A History of Magic and Experimental Science, Volume 1 (of 2) by Lynn Thorndike

[548] For the statements of this paragraph see Kühn, XIV, 603-5, 620-23. [549] Kühn, X, 114. [550] Kühn, XIV, 599-600. [551] Kühn, X, 1, 76. [552] Kühn, X, 609. [553] Kühn, X, 4-5. [554] Kühn, X, 10. [555] Kühn, XII, 909, 916, and in vol. XIV the entire treatise _De remediis parabilibus_. [556] Kühn, X, 560. [557] Kühn, X, 1010-11. [558] Kühn, XIII, 571-72. [559] Kühn, XIV, 62, and see Puschmann, _History of Medical Education_ (1891), p. 108. [560] Kühn, XIV, 10, 30, 79; and see Puschmann (1891), 109-11, where there is bibliography of the subject. [561] Kühn, X, 792. [562] Kühn, XIV, 26. [563] The meaning of the word “apothecary” is explained as follows in a fourteenth century manuscript at Chartres which is a miscellany of religious treatises with a bestiary and lapidary and bears the title, “Apothecarius moralis monasterii S. Petri Carnotensis.” “Apothecarius est, secundum Hugucium, qui nonnullas diversarum rerum species in apothecis suis aggregat.. .. Apothecarius dicitur is qui species aromaticas et res quacunque arti medicine et cirurgie necessarias habet penes se et venales exponit,” fol. 3. “According to Hugutius an apothecary is one who collects samples of various commodities in his stores. An apothecary is called one who has at hand and exposes for sale aromatic species and all sorts of things needful in medicine and surgery.” [564] The nest of the fabled cinnamon bird was supposed to contain supplies of the spice, which Herodotus (III, 111) tells us the Arabian merchants procured by leaving heavy pieces of flesh for the birds to carry to their nests, which then broke down under the excessive weight. In Aristotle’s _History of Animals_ (IX, 13) the nests are shot down with arrows tipped with lead. For other allusions to the cinnamon bird in classical literature see D’Arcy W. Thompson, _A Glossary of Greek Birds_, Oxford, 1895, p. 82. [565] Kühn, XIV, 64-66. [566] _Ad Pisonem de theriaca_, Kühn, XIV, 217. [567] Kühn, XIII, 704. [568] Kühn, XII, 168-78. [569] M. Berthelot, “Sur les voyages de Galien et de Zosime dans l’Archipel et en Asie, et sur la matière médicale dans l’antiquité,” in _Journal des Savants_ (1895), pp. 382-7. The article is chiefly devoted to showing that an alchemistic treatise attributed to Zosimus copies Galen’s account of his trips to Lemnos and Cyprus. Of such future copying of Galen we shall encounter many more instances. As for the _terra sigillata_, C. J. S. Thompson, in a paper on “Terra Sigillata, a famous medicament of ancient times,” published in the _Proceedings of the Seventeenth International Congress of Medical Sciences_, London, 1913, Section XXIII, pp. 433-44, tells of various medieval substitutes for the Lemnian earth from other places, and of the interesting religious ceremony, performed in the presence of the Turkish officials on only one day in the year by Greek monks who had replaced the priestess of Diana. Pierre Belon witnessed it on August 6th, 1533. By that time there were many varieties of the tablets, “because each lord of Lemnos had a distinct seal.” When Tozer visited Lemnos in 1890 the ceremony was still performed annually on August sixth and must be completed before sunrise or the earth would lose its efficacy. Mohammedan khodjas now shared in the religious ceremony, sacrificing a lamb. But in the twentieth century the entire ceremony was abandoned. Through the early modern centuries the _terra sigillata_ continued to be held in high esteem in western Europe also, and was included in pharmacopeias as late as 1833 and 1848. Thompson gives a chemical analysis of a sixteenth century tablet of the Lemnian earth and finds no evidence therein of its possessing any medicinal property. Agricola in the sixteenth century wrote in his work on mining (_De re metal._, ed. Hoover, 1912, II, 31), “It is, however, very little to be wondered at that the hill in the Island of Lemnos was excavated, for the