governor to 
show himself upon the breach, he was received by the soldiers 
with shouts of triumph. " We shall not die," they exclaimed, 
" even though wounded, Pare is among us !" From this time 
the defence was conducted with renewed vigor, and to the 
presence of this single man it has been universally conceded 
that the city was indebted for its salvation, although the siege 
was not raised until the " gallant army which lay around it had 
perished beneath its walls." 
But when this digression took place I was speaking of the 
high esteem in which physicians and surgeons were anciently 
held by the Hindoos. One of the causes of that esteem was 
the character of the curriculum and the moral sublimity of the 
teachings of the Hindoo sages, and the rigid discipline enforced. 
Wise has given us the ancient formula. [Review of the 
History of Medicine, by Thomas A. Wise. London: i86t~\ 
" A fortunate day is to be selected for the pupil to commence 
reading the Shastres. On that occasion he is to be clean in his 
person, and the place in which he is to study should be purified. 
A raised part of the room, or place of study, a cubit square, is 
to be cleaned with cow's dung and strewn with kusa grass, after 
which fire is to be placed upon it with several kinds of sacred 
wood, upon which ghee is poured while prayers (mantras) are 
repeated. The pupil while being initiated should stand near 
the fire with his face toward the east if he seeks long life ; if 
exalted fame, to the south ; if prosperity, to the west; if truth 
and its reward, to the north. 
" The guru and other Brahmins are then to pray over some 
dried rice, and the former should sprinkle water over the as- 
sembly. He is then to place a Brahmin on his right hand, over 
which he prays as he throws a mixture of curdled milk, honey, 
and ghee over the sacred fire. The scholar does the same and 
his lesson begins. The guru declares that he must henceforth 
discard lust, anger, covetousness, ignorance, laziness, vanity, 
pride, envy, revenge, cruelty, lying, and evil actions. He must 
always be engaged in the search after truth and in the perform- 
ance of good actions ; he must be clean in his person, wear an 
humble and peculiar kind of clothes, and his beard and nails 
should not be cut during the period of his religious study. 8 
Before and after meals, as well as on many other occasions, the 
student must carefully perform his ablutions ; after bathing and 
being purified, he is to offer fresh water to the gods, sages, and 
munis, and to convey wood for the oblation to the fire. He 
must always respect his teacher and parents, put the dust of 
their feet upon his head, and obey them in everything, or he 
will be unfortunate in this world and will be born in a degraded 
position in another life." 
The guru thus addressed the pupil: 
" When I say you may eat, drink, sleep, or arise from bed, 
you must immediately obey. If the scholar does not perform 
all this he sins, his understanding will diminish, and his glory 
will be quenched. Whatever I say you must believe, and fol- 
low my instructions. You must be careful to act so as to please 
me, and if I do not acknowledge your good actions I shall sin, 
and my knowledge will be barren. 
" In the treatment of the diseases of Brahmins, gurus, and 
the poor and helpless, or persons who come from a distance, 
you must be as careful as you would of your own relations, by 
which you will make more friends and acquire virtue, health, 
and a good name. You must not be displeased at my treating 
you as a son, a servant, or a beggar ; you must harbor no bad 
thoughts ; you must be moderate in the indulgence of your ap- 
petites, and contented with small recompense. By night and 
by day your anxious desire should always be to consider how 
you are to relieve and cure the sick under your care. You will 
avoid bad company, and neither give medicines to a culprit 
who has been condemned by a rajah, to a woman whose hus- 
band and guardians are absent, nor receive anything but food 
from a wife without the consent of her husband. You must 
avoid entering a house as a medical man without an invitation ; 
you must walk slowly without gazing, and observe deliberately, 
but you must only observe the patient and the symptoms of 
his disease ; and you must not predict the period of a fatal 
disease. You must not vaunt your own knowledge, for, al- 
though the learned may be pleased, the ignorant will be angry 
at the exhibition of learning in such a situation. After visiting 
the sick, should the disease be complicated, you must detail 
the symptoms, and consult other physicians as to their nature 
and treatment." 9 
" The student," says the guru, " must know the theoretical 
as well as the practical part of medicine, for he who knows the 
power, and is unskilled in the performance of operations, on 
approaching a patient is like a timid soldier going to battle ; 
and the person well versed in operations who presumptuously 
neglects the theory does not deserve the esteem of good men. 
Each is only half instructed, and are equally incapable of ex- 
ercising the profession properly, is inefficient, and resembles 
a bird with one wing. 
" As the Shastres contain the precepts of numerous prophets 
and great physicians, with their descriptions of diseases re- 
duced to a proper order, you must study them with care, by 
which the stupid and illiterate pupil will be instructed in his 
duties, and the intelligent and industrious, in the manner in 
which his knowledge is to be improved and extended." 
Such, young gentlemen, were the instructions given by the 
ancient Hindoos, whom we term heathen, and divested of some 
of their mystic mummery, we see the doctrines of truth and 
the origin of modern ethics-I might say the ancient expression 
of a sentiment that has pervaded the minds of medical men for 
countless centuries. 
Probably subsequent to the early medical records of the 
Hindoos we find those of the Egyptians and the Semitic races, 
but some medical historians claim for the Egyptians the origin 
of medical training, but all agree that India alone may dispute 
claim to precedence with Egypt. The Greeks, as we shall 
presently see, derive the origin of medicine from the gods, but 
the idea was evidently borrowed from the Egyptians, who traced 
the art to the goddess Isis, to whose anger they attributed all 
diseases, and who alone could give power to medicines to act. 
The Greeks also borrowed this conceit from the Egyptians in 
the assigning of certain diseases to the anger of Proserpine, the 
goddess of the infernal regions. Osiris, the husband of Isis, 
was the father of Orus, whom the later Greeks probably iden- 
tified with their Apollo, the child of the sun. 
Medicine in Egypt was taught in the temples of Isis at Mem- 
phis and Busiris. Egypt also had its PEsculapius in the person 
of one of the kings of Memphis, who was named Tosorthros, 
from the words Tuse-Tho, signifying " physician of the world." 10 
The early Egyptian teachings being secret, the student forbid- 
den to impart any of his new acquired knowledge, except in 
the manner in which he received it, it is not astonishing that 
few of their opinions have survived as their own. It is only 
the fading glamour of their mysteries, taught in cypher, that 
remain. Tangible indications of their knowledge of chemistry 
and surgical handicraft may be seen in the mummies, thou- 
sands of years old, in the Smithsonian Institution. 
