The Origin and Growth of the Healing Art by Edward Berdoe

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Title: The Origin and Growth of the Healing Art

A Popular History of Medicine in All Ages and Countries

Author: Edward Berdoe

Release Date: April 22, 2019 [eBook #59331]

Language: English

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THE HEALING ART.

WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR.

THE BROWNING CYCLOPÆDIA.

A Guide to the Study of the Works of Robert Browning, with copious Explanatory Notes and

References on all difficult passages. Second Edition. Pp. xx., 572. Price 10s. 6d.

Some Opinions of the Press.

“Conscientious and painstaking.”—Times.
“A serviceable book, and deserves to be widely bought.”—The Spectator.
“A book of far-reaching research and careful industry.”—Scotsman.
“A most learned and creditable piece of work.”—Vanity Fair.
“A monument of industry and devotion.”—Bookman.

BROWNING’S MESSAGE TO HIS TIME:

His Religion, Philosophy, and Science. With Portrait and Facsimile Letters. Third Edition. Price 3s. 6d.

[Dilettante Library.]

Opinions of the Press.

“Full of admiration and sympathy.”—Saturday Review.

“Should have a wide circulation; it is interesting and stimulative.”—Literary World.

“We have no hesitation in strongly recommending this little volume to any who desire to understand the moral and

mental attitude of Robert Browning.... We are much obliged to Dr. Berdoe for his volume.”—Oxford University
Herald.

EXPELLING THE DISEASE-DEMON.

[Frontispiece.

v

THE ORIGIN AND GROWTH

OF

THE HEALING ART

A POPULAR HISTORY OF MEDICINE
IN ALL AGES AND COUNTRIES.

BY

EDWARD BERDOE,

Licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians, Edinburgh; Member of the Royal College of

Surgeons, England; Licentiate of the Society of Apothecaries, London, etc., etc.

Author of “The Browning Cyclopædia,” etc., etc.

London

SWAN SONNENSCHEIN & CO.

PATERNOSTER SQUARE

1893

Butler & Tanner,

The Selwood Printing Works,

Frome, and London.

vi

PREFACE.

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.”

vii

viii

ix

EDWARD BERDOE.

Tynemouth House,

Victoria Park Gate,

London, APRIL 22ND, 1893.

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

I. Expedition of the Argonauts.
1273-1263

b.c.

I. First traces of Greek Medicine.

II. Peloponnesian War.
432-404 b.c.
II. Medicine of Hippocrates.

III. Establishment of the
30 a.d.
III. School of the Methodists. Christian Religion.

IV. Emigration
of
the
hordes
of

Barbarians.

430-530
IV. Decadence of the Science.

V. The Crusades.
1096-1230
V. Arabian medicine at its highest point of splendour.

VI. Reformation.
1517-1530
VI. Re-establishment of Greek medicine and anatomy.

VII. Thirty Years War.
1618-1648
VII. Discovery of the circulation of the blood and reform of Van

Helmont.

VIII. Reign of Frederick the Great.
1640-1786
VIII. Haller.

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.

x

ILLUSTRATIONS.

Expelling the Disease-Demon
Frontispiece

The Medicine-Dance of the North American Indians To face p.
32

Examples of Ancient Surgery
„
204

Ancient Surgical Instruments
„
246

Interior of a Doctor’s House
„
340

CONTENTS.

BOOK I.

THE MEDICINE OF PRIMITIVE MAN.

CHAPTER
PAGE

I. Primitive Man a Savage
3

The Medicine and Surgery of the Lower Animals.—Poisons and Animals.—Observation amongst Savages.—

Man in the Glacial Period.

II. Animism
7

Who discovered our Medicines?—Anthropology can assist us to answer the Question.—The Priest and the

Medicine-man originally one.—Disease the Work of Magic.—Origin of our Ideas of the Soul and Future Life.—
Disease-demons.

III. Savage Theories of Disease
12

Demoniacal.—Witchcraft.—Offended Dead Persons.