whole is of a reddish-yellow color which furnishes for the inhabitants that valuable clay so especially beneficial to mankind.” [570] Kühn, XIV, 72. [571] Kühn, XII, 226-9. See the article of Berthelot just cited in a preceding note for an explanation of the three names and of Galen’s experience. Mr. Hoover, in his translation of Agricola’s work on metallurgy (1912), pp. 573-4, says, “It is desirable here to enquire into the nature of the substances given by all of the old mineralogists under the Latinized Greek terms, chalcitis, misy, sory, and melanteria.” He cites Dioscorides (V, 75-77) and Pliny (NH, XXXIV, 29-31) on the subject, but not Galen. Yule (1903) I, 126, notes that Marco Polo’s account of _Tutia_ and _Spodium_ “reads almost like a condensed translation of Galen’s account of _Pompholyx_ and _Spodos_.” [572] Kühn, XIV, 7-8; XIII, 411-2; XII, 215-6. [573] Kühn, XIV, 22-23, 77-78; XIII, 119. [574] Kühn, XIV, 255-56. The beasts of course were also in demand for the arena. [575] Kühn, X, 456-57, opening passage of the seventh book. [576] περὶ τῶν ἰδίων βιβλίων, Kühn, XIX, 8ff.; and περὶ τῆς τάξεως τῶν ἰδίων βιβλίων, XIX, 49 ff. [577] See, for instance, in the _De methodo medendi_ itself, X, 895-96 and 955. [578] Kühn, XIV, 651: henceforth this text will generally be cited without name. [579] XIX, 8. [580] II, 217. [581] XIX, 9. [582] XIX, 41. [583] II, 283. [584] XIV, 630. [585] XIX, 34. [586] XV, 109. [587] XIII, 995-96; XIV, 31-32. [588] X, 633. Duruy refers to the passage in his _History of Rome_ (ed. J. P. Mahaffy, Boston, 1886, V, i, 273), but says, “Extensive sanitary works were undertaken throughout all Italy, and the celebrated Galen, who was almost a contemporary, extols their happy effects upon the public health.” But Galen does not have sanitary considerations especially in mind, since he mentions Trajan’s road-building only by way of illustration, comparing his own systematic treatment of medicine to the emperor’s great work in repairing and improving the roads, straightening them by cut-offs that saved distance, but sometimes abandoning an old road that went straight over hills for an easier route that avoided them, filling in wet and marshy spots with stone or crossing them by causeways, bridging impassable rivers, and altering routes that led through places now deserted and beset by wild beasts so that they would pass through populous towns and more frequented areas. The passage thus bears witness to a shifting of population. [589] V, 49. [590] V, 17-19. [591] Mentioned in _Acts_, xviii, 18, “ ... having shorn his head in Cenchrea: for he had a vow.” [592] V, 46-47. [593] X, 3-4. [594] X, 831-36; XIII, 513; XIV, 27-29, and 14-19 on the heating and storage of wine. [595] IV, 777-79. [596] Similarly Milward (1733), p. 102, wrote of Alexander of Tralles, “He has in most distempers a separate article concerning wine and I much doubt whether there be in all nature a more excellent medicine than this in the hands of a skillful and judicious practitioner.” [597] IV, 821. [598] Kühn, VIII, 579, ὡς εἰς Μωϋσοῦ καὶ Χριστοῦ διατριβὴν ἀφιγμένος νόμων ἀναποδεἍκίτων ἀκούη [599] _Ibid._, p. 657, θᾶττον γὰρ ἄν τις τοὺς ἀπὸ Μωϋσοῦ καὶ Χριστοῦ μεταδιδάξειεν I have been unable to find a passage in which, according to Moses Maimonides of the twelfth century in his _Aphorisms_ from Galen, Galen said that the wealthy physicians and philosophers of his time were not prepared for discipline as were the followers of Moses and Christ. Perhaps it is a mistranslation of one of the above passages. Particula 24 (56), “medici et philosophi cum aere augmentati non sunt preparati ad disciplinam sicut parati fuerunt ad disciplinam moysis et christi socii predictorum. decimotercio megapulsus.” [600] Kühn, III, 905-7. [601] Kühn, XI, 690-4; XII, 372-5. [602] Finlayson (1895); pp. 8-9; Harnack, _Medicinisches aus der ältesten Kirchengeschichte_, Leipzig, 1892. [603] Wellmann (1914), p. 16 note. [604] Kühn, IV, 816. [605] Kühn, IV, 