No modern surgeon can even imitate bandaging as practised 
by the Egyptian embalmers. There is no doubt, however, of 
the great medical knowledge of the ancient Egyptians, for it 
was manifested in their longevity, the direct result of the faith- 
ful application of hygienic principles. The ancient Greek his- 
torians mention the remarkably healthful appearance of the 
Egyptians. Isocrates wrote of the old age to which they at- 
tained, which Herodotus attributed to the equability of their 
climate. We ourselves may see some evidence of their health- 
fulness in the rarity of caries in the teeth of mummies. 
As for surgery, this branch is known to have attained great 
perfection among them. Among the comparatively modern 
Egyptians, the famous school of Alexandria has furnished 
many examples of genius. The famous anatomist and sur- 
geon, Hierophilus, whose name you find perpetuated in that 
of the junction of the sinuses of the brain, was one of its pro- 
fessors. Erasistratus, not less celebrated, and the teachings of 
Rhazes, Aboukasis, Avicenna, Mesuch, Averroes, the Ara- 
bians, are directly in line from this ancient school. 
The state of medical science among the Hebrews may also 
be claimed to fairly represent that of contemporaneous Egypt. 
The habits, manners, and customs of the two peoples were 
nearly identical, with the single exception, perhaps, of the the- 
ology. The voyages of Abraham and his children, the long 
residence of 400 years of the children of Israel in Egypt, and 
the fact that Moses was trained as an Egyptian prince, give 
ample reason for the belief that the famous sanitary code of 
Moses was simply an Hebraic version of public hygiene as un- 
derstood in Egypt. Further corroborative evidence of this is 
seen in the fact of the art of magic being associated with the 
Mosaic history, magic being taught in Egypt in conjunction 11 
with medicine, the transmutation of the rod of Aaron being 
the most conspicuous example of the Hebrew knowledge of 
the art. Let us now turn to the study of the history of the art 
of medicine among the Greeks, for it is from Grecian medi- 
cine that we claim direct descent. 
The custom among medical historians, for convenience sake, 
is to divide the history into periods according to the general 
epochs of the history of the world. The division of Sprengel 
I shall follow as, on the whole, the most satisfactory. 
General History. 
Period of Time. 
Medical History. 
I. 
Expedition of the Ar- 
gonauts. 
1273 to 1263 B. C. 
1. First traces of Medi- 
cine among the 
Greeks. 
3- 
4- 
The Peloponesian war. 
The Christian Era 
432 to 404 B. C. 
2. Hippocratic Era. 
3. Methodist School. 
4. Decadence of Science. 
Emigration of the Bar- 
barians. 
A. D. 430 to 530. 
5- 
Crusades 
A. D. 1096 to 1230. 
5. Arabic Medicine Pre- 
dominant. 
6. 
Reform of Mar tin 
Luther. 
A. D. 1517101530. 
6. Re-establishment of 
Greek medicine and 
7. The Thirty Years' War. 
A. D. 1618 to 1648. 
anatomy. 
7. Discovery of circula- 
tion. 
8. 
Reign of Frederick the 
Great. 
A. D. 1740 to 1786. 
8. Haller. 
I shall take but little time in speaking of the first epoch, for 
the sweet visions of the golden fleece, the staunch craft the 
Argo, the voyage of Jason, the perils, trials, and pleasures of 
the Argonauts, and the famed shores of Colchis are rather themes 
for the flowing imagery of poetry than the trenchant pen of 
history. But it is to this mythical romantic period that we are 
indebted for the medical mythology of the Greeks, the story of 
AEsculapius, and of Chiron the centaur. Medicine, as por- 
trayed in the Homeric poems, did not, as in Egypt and India, 
become a subordinate part of religious teaching, nor were the 
physicians priests. It is clear, however, that the science was 
even then far from being in its infancy. Homer, however, re- 
fers to yEsculapius as a Thessalian king, and his worship as a 
divinity belongs to a later date. When the temples began to 12 
be erected to HEsculapius, they were, in fact, hospitals, to 
which the sick were brought, who, after prayer and sacrifice, 
were made to sleep on the " hide of the sacrificed animal or at 
the feet of the statue of the god, while sacred rites were per- 
formed ; while asleep the appropriate remedy was indicated 
by a dream." (Payne.) It is said that the custom of recording 
cases arose from the custom of inscribing on the walls of the 
temple the record of the cures, and thus the clinical experience 
was made available. But there were no distinctively medical 
writers before Hippocrates. That there were many physicians 
is evident from Thucydides' account of the plague which 
raged at Athens during a part of the Peloponesian war ; and 
this brings us down to the second epoch. Pythagoras, al- 
though a teacher of medicine as well as philosophy, left no 
written statement of his medical views ; but, as Pythagoras had 
traveled much in Egypt and the East before founding his 
school, it is doubtless true that his knowledge of medicine was 
acquired in those countries, and the same system. His bent 
toward mathematics, however, influenced him, and we see 
the same tendency in the Hippocratic doctrine of crises. But 
this was the golden age of Greece, when philosophy and litera- 
ture freed themselves from the trammels of superstition. 
Hippocrates had for his contemporaries the orator and statesman 
Pericles; the poets, H£schylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes, 
and Pindar; the philosopher, Socrates, and his distinguished disciples, 
Plato and Xenophon; the venerable father of history, Herodotus, and 
his young rival, Thucydides; the unrivaled statuary, Phidias, with his 
illustrious pupils, and many other distinguished names which have 
conferred immortal honor on the age in which they lived.-Adams. 
