Part 6 (1/2)
Each medical family kept a book, which was handed down reverently from father to son, and in which was written, in Irish or Latin, all the medical knowledge derived either from other books or from the actual experience of the various members of the family; and many of these old volumes, all in beautiful handwriting, are still preserved in Dublin and elsewhere. As showing the admirable spirit in which those good men studied and practised their profession, and how much they loved it, it is worth while to give a translation of the opening statement, a sort of preface, in the Irish language, written at the beginning of one of these books, nearly six hundred years ago:--
”May the good G.o.d have mercy on us all. I have here collected practical rules of medicine from several works, for the honour of G.o.d, for the benefit of the Irish people, for the instruction of my pupils, and for the love of my friends and of my kindred. I have translated many of them into Gaelic from Latin books, containing the lore of the great leeches of Greece and Rome. These are sweet and profitable things which have been often tested by us and by our instructors.
”I pray G.o.d to bless those doctors who will use this book; and I lay it as an injunction on their souls, that they extract knowledge from it not by any means sparingly, and that they do not neglect the practical rules herein contained. More especially I charge them that they do their duty devotedly in cases where they receive no payment on account of the poverty of their patients.
”Let every physician, before he begins his treatment, offer up a secret prayer for the sick person, and implore the heavenly Father, the Physician and Balm-giver of all mankind, to prosper the work he is entering upon, and to save himself and his patient from failure.”
There is good reason to believe that the n.o.ble and kindly sentiments here expressed were generally those of the physicians of the time; from which we may see that the old Irish medical doctors were quite as devoted to their profession, as eager for knowledge, and as anxious about their patients as those of the present day.
The fame of the Irish physicians reached the Continent. Even at a comparatively late time, about three hundred years ago, when medicine had been successfully studied and practised in Ireland for more than a thousand years, Van Helmont, a well-known and distinguished physician of Brussels, in a book written by him in Latin on medical subjects, praises the Irish doctors, and describes them correctly as follows:--
”In the household of every great lord in Ireland there is a physician who has a tract of land for his support, and who is appointed to his post, not on account of the great amount of learning he brings away in his head from colleges, but because he is able to cure diseases. His knowledge of the healing art is derived from books left him by his forefathers, which describe very exactly the marks and signs by which the various diseases are known, and lay down the proper remedies for each. These remedies [which are mostly herbs], are all produced in that country. Accordingly, the Irish people are much better managed in sickness than the Italians, who have a physician in every village.”
The Irish physicians carefully studied all the diseases known in their time, and had names for them--names belonging to the Irish language, and not borrowed from other countries or other languages. They investigated and noted down the qualities and effects of all curative herbs (which had Gaelic, as well as Latin, names); and they were accordingly well known throughout Europe for their knowledge and skill in medicinal botany.
There were Hospitals all over the country, some in connexion with monasteries, and managed by monks, some under the lay authorities; and one or more doctors with skilled nurses attended each hospital, whether lay or monastic. The Brehon Law laid down regulations for the lay hospitals:--for instance, that they should be kept clean, and should have four open doors for ventilation, that a stream of clear water should run across the house through the middle of the floor, that the patients should not be put into beds forbidden by the physician, that noisy talkative persons should be kept away from them; and many other such like. There were no such regulations for the monastic hospitals, as being unnecessary. The provision about the open doors and the stream of water may be said to have antic.i.p.ated by more than a thousand years the present open-air treatment of consumption. Those who had means were expected to pay for food, medicine, physician, and attendance: but the poor were received and treated free.
If a person wounded or injured another unlawfully, he was obliged to pay for ”sick maintenance,” _i.e._, the cost of maintaining the wounded person in a hospital till recovery or death; which payment included the fees of the physician and of one or more nurses.
It is pleasant to know that the Irish physicians of our time, who, it is generally agreed, are equal to those of any other country in the world, can look back with respect, and not without some feeling of pride, to their Irish predecessors of the times of old.