815. [606] Quoted by Eusebius, V, 28, and reproduced by Harnack, _Medicinisches aus der ältesten Kirchengeschichte_, 1892, p. 41, and by Finlayson (1895), pp. 9-10. [607] Kühn, X, 16-17. J. Leminne, _Les quatre éléments_, in _Mémoires couronnés par l’Académie de Belgique_, vol. 65, Brussels, 1903, traces the influence of the theory in medieval thought. [608] Kuhn, XIII, 763-4. [609] Kühn, I, 428. [610] Kühn, X, 111. [611] Kühn, XII, 166. [612] I, 417. [613] XIV, 250-53. [614] XIII, 948. [615] X, 657. [616] X, 872. [617] XIX, 344-45. [618] More recently Galen’s _Materia medica_ has been treated of in a German doctoral dissertation by L. Israelson, _Die materia medica des Klaudios Galenos_, 1894, 204 pp. [619] X, 624. [620] XIV, 253-54. [621] V, 911. [622] X, 817-19. [623] X, 843. [624] XIV, 281. [625] XII, 270-71. [626] X, 368-71. [627] Kühn, VIII, 363. Finlayson (1895), pp. 39-40, gives an English translation of Galen’s full account of the case. [628] Puschmann (1891), pp. 105-6. Vitruvius, too, however (V, iii), states that sound spreads in waves like eddies in a pond. [629] XIII, 435, 893, are two instances. [630] V, 80; XIV, 670. [631] Various treatises on the pulse by Galen will be found in vols. V, IX, and X of Kühn’s edition. [632] Galen’s contributions to the arts of clock-making and time-keeping have been dealt with in an article which I have not had access to and of which I cannot now find even the author and title. [633] XIV, 631-34. [634] C. V. Daremberg, _Exposition des connaissances de Galien sur l’anatomie, la physiologie, et la pathologie du système nerveux_, Paris, 1841. J. S. Milne discussed “Galen’s Knowledge of Muscular Anatomy” at the International Congress of Medical Sciences held at London in 1913; see pp. 389-400 of the volume devoted to the history of medicine, Section XXIII. [635] _Lancet_ (1896), p. 1139. [636] I have failed to obtain K. F. H. Mark, _Herophilus, ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Medizin_, Carlsruhe, 1838. [637] D’Arcy W. Thompson (1913), 22-23, thinks that the precedence of the heart over all other organs in appearing in the embryo of the chick led Aristotle to locate in it the central seat of the soul. [638] XIV, 626-30. [639] II, 683, 696. This and the other quotations in this paragraph are from Dr. Payne’s Harveian Oration as printed in _The Lancet_ (1896), pp. 1137-39. [640] Kühn, V, 216, cited by Payne. [641] Kühn, II, 642-49; IV, 703-36, “An in arteriis natura sanguis contineatur.” J. Kidd, _A Cursory Analysis of the Works of Galen so far as they relate to Anatomy and Physiology_, in _Transactions of the Provincial Medical and Surgical Association_, VI (1837), 299-336. [642] _Lancet_ (1896), p. 1137, where Payne states that Colombo (_De re anatomica_, Venet. 1559, XIV, 261) was the first to prove by experiment on the living heart that these veins conveyed blood from the lungs. [643] II, 146-47. [644] II, 384-86. [645] II, 220-21. [646] Augustine testifies in two passages of his _De anima et eius origine_ (Migne PL 44, 475-548), that vivisection of human beings was practiced as late as his time, the early fifth century: IV, 3, “Medici tamen qui appellantur anatomici per membra per venas per nervos per ossa per medullas per interiora vitalia etiam vivos homines quamdiu inter manus rimantium vivere potuerunt dissiciendo scrutati sunt ut naturam corporis nossent”; and IV, 6 (Migne, PL 44, 528-9). [647] II, 537. [648] II, 619-20. [649] II, 701. [650] II, 631 ff. [651] XIII, 599-600. Galen states that the pontifex’s term of office was seven months, a fact which perhaps had some astrological bearing. [652] X, 454-55. [653] II, 682. [654] II, 291. [655] IV, 360, _et passim_. [656] IV, 687. [657] IV, 694, 696. [658] IV, 688. [659] IV, 700. [660] IV, 692; II, 537. Others contend, he says (IV, 693), that one soul constructs the parts and another soul incites them to voluntary motion. [661] IV, 701. [662] II, 28. [663] XVIII B, 17ff. [664] _De usu partium_, XI, 14 (Kühn, III, 