My great grandmother used to say, that she never desired to be told, that anything was broken, in her household; for, though she had been a housekeeper, for fifty years, nothing was ever broken, in her family, that had not been cracked before. I have the very same feeling in regard to the majority of all inventions and discoveries; for some ingenious fellow invariably presents himself, who, as it turns out, had verified the suggestion already.

I never found my mind in a very feverish condition, while pursuing the inquiry, whether the art of medicine was first invented, by Hermes, Isis, or Osiris; nor while examining the arguments, ingenious though they are, of Clemens Alexandrinus, to prove, that Moses was a very respectable apothecary.

I have ever supposed, that Necessity, the mother of invention, was the inventress of the blessed art; and that the origin was somewhat on this wise:—before the transgression, all went on well—there were neither aches nor ails—the apple certainly disagreed with Adam—he sought relief, by hunting for an antidote; and finding great comfort, in chewing such carminative herbs, as catmint and pennyroyal, he prescribed them to the sharer of his joys and sorrows. It is quite likely, that, with no family, and a great deal of time upon her hands, while walking in her garden, as poppies were not forbidden, Eve, to satisfy her curiosity, might have sucked their narcotic juice; and thus acquired a knowledge of opiates, so useful, ever since the fall.

Physicking was, at first, a very general affair. Whether benevolence, or the desire of a little reputation lies at the bottom, there has ever existed, among mankind, a pungent, irresistible desire to physick one another. It is to be regretted, that IrenÆus, who was just the man for it, had not given a few years of his life to ascertain, if Eve, during the parturition of Cain, or Abel, received any alleviation, from slippery elm. Plato, Theoctet. p. 149, says, the midwives of Athens did great, good service, on these occasions, with certain drugs and charms.

In the beginning, so little was to be known, upon this subject, it is not wonderful, that almost every man should have known that little. Thus, according to Homer, Od. iv., 320, every Egyptian was a doctor:—

“From PÆon sprung, their patron god imparts
To all the Pharian race his healing arts.”

Herodotus, who was born, about 484, B. C., in Book II. of his history, sec. 84, speaks distinctly of the fact, that the Egyptian doctors were not physicians, in the general sense, but confined their practice, respectively, to particular diseases. The passage may be thus translated—Now, in truth, the art of medicine with them was so distributed, that their physicians managed particular disorders, and not diseases generally; thus, though all were referred to the physicians, some were doctors for the eyes, some for the head, some for the teeth, some for the belly, and some for the occult diseases.

The first mention of physicians, in Holy Writ, is in Genesis, 50, 2—“And Joseph commanded his servants, the physicians, to embalm his father: and the physicians embalmed Israel.” Physicians, to this extent, were mechanical operators; and the celebrated physicians of Greece, Chiron, Machaon, Podalirius, Poeon, and even Æsculapius, were surgeons. Their art, as Pliny says, did not go beyond curing a green wound. The cure of internal, or complicated, disorders was beyond their province. Celsus says, that Podalirius and Machaon, the physicians, who went with Agamemnon, to the wars of Troy, were never employed, to cure the plague, or internal maladies, nor anything but external injuries.

No physician was required to manage external applications, in certain cases of common occurrence. In Kings II. xx. 7, Hezekiah appears to have thought himself extremely sick; when Isaiah applied a poultice of figs to his boil, and he soon was upon his legs again. This seems to have been accounted a remarkable cure, in those days, for Isaiah thought it worth repeating, xxxviii. 21. Job does not appear to have resorted to fig poultices, nor to any remedies, whatever: and, while Hezekiah behaved like a great baby, and wept bitterly, Job toughed it out, like a man; and, instead of mourning and murmuring, under the torment, not of one, but of countless boils, he poured forth torrents of incomparable eloquence, all the while, on various topics.

Job’s affliction, being viewed in the light of a direct judgment, it was deemed quite outrageous, by many, to stave off the wrath of Heaven, by interposing fig poultices, or remedies of any kind. Thus it appears, that Asa suffered severely with the gout; and there is a sharp fling against him, Chron. II. xvi. 12, on account of his want of faith—“Yet in his disease he sought not to the Lord, but to the physicians.”

