CHAPTER I.
EGYPTIAN MEDICINE.

Antiquity of Egyptian Civilization.—Surgical Bandaging.—Gods and Goddesses of Medicine.—Medical Specialists.—Egyptians claimed to have discovered the Healing Art.—Medicine largely Theurgic.—Magic and Sorcery forbidden to the Laity.—The Embalmers.—Anatomy.—Therapeutics.—Plants in use in Ancient Egypt.—Surgery and Chemistry.—Disease-demons.—Medical Papyri.—Great Skill of Egyptian Physicians.

So far as we are able to judge from the records of the past which recent investigations have made familiar to us, the civilization of Egypt is the most ancient of which we have accurate knowledge. The contending claims of India to a higher antiquity for its civilization cannot here be discussed, and for the purposes of this work the oldest place in the civilization of the world must be assigned to Egypt.

It is highly probable that the first kingdom of Egypt existed eight thousand years back. The history of Egypt as we have it in her monuments and records is far more trustworthy than the stories which the Chinese and other ancient peoples tell of their past. Assyria, Babylonia, and ChaldÆa have histories reaching back to the twilight of the ages; but for practical purposes we must content ourselves with tracing the rise and progress of civilization as we decipher it on the banks of the Nile. So far as medicine and chemistry are concerned, we shall discover abundant matter to interest us. We require no other proof than the mummies in our museums to convince us that the Egyptians from the period at which those interesting objects date must have possessed a very accurate knowledge of anatomy, of pharmacy, and a skill in surgical bandaging very far surpassing that possessed now-a-days by even the most skilful professors of the art. Dr. Granville says: “There is not a single form of bandage known to modern surgery, of which far better and cleverer examples are not seen in the swathings of the Egyptian mummies. The strips of linen are found without one single joint, extending to 1000 yards in length.” It is said that there is not a fracture known to modern surgery which could not have been successfully treated by the priest-physicians of ancient Egypt. The great divinities of Egypt were Isis and Osiris; the former was the goddess of procreation and birth. As it was she who decreed life and death, and decided the fate of men, it is not surprising to find her the chief of the divinities of the healing art; she had proved her claims as the great chief of physicians by recalling to life her son Horus.

The Æsculapius of the Egyptians was Imhotep; he was the god of the sciences, and was the son of Ptah and Pakht. The gods of Egypt were worshipped in triads or trinities, and many of the great temples were devoted to the worship of one or other of these trinities, that of Memphis consisted of Ptah, Pakht, and Imhotep. Thoth or Tauut was similar to Imhotep; he was the god of letters, and, as the deity of wisdom, he aids Horus against Set, the representative of physical evil. By many writers he is considered to be the Egyptian Æsculapius. He has some evident relationship to the Greek Hermes. “Thoth,” says Dr. Baas (Hist. Med., p. 14), “is supposed to have been the author of the oldest Egyptian medical works, whose contents were first engraved upon pillars of stone. Subsequently collected into the book Ambre or Embre (a title based upon the initial words of this book, viz. ‘Ha em re em per em hru,’ i.e. ‘Here begins the book of the preparation of drugs for all parts of the human body’), they formed a part of the so-called ‘Hermetic Books,’ from whose prescriptions no physician might deviate, unless he was willing to expose himself to punishment in case the patient died. This punishment was threatened because the substance of the medical, as well as the religious works of the Egyptians—and the science of the priests united in itself medicine, theology, and philosophy—was given, according to their view, by the gods themselves, and a disregard of their prescriptions would be nothing less than sacrilege.” The Hermetic books, says Clement of Alexandria, were forty-two in number, of which six “of the pastophor” were medical. The famous Book of the Dead is supposed by Bunsen to have been one of the Hermetic books. The papyrus of Ebers, believed by that Egyptologist to date from the year 1500 B.C., is considered to have been of the number of the medical books of Hermes Trismegistus. The Papyrus Ebers is preserved in Leipsic, and, though at present only partially deciphered, abundantly shows the great advance already made at so distant a period as the fourth millennium before the Christian era in the arts of medicine and surgery.

One of the authors mentioned in the papyrus is an oculist of Byblos in Phoenicia. This proves not only that there were specialists in diseases of the eye at that period, but that neighbouring nations contributed of their store of scientific knowledge to enrich that of the Egyptians.

Dr. Baas informs us that this papyrus describes “remedies for diseases of the stomach, the abdomen, and the urinary bladder; for the cure of swellings of the glands in the groin (buboes) and the ‘kehn-mite’; ‘the Book of the Eyes’; remedies for ulcers of the head, for greyness of the hair, and promotion of its growth; ointments to heal and strengthen the nerves; medicines to cure diseases of the tongue, to strengthen the teeth, to remove lice and fleas; remedies for the hearing and for the organs of smell; the preparation of the famous Kyphi; ‘The Secret Book of the Physician’ (the science of the movement of the heart, and the knowledge of the heart, according to the priestly physician Nebsuchet); prescriptions for the eyes according to the views of the priest Chui, a Semite of Byblos; ‘Book of the Banishing of Pains,’ recipes for mouth-pills for women, to render the odour of the mouth agreeable; the various uses of the tequem tree, etc. The papyrus has marginal notes, like nefer (good), etc., which Lauth assigns to the year B.C. 1469—an evidence that its prescriptions had been tested in practice.”126

Osiris (who would appear to be the same deity as Apis or Serapis) and the goddess Isis, who was his wife and sister, were held by the Egyptians to have been the inventors of the medical arts. A very ancient inscription on a column says: “My father is Chronos, the youngest of all the gods. I am the king Osiris, who has been through all the earth; even to the habitable lands of the Indies, to those which are under the Bear, even to the sources of the Danube, and besides to the Ocean. I am the eldest son of Chronos, and the scion of a beautiful and noble race; I am the parent of the day, there is no part of the world where I have not been, and I have filled all the world with my benefactions.” Another column has these words: “I am Isis, queen of all this country, who has been instructed by Thoth; no one is able to unbind what I have bound; I am the eldest daughter of Chronos, the youngest of the gods. I am the wife and the sister of King Osiris. It is I who first taught mankind the art of agriculture. I am the mother of King Horus. It is I who shine in the dog-star. It is I who built the city of Bubastis. Farewell, farewell, Egypt, where I have been reared.” It appears from these inscriptions that Isis and Osiris were contemporary with Thoth or Hermes.

Diodorus says that Isis was believed by the Egyptian priests to have invented various medicines and to have been an expert practitioner of the healing art, and that she was on this account raised to the ranks of the gods, where she still takes interest in the health of mankind. She was supposed to indicate appropriate remedies for diseases in dreams, and such remedies were always efficacious, even in cases where physicians had failed to do any good.

The inscription informs us that Osiris had filled the earth with his benefactions. The Egyptian priests believed that Thoth was the inventor of the arts and sciences in general, and the king Osiris and the queen Isis invented those which were necessary to life. Isis therefore invented agriculture, and Osiris is credited with having invented medicine. Apis, who is evidently the same person as Osiris, is said by Clement of Alexandria to have discovered medicine before Io went to Egypt.

Cyril of Alexandria says that Apis was the first to invent the art of medicine, or who exercised it with more success than his predecessors, having been instructed by Æsculapius.127

Plutarch says128 that Apis and Osiris were, according to Egyptian traditions, two names of one and the same person, and this is confirmed by Strabo and Theodoret. Others say that Serapis was a third name of Osiris, though some consider that Serapis was a name of Æsculapius.

Horus, the son of Isis and Osiris, was the Egyptian sun-god, and was the same as the Apollo of the Greeks. He was born with his finger on his mouth, indicative of mystery and secrecy; and so, probably, was for this reason connected with medicine. In the mystical works of Hermes Trismegistus, he plays an important part. Diodorus attributes to Horus the invention of medicine. He says that Isis having found in the water her son Horus, who had been killed by the Titans, restored him to life and made him immortal. Diodorus adds that he was the same god as Apollo, and that he learned the arts of medicine and divination from his mother, in consequence of which instruction he had been of great service to mankind by his oracles and his remedies. It is difficult to see how on this account Horus can be considered as the inventor of medicine, a title which was surely due to his mother.

In the judgment scene in the Book of the Dead on the papyrus of Ani we have the god Thoth, under the symbol of the cynocephalus, or dog-headed ape. Anubis examines the indicator of the Balance. Before Anubis stands Destiny, behind him are Fortune and the Goddess of Birth. Above Destiny is a symbol of the cradle. The human-headed bird is the soul of the deceased. On the right of the scene, Thoth, the medicine-god and scribe of the gods (with the head of an ibis), notes the result of the trial. Behind Thoth is the monster Amemit, the devourer, with the head of a crocodile, the middle parts of a lion, and the hind-quarters of a hippopotamus. Thoth pronounces judgment: “The heart of Ani is weighed, and his soul standeth in evidence thereof; his case is straight upon the great Balance.” The gods reply, “Righteous and just is Osiris, Ani, the triumphant.”129

Eusebius, Psellus, and others say that Hermes Trismegistus was a priest and philosopher who lived a little after the time of Moses. He taught the Egyptians mathematics, theology, medicine, and geography. Of the forty-two most useful books of Hermes six treated of medicine, anatomy, and the cure of disease.130

Pliny says131 that the Egyptians claimed the honour of having invented the art of curing diseases. Wilkinson points out132 that “the study of medicine and surgery appears to have commenced at a very early period in Egypt, since Athothes, the second king of the country, is stated to have written upon the subject of anatomy, and the schools of Alexandria133 continued till a late period to enjoy the reputation and display the skill they had inherited from their predecessors. Hermes was said to have written six books on medicine, the first of which related to anatomy; and the various recipes known to have been beneficial were recorded, with their peculiar cases, in the memoirs of physic, inscribed among the laws, which were deposited in the principal temple of the place, as at Memphis in that of Ptah, or Vulcan.” We are told in Genesis l. 2 that “Joseph commanded his servants the physicians to embalm his father: and the physicians embalmed Israel.” It is not probable that the embalmers were regular practising physicians. The dissectors of the human body were not held in honour amongst the Egyptians, and for sanitary reasons it is highly improbable that doctors in attendance upon the sick would have engaged in this work; but as the art of embalming demanded considerable anatomical knowledge, it is more likely that a class of men similar to our dissecting-room assistants at the medical schools and hospitals were employed for this purpose.

The art of medicine in ancient Egypt consisted of two branches—the higher, which was the theurgic part, and the lower, which was the art of the physician proper. The theurgic class devoted themselves to magic, counteracting charms by prayers, and to the interpretation of the dreams of the sick who had sought their aid in the temples. The inferior class were practitioners who simply used natural means in their profession as healers. Amongst the Egyptian Platonists, theurgy was an imaginary science, which is thus described by Murdock: “it was supposed to have been revealed to men by the gods themselves in very ancient times, and to have been handed down by the priests; [it was] also the ability, by means of certain acts, words, and symbols, to move the gods to impart secrets which surpass the powers of reason to lay open the future.” The higher physicians were priest-magicians, the lower class were priests who were called Pastophori; as Isis and the priests were connected with the healing art, the Pastophori were highly esteemed for their medical skill apart from magic. These officials were so called from the fact that they had to bear, in the ceremonies in the temples, the past??, or sacred shawl, to raise it at appropriate times, and so discover the god in the adytum.134

It was their duty to study the last six of the Hermetic books, as it was that of the higher grade to study the first thirty-six.

Professor Ebers explained to Dr. Puschmann135 that the Pastophori “constituted a class of priests who held by no means so low a rank as is attributed to them in historical works. The doctors were bound to maintain a spiritual character, and allowed themselves therefore to rank with the Pastophori, although the higher priestly dignities probably remained open to them. On the other hand, the Pastophori were by no means likewise doctors, as many think, but had as a body quite other functions, as their name indeed indicates. The relation of the Pastophori to the doctors was doubtless the same as that of the scholar to the cleric in the Christian middle ages; all scholars did not belong to the clergy, but at the same time all clergymen might be considered scholars.”

The principle of authority was paramount in Egyptian medicine. So long as the doctor faithfully followed the instructions of the ancient exponents of his art, he could do as he liked with his patient; but if he struck out a path for himself, and his patient unhappily died, he forfeited his own life. Diodorus Siculus leads us to suppose that the physicians formed their diagnosis according to the position occupied by the patient in his bed. This is singularly like the method of diagnosing diseases in use amongst the ancient Hindus. Medicine in Egypt, after all, was only an art; the absurd reverence for authority prevented any real progress. Kept back by these fixed regulations, its freedom was restricted on every side; otherwise, with the unbounded facility for making post-mortem examinations, Egyptian medicine would have made immense advance.

Concerning the specialism which prevailed amongst Egyptian doctors, Herodotus says: “The art of medicine is thus divided amongst them: each physician applies himself to one disease only, and not more. All places abound in physicians; some physicians are for the eyes, others for the head, others for the teeth, others for the parts about the belly, and others for internal disorders.”136

With reference to the teeth, it is interesting to observe that some of the dental work found in opening mummies is equal to our own.

Sir J. Wilkinson says137 that the embalmers were probably members of the medical profession as well as of the class of priests. Pliny states that, during this process, certain examinations took place, which enabled them to study the disease of which the patient had died. They appear to have been made in compliance with an order from the government,138 as he says the kings of Egypt had the bodies opened after death to ascertain the nature of their diseases, by which means alone the remedy for phthisical complaints was discovered. Indeed, it is reasonable to suppose that a people so advanced as were the Egyptians in knowledge of all kinds, and whose medical art was so systematically arranged that they had regulated it by some of the very same laws followed by the most enlightened and skilful nations of the present day, would not have omitted so useful an inquiry, or have failed to avail themselves of the means which the process adopted for embalming the body placed at their disposal. And nothing can more clearly prove their advancement in the study of human diseases than the fact of their assigning to each his own peculiar branch, under the different heads of oculists, dentists, those who cured diseases in the head, those who confined themselves to intestinal complaints, and those who attended to secret and internal maladies. They must have possessed an intimate knowledge of drugs, to have enabled them to select those of an antiseptic character suitable for the preservation of the mummies. That their practical knowledge of anatomy must have been considerable is proved by the skill with which they removed the more perishable parts of the body in the process of embalming. The embalmers, says Ebers, were all enrolled in a guild which existed down to Roman times, as is shown in various Greek papyri.

In the wall-cases 30-33 in the upper floor of the second Egyptian room of the British Museum, there is a set of Canopic jars which held the intestines of the human body, which were always embalmed separately. They were placed near the bier and were four in number, each one being dedicated to one of the four children of Horus, the genii of the dead. The stomach and large intestines were dedicated to Amset, the smaller intestines to HÂpi, the lungs and heart to TuamÂvtef, and the liver and gall-bladder to Kebhsenuf. Poor people had to be content with mere models of these vases.139

The dissectors were the paraschistes, who cut open as much of the body as the law permitted with an Ethiopian stone. As soon as one of them had made the requisite incision he had to fly, pursued by those present, who cursed him bitterly, and flung stones at him. It was considered hateful to inflict any wound on a human body; and however necessary the act might be, the agent incurred the greatest odium.

The Egyptian doctors knew very little of anatomy as a science; they were, however, acquainted with the fact that the blood-vessels had their origin from the heart, and that the blood was distributed to the body from that organ. There is an interesting treatise on the heart in the Papyrus Ebers. In another medical papyrus we find the following anatomical details concerning the blood-vessels:—

“The head of man has thirty-two vessels; they carry the breath to his heart; they give inspiration to all his members. There are two vessels to the breasts; they give warmth to the lungs—for healing them, one must make a remedy of flour of fresh wheat, herb haka, and sycamore teput—make a decoction and let the patient drink it; she will be well. There are two vessels to the legs. If any one has a disease of the legs, if his arms are without strength, it is because the secret vessel of the leg has taken the malady,—a remedy must be made.... There are two vessels to the arms; if a man’s arm is suffering, if he has pains in his fingers, say that this is a case of shooting pains.... There are two vessels of the occiput, two of the sinciput, two of the interior, two of the eyelids, two of the nostrils, and two of the left ear. The breath of life enters by them. There are two vessels of the right ear; the breath enters by them.”

It is uncertain whether by the term vessels the Egyptians understand the arteries, the veins, the nerves, or some imaginary conduits.140

The ancient Egyptians were zealous students of medicine; yet, as Dr. Ebers tells us, they also thought that the efficacy of the treatment was enhanced by magic formulÆ. The prescriptions in the famous Ebers Papyrus are accompanied by forms of exorcism to be used at the same time; “and yet many portions of this work,” says Ebers, “give evidence of the advanced knowledge of its authors.”141

Origen says142 that the Egyptians believed there were thirty-six demons, or thirty-six gods of the air, who shared amongst them the body of man, which is divided into as many parts. He adds that the Egyptians knew the names of those demons, and believed that if they invoked the proper demon of the affected part they would be cured. Magic and sorcery were arts which were forbidden to the laity.

Many magical rites and animistic customs connected with the Egyptian religion closely resemble those which prevail over the whole continent of Africa. The basis of the Egyptian religion is supposed by some authorities to be of a purely Nigritian character; on which has been superimposed certain elevated characteristics due to Asiatic settlers and conquerors. The worship of the negroes proper is simply fetishism combined with tree and animal worship and a strong belief in sorcery.

The great and peculiar feature of Egyptian magic lay in the fact that its formulÆ were intended to assimilate to the gods those who sought protection from the evils of life. The incantation was not in the nature of a prayer. As M. Lenormant says:143 “The virtue of the formulÆ lay not in an invocation of the divine power, but in the fact of a man’s proclaiming himself such or such a god; and when he, in pronouncing the incantation, called to his aid any one of the various members of the Egyptian Pantheon, it was as one of themselves that he had a right to the assistance of his companions.” In the Harris Papyrus is a fragment of one of the magical tracts of the medicine-god Thoth, in which is an incantation for protection against crocodiles:—

Disease-demons recognised the power of the gods, and obeyed their commands. An inscription on a monument of the time of Ramses XII. tells how the Princess Bint-resh, sister of Queen Noferu-ra, was cured in a serious illness by the image of the god Khonsu being sent to her after the “learned expert” Thut-emhib had failed to do her any good. When the god appeared at her bedside, she was cured on the spot; the evil spirit of the disease acknowledged the superior power of Khonsu, and came out of her after making an appropriate speech.145

In the records of a trial about a harem conspiracy in the reign of Ramses III., we learn that a house steward had used some improper enchantments. In some fragments of the Lee and Rollin Papyrus, we read: “Then he gave him a writing from the rolls of the books of Ramses III., the great god, his lord. Then there came upon him a divine magic, an enchantment for men. He reached [thereby?] to the side of the women’s house, and into that other great and deep place. He formed figures of wax, with the intention of having them carried in by the hand of the land-surveyor Adiroma, to alienate the mind of one of the girls, and to bewitch others.... Now, however, he was brought to trial on account of them, and there was found in them incitation to all kinds of wickedness, and all kinds of villainy which it was his intention to do.... He had made some magic writings to ward off ill-luck; he had made some gods of wax, and some human figures to paralyse the limbs of a man; and he had put these into the hand of Bokakamon without the sun-god Ra having permitted that he should accomplish this,” etc.146

The actual medicaments used in Egyptian medical practice were not considered effectual without combination with magical remedies. The prescription might contain nitre, or cedar chips, or deer horn, or it might be an ointment or application of some herbs; but it would not be efficacious without some charm to deal with the spiritual mischief of the case. In administering an emetic, for example, it was necessary to employ the following appeal to the evil spirit of the disorder: “Oh, demon, who art lodged in the stomach of M., son of N., thou whose father is called Head-Smiter, whose name is Death, whose name is cursed for ever,” etc. It was not the natural remedy which called the supernatural to its aid; but in cultivated Egypt, this combination was due to the theurgic healer availing himself of natural remedies to assist his magic. Science was beginning to work for man’s benefit, but could not yet afford to discard sentimental aids which, by calming the mind of the sufferer, assisted its beneficent work. The different parts of the human body were confided to the protection of a special divinity. A calendar of lucky and unlucky days was devised, by which it could be ascertained what was proper to be medically done, or left undone, at certain times. Barth, in his Travels in Africa, in the border region of the desert, tells of a native doctor who followed such a system. He used to treat his patients according to the days of the week on which they came: one day was a calomel day, another was devoted to magnesia, and a third to tartar emetic; and everybody requiring medicine had to take that appropriate to the day.

The Egyptians distinguished between black and white magic. The learned priests practised the curative acts of magic; but it was held to be a great crime to use black magic whereby to injure men or assist unlawful passions.

Homer sings the praises of the medicinal herbs of prolific Egypt, where PÆon imparts to all the Pharian race his healing arts;147 and in Jeremiah,148 the daughter of Egypt is told that “in vain” she shall “use many medicines,” for she shall not be cured.

The ancient Egyptians depended greatly upon clysters in the treatment of many diseases besides those of the intestines. They were composed of a mixture of medicinal herbs, with milk, honey, sweet beer, salt, etc. The use of clysters by the Egyptians was remarked by Pliny and Diodorus Siculus, and the invention was attributed by the former to the ibis, who, with its long bill, performed the necessary operation.149

This absurd idea arose from a confusion between the hieroglyph for the ibis, and the god Thoth, the name of each having the same sign.150

A comparison of the prescriptions of the medical papyri with those of the ancient Greek physicians, especially Galen and Dioscorides, shows a considerable family likeness of the Greek system of therapeutics to that of the Egyptians. Chabas particularizes the following facts:—Honey was used in place of sugar in many recipes by Egyptians and Greeks. Wine was mixed with honey, and human milk was administered in the form of clysters by Egyptians and by Galen and Dioscorides. The use of barley drink, palm wine, nitre, or sal ammoniac, incense as an external application, blood mixed with wine, urine as a liniment, Lapis memphites, and several other drugs is prescribed for the same disorders and in the same manner in the land of the Pharaohs and in ancient Greece.

