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MEDICINE AND MAGIC Bygone Beliefs | ||
3. III
MEDICINE AND MAGIC
THERE are few tasks at once so instructive and so fascinating as the tracing of the development of the human mind as manifested in the evolution of scientific and philosophical theories. And this is, perhaps, especially true when, as in the case of medicine, this evolution has followed paths so tortuous, intersected by so many fantastic byways, that one is not infrequently doubtful as to the true road. The history of medicine is at once the history of human wisdom and the history of human credulity and folly, and the romantic element (to use the expression in its popular acceptation) thus introduced, whilst making the subject more entertaining, by no means detracts from its importance considered psychologically.
To whom the honour of having first invented medicines is due is unknown, the origins of pharmacy being lost in the twilight of myth. OSIRIS and ISIS, BACCHUS, APOLLO father of the famous physician ÆSCULAPTUS, and CHIRON the Centaur, tutor of the latter, are among the many mythological personages who have been accredited with the invention of
Presumably the oldest theory concerning the causation
of disease is that which attributes all the ills of
mankind to the malignant operations of evil spirits,
a theory which someone has rather fancifully suggested
is not so erroneous after all, if we may be
allowed to apply the term "evil spirits" to the
microbes of modern bacteriology. Remnants of
this theory (which does—shall I say?—conceal a
transcendental truth), that is, in its original form,
still survive to the present day in various superstitious
customs, whose absurdity does not need emphasising:
PLATE 5
[Description: FIG. 10. Reduced Facsimile of a Page of the Papyrus EBERS.
(By permission of Messrs Macmillan & Co.)]
Medicine and magic have always been closely associated. Indeed, the greatest name in the history of pharmacy is also what is probably the greatest name in the history of magic—the reference, of course, being to PARACELSUS (1493-1541). Until PARACELSUS, partly by his vigorous invective and partly by his remarkable cures of various diseases, demolished the old school of medicine, no one dared contest the authority of GALEN (130-circa 205) and AVICENNA (980—1037). GALEN'S theory of disease was largely based upon that of the four humours in man—bile, blood, phlegm, and black bile,—which were regarded as related to (but not identical with) the four elements—fire, air, water, and earth,—being supposed to have characters similar to these. Thus, to bile, as to fire, were attributed the properties of hotness and dryness; to blood and air those of hotness and moistness; to phlegm and water those of coldness and moistness; and, finally, black bile, like earth, was said to be cold and dry. GALEN supposed that an alteration in the due proportion of these humours gives rise to disease, though he did not consider this to be its only cause; thus, cancer, it was thought, might result from an excess of black bile, and rheumatism from an excess of phlegm. Drugs, GALEN argued, are of efficiency in the curing of disease, according as they possess one or more of
PARACELSUS' views were based upon his theory (undoubtedly true in a sense) that man is a microcosm, a world in miniature.[24] Now, all things material, taught PARACELSUS, contain the three principles termed in alchemistic phraseology salt, sulphur, and mercury. This is true, therefore, of man: the healthy body, he argued, is a sort of chemical compound in which these three principles are harmoniously blended (as in the Macrocosm) in due proportion, whilst disease is due to a preponderance of one principle, fevers, for example, being the result of an excess of sulphur (i.e. the fiery principle), etc. PARACELSUS, although his theory was not so different from that of GALEN, whose views he denounced, was thus led to seek for chemical remedies, containing these principles in varying proportions; he was not content with medicinal herbs and minerals in their crude state, but attempted to extract their effective essences; indeed, he maintained that the preparation of new and better drugs is the chief business of chemistry.
This theory of disease and of the efficacy of drugs
PLATE 6
[Description: FIG. 11. PARACELSUS (aged 24), from a Painting by SCOREL (1517) now in the
Louvre Gallery.]
In modern times homœopathy—according to which
To return to PARACELSUS, however. It may be thought that his views were not so great an advance on those of GALEN; but whether or not this be the case, his union of chemistry and medicine was of immense benefit to each science, and marked a new era in pharmacy. Even if his theories were highly fantastic, it was he who freed medicine from the shackles of traditionalism, and rendered progress in medical science possible.
I must not conclude these brief notes without some reference to the medical theory of the medicinal efficacy of words. The EBERS papyrus already mentioned gives various formulas which must be pronounced when preparing and when administering a drug; and there is a draught used by the Eastern Jews as a cure for bronchial complaints prepared by writing certain words on a plate, washing them off with wine, and adding three grains of a citron which has been used at the Tabernacle festival. But enough for our present excursion; we must hie us back to the modern world, with its alkaloids, serums, and
NOTE ON THE PARACELSIAN DOCTRINE OF THE MICROCOSM
"Man's nature," writes CORNELIUS AGRIPPA, "is the most complete Image of the whole Universe."[28] This theory, especially connected with the name of PARACELSUS, is worthy of more than passing reference; but as the consideration of it leads us from medicine to metaphysics, I have thought it preferable to deal with the subject in a note.
Man, taught the old mystical philosophers, is threefold in nature, consisting of spirit, soul, and body. The Paracelsian mercury, sulphur, and salt were the mineral analogues of these. "As to the Spirit," writes VALENTINE WEIGEL (1533—1588), a disciple of PARACELSUS, "we are of God, move in God, and live in God, and are nourished of God. Hence God is in us and we are in God; God hath put and placed Himself in us, and we are put and placed in God. As to the Soul, we are from the Firmament and Stars, we live and move therein, and are nourished thereof. Hence the Firmament with its astralic virtues and operations is in us, and we in it. The Firmament is put and placed in us, and we are put and placed in the Firmament. As to the Body, we are of the elements, we move and live therein, and are nourished of them:—hence the elements are in us, and we in them. The elements, by the slime, are put and placed in us, and we are
It is not difficult to discern a certain truth in all this, making allowances for modes of thought which are not those of the present day. The Swedish philosopher SWEDENBORG (1688-1772) reaffirmed the theory in later years; but, as he points out,[31]the reason that man is a microcosm lies deeper than in the facts that his body is of the elements of this earth and is nourished thereby. According to this profound thinker, form, spiritually understood, is the expression of use, the uses of things being indicated by their forms. Now, the human form is the highest of all forms, because it subserves the highest of all uses. Hence, both the world of matter and the world of spirit are in the human form, because there is a correspondence in use between man and the Cosmos. We may, therefore, call man as to his body a microcosm, or little world; as to his soul a micro-uranos, or little heaven. Or we may speak of the macrocosm, or great world, as the Grand Man, and we may say that the Soul of this Grand Man, the self-existent, substantial, and efficient cause of all things, at once immanent within yet transcending all things, is God.
See the late Mr A. C. WOOTTON'S excellent work, Chronicles of Pharmacy (2 vols, 1910), to which I gladly acknowledge my indebtedness.
The question of PARACELSUS' pharmacy is further complicated by the fact that this eccentric genius coined many new words (without regard to the principles of etymology) as names for his medicines, and often used the same term to stand for quite different bodies. Some of his disciples maintained that he must not always be understood in a literal sense, in which probably there is an element of truth. See, for instance, A Golden and Blessed Casket of Nature's Marvels, by BENEDICTUS FIGULUS (trans. by A. E. WAITE, 1893).
HENRY CORNELIUS AGRIPPA: Occult Philosophy, bk. i. chap. xv. (WHITEHEAD'S edition, Chicago, 1898, P. 72).
VALENTINE WEIGEL: "Astrology Theologised": The Spiritual Hermeneutics of Astrology and Holy Writ, ed. by ANNA BONUS KINGSFORD (1886), p. 59.
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MEDICINE AND MAGIC Bygone Beliefs | ||