IV. Magic and Sorcery in the Treatment of Disease
26

These originated partly in the Desire to cover Ignorance.—Medicine-men.—Sucking out Diseases.—Origin

of Exorcism.—Ingenuity of the Priests.—Blowing Disease away.—Beelzebub cast out by Beelzebub.—Menders of
Souls.—“Bringing up the Devil.”—Diseases and Medicines.—Fever Puppets.—Amulets.—Totemism and
Medicine.

V. Primitive Medicine
33

Bleeding.—Scarification.—Use of Medicinal Herbs amongst the Aborigines of Australia, South America,

Africa, etc.

VI. Primitive Surgery
40

Arrest of Bleeding.—The Indian as Surgeon.—Stretchers, Splints, and Flint Instruments.—Ovariotomy.—

Brain Surgery.—Massage.—Trepanning.—The Cæsarean Operation.—Inoculation.

VII. Universality of the Use of Intoxicants
46

Egyptian Beer and Brandy.—Mexican Pulque.—Plant-worship.—Union with the Godhead by Alcohol.—

Soma.—The Cow-religion.—Caxiri.—Murwa Beer.—Bacchic Rites.—Spiritual Exaltation by Wine.

VIII. Customs connected with Pregnancy and Child-bearing
51

The Couvade, its Prevalence in Savage and Civilized Lands.—Pregnant Women excluded from Kitchens.—

The Deities of the Lying-in Chamber.

BOOK II.

THE MEDICINE OF THE ANCIENT CIVILIZATIONS.

I. Egyptian Medicine
57

Antiquity of Egyptian Civilization.—Surgical Bandaging.—Gods and Goddesses of Medicine.—Medical

Specialists.—Egyptians claimed to have discovered the Healing Art.—Medicine largely Theurgic.—Magic and
Sorcery forbidden to the Laity.—The Embalmers.—Anatomy.—Therapeutics.—Plants> in use in Ancient Egypt.
—Surgery and Chemistry.—Disease-demons.—Medical Papyri.—Great Skill of Egyptian Physicians.

II. Jewish Medicine
73

The Jews indebted to Egypt for their Learning.—The only Ancient People who discarded Demonology.—

They had no Magic of their own.—Phylacteries.—Circumcision.—Sanitary Laws.—Diseases in the Bible.—The
Essenes.—Surgery in the Talmud.—Alexandrian Philosophy.—Jewish Services to Mediæval Medicine.—The
Phœnicians.

III. The Medicine of Chaldæa, Babylonia, and Assyria
86

The Ancient Religion of Accadia akin to Shamanism.—Demon Theory of Disease in Chaldæan Medicine.—

Chaldæan Magic.—Medical Ignorance of the Babylonians.—Assyrian Disease-demons.—Charms.—Origin of the
Sabbath.

IV. The Medicine of the Hindus
96

The Aryans.—Hindu Philosophy.—The Vedas.—The Shastres of Charaka and Susruta.—Code of Menu.—

The Brahmans.—Medical Practitioners.—Strabo on the Hindu Philosophers.—Charms.—Buddhism and Medicine.
—Jíwaka, Buddha’s Physician.—The Pulse.—Knowledge of Anatomy and Surgery in Ancient Times.—Surgical
Instruments.—Decadence of Hindu Medical Science.—Goddesses of Disease.—Origin of Hospitals in India.

V. Medicine in China, Tartary, and Japan
125

Origin of Chinese Culture.—Shamanism.—Disease-demons.—Taoism—Medicine Gods.—Mediums.-

Anatomy and Physiology of the Chinese.—Surgery.—No Hospitals in China.—Chinese Medicines.—Filial Piety.
—Charms and Sacred Signs.—Medicine in Thibet, Tartary, and Japan.

VI. The Medicine of the Parsees
141

Zoroaster and the Zend-Avesta.—The Heavenly Gift of the Healing Plants.—Ormuzd and Ahriman.—Practice

of the Healing Art and its Fees.

BOOK III.