The famous “Ebers Papyrus” was purchased in 1874 by Dr. Ebers, at Thebes. “This papyrus contains one hundred and ten pages, each page consisting of about twenty-two lines of bold hieratic writing. It may be described as an EncyclopÆdia of Medicine, as known and practised by the Egyptians of the eighteenth dynasty; and it contains prescriptions for all kinds of diseases—some borrowed from Syrian medical lore, and some of such great antiquity that they are ascribed to the mythologic ages, when the gods yet reigned personally upon earth. Among others, we are given the recipe for an application whereby Osiris cured Ra of the headache.”151 This is the oldest of all the medical papyri hitherto discovered. It comes down to us, says Dr. Ebers,152 from the eighteenth dynasty. The “Medical Papyrus” of Berlin is second in point of antiquity; and a Hieratic MS. in London, the third.153

In the Ebers Medical Papyrus is an example of old Egyptian diagnosis and therapeutics: “When thou findest any one with a hardness in his re-het (pit of the stomach), and when after eating he feels a pressure in his intestines, his stomach (het) is swollen, and he feels bad in walking, like one who suffers from heat in his back; then observe him when he lies stretched out, and if thou findest his intestines hot, and a hardness in his re-het, say to thyself, this is a disease of the liver. Then prepare for thyself a remedy, according to the secrets of the (botanical) science, from the plant pa-che-test and dates; mix them, and give in water” (Ebers).154

The famous medical papyrus roll in the Museum of Berlin is described by M. Chabas in the chapter on “The Medicine of the Ancient Egyptians,” in his work entitled MÉlanges Égyptologiques. From this papyrus we learn that plaisters, ointments, liniments, and friction were employed as external remedies. Many of the names of the herbs and medicaments employed cannot be translated, but are merely transcribed. We find a number of recipes for tumours of the breast, for pimples, for “dissipating divinely parts injured by bruises,” for destroying the bites of vermin, for cuts (common salt the chief ingredient), etc. The prescriptions seem very simple and brief.

Magical invocations were frequently employed in the treatment of disease. Chabas thinks that one of the maladies so treated was intestinal inflammation, with a feeling of heaviness, and hardness, and a griping pain. He translates the diagnosis of such a malady: “His belly is heavy, the mouth of his heart (os ventriculi) is sick, his heart (his stomach) is burning, ... his clothes are heavy upon him. Many clothes do not warm him; he is thirsty at night; the taste of his heart is perverted, like a man who has eaten sycamore figs; his flesh is deadened as a man who finds himself sick; if he goes to stool, his bowels refuse to act. Pronounce on his case that he has a nest of inflammation in his belly; the taste of his heart is sick, ... if he raises himself, he is as a man who is unable to walk.” The text of the papyrus gives the remedies to be used in such a case. “Apply to him the means of curing inflammation by warmth; also the means of destroying the inflammation in the belly.” The diagnosis and treatment here described apply very well to what we term peritonitis; but Dr. Baas suggests that gastric cancer may be indicated.

There is a medical papyrus in the Berlin Museum, which was discovered in the necropolis of Memphis, and which is described by Brugsch155 as containing a quantity of recipes for the cure of many diseases, including some of the nature of leprosy. There is also what the great Egyptologists term “a simple, childish exposition of the construction and mechanism of the body. The writing explained the number and use of the numerous ‘tubes.’” The origin of part of this work is traced to the time of the fifth king of the table of Abydos, though the composition of the whole work is of the period of Ramses II. The text says of the more ancient portion: “This is the beginning of the collection of recipes for curing leprosy. It was discovered in a very ancient papyrus, enclosed in a writing-case, under the feet (of a statue) of the god Anubis, in the town of Sochem, at the time of the reign of his majesty the defunct King Sapti. After his death, it was brought to the majesty of the defunct King Senta, on account of its wonderful value. And, behold, the book was placed again at the feet, and well secured by the scribe of the temple, and the great physician, the wise Noferhotep. And when this happened to the book at the going down of the sun, he consecrated a meat, and drink, and incense offering to Isis, the lady; to Hor, of Athribis; and the god Khonsoo-Thut, of Amkhit.”

Human brains are prescribed for a disease of the eyes in the Ebers Papyrus. Pharmacy must have made considerable progress at the time this work was written, as it contains two prescriptions for pills—one made with honey for women, and one without it for men.

Chabas says that a severe discipline reigned in the schools of the ancient Egyptians, and that the eloquence of the master was frequently supplemented by the rod of his assistants. He gives in his translations of papyri one of the exhortations to a pupil.156

“Oh, scribe,157 give not thyself to idleness, or thou shalt be smartly chastised; abandon not thy heart to pleasure, or thou wilt let thy books slip out of thy hands; practise conversation; discuss with those who are wiser than thyself; do the works of an elevated man. Yes, when thou shalt be advanced in years, thou wilt find this to be profitable. A scribe, skilful in every kind of work, will become powerful. Neglect not thy books; do not take a dislike to them.”

Sir J. Gardner Wilkinson, in his Manners and Customs of the Egyptians, gives a list of plants (from Pliny) which were known to the Egyptians and used in medicine or the arts. Ladanum (Cistus ladaniferus) was introduced into Egypt by the Ptolemies. Myrobalanum (Moringa aptera?) produced a fruit from which an ointment was made. Cypros (Lawsonia spinosa et inermis) was cooked in oil to make the ointment called cyprus; the leaves were used to dye the hair. Elate (Abies?), palma or spathe was of use in ointments. Oil of bitter almonds. Olives and figs were much esteemed. The castor-oil plant (Ricinus communis). A medicinal oil was extracted from what was probably one of the nettle tribe (Urtica pilulifera). Tea (Triticum zea?), olyra (Holcus sorghum?), and tiphe (Triticum spelta), were used in decoctions; opium was extracted from Papaver somniferum.

Cnicus or atractylis (Carthamum tinctorium?) was a remedy against the poison of scorpions and other reptiles. Pliny says: “Homer attributes the glory of herbs to Egypt. He mentions many given to Helen by the wife of the Egyptian king, particularly the Nepenthes, which caused oblivion of sorrow.” Opium was well known to the ancients, as well as various preparations of that drug. Sir J. Wilkinson thinks that nepenthe was perhaps the burt or hasheesh, a preparation of the Cannabis sativa or Indian hemp.

The Egyptians, says Ebers, thought that the kindly healing plants sprung up from the blood and tears of the gods.158

Upon the ceilings and walls of the temples at Tentyra, Karnac, Luxor, and other places, basso-relievos have been discovered representing limbs that have been amputated with instruments very similar to those which are employed in such operations in our own time. Such instruments are also found in the hieroglyphics, and Larrey says159 that there are vestiges of other surgical operations which have been discovered in Egyptian ruins which abundantly prove that the art of surgery was practised with great skill in the land of the Pharaohs.

Mr. Flinders Petrie, excavating at the Pyramid of Medum, says of the skeletons he discovered there: “The mutilations and diseases that come to light are remarkable. One man had lost his left leg below the knee; another had his hand cut off and put in the tomb; others seem to have had bones excised, and placed separately with the body. In one case acute and chronic inflammation and rheumatism of the back had united most of the vertebrÆ into a solid mass down the inner side. In another case there had been a rickety curvature of the spine. To find so many peculiarities in only about fifteen skeletons which I collected is strange. These are all in the Royal College of Surgeons now, for study.”160

“Among the six hermetic books of medicine mentioned by Clement of Alexandria, was one devoted to surgical instruments; otherwise the very badly set fractures found in some of the mummies do little honour to the Egyptian surgeons” (Ebers).

Flint instruments were always used for opening bodies, for circumcision and other surgical operations. How far this was dictated by religious respect for antiquity, or by sanitary reasons, cannot be said; probably, however, the reverence for the ancient flint knife had much to do with its retention.

Our word chemistry is derived from the name of Egypt, Khem or Khemit, the “Black Land,” meaning the rich, dark soil of the Nile valley. The god Khem, also known as Min and Am, was the same as the Pan of the Greeks and Priapus of the Romans. He presided over productiveness and the kindly fruits of the earth. In this sense he was also the god of curative herbs and simples, and so became associated in the popular mind with the arts of healing.161 Thus we obtain the words chemist, chemistry, and alchemy. Plutarch says that the Greek word ???a for Egypt, was bestowed on the land on account of the black colour of its soil.

The Egyptians must have had considerable practical knowledge of chemistry, or they could not have succeeded so well in the manufacture of glass, in dyeing, and the use of mordants, etc. Metallurgy must have been understood, as is evidenced by their process of gold manufactures represented in several of the royal tombs. They made gold wire, and excelled in the art of gilding. Their methods of embalming also exhibit some chemical knowledge. Dr. Pettigrew says,162 his friend Professor Reuvens, of Leyden, examined a papyrus which contained upwards of one hundred chemical and alchemical formulÆ.

In the Ebers Papyrus there are several recipes for the preparation of hair dye. “The earliest of all the recipes preserved to us is a prescription for dyeing the hair.”163

Recipes for exterminating vermin and noxious creatures are found in the same work.

In anatomy, physiology, surgery, therapeutics, and chemistry it is evident that Egypt was far in advance of any other nation of the same period of which we have authentic accounts.

The Persian kings were glad to employ the Egyptian physicians, whose skill gained them high renown in the ancient world. Dr. Brugsch, in his account of the Egyptians in the Persian service, gives a translation of the inscriptions of Uza-hor-en-pi-ris, of the period of the conquest of Egypt by Cambyses. “O ye gods who are in SaÏs! Remember all the good that has been done by the president of the physicians, Uza-hor-en-pi-ris. In all that ye are willing to requite him for all his benefits, establish for him a great name in this land for ever. O Osiris! thou eternal one! The president of the physicians, Uza-hor-en-pi-ris, throws his arms around thee, to guard thy image; do for him all good according to what he has done, (as) the protector of thy shrine for ever.”164 The last words addressed to Osiris refer to the form of the statue. The chief physician of SaÏs is standing upright, with his hands embracing a shrine which holds the mummy of Osiris.

Whether the ancient Greeks derived their knowledge of medicine from Egypt or from India has often been debated; the evidence seems to show that Greece was indebted to India rather than to Egypt in this respect.

Mr. Flinders Petrie concludes “that Europe had an indigenous civilization, as independent of Egypt and Babylonia as was the indigenous Aryan civilization of India; that this civilization has acquired arts independently, just as much as India has, and that Europe has given to the East as much as it has borrowed from there.”165

Amongst the Egyptian fellahs some curious observances, says Mr. Flinders Petrie, are connected with accidental deaths. “Fires of straw are lighted, one month after the death, around the ground where the body has lain; and where blood has been shed, iron nails are driven into the ground, and a mixture of lentils, salt, etc., is poured out. These look like offerings to appease spirits, and the fires seem as if to drive away evil influences. Funeral offerings are still placed in the tombs for the sustenance of the dead, just as they were thousands of years ago.”166

Modern Egyptians, like the ancient, wear written charms against sickness and disease. “Magical preparations of all sorts are frequently used as remedies in illness, and in even serious cases the patient is made to swallow pieces of paper inscribed with texts from the Koran, and to try various similar absurd means, before a physician is applied to.”167

CHAPTER II.
JEWISH MEDICINE.

The Jews indebted to Egypt for their Learning.—The only Ancient People who discarded Demonology.—They had no Magic of their own.—Phylacteries.—Circumcision.—Sanitary Laws.—Diseases in the Bible.—The Essenes.—Surgery in the Talmud.—Alexandrian Philosophy.—Jewish Services to MediÆval Medicine.—The Phoenicians.

That division of the Hebrew peoples which afterwards developed into Israel, left its home in the extreme south of Palestine some fifteen centuries before the Christian era to occupy the pasture lands of Goshen, in the territory of the Pharaohs, where they continued to retain their nomadic habits, their ancient language and patriarchal institutions. In process of time, however, the Egyptian sovereigns began to deal severely with their self-invited guests; they were forced to labour on the public works of Goshen; and though bitterly resenting this attempt to destroy their identity and reduce them to mere slavery, the proud and noble race was powerless to resist, and continued to labour on in despair until a deliverer arose in Moses, who led them out of Egypt to the land of Palestine which they had originally left. Moses was a pupil of the Egyptian priests, versed in all their wisdom, and imbued with the loftiest sentiments of the religion of Egypt. We shall expect to find in the medicine of the Jews abundant traces of their long residence in the land of the Pharaohs. Our sources for the history of the healing art and the theory of disease which obtained with the people of Israel are two—the Bible and the Talmud. Therein we shall see the influences, both external and internal, which made Jewish medicine what it was; and we shall be astonished, on comparing the theory of disease with that of all the other nations and peoples of the earth, to find that it stands by itself, is absolutely unique in its loftiness of idea, its absolute freedom from the absurd and degrading superstitions of the great and civilized nations amongst which they dwelt or by which they were surrounded. When we reflect on the religions of Egypt, Assyria, and ChaldÆa, and compare their many gods with the one God of the Jews, their demonology, sorcery, and witchcraft with the pure and elevated faith of these nomads of the Sinaitic Peninsula, and remember that in all the earth at that time there was no other nation which had formulated such a pure theism, no other people which had broken away from the degrading and corrupting demonology which possessed the whole earth, we are compelled to recognise in God’s ancient people the Jews the evidence of a teaching totally unlike anything which had preceded it. If the Bible, the Talmud, and the Koran are all three merely specimens of ancient literature, how comes it that the Bible is so infinitely superior, not only in its noble monotheism, but in its remarkable freedom from so many of the superstitions which, as we have seen, were everywhere intermixed with the noblest religious systems and the most advanced civilizations? Magic in the Bible is everywhere passed by with contempt. Whatever may be the precise date of the Psalms, they must have been written when all nations were sunk in the grossest superstition, and had resort to magical practices on the slightest pretence; yet there is a total absence of all superstition in the Psalms. Granting that the Book of Ecclesiastes is a mere piece of cynical philosophy, it contains no evidence of superstitious belief. The more ancient is a literature, the greater is the certainty that it will contain some reference to superstitious usages; yet how gloriously the oldest books of the Bible shine in their freedom from contamination with the demon-worship and conjuring arts of the nations surrounding the children of Israel.

As the author of the learned article on “Medicine” in Smith’s Dictionary of the Bible says: “But if we admit Egyptian learning as an ingredient, we should also notice how far exalted above it is the standard of the whole Jewish legislative fabric, in its exemption from the blemishes of sorcery and juggling pretences. The priest, who had to pronounce on the cure, used no means to advance it, and the whole regulations prescribed exclude the notion of trafficking in popular superstition. We have no occult practices reserved in the hands of the sacred caste. It is God alone who doeth great things—working by the wand of Moses or the brazen serpent; but the very mention of such instruments is such as to expel all pretence of mysterious virtues in the things themselves.” It is always God alone who is the healer: “I am the Lord that healeth thee” (Exod. xv. 26); “Heal me, O Lord, and I shall be healed” (Jer. xvii. 14); “For I will restore health unto thee, and I will heal thee of thy wounds, saith the Lord” (Jer. xxx. 17); “Who healeth all thy diseases” (Ps. ciii. 3); “He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds” (Ps. cxlvii. 3); “The Lord bindeth up the breach of His people, and healeth the stroke of their wound” (Isa. xxx. 26).

The priestly caste had no monopoly of the healing art; it might be practised by any one who was competent to afford medical aid. Physicians are mentioned in several passages.

Although the Hebrews had no magic of their own, and notwithstanding the stern severity with which it was prohibited in their law, there would naturally be many who transgressed their law and imported the superstitious practices from the surrounding peoples.

The teraphim of Laban which were stolen by Rachel168 is the earliest example in the Bible of magical instruments. It seems that these objects were a kind of idols in the shape of a human figure; their use was condemned by the prophets, but they were for ages used in popular worship, both domestic and public. Hosea says:169 “The children of Israel shall abide many days without a king, and without a prince, and without a sacrifice, and without an image, and without an ephod, and without teraphim.” In this passage the teraphim and ephod are classed with the sacrifice, as though equally essential for worship. Some students think that the teraphim were the Kabeiri gods;170 whatever they were, they were worshipped or used superstitiously by Micah, by the Danites, and others.171 They were used magically for the purpose of obtaining oracular answers, and were associated with the practice of divination.172

The phylacteries of the Jews were charms or amulets in writing. They were believed to avert all evils, but were especially useful in driving away demons. They put faith, also, in precious stones. To this day one may see at the door of every Jewish house the mezÛza—a scrap of sacred writing—affixed diagonally on the right doorpost, enclosed in a metal case. The texts contained are inscribed on parchment, and the words are from Deuteronomy vi. 4-9; xi. 13-21. In the Targum on Canticles viii. 3, we learn that the phylactery and mezÛza were supposed to keep off hurtful demons. This is merely the corruption of a perfectly innocent idea; it is an example of the way in which harmless things become degraded to superstitious uses. The scapular of little squares of brown cloth worn by Catholics originally meant no more than the investiture, in a secret and unassuming manner, with the habit of the Carmelite order, and allowed pious persons living “in the world” to feel that they were affiliated to a famous and saintly community. When the Catholic wore it, he knew that he assumed the badge of the Blessed Virgin; there was no more in it than that. Amongst the ignorant and superstitious it is now commonly believed that the wearer is protected from death by fire and drowning, and that Our Lady will liberate him from purgatory on the first Saturday after his arrival there.

“To the mind of the Israelite,” says Mr. Tylor, “death and pestilence took the personal form of the destroying angel who smote the doomed.”173

God is plainly declared, in Exodus xv. 26, to send diseases upon men as a punishment for the breach of His commandments, and this has been adduced to show that the Jews traced their maladies to the anger of an offended Deity; and thus it has been argued that their etiology of disease was not higher than that of the other nations. But this argument is unfair. The Mosaic law was to a great extent a sanitary code, and even in the light of modern science we are compelled to admire the wisdom of the laws which have for so many centuries made the Jews the healthiest and most macrobiotic of peoples.

The rite of circumcision was not peculiar to the Jews; and just as baptism was an initiatory rite borrowed from another religion, yet made distinctive of Christianity, so circumcision has come to be considered a peculiarly Jewish practice. It may have been with the Israelites a protest against the phallus worship which is of such remote antiquity, and which was the foundation of the myth of Osiris. Wunderbar174 asserts that it distinctly contributed to increase the fruitfulness of the race and to check inordinate desires in the individual. There are excellent surgical reasons for both these suppositions, in addition to which we may add that it contributed to cleanliness and prevented irritation. Wunderbar, moreover, seems to have established his statement that after circumcision there is less probability of the absorption of syphilitic virus, and he has instanced the fact that such specific disease is less frequent with Jewish than with Christian populations.175

“Circumcision,” says Pickering, speaking of the Polynesian practice, “was now explained; and various other customs, which had previously appeared unaccountable, were found to rest on physical causes, having been extended abroad by the process of imitation.”176

The same writer states that the practice is “common to the ancient inhabitants of the Thebaid, and also to the modern Abyssinians and their neighbours in the South.”177

Ewald178 says that circumcision was practised by various Arabian tribes, in Africa, amongst Ethiopic Christians and the negroes of the Congo. It was also practised on girls by Lydian, Arabian, and African tribes, as Philo and Strabo inform us. Ewald considers it originated as an offering of one’s own flesh and blood in sacrifice to God, and may have been considered as a substitute for the whole body of a human being.

Circumcision is practised amongst Australian savages on the Murray River, as also another incredible ceremonial, as Lubbock terms it.179

Castration is hinted at in Matthew xix. 12 as an operation well understood.

In hot climates extra precautions for cleanliness have to be adopted beyond those which would amply suffice in northern lands. Captain Burton says:180—

However much the bath may be used, the body-pile and hair of the armpits, etc., if submitted to a microscope, will show more or less sordes adherent. The axilla hair is plucked, because if shaved the growing pile causes itching, and the depilatories are held to be deleterious.

Sometimes Syrian incense or fir-gum, imported from Scio, is melted and allowed to cool in the form of a pledget. This is passed over the face, and all the down adhering to it is pulled up by the roots. He adds that many Anglo-Indians adopt the same precautions.

Ewald, referring to the laws concerning women, says:181 “The monthly period of the woman brought with it the second grade of uncleanness, which lasted the space of seven days, but without rendering necessary the use of specially prepared water. Everything on which the woman sat or lay during this time, and every one who touched such things or her, incurred the uncleanness of the first grade.”

We find the demon-theory of disease in force in the time of Josephus. He says:182—

“Now within this place there grew a sort of rue, that deserves our wonder on account of its largeness, for it was no way inferior to any fig-tree whatsoever, either in height or in thickness; and the report is that it had lasted ever since the time of Herod, and would probably have lasted much longer had it not been cut down by those Jews who took possession of the place afterward; but still in that valley which encompasses the city on the north side, there is a certain place called Baaras, which produces a root of the same name with itself; its colour is like to that of flame, and towards evening it sends out a certain ray like lightning; it is not easily taken by such as would do it, but recedes from their hands; nor will yield itself to be taken quietly, until either ????? ???a???? ? t? ????? a?a be poured upon it; nay, even then it is certain death to those that touch it, unless any one take and hang the root itself down from his hand, and so carry it away. It may also be taken another way, without danger, which is this: they dig a trench quite round about it, till the hidden part of the root be very small; they then tie a dog to it, and when the dog tries hard to follow him that tied him, this root is easily plucked up, but the dog dies immediately, as if it were instead of the man that would take the plant away; nor after this need any one be afraid of taking it into their hands. Yet, after all this pains in getting, it is only valuable on account of one virtue it hath—that if it be only brought to sick persons, it quickly drives away those called Demons, which are no other than the spirits of the wicked, that enter into men that are alive and kill them, unless they can obtain some help against them.”