Whether or not the ancients were correct in tracing the 
descent of Hippocrates from HEsculapius, it is at least certain 
that this great man was the son of one of the temple priests, 
and that his early training was at the bedside of the sick 
brought to the temple on the Island of Cos. We may well 
pass in silence the vile slander that Hippocrates destroyed all 
the records of his predecessors, in order that his own works 
might shine more brightly to posterity ; for surely no one 
whose transmitted thoughts were so pure could have committed 
so unworthy an act. Hippocrates held that to be an eminent 13 
physician it was necessary to be not only an anatomist, but 
also to be skilled in logic, astronomy, and the other sciences, 
and he practiced the art of inductive reasoning to its fullest 
extent in making diagnoses. He was, therefore, the father of 
rational medicine. The ideas inculcated by the master remain 
to-day in many things unchanged by the hand of time, and one 
of the strongest evidences of his power and keen observation 
is the fact that for centuries after his death the ablest medical 
writers were obliged to content themselves with writing com- 
mentaries on the works of Hippocrates. Not only is medicine 
indebted to him, but general literature as well. Nobody ex- 
pressed better than he the sentiment that " life is short, and the 
art long ; the occasion fleeting ; experience fallacious, and judg- 
ment difficultor that celebrated description of the appearance 
of a dying patient: "a sharp nose; hollow eyes; collapsed 
temples ; the ears cold, contracted, and their lobes turned out; 
the skin about the forehead becoming rough, distended, and 
parched ; the color of the whole face being green, black, livid, 
or lead-colored." This passage, it has been surmised (Adams), 
must have suggested to Shakespeare the description of the way 
Falstaff's death was foretold : " For after I saw him fumble 
with the sheets, and play with the flowers, and smile upon his 
fingers' ends, I knew there was but one way ; for his nose was 
as sharp as a pen, and he babbled of green fields." But the 
greatest debt to Hippocrates owed by physicians is the high 
conception of the character of the profession. The " oath " in- 
culcated the highest character, the furthest remove from mer- 
cenary motives and from superstition. Hippocrates recognized 
that the processes of disease were governed by laws as definite 
as those of health, and that by observation those laws could be 
applied so as to form a judgment of the manner of termination 
of any case. Not only did this remarkable man show a deeply 
ingrained knowledge of pathological laws, but he also possesses 
surgical handicraft and inventive genius. The identical pattern 
of the trephine used by Hippocrates more than 2,000 years ago 
youwill find in your instrument cases to day. He tapped thechest 
forpneumo-thorax, and laid down useful rules for the management 
of fractures and dislocations. His theories were, of course, largely 
based upon the state of the collateral branches of science of his 14 
time, and there is much in them that has long since been com- 
pletely disproved, but as a practical physician his teachings 
were skilful, wise, and conscientious. He placed as much, or 
more reliance, upon diet than upon medicine, and the book on 
" Regimen in Acute Diseases" is well worthy of a careful 
reading. After Hippocrates, a full century elapsed before any 
discovery was announced, or any essential variation in the 
principles laid down by the master. As is frequently the case, 
however, as time went on, while the least valuable of Hippo- 
crates's work were exalted, his theories, the really valuable 
part, the practical, became entirely neglected. The celebrated 
anatomist, Herophilus, was the next eminent physician. He had 
been a pupil of the Hippocrates school at Cos, and was deeply 
imbued with the doctrines of Hippocrates. He became at- 
tached to the school at Alexandria, and was the greatest anato- 
mist of his time. The story would be entirely incomplete if 
he had no rival, and it is here no exception to the rule. The 
rival school at Alexandria was that of Erasistratus, only a por- 
tion of whose work remains. He also greatly distinguished 
himself by his discoveries in anatomy and the theory of inflam- 
mation. He decried Hippocrates as vehemently as Herophilus 
eulogized him, and naturally the Alexandrian pupils left the 
schools as far apart in their opinions as their masters. It was 
doubtless the opposition of Erasistratus that laid the foundation 
for the establishment of the empiric school. This school sub- 
sequently became the most famous in Alexandria, and pro- 
fessed to believe nothing that was not based upon experience. 
They rejected anatomy, and had confidence only in drugs. 
They claimed that experience had three sources-observation, 
history, and judgment by analogy. It is due to this school 
that the practical knowledge in the Hippocratic writing was 
once more brought out. In practical matters, being entirely 
freed from the cramping theories of the times, they were very 
successful as compared with the rationalists. The fact is that 
the latter very largely reasoned from a false premise, the facts 
from which to draw were few and far apart. Could the Alex- 
andrian anatomists have foreseen some of the physiological 
truths lying metaphorically at the point of their scalpels, they 
could not have been supplanted by the empirics. 15 
When Greece became a part of the Roman empire, many of 
her scholars and artisans came to Rome, established themselves, 
and flourished, greatly to the disgust of the Roman "know-noth- 
ings " of the period. Among the earliest of the physicians was 
young Asclepiades, who was not only a physician, but an orator 
as well. He was a friend of Cicero, and introduced a new 
medical creed, based upon the Epicurean philosophy. His 
doctrine was that of the " atoms"-that is, that all diseases de- 
pended simply upon the arrangement and displacement of the 
atoms of which the body was composed. Asclepiades intro- 
duced the gymnasium as a means of overcoming diseases by 
athletic training, diet, cold bathing, and friction. One of his 
later pupils, Themison, elaborated the doctrines of Asclepiades, 
and founded the school known as the Methodist. This singular 
sect cared nothing for the cause of diseases, or to know the par- 
ticular organ affected. They were satisfied to ascertain in a 
given case the general condition of the system. The system, 
according to them, was either relaxed, contracted, or in a state 
midway between relaxation and contraction. The state of the 
excretions was for them the measure. They united with the 
empirics in despising anatomy, and one of the most ignorant 
of this sect made himself conspicuous by disagreeing with the 
aphorism of Hippocrates that "Art is long"-and agreeing to 
teach this whole science of medicine in six months. The only 
great man the Methodists may be said to have produced is 
Soranus, who wrote the famous treatise on diseases of women, 
which is still extant. This Soranus used the speculum for the 
perfection of his diagnosis. 