GREEK MEDICINE.

I. The Medicine of the Greeks before the Time of Hippocrates
147

xi

xii

Apollo, the God of Medicine.—Cheiron.—Æsculapius.—Artemis.—Dionysus.—Ammon.—Hermes.—

Prometheus.—Melampus.—Medicine of Homer.—Temples of Æsculapius.—The Early Ionic Philosophers.—
Empedocles.—School of Crotona.—The Pythagoreans.—Grecian Theory of Diseases.—School of Cos.—The
Asclepiads.—The Aliptæ.

II. The Medicine of Hippocrates and his Period
172

Hippocrates first delivered Medicine from the Thraldom of Superstition.—Dissection of the Human Body and

Rise of Anatomy.—Hippocrates, Father of Medicine and Surgery.—The Law.—Plato.

III. Post-Hippocratic Greek Medicine.—The Schools of Medicine
187

The Dogmatic School.—Praxagoras of Cos.-Aristotle.—The School of Alexandria.—Theophrastus the

Botanist.—The great Anatomists, Erasistratus and Hierophilus, and the Schools they founded.—The Empiric
School.

IV. The Earlier Roman Medicine
205

Disease-goddesses.—School of the Methodists.—Rufus and Marinus.—Pliny.—Celsus.

V. Later Roman Medicine
227

The Eclectic and Pneumatic Sects.—Galen.—Neo-Platonism.—Oribasius and Ætius.—Influence of

Christianity and the Rise of Hospitals.—Paulus Ægineta.—Ancient Surgical Instruments.

VI. Amulets and Charms in Medicine
247

Universality of the Amulet.—Scarabs.—Beads.—Savage Amulets.—Gnostic and Christian Amulets.—Herbs

and Animals as Charms.—Knots.—Precious Stones.—Signatures.—Numbers.—Saliva.—Talismans.—Scripts.—
Characts.—Sacred Names.—Stolen Goods.

BOOK IV.

CELTIC, TEUTONIC, AND MEDIÆVAL MEDICINE.

I. Medicine of the Druids, Teutons, Anglo-Saxons, and Welsh
269

Origin of the Druid Religion.—Druid Medicine.—Their Magic.—Teutonic Medicine.—Gods of Healing.—

Elves.—The Elements.—Anglo-Saxon Leechcraft.—The Leech-book.—Monastic Leechdoms.—Superstitions.—
Welsh Medicine.—The Triads.—Welsh Druidism.—The Laws of the Court Physicians.—Welsh Medical Maxims.
—Welsh Medical and Surgical Practice and Fees.

II. Mohammedan Medicine
287

Sources of Arabian Learning.—Influence of Greek and Hindu Literature.—The Nestorians.—Baghdad and its

Colleges.—The Moors in Spain.—The Mosque Schools.—Arabian Inventions and Services to Literature.—The
great Arab Physicians.—Serapion, Rhazes, Ali Abbas, Avicenna, Albucasis, and Averroes.

III. Rise of the Monasteries
300

Alchemy the Parent of Chemistry.

IV. Rise of the Universities
303

School of Montpellier.—Divorce of Medicine from Surgery.

V. The School of Salerno
308

The Monks of Monte Cassino.—Clerical Influence at Salerno.—Charlemagne.—Arabian Medicine gradually

supplanted the Græco-Latin Science.—Constantine the Carthaginian.—Archimatthæus.—Trotula.—Anatomy of
the Pig.—Pharmacopœias.—The Four Masters.—Roger and Rolando.—The Emperor Frederick.

VI. The Thirteenth Century
319

The Crusades.—Astrology.

VII. The Fourteenth Century
325

Revival of Human Anatomy.—Famous Physicians of the Century.—Domestic Medicine in Chaucer.—

Fellowship of the Barbers and Surgeons.—The Black Death.—The Dancing Mania.—Pharmacy.