905-7). The passage seems to me an integral part of the work and not a later interpolation. Moses Maimonides in the twelfth century took exception at some length, in the 25th _Particula_ of his _Aphorisms_ from Galen, to this criticism of his national law-giver. [665] IV, 513; see also II, 55, ὡς ἔγωγε πρῶτον μὲν ἀκούσας τὸ γινόμενον, ἐθαύμασα καὶ αὐτὸς ἐβουλήθην αὐτόπτης αὐτοῦ καταστῆναι. [666] X, 608; XIII, 887-88. [667] XIII, 964. [668] II, 136; X, 385; XII, 311; he credited Plato with the same attitude, see II, 581. [669] II, 659-60. [670] XII, 446. [671] II, 141, 179. [672] II, 179; X, 609. [673] II, 621. [674] XIII, 891. [675] XIII, 430-31. [676] XIII, 717. [677] XI, 794; also XIII, 658; XIV, 61-62, and many other passages of the _Antidotes_. [678] XII, 203. Pliny, NH XXXVI, 34, makes the same statement as Dioscorides. [679] XII, 272. [680] Pliny, NH XXVIII, 35, however, both tells how butter is made and of its use as food among the barbarians. [681] X, 40-41. [682] X, 127, 962. [683] X, 31. [684] X, 29. [685] X, 668. [686] X, 123. [687] X, 915-16. [688] I, 75-76; XIV, 367. [689] I, 145; II, 41-43; X, 30-31, 782-83; XIII, 188, 366, 375, 463, 579, 594, 892; XIV, 245, 679. [690] X, 159. [691] XIV, 675-76. [692] I, 144-55. [693] XVI, 82. [694] I, 135. [695] XIV, 680. [696] I, 131. [697] I, 134. [698] XVI, 82. [699] II, 288. [700] IX, 842; XIII, 887. [701] XIII, 116-17. [702] X, 28-29. [703] X, 684. [704] X, 454-55. [705] XI, 420. [706] XI, 434-35. [707] XI, 456. [708] XII, 246. [709] XII, 336. [710] XII, 365. [711] XII, 258, 262, 269, 331. [712] XII, 334. [713] VI, 453-55. [714] XIII, 463. [715] XII, 895. [716] XIV, 222. [717] XIII, 700-701. [718] XIII, 706-707. [719] XIII, 467. [720] XIII, 867. [721] XII, 392-93, 884; XIII, 116-17, 123, 125, 128-29, 354, 485, 502-503, 582, 656. [722] XII, 968, 988. [723] See XII, 988; XIII, 960-61; XIV, 12, 60, 341. [724] XIV, 82. [725] XIII, 570. [726] XII, 350. [727] XVI, 86-87; XI, 518. [728] XI, 485. [729] XVI, 85. [730] IX, 842. [731] II, 206. [732] I, 138. [733] XVI, 80. [734] There would seem to be something wrong, at least with its arrangement as it now stands, for the first book ends (XIV, 389) with the words, “This my fourth book, O Glaucon, ends thus. If it has been useful to you, you will readily follow what I’ve written to Salomon the archiater.” But then the present second book opens with the words (XIV, 390), “Since you’ve asked me to write you about easily procurable remedies, O dearest Solon,” and goes on to say that the author will state what he has learned from experience beginning with the hair and closing with the feet. [735] XIV, 378. [736] XIV, 462. [737] XIV, 534. [738] XI, 205. [739] John of St. Amand, _Expositio in Antidotarium Nicolai_, fol. 231, in _Mesuae medici clarissimi opera_, Venice, 1568. Pietro d’Abano, _Conciliator_, Venice, 1526, Diff. X, fol. 15; Diff. LX, fol. 83. Arnald of Villanova, _Repetitio super Canon “Vita brevis,”_ fol. 276, in his _Opera_, Lyons, 1532. [740] Gilbertus Anglicus, _Compendium medicinae_, Lyons, 1510, fol. 328v., “Experimenta ex libro experimentorum Gal. experta.” [741] In his _Expositio in Antidotarium Nicolai_, as cited above (note 5). [742] J. L. Pagel, _Die Concordanciae des Johannes de Sancto Amando_, Berlin, 1894, pp. 102-104. John also wrote commentaries on Galen, (_Histoire Littéraire de la France_, XXI, 263-65). [743] ed. Lyons, 1515, fols. 19v-2Ov. [744] Berlin, 902, 14th century, fol. 175; Berlin 903, 1342 A. D., fol. 2. [745] Boncompagni (1851), pp. 3-4. [746] Moses ben Maimon, _Aphorisms_, 1489. “Incipiunt aphorismi excellentissimi Raby Moyses secundum doctrinam Galieni medicorum principis ... collegi eos ex verbis Galieni de omnibus libris suis.... Et ego protuli super his afforismis quedam dicta que circumspexi et ea meo nomine nominavi et similiter protuli aliquos aphorismos aliquorum modernorum quos denominavi eorum nomine.” [747] Ed. C. V. Daremberg, _Notices et Extraits des manuscrits médicaux_, 1853, pp. 