The quarrels and rivalries of these sects in opposition to the 
orthodox faith brought up a new sect, who called themselves 
eclectics, who assumed to seize all those doctrines of the war- 
ring schools that were good, and out of the combination make 
a sect that would stand the test of time, but nothing worthy of 
note was evolved from this movement. The only Roman 
medical writer of note of the first century, with the single ex- 
ception of Galen, was A. Cornelius Celsus, whose easy, grace- 
ful, polished Latin, and general accuracy have caused him to 
be widely quoted and generally praised. He seems to have 
been rather a medical writer than a practicing physician ; more 16 
of a commentator than an originator, but his descriptive powers 
are unrivaled and his elegance of diction unsurpassed. Galen, 
who was thirty years his junior, was as much of an original in- 
vestigator as he was a historian and commentator. Galen fol- 
lowed Celsus in bringing about a revival of the Hippocratic 
methods. The study of anatomy was with him a passion, and 
the functions of the organs began to be investigated, and the 
foundation of the science of physiology was laid. His mind, 
however, was full of subtile theories, and he unfortunately was 
able to bring them forward with such skill, ingenuity and 
adroitness, that they remained for a long period as stumbling 
blocks to advancement, but the world's indebtedness to Galen 
can scarcely be measured when we remember the chaotic state 
of medical science at the period of Celsus and Galen. Galen's 
forceful style impressed his pupils that with solid anatomical 
and physiological facts as the premises, the conclusions must 
be drawn by inductive reasoning, and that this process must be 
applied to all problems of disease, as well as therapeutics. 
With Galen, Roman medicine practically died ; he had no im- 
mediate successors worthy of note, Aurelius being the only 
prominent Roman writer whose works had survived. He was, 
however, thoroughly saturated with the Methodist heresy. The 
history of the world shows that when any particular place was 
pre-eminent for its learning, its academies, and its progress in the 
arts, there also was to be found the dominant medical school 
of the age, and after the founding of the Byzantine literary and 
historical schools, the one on medicine became famous. It was 
here that Paulus yEgineta wrote his wonderful compilation of 
the writings of his predecessors, his commentaries, and his work 
on obstetrics. He also wrote a work on surgery, which was 
translated into Arabic, and on which the Arabian surgery 
was founded. They in turn, when they overran Europe, left 
their knowledge to mediaeval surgeons. The medical litera- 
ture of the Byzantine school had little to recommend it to 
posterity, and, with the exception of Paulus, was notably 
barren. Oribasius is frequently quoted as belonging to the 
Byzantine school, but he was a Greek, educated at Alexandria, 
wrote many of his books there, and had already an established 
reputation when he came to Byzantium. Paulus, who was 17 
educated at Byzantium, quotes him approvingly. The fourth 
epoch, as is implied in the fable, was the period of decadence 
in Europe of learning in all sciences, and medicine was no ex- 
ception to the rule. It was during this period Arabian medi- 
cine attained its greatest vigor, for as the Mohammedan con- 
quests became consolidated, medical schools arose at their 
chief capitals. Damascus and Bagdad once more became 
prominent. Rhazes, the Arabian, was distinguished as the 
most voluminous writer of the age. Hali Abbas, a Persian 
who followed Rhazes, wrote the " Royal Book," which was 
the guide of the Arabians for a long period. Albukasis wrote 
an encyclopaedia of which the original portion is highly valued. 
It was written at Cordova during the Mohammedan occupa- 
tion of Spain, and was translated into Latin. The Hispano 
Arabians were prolific in medical encyclopaedias. Avicenna 
has always been looked upon as the greatest of the Arabian 
writers (Payne), but there are no discoveries of note attributed 
to him. Avenzoar, Averroes, and Rabbi Maimoindes were 
also great compilers, indeed it nowhere appears that the Ara- 
bians did more than preserve Greek and Alexandrian medicine. 
We are indebted to them for the description of smallpox and 
measles. 
It was in the fifth epoch, or the period of the crusades, that 
Arabian medicine began to be widely translated and circulated 
throughout Europe, but Hippocratic, or rational medicine, be- 
gan to gain ground through the influence of the Benedictine 
monks. They established schools in the kingdom of Naples- 
one at Monte Casino and the other at Salernum. Of these 
schools that at Salernum became the most famous. Its sa.- 
lubrious situation on the shores of the Mediterranean, surrounded 
by a forest, extending down to the foot of the mountains, made 
it an attractive resort for invalids at an early period. Adalberon, 
the archbishop of Verona, visited the place in 984. At that 
time a great portion of the cures was supposed to be due to the 
relics of St. Matthew, which had been carried there in 954, and 
he was the patron saint of the school. Other relics were car- 
ried there at different times. In the tenth century the monks 
of Salernum studied the medicine of the Greeks and Arabians, 
made translations, and by this means brought themselves far 18 
in advance of their contemporaries. At the time of the crusades 
the school of Salernum had become the first school of medicine 
in the west. The state of learning of this school is well shown 
in the famous " Flos Medicinae." This celebrated poem, in 
leonine verse, was written at the request of Count Robert of 
Normandy, the son of William the Conqueror, who, on his re- 
turn from the crusades, went to Salernum to be cured of his 
wound. This book was a code of health to guide him when he 
should leave. It was called " The Flower of Medicine," and 
has passed through more editions than any book on medicine, 
with the single exception of translations of and commentaries 
on Hippocrates. The works published by the school of Saler- 
num were of much practical utility, although the age was one 
of poly-pharmacy ; this school, in true Hippocratic spirit, paid 
more attention to diet than to drugs. They insisted on the 
cultivation of anatomy, "without a knowledge of which one 
was not able to practice surgical operations, nor treat a wound 
or an ulcer." Galen was the infallible oracle in this branch 
of medicine, and was naturally the text book. After the begin- 
ning of the decline of the school of Salernum, its rival, Mont- 
pellier, revived and flourished, and Bologna and Padua became 
prominent. As in the centuries immediately preceding, little 
of the originality was developed, and although the medical lit- 
erature is voluminous, it mainly consists of compilations. From 
about 1290, when John Gaddesden wrote his " Rosa Anglica" 
down to about 1450, surgery progressed more than other 
branches of medicine. The names of William of Saliceto, 
Lanfranchi of Milan, Guy de Chauliac, are of this period. 
This period was also distinguished by its publications of case 
reports in the fourteenth century. 