VIII. The Fifteenth Century
333

Faith-healing.—Charms and Astrology in Medicine.—The Revival of Learning.—The Humanists.—Cabalism

and Theology.—The Study of Natural History.—The Sweating Sickness.—Tarantism.—Quarantine.—High
Position of Oxford University.

IX. Medicine in Ancient Mexico and Peru
341

Hospitals in Mexico.—Anatomy and Human Sacrifices.—Midwives as Spiritual Mothers.—Circumcision.—

Peru.—Discovery of Cinchona Bark.

BOOK V.

THE DAWN OF MODERN SCIENTIFIC MEDICINE.

I. The Sixteenth Century
345

The Dawn of Modern Science.—The Reformation of Medicine.—Paracelsus.—The Sceptics.—The

Protestantism of Science.—Influenza.—Legal Recognition of Medicine in England.—The Barber-Surgeons.—The
Sweating Sickness.—Origin of the Royal College of Physicians of London.—“Merry Andrew.”—Origin of St.
Bartholomew’s Hospital.—Caius.—Low State of Midwifery.—The Great Continental Anatomists.—Vesalius.—
Servetus.—Paré.—Influence of the Reformation.—The Rosicrucians.—Touching for the Evil.—Vivisection of
Human Beings.—Origin of Legal Medicine.

II. The Seventeenth Century
377

xiii

xiv

Bacon and the Inductive Method.—Descartes and Physiology.—Newton.—Boyle and the Royal Society.—

The Founders of the Schools of Medical Science.—Sydenham, the English Hippocrates.—Harvey and the Rise of
Physiology.—The Microscope in Medicine.—Willis and the Reform of Materia Medica.

III. Skatological Medicine and the Reform of Pharmacology
394

Loathsome Medicines.—Sympathetical Cures.—Weapon Salve.—Superstitions.

IV. Baths and Mineral Waters
400

Miraculous Springs.—The Pool of Bethesda.—Herb-baths.

V. Witchcraft and Medicine
403

Comparative Witchcraft.—Laws against Sorcery.—Magic in Virgil and Horace.—Demonology.—Images of

Wax and Clay.—Transference of Disease.—Witchcraft in the Koran.—White Magic and Black.—Coral and the
Evil Eye.—“Overlooking” People.—Exorcism in the Catholic Church.

VI. Medical Superstitions
413

Death and the Grave.—Sorcerer’s Ointment.—Teeth-worms.—Disease Transference.—Doctrine of

Signatures.

VII. The Eighteenth Century
418

The Sciences accessory to Medicine.—The Great Schools of Medical Theory.—Boerhaave and his System.

—Stahl.—Hoffman.—Cullen.—Brown.—Hospitals.—Bichat and the New Era of Anatomy.—Mesmer and
Mesmerism.—Surgery.—The Anatomists, Physiologists, and Scientists of the Period.—Inoculation and
Vaccination.

BOOK VI.

THE AGE OF SCIENCE.

I. The Nineteenth Century.—Physical Science Allied to Medicine
443

Exit the Disease-demon.—Medical Systems again.—Homœopathy.—The Natural Sciences.—Chemistry,

Electricity, Physiology, Anatomy, Medicine and Pathology.—Psychiatry.—Surgery.—Ophthalmology.

II. Medical Reforms
464

Discovery of Anæsthetics.—Medical Literature.—Nursing Reform.—History of the Treatment of the Insane.

III. The Germ Theory of Disease
471

The Disease-demon reappears as a Germ.—Phagocytes.—Ptomaines.—Lister’s Antiseptic Surgery.—

Sanitary Science or Hygiene.—Bacteriologists.—Faith Cures.—Experimental Physiology and the Latest System of
Medicine.

APPENDIX.

On Some of the More Important Minerals Used in Medicine
486

BOOK I.

THE MEDICINE OF PRIMITIVE MAN.

1

A POPULAR HISTORY OF MEDICINE.

CHAPTER I.

PRIMITIVE MAN A SAVAGE.

The Medicine and Surgery of the Lower Animals.—Poisons and Animals.—Observation amongst Savages.—Man

in the Glacial Period.