If we may consider Josephus as a fair type of the learned and liberally educated men of his time, we are compelled to admit that the theory of disease held by the Hebrews of the period was not much, if at all, in advance of the rest of the world. It was undoubtedly largely the demoniacal theory of sickness. In the Antiquities of the Jews183 Josephus, in his description of the sagacity and wisdom of Solomon, says: “God also enabled him to learn the skill that expels demons, which is a science useful and sanative to men. He composed such incantations also by which distempers are alleviated. And he left behind him the manner of using exorcisms, by which they drive away demons so that they never return; and this method of cure is of great force unto this day; for I have seen a certain man of my own country, whose name was Eleazar, releasing people that were demoniacal.” He goes on to describe the process of extracting the demon from the sick man through his nostrils.

So again, in telling the story of Saul’s possession by the evil spirit from the Lord, he says:184 “The physicians could find no other remedy but this—that if any person could charm those passions by singing and playing upon the harp, they advised them to inquire for such a one.” He seems to imply that David cured Saul by an incantation; and Spanheim, commenting upon the story, says that the Greeks had such singers of hymns, and that usually children or youths were picked out for that service, and that they were called singers to the harp.185

Whether David merely influenced Saul in the natural and touching way so beautifully described by Robert Browning in his poem “Saul,” we must bear in mind that an “incantation” was precisely of the character of the Bible story, and that the demon theory of Saul’s malady is plainly stated.186

Herzog187 enumerates the following as the diseases of the Bible:—1. Fever and ague (Lev. xxvi. 16). 2. Dysentery (Acts xxviii. 8), with, probably, prolapsus ani, as in Jehoram’s case (2 Chron. xxi. 15, 19). 3. Inflammation of the eyes, due to heat, night dews, sea breeze, flying sand, injuries, etc. (Lev. xix. 14; Deut. xxvii. 18; Matt. xii. 22, etc.). 4. Congenital blindness (John ix. 1). 5. Disease of the liver. 6. Hypochondria. 7. Hysteria. 8. Rheumatism and gout (John v. 2, 3). 9. Consumption, a general term, including hectic, typhoid, and other fevers (Lev. xxvi. 16; Deut. xxviii. 22, etc.). 10. Phthisis (?), indicated by leanness (Isa. x. 16). 11. Atrophy of muscles, “withered hand,” being due either to rheumatism, plugging up of the main artery of the limb, or paralysis of the principal nerve, etc. (Matt. xii. 10; 1 Kings xiii. 4-6, etc.). 12. Fevers in general (Matt. viii. 14, etc.). 13. Pestilence (Deut. xxxii. 24). 14. Oriental pest, the so-called “bubonenpest,” characterised by swellings in the groins, armpits, etc.; a very fatal disorder (Lev. xxvi. 25; Deut. xxviii. 21, 27, 60, etc.). 15. Boils (2 Kings xx. 7, etc.). 16. Sunstroke (2 Kings iv. 19, etc.). 17. Gonorrhoea (Lev. xv. 2). 18. Metrorrhagia, or uterine hemorrhage (Lev. xv. 25; Luke viii. 43, etc.). 19. Sterility (Gen. xx. 18, etc.). 20. Asa’s foot disease, either oedema or gout (2 Chron. xvi. 12). 21. Elephantiasis (?) (Job ii. 7). 22. Dropsy (Luke xiv. 2). 23. Cancer (2 Tim. ii. 17). 24. Worms; may have been phthiriasis (lice) (2 Macc. ix. 5-9). 25. Leprosy. 26. Itch and other skin diseases (Deut xxviii. 27). 27. Apoplexy (1 Sam. xxv. 37, etc.). 28. Lethargy (Gen. ii. 21; 1 Sam. xxvi. 12). 29. Paralysis, palsy (Matt. iv. 24; Acts iii. 2, etc.). 30. Epilepsy, the so-called “possession of devils” (Matt. iv. 24, etc.). 31. Melancholia, madness (Deut. xxviii. 28, etc.). 32. Nervous exhaustion (1 Tim. v. 23). 33. Miscarriage (Exod. xxi. 22). 34. “Boils and blains,” erysipelatous (Exod. ix. 9). 35. Gangrene and mortification (2 Tim. ii. 17). 36. Poisoning by arrows (Job vi. 4). Poisoning from snake-bite (Deut. xxxii. 24). 37. Scorpions and centipedes (Rev. ix. 5, 10). 38. Old age, as described in Eccles. xii. I am inclined to add to this list Syphilis, which seems to me to be clearly indicated by several verses in Proverbs xii., in the warnings against the strange woman, e.g. verses 22, 23, 26, and 27.

The law forbade a Levite who was blind to act as a physician. Anatomy and pathology were not understood, as it was considered pollution even to touch the dead.

The surgical instruments of the Bible are the sharp stone or flint knives with which circumcision was performed, and the awl with which a servant’s ear was bored by his master (Exod. iv. 25; Josh. v. 2; Exod. xxi. 6). Roller bandages are referred to for fractures (Ezek. xxx. 21). Job used a scraper when he was smitten with boils (Job ii. 8). The materia medica of the Bible is meagre. A poultice of figs—a favourite remedy in ancient times—is ordered in 2 Kings xx. 7.

Fish galls (Tobit xi. 4-13) and fasting saliva are used (Mark viii. 23).

The only regular prescription mentioned is that in Exodus xxx. 23-25.

Midwives were regularly employed to assist Hebrew mothers.

The “bearing stool” was employed.

There is a very beautiful figurative description of the disease of old age or senile decay given by Solomon in the Book of Ecclesiastes:—

“Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them; while the sun, or the light, or the moon, or the stars, be not darkened, nor the clouds return after the rain: in the day when the keepers of the house shall tremble, and the strong men shall bow themselves, and the grinders cease because they are few, and those that look out of the windows be darkened, and the doors shall be shut in the streets, when the sound of the grinding is low, and he shall rise up at the voice of the bird, and all the daughters of musick shall be brought low; also when they shall be afraid of that which is high, and fears shall be in the way, and the almond tree shall flourish, and the grasshopper shall be a burden, and desire shall fail: because man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go about the streets: or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher be broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern. Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.”

Dr. Mead, in his treatise on the diseases of old age,188 thus explains the curious figurative phrases. By the darkening of the sun, moon, and stars, he says we are to understand the obscuration of the mental faculties, which is so common in advanced life. The clouds returning after rain symbolise the cares and troubles which oppress the aged; especially when the vigour of the mind is lessened, so that they cannot cast them off. From the mind we pass to the body: “the keepers of the house shall tremble,” etc. That is to say, the limbs which support the body grow feeble and relaxed, and are incapable of defending us against injuries. The grinders are the molar teeth. The failing sight is compared to the darkness which meets those who look out of the windows. By diminished appetite the mouth, which is the door of the body, is less frequently opened than in youth. The sound of the grinding of the teeth is low, because old people have, in the absence of them, to eat with their gums. The rising up at the voice of the bird signifies the short and interrupted sleep of the aged. By the daughters of music we are to understand the ears, which no longer administer to our pleasure in conveying harmonious sounds. The sense of feeling is diminished, and the aged are fearful of stumbling in the way. The early flowers of spring shall flourish in vain. The phrase, the grasshopper shall become a burden, according to Dr. Mead, is the modest Hebrew mode of describing the effects of scrotal rupture. He says the grasshopper is made up chiefly of belly, and when full of eggs bears some resemblance to a scrotum smitten by a rupture. “Desire shall be lost” is like Ovid’s Turpe senilis amor, and does not refer to appetite for food. The loosened silver cord is the vertebral column; the medulla oblongata is of a silver or whitish colour. The golden bowl expresses the dignity of the head, from which in old age come defluxions to the nose, eyes, and mouth. Incontinence of urine is a common trouble of the aged, well expressed by the figure of the pitcher broken at the fountain; and the wheel at the cistern, to those who knew nothing of the circulation of the blood, fairly describes the failing heart, no longer capable of propelling the stream of life through the vessels.

Referring to the words, “The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night” (Psalm cxxi. 6), Captain Burton says189 that he has seen a hale and hearty Arab, after sitting an hour in the moonlight, look like a man fresh from a sick-bed; and he knew an Englishman in India whose face was temporarily paralysed by sleeping with it exposed to the moon.

The captivity at Babylon brought the Jews into contact with a nobler and very high civilization. In many ways there is no doubt that Jewish thought was greatly developed and enlarged by association with the peoples of Babylonia and Assyria. What precise influences the Jews became subject to in this captivity we have not the means to determine; but the fact that the Greek physician Democedes visited the court of Darius, proves that Eastern lands had in some measure fallen under the influence of Greek thought, about the time of Ezra. The Book of Ecclesiasticus is supposed to belong to the period of the Ptolemies, and in that work we find practitioners of medicine held in high esteem. “Honour a physician with the honour due unto him for the uses which ye may have of him; for the Lord hath created him.... The skill of the physician shall lift up his head; and in the sight of great men he shall be in admiration. The Lord hath created medicines out of the earth; and he that is wise will not abhor them.... Then give place to the physician, for the Lord hath created him; let him not go from thee, for thou hast need of him.”190

A very interesting but mysterious sect of the Jews was the Essenes (B.C. 150). Our knowledge of this ancient community is chiefly derived from Josephus,191 who says that they studied the ancient writers principally with regard to those things useful to the body and the soul, that they thus acquired knowledge of remedies for diseases, and learned the virtues of plants, stones, and metals. Another name for the Essenes was the Therapeutists, or the Healers.192

They lived somewhat after the fashion of monks, and had a novitiate of three years. Some of their principles and rules suggest a connection with Pythagorism and Zoroastrianism. De Quincey finds in Essenism a saintly scheme of Ethics, a “Christianity before Christ, and consequently without Christ.”193 Recent scholarship, says Professor Masson, will not accept his conclusions concerning this remarkable secret society.194

The surgery of the Talmud includes a knowledge of dislocations of the thigh, contusions of the head, perforation of the lungs and other organs, injuries of the spinal cord and trachea, and fractures of the ribs. Polypus of the nose was considered to be a punishment for past sins. In sciatica the patient is advised to rub the hip sixty times with meat-broth. Bleeding was performed by mechanics or barbers.

The pathology of the Talmud ascribes diseases to a constitutional vice, to evil influences acting on the body from without, or to the effect of magic.

Jaundice is recognised as arising from retention of the bile, dropsy from suppression of the urine. The Talmudists divided dropsy into anasarca, ascites, and tympanites. Rupture and atrophy of the kidneys were held to be always fatal. Hydatids of the liver were more favourably considered. Suppuration of the spinal cord, induration of the lungs, etc., are incurable. Dr. Baas195 says that these are “views which may have been based on the dissection of [dead] animals, and may be considered the germs of pathological anatomy.” Some critical symptoms are sweating, sneezing, defecation, and dreams, which promise a favourable termination of the disease.

Natural remedies, both external and internal, were employed. Magic was also Talmudic. Dispensations were given by the Rabbis to permit sick persons to eat prohibited food. Onions were prescribed for worms; wine and pepper for stomach disorders; goat’s milk for difficulty of breathing; emetics in nausea; a mixture of gum and alum for menorrhagia (not a bad prescription); a dog’s liver was ordered for the bite of a mad dog. Many drugs, such as assafoetida, are evidently adopted from Greek medicine. The dissection of the bodies of animals provided the Talmudists with their anatomy. It is, however, recorded that Rabbi Ishmael, at the close of the first century, made a skeleton by boiling of the body of a prostitute. We find that dissection in the interests of science was permitted by the Talmud. The Rabbis counted 252 bones in the human skeleton.

It was known that the spinal cord emerges from the foramen magnum, and terminates in the cauda equina. The anatomy of the uterus was well understood. A very curious point in their anatomy was the assumption of the existence of a fabulous bone, called “Luz,” which they held to be the nucleus of the resurrection of the body.196

(The Arabians call this bone “Aldabaran.”)

They discovered that the removal of the spleen is not necessarily fatal.

According to the Talmudists, the elementary bodies are earth, air, fire, and water. Pregnancy, they held, lasts 270 to 273 days (280 days is the modern calculation), and that it cannot be determined before the fourth month.

Alexandrian philosophic thought received a new impulse in consequence of the conciliatory policy which the Ptolemies pursued towards the Jews. Under Soter they were encouraged to settle in Alexandria, and soon their numbers became very great. Egypt at one time contained altogether some 200,000 Jews. Alexandria became for several centuries the centre of Jewish thought and learning. But the learning of the Rabbis became a shallow pedantry in the course of time, and their faith in the inspiration of their scriptures ultimately degenerated into a Cabalism, which in its turn lent itself to jugglery and magic-mongering, and infected the medicine of the Roman world, just as the healing art had emancipated itself from superstition, theurgy, and philosophical sophistries.

Kingsley has told us how this Jewish magic arose.197 “If each word [of the Scriptures] had a mysterious value, why not each letter? And how could they set limits to that mysterious value? Might not these words, even rearrangements of the letters of them, be useful in protecting them against the sorceries of the heathen, in driving away these evil spirits, or evoking those good spirits who, though seldom mentioned in their early records, had, after their return from Babylon, begun to form an important part of their unseen world?”

Jewish Cabalism formed itself into a system at Alexandria. It was there, as Kingsley goes on to say, that the Jews learnt to become the magic-mongers which Claudius had to expel from Rome as pests to rational and moral society.

According to the Jewish doctors, three angels preside over the art of medicine. Their names, according to Rabbi Elias, are Senoi, Sansenoi, and Sanmangelof.198

In the Middle Ages the Jews rendered the greatest services to the healing art, and had a large share in the scientific work connected with the Arab domination in Spain. The great names of Moses Maimonides and Ibn Ezra attest the dignity of Jewish intellectual life in the Dark Ages. The Golden Age of the modern Jews, as Milman199 designates it, begins with the Caliphs and ends with Maimonides. The Hebrew literature was eminently acceptable to the kindred taste of the Saracens, and the sympathy between Arab and Jewish practitioners and students of medicine was fraught with the greatest benefit to the healing art. The Golden Age of the Jews was at its height in the time of Charlemagne, when kings could not write their names. Their intelligence and education fitted them to become the physicians and the ministers of nobles and monarchs. During the reign of Louis the Debonnaire the Jews were all-powerful at his court. His confidential adviser was the Jewish physician Zedekiah, who was a profound adept in magic. In an age when monkish historians could relate “with awe-struck sincerity,” as Milman describes it,200 the tales of his swallowing a cartload of hay, horses and all, it is not difficult to understand that an acquaintance with the best knowledge of his time would account for the estimation in which a man of science was held. Maimonides lived at the court of the Sultan of Egypt as the royal physician, in the highest estimation.

The Phoenicians were devoted to phallic-worship. The instrument of procreative power was the chief symbol of their religion. Astarte was their great goddess. Baal-Zebub, the Beelzebub of the Bible, was their god of medicine, and the arbiter of health and disease. The Cabiri, or Corybantes, considered by some authorities to be identical with the Titans, by others with the sons of Noah, were considered as the discoverers of the properties of the medicinal herbs, and the teachers of the art of healing to mortals.201

CHAPTER III.
THE MEDICINE OF CHALDÆA, BABYLONIA, AND ASSYRIA.

The Ancient Religion of Accadia akin to Shamanism.—Demon Theory of Disease in ChaldÆan Medicine.—ChaldÆan Magic.—Medical Ignorance of the Babylonians.—Assyrian Disease-Demons.—Charms.—Origin of the Sabbath.

ChaldÆa was probably only second to Egypt in the antiquity of its civilization. The founders of the Babylonian and Assyrian empires were a Semitic tribe, and were the first people who worked in metals, and their knowledge of astronomy proves them to have been possessed of some amount of scientific attainments. Their practice of medicine was inextricably mixed with conjurations of spirits, magic, and astrology.

The name now given to the primitive inhabitants of Babylon is Accadians. Sayce considers them to have been the earliest civilizers of Eastern Asia. From the Accadians, he thinks the Assyrians, Phoenicians, and Greeks derived their knowledge of philosophy and the arts. Their libraries existed seventeen centuries B.C.

The ancient religion of Accad was very similar to the Shamanism professed by Siberian and Samoyed tribes at the present time. There was believed to be a spirit in every object. Good or bad spirits swarmed in the world, and there was scarcely anything that could be done which might not risk demoniacal possession. These good and bad spirits were controlled by priests and sorcerers. All diseases were caused by evil spirits, and the bulls and other creatures which guarded the entrance to houses were there to protect them from their power. The priests were magicians. There were at one period of the development of the Babylonian mythology three hundred spirits of heaven and six hundred spirits of earth; the most dreadful of these latter were the “seven spirits,” who were born without father and mother, and brought plague and evil on the earth. Magic formulÆ for warding off the attacks of demons were commonly used, and charms and talismans were extensively employed. The phylacteries of the Jews were talismans, and were of Accadian origin. The sorcerer bound his charm, “knotted with seven knots, round the limbs of the sick man, and this, with the further application of holy water, would, it was believed, infallibly produce a cure; while the same result might be brought about by fixing a sentence out of a good book on the sufferer’s head as he lay in bed.”202

Accadian literature, Mr. George Smith tells us, is rich in collections of charms and formulÆ of exorcism belonging to the very earliest period of Babylonian history. There are magic formulÆ of all kinds, some to ward off sorcery, some to bewitch other persons.

The following is a specimen of the exorcisms used to drive away evil spirits, and to cure the diseases which were believed to be caused by their agency:—

“The noxious god, the noxious spirit of the neck, the spirit of the desert, the spirit of the mountain, the spirit of the sea, the spirit of the morass, the noxious cherub of the city, this noxious wind which seizes the body (and) the health of the body: O, spirit of heaven, remember! O, spirit of earth, remember!

“The burning spirit of the neck which seizes the man, the burning spirit which seizes the man, the spirit which works evil, the creation of the evil spirit: O, spirit of heaven, remember! O, spirit of earth, remember!

“Wasting, want of health, the evil spirit of the ulcer, spreading quinsey of the gullet, the violent ulcer, the noxious ulcer: O, spirit of heaven, remember! O, spirit of earth, remember!

“Sickness of the entrails, sickness of the heart, the palpitation of a sick heart, sickness of bile, sickness of the head, noxious colic, the agitation of terror, flatulency of the entrails, noxious illness, lingering sickness, nightmare: O, spirit of heaven, remember! O, spirit of earth, remember!”203

In the great magic collection of invocations copied by the order of Asurbanipal, we have a long litany on the “Spirit of Fever”; the lords and ladies of the earth, stars, the light of life, the spirit of Hurki and his talismanic ship, the spirit of Utu, umpire of the gods, and many others are implored to “conjure it.”204

Professor Lenormant considers that the idea of punishment of sin by means of disease was a dogma of a later school of ChaldÆan thought. The old religion of spirits upon which ChaldÆan magic was originally founded was independently the doctrine of the priests of magic, so that there were two sets of priests in later ChaldÆan civilization—the old class who composed incantations to the spirits who fought with and replaced the disease-demons, and the theological priests who urged repentance for sin as the only means of the cure of disease.205

In the Accadian philosophy there was in everything a dualism of spirits. Innumerable hosts of them caused all the phenomena of nature, from the movements of the stars to the life and death, the health and disease of every human being. This dualism was as marked as that of the religion of Zoroaster; everywhere and in everything the good spirits fought against the evil ones, discord prevailed throughout the universe; and on this conception rested the whole theory of sacred magic. Man’s only help against the attacks of bad spirits, and the plagues and diseases which they brought upon him, lay in the invocation of good spirits by means of priests, sacred rites, talismans, and charms. These could put to flight the demons by helping the good spirits in their constant warfare with them. Magic therefore became a system elaborated with scientific exactness, and a vast pantheon of gods became necessary. Hea was the great god of conjurational magic; he was the supreme protector of men and of nature in the war between good and evil. When neither word, nor rite, nor talisman, nor help of the other divinities of heaven availed to help mankind, Hea was all-powerful; and this was because, as Lenormant says,206 Hea was alone acquainted with the awful power of the supreme name. “Before this name everything bows in heaven and in earth and in Hades, and it alone can conquer the Maskim (a species of evil demon), and stop their ravages. The gods themselves are enthralled by this name, and render it obedience.”

Images of demons were used by the ChaldÆans as talismans against the attacks of demons. In a magical hymn to the sun against sorcery and witchcraft, and their influence on the worshipper, the sun is reminded that the images of the bad spirits have been shut up in heaps of corn. The invocation concludes:—

“May the great gods, who have created me, take my hand! Thou who curest my face, direct my hand, direct it, lord, light of the universe, Sun.”207

In a hymn composed for the cure of some disease, the priest, addressing the god, speaks of the invalid in the third person:—

In the “War of the Seven Wicked Spirits against the Moon,” we have an incantation which was destined to cure the king of a disease caused by the wicked spirits.209

In the ChaldÆan creed all diseases were the work of demons. This is why Herodotus found no physicians in Babylon and Assyria. There was no science of medicine; “it was simply a branch of magic, and was practised by incantations, exorcism, the use of philters and enchanted drinks.”210

Of course the priests made it their business to compound their drinks of such drugs as they had discovered to possess therapeutic virtue. In ancient times magic and medicine were thus closely united. It could not have been always faith alone which cured the patient, but faith plus a little poppy juice would work wonders in many cases. It became therefore greatly to the interest of the priests and magicians to learn the properties of herbs, and the value of the juices and extracts of plants. Out of evil, therefore, mankind reaped this great and valuable knowledge. The two gravest and most fatal diseases with which the ChaldÆans were acquainted, says M. Lenormant,211 were the plague and fever, the Namtar and the Idpa. Naturally they were represented as two demons, the strongest and most formidable who afflict mankind. An old fragment says:—

• The execrable Idpa acts upon the head of man,
• The malevolent Namtar upon the life of man,
• The malevolent Utug upon the forehead of man,
• The malevolent Alal upon the chest of man,
• The malevolent Gigim upon the bowels of man,
• The malevolent Telal upon the hand of man.212

The use of magic knots as a cure for diseases was firmly believed in by the ancient Chaldees. M. Lenormant213 gives a translation of one of the formulÆ supposed to have been used against diseases of the head.

