The Caldwell tribune. [volume] (Caldwell, Idaho Territory [Idaho]) 1883-1928, 1916-05-19
x = < X x X x X X X X X K X
= A HISTORY OF MEDICINE K
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An exhibit pertaining to medicine
and its history is located on the north
gallery of the east Court of the Nation
al Museum Building, at Washington,
devoted to American history and in
dustrial arts. According to its MANY
descriptive and instructive labels, the
theory of disease seems to have been
studied from time immemorial and at
tributed to MANY and diverse causes.
In primitive times disease was held
to be malevolent spirit, assuming an
innate or inanimate material form and
attacking the victim either with or
without provocation. Some of the
savages and half civilized tribes be-
lieved that this spirit acted at the sug-
gestion OF human enemies possessed
OF supernatural powers, thus allyiny it
with sorcery, witchcraft, and conjury,
although other tribes supposed that
disease was caused by offended spirits
of the dead.
Egyptian medicine is the earliest of
which we have a written record; it
dates as far back as. 1850 B. c. In its
prehistoric stage it was doubtless
founded on superstition and practised
by magic arts, but in its earliest his
toric period the sick were taken to the
market place where all who passed
by and had suffered or seen a similar
malady might lend their advice. Later
more orderly systems were evolved
tor the treatment of the sick. Herodo-
tus being prominent in the reforms,
but Egyptian medicine vanished before
the Greek system soon after the adj
mission of the Greeks into Egypt in
the latter part of the fourth century
B. C.
Greek medicine in its primitive per-
iod is mostly mythical, beginning with
with Melampus in about 400 B. c. and
ending with Hippocrates 400 B. C.
The most prominent character was
Aesculapius, reputed son of Apollo
and Cononis, and worshipped as the
god of medicine by both Greeks and
Romans. The philosophic period be-
gan with the doctrines of Hippocrates.
believed to be the seventeenth in de-
scent from Aesculapius, and known as
the father of medicine; he separated
medicine from priestcraft, abolished
charms, incantations and all forms of
mysticism and pretense, teaching that
disease was a process governed BY
natural laws and yielding to treat
ments found by studying symptoms.
A copy of the Hippocratic oath sworn
to by all the pupils of Hippocrates in
about 440 B. c. is exhibited.
Ancient Beliefs Persist.
Among the ancient beliefs which
still persist in some sections is the
idea that disease is due to the influence
OF an offended deity. Astrologists
once maintained that disease was cans
ed by the influence of the planets and
other heavenly bodies and strangely
enough this idea persisted in Europe
until the 18th century. In China the
two controlling principles of life, win"
and "yung," representative of heat and
moisture or male and female, were
supposed to control disease, a similar
belief being followed in Persia. Other
beliefs relative to the theory of disease
include the old doctrine of "humors"
based upon the relative proportions
and distributions of the fluids of the
body. such as blood, phlegm and bile,
Hippocrates and Galen being disciples
OF TINS school; anatomic theory, estab-
iished by Asclepias or Aesculapius and
followed by the "Solidists" or Meth
odists; the vitalistic belief based upon
the abnormal action of the dynamic Or
vital force; the "Empiricists," who
considered disease only with resnect
to the symptoms" regardless of the
causes, and the modern belief that var
ious and complex notifications of
normal structure and function, result