CHAPTER XIV.
HOW THEY BUILT AND ARRANGED THEIR HOUSES.
Before the introduction of Christianity, buildings of every kind in Ireland were generally round or oval. The quadrangular shape, which was used in the churches in the time of St. Patrick, came very slowly into use; and round structures finally disappeared only in the fourteenth or fifteenth century. But the round shape was not universal, even in the most ancient period. Look at the plan of Tara, at the beginning of this book, and you will see that the Banqueting Hall was quadrangular, the only building of this shape on the whole hill. And in this respect Tara may be said to represent the proportion for the whole of Ireland: that is to say, while the generality of buildings were oval or round, some--very much the fewer in number--were quadrangular, sometimes long in shape, sometimes square.
There were many centres of population, though they were never surrounded by walls; and the dwellings were detached and scattered a good deal--not closely packed as in modern towns. The dwelling-houses, as well indeed as the early churches, were nearly always of wood, as that material was much the most easily procured. But although wood-building was general in Ireland before the twelfth century, it was not universal: for many stone churches, as we have seen, were erected from the time of the introduction of Christianity; and there were small stone houses from time immemorial.
The dwelling-houses were almost always constructed of Wickerwork. The wall was formed of long stout poles standing pretty near each other, with their ends fixed deep in the ground, the s.p.a.ces between closed in with rods and twigs neatly and firmly interwoven; generally of hazel. The poles were peeled and polished smooth. The whole surface of the wickerwork was plastered on the outside, and made brilliantly white with lime, or occasionally striped in various colours; leaving the white poles exposed to view.
In many superior houses, and in churches, a better plan of building was adopted, by forming the wall with sawed planks instead of wickerwork. In the houses of the higher cla.s.ses the doorposts and other special parts of the dwelling and furniture were often made of yew, carved, and ornamented with gold, silver, bronze, and gems.
In the sunniest and pleasantest part of the homestead the women had a separate apartment or a separate house for themselves, called a 'Greenan'
meaning a 'sunny apartment' or a summer-house; to which they retired whenever they pleased.
The roof was covered with straw, or rushes, or reeds, or with thin boards of oak, laid and fastened so as to overlap, like our slates and tiles.
Occasionally churches were roofed with lead.
In great houses there were separate sleeping-rooms. But among the ordinary run of comfortable, well-to-do people, including many of the upper cla.s.ses, the family commonly lived, ate, and slept in the one princ.i.p.al apartment, as was the case in the houses of the Anglo-Saxons, the English, the Germans, and the Scandinavians of the same period. But the sleeping-places and beds were shut in from view; for in at least the better cla.s.s of houses in Ireland there were, ranged along the wall, little compartments or cubicles, each containing a bed, or sometimes more, for one or more persons, with its head to the wall. The wooden part.i.tions enclosing the beds were not carried up to the roof; they were probably about eight or nine feet high, so that the several compartments were open at top.
The homesteads had to be fenced in to protect them from robbers and wild animals. This was usually done by digging a deep circular trench, the clay from which was thrown up on the inside. This was shaped and faced; and thus was formed, all round, a high mound or d.y.k.e with a trench outside, and having one opening for a door or gate. Whenever water was at hand the trench was flooded as an additional security: and there was a bridge opposite the opening, which was raised, or closed in some way, at night.
The houses of the Gauls were fenced round in a similar manner.
Numbers of these old circular forts still remain in every part of Ireland, but more in the south and west than elsewhere; many of them still very perfect: but of course the timber houses erected within them are all gone.
Almost all are believed in popular superst.i.tion to be the haunts of fairies. They are still known by the old names--_lis_, _rath_, _brugh_, _mur_, _dun_, _moat_, _cashel_, and _caher_: the cashels, murs, and cahers being usually built of stone without mortar. The forts vary in size from 40 or 50 feet in diameter, through all intermediate stages up to 1,500 feet: the size of the homestead depending on the rank and means of the owner.