AN EPITOME OF THE HISTORY OF MEDICINE
By Roswell Park, A.M., M.D.
Professor of Surgery in the Medical Department of the University of Buffalo, etc.
Based Upon A Course Of Lectures Delivered In The University Of Buffalo.
Illustrated with Portraits and Other Engravings.
1897,
The F. A. Davis Company. [Registered At Stationers' Hall. London, Eng.]
"Destiny Reserves for us Repose Enough."—Fernel.
Original
Original
TO MY COLLEAGUES
IN THE
MEDICAL FACULTY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF BUFFALO,
Who Authorized and Encouraged this First Attempt in the Medical Schools of this Country to Give Systematic Instruction in the History or the Science which they Teach,
THIS BOOK
Is Dedicated.
PREFACE.
The history of medicine has been sadly neglected in our medical schools. The valuable and fruitful lessons which it tells of what not to do have been completely disregarded, and in consequence the same gross errors have over and over been repeated. The following pages represent an effort to bring the most important facts and events comprised within such history into the compass of a medical curriculum, and, at the same time, to rehearse them in such manner that the book may be useful and acceptable to the interested layman.,—i.e., to popularize the subject. This effort first took form in a series of lectures given in the Medical Department of the University of Buffalo. The subject-matter of these lectures has been rearranged, enlarged, and edited, in order to make it more presentable for easy reading and reference. I have also tried, so far as I could in such brief space, to indicate the relationship which has ever existed between medicine, philosophy, natural science, theology, and even belles-lettres. Particularly is the history of medicine inseparable from a consideration of the various notions and beliefs that have at times shaken the very foundation of Christendom and the Church, and for reasons which appear throughout the book.
The history of medicine is really a history of human error and of human discovery. During the past two thousand years it is hard to say which has prevailed. Notwithstanding, had it not been for the latter the total of the former would have been vastly greater. A large part of my effort has been devoted to considering the causes which conspired to prevent the more rapid development of our art. If among these the frowning or forbidding attitude of the Church figures most prominently, it must not be r