At the revival of learning many learned men devoted them- 
selves to the study of the ancient medical classics, and as there 
was then a furor against everything Arabic, the Saracenic influ- 
ence waned and Greek medicine gained the ascendency. There 
was in Germany one brake on the wheel of medical progress ; 
the arch quack Paracelsus, who burnt the books of Avicenna 
and Galen and said his shoe-buckles were more learned than 
they. He did have some respect for Hippocrates, and wrote a 
commentary on his works. As Paracelsus was an example to 19 
avoid, I shall not dwell on this topic, but he was largely instru- 
mental in bringing up the influence of chemistry, so that he did 
some good after all. One cause of the advancement of medi- 
cine in this period was the rise and spread of many epidemic 
diseases apparently unknown to the ancients, and which the 
Galenical remedies were powerless to cure. The " sweating 
sickness," the " black death," and " dancing mania," arc 
examples of these epidemics, of which you will find a full ac- 
count in Hecker. One other reason for the great advancement 
of medicine at this period is found in the establishment of the 
hospitals that were made necessary by the contemporary wars. 
Padua led in establishing clinical instruction. It was in the 
seventeenth century that the latro-physical school was started 
in Naples by Borelli, and the latro-chemical school by Sylvius. 
The former held that all processes of the body were to be ex- 
plained by mechanics, the bones and muscles were so many 
levers and pulleys, digestion was simply a trituration, while the 
latter held that all changes and acts were due to chemical forces, 
and that chemical disturbances of physiological processes con- 
stituted disease. The discovery of the circulation of the blood 
was the turning point in the study of physiology, and, in fact, 
the key that unlocked many human mysteries. Early in the 
eighteenth century its most industrious physiologist was born, 
the celebrated Haller. He graduated in medicine at Leyden 
in 1726, and after a three-years' travel in foreign countries, 
founded an anatomy school at Berne. It was there that he 
wrote the celebrated "leones Anatomica" and some 12,000 
reviews for a scientific journal at Gottingen. His was a pro- 
digious activity, and he, by his labors, clearly established the 
right to be called the father of modern physiology. 
And now we have glanced at the medical history from the 
earliest times down to the eighteenth century, and the hour has 
waned. It is your privilege to continue its study at the point 
where I have left it, for your text books will all contain refer- 
ences to the modern discoveries. The future is in your hands, 
and whether you will belong to the scholar class of physicians, 
or those who simply float on the current, depends on your em- 
ployment of your time, and we, the faculty, hope in this that 
you may be guided aright, so that when you leave us you may 20 
often feel the happiness of " discovering motion returning to the 
muscles of one apparently dead, thus experiencing the rapture 
of Pygmalion perceiving the marble becoming animated under 
the touch of his chisel." May you young gentlemen be not only 
successful in study, but seek to add to the general stock of 
human knowledge for the benefit of mankind. THE MEDICAL VARIATIONS: 
AN ADDRESS TO THE GRADUATING CLASS OF THE MEDICAL 
DEPARTMENT, GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY, 
MAY IO, 1887, 
JOHN B. HAMILTON, M. D. 
PROFESSOR OF SURGERY. 
(From the Medical Register). 
Ladies and Gentlemen : In this beautiful springtime, 
while the sky is blue, and the air is laden with the perfume of 
fragrant blossoms, we meet to assist in the ceremony of usher- 
ing into the ranks of the medical profession these young gentle- 
men, who, as you see, bear their blushing honors with the 
characteristic grace of the neophyte, and the modesty of care- 
fully trained youth. 
In accordance with a custom more than a century old, we 
take advantage of the present occasion, while extending to 
them the hand of fellowship, to load them with good advice, 
and you shall see how like trained soldiers they submit to this 
last infliction without wincing to any apparent extent. 
Gentlemen : By the application of the rules governing the 
medical faculty of this college, the duty of administering last 
advice upon this important occasion has fallen to my lot. I 
feel assured that you will agree with me that the time devoted 
to the history of our noble art is not lost, for a study in itself 
both interesting and instructive cannot fail to impress upon us 
lessons of permanent value. The introductory lecture was de- 
voted to a brief summary of the history of rational medicine 
from the most ancient times down to the day of modern physi- 
ological research, and it has occurred to me that an appropriate 
corollary to the study of the topic glanced upon in that lecture 
would be an epitome of the heresies or, if we adopt the mild- 
ness of the famous Bishop Bossuet, we might term them, in- 22 
stead of heresies, the variations. You must know that in 
every age of the world there have always existed sentiments of 
opposition to established truth, as well as to promulgated dog- 
mas. Truth has not come down to us unmixed. There has 
always been that element of uncertainty in the conclusions of 
rational medicine, which is inherent to the condition of pro- 
ceeding from a false premise. By the inductive reasoning 
adopted by learned men of all professions since the time of 
Aristotle, if the premise be true, the conclusion flowing there- 
from must be equally true ; but as poor humanity may not law- 
fully pick the lock to mysteries when the Almighty has vouch- 
safed no key, there are from necessity many false theories put 
afloat by reason of an assumed premise. Thus, what is called 
hypothesis is often urged with vehemence and sometimes with 
intolerance. True rationalism in the sciences demands that the 
premises shall be actual. To supply this demand for facts in- 
vestigation and experiment have been carried on from the earliest 
times. This process is necessarily slow and tedious, as was set 
forth by the great master of rational medicine, Hippocrates, in the 
first aphorism, "Life is short and the art long; the occasion 
fleeting, experience fallacious, and judgment difficult." 
Think how long a time in the world's history was covered 
before the full details of the circulation of the blood became 
common property, and how, by means of accident alone, a full 
knowledge of stomach digestion was given to the followers of 
rational medicine. It is a curious thought, but one abundantly 
verified by the facts, that each discovery increases the knowl- 
edge of the human frame by arithmetical progression, and, 
although the limits of human research now seem circum- 
scribed, who will boldly say that all the subtile operations 
of the human body will not one day be fully known? As 
time progresses each age realizes that it is more wise than 
its predecessors ; but while we glorify our own times, let us 
think with due humility on the future wisdom to us unknown, 
that will one day belong to you and your children's children. 
