Galen.—Galen, whom we are prone to think of as a Latin because so much of his work was done at Rome, but whose works have come to us in Greek, and who was a disciple of the Greek school of medicine, brought up under Greek influence in his native town of Pergamos, re-echoed Hippocrates' expressions as to the necessity for securing the patient's confidence and setting his mind at ease. The story in the "Arabian Nights" of his experience with the quack, which is known to most people, shows clearly how the place of mental influence in the relief of human ills must have been brought home to him. For nearly fifteen centuries his works continued to be the most read of medical documents. Nine tenths of all the physicians of education and influence, confidently looking to him as their master, kept copies of his works constantly near them, and turned to them for medical guidance as they would to the Bible for spiritual aid.

The book of Galen which is usually placed first among his collected works shows how much more important is the mind than the body for human happiness, and insists on mental interests as making life worth while. In it he describes the good physician, and says that to be a good physician a man must also be a good philosopher. When he comes to talk of the different sects in medicine—for even in his time there were groups of men who founded their medical practice on very different principles—he points out that the members of the different medical sects, while all employing practically the same remedies, do so on quite different principles, and yet get about the same {13} results. This concept comes as near to being a conscious reflection as to the place that the patient's mental reaction had in therapeutics as might well be expected at that early date.

Alexander of Tralles.—After Galen, medicine suffered an eclipse because the Romans became too devoted to luxury to permit of its development, and later the descent of the barbarians from the North disturbed silence and culture. In spite of the disturbance, however, there is evidence during the succeeding centuries of the deliberate use of mental influence and even of direct suggestion in the cure of disease.

Alexander of Tralles (sixth century A. D.) was not judiciously critical in his selection of remedies. Often he has quite ridiculous therapeutic suggestions, and yet we have at least two stories with regard to him which clearly indicate his employment of mental influence. One of his patients is said to have been suffering from the delusion that his head had been cut off by order of the tyrant, but he was cured as soon as the doctor hit on the interesting expedient of making him wear a leaden hat, which eradicated his delusion and made him think his head had been restored.

It is also in Alexander Trallianus, as he is sometimes called, that we have the original of the story which has been often told, many writers giving it as an experience of their own. A woman was sure that she had swallowed a snake, and that it continued to exist in her stomach, devouring much of her food and causing acute pain whenever large quantities of food were not provided for it. All sorts of remedies had been tried without result. At last Alexander gave her an emetic and then slipped into the basin into which she was vomiting a snake resembling as closely as possible that which she thought she had swallowed. The ruse effected a complete cure. Usually in latter-day variants of this story the cure is only temporary, for the patient after a time has the same symptoms as before and then is sure that during the time of its residence in the stomach the snake has given birth to young.

Paul of AEgina.—In the seventh century Paul of AEgina collected all that had been written on insanity by physicians of olden times, and many of his directions and prescriptions for treatment show that he appreciated the value of mental influence. He recommends that those who are suffering from mental disease should be placed in a quiet institution, should be given baths, and that an important portion of the treatment should consist of mental recreations.