Part 9 (1/2)
On June 10, 1914, the eve of his birth, the septencentenary of Roger Bacon will be celebrated by Oxford, the university of which he is the most distinguished ornament. His unpublished MSS. in the Bodleian will be issued by the Clarendon Press (1915-1920), and it is hoped that his unpublished medical writings will be included.
(24) It may be interesting to note the three causes to which he attributes old age: ”As the World waxeth old, Men grow old with it: not by reason of the Age of the World, but because of the great Increase of living Creatures, which infect the very Air, that every way encompa.s.seth us, and Through our Negligence in ordering our Lives, and That great Ignorance of the Properties which are in things conducing to Health, which might help a disordered way of Living, and might supply the defect of due Government.”
What would have been its fate if the mind of Europe had been ready for Roger Bacon's ferment, and if men had turned to the profitable studies of physics, astronomy and chemistry instead of wasting centuries over the scholastic philosophy and the subtleties of Duns Scotus, Abelard and Thomas Aquinas? Who can say? Make no mistake about the quality of these men--giants in intellect, who have had their place in the evolution of the race; but from the standpoint of man struggling for the mastery of this world they are like the members of Swift's famous college ”busy distilling suns.h.i.+ne from cuc.u.mbers.” I speak, of course, from the position of the natural man, who sees for his fellows more hope from the experiments of Roger Bacon than from the disputations of philosophy on the ”Instants, Familiarities, Quiddities and Relations,” which so roused the scorn of Erasmus.
MEDIAEVAL MEDICAL STUDIES
IT will be of interest to know what studies were followed at a mediaeval university. At Oxford, as at most of the continental universities, there were three degrees, those of Bachelor, Licentiate and Doctor. The books read were the ”Tegni” of Galen, the ”Aphorisms” of Hippocrates, the ”De Febribus” of Isaac and the ”Antidotarium” of Nicolaus Salernita.n.u.s: if a graduate in arts, six years' study in all was required, in other faculties, eight. One gets very full information on such matters from a most interesting book, ”Une Chaire de Medecine au XVe Siecle,” by Dr.
Ferrari (Paris, 1899). The University of Pavia was founded in 1361, and like most of those in Italy was largely frequented by foreigners, who were arranged, as usual, according to their nationalities; but the students do not appear to have controlled the university quite so much as at Bologna. The doc.u.ments of the Ferrari family, on which the work is based, tell the story of one of its members, who was professor at Pavia from 1432 to 1472. One is surprised at the range of studies in certain directions, and still more at the absence of other subjects. A list is given of the teachers in medicine for the year 1433, twenty in all, and there were special lectures for the morning, afternoon and evening. The subjects are medicine, practical medicine, physics, metaphysics, logic, astrology, surgery and rhetoric: very striking is the omission of anatomy, which does not appear in the list even in 1467. The salaries paid were not large, so that most of the teachers must have been in practice: four hundred and five hundred florins was the maximum.
The dominance of the Arabians is striking. In 1467, special lectures were given on the ”Almansor” of Rhazes, and in the catalogue of the Ferrari's library more than one half of the books are Arabian commentaries on Greek medicine. Still more striking evidence of their influence is found in the text-book of Ferrari, which was printed in 1471 and had been circulated earlier in MS. In it Avicenna is quoted more than 3000 times, Rhazes and Galen 1000, Hippocrates only 140 times. Professor Ferrari was a man who played an important role in the university, and had a large consultation practice. You will be interested to know what sort of advice he gave in special cases. I have the record of an elaborate consultation written in his own hand, from which one may gather what a formidable thing it was to fall into the hands of a mediaeval physician. Signor John de Calabria had a digestive weakness of the stomach, and rheumatic cerebral disease, combined with superfluous heat and dryness of the liver and multiplication of choler.
There is first an elaborate discussion on diet and general mode of life; then he proceeds to draw up certain light medicines as a supplement, but it must have taken an extensive apothecary's shop to turn out the twenty-two prescriptions designed to meet every possible contingency.
One of the difficulties in the early days of the universities was to procure good MSS. In the Paris Faculty, the records of which are the most complete in Europe, there is an inventory for the year 1395 which gives a list of twelve volumes, nearly all by Arabian authors.(25) Franklin gives an interesting incident ill.u.s.trating the rarity of medical MSS. at this period. Louis XI, always worried about his health, was anxious to have in his library the works of Rhazes. The only copy available was in the library of the medical school. The ma.n.u.script was lent, but on excellent security, and it is nice to know that it was returned.
