The History of Medicine is a terra incognita to the general reader, and an all but untravelled region to the great majority of medical men. On special occasions, such as First of October Addresses at the opening of the Medical Schools, or the Orations delivered before the various Medical Societies, certain periods of medical history are referred to, and a few of the great names of the founders of medical and surgical science are held up to the admiration of the audience. From time to time excellent monographs on the subject appear in the Lancet and British Medical Journal. But with the exception of these brilliant electric flashes, the History of Medicine is a dark continent to English students who have not made long and tedious researches in our great libraries. For it is a remarkable fact that the History of Medicine has been almost completely neglected by English writers. This cannot be due either to the want of importance or interest of the subject. Next to the history of religion ranks in interest and value that of medicine, and it would not be difficult to show that religion itself cannot be understood in its development and connections without reference to medicine. The priest and the physician are own brothers, and the Healing Art has always played an important part in the development of all the great civilisations. The modern science of Anthropology has placed at the disposal of the historian of medicine a great number of facts which throw light on the medical theories of primitive and savage man. But most of these have hitherto remained uncollected, and are not easily accessible to the general reader.

Although English writers have so strangely neglected this important field of research, the Germans have explored it in the most exhaustive manner. The great works of Sprengel, Haeser, Baas, and Puschmann, amongst many others of the same class, sustain the claim that Germany has created the History of Medicine, whilst the well-known but incomplete treatise of Le Clerc shows what a great French writer could do to make this terra incognita interesting.

Not that Englishmen have entirely neglected this branch of literature. Dr. Freind, beginning with Galen’s period, wrote a History of Physic to the Commencement of the Sixteenth Century. Dr. Edward Meryon commenced a History of Medicine, of which Vol. I. only appeared (1861). In special departments Drs. Adams, Greenhill, Aikin, Munk, Wise, Royle, and others have made important contributions to the literature of the subject; but we have nothing to compare with the great German works whose authors we have mentioned above. The encyclopÆdic work of Dr. Baas has been translated into English by Dr. Handerson of Cleveland, Ohio.

Sprengel’s work is translated into French, and Dr. Puschmann’s admirable volume on Medical Education has been given in English by Mr. Evan Hare.

None of these important and interesting works, valuable as they are to the professional man, are quite suitable for the general reader, who, it seems to the present writer, is entitled in these latter days to be admitted within the inner courts of the temple of Medical History, and to be permitted to trace the progress of the mystery of the Healing Art from its origin with the medicine-man to its present abode in our Medical Schools.

With the exception of an occasional note or brief reference in his text-books of medicine and surgery, the student of medicine has little inducement to direct his attention to the work of the great pioneers of the science he is acquiring.

One consequence of this defect in his education is manifested in the common habit of considering that all the best work of discoverers in the Healing Art has been done in our own times. “History of medicine!” exclaimed a hospital surgeon a few months since. “Why, there was none till forty years ago!” This habit of treating contemptuously the scientific and philosophical work of the past is due to imperfect acquaintance with, or absolute ignorance of, the splendid labours of the men of old time, and can only be remedied by devoting some little study to the records of travellers who have preceded us on the same path we are too apt to think we have constructed for ourselves. Professor Billroth declared, “that the great medical faculties should make it a point of honour to take care that lectures on the history of medicine are not missing in their curricula.” And at several German universities some steps in this direction have been taken. In England, however—so far as I am aware—nothing of the sort has been attempted, and a young man may attain the highest honours of his profession without the ghost of an idea about the long and painful process through which it has become possible for him to acquire his knowledge.

Says Dr. Nathan Davis,1 “A more thorough study of the history of medicine, and in consequence, a greater familiarity with the successive steps or stages in the development of its several branches, would enable us to see more clearly the real relations and value of any new fact, induction, or remedial agent that might be proposed. It would also enable us to avoid a common error of regarding facts, propositions, and remedies presented under new names, as really new, when they had been well known and used long before, but in connection with other names or theories.” He adds that, “The only remedy for these popular and unjust errors is a frequent recurrence to the standard authors of the past generation, or in other words, an honest and thorough study of the history of medicine as a necessary branch of medical education.”

In these times, when no department of science is hidden from the uninitiated, especially when medical subjects and the works of medical men are freely discussed in our great reviews and daily journals, no apology seems necessary for withdrawing the professional veil and admitting the laity behind the scenes of professional work.

Medicine now has no mysteries to conceal from the true student of nature and the scientific inquirer. Her methods and her principles are open to all who care to know them; the only passport she requires is reverence, her only desire to satisfy the yearning to know. In this spirit and for these ends this work has been conceived and given to the world. “The proper study of mankind is man.”

EDWARD BERDOE.

Tynemouth House,
Victoria Park Gate,
London, April 22nd, 1893.

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Sprengel gives the following Table of the Great Periods in the History of Medicine:—

Renouard2 arranges the periods of the growth of the art of medicine as follows:—1st. The Primitive or Instinctive Period, lasting from the earliest recorded treatment to the fall of Troy. 2nd. The Sacred or Mystic Period, lasting till the dispersion of the Pythagorean Society, 500 B.C. 3rd. The Philosophical Period, closing with the foundation of the Alexandrian Library, B.C. 320. 4th. The Anatomical Period, which continued till the death of Galen, A.D. 200.

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