Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1899-11-25
FOLLOWEDQUEER METHODS
Curious Practices Of Doctors Who Flourished
in the Sixteenth Century.
Oscillations From Bodies of Crimt-
mails Tsed az Medicincs-One Way
to Cure Commissions.
From the Cincinnati Enquirer.

From the Cincinnati Enquirer.
a fragment of curious volume has fall
len into the hands Of a local physician
which graphically describes the methods Of
surgery of several centuries ago. When it
is considered that anaesthetics were I'M
known in those ancient days, the modus
operan1i of the surgeon of the sixteenth
century must appear startlingly cruel in the
light Of the present day.
The work is that of Ambrose Parey. who,
in 1919, being then the much famous
"chirurgion' of his day, published a bulky
volume which became such an established
authority and held its place for so long
time that seventy years afterward it was
translated into English and published in
London.
In his first book he considers the general
phenomenon of the body in health and dis
ease, and in the chapter relating to temper
amcnts and humors he writes: An humOr
is called by physicians what thing soever is
liquid and flowing in the body Of living
creatures inclosed with blood" Proceed
ing TO the manifold divisions of humOrS,
he separates them into four parts. distinct
in color, taste, effects and qualities, namely,
blood, phiegm, choler and melancholy. EX-
act in his subdivisions, he says: 'All men
ought to think that such humors are wont
to move at set hours of the day by
certain peculiar motion Of tide. Therefore,
the blood flows from the ninth hour Of the
night 10 the tnlfG DOur OF the
day; choler to the ninth of the day. Then
melancholy the blood flows from the niu,h
hour of the night is under the dominion of
phlegm.
Equally curious is the following on spirits.
which he divides into ANIMAL" VITAL
and ''naturall:"
The animal spirit hath taken his seat in
the brain. 1t IS called animal because it is
the life, but the chief and prime instrument
| thereof. Wherefore it hath a most sub lie
and aery substance. This animal spirit is
made and harbOred in the Windings and
| fOidingS of the veins and arteries of the
brain, brought thither sometimes of the
| pure air or sweet vapOr drawn in by the
nose in breathing. The vital spirit is next
| TO 1t in dignity and eXCelency, which hath
| Its chief mansion in the left Ventricle OF the
heart. The natural spirit, if such there be
| any, hath its station in the liver and
VEINS
| Describing certain juggling and deceltful
ways Of healing of cures by such means rs
| fear, surprise, and even by music for spider
bite, the music causing The patient to dance
| so Justify that he shakes all the poison out
OF his system he sums up some of those
heroic remedies thus: 4 would not cast the
| patient headIong out of a window. But
would rather cast tn m sCdainly, and think
| ing OF 10 such thing, INTO a great CisgcTu
| filed with cold water with their heads
! foremost; neither would / take them out
| until they had drunk a good quantity Of
| water, that by that sodain fall and strong
| rear the matter causing tn frenzy might
| be carried from above downward from the
| noble parts 10 the ignOble.
| A medicine IIrnp y2hfr1' he ,1;1,ta. a o~ya.t
usual remedy far co,,+I,sio,,s a,,I he ~
| scrihas II as fo1for-s. ''''' ~ "
| ..lIumroie ie a 6,,,or f7o,-f,,, from, III,
aromatick embalmens of dead bodies,
| ernI,t,d intn ,5 Gnu ',',' u, 60 p-tIi
eitbar in vhoIa nv IiioT - 1. 49,,
| falIo,, f bir 49,! ,ioi' +" 49, 80 d. "a, =
| ,,1;ai re - - i''a 1l ~ ~ - a''u Ia7
M ~ t'c - tiitoS1 81 "di P'aCi'IoiIeIS II
IL aisa -. Saa c,,,,,--,,,, r.,,. ,
| -1gt,I i+5 ~ -, IN, - = SoS 80 en- +,