44-47, Greek text; pp. 229-33, French translation. [748] Garrison, _History of Medicine_, 2nd edition, 1917, p. 141. But at p. 151 Garrison would seem mistaken in stating that Gentile died in 1348, for in the MS of which I shall speak in the next footnote his treatise on critical days is dated back in the year 1362: “Tractatus de enumeratione dierum creticorum m’i Gentilis anni 1362,” at fol. 125; while at fol. 162 we read, “Explicit questio ... m’i Zentilis anno Domini 1359 de mense marcii, et scripta Pisis de mense octobris 1359.” It is possible but rather unlikely that the dates later than 1348 refer to the labors of copyists. Venetian MSS contain not only a _De reductione medicinarum ad actum_ by Gentile, written at Perugia in April, 1342 (S. Marco, XIV, 7, 14th century, fols. 44-48); but also “Suggestions concerning the pestilence which was at Genoa in 1348,” by him (S. Marco, XIV, 26, 15th century, fols. 99-100, consilia de peste quae fuit Ianuae anno 1348). Valentinelli’s catalogue of the MSS in the Library of St. Mark’s does not help, however, to clear up the question when Gentile died, since in one place (IV, 235) Valentinelli assures us that he died at Bologna in 1310, and in another place (V, 19) says that he died at Perugia in 1348. [749] Cortona 110, early years of 15th century, fol. 128, Rationes Gentilis contra Galenum in quinto aphorismi. This MS contains several other works by Gentile da Foligno. [750] XIV, 601. [751] XIV, 605. [752] XIV, 615. [753] XIV, 625. [754] XIV, 655. [755] I, 54-55. [756] XII, 263. [757] XII, 306. [758] XII, 307. [759] XI, 792-93. [760] XII, 283. [761] XII, 251-53. [762] IV, 688. [763] _Natural History_, XXVIII, 2. [764] XII, 248, 284-85, 290. [765] XII, 293. [766] XIV, 255. (_To Piso on theriac._) [767] XII, 291-92. [768] XII, 298. [769] XII, 304. [770] XII, 342. [771] XII, 276-77. [772] XII, 367-69. [773] XIII, 949-50, 954-55. [774] XII, 343. These form the titles of four successive chapters, _De simplic._, XI, i, caps. 19-22. [775] XII, 359, 942-43, 977. [776] XII, 856. [777] XII, 860. [778] XII, 360. [779] XII, 366-67. [780] XII, 335. [781] A fact which—one cannot help remarking—considering the character of most ancient remedies for hydrophobia, only tends to make their recovery seem the more marvelous. [782] XIV, 233. [783] XII, 250-51. [784] XIV, 224-25. [785] II, 45-48. [786] XII, 358-59. Concerning the virtue of river crabs we may also quote from a story told in Nias Island, west of Sumatra: “for had he only eaten river crabs, men would have cast their skin like crabs, and so, renewing their youth perpetually, would never have died.”—From J. G. Frazer (1918), I, 67. The belief that the serpent annually changes its skin and renews its youth may account for the virtues ascribed to the flesh of vipers and to theriac in the following paragraphs. [787] περὶ τῶν ἰδιότητι τῆς ὅλης οὐσίας ἐνεργοῦντων. [788] IV, 760-61, ἐνεργεῖν τὰς οὐσίας κατ’ ἰδίαν ἑκάστην φύσιν. [789] XII, 311-15. [790] _Ad Pisonem de theriaca_; _De theriaca ad Pamphilianum_. [791] XIV, 2-3. [792] XIV, 217. [793] XIV, 271-80. [794] XIV, 283. [795] XIV, 294. [796] XII, 317-18; XIV, 45-46, 238. [797] XIV, 238-39. [798] XIII, 371, 374. [799] XIII, 134. [800] XIII, 242. [801] XI, 859. [802] XII, 573; see also XIII, 256. [803] XI, 860. [804] XII, 295-96. [805] XII, 207. [806] A representation of the Agathodaemon; see C. W. King, _The Gnostics and their Remains_, London, 1887, p. 220. [807] XII, 288-89. At II, 163, Galen again accepts the notion that human saliva is fatal to scorpions. [808] XIV, 321. [809] XIV, 349. [810] XIV, 386-87. [811] XIV, 343. [812] XIV, 413. [813] XIV, 427. [814] XIV, 430. [815] XIV, 471. [816] XIV, 472. [817] XIV, 476. And others, “Ut ne cui penis arrigi possit,” and “Ad arrectionem pudendi.” [818] “The _Psoranthea bituminosa_ of Linnaeus. It is found on declivities near the sea-coast in the south of Europe,” says a note in Bostock and Riley’s _The Natural History of Pliny_ (Bohn Library), IV,