372 INTRODUCTORY LECTURES. 



being cultivated in Egypt, but we know few particulars of the 

 state of them there that deserve to be taken notice of; and 

 with respect to medicine in general, it is needless to inquire, as 

 it is known to have been under such regulations as must have 

 been a certain obstacle to its progress and improvement. 



The first distinct accounts of the art of physic, as exercised 

 by a particular class of men, are those we have of it in Greece 

 among the priests of Esculapius. It would seem, that for some 

 time these priests, if not the sole, were at least the chief prac- 

 titioners of physic in that country ; and as the trade was lucra- 

 tive, it is to be presumed that these practitioners would endeav- 

 our to become knowing in it, and consequently to extend and 

 enlarge their knowledge of remedies. In the temples of Escu- 

 lapius, therefore, it is probable that a stock of knowledge was 

 preserved and transmitted down from one set of priests to their 

 successors ; and at the same time, these temples afforded a par- 

 ticular means of preserving the knowledge of the materia medica; 

 for we know it to have been then common for persons who had 

 been cured of diseases by the remedies prescribed to them in 

 the temple, to hang up there votive tables, on which was writ- 

 ten some account of their disease, and of the remedies by which 

 it had been relieved. 



By this means these temples became the repositories of the 

 records of physic, and the priests became the most knowing in 

 the art. We find farther, that some of these temples became 

 the most celebrated schools of physic in ancient times. The art 

 the priests were possessed of could hardly be any other than the 

 natural physic we have spoken of, perhaps a little farther cul- 

 tivated, but still upon the same footing of observation and ex- 

 perience. But they were not on the best footing for this pur- 

 pose, as they readily found that a charm answered the purpose 

 of the trade as well as a genuine remedy ; and it is to be sus