Sir Henry Rawlinson has discovered that there were three classes of ChaldÆan doctors, exactly in accordance with the enumeration of the prophet Daniel. These were the Khartumim, or conjurors, the Chakamim, or physicians, and the Asaphim, or theosophists (see Daniel ii. 2; v. ii).

The Babylonian doctrine of disease was that the hosts of evil spirits in the air entered man’s body, and could only be expelled by the incantations of the exorcist. These disease-demons were addressed as “the noxious neck spirit,” “the burning spirit of the entrails which devours the man.” Headache was caused by evil spirits which were commanded by the charmer to fly away “like grasshoppers” into the sky.214

Herodotus says of the Babylonians: “The following custom seems to me the wisest of their institutions. They have no physicians, but when a man is ill, they lay him in the public square, and the passers-by come up to him, and if they have ever had his disease themselves, or have known any one who has suffered from it, they give him advice, recommending him to do whatever they found good in their own case, or in the case known to them; and no one is allowed to pass the sick man in silence without asking him what his ailment is.”215

A Babylonian exorcism of disease-demons has been found in the following terms: the translation is by Prof. Sayce.216

“On the sick man, by means of sacrifice, may perfect health shine like bronze; may the sun-god give this man life; may Merodach, the eldest son of the deep, give him strength, prosperity, and health; may the king of heaven preserve, may the king of earth preserve.”

A curse against a sorcerer declares that “by written spells he shall not be delivered.”

The elementary spirits were supposed to be seven baleful winds, which were considered general causes of disease. One of the formulÆ of exorcising these dreadful seven is translated by Mr. Smith from a great collection of hymns to the gods which was compiled B.C. 2000.

M. Lenormant gives a translation of a very long Accadian incantation against disease-demons; it is in the form of a litany, and each verse ends with the words:—

There are some twenty-eight verses in all, and a great number of diseases are mentioned. I have only space for a few of these.

In the Assyrian version it seems to be hinted that the expectoration of phthisical patients was as dangerous as our modern bacteriologists declare it to be, for we have these words:—

“The poisonous consumption which in the mouth malignantly ascends.”218

In the course of Layard’s excavations at Nineveh, a divining chamber was discovered, at the entrance to which figures of the magi were found. One of the orders of these magicians was the “Mecasphim,” translated by Jerome and the Greeks “enchanters,” such as used noxious herbs and drugs, the blood of victims, and the bones of the dead for their superstitious rites. Another class was the “Casdim,” who were a sort of philosophers, who were exempt from all employment except the duty of studying physic, astrology, the foretelling of future events, the interpretation of dreams by augury, etc.219

The Assyrians had different demons for different diseases—some injured the head, others attacked the hands and feet.220

The Assyrians believed that seven evil spirits might enter a man at the same time; and there is a tablet which tells of the protection afforded by a god against such demons. When the deity stands at the sick man’s bedside, “those seven evil spirits he shall root out, and shall expel them from his body, and those seven shall never return to the sick man again.”221

“Sometimes images of the gods were brought into the sick-room, and written texts from the holy books were put on the walls, and bound round the sick man’s brains. Holy texts were spread out on each side of the threshold.”222

In Mr. George Smith’s History of Assyria from the Monuments, there is a translation of an Assyrian tablet from Assur-bani-pal’s library. The tablet is on the charms to expel evil curses and spells. “It is supposed in it,” says Mr. Smith, “that a man was under a curse, and Merodach, one of the gods, seeing him next to the god Hea, his father, enquired how to cure him. Hea, the god of wisdom, in answer related the ceremonies and incantations for effecting his recovery, and these are recorded in the tablet for the benefit of the faithful in after times.”

Translation of Tablet.

• 1. The evil curse like a demon fixes on a man
• 2. a raging voice over him is fixed
• 3. an evil voice over him is fixed
• 4. the evil curse is a great calamity
• 5. that man the evil curse slaughters like a lamb
• 6. his god from over him departs
• 7. his goddess stands angry at his side
• 8. the raging voice like a cloak covers him and bears him away
• 9. the god Merodach saw him and
• 10. to his father Hea into the house he entered and said
• 11. My father, the evil curse like a demon fixes on a man
• 12. And a second time he spake to him
• 13. To cure that man I am not able, explain to me how to do it.
• 14. Hea to his son Merodach answered
• 15. My son, thou knowest not how, I will recount to thee how to do it,
• 16. Merodach, thou knowest not how, I will reveal to thee how to do it,
• 17. What I know, thou shalt know.
• 18. Go my son Merodach.
• 19. pure — — — carry to him
• 20. that spell break, and that spell remove.
• 21. From the curse of his father
• 22. from the curse of his mother
• 23. from the curse of his elder brother
• 24. from the curse of the incantation which the man does not know
• 25. the spell in the words of the lips of the god Hea
• 26. Like a plant break
• 27. like a fruit crush
• 28. like a branch split.
• 29. For the spell the invocation of heaven may he repeat the invocation of earth may he repeat
• 30. Thus: Like unto this plant which is broken may be the spell.
• 31. In the burning flames it burns
• 32. in fragments it shall not be collected
• 33. together or divided it shall not be used
• 34. its fragments the earth shall not take
• 35. its seeds shall not produce and the sun shall not raise them
• 36. for the festival of god and king it shall not be used
• 37. — — — — — — — — — — — — —
• 38. the evil invocation, the finger pointing, the marking, the cursing, the sinning,
• 39. the evil which in my body, my limbs and my teeth is fixed,
• 40. like this plant may it be broken and
• 41. in this day may the burning flames consume,
• 42. may it drive out the spell and I shall be free
• 43. Thus: Like unto this fruit which is crushed may be the spell,
• 44. in the burning flames it burns
• 45. to its severed stalk it shall not return
• 46. for the banquet of god and king it shall not be used
• 47. — — — — — — — — — — — — — 48. the evil invocation, the finger pointing, the marking, the cursing, the sinning.
• 49. the evil which in my body, my limbs and my teeth is fixed
• 50. like this fruit may it be crushed and
• 51. in this day may the burning flames consume,
• 52. may it drive out the spell and I shall be free
• 53. Thus: Like unto this branch which is split may be the spell,
• 54. in the burning flames it burns
• 55. its fibres to the trunk shall not return
• 56. to satisfy a wish it shall not come
• 57. — — — — — — — — — — — — —
• 58. the evil invocation, the finger pointing, the marking, the cursing, the sinning.
• 59. the evil which in my body, my limbs and my teeth is fixed
• 60. like this branch may it be split and
• 61. in this day may the burning flames consume_
• 62. may it drive out the spell and I shall be free
• 63. Thus: Like unto this wool which is torn may be the spell,
• 64. in the burning flames it burns
• 65. to the back of the sheep it shall not return
• 66. for the clothing of god and king it shall not be used
• 67. — — — — — — — — — — — — —
• 68. the evil invocation, the finger pointing, the marking, the cursing, the sinning.
• 69. the evil which in my body, my limbs and my teeth is fixed
• 70. like this wool may it be torn and
• 71. in this day may the burning flames consume
• 72. may it drive out the spell and I shall be free
• 73. Thus: Like unto this flag which is torn may be the spell,
• 74. in the burning flames it burns
• 75. on to its mast it shall not return
• 76. to satisfy a wish it shall not come
• 77. — — — — — — — — — — — — —
• 78. the evil invocation, the finger pointing, the marking, the cursing, the sinning.
• 79. the evil which in my body, my limbs and my teeth is fixed
• 80. like this flag may it be torn and
• 81. in this day may the burning flames consume
• 82. may it drive out the spell and I shall be free
• 83. Thus: Like unto this thread which is broken may be the spell,
• 84. in the burning flames it burns
• 85. the weaver into a cloak shall not weave it
• 86. for the clothing of god and king it shall not be used
• 87. — — — — — — — — — — — — —
• 88. the evil invocation, the finger pointing, the marking, the cursing, the sinning.
• 89. the evil which in my body, my limbs and my teeth is fixed.
• 90. like this thread may it be broken and
• 91. in this day may the burning flames consume
• 92. may it drive out the spell and I shall be free.

The image of Hea placed in the doorway kept away the disease-demons.

In the Babylonian and Assyrian rooms of the British Museum there is a collection of bowls inscribed with charms in Chaldee, Syriac, and Mandaitie. It is supposed that they were used by sick persons, who drank their physic from them, trusting that it would thereby be more efficacious. As they drank they recited the formulÆ and names of the archangels, Michael, Raphael, Ariel, Shaltiel, Malkiel, etc., which were inscribed upon them. The catalogue says that the earliest of these bowls were made about B.C. 200. Many are from Tell-Ibrahim (Cutha). It may be mentioned in this connection that Catholics frequently make the sign of the cross over medicinal potions before taking them.

The origin of the Sabbath as a day of cessation from all labour is evidently Accadian. In the following translation of an Assyrian tablet223 we find the Sabbatarian principle in full force.

“The seventh day, feast of Merodach and Zir: Panibu, a great feast, a day of rest. The prince of the people will eat neither the flesh of birds nor cooked fruits. He will not change his clothing. He will put on no white robe. He will bring no offering. The king will not ascend into his chariot. He will not perform his duties as royal law-giver. In a garrison city the commander will permit no proclamations to his soldiers. The art of the physician will not be practised.” This is another proof that the Jews derived many of their religious customs from the Assyrians and Accadians. The Assyrian Sabbath was evidently observed as strictly as under the Mosaic code. It is curious to note that the physician was not permitted to exercise his merciful calling on that day, and it throws light on the objection of the Jews to Christ that it was not lawful to heal on the Sabbath-day.

CHAPTER IV.
THE MEDICINE OF THE HINDUS.

The Aryans.—Hindu Philosophy.—The Vedas.—The Shastres of Charaka and Susruta.—Code of Menu.—The Brahmans.—Medical Practitioners.—Strabo on the Hindu Philosophers.—Charms.—Buddhism and Medicine.—JÍwaka, Buddha’s Physician.—The Pulse.—Knowledge of Anatomy and Surgery in Ancient Times.—Surgical Instruments.—Decadence of Hindu Medical Science.—Goddesses of Disease.—Origin of Hospitals in India.

The Hindus are considered by Max MÜller to be much older even as regards their civilization than the Egyptians. This belief is based on his study of their language, which he says existed “before there was a single Greek statue, a single Babylonian bull, or a single Egyptian sphinx.” According to him, the noble Indo-Germanic or Aryan people, from whom have descended the Brahman, the RÁjput, and the Englishman, had their earliest home, not in Hindustan, but in Central Asia. (Max MÜller’s theory is now superseded by anthropological researches so far as the Europeans are concerned.) This splendid race drove before them into the mountains or reduced to slavery the Dasyus, the obscure aborigines, the non-Aryan primÆval peoples. The earliest Aryan poets composed the Rig-Veda at least three thousand, perhaps even four thousand years ago. The handsome Aryan fair-complexioned conquerors spoke with the utmost contempt of “the noseless” or “flat-nosed” Mongolian aborigines, who, in the Vedic poems, from being “gross feeders on flesh,” “lawless,” “non-sacrificing” tribes, were afterwards described as “monsters” and “demons.”224

It is necessary, if we wish to understand the principles of Hindu medicine, to glance at the philosophy and religion of the Brahmans and Buddhists. The Aryan conquerors descending through the Himalayas were a sober, industrious, courageous people, who lived a pastoral life, and knowing nothing of the enervating attractions of great cities, required no other medical treatment than simple folk medicine everywhere affords. Their earliest literature is found in the “Vedic Hymns,” the “Sacred Books of the Hindus,” which were composed by the wisest and best of the men, who were warriors and husbandmen, and the priests and physicians of their own households. They gradually acquired priestly supremacy over a wider range. Thus arose the Brahmans, the “Offerers of Potent Prayer.” The Rig-Veda refers to physicians, and speaks of the healing power of medicinal herbs; and the Atharva-Veda contains an invocation against the fever-demon, so that medical matters began very early to receive attention after the conquest of India by the Aryans.

“Hinduism,” says Professor Monier Williams, “is a creed which may be expressed by the two words, spiritual pantheism.”225 Of all beliefs this is the simplest. Nothing really exists but the One Universal Spirit; man’s soul is identical with that Spirit. Separate existence apart from the Supreme is mere illusion; consequently every man’s highest aim should be to get rid for ever of doing, having, and being, and strive to consider himself a part of the One Spirit. This in a few words is esoteric Hinduism. When we attempt to study the endless ramifications of the exoteric, or popular belief, the system, so far from being simple, is infinitely complicated. God may amuse Himself by illusory appearances. Light in the rainbow is one, but it manifests itself variously. All material objects, and the gods, demons, good and evil spirits, men, and animals are emanations from the One Universal Spirit; though temporarily they exist apart from him, they will all ultimately be reabsorbed into their source. In the Sanskrit language, which is the repository of Veda, or “knowledge,” we have the vehicle of Hindu philosophy. The systems of Hindu philosophy which grew out of the third division of the Vedas, called the Upanishads, are six, and are given in Professor Monier Williams’ work already referred to as—

• 1. The Nyaya, founded by Gotama.
• 2. The Vais’eshika, by Kanada.
• 3. The Sankhya, by Kapila.
• 4. The Yoga, by Pantanjali.
• 5. The Mimansa, by Jaimini.
• 6. The Vedanta, by Badarayana or Vyasa.

We know neither the dates of these systems, nor which of them preceded the other.

Oriental scholars tell us that, 500 years before Christ, in India, China, Greece, and Persia men began to formulate philosophical systems of religious belief, and to elaborate scientific ideas of the world in which they lived. Williams considers the Vais’eshika system of philosophy the most interesting of all the systems, from the parallels it offers to European philosophical ideas. This system goes more correctly than the others into the qualities of all substances. It is therefore more scientific, as we should say. It is most interesting to discover how nearly the doctrine of the atoms approaches our Western teaching. The following is Professor Williams’ account of these views:—

“First, then, as to the formation of the world, this is supposed to be effected by the aggregation of Anus, or ‘Atoms.’ These are innumerable and eternal, and are eternally aggregated, disintegrated, and re-integrated by the power of Adrishta. According to the Kanadas Sutras, an atom is ‘something existing, having no cause, eternal.’ They are, moreover, described as less than the least, invisible, intangible, indivisible, imperceptible by the senses, and as having each of them a Vis’esha or eternal essence of its own. The combination of these atoms is first into an aggregate of two, called Duy-anuka. Three of them, again, are supposed to combine into a Trasa-renu, which, like a mote in a sunbeam, has just magnitude enough to be perceptible.”226

In the Sankhya philosophy we find something very like Darwinism. “There cannot be the production of something out of nothing; that which is not cannot be developed into that which is. The production of what does not already exist (potentially) is impossible, like a horn on a man; because there must of necessity be a material out of which a product is developed; and because everything cannot occur everywhere at all times; and because anything possible must be produced from something competent to produce it.” (Aphorisms, i. 78, 114-117).227

The Upa-Vedas, or secondary Vedas, treat of various sciences, one of which, Ayur-Veda, is the “science of life,” or medicine. By some this is considered to belong to the Atharva-Veda; by others to the Rig-Veda. By Ayur-Veda we are to understand something derived immediately from the gods. The supplementary revelation known as Upa-Vedas dates about 350 B.C., and there we find Brahmanical medicine already developing.228

“Of all ancient nations,” says Elphinstone, “the Egyptians are the one whom the Hindus seem most to have resembled.”229

There is good reason for believing that the ancient Greeks derived much of their philosophy and religion from the Egyptians, who seem in their turn to have taken both in great measure from India. Says Elphinstone: “It is impossible not to be struck with the identity of the topics discussed by the Hindu philosophers with those which engaged the attention of the same class in ancient Greece, and with the similarity between the doctrines of schools subsisting in regions of the earth so remote from each other.”230

Here we find the doctrines of the eternity of matter, the derivation of all souls from God and their return to Him, the doctrine of atoms and a whole system similar to that of Pythagoras. The Greek philosopher taught that intermediate between God and mankind are a host of aerial beings who exercise various influences on the condition of mankind and the affairs of the world. Enfield231 and Stanley232 say that Pythagoras learned his doctrine from the Magi or Oriental philosophers.

Max MÜller says that Zarathustra and his followers, the Zoroastrians, had been settled in India before they immigrated into Persia. “That the Zoroastrians and their ancestors started from India during the Vaidik period, can be proved as distinctly as that the inhabitants of Massilia started from Greece.... Many of the gods of the Zoroastrians come out ... as mere reflections and deflections of the primitive and authentic gods of Veda.”233

The Hindus say that when their four immortal Vedas, named Rig, Yajur, SÁma, and Atharva, were originally given to man by Brahma, there was no disease or sin; but when mankind fell away from this virtuous and happy state, life was shortened and disease introduced. Brahma, in his compassion for the sufferings of mankind, then gave a second class of sacred books, the UpavÉdas; one of these, named Ayur-Veda, treats of the prevention and cure of diseases. Some say this work really came from Siva; it is the sacred medical authority of the Hindus, and is of the highest antiquity. It was originally of great length, but Brahma in mercy to mankind shortened it. Fragments now only remain, and these in the works of commentators. Two divisions treat of surgery. 1st, Salya treats of the surgery of the removal of foreign bodies, pus, and the dead child from the uterus; of healing wounds caused by knives, etc.; of bandaging, operations, blistering, and the treatment of abscesses and inflammations. 2nd, SÁlÁkya treats of diseases of the eyes, ears, mouth, and nose. 3rd, KÁyachikitsÁ describes diseases affecting the whole body, as fevers, dysentery, etc. This section may be considered as constituting the practice of medicine. 4th, Bhutavidya deals with the art of restoring the deranged faculties of the mind produced by demoniacal possession, as by the anger of the gods, devils, giants, or spirits of dead men. They can only be removed by prayers, medicines, ablution, and offerings to the offended deity. 5th, KaumÁrabhritya comprises the treatment of infants and such diseases as in them were caused by the displeasure of demons. 6th, Agadatantra is concerned with the administration of antidotes. 7th, RasÁyanatantra treats of the medicines proper for restoring youth, beauty, and happiness; it embraced chemistry or alchemy, and its intention was to discover the universal medicine. 8th, VÁjÍkaranatantra deals with the best means of increasing the human race: an illusory research, which, like the search for the elixir of life, has even in modern times occupied the attention of physicians. The sacred Ayur-Veda contained a description of the structure of the human body as learned from dissection, and a complete system of preventive and curative medicine.

In the Shastres (Charaka, Susruta), we learn that the Ashwins, or offspring of the Sun (Surja), were the physicians of the gods; they wrote books on medicine, and wrought wonderful cures. When the fifth head of Brahma was cut off by Bayraba, it was united again by the Ashwins, so skilled were they in surgery. They also cured the wounds which the gods received in the battle with the giants. They healed also the paralysed arm of Indra. When mankind became wicked, and consequently diseased, Bharadwaja went to Indra in heaven to acquire a knowledge of medicine, and the thousand-eyed god taught him the healing art. With this knowledge the sage Bharadwaja returned to earth, and taught the Rishis the principles he had acquired. So the sages learned to distinguish diseases and the medicines suitable for their cure; they lived to a very great age, writing books called by their own names. Charaka became the instructor of practitioners upon earth, and his is the most ancient and famous work on Hindu medicine. Charaka, whom we may term the Hindu Hippocrates, flourished at Benares, probably about B.C. 320. The most celebrated and ancient collection of Hindu laws and precepts is that which is known as “the Code of Menu,” or “Institutes of Menu.” It is probably the oldest and most sacred Sanskrit work after the Veda and its Sutras, and presents us with a faithful picture of the customs and institutions of the Hindus.

The Code of Menu lays it down that diseases are the consequences of sinful acts in previous states of existence. “Men of evil manners receive an alteration of form, some through evil (deeds) committed (by them) in this life, some also through (acts) formerly committed. A thief of gold (receives) the disease of bad nails; a drinker of intoxicating liquor (the disease of) black teeth; a slayer of a Brahman, consumption; he who violates the couch of the Guru, a skin disease; a slanderer, a foul-smelling nose; a false informer, a foul-smelling mouth; a stealer of grain, the loss of a limb, and one who mixes (grain) a superfluity (of limbs); one who takes food, dyspepsia; a thief of the voice, dumbness; a thief of clothes, leprosy; a horse-thief, lameness; a stealer of a lamp would (in the next birth) become blind; an extinguisher (of a lamp), one-eyed; by (committing) injury (one would get) a condition of disease; by not (committing) injury, the condition of not being diseased. Thus, according to the difference in their acts, (men who are) blamed by the good are born dull, dumb, blind, and deformed in appearance. Regularly, then, penance should be practised for purification, since those whose sins have not (thus) been done away with are (re)born with (these) disgraceful marks attached.”234

Physicians are referred to several times in the Ordinances of Menu. In Lect. iv. 179 we are advised that “we should never have a dispute with a physician.” We are to avoid eating the “food of a physician and hunter, if a cruel man,” etc. (Lect. iv. 212). “The food of a physician is pus” (Ibid. 220). In Lect. ix. 284, “A fine (is set) for all physicians treating (a case) incorrectly: in (the case of creatures) not human (this is) the first, but in (the case of) human beings the medium (fine).”235

The Brahmans believed there was a remedy for every disease, in consequence of which they made a very careful examination of the vegetable kingdom, and so discovered a great number of medicines. If a medicine were efficacious in curing the patient, they invariably supposed it was due to the sanctity of the individual, and the divine pleasure which endowed him with it. It is therefore exceedingly difficult to obtain information, as it is believed that the medicine would lose its effect if the secret of the cure were divulged to others. From these selfish motives, the knowledge of the properties of many valuable remedies have been lost. Dr. Wise says, according to the Brahmans, there are nine secrets which should not be revealed to any one: these are the age of a person; his wealth; family occurrences; his bad actions, or those which reflect shame or dishonour upon him; his relations with his wife; his prayers to his tutelar gods; his charities; and the virtues of nostrums, the ingredients of which are known to him.