(25) Franklin: Recherches sur la Bibliotheque de la Faculte de Medecine de Paris, 1864.
It is said that one of the special advantages that Montpellier had over Paris was its possession of so many important MSS., particularly those of the Arabian writers. Many ”Compendia” were written containing extracts from various writers, and no doubt these were extensively copied and lent or sold to students. At Bologna and Padua, there were regulations as to the price of these MSS. The university controlled the production of them, and stationers were liable to fines for inaccurate copies. The trade must have been extensive in those early days, as Rashdall mentions that in 1323 there were twenty-eight sworn booksellers in Paris, besides keepers of bookstalls in the open air.
MEDIAEVAL PRACTICE
THE Greek doctrine of the four humors colored all the conceptions of disease; upon their harmony alone it was thought that health depended.
The four temperaments, sanguine, phlegmatic, bilious and melancholic, corresponded with the prevalence of these humors. The body was composed of certain so-called ”naturals,” seven in number--the elements, the temperaments, the humors, the members or parts, the virtues or faculties, the operations or functions and the spirits. Certain ”non-naturals,” nine in number, preserved the health of the body, viz.
air, food and drink, movement and repose, sleeping and waking, excretion and retention, and the pa.s.sions. Disease was due usually to alterations in the composition of the humors, and the indications for treatment were in accordance with these doctrines. They were to be evacuated, tenuated, cooled, heated, purged or strengthened. This humoral doctrine prevailed throughout the Middle Ages, and reached far into modern times--indeed, echoes of it are still to be heard in popular conversations on the nature of disease.
The Arabians were famous for their vigor and resource in matters of treatment. Bleeding was the first resort in a large majority of all diseases. In the ”Practice” of Ferrari there is scarcely a malady for which it is not recommended. All remedies were directed to the regulation of the six non-naturals, and they either preserved health, cured the disease or did the opposite. The most popular medicines were derived from the vegetable kingdom, and as they were chiefly those recommended by Galen, they were, and still are, called by his name.
Many important mineral medicines were introduced by the Arabians, particularly mercury, antimony, iron, etc. There were in addition scores of substances, the parts or products of animals, some harmless, others salutary, others again useless and disgusting. Minor surgery was in the hands of the barbers, who performed all the minor operations, such as bleeding; the more important operations, few in number, were performed by surgeons.
ASTROLOGY AND DIVINATION
AT this period astrology, which included astronomy, was everywhere taught. In the ”Gouernaunce of Prynces, or Pryvete of Pryveties,”
translated by James Yonge, 1422,(26) there occurs the statement: ”As Galian the lull wies leche Saith and Isoder the G.o.de clerk, hit witnessith that a man may not perfitely can the sciens and craft of Medissin but yef he be an astronomoure.”
(26) Early English Text Society, Extra Series, No. LXXIV, p. 195, 1898; Secreta Secretorum, Rawl. MS. B., 490.
We have seen how the practice of astrology spread from Babylonia and Greece throughout the Roman Empire. It was carried on into the Middle Ages as an active and aggressive cult, looked upon askance at times by the Church, but countenanced by the courts, encouraged at the universities, and always by the public. In the curriculum of the mediaeval university, astronomy made up with music, arithmetic and geometry the Quadrivium. In the early faculties, astronomy and astrology were not separate, and at Bologna, in the early fourteenth century, we meet with a professors.h.i.+p of astrology.(27) One of the duties of this salaried professor, was to supply ”judgements” gratis for the benefit of enquiring students, a treacherous and delicate a.s.signment, as that most distinguished occupant of the chair at Bologna, Cecco d'Ascoli, found when he was burned at the stake in 1357, a victim of the Florentine Inquisition.(28)
(27) Rashdall: Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages, Vol.
I, p. 240.
(28) Rashdall, l.c., Vol. I, p. 244.--Rashdall also mentions that in the sixteenth century at Oxford there is an instance of a scholar admitted to practice astrology. l.c., Vol. II, p. 458.
Roger Bacon himself was a warm believer in judicial astrology and in the influence of the planets, stars and comets on generation, disease and death.