And it is in this spirit of thankfulness for the past and hope in 
the future that the devotees of rational medicine apply them- 
selves to the problems of to-day, and welcome with enthusiasm 
the new aspirants for medical honors ; and it is this spirit that 23 
distinguishes legitimate medicine from charlatanry. The char- 
latan lives for himself; he affects to despise the labors of the 
past, although he daily makes use of their fruits. He arro- 
gates to himself knowledge superior to every one of his time 
and especial superiority over his associates ; but he takes care 
never to add anything to the general stock of medical informa- 
tion by divulging any of the great knowledge of which he alone 
is the possessor. He always makes it a point when called to 
a patient, suffering from a disease no matter how trifling, to 
convince that patient that the mere fact of his having been 
called early, has saved his life, you will find the community 
more or less full of these rescured creatures. These character- 
istics have belonged to the charlatan in all ages, so far as con- 
temporary history has limned his portrait. There is one differ- 
ence between the ancient and modern charlatan, and that is, 
that owing to the existing state of science, and the many morbid 
processes unknown generally, the ancient quack was frequently 
able to stumble on some physiological fact or especial line of 
treatment. 
Asclepiades, who flourished in the first century of the Chris- 
tian era, may be taken as a primal type of the charlatan. He 
treated the writings of the past with contempt; Hippocrates' 
system of medicine he nicknamed " a study of death." He re- 
jected publicly the various classes of medicines that had come 
down to him from the past ages ; but he handed down his name 
to posterity by applying the atomic theory then prevailing in 
physics to medicine, and he founded a medical school. Astrol- 
ogy, theosophy, and uranoscopy were other variations, and is 
it not a little curious that we still see advertisements announc- 
ing that such and such a person casts nativities, and treats cases 
by the aid of the stars ? 
When uranoscopy was finally overthrown by the increase of 
knowledge, it was deemed necessary to come somewhere near 
the human body in ascertaining its condition. And so we see 
that as knowledge increases these variations die out, so far as 
their popularity is concerned, and when they continue to exist 
it is only in a surreptitious way. During the reign of Justinian 
indignities were everywhere heaped upon the followers of ra- 
tional medicine ; the medical school at Athens was destroyed, 24 
and throughout the Roman empire legitimate medicine and 
the study of anatomy was suppressed so far as official orders 
could do it. Laying-on-of-hands, charms, relics, and super- 
stitions of all sorts, incantations and the like, were the means 
resorted to for the cure of disease and the prevention of epi- 
demics. It was then that the Arabian schools sprung up 
through the influence of the Nestorians, and legitimate medi- 
cine was transferred to the Arabs. It was the age of intoler- 
ance ; the slightest differences between Christians gave rise to 
internecine feuds and bloody wars. And when Rome was 
overrun by the barbarians, nearly every vestige of medical 
learning based upon anatomy was extinguished in Europe. 
The ecclesiastics then took up the study in secret, but nearly 
a thousand years elapsed before the truths of medical science 
were again brought forward. The general ignorance of the 
people through the suppression of letters was of course the 
real cause. 
The arch quack Paracelsus did the world some service by 
reviving interest in chemistry and overthrowing alchemy. His 
general style has seldom been improved upon even by the most 
modern quacks, with all the aid that this age of letters can give 
them. His real name was Hohenheim, and he was born in Zu- 
rich ; but as soon as he had imbibed a smattering of the effect 
of chemicals on the human body he imagined himself the wisest 
of mankind and gave himself the name, by which he has since 
been known, of Paracelsus, or if you care to remember his full 
pseudonyme, it was Phillipus Aureolus Theophrastus Bom- 
bastus Paracelsus ! He was a drunken scoundrel; but then, as 
now, there were hundreds of men who viewed this habit as an 
undoubted evidence of genius of the highest order. He claimed 
that reading never made a physician ; that " countries are the 
leaves upon which Nature's laws are written, and patients are 
my only books." It should be remembered, to the credit of 
Paracelsus, that at that time the general habit of the medicast- 
ers of the day was to put a very little medical truth in a vast 
deal of astrology and so-called climatology, by which each 
hour was assigned a particular force on each organ of the 
body, according to the decision of the horoscope. Among 
the Chinese at this period, and perhaps long previously, this belief was universal. The sign most important to observe 
was the position of the moon. When that romantic satel- 
lite was found in the sign of Cancer, then was the proper 
time to give medicines with the greatest effect, and her 
conjunction with Saturn absolutely forbade the use of medi- 
cines, by rendering them nugatory - especially purgatives. 
Theosophy, with its mind cures, and the mystic rites of the 
Rosicrucians, seem almost to reach the extreme limit of 
absurdity. This singular sect was instituted by Father Ro- 
senkreutz, in Germany, early in the fourteenth century. The 
exact date is unknown, and although their existence was 
known at the time, they seem to have well preserved their se- 
crets. They became almost extinct until the year 1615, when 
the society was revived, and, printing being general, their se- 
crets were no longer kept. The neophytes swore fidelity, 
promised absolute secresy, and wrote in hieroglyphics. The 
sect believed that the secret philosophy of the Egyptians, the 
Magi of Persia, gymnosophists and Brahmins of India, and all 
ancient oriental medical lore was embodied in their teaching. 
They also claimed, in imitation of the Masonic fraternity, that 
much of their information was handed down by King Solo- 
mon to King Hiram at the construction of the Temple. It is 
probable that many golden grains of truth were contained in 
the doctrines of Orientalism, but these were in great part the 
sheerest nonsense. It is in Japan and China to-day that we 
find present the actual teachings of those Mongolian ancients, 
and the following is a sample of the Mongolian therapeutics. 
Bakin, the Japanese novelist, tells us that in the Re-shun Ro- 
jin is found the following prescription : " When any one is 
struck by thunder, make him lie upon his back, and place a 
live carp on his bosom ; if the carp jumps and moves, the pa- 
tient will recover and the carp die. This is infallible." 
Sir Kenelm Digby, who flourished in the seventeenth cen- 
tury, gives a prescription for the cure of fever and ague, which 
is so nearly of this kind as to warrant the supposition that he 
was either a Rosicrucian himself, or at least borrowed their 
doctrines. Here is the prescription: "Pare the patient's 
nails, put the parings in a little bag, and hang the bag around 
the neck of a live eel, and place him in a tub of water. The 
25 26 
eel will die and the patient recover." Sir Kenelm also gives 
us a recipe for making a sympathetic powder for the infalli- 
ble cure of wounds. This association of the direct or indi- 
rect contact of animals with a patient for the cure of disease 
or wounds still exists. You will find hundreds believing in 
things as absurd. One of the most common delusions of this 
sort prevails in certain regions of America where venomous 
snakes are common. It is thought that the application of a 
freshly killed chicken to a snake-bite is a certain cure, and 
many an unlucky pullet, that otherwise would have graced 
the larder, has been sacrificed to this folly. The horse-chest- 
nut or potato worn in the pocket to keep off rheumatism, the 
" liver pad," " magnetic" or " electric " belt, and the sugar- 
of-milk globule box are tangible evidences that the follies and 
superstitions of mankind still survive, but little changed by the 
light of learning. It is one of the duties of the medical profes- 
sion to set their faces against these superstitions, and publicly 
denounce them. 