Yet priests, says Baas, from the Brahman caste, and the sub-castes, the Vaisya and Vaidya, officiated for a long time as teachers of medicine and as physicians. The Vaidyas, as the higher of the two sub-castes, included the physicians proper; while the Vaisyas, or lower caste, furnished nurses.238

When Buddhism passed into modern Hinduism (750-1000 A.D.) the rules of caste became stricter, and the old fetters were reimposed, and the Brahmans returned to their ancient principles which forbade them to contaminate themselves with blood or morbid matter; they withdrew from all practice of medicine, and left it entirely to the Vaidyas. After a time these also shrank from touching dead bodies. Then public hospitals were abolished when Buddhism fell. The Mohammedan conquests which began about 1000 A.D. introduced foreign practitioners of physic, who derived their knowledge from Arabic translations of Sanskrit medical classics and monopolised the patronage of the Mohammedan aristocracy.239

The only remains of the Buddhist hospitals now existing are the various institutions for animals, supported principally by the Jains, a sort of Protestants against Brahmanism.240

The Mohammedan medical practitioners were called “Hukeems,” who followed the principles of Arabian medicine derived from Greek sources. As a rule these practitioners only attended on nobles and chiefs. There is no evidence even that the Mohammedan invaders employed medical men for their armies.241

Dr. Benjamin Heyne, in his Tracts on India, says,242—

“The medical works of the Hindus are neither to be regarded as miraculous productions of wisdom, nor as repositories of nonsense. Their practical principles, as far as I can judge, are very similar to our own; and even their theories may be reconciled with ours, if we make allowance for their ignorance of anatomy, and the imperfections of their physiological speculations.”

In surgery they attained to high proficiency, and our modern surgeons have even been able to borrow from them the operation of rhinoplasty.243

Concerning the medicinal properties of minerals (stones and metals), plants, animal substances, and the chemical analysis and decomposition of these, we have also learned much that is extremely valuable from the Hindus. Their Materia Medica is so important, and has played so large a part in Western medical science, that we cannot afford to despise it, though the Hindus have contributed so little to the study of natural science.244 Veterinary medicine, so far as the diseases of horses and elephants are concerned, has received special attention from the Hindus.

Charaka counsels youths who desire to study medicine to “seek a teacher whose precepts are sound and whose practical skill is generally approved, who is clever, dexterous, upright, and blameless; who knows also how to use his hands, has the requisite appliances, and all his senses about him; is confident with simple cases, and sure of his treatment in difficult ones; of genuine learning, unaffected, not morose or passionate, patient and kind to his pupils.” The pupils should spring from a family of doctors, and should have lost none of their limbs and none of their senses. “They are to be taught to be chaste and temperate, to speak the truth, to obey their teacher in all things, and to wear a beard.” They are advised to read medical treatises, attend to the personal instruction of their teacher, and to associate with other doctors. When the doctor visits his patient he should wear good clothes, incline his head, be thoughtful but of firm bearing, and observe all possible respect. Once within the house, word, thought, and attention should be directed to nothing else than the examination of the patient and all that concerns his case. He must not be a boaster. “Many recoil even from a man of skill if he loves to boast.” As medicine is difficult to learn, the doctor must practise carefully and incessantly. He must seek every opportunity for conversation with a colleague. This will remove doubts, if he have them, and fortify his opinion.

When an operation is decided on, a fortunate moment, says Dr. Wise, is to be selected, and the Brahmans and the surgeons are to be “propitiated” with gifts. The operating room is to be clean and well lighted, milk, oil, herbs, hot and cold water are to be at hand, and strong attendants to hold the patient. The knife should be wet with water before being used. The sky must be clear, and the time should be near the new moon. The surgeon must be strong and a rapid operator, and he must neither perspire, shake, nor make exclamations. The palms of the hands and soles of the feet, vessels, tendons, joints, and bones are to be avoided. During the operation, care must be taken to keep a fire burning in the patient’s room, on which sweet-scented substances are to be burnt, in order to prevent devils entering the patient by the wound made by the surgeon. After the operation holy water is to be sprinkled on the sufferer, and prayer addressed to Brahma. The bandages are to remain till the third day, and clean ones substituted.245

Susruta was the son of VisÁmitra, a contemporary of Rama, and was chosen by Dhanwantari, who was the Hindu Æsculapius, to abridge the Ayur-Veda for the cure of diseases and the preservation of the health, so that it might be more easily committed to memory. Susruta’s book is still preserved, and after Charaka’s it is the oldest book on medicine which the Hindus possess. Surgery was considered by Susruta to be “the first and best of the medical sciences; less liable than any other to the fallacies of conjectural and inferential practice; pure in itself, perpetual in its applicability; the worthy produce of heaven, and certain source of fame.”

Wise says,246 “Dhanwantari asked his pupils, On what shall I first lecture? They answered, On surgery; because formerly there were no diseases among the gods, and wounds were the first injuries which required treatment. Besides, the practice of surgery is more respected, as affording immediate relief, and is connected with the practice of medicine; although the latter has no connection with surgery.” This was agreed to; and we find the explanation of the eight parts of Ayur-Veda, in six books of Susruta, as follows:—

1st. Surgery (SÚtra SthÁna), in which is considered the origin of medicine; the rules of teaching, the duty of practitioners, the selection and uses of instruments and medicines, the influence of the weather on health, and the practice to be followed after surgical operations. Then follows the description of the diseases of the humours and surgical diseases; the restoration of defective ears and noses; and the removal of extraneous substances which have entered the body; the different stages of inflammation, with their treatment; different forms of wounds and ulcers, and the regimen of patients labouring under surgical diseases; the description of good and bad diet; of prognosis; the kind of messengers to be employed by the sick; and of diseases produced by the deranged actions of the senses, and of incurable diseases. Then follows the preparations required for accompanying a rajah in war, the duty of practitioners, the difference of climates, the different classes of medicines according to their sensible qualities, a description of the fluids, and of the different preparations, and articles of food. These subjects are treated of in thirty-six chapters.

2nd. Nosology (NidÁna SthÁna). The description and diagnosis of diseases produced by vitiated humous, or derangements of blood, bile, wind, and phlegm; the symptoms and causes of rheumatic diseases, of piles, of stone, fistula-in-ano, leprosy, diabetes, gonorrhoea, and ascites; the symptoms of unnatural presentations in midwifery, large internal abscesses, erysipelas, scrofula, hydrocele, venereal diseases, and diseases of the mouth. These subjects are considered in sixteen chapters.

3rd. Anatomy (SarÍra SthÁna), or structure of the body. The description of the soul, and the elementary parts of the body; of puberty; of conception; of the growth of the different parts of the body; of bleeding; of the treatment of pregnancy, and of infants. This division has ten chapters.

4th. Therapeutics (Chikitsa SthÁna), in which the exhibition of medicines, the history of inflammations, the treatment of fractures, rheumatic diseases, piles, fistula-in-ano, leprosy, diabetes, and dropsy are given; the manner of extracting the child in unusual positions, the remedies for restoring health and strength, and for prolonging life; the means of preventing diseases; the use of clysters, and of errhines, and the use of the smoke of different substances. These are considered in forty chapters.

5th. Toxicology (Kalpa SthÁna). The means of distinguishing poisoned food, and descriptions of different mineral, vegetable, and animal poisons, with their antidotes, is given under this head. This division is treated of in eight chapters.

6th. The supplementary section, Locales (Uttara SthÁna), includes various local diseases; as those of the eye, nose, ears and head, with their treatment; the symptoms and treatment of fever, and its varieties; dysentery, consumption; gulma; diseases of the heart; jaundice; discharges of blood, and fainting. This is followed by the treatment of intoxication, of cough, hiccough, asthma, hoarseness of voice, worms, stercoraceous vomiting, cholera, dyspepsia, and dysuria. It also treats of madness, epilepsy, apoplexy; the different tastes of substances, with their effects; the means of retaining health, and the different opinions of practitioners regarding the humours. These subjects are treated in sixty-six chapters.

According to Susruta a pupil had to be initiated into the Science of Medicine. “A medical man should initiate a pupil who is either a Brahmana, Kshatriya, or Vaishya, the members of whose body are sound, of an amiable disposition, active, well-conducted, mild, healthy, vigorous, talented, courageous, of a retentive memory, good judgment and rank, whose tooth-ends, tongue, and lips are small, whose eyes, nose, and mouth are straight, of a pleasant mind, talk, and behaviour, and able to bear fatigue; other such should not be initiated.”

Many ceremonies follow; an altar is to be erected having four angles in some conspicuous direction, which is to be washed with infusion of cow-dung and spread with kÚsa grass; precious stones and rice are to be scattered upon it, and a fire is to be kindled with a number of precious woods, an oblation of ghee is to be made, and the mystic words BhÚr Bhuvah Svar and Om are to be said. “After this hail each divinity (Brahma, Agni, Dhanvantari, PrajÁpati, Asvins, and Indra) and each Sage (the Rishis), and make the pupil do the same.”

Stenzler and others have thought it possible that Susruta borrowed his system of medicine largely from the Greeks, and they say that so far as chronology is affected by it there would be nothing surprising in the circumstance. But Weber asserts247 that no grounds whatever exist for this supposition; on the contrary, there is much to tell against such an idea. None of the contemporaries of Susruta has a name with a foreign sound, and the cultivation of medicine is assigned by Susruta and other writers to the city of Benares. The weights and measures to be employed by the physician are those of the eastern provinces, which never came into close contact with the Greeks, and it was first in these parts where medicine received its special cultivation.

In the general treatment of disease, the Hindus paid great attention to diet, so as to promote the just balance of the elements and humours, as they considered that the generality of diseases are produced by derangements in the humours. Many of their statements on dietetics show a keen observation. If management of diet failed to cure the disorder, the patient was directed to abstain from food altogether for a time. Should this also fail, recourse was had to ejecting the corrupted humours by emetics, purgatives, or bleeding. Even the healthy were advised to take an emetic once a fortnight, a purgative once a month, and to be bled twice a year at the change of the seasons. The Hindus observed the “critical days” which have long been recognised by physicians everywhere. Pythagoras says the Egyptians observed them, and Hippocrates employed the term ??as?? when the humoral pathology was in vogue. The Hindus thought that all diseases divide naturally into two classes of the sthenic and asthenic types. In the one there was excess, in the other deficiency of excitement. Health consists in a happy medium. All the Asiatic nations hold this opinion. Their remedies consequently were stimulating or cooling, as the type of the malady demanded. Pepper, bitters, and purgatives were stimulants. Stomachics, as chiraitÁ, paun mixed with lime, bathing and cold were cooling remedies.248

The sages of antiquity have handed down to us the qualities which constitute a good physician. He must be strictly truthful, and of the greatest sobriety and decorum; he must have no dealings with any women but his own wife; he must be a man of sense and benevolence, of a charitable heart, and of a calm temper, constantly studying how to do good. Such a man is a good physician if, in addition to this, he constantly endeavours to improve his mind by the study of good books. He is not to be peevish with an irritable patient; he must be courageous and hopeful to the last day of his patient’s life; always frank, communicative, and impartial, he is yet to be rigid in seeing that his orders are carried out.

Hindu physicians make their prognosis a strong point in their practice; there are, they say, certain signs which to the experienced eye enable the doctor to prognosticate the favourable or fatal termination of a disorder. And in the first place a good deal is to be learned from the messenger who summons him to the patient, and so he notes his appearance, his dress, his manner of speaking; he notes the time of day and other circumstances, as these are all considered to have an influence on the result of the illness. It is considered unfavourable if many people follow each other to call the doctor. If the messenger sees a man arrive riding on an ass, or if he has a stick, string, or fruit in his hand, if he is dressed in red, black, or net clothes, if he sneezes, is deformed, agitated, crying, or scratching himself,—all these are bad signs. Not less so is it unfavourable when the physician is called at noonday or midnight, when he has his face turned towards the south, when he is eating, or when he is asleep or fatigued.249

When the doctor arrives at the bedside, it is an unfavourable sign if the patient rubs one hand against another, scratches his back, or constantly moves his head. There are eight most severe forms of disease—the nervous class, tetanus and paralysis; leprosy; piles, fistula-in-ano, stone; unnatural presentations in labour; and dropsy of the abdomen. These are cured with great difficulty, say the Hindus.

It is a good sign when the patient’s voice remains unaltered, when he awakes from sleep without starting, when he remains cool after food, and when he does not forget his god, but is prayerful and resigned.

“When the messenger finds the physician sitting in a clean place, with his face towards the east, and the messenger has in his hands a water-pot full of water, with an umbrella, they are favourable signs.”

“In Ceylon it is affirmed by the Shastree Brahmans that the Science of Medicine was communicated by Maha Brahma to the Brahma Daksha PrajapatÍ; by PrajapatÍ it was communicated to the Aswins (the physicians of heaven): the two Aswins communicated it to Satora, the chief of the gods inhabiting the six lower heavens, by whom it was communicated to the nine sages, mentioned, on their going to him with one accord to seek a remedy for the evils brought upon mankind by their iniquities; they communicated it to the King of Casi (Benares), whose descendants caused it to be committed to writing.”250

Arrianus, in his history of Alexander’s expedition to India, says that “speckled snakes of a wonderful size and swiftness” are found in that country, and that “The Grecian physicians found no remedy against the bite of these snakes; but the Indians cured those who happened to fall under that misfortune; for which reason, Nearchus tells us, Alexander having all the most skilful Indians about his person, caused proclamation to be made throughout the camp that whoever was bit by one of these snakes, should forthwith repair to the royal pavilion for cure. These physicians also cure other diseases; but as they have a very temperate clime, the inhabitants are not subject to many. However, if any among them feel themselves much indisposed, they apply themselves to their sophists, who by wonderful, and even more than human means, cure whatever will admit of it.”251

Strabo speaks of the Hindu philosophers or sages, and the physicians. “Of the Garmanes, the most honourable,” he says, “are the Hylobii, who live in the forests, and subsist on leaves and wild fruits; they are clothed with garments made of the bark of trees, and abstain from commerce with women and from wine. The kings hold communication with them by messengers concerning the causes of things, and through them worship and supplicate the Divinity. Second in honour to the Hylobii are the physicians, for they apply philosophy to the study of the nature of man. They are of frugal habits, but do not live in the fields, and subsist upon rice and bread, which every one gives when asked, and receive them hospitably. They are able to cause persons to have a numerous offspring, and to have either male or female children, by means of charms. They cure diseases by diet, rather than by medicinal remedies. Among the latter, the most in repute are ointments and plasters. All others they suppose partake greatly of a noxious nature.”252 They had enchanters and diviners versed in the arts of magic, who went about the villages and towns begging.

Arrianus said of the Hindus that their women were deemed marriageable at seven years of age; but the men, not till they arrive at the age of forty.253

Many charms, imprecations, and other superstitious usages of ancient India are contained in the Atharva-veda-SamhitÂ. This body of literature dates, according to Max MÜller, from 1000 to 800 B.C. (the Mantra period).254 In this Samhit a number of songs are addressed to illnesses, and the healing herbs appropriate for their cure. Sarpa-vidyÁ (serpent-science) possibly dealt with medical matters also.255

The oldest fragments (very poor ones, it must be confessed) of Hindu medical science are to be found in these relics of Vedic times.

In a work on Indian medicine called the Kalpastanum described by Dr. Heyne,256 we read that the doctor’s apparatus of mortars, scales, etc., must be kept in a place in the wall that has been consecrated for that purpose by religious ceremonies. In the middle of the medicine room the mystic sign must be set up, with images of Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva.

Many ceremonies must be gone through in the preparation of medicines; the physician must attend to the boiling of some of them himself, and the spot round the fireplace must be smeared with cow-dung by a virgin, or by the mother of sons whose husband is alive; at the same time, offerings must be made to the gods. Should any of the ceremonies be omitted, the patient will repent the neglect, for devils of all descriptions will defile the medicine and hinder its good effect. Before the patient takes his potion, the god of physic is to be worshipped in the person of his deputy, the doctor, who naturally (and for the good of the patient) is to be well rewarded for his services.

Buddhism, says Max MÜller, is the frontier between ancient and modern literature in India. He gives 477 B.C. as the probable date of Buddha’s death,257 and describes the religion of that great sage as standing in the same relation to the ancient Brahmanism of the Veda as Italian to Latin, or as Protestantism to Catholicism. It is a development from Brahmanism, yet it is not the religion of India, though it has greatly influenced Hindu thought.258

Buddha’s religious system recognised no supreme deity; a Buddhist never really prays, he merely contemplates.259

Man can himself become the only god Buddha’s system finds room for. God becomes man in Brahmanism; man becomes a god in Buddhism. All existence is an evil to the Buddhist; “act” is to be got rid of as effectually as possible, for action means existence. The great end of the system is Nirvana, or non-existence. “Of priests and clergy in our sense,” says Professor Williams, “the Buddhist religion has none.” Though there is no God, prayer is practised as a kind of charm against diseases; for malignant demons, as we might have expected, are believed by Buddhists to cause these and other evils. These Buddhist prayers are used like the Mantras of the Brahmins as charms against evils of all kinds. The Buddhists have a demon of love, anger, evil, and death, called Mara, the opponent of Buddha. He can send forth legions of evil demons like himself. Some of the precepts of Buddha are fully equal to those of the highest religions—Charity, Virtue, Patience, Fortitude, Meditation, and Knowledge. The special characteristic of Buddhism is the perfection of its tenderness and mercy towards all living creatures, even beasts of prey and noxious insects not being outside the circle of its sympathy. According to the Buddhist’s belief, all our acts ripen and go to form our Karma. The consequences of our acts must inexorably be worked out. This is Brahminical as well as Buddhistic doctrine. “In the SÁbda-kalpa-druma, under the head of Karma-vipaka,” says Williams, “will be found a long catalogue of the various diseases with which men are born, as the fruit of evil deeds committed in former states of existence, and a declaration as to the number of births through which each disease will be protracted, unless, expiations be performed in the present life.”260

All our sufferings, our sicknesses, weaknesses, and moral depravity are simply the consequences of our actions in former bodies. When the Jews asked our Lord, “Who did sin, this man (i.e. in a former life) or his parents, that he was born blind?”261 they evidently had in their minds the Hindu doctrine of previous existences. The principles of the Brahminic religion do not appear to have embraced any care for or attention to the needs of sick people. Involved in philosophical speculations, and the perfecting of their system of caste, the founders of the Brahminic religion had no time to bestow on such mundane matters as disease and its cure. It was not until the rise of Buddhism and the political ascendency which it acquired over Brahmanism (from about 250 B.C. to A.D. 600), that public hospitals were established for man and animals in the great cities of the Buddhist princes.262 Buddhism had a gospel for every living creature; it taught the spiritual equality of all men, whose good works, without the mediation of priests and Brahmins, would save them from future punishment. Medicine, under the fostering care of Buddhism, was studied as any other science, and the noblest outcome of the movement was the establishment of public hospitals. A great seat of medical learning was established at Benares, and Asoka, King of Behar or Putra, published fourteen Edicts, one of which devised a system of medical care for man and beast.263

Amongst the legends of Gotama Buddha is the history of JÍwaka, which is of great interest to the historians of medicine, as it illustrates the state of the science in India at that early age. The following account is abbreviated from Mr. Spence Hardy’s translation of Singhalese MSS.264

JÍwaka was a physician who administered medicine to Budha. He learned his profession in this way. When he was seven or eight years of age, he ran away from his parents, resolving that he would learn some science; so he considered the character of the eighteen sciences and the sixty-four arts, and determined that he would study the art of medicine, that he might be called doctor, and be respected, and attain to eminence. So he went to the collegiate city of TaksalÁ265 and applied to a learned professor to take him into his school of medicine. The professor asked him what fees he had brought with him. JÍwaka said he had no money, but he was willing to work. The professor liked the manner of the lad, and agreed to teach him, though from other pupils he received a thousand masurans. At this moment the throne of Sekra trembled, as JÍwaka had been acquiring merit, and was soon to administer medicine to Gotama Budha. The dÉwa resolved that as he was to become the physician of Budha, he would himself be his teacher; and for this purpose he came to the earth, entered the mouth of the professor, and inspired him with the wisdom he needed to teach his pupil in the most excellent manner.