There is abundant proof from natural history that the lower animals submit to medical and surgical treatment, and

subject themselves in their necessities to appropriate treatment. Not only do they treat themselves when injured or ill,
but they assist each other. Dogs and cats use various natural medicines, chiefly emetics and purgatives, in the shape of
grasses and other plants. The fibrous-rooted wheat-grass, Triticum caninum, sometimes called dog’s-wheat, is eaten
medicinally by dogs. Probably other species, such as Agrostis caninia, brown bent-grass, are used in like manner.3

Mr. George Jesse describes another kind of “dog-grass,” Cynosurus cristatus, as a natural medicine, both emetic

and purgative, which is resorted to by the canine species when suffering from indigestion and other disorders of the
stomach. Every druggist’s apprentice knows how remarkably fond cats are of valerian root (Valeriana officinalis).
This strong-smelling root acts on these animals as an intoxicant, and they roll over and over the plant with the wildest
delight when brought into contact with it. Cats are extravagantly fond of cat-mint (Nepeta cataria). It has a powerful
odour, like that of pennyroyal. There is no evidence, however, that these plants have any medicinal properties for which
they are used by cats, they are merely enjoyed by them on account of their perfume.

Dr. W. Lauder Lindsay, in his Mind in the Lower Animals, says that the Indian mongoose, poisoned by the snake

which it attacks, uses the antidote to be found in the Mimosa octandra.4

“Its value both as a cure and as a preventive is said to be well known to it. Whenever in its battles with serpents it

receives a wound, it at once retreats, goes in search of the antidote, and having found and devoured it, returns to the
charge, and generally carries the day, seeming none the worse for its bite.”5 This, however, is probably a fable of the
Hindus.

“A toad, bit or stung by a spider, repeatedly betook itself to a plant of Plantago major (the Greater Plantain), and

ate a portion of its leaf, but died after repeated bites of the spider, when the plant had been experimentally removed by
man.”6

The medicinal uses of the hellebore were anciently believed to have been discovered by the goat.

“Virgil reports of dittany,” says More, in his Antidote to Atheism, “that the wild goats eat it when they are shot with

darts.” The ancients said that the art of bleeding was first taught by the hippopotamus, which thrusts itself against a
sharp-pointed reed in the river banks, when it thinks it needs phlebotomy.

If man had not yet learned the medicinal properties of salt, he could discover them by the greedy licking of it by

buffaloes, horses, and camels. “On the Mongolian camels,” says Prejevalsky, “salt, in whatever form, acts as an
aperient, especially if they have been long without it.” Rats will submit to the gnawing off of a leg when caught in a trap,
so that they may escape capture (Jesse). Livingstone says that the chimpanzee, soko, or other anthropoid apes will
staunch bleeding wounds by means of their fingers, or of leaves, turf, or grass stuffed into them. Animals treat wounds
by licking—a very effectual if tedious method of fomentation or poulticing.

Cornelius Agrippa, in his first book of Occult Philosophy, says that we have learned the use of many remedies from

the animals. “The sick magpie puts a bay-leaf into her nest and is recovered. The lion, if he be feverish, is recovered by
the eating of an ape. By eating the herb dittany, a wounded stag expels the dart out of its body. Cranes medicine
themselves with bulrushes, leopards with wolf’s-bane, boars with ivy; for between such plants and animals there is an
occult friendship.”7

Some interesting observations relating to the surgical treatment of wounds by birds were recently brought by M.