It is somewhat singular that the art of war-the science 
of destroying mankind-has been preservative of legitimate 
medicine. Each commander, while anxious to destroy his 
enemy, is quite as anxious to preserve the vigor of his own 
force; consequently, we find that armies have early made 
effort to eliminate the charlatans from their medical staff'. 
That good old surgeon, Thomas Gale, who flourished in the 
sixteenth century, has left us a graphic picture of the military 
surgeons attached to the English army in the time of Henry the 
Eighth. " I remember," he wrote, " when I was in the wars 
at Muttrel, in the time of that most famous prince, King Henry 
the Eighth, there was a great rabblement there that took upon 
them to be surgeons, some were sow gelders with tinkers and 
cobblers. This noble sect did such great cures that they got 
themselves a perpetual name, for, like as Thessalus' sect were 
called Thessalians, so was this rabblement for their notorious 
cures called dogleeches. For, in two dressings, they did com- 
monly make their cures whole and sound forever, so that they 
neither felt heat, nor cold, nor no manner of pain after. But 
when the Duke of Norfolk, who was then the general, under- 
stood how the people did die, and that of small wounds, he 27 
sent for me and certain other surgeons, commanding us to make 
search how these men came to their death : whether it were by 
the grievousness of their wounds, or by the lack of knowledge of 
their surgeons. And we, according to our commandment, made 
search through all the camp, and found many of the same good 
fellows which took upon them the name of surgeons. Not only 
the names, but the wages also. We, asking of them whether 
they were surgeons or no, they said they were. We demanded 
with whom they were brought up, and they, with shameless 
face, would answer, either with one cunning man or another 
who was dead. Then we demanded of them what chirurgery 
stuff they had to cure men withal; and they would show us a 
pot or a box, which they had in a budget, wherein was such 
trumpery as they did use to grease horses' heels, and laid upon 
scabbed horses' backs ; and others that were tinkers and cob- 
blers ; they used shoemaker's wax, with the rust of old pans, 
and made therewithal a noble salve, as they did term it. But, 
in the end, this worthy rabblement was committed to the 
Marshalsea, and threatened by the duke's grace to be hanged 
for their worthy deeds, except they would declare the truth 
what they were, and of what occupation ; and in the end they 
did confess, as I have declared to you before." This is the 
record of the first medical examining board of which there is 
account, and the army was well rid of its charlatans. But that 
the general public also suffered much at this period is evident 
from Burton, who writes that there are " in every village so 
many mountebanks, empirics, quacksalvers, Paracelcians, as 
they called themselves (caucifici et so Clenard terms 
them), wizards, alchemists, poor vicars, cast apothecaries, 
physicians' men, barbers, and good wives professing great skill, 
that I make great doubt how they shall be maintained, or who 
shall be their patients. Besides, there are so many of both 
sorts, and some of them such harpies-so covetous, so clamor- 
ous, so impudent; and as he said, such litigious idiots, that 
they cannot well tell how to live one by another; but as he 
jested in the Comedy of Clocks, they were so many {Major 
jars jo-puli arida rejtant fame) they are almost starved, and 
ready to devour their fellows {et noxia calliditate se corrijere) ; 
such a multitude of pettifoggers and empirics, such imposters, 28 
that an honest man knows not in what sort to compose and 
behave himself in their society, to carry himself with credit in 
so vile a rout." 
The pages of history glow with accounts of the exploits of 
particular charlatans, but singularly enough, although a large 
proportion of the human family seem to love dearly to be hum- 
bugged, they seldom like to mention it after they have experi- 
enced the consequences of their folly. One of the most noted 
quacks of the last century was a certain Dr. Graham, who was 
a graduate of Edinburgh, and settled in London in 1782. 
Practice opened very slowly for the doctor, and he established 
himself in a Pall Mall mansion, which he named the " Temple 
of Health !" He covered the front of the building with emblems 
of Hygeia and an enormous gilt sun. The interior rooms were 
superbly furnished; the walls were covered with mirrors; 
there were candelabra with gilded and tinsel mountings ; birds 
sang in unexpected corners ; rare plants lent their fragrance to 
the air; and the enchanted palaces of the East were sought to 
be reproduced. Here this interesting person delivered lec- 
tures on health and procreation at the rather extravagant price 
of two guineas each. This price, together with the novelty of 
his subject " and the elegance of his apartments," drew together 
large audiences of the wealthy and dissipated class. " He en- 
tertained a female of beautiful figure, whom he called the god- 
dess of health, and it was her business to deliver a concluding 
discourse. As a further means of attraction, Dr. Graham hired 
two giants, provided with enormous cocked hats and with 
showy and bulky liveries, whose business it was to distribute 
bills from house to house. But his two-guinea auditors be- 
came exhausted and he dropped the price of his lectures to one 
guinea, one-half guinea, five shillings, and finally, for the ben- 
efit of all, to half a crown, and when this failed he exhibited 
the " temple " itself. This talented individual also discovered 
an elixir of life, whereby a person taking might live as long as 
he pleased, and he demanded £1,000 for the supply of it, and 
more than one nobleman paid the price. These barefaced 
swindles after a time became known, and he had resort to 
earth or mud bathing. As before he commenced his exhibi- 
tions at a guinea, and finally descended to a shilling. Both he 29 
and the " goddess " allowed themselves to be exhibited while 
immersed in earth to the chin ; their hair was powdered and 
dressed in the best fashion of the times. In conclusion, our 
veracious chronicler states that the doctor lost his money, and 
" died at the early age of fifty-two, despite his elixir of life."* 
A faithful record of the comings and goings of this class of 
mountebanks, even in our day and in American cities, would 
prove to be very amusing reading. 
