The purpose of this course of lectures is to sketch
the main features of the growth of these two dominant
ideas, to show how they have influenced man at the
different periods of his evolution, how the lamp of
reason, so early lighted in his soul, burning now
bright, now dim, has never, even in his darkest period,
been wholly extinguished, but retrimmed and refurnished
by his indomitable energies, now shines more and more
towards the perfect day. It is a glorious chapter
in history, in which those who have eyes to see may
read the fulfilment of the promise of Eden, that one
day man should not only possess the earth, but that
he should have dominion over it! I propose to
take an aeroplane flight through the centuries, touching
only on the tall peaks from which may be had a panoramic
view of the epochs through which we pass.
Medicine arose out of the primal sympathy of
man with man; out of the desire to help those in sorrow,
need and sickness.
In the primal sympathy
Which having been must
ever be;
In the soothing thoughts
that spring
Out of human suffering.
The instinct of self-preservation, the longing to
relieve a loved one, and above all, the maternal passion—for
such it is—gradually softened the hard
race of man—tum genus humanum primum mollescere
coepit. In his marvellous sketch of the evolution
of man, nothing illustrates more forcibly the prescience
of Lucretius than the picture of the growth of sympathy:
“When with cries and gestures they taught with
broken words that ’tis right for all men to
have pity on the weak.” I heard the well-known
medical historian, the late Dr. Payne, remark that
“the basis of medicine is sympathy and the desire
to help others, and whatever is done with this end
must be called medicine.”
The first lessons came to primitive man by injuries,
accidents, bites of beasts and serpents, perhaps for
long ages not appreciated by his childlike mind, but,
little by little, such experiences crystallized into
useful knowledge. The experiments of nature made
clear to him the relation of cause and effect, but
it is not likely, as Pliny suggests, that he picked
up his earliest knowledge from the observation of
certain practices in animals, as the natural phlebotomy
of the plethoric hippopotamus, or the use of emetics
from the dog, or the use of enemata from the ibis.
On the other hand, Celsus is probably right in his
account of the origin of rational medicine. “Some
of the sick on account of their eagerness took food
on the first day, some on account of loathing abstained;
and the disease in those who refrained was more relieved.
Some ate during a fever, some a little before it, others
after it had subsided, and those who had waited to
the end did best. For the same reason some at
the beginning of an illness used a full diet, others
a spare, and the former were made worse. Occurring