Fatio before the Physical Society of Geneva. He quotes the case of the snipe, which he has often observed engaged in
repairing damages. With its beak and feathers it makes a very creditable dressing, applying plasters to bleeding wounds,
and even securing a broken limb by means of a stout ligature. On one occasion he killed a snipe which had on the chest
a large dressing composed of down taken from other parts of the body, and securely fixed to the wound by the
coagulated blood. Twice he has brought home snipe with interwoven feathers strapped on to the site of fracture of one
or other limb. The most interesting example was that of a snipe, both of whose legs he had unfortunately broken by a
misdirected shot. He recovered the animal only the day following, and he then found that the poor bird had contrived to
apply dressings and a sort of splint to both limbs. In carrying out this operation, some feathers had become entangled
around the beak, and, not being able to use its claws to get rid of them, it was almost dead from hunger when
discovered. In a case recorded by M. Magnin, a snipe, which was observed to fly away with a broken leg, was

3

4

5

subsequently found to have forced the fragments into a parallel position, the upper fragment reaching to the knee, and
secured them there by means of a strong band of feathers and moss intermingled. The observers were particularly
struck by the application of a ligature of a kind of flat-leafed grass wound round the limb in a spiral form, and fixed by
means of a sort of glue.

Le Clerc thought that the stories of animals teaching men the use of plants, herbs, etc., meant that men tried them first

upon animals before using them for food or medicine. There is no probability of this having been so. If men had
observed with Linnæus that horses eat aconite with impunity, and had in consequence eaten it themselves, the result
would have been fatal. Birds and herbivorous animals eat belladonna with impunity,8 and it has very little effect on
horses and donkeys. Goats, sheep, and horses are said by Dr. Ringer to eat hemlock without ill effects, yet it poisoned
Socrates. Henbane has little or no effect on sheep, cows, and pigs. Ipecacuanha does not cause vomiting in rabbits,9
and so on.

Probably from the earliest times man would be led to observe the behaviour of animals when suffering from disease

or injury. If he could not learn much from them in the way of medicine, they could teach him many useful arts. In savage
man we must seek the beginnings of our civilization, and it is in the lowest tribes and those which have not yet felt the
influences of superior races that we must search for the most primitive forms of medical ideas and the earliest theories
and treatment of disease.

Sir John Lubbock says:10 “It is a common opinion that savages are, as a general rule, only the miserable remnants of

nations once more civilized; but although there are some well-established cases of natural decay, there is no scientific
evidence which would justify us in asserting that this applies to savages in general.”

Dr. E.B. Tylor, in his fascinating work on Primitive Culture, says:11 “The thesis which I venture to sustain, within

limits, is simply this—that the savage state in some measure represents an early condition of mankind, out of which the
higher culture has gradually been developed or evolved by processes still in regular operation as of old, the result
showing that, on the whole, progress has far prevailed over relapse. On this proposition the main tendency of human
society during its long term of existence has been to pass from a savage to a civilized state. It is mere matter of chronicle
that modern civilization is a development of mediæval civilization, which again is a development from civilization of the
order represented in Greece, Assyria, or Egypt. Then the higher culture being clearly traced back to what may be called
the middle culture, the question which remains is, whether this middle culture may be traced back to the lower culture,
that is, to savagery.”

Providing we can find our savage pure and uncontaminated, it matters little where we seek him; north, south, east, or

west, he will be practically the same for our purpose.

Dr. Robertson says: “If we suppose two tribes, though placed in the most remote regions of the globe, to live in a

climate nearly of the same temperature, to be in the same state of society, and to resemble each other in the degree of
their improvement, they must feel the same wants, and exert the same endeavours to supply them.... In every part of the
earth the progress of man has been nearly the same, and we can trace him in his career from the rude simplicity of
savage life, until he attains the industry, the arts, and the elegance of polished society.”12

Writing of the primitive folk, the Eastern Inoits, Elie Reclus tells us that,13 “shut away from the rest of the world by

their barriers of ice, the Esquimaux, more than any other people, have remained outside foreign influences, outside the
civilization whose contact shatters and transforms. They have been readily perceived by prehistoric science to offer an
intermediate type between man as he is and man as he was in bygone ages. When first visited, they were in the very
midst of the stone and bone epoch,14 just as were the Guanches when they were discovered; their iron and steel are
recent, almost contemporary importations. The lives of Europeans of the Glacial period cannot have been very different
from those led amongst their snow-fields by the Inoits of to-day.”

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