JÍwaka made rapid progress, and soon discovered that he could treat the patients more successfully than his master. He learned in seven years as much about diseases as any other teacher could have taught him in sixteen. Then JÍwaka asked his preceptor when his education would be finished; and the old man, wishing to test his knowledge, told him to take a basket and go outside the city for the space of sixteen miles, and collect all the roots, barks, leaves, and fruits which were useless in the art of medicine. JÍwaka did as he was instructed, and after four days he returned and informed the professor that he had met with no substance which in some way or other was not useful in medicine; there was no such thing on earth. Now when the teacher heard this reply, he said, there was no one who could teach the pupil any more, and Sekra departed from his mouth. He knew that his pupil had been taught by divine wisdom. Then JÍwaka journeyed to SÁkÉtu, where he found a woman who had a violent pain in her head, which for seven years many learned physicians had vainly tried to cure. He offered to cure her, but she said, “If all the learned doctors had failed to relieve her, it was useless to seek the aid of a little child.” JÍwaka replied that “Science is neither old nor young. I will not go away till the headache is entirely cured.” Then the woman said, “My son, give me relief for a single day: it is seven years since I was able to sleep.” So JÍwaka poured a little medicine into her nose, which went into her brain, and behold, all her headache was gone; and the lady and her relations each gave the physician 4,000 nÍla-karshas, with chariots, and other, and other gifts in abundance. After this he cured the king of a fistula-in-ano, for which he received a royal reward. There was in Rajagaha a rich nobleman who had a pain in his head like the cutting of a knife. None of his physicians could cure him, so JÍwaka took the noble into a room, sat behind him, and taking a very sharp instrument, opened his skull; and setting aside the three sutures, he seized the two worms which were gnawing his brain with a forceps, and extracted them entire. He then closed up the wound in such a manner that not a single hair was displaced. There was a nobleman in Benares who had twisted one of his intestines into a knot, so that he was not able to pass any solid food. Crowds of physicians came to see him, but none of them dare undertake his case; but JÍwaka said at once he could cure him. He bound his patient to a pillar that he might not move, covered his face, and taking a sharp instrument, without the noble’s being aware of what was going on, ripped open the abdomen, took out his intestines, undid the knot, and replaced them in a proper manner. He then rubbed ointment on the place, put the patient to bed, fed him on rice-gruel, and in three days he was as well as ever. Of course he had an immense fee. After performing other wonderful cures, JÍwaka administered medicine to Budha in the perfume of a flower. The narrative must be given in the words of the MS.: “In this way was the medicine given. On a certain occasion when Budha was sick, it was thought that if he were to take a little opening medicine he would be better; and accordingly Ananda went to JÍwaka to inform him that the teacher of the world was indisposed. On receiving this information, JÍwaka, who thought that the time to which he had so long looked forward had arrived, went to the wihÁra, as Budha was at that time residing near Rajagaha. After making the proper inquiries, he discovered that there were three causes of the disease; and in order to remove them he prepared three lotus flowers, into each of which he put a quantity of medicine. The flowers were given to Budha at three separate times, and by smelling at them his bowels were moved ten times by each flower. By means of the first flower the first cause of disease passed away, and by the other two the second and third causes were removed.”

This legend is instructive in many ways. It shows us that 500 B.C. there were colleges in which medicine was taught, and that by special professors of the art, who received large fees from their pupils and kept them under instruction for many years. We find that the profession of medicine brought great honours and rewards to its adepts. We learn that trephining the skull for cerebral diseases was in use, and that the operation of opening the abdomen for bowel obstructions was understood. It reveals the important fact that already the whole of nature had been ransacked for remedies, and that everything was more or less useful to the physician. The great efficacy which the ancients attributed to perfumes is exhibited in the lotus story, which reminds us that when Democritus was aware that he was dying, he desired to prolong his life beyond the festival of Ceres, and accomplished his wish by inhaling the vapour of hot bread.

Galen’s description of the pulse in disease is very suggestive of the ancient Sanskrit treatises on the pulse; so much is this the case, it would seem, that either the Hindu physician must have copied from the Roman, or the Roman from the Indian. He speaks of the sharp-tailed or myuri, fainting myuri, recurrent myuri, the goat-leap or dorcadissans, a term derived from the animal dorcas, which, in jumping aloft, stops in the air, and then unexpectedly takes another and a swifter spring than the former. But if after the diastole it recur, and before a complete systole take place, strike the finger a second time; such a pulse is called a reverberating one, or dicrotos, from its beating twice. There is also the undulatory and vermicular pulse, the spasmodic and vibratory, the ant-like or formicans, from its resemblance to the ant (formica), on account of its smallness and kind of motion; there is the hectic, the serrated, the fat and the lean kind.

Medical etiquette amongst the Hindus was not overlooked.

“A physician who desires success in his practice, his own profit, a good name, and finally a place in heaven, must pray daily for all living creatures, first of the Brahmans and of the cow. The physician should wear his hair short, keep his nails clean266 and cut close, and wear a sweet-smelling dress. He should never leave the house without a cane or umbrella; he should avoid especially any familiarity with women. Let his speech be soft, clear, pleasant. Transactions in the house should not be bruited abroad.”267

The dissection and examination of the dead subject is not practised in India, it is contrary to the tenets of the Brahmans; such knowledge of anatomy as the Hindus possess must therefore be little else than conjecture, formed by the study of the bodies of animals. Ainslie says268 that the Rajah of Tanjore, in the year 1826, was a learned and enlightened prince, who was anxious to study the structure of the human body, but was too rigid a Hindu to satisfy his curiosity at the expense of his principles, so he ordered a complete skeleton made of ivory to be sent to him from England. Sir William Jones states that in a fragment of the Ayur-Veda he was surprised to find an account of the internal structure of the human frame.269

The ancient Hindus must have possessed considerable knowledge of surgery. In a commentary on Susruta made by Ubhatta, a Cashmirian, which may be as old, Ainslie thinks, as the twelfth century, many valuable surgical definitions are distinctly detailed. According to the best authorities, says Ainslie, surgery was of eight kinds: chedhana, cutting or excision; lekhana, or scarification and inoculation; vyadhana, puncturing; eshyam, probing or sounding; aharya, extraction of solid bodies; visravana, extracting fluids (by leeches and bleeding); sevana, or sewing; and bhedana, division or excision.270

Twelve species of leeches are enumerated in some of the Sanskrit works on surgery, six of which are poisonous and six useful medicinally.271

Dissection was practised in the most ancient times; but now there is the greatest prejudice against touching the dead body, and modern practitioners of Hindu medicine, where they do not follow the ancient authors, are in a worse condition than they were, on account of the present ignorance of anatomy. All the sages are alleged to have learned their knowledge of medicine from the works of Charaka and Susruta. Those who were taught by Charaka became physicians; those who were followers of Susruta, surgeons. Charaka’s classification and plan of treating diseases are considered superior to those of Susruta, but the latter is prized for his anatomy and surgery. Babhata compiled a compendium of medicine from the works of these great masters of the art, and some three hundred years ago a compilation was made from all the most celebrated works on medicine; this was called Baboprukasa. It is clear and well arranged, and explains the difficulties and obscurities of the ancient Shastres. This was compiled as a text-book for practitioners, and is in high repute with them. Dr. Wise explains the ancient methods of dissecting the human body as given in Hindu text-books.

“The dejections are to be removed, and the body washed and placed in a framework of wood, properly secured by means of grass, hemp, sugar-cane reeds, corn-straw, pea-stalks, or the like. The body is then to be placed in still water, in a moving stream, where it will not be injured by birds, fish, or animals. It is to remain for seven days and nights in the water, when it will have become putrid. It is then to be removed to a convenient situation, and with a brush, made of reeds, hair, or bamboo bark, the surface of the body is to be removed so as to exhibit the skin, flesh, etc., which are each in their turn to be observed before being removed. In this manner, the different corporeal parts of the body will be exhibited; but the life of the body is too ethereal to be distinguished by this process, and its properties must therefore be learned with the assistance of the explanations of holy medical practitioners, and prayers offered up to God, by which, conjoined with the exercise of the reasoning and understanding faculties, conviction will be certainly obtained.”272

The Hindus have been great observers of the natural qualities of plants, though they have contributed little or nothing to the study of botany. “The materia medica of the Hindus,” says Hunter,273 “embraces a vast collection of drugs belonging to the mineral, vegetable, and animal kingdoms, many of which have been adopted by European physicians.” They were ingenious pharmacists, and some of their directions for the administration of medicines are most elaborate. They paid scrupulous attention to hygiene, regimen, and diet.

Hindu treatises on medicine inform the physician that man’s constitution is occasioned by three dispositions born with him—wadum, pittum, and chestum, or wind, bile, and slime,—and it is the physician’s business to ascertain which of these predominate in any individual. These we may call the three morbiferous diatheses. The pulse is to be felt, not merely at the wrist as we feel it, but in ten different parts of the body. Some of the descriptions of the pulse are very curious. Sometimes, they say, it beats as a frog jumps, or as a creeping rain-worm, or like the motion of a child in a cradle hung in chains; at other times it is like a fowl when running or as a peacock when strutting, and so on.

The Yantras or surgical implements known to Susruta were, according to Professor H.H. Wilson, one hundred and one, and are thus described by him in his most interesting paper on the “Medical and Surgical Sciences of the Hindus.”274

The instruments were classed as Swastikas, Sandansas, TÁlayantras, NÁdiyantras, SalÁkÁs, and Upayantras.

The Swastikas are twenty-four in number; they are metallic, about eighteen inches long, and fancifully shaped like the beaks of birds, etc. They were a sort of pincers or forceps.

The Sandansas were a kind of tongs for removing extraneous substances from the soft parts.

The TÁlayantras were similar, and were used for bringing away foreign bodies from the ears, nose, etc.

The NÁdiyantras were tubular instruments, of which there were twenty sorts. They were similar to our catheters, syringes, etc. The SalÁkÁs were rods and sounds, etc. Of these there were twenty-eight kinds; some were for removing nasal polypi, so common and so troublesome in India. The Upayantras were such dressings as cloth, twine, leather, etc. The first, best, and most important of all implements is declared to be the Hand. The Man’dalÁgra was a round pointed lancet; the Vriddhipatra a broad knife; the ArddhadhÁrÁs are perhaps knives with one edge; the TrikÚrchaka may be a sort of canular trochar, with a guarded point. The Vrihimukha is a perforating instrument. The KuthÁrikÁ was probably a bistoury. The Vadisa is a hooked or curved instrument for extracting foreign substances, and the Dantasanku appears to be an instrument for drawing teeth. The ArÁ and Karapatra are saws for cutting through bones. The Eshan’i is a blunt straight instrument six or eight inches long—a sort of probe, in fact. The SÚchi is a needle. Then the Hindu surgeon had substitutes such as rough leaves that draw blood, pith of trees, skin, leeches, caustics, etc. It is evident that the surgeon of ancient India was not inefficiently armed.

The student of surgery had many curious contrivances for acquiring manual dexterity. He practised the art of making incisions on wax spread out on a board; on flowers, bulbs, and gourds. Skins or bladders filled with paste and mire were used for the same purpose. He practised scarification on the fresh hides of animals from which the hair has not been removed; puncturing, or lancing the vessels of dead animals; extraction on the cavities of the same, or fruits with large seeds; sutures were made on skin and leather, and ligatures and bandages on well-made models of the human limbs. Fourteen kinds of bandages are described by VÁgbhatta. The cautery was applied by hot seeds, burning substances, or heated plates and probes. Frequently this treatment was used for headaches and for liver and spleen disorders. It was chiefly employed, however, as with the Greeks, for averting bleeding by searing the mouths of the divided vessels. The early Hindus could extract stone from the bladder, and even the foetus from the uterus. They must have been bold operators, many of their operations being actually hazardous. It is a subject deserving of inquiry how they lost the information and skill which they once possessed in so high a degree. The books of medicine and surgery to which reference has been made are undoubtedly most ancient, and it must be remembered were considered as inspired writings. Professor Wilson says: “We must infer that the existing sentiments of the Hindus are of modern date, growing out of an altered state of society, and unsupported by their oldest and most authentic civil and moral, as well as medical institutes.”

Many surgical operations which we consider triumphs of our modern practice were invented by the ancient Hindus. They were skilled in amputation, in lithotomy (as we have seen), in abdominal and uterine operations; they operated for hernia, fistula, and piles, set broken bones, and had specialists in rhinoplasty or operations for restoring lost ears and noses. It was a common custom in India for a jealous husband to mutilate the nose of his suspected wife, so that surgeons had opportunities to practise this branch of their art. The ancient Indian surgeons invented an operation for neuralgia which was very similar to the modern division of the fifth nerve above the eyebrow. Veterinary science was understood, and ancient treatises exist, says Hunter,275 on the diseases of elephants and horses.

The best era of Hindu medicine was from 250 B.C. to 750 A.D. Its chief centres were found in such Buddhist monastic universities as that of Nalanda, near GayÁ.276 Hunter thinks it probable that the ancient Brahmans may have derived their anatomical knowledge from the dissection of the sacrifices; but there is no doubt that the true schools of Indian medicine were the great public hospitals which were established by Buddhist princes like Asoka, famous for his rock edicts, B.C. 251-249. Amongst the fourteen injunctions inscribed by this enlightened sovereign, the first was the prohibition of the slaughter of animals for food or sacrifice, and the second was the provision of a system of medical aid for men and animals and of plantations and wells on the roadside.277

Probably King Asoka’s were the first real hospitals for general diseases anywhere established, as the institutions connected with the Greek temples were not exactly hospitals in our sense of the term; they were more like camps round a mineral spring or spa. The Buddhist physicians would have in these merciful institutions abundant opportunity for the continuous study of disease.

Whatever may have been the condition of ancient Hindu anatomy and surgery, in modern times both have now fallen to the lowest point. Dislocated joints are replaced and fractured limbs set by a class of men similar to our bone-setters which are found in all nations. Certain of the Mohammedan doctors—Hakeems—sometimes bleed and couch for cataract in a clumsy manner. The village KabirÁj knows but a few sentences of Sanskrit texts, but he has “a by no means contemptible pharmacopoeia,” says Hunter. The rest consists of spells, fasts, and quackery.

Physicians (Vitians or Vydias) being Sudras are not allowed to read the sacred medical writings (Vedas); these are guarded with religious awe by the Brahmins; they are permitted, however, access to certain commentaries upon the professional sacred books.

When we reflect on the high position which the science and art of the Hindus had attained in very ancient times, it is surprising that we have apparently learned little or nothing from them in connection with the healing art. Max MÜller believes that there was an ancient indigenous Hindu astronomy and an ancient indigenous Hindu geometry. Probably the first attempt at solving the problem of the squaring of the circle was suggested, he thinks, by the problem in the Sutras how to construct a square altar that should be of exactly the same magnitude as a round altar. It is scarcely conceivable that so patient and shrewd a people as the Hindus, a people at once so observant and so profoundly speculative, should not have kept pace with the other enlightened nations of the world in the study of medicine and surgery. The vegetation of India is so rich in medicinal herbs that its Materia Medica could hardly be equalled in any other country; so that both by intellect and by location the Hindus should be amongst the foremost professors of the art of medicine. On the contrary, however, the West has everywhere to instruct the East in the medical sciences; and the young Brahmins who flock to the medical schools and universities of Europe find that they have everything to learn from us in this direction. Is this an evidence of arrested development, a retrogression in civilization due to conservatism and a paralysis of the power to keep pace with the world’s advance consequent on the influences of religion and custom? Probably it is. All the medicine of the Hindus is empiricism; their systems exclude anatomy and surgery, without which, as Prof. H.H. Wilson observes,278 “the whole system must be defective.... We can easily imagine that these were not likely to have been much cultivated in Hindustan, and that local disadvantages and religious prejudices might have proved very serious impediments to their acquirement.”

As compared with other ancient nations, Egypt, ChaldÆa, Greece, and Rome, we are at considerable disadvantage in the attempt to discover what was known and practised of the healing arts in the remoter ages. We have no papyri like the “Book of the Dead” or the great medical papyrus of Ebers; we have no inscriptions on such ancient monuments as Mesopotamia has preserved for us; we have no Sanskrit treatises to be compared for their antiquity and scientific interest with those which have come down to us from ancient Greece.

Max MÜller says279 that “few Sanskrit MSS. in India are older than 1000 after Christ, nor is there any evidence that the art of writing was known in India much before the beginning of Buddhism, or the very end of the ancient Vedic literature.”

Then, again, the Hindu treatises on medical subjects, whether fables or facts, have hitherto been little noticed by Sanskrit scholars.280

The subject is not of general interest, and a man would need to be not only a perfect Sanskrit scholar, but a physician as well, who should attempt such a task as the translation of these treatises in any useful manner. Although ancient India has little to show us in the way of actual written documents and inscriptions, it must not be supposed for a moment that she is deficient in ancient poetry and other works which have been preserved through the ages by the marvellously developed memory of her Brahmins and religious teachers. The ancient Vedic hymns, the BrÂhmanas, and probably the Sutras, were handed down from before 1000 B.C. by oral tradition. Every, the minutest precaution was taken that not a word, not a letter, not an accent even should be omitted or altered; and Max MÜller tells us “this was a sacred duty, the neglect of which entailed social degradation, and the most minute rules were laid down as to the mnemonic system that had to be followed.”

The people of India believe that small-pox is under the control of “the goddess Mata,” in whose honour temples abound and fairs are held, where thousands of women and children attend with offerings. The declivities of most of the numerous conical hills present either a reddened stone or temple devoted to “Mata,” with most probably an attendant Brahmin priest. Nearly every village has its goddess of small-pox in the immediate locality, and in many places a large piece of ground is esteemed holy and dedicated to “Mata.” The people do not pray to escape the affliction, unless in seasons when it occurs with more than ordinary violence. They do, however, petition for a mild visitation. But even the loss of an eye does not appear to be viewed as a very serious calamity! “Is there not another eye sufficient for all our purposes?” questioned one of these stoical philosophers. “If it were the leg or hand, it would be different, but an eye is immaterial.”281

“The small-pox goddess stands with two uplifted crooked daggers, threatening to strike on the right and left. Before her are a band of executors of her vengeance. Two of them wear red grinning masks, carry black shields, and brandish naked scimitars. White lines, like rays, issue from the bodies of the others, to indicate infection. On the right there is a group of men with spotted bodies, afflicted with the malady; bells are hung at their cinctures, and a few of them wave in their hands black feathers. They are preceded by musicians with drums, who are supplicating the pity of the furious deity. Behind the goddess, on the right, there advances a bevy of smiling young women, who are carrying gracefully on their heads baskets with thanksgiving-offerings, in gratitude for their lives and their beauty having been spared. There is, besides, a little boy with a bell at his girdle, who seems to be conveying something from the right arm of the goddess. This action may possibly be emblematic of inoculation.”282

Another small-pox deity of India described by Mr. Dubois, a missionary,283 is Mah-ry-Umma, who is supposed to incarnate herself in the disease. The natives, when vaccination was first introduced, objected to the practice for fear lest the goddess should be offended, as to prevent the small-pox would imply an objection to her becoming incarnate amongst them. The difficulty was overcome by the suggestion that the vaccination was a mild form of disease by which the goddess had chosen to visit her votaries, so that she might be worshipped with equal respect.

“Even Siva is worshipped as a stone, especially that Siva who will afflict a child with epileptic fits, and then, speaking by its voice, will announce that he is ParchÂnana, the Five-faced, and is punishing the child for insulting his image.”284

Surgeon-General Sir W.J. Moore, in an article on “The Origin and Progress of Hospitals in India,”285 says that we may form a very good opinion of the condition of the whole of India in ancient times by recalling what was the state of medical relief in most of the native States previous to the institution of medical relief and sanitation in British districts.

“Recently, in the Native States, there might be witnessed disease proceeding unchecked and uninterfered with, to a degree which certainly would not be allowed at present in civilized Europe. And especially was this evident in surgical disease, as illustrated by the following extract from an official document:286—

“‘In former reports I have mentioned the extreme ignorance displayed by native “hukeems” or “vaids” of surgical principles. As a rule, all surgical disease is either wrongly treated, or let alone until treatment is unavailable by these uneducated practitioners. Their errors of omission and commission are not so easily ascertained in their medical, as in their surgical, practice. But in the latter, there is a glaring ignorance, not only from things requisite not being attempted, but from things unnecessary being performed, leading to the serious injury and often to the death of the patient. Thus, during my last tour, I saw at one village, an open scrofulous sore of the neck with the carotid artery isolated, and apparently on the point of giving way. At another village I witnessed an advanced cancer rapidly killing a man. In another place a woman had remained for days with a dislocated jaw, which was easily put in situ. Other forms of dislocation and fracture neglected are almost daily sights. At Bikaneer I amputated the leg of a man who eight months before fell from a camel; the bones of the leg protruding through the skin of the heel, and the foot being driven half-way up the front of the leg, in which position it had been permitted to heal! At the same place a woman was rapidly sinking from the results of extensive sinus of the breast, following abscess, and which only required free incisions for the restoration of health. I also saw a man dying of strangulated hernia, without the slightest idea of or attempt at relief on the part of the native practitioners. And so on, throughout almost the whole range of surgery, I have from time to time witnessed the most lamentable results from the malpractices, or from the absence of practice on the part of the Native Doctors.’

“As mentioned in the above extract, the errors of omission and commission are not so easily ascertained in medical as in surgical cases. But the great majority of those stricken by disease, such as inflammations and fevers, derived as little benefit from medicine as did the Romans when, according to Pliny, physicians were banished from the Imperial City during many years. For few indeed of the higher class and comparatively better educated ‘hukeems’ or ‘vaids’ would minister to the poor who were unable to pay their fees; and of the populations of India the great majority are and always were poor. Steeped in continually augmenting superstition and ignorance, if the poor received medical aid at all, it was from the hands of the equally ignorant and superstitious village ‘Kabiraj,’ who, unlike their more noble Aryan predecessors, did not even ‘draw physic from the fields,’ although they may have used a charm, such as a peacock’s feather tied round the affected part! If the poor got well, they got well; and as most diseases have a tendency to terminate in health, many did recover. If a fatal termination resulted, it was attributed to nusseeb or destiny, or the gods were blamed. Insane persons, if harmless, were allowed to ramble about the streets; if violent, they were chained in the most convenient place. The jails of the Native States were also in an unparalleled unsanitary condition, for no medical aid whatever was provided; as Coleridge said of Coldbath Fields, these jails might have given His Satanic Majesty a hint for improving Hades. Fatalism combined with ignorance, and a consequent utter unbelief in any measures of sanitation, resulted in the absence of all measures of precaution during epidemics of contagious disease. During the prevalence of small-pox, children might be seen by scores, in every stage of the disease, playing or lying about the streets. During an epidemic of cholera, not one precautionary measure was ever adopted—except by the wild Bheels, who invariably moved, leaving their villages for a time for the open jungle; thus forestalling the most approved method of preventing cholera adopted for British troops, viz., marching away from the infected area.