But let us return to the variations proper-passing the so- 
called " eclectic conciliators," founded by Sennertus and the 
" mathematical school" of Borelli-let us consider a curious 
delusion that at one time prevailed in the United States and ex- 
tended to Europe. This delusion was Perkinsism. It took its 
name from a Dr. Perkins, of Connecticut, who found the prac- 
tice of medicine but dull work, and therefore abandoned it. 
He began to raise mules for the East Indian market, but the 
demand fell off and he retired from that business also. While 
in retirement he invented the metallic tractors.f One of these 
tractors (which were made something like the electrodes of an 
ordinary galvanic battery) was made of brass and the other of 
iron, and they were used by drawing the ends of the tractors 
in parallel lines over the surface of the body. The late Dr. 
Frank H. Hamilton, of New York, had a pair of these trac- 
tors presented him by a member of the Perkins family, but the 
good lady confessed at the time that the virtue had gone out of 
them. Perkins published notices of his tractors, which sold at 
$20 per pair, and his dupes exceeded his most sanguine expec- 
tations. Hundreds purchased them and sounded their praises ; 
the clergy were furnished tractors gratis, and gave certificates. 
America and the State of Connecticut proved too contracted to 
contain this man of genius, who exhibited his tractors in Co- 
penhagen, and then opened a hospital in London. In the lat- 
ter city his pecuniary success was immediate, but being severely 
criticised by the profession, he employed Peter G. Fessenden, 
of Vermont, to write an attack on his critics. This poem, en- 
titled " Terrible Tractoration," is a severe satire on the London 
Anecdotes, or Ana of Medical Literature. London, 
i 825. 
t F. II. Hamilton, Conversations on Medical Ethics, New York, 1884. 30 
profession, and was an exceedingly witty production. He was 
finally exposed by Dr. Hogarth, of Bristol, and was obliged to 
leave London. Shortly after his return to America he died of 
yellow fever. In the meantime there had sprung up in Amer- 
ica a new variation known as Thompsonianism. This was the 
invention of an impecunious, uneducated, but probably honest, 
citizen of Western New York, named Samuel Thompson. 
He claimed to originate the " theory " of the elements of man, 
that he was composed of four elements, earth, air, fire, and 
water, and that disease was " animal heat confined." He pub- 
lished a work on medicine, and his followers were found every- 
where. His book abounds in curiosities; for instance, his 
opening remark on the subject of carbuncles is unique : " The 
carbuncle is a large bile," and of furuncles he says, " The bile 
is a distressing visitor." Thompson secured a patent on his 
" system," and his followers paid for the right to use it in their 
own families. We have had one other set of indigenous pre- 
tenders, some of whom still live. But America was now tired 
of home quacks ; it sighed for the genuine imported article ; as 
the supply is always in proportion to the demand, homoeopathy, 
hydropathy, mesmerism, clairvoyance, and phrenology came 
in a single cargo.* 
Samuel Hahnemann was born at Miessen, near Dres- 
den, in 1755. His father was a china painter, but young 
Hahnemann preferred letters, and began the study of medi- 
cine at Leipsic, and finally was graduated in Vienna in 
1784. Hahnemann became the founder of a sect whom he 
named homoeopathists, a sect which, while at present some- 
what numerous in America, has almost died out in Europe. 
Hahnemann claimed for his " system" that it required the ad- 
ministration of a single remedy at a time, and in infinitesimal 
doses. He set forth as the prominent dogma of his sect, the 
alleged law similia similibus curantur; namely, the paradox 
that diseases are cured by medicines which produce upon the 
human body symptoms resembling those of the disease. It is 
said that his views on this subject were produced by his having 
taken quinine to cure an ague, and, finding himself afterward 
with a chill and fever, he assumed that the quinine caused it. 
* F. H. Hamilton, loc. cit. 31 
It is now believed that quinine simply acts as a poison to the 
minute organism producing the disease. Hahnemann was 
fortunate in choosing a spirituelle theory of attenuation, for the 
hypothesis of similars has long since gone. The Hahnemann- 
istsare now divided into about three classes : I. Pure " homoeop- 
athists," who believe that the "law" of similars is the only 
therapeutic law, and that high dilutions and triturations, which 
have been properly dynamized, constitute the only medicines 
propel- to be used. 2. Those who believe the law of similars 
the ouly law, but use either high or low dilutions. 3. Those 
who believe that the law of similars is not universal, although 
a law, and consequently, use high and low dilutions, and occa- 
sionally doses of the crude drugs.* To which might be added 
that large and growing class that make use of concentrated 
remedies in the same doses as that laid down by the regulai 
faculty. These concentrations are now put up in such form as 
to be indistinguishable from the true Hahnemannic pellet. As 
our time is growing short, I will not take up your time by con- 
sidering in detail these different tenets ; but before dropping the 
subject, let us pass to the question of attenuation. This is the 
true Hahnemann gospel. It is, in brief, that the more a medi- 
cine is diluted the more powerful it becomes. That medicines 
have a peculiar " dynamic" property imparted to them by the 
process of dilution, agitation, and trituration. This theory is 
the outcome of the necessity for explaining the alleged poten- 
cies. It is altogether spiritual and immaterial, and I am 
bound to say that I have usually found those persons entertain- 
ing the religious views known as spiritualism were Hahne- 
mannists. Homoeopathy seems now bound to succumb in its 
turn to that other heresy, mind-curing. 
And here we will take our leave of this subject which, owing 
to the limitations of time allotted to this address, has necessarily 
been merely glanced at, and, in closing, urge upon you to be 
always true, to obey the code of ethics, which teaches the golden 
rule to do unto others as you would have them do unto you ; 
to love your country, and respect the law. And, finally, do not 
let anybody apply to you the term " allopathist," which was in- 
* Medical Heresies. By Dr. G. C. Smythe, Philadelphia, 1880. vented by Hahnemann to plague the regular faculty. And now, 
gentlemen, your collegiate course is completed, and the faculty 
look with pleasure upon the record you leave of your student 
life, and, although our relations as teacher and pupil are thus 
pleasantly ended, we can but linger over the farewell. 
32 
FINIS.