This seems to be in accordance, with the opinion of those modern Fathers, who consider the use of ether or chloroform, in obstetric cases, a point blank insult to the majesty of Heaven, because of the primeval fiat—in sorrow shalt thou bring forth children.

The race of Cyclops entertained a similar sentiment of submission, in sickness, according to Homer, Od. IX. 485. When Oudeis (Anglice Noman) which always seemed to me an undignified pun, for an Epic, had put out the eye of Polyphemus, his roaring collected the neighboring giants. They inquired, outside the portal, what was the matter; and he replied, that Oudeis—Noman—was killing him; upon which they reply—

“If Noman hurts thee, but the power divine
Inflict disease, it fits thee to resign.
To Jove or to thy father Neptune pray,
The Cyclops cried, and instant strode away.”

The theory was, that God worked upon mortals, by the agency of a great number and variety of evil spirits, or devils; and that the employment of remedial means was therefore neither more nor less, than withstanding the Almighty. Hence arose the custom, being supposed less offensive, in the sight of Heaven, of resorting to charms and incantations; and of employing diviners and magicians; and, as old Sir Robert Walpole is reported to have said, that every man has his price; so it was supposed to be the case, with those devils, who were engaged, in the system of tormenting mankind. Instead therefore of turning directly to the Lord, the sufferers were much in the habit of making their propitiatory suit, directly, to some false god, or influential demon. Of this we have an example, in Kings II. i. 2, et seq. Ahaziah, King of Israel, went up into his garret, probably, in the dark, and fell through the scuttle. He was severely bruised, and sent a messenger, post haste, to Ekron, to consult the false god, Baalzebub. Elisha, who, though a prophet, had no reputation, as a physician, was consulted by Hazael and by Naaman, about their distempers.

Enchantments, talismans, music, phylacteries were in use, among the Hebrews, and formed no small part of their materia medica. Charms were used, as preventives against the bites of serpents. “Who,” says Ecclesiasticus xii. 13, “will pity a charmer, that is bitten with a serpent?” This seems not to have availed, against the deaf adder, “which,” Psalm lviii. 5, “will not hearken to the voice of charmers, charming never so wisely.” And Jeremiah, viii. 17, declares, that the Lord will send cockatrices and serpents, that will not be charmed, upon any terms whatever.

Some verses are preserved, by Cato, De Re Rustica, art. 160, which were used, in reducing a dislocated member. Dr. Johnson has informed us, though without naming his authority, that ABRACADABRA was a superstitious charm, against agues.

It is quite amusing, while reading Sir Thomas Browne’s remarks on quackery, in his Pseudodoxia, ch. xi. to see how readily he admits satanic agency, himself. Take the following passage—“When Gracchus was slain, the same day the chickens refused to come out of the coop; and Claudius Pulcher underwent the like success, when he commanded the tripudiary augurations; they died, not because the pullets would not feed, but because the devil foresaw their death, and contrived that abstinence in them.”

Sir Thomas was a wise and safe counsellor, in all cases, in which there was no chance for the devil to operate; but whenever there was a loop hole, according to the belief in those days, for diabolical influence to creep through, no man was more inclined to give the devil his due, than Sir Thomas.

In this chapter, designed to be purely philosophical, he says of satan—“He deludeth us also by philters, ligatures, charms, ungrounded amulets, characters, and many superstitious ways, in the cure of common diseases, seconding herein the expectation of men with events of his own contriving, which, while some, unwilling to fall directly upon magic, impute unto the power of imagination, or the efficacy of hidden causes, he obtains a bloody advantage.” This description of the devil and of his manoeuvres so precisely fits the empiric, and all his proceedings, that I should suspect Sir Thomas of the unusual sin of perpetrating a pleasantry; and, under the devil’s effigies, presenting the image of a charlatan; were it not, for the knowledge we have of this great and good man’s credulity, and his firm belief in satanic realities; and, that, in part upon his own testimony, two miserable women were condemned and executed, for witchcraft.