“Not only were there no hospitals proper, or contagious hospitals, or asylums for the insane, but neither were there any asylums for lepers. Regarding the latter, difference of opinion would appear to have existed among scientific investigators, then as now, as to whether leprosy is a contagious disease or not. Then as now, in some parts of the country, lepers were permitted to live among the people; in other localities they were thrust out from the towns or villages, generally forming a little colony on the adjoining plain. This expulsion of lepers from the towns and villages, then as now, was not so much the result of fear of contagion, as the Brahminical dread of contact with impurity. Then as now, these outcasts lived miserably in mud or grass huts, obtaining food by begging. When tired of life, or when being old or disabled their relatives were tired of keeping them, they often submitted to ‘sumajh’ or burial alive. But they more frequently threatened to perform ‘sumajh’ with the view of extracting alms from the charitable, who were induced to believe that the death of the leper would be credited to them, unless they bought off the sacrifice. ‘Sumajh,’ or leper burial alive, has been practised comparatively recently in more than one of the Native States.

“The Native principalities are now much more advanced in most respects than they were only a few years back. By coming into contact with the progressive civilization of adjoining British districts, the Governments of Native States were forced to advance; for they felt their existence would be imperilled. And this advance was most materially assisted by the successful endeavours made by the Indian Government to secure the better education of the young Indian princes and nobles. The Imperial Government also, and especially under Lord Mayo, enunciated care for the sick as one of the most urgent duties of the feudatory rulers of India. Owing to such measures, aided by the personal influence of the Political, and the assistance of the Medical Officers attached to the Native Courts, a hospital or dispensary has, amongst other features of civilization, been established at every large capital; while in some States ramifications of such central establishments have rendered the people almost as well off, in the matter of medical relief, as those in British territory. As it will not be necessary to refer again, except incidentally, to the Native States, I may here remark that all the medical institutions are supported at the cost of the Durbar or Government of each State. They are, as a rule, superintended by the European Medical Officer attached to the Political Residency, aided by native assistants.

“Although the recent condition of the Native States represents what formerly prevailed all over Hindustan, it must not be understood that the people were devoid of charity; only the charity of the well-to-do classes did not take the form of medical relief. In the absence of a qualified medical profession recognised by the State, the confidence felt in the physic of the ‘vaids’ and ‘hukeems’ was something akin to the faith of Byron, who without any such excuse designated medicine as ‘the destructive art of healing.’ Moreover, the organization of hospitals was not understood, and the necessary discipline of such establishments was foreign to the habits and ideas of the people. The poor (who now throng the hospitals of India), having had no experience of the advantages of such institutions, would probably not have resorted thereto had hospitals and dispensaries been opened under native control. So suspicious were the people on the first opening of a hospital in one of the Native States, that sweetmeats, of which they are very fond, were ordered to be given daily to each patient, as an encouragement to attend! So in former times the charitable preferred spending their money in sinking wells, in constructing serais or rest-houses for travellers, in endowing temples, and in feeding the poor, particularly Brahmins. In this manner, enormous sums have been disbursed and are still expended, especially in food for the destitute. This laudable charity of the Indians, although often confined to their own caste people, and to occasions of family festival, is one of the reasons why it has never been thought necessary to establish any system of poor-law relief in British India. Of late years native charity has been often directed towards building and endowing medical institutions, and many Indian gentlemen have given most liberally for such purposes.”

CHAPTER V.
MEDICINE IN CHINA, TARTARY, AND JAPAN.

Origin of Chinese Culture.—Shamanism.—Disease-Demons.—Taoism.—Medicine Gods.—Mediums.—Anatomy and Physiology of the Chinese.—Surgery.—No Hospitals in China.—Chinese Medicines.—Filial Piety.—Charms and Sacred Signs.—Medicine in Thibet, Tartary, and Japan.

Chief amongst the Mongolian peoples are the Chinese. Prof. Max MÜller argues that the Chinese, the Thibetans, the Japanese, Coreans, and the Ural-Altaic or Turanian nations are in the matter of religion closely related.

Chinese culture has recently been declared by Professor Terrien de la Couperie, FranÇois Lenormant, and Sayce to be of Accadian origin. Hieratic Accadian has been identified with the first five hundred Chinese characters, and it is believed by Professor de la Couperie that the Chinese entered north-western China from Susiana, about the twenty-third century before Christ.287

In the Finno-Tartarian magical mythology, we have not only the link which connects the religion of heathen Finland with that of Accadian ChaldÆa, but we discover what is of more importance in tracing the origin of the magic and medicine of the old civilizations of the world from a primitive and coarse cosmogony, such as we have examined in so many savage peoples.

As it is impossible to separate the ancient medical belief of a people from its religious conceptions, if we admit Prof. Max MÜller’s theory, we must also hold that it embraces the medical notions of these peoples. And so we find that one of the striking characteristics of the Mongolic religions is an extensive magic and sorcery—Shamanism. Practically the gods and heroes of the poetry of these peoples are sorcerers, and their worshippers value above everything their magical powers. Taoism, a Chinese religion of great antiquity and respect, involves an implicit faith in sorcery; and the Chinese and Mongolians have degenerated Buddhism into Shamanism.288

Confucianism is the chief religion of the Chinese. It is simply a development of the worship of ancestors, which was the aboriginal religion of the country. All the Chinese are ancestor-worshippers, to whatever other native religion they may belong.289

The pure Confucian is a true Agnostic.

Although Chinese civilization is without doubt extremely ancient, we are unable to study it as we study that of Egypt or ChaldÆa, on account of the absence of monuments or a literature older than a few centuries before Christ, which would give us a reliable history.

The Chinese attribute to Huang-ti (B.C. 2637) a work on medicine, which is still extant, entitled Nuy-kin, which is probably not older than the Christian era. They also attribute to the Emperor Chin-nung (B.C. 2699) a catalogue of medicinal herbs.290

The demon theory of disease universally obtains throughout the Chinese empire. All bodily and mental disorders spring either from the air or spirits. They are sent by the gods as punishments for sins committed in a previous state of existence. In a country where Buddhism is largely believed, it is natural to suppose that there is little sympathy with the suffering and afflicted. One might offend the gods by getting cured, or delay the working out of the effects of the expiatory suffering. Archdeacon Grey found a grievously afflicted monk in a monastery in the White Cloud mountains. He desired to take him to the Canton Medical Missionary Hospital; but the abbot took him aside, and begged him not to do so, as the sufferer had doubtless in a former state of existence been guilty of some heinous crime, for which the gods were then making him pay the well-merited penalty.291

Nevertheless, when sick, the Chinese often have recourse to some deity, who is supposed to have caused the illness. If the patient dies, they do not blame the god, but they withhold the thank-offering which is customary in case of recovery. The death is declared to be in accordance with the “reckoning of Heaven.” If the patient recovers, the deity of the disease gets the credit. Prayers and ceremonies are made use of to induce the “destroying” demon to banish the baneful influences under his control. Sudden illness is frequently ascribed to the evil influence of one of the seventy-two malignant spirits or gods. In very urgent cases an “arrow” is obtained from an idol in the temple. This “arrow” is about two feet long, and has a single written word, “Command,” upon it. If the patient recovers, it must be returned to the temple with a present; if he dies, an offering of mock-money is made. The “arrow” is considered as the warrant of the god for the disease-spirit to depart.292

In L’ien-chow, in the province of Kwang-si, if a man hits his foot against a stone, and afterwards falls sick, it is at once recognised that there was a demon in the stone; and the man’s friends accordingly go to the place where the accident happened, and endeavour to appease the demon with offerings of rice, wine, incense, and worship. After this the patient recovers.293

Sometimes it is difficult to find out what particular god has been offended. Then some member of his family asks, with a stick of burning incense in his hand, that the offended deity will make known by the mouth of the patient how he has been offended. The disease is sometimes, as amongst savage nations, ascribed to the spirit of a deceased person. The god of medicine is invited to the sick man’s house in cases where malignant sores or inflamed eyes are prevalent. Ten men sometimes become “security” for the sick person. After offerings and ceremonies, the names of the ten are written upon paper, and burned before the idol. When a patient is likely to die, the last resort is to employ Tauist priests to pray for him, and then the following ceremony is performed:—A bamboo, eight or ten feet long, with green leaves at the end, is provided, and a coat belonging to the sick man is suspended with a mirror in the place where the head of the wearer of the coat would be. The priest repeats his incantations, to induce the sick man’s spirit to enter the coat, as it is supposed that the patient’s spirit is leaving the body or has been hovering near it. The incantations are to induce the spirit to enter the coat, so that the owner may wear both together. Sometimes the family will hire a Tauist priest to climb a ladder of knives, and perform ceremonies for the recovery of the sick man. This is thought to have a great effect on the disease-spirits.294

The Emperor Fuh-Hi, who invented the eight diagrams, was the first physician whose name has come down to modern times. He is one of the Sang HuÔng, or “Three Emperors,” and is the deity of doctors.

I Kuang Tai UÔng is the god of surgery. The people say he was a foreigner, of the Loochoo Islands, who came to the middle kingdom and practised surgery. As he was deaf whilst in the flesh, his worshippers consider he is thus afflicted now that he is a deity, so they pray into his ear, as well as offer him incense and candles.295

Ling Chui NÄ is the goddess of midwifery and children. If children are sick, their parents employ Tauist priests in some of her temples to perform a ceremony for their cure.296

IÖh Uong ChÛ SÜ is the god of medicine. It is said that he was a distinguished physician who was deified after his death. He is now generally worshipped by dealers in drugs and by their assistants. On the third day of the third month, they make a feast in his honour, and burn candles and incense before his image at his temple. Practising physicians do not usually take any part in these proceedings.297

The Chinese have goddesses of small-pox and measles, which are extremely popular divinities. Should it thunder after the pustules of small-pox have appeared, a drum is beaten, to prevent them breaking. On the fourteenth day ceremonies are performed before the goddess, to induce her to cause the pustules to dry up.298

Mediums are often employed to prescribe for the sick. They behave precisely as our spiritualists do, and pretend that the divinity invoked casts himself into the medium for the time being, and dictates the medicine which the sick person requires.299

In the “Texts of TÁoism”300 we are informed that “In the body there are seven precious organs, which serve to enrich the state, to give rest to the people, and to make the vital force of the system full to overflowing. Hence we have the heart, the kidneys, the breath, the blood, the brains, the semen, and the marrow. These are the seven precious organs. They are not dispersed when the body returns (to the dust). Refined by the use of the Great Medicine, the myriad spirits all ascend among the Immortals.”

Anatomy and physiology have made no progress in China, because there has never been any dissection of the body. The only books on the subject in the Chinese language are Jesuit translations of European works. Briefly stated, Chinese ideas on the subject are as follows:—In the human body there are six chief organs in which “moisture” is located—the heart, liver, two kidneys, spleen, and lungs. There are six others in which “warmth” abides—the small and large intestine, the gall bladder, the stomach, and the urinary apparatus. They reckon 365 bones in the whole body, eight in the male and six in the female skull, twelve ribs in men and fourteen in women. They term the bile the seat of courage; the spleen, the seat of reason; the liver, the granary of the soul; the stomach, the resting-place of the mind.

A familiar drug in Chinese materia medica, which is sold in all the drug-shops, is the Kou-Kouo, or bean of St. Ignatius. The horny vegetable is used, after bruising and macerating, in cold water, to which it communicates a strong bitter taste. “This water,” says M. Huc,301 “taken inwardly, modifies the heat of the blood, and extinguishes internal inflammation. It is an excellent specific for all sorts of wounds and contusions.... The veterinary doctors also apply it with great success to the internal diseases of cattle and sheep. In the north of China we have often witnessed the salutary effects of the Kou-Kouo.”

This bean is the seed of Strychnos Ignatia, and the plant is indigenous to the Philippine Islands. The action and uses of ignatia are identical, says StillÉ, with those of nux vomica.302

The medical profession is a very crowded one in China, as it is perfectly free to any who choose to practise it. No diploma or certificate of any kind is necessary in order to practise medicine in China. The majority of the regular practitioners, if such they can be called, are men who have failed to pass their examinations as literates. There is one, and apparently only one, check on quackery. The Chinese have a special place in their second hell which is reserved for ignorant physicians who will persist in doctoring sick folk. In the fourth hell are found physicians who have used bad drugs, and in the seventh hell are tortured those who have taken human bones from cemeteries to make into medicines. In the very lowest hell are physicians who have misused their art for criminal purposes. These evil persons are ceaselessly gored by sows.303

Naturally, the sciences of anatomy and physiology are entirely neglected by these self-constituted native doctors. All the learning they require is the ability to copy out prescriptions from a medical book. Dr. Gould, a physician of long experience in China, tells us that the native physician is depicted in Chinese primers as a person between the heathen priest and the fortune-teller—his profession is looked upon as a combination of superstition and legerdemain.304

The court physicians at Pekin are of a much superior class, and are compelled to pass examinations before their appointment.

Astrology, charms, amulets, and characts enter largely into Chinese medical practice. The priests keep bundles of paper charms ready for emergencies. They are supposed to know which of the different methods of using them are most appropriate to each case. Masks are used by children at certain times to ward off the deity of small-pox. The masks are very ugly, as the deity is believed only to afflict pretty children.305

“Isaac Vossius,” says Southey, “commended the skill of the Chinese physicians in finding out by their touch, not only that the body is diseased (which, he said, was all that our practitioners knew by it), but also from what cause or what part the sickness proceeds. To make ourselves masters of this skill, he would have us explore the nature of men’s pulses, till they became as well known and as familiar to us as a harp or lute is to the players thereon; it not being enough for them to know that there is something amiss which spoils the tune, but they must also know what string it is which causes that fault.”306

Surgery has never made much progress in China; the Chinese have too much respect for the dead to employ corpses for anatomical purposes, and they have the greatest unwillingness to draw blood or perform any kind of operation on the living. Their ideas of the structure of the human frame are therefore purely fanciful. “The distinctive Chinese surgical invention is acupuncture, or the insertion of fine needles of hardened silver or gold for an inch or more (with a twisting motion) into the seats of pain or inflammation.”307 Rheumatism and gout are thus treated, and 367 points are specified where needles may be inserted without injury to great vessels or vital organs.

Dentistry and ophthalmic surgery are practised by specialists.

There are no hospitals; the Chinese consider it would be a neglect of the duty which they owe to their relatives to send them when sick to such institutions. Chinese doctors often receive a fixed salary so long as their patient remains in good health; when he falls sick, the pay is stopped till he gets well. The doctor must ask his patient no questions, nor does the patient volunteer any information about his case. Having felt the sick man’s pulse, looked at his tongue, and otherwise observed him, he is supposed to have completed his diagnosis, and must prescribe accordingly. Some of the Chinese prescriptions are very costly; precious stones and jewels are often powdered up with musk and made into pills, which are considered specifics for small-pox and fevers. Another remedy is Kiuchiu, a bitter wine made of spirit, aloes, myrrh, frankincense, and saffron, which is said to be a powerful tonic. The profession of medicine is hereditary, receiving very few recruits from outside; hence its complete stagnation.308

One of the industries of the Foo-Chow beggars is the rearing of snakes, which are used by the druggists to prepare their medicines. Snake-wine is used as a febrifuge, and snake’s flesh is considered a nutritious diet for invalids. Skulls, paws, horns, and skins of many animals, as bears, bats, crocodiles and tigers, are used in medicine. For fever patients physicians prescribe a decoction of scorpions, while dysentery is treated by acupuncture of the tongue. Pigeon’s dung is the favourite medicine for women in pregnancy; and the water in which cockles have been boiled is prescribed for skin diseases, and for persons who are recovering from small-pox. Rat’s flesh is eaten as a hair-restorer, and human milk is given to aged persons as a restorative. Crab’s liver administered in decoction of pine shavings is used in a form of skin disease. In Gordon Cumming’s Wanderings in China, from which many of the above facts are taken, it is stated that “dried red-spotted lizard, silk-worm moth, parasite of mulberry trees, asses’s glue, tops of hartshorn, black-lead, white-lead, stalactite, asbestos, tortoise-shell, stag-horns and bones, dog’s flesh and ferns are all recommended as tonics.” Burnt straw, oyster shells, gold and silver leaf, and the bones and tusks of dragons are said to be astringent. These dragons’ bones are the fossil remains of extinct animals. Some of the medicines of standard Chinese works are selected purely on account of their loathsomeness, such as the ordure of all sorts of animals, from man down to goats, rabbits, and silk-worm, dried leeches, human blood, dried toads, shed skins of snakes, centipedes, tiger’s blood, and other horrors innumerable hold a conspicuous place in the Chinese pharmacopoeia. Nor, says Gordon Cumming, are these the worst. The physicians say that some diseases are incurable save by a broth made of human flesh cut from the arm or thigh of a living son or daughter of the patient.309

The same author tells us that a young girl who so mutilated herself to save her mother’s life was specially commended in the Official Gazette of Peking for July 5th, 1870.

Medicines prepared from the eyes and vitals of the dead are supposed to be efficacious. Leprosy is believed to be curable by drinking the blood of a healthy infant. Dr. Macarthy and Staff-Surgeon Rennie were present at an execution in Peking, when they saw the executioner soak up the blood of the decapitated criminal with large balls of pith, which he preserved. These are dried and sold to the druggists under the name of “shue-man-tou” (blood-bread), which is prescribed for a disease called “chong-cheng,” which Dr. Rennie supposed to be pulmonary consumption.310

The Times says (October 10th, 1892) that the character of the accusations made in the publications against Europeans has created as much astonishment amongst the foreign residents in China as it has in the West. Missionaries especially were charged—and the charges have been made frequently during the past thirty years—with bewitching women and children by means of drugs, enticing them to some secret place, and there killing them for the purpose of taking out their hearts and eyes. Dr. Macgowan, a gentleman who has lived for many years in China, has published a statement showing that from the point of view of Chinese medicine these accusations are far from preposterous. It is one of the medical superstitions of China that various portions of the human frame and all its secretions possess therapeutic properties. He refers to a popular voluminous Materia Medica—the only authoritative work of the kind in the Chinese language—which gives thirty-seven anthropophagous remedies of native medicine. Human blood taken into the system from another is believed to strengthen it; and Dr. Macgowan mentions the case of an English lady, now dead, who devoted her fortune and life to the education of girls in Ningpo, who was supposed by the natives to extract the blood of her pupils for this purpose. Human muscles are supposed to be a good medicament in consumption, and cases are constantly recorded of children who mutilate themselves to administer their flesh to sick parents.

Never, says Dr. Macgowan, has filial piety exhibited its zeal in this manner more than at the present time. Imperial decrees published in the Pekin Gazette, often authorising honorary portals to be erected in honour of men, and particularly women, for these flesh offerings, afford no indication of the extent to which it is carried, for only people of wealth and influence can obtain such a recognition of the merit of filial devotion. It is very common among the comparatively lowly, but more frequent among the literati. A literary graduate now in his own service, finding the operation of snipping a piece of integument from his arm too painful, seized a hatchet and cut off a joint of one of his fingers, which he made into broth mixed with medicine and gave to his mother. It is essential in all such cases that the recipient should be kept in profound ignorance of the nature of the potion thus prepared, and in no case is the operation to be performed for an inferior, as by a husband for a wife, or a parent for a child. This belief in the medical virtues of part of the human body (of which a large number of instances which cannot be repeated here are given) has led to a demand from native practitioners which can sometimes only be supplied by murder. Of this, too, examples are given from official records and other publications, some of them of quite recent date.

Dr. Macgowan reminds us that men capable of these atrocities have been found in other civilized lands. He says:—

“It was in a model Occidental city, not inaptly styled the ‘Modern Athens,’ that subjects were procured for the dissecting-room through murder, at about the same amount of money as that paid in China for sets of eyes and hearts for medicine. A remedy was found which promptly suppressed that exceptional crime in the West. In China murder of this nature can also be prevented, but not speedily. Time is an indispensable factor in effecting the suppression of homicide, which is the outcome of medical superstition. That superstition is strongly intrenched in an official work, the most common book, after the classics, in the empire. So long as the concluding chapter is retained in the materia medica, it will be futile to undertake the abolition of murder for medical purposes; and so long as these abhorrent crimes prevail in China, so long will fomenters of riots against foreigners aim to make it appear that the men and women from afar are addicted to that form of murder, and thus precious lives will continue to be exposed to forfeiture.”

The most celebrated drug in Chinese Materia Medica is ginseng, the root of a species of Panax, belonging to the natural order AraliacÆ. The most esteemed variety is found in Corea; an inferior kind comes from the United States, the Panax quinquefolium, and is often substituted for the real article. All the Chinese ginseng is Imperial property, and is sold at its weight in gold. The peculiar shape of the root, like the body of man—a peculiarity which it shares with mandrake and some other plants—led to its employment in cases where virile power fails, as in the aged and debilitated. Special kinds have been sold at the enormous sum of 300 to 400 dollars the ounce. Europeans have hitherto failed, says the EncyclopÆdia Britannica, to discover any wonderful properties in the drug. It is no doubt a remarkable instance of the doctrine of signatures (q.v.). In all cases of severe disease, debility, etc., the Chinese fly to this remedy, so that enormous quantities are used. The Hon. H.N. Shore, R.N., says that the export from New-Chang in Manchuria to the Chinese ports of this article for one year alone reached the value of £51,000. It seems to be simply a mild tonic, very much like gentian root. Some of the pharmacies are on a very large scale; six hundred and fifty various kinds of leaves are commonly kept for medicinal purposes.

When a Chinese physician is not able to procure the medicines he needs, he writes the names of the drugs he desires to employ on a piece of paper, and makes the patient swallow it; the effect is supposed to be quite as good as that of the remedy itself, and certainly in many cases it would be infinitely more pleasant to take! This custom of swallowing charms is seen again in the sick-room, some of the charms which are stuck round it being occasionally taken down, burned, and mixed with water, which the patient has to drink. Gongs are beaten and fire-crackers let off to frighten away the demons which are supposed to be tormenting the sick person.

“The superstition as to the powers of the ‘evil eye,’” says Denny,311 “may almost be deemed fundamental to humanity, as I have yet to read of a people amongst whom it does not find some degree of credence.” In China a pregnant woman, or a man whose wife is pregnant, is called “four-eyed”; and children are guarded against being looked at by either, as it would probably cause sickness to attack them.

One of the commonest diagrams to be met with in China is the mystic svastika, or “Thor’s Hammer” ?. It is found on the wrappers of medicines, and is accepted as the accumulation of lucky signs possessing ten thousand virtues.312

The physicians of Thibet, says M. Huc,313 assign to the human body four hundred and forty diseases, neither more nor less. Lamas who practise medicine have to learn by heart the books which treat of these diseases, their symptoms, and the method of curing them. The books are a mere hotch-potch of aphorisms and recipes. The Lama doctors have less horror of blood than the Chinese, and practise bleeding and cupping. They pay great attention to the examination of a patient’s water. A thoroughly competent Lama physician must be able to diagnose the disease and treat the patient without seeing him. It is sufficient that he make a careful examination of the water. This he does not by chemical tests, as in Western nations, but by whipping it up with a wooden knife and listening to the noise made by the bubbles. A patient’s water is mute or crackling according to his state of health. Much of Chinese and Tartar medicine is mere superstition. “Yet,” says M. Huc very judiciously, “notwithstanding all this quackery, there is no doubt that they possess an infinite number of very valuable recipes, the result of long experience. It were perhaps rash to imagine that medical science has nothing to learn from the Tartar, Thibetian, and Chinese physicians, on the pretext that they are not acquainted with the structure and mechanism of the human body. They may, nevertheless, be in possession of very important secrets, which science alone, no doubt, is capable of explaining, but which, very possibly, science itself may never discover. Without being scientific, a man may very well light upon extremely scientific results.” The fact that everybody in China and Tartary can make gunpowder, while probably none of the makers can chemically explain its composition and action is a proof of this fact.

M. Huc says that every Mongol knows the name and position of all the bones which compose the frame of animals. They are exceedingly skilful anatomists, and are well acquainted with the diseases of animals, and the best means of curing them. They administer medicines to beasts by means of a cow-horn used as a funnel, and even employ enemas in their diseases. The cow-horn serves for the pipe, and a bladder fixed on the wide end acts as a pump when squeezed. They make punctures and incisions in various parts of the body of animals. Although their skill as anatomists and veterinary surgeons is so great, they have only the simplest and rudest tools wherewith to exercise this art.

“Medicine in Tartary,” says M. Huc,314 “is exclusively practised by the Lamas. When illness attacks any one, his friends run to the nearest monastery for a Lama, whose first proceeding, upon visiting the patient, is to run his fingers over the pulse of both wrists simultaneously, as the fingers of a musician run over the strings of an instrument. The Chinese physicians feel both pulses also, but in succession. After due deliberation, the Lama pronounces his opinion as to the particular nature of the malady. According to the religious belief of the Tartars, all illness is owing to the visitation of a Tchutgour, or demon; but the expulsion of the demon is first a matter of medicine. The Lama physician next proceeds, as Lama apothecary, to give the specific befitting the case; the Tartar pharmacopoeia rejecting all mineral chemistry, the Lama remedies consist entirely of vegetables pulverised, and either infused in water or made up into pills. If the Lama doctor happens not to have any medicine with him, he is by no means disconcerted; he writes the names of the remedies upon little scraps of paper, moistens the paper with his saliva, and rolls them up into pills, which the patient tosses down with the same perfect confidence as though they were genuine medicaments. To swallow the name of a remedy, or the remedy itself, say the Tartars, comes to precisely the same thing.

“The medical assault of the usurping demon being applied, the Lama next proceeds to spiritual artillery, in the form of prayers, adapted to the quality of the demon who has to be dislodged. If the patient is poor, the Tchutgour visiting him can evidently only be an inferior Tchutgour, requiring merely a brief, offhand prayer, sometimes merely an interjectional exorcism. If the patient is very poor, the Lama troubles himself with neither prayer nor pill, but goes away, recommending the friends to wait with patience until the sick patient gets better or dies, according to the decree of Hormoustha. But where the patient is rich, the possessor of large flocks, the proceedings are altogether different. First it is obvious that a devil who presumes to visit so eminent a personage must be a potent devil, one of the chiefs of the lower world; and it would not be decent for a great Tchutgour to travel like a mere sprite; the family, accordingly, are directed to prepare for him a handsome suit of clothes, a pair of rich boots, a fine horse, ready saddled and bridled, otherwise the devil will never think of going, physic or exorcise him how you may. It is even possible, indeed, that one horse will not suffice; for the demon, in very rich cases, may turn out upon inquiry to be so high and mighty a prince, that he has with him a number of courtiers and attendants, all of whom have to be provided with horses.

“Everything being arranged, the ceremony commences. The Lama and numerous co-physicians called in from his own and other adjacent monasteries, offer up prayers in the rich man’s tents for a week or a fortnight, until they perceive that the devil is gone,—that is to say, until they have exhausted all the disposable tea and sheep. If the patient recovers, it is a clear proof that the prayers have been efficaciously recited; if he dies, it is a still greater proof of the efficaciousness of the prayers, for not only is the devil gone, but the patient has transmigrated to a state far better than that he has quitted.

“The prayers recited by the Lamas for the recovery of the sick are sometimes accompanied with very dismal and alarming rites. The aunt of Tokoura, chief of an encampment in the Valley of Dark Waters, visited by M. Huc, was seized one evening with an intermittent fever. ‘I would invite the attendance of the doctor Lama,’ said Tokoura, ‘but if he finds there is a very big Tchutgour present, the expenses will ruin me.’ He waited for some days, but as his aunt grew worse and worse, he at last sent for a Lama; his anticipations were confirmed. The Lama pronounced that a demon of considerable rank was present, and that no time must be lost in expelling him. Eight other Lamas were forthwith called in, who at once set about the construction in dried herbs of a great puppet, which they entitled the Demon of Intermittent Fever, and which, when completed, they placed on its legs by means of a stick, in the patient’s tent.

“The ceremony began at eleven o’clock at night; the Lamas ranged themselves in a semicircle round the upper portion of the tent with cymbals, sea-shells, bells, tambourines, and other instruments of the noisy Tartar music. The remainder of the circle was completed by the members of the family squatting on the ground close to one another, the patient kneeling, or rather crouched on her heels, opposite the Demon of Intermittent Fever. The Lama doctor in chief had before him a large copper basin filled with millet, and some little images made of paste. The dung-fuel threw amid much smoke a fantastic and quivering light over the strange scene. Upon a given signal, the clerical orchestra executed an overture harsh enough to frighten Satan himself, the lay congregation beating time with their hands to the charivari of clanging instruments and ear-splitting voices. The diabolical concert over, the Grand Lama opened the Book of Exorcisms, which he rested on his knees. As he chanted one of the forms, he took from the basin from time to time a handful of millet, which he threw east, west, north, and south, according to the Rubric. The tones of his voice as he prayed were sometimes mournful and suppressed, sometimes vehemently loud and energetic. All of a sudden he would quit the regular cadence of prayer, and have an outburst of apparently indomitable rage, abusing the herb puppet with fierce invectives and furious gestures. The exorcism terminated, he gave a signal by stretching out his arms right and left, and the other Lamas struck up a tremendously noisy chorus in hurried, dashing tones. All the instruments were set to work, and meantime the lay congregation, having started up with one accord, ran out of the tent one after the other, and tearing round it like mad people, beat it at their hardest with sticks, yelling all the while at the pitch of their voices in a manner to make ordinary hair stand on end. Having thrice performed this demoniac round, they re-entered the tent as precipitately as they had quitted it, and resumed their seats. Then, all the others covering their faces with their hands, the Grand Lama rose and set fire to the herb figure. As soon as the flames rose he uttered a loud cry, which was repeated with interest by the rest of the company. The laity immediately arose, seized the burning figure, carried it into the plain, away from the tents, and there, as it consumed, anathematized it with all sorts of imprecations; the Lamas, meantime, squatted in the tent, tranquilly chanting their prayers in a grave, solemn tone. Upon the return of the family from their valorous expedition, the praying was exchanged for joyous felicitations. By-and-by each person provided with a lighted torch, the whole party rushed simultaneously from the tent, and formed into a procession, the laymen first, then the patient, supported on either side by a member of the family, and lastly, the nine Lamas, making night hideous with their music. In this style the patient was conducted to another tent, pursuant to the orders of the Lama, who declared she must absent herself from her own habitation for an entire month.

“After this strange treatment the malady did not return. The probability is that the Lamas, having ascertained the precise moment at which the fever-fit would recur, met it at the exact point of time by this tremendous counter-excitement and overcame it.

“Though the majority of the Lamas seek to foster the ignorant credulity of the Tartars, in order to turn it to their own profit, we have met some of them who frankly avowed that duplicity and imposture played considerable part in all their ceremonies. The superior of a Lamasery said to us one day, ‘When a person is ill the recitation of prayers is proper, for Buddha is the master of life and death; it is he who rules the transmigration of beings. To take remedies is also fitting, for the great virtue of medicinal herbs also comes to us from Buddha. That the Evil One may possess a rich person is credible; but that in order to repel the Evil One, the way is to give him dress, and a horse, and what not, this is a fiction invented by ignorant and deceiving Lamas, who desire to accumulate wealth at the expense of their brothers.’”

M. Huc describes a grand solemnity he witnessed in Tartary, when a Lama BoktÈ cut himself open, took out his entrails, placed them before him, and then after returning them, closed the wound while the blood flowed in every direction; yet he was apparently as well as before the operation, with the exception of extreme prostration. Good Lamas, says M. Huc, abhor such diabolical miracles; it is only those of bad character who perform them. The good priest describes several other “supernaturalisms,” as he calls them, of a similar kind, which are frequently performed by the Lamas. He sets them all down to diabolical agency.315

The Turanian nations have their priests of magic, says M. Maury,316 who exercise great power over the people. He thinks this is partly due to the pains they take to look savage and imposing, but still more to the over-excited condition in which they are kept by the rites to which they have recourse; they take stimulants and probably drugs to cause hallucinations, convulsions, and dreams, for they are the dupes of their own delirium.

“Amongst all nations,” says CastrÈn, “of whatever race, disease is always regarded as a possession, and as the work of a demon.”317

Says M. Maury: “The Baschkirs have their Shaitan-kuriazi, who expel devils, and undertake to treat the invalids regarded as possessed by means of the administration of certain remedies. This Shaitan, whose name has been borrowed from the Satan of the Christians, since the Baschkirs have come into contact with the Russians, is held by the Kalmuks to be the chief author of all our bodily sufferings. If they wish to expel him, they must resort not only to conjurations, but also to cunning. The aleyss places his offerings before the sick man, as if they were intended for the wicked spirit; it being supposed that the demon, attracted by their number or their value, will leave the body which he is tormenting in order to seize upon the new spoil. According to the Tcheremisses, the souls of the dead come to trouble the living, and in order to prevent them from doing so, they pierce the soles of the feet, and also the heart of the deceased, thinking that, being then nailed into their tomb, the dead could not possibly leave it.... The Kirghis tribes apply to their sorcerers, or Baksy, to chase away demons, and then to cure the diseases they are supposed to produce. To this end they whip the invalid until the blood comes, and then spit in his face. In their eyes every disease is a personal being. This idea is so generally received amongst the Tchuvaches also, that they firmly believe the least omission of duty is punished by some disease sent to them by Tchemen, a demon whose name is only an altered form of Shaitan. An opinion strongly resembling this is found again amongst the Tchuktchis; these savages have recourse to the strangest conjurations to free from disease; their Shamans are also subject to nervous states, which they bring on by an artificial excitement.”318

Japanese Medicine.

The Chinese, as early as 218 B.C., found their way amongst the Japanese doctors with medical books, dating back, it is alleged, to 2737 B.C., and the influence of Chinese medicine upon Japanese medicine has continued to be a controlling one up to the recent introduction of European medicines now in vogue. The old style of things is, according to Dr. Benjamin Howard, still followed by 30,000 out of the 41,000 physicians now practising throughout the Empire. Of the 30,000 of the old vernacular school, one of them is still on the list of the Court physicians, and maintains a high reputation. The impression throughout Europe that coloured papers, exorcisms, etc., are the basis of Chinese and Japanese medicine is erroneous. Dr. Howard has seen nearly 2,000 books by these people, covering most of the departments of medicine, but amongst which materia medica occupies the leading place. In these books are the doctrines of the successive schools, strikingly like some of those which in past centuries existed amongst our own ancestors. The successive medical colleges have always had a professor of astrology, but the solid fact remains that the materia medica has included amongst its several hundred remedies a large number of those used by ourselves, and these are not only vegetable, but animal and mineral, in the latter class mercury being prominent. Surgery became a separate branch as long since as the seventh or eighth century.319

CHAPTER VI.
THE MEDICINE OF THE PARSEES.

Zoroaster and the Zend-Avesta.—The Heavenly Gift of the Healing Plants.—Ormuzd and Ahriman.—Practice of the Healing Art and its Fees.

Zoroaster, or more correctly Zarathustra, was the founder, or at least the reformer of the Magian religion, and one of the greatest teachers of the East. The date of Zoroaster is involved in obscurity, but all classical antiquity agrees that he was an historical person. Neither do we know his birthplace. Duncker gives 1000 B.C. as his period; others consider that he was possibly a contemporary of Moses. In the Zend-Avesta and the records of the Parsees he is said to have lived in the reign of VitaÇpa or Gushtap, whom most writers recognise as Darius Hystaspis. Pliny notices works of Zoroaster treating of Nature and of precious stones. He is credited with the invention of magic; and as ancient medicine was closely connected with magic, we may, in this sense, consider him as a physician. Aristotle and Eudoxus stated that he lived six thousand years before Plato. It is hopeless, however, to attempt to settle a question so involved in obscurity. The most characteristic feature of Zoroaster’s teaching is the dualistic conception of the scheme of the universe, according to which two powers—a good and an evil—are for ever contending for the mastery—Ormuzd against Ahriman. Ormuzd is of the light, and from this emanate the good spirits whose laws are executed by Izeds, who are angels and archangels.

Ahriman is of the darkness, and from this emanate DaÊvas, powers by whom mankind are led to their destruction—evil powers, false gods, devils. From these DaÊvas proceed all the evil which is in the world; they are agents of that higher evil principle Druj, or falsehood and deception, which is called Ahriman, the spirit enemy. These DaÊvas send to men, and are the causes of all diseases, which can only be cured by the good spirits. Man belongs either to Ormuzd or to Ahriman according to his deeds. If he offers sacrifice to Ormuzd and the gods, and helps them by good thoughts, good deeds, and spreads life over the world and opposes Ahriman by destroying evil, then he is a man of Asha, who drives away fiends and diseases by spells. He who does the contrary to this is a Dravant,—“demon,” a foe of Asha. The man of Ormuzd will have a seat near him in heaven.320

According to the Zend-Avesta Thrita was the first physician who drove back death and disease. Ormuzd (Ahura Mazda) brought him down from heaven ten thousand healing plants which had grown around the tree of eternal life, which is the white Haoma (the Indian Soma), or Gaokerena, which grows in the middle of the sea, Vouru-kasha. These are the Haomas, says Darmesteter.321

One is the yellow, or earthly Haoma, and is the king of healing-plants; the other, or white, is that which, on the day of resurrection, will make men immortal. Thrita was one of the first priests of Haoma, the life and health-giving plant, and thus he obtained his skill in medicine. Darmesteter says that Thrita was originally the same as ThraÊtaona of the Rig-Veda.322

“We see that ThraÊtaona fulfilled the same functions as Thrita. According to Hamza he was the inventor of medicine. The Tavids (formulas of exorcism) against sickness are inscribed with his name, and we find in the Avesta itself the Fravashi of ThraÊtaona invoked ‘against itch, hot fever, humours, cold fever, vÂvareshi; against the plagues created by the serpent.’ We learn from this passage that disease was understood as coming from the serpent; in other words, that it was considered a sort of poisoning, and this is the reason why the killer of the serpent was invoked to act against it. Thus Thrita ThraÊtaona had a double right to the title of the first of the healers, both as a priest of Haoma and as the conqueror of the serpent.”

Ormuzd (Ahura Mazda) said that Thrita “asked for a source of remedies—he obtained it from Khshathia-Vaivya”—to withstand the diseases and infection which Angra-Mainyu had created by his witchcraft. As Ahriman had created ten thousand diseases, so Ormuzd gave mankind the same number of healing plants. This idea is firmly fixed in the minds of every one of us to this day: for every disease there must of necessity somewhere be a remedy, and that usually with the common people is supposed to be a plant. The Soma is the king of the healing plants in India and that also came down from heaven. “Whilst coming down from heaven the plants said, ‘He will never suffer any wound the mortal whom we touch.’”323

Ormuzd, having given man the healing plants, said: “To thee, O Sickness, I say, avaunt! To thee, O Death, I say, avaunt! To thee, O Pain, I say, avaunt! To thee, O Fever, I say, avaunt! To thee, O Disease, I say, avaunt!”324

In the VendÎdÂd (Fargard vii. a)325 it is demanded, “If a worshipper of Mazda want to practise the art of healing, on whom shall he first prove his skill? On worshippers of Mazda or on worshippers of the DaÊvas?”

Ahura Mazda answered: “On worshippers of the DaÊvas shall he first prove himself, rather than on worshippers of Mazda. If he treat with the knife a worshipper of the DaÊvas, and he die; if he treat with the knife a second worshipper of the DaÊvas, and he die; if he treat with the knife for the third time a worshipper of the DaÊvas, and he die, he is unfit to practise the art of healing for ever and ever. Let him therefore never attend any worshipper of Mazda; let him never treat with the knife any worshipper of Mazda, nor wound him with the knife. If he shall ever attend any worshipper of Mazda; if he shall ever treat with the knife any worshipper of Mazda, and wound him with the knife, he shall pay for it the same penalty as is paid for wilful murder. If he treat with the knife a worshipper of the DaÊvas, and he recover; if he treat with the knife a second worshipper of the DaÊvas, and he recover; if for the third time he treat with the knife a worshipper of the DaÊvas, and he recover, then he is fit to practise the art of healing for ever and ever. He may henceforth at his will attend worshippers of Mazda; he may at his will treat with the knife worshippers of Mazda, and heal them with the knife.”

Naturally, the rising surgeons would seek their clinical material amongst the heretics.

We learn from the Zend-Avesta that the doctrine of Zoroaster teaches that not only real death makes one unclean, but partial death also. The demon claims as his property everything which goes out of the body of man, and that because it is dead. The breath which leaves the mouth is unclean, so that fire, which is sacred, must not be blown with it. Nail parings and cuttings of the hair are unclean, and unless protected by spells are likely to become the weapons of the demons. Whatever altered the body in its nature was demon’s work. On this principle the menstruation of women causes their uncleanness. The menses are sent by Ahriman; the woman is possessed by a demon while they last; she has to be kept apart; she cannot even receive food from hand to hand; she may not eat much lest she feed the demon. So utterly unclean is a woman who has borne a dead child that she is not allowed to drink water unless in danger of death. Logic compelled that a sick man should be treated as one possessed. Sickness was sent by Ahriman, and is to be cured by washings and spells. The most powerful therefore of all medical treatment is magic. It was always more highly esteemed by the faithful than treatment by drugs and the lancet.326 Hair and nails, which having been cut off have at once become the property of Ahriman, may be withdrawn from his power by prayer, and by being deposited in the earth in consecrated circles, which, being drawn round them, intrench them against the fiend.327

In the Zend-Avesta it is laid down that a woman who has been just delivered of a child is unclean. When delivered of a dead child, she must drink gÔmÊz. Says Darmesteter:328 “So utterly unclean is she, that she is not even allowed to drink water, unless she is in danger of death; and even then, as the sacred element has been defiled, she is liable to the penalty of a PerhÔtanu. It appears from modern customs that the treatment is the same when the child is born alive; the reason of which is that, in any case, during the first three days after delivery she is in danger of death. A great fire is lighted to keep away the fiends, who use then their utmost efforts to kill her and her child. She is unclean only because the death-fiend is in her.”

The Saddar 16 says: “When there is a pregnant woman in a house, one must take care that there be fire continually in it; when the child is brought forth, one must burn a candle, or, better still, a fire, for three days and three nights, to render the DÊvs and Drugs unable to harm the child; for there is great danger during those three days and nights after the birth of the child.”

A table of physician’s fees is given in the VendÎdÂd. The healer is to attend a priest and get him well for his blessing; the master of a house is to pay the value of a cheap ox for the same service; but the lord of a province is to pay the value of a chariot and four. The wife of the master of a house pays the value of a she-ass for her healing, but the wife of the lord of a province pays the value of a she-camel.

It declared that, “If several healers offered themselves together, O Spitama Zarathustra! namely, one who heals with the knife, one who heals with herbs, and one who heals with the holy word (i.e. by spells), it is this one who will best drive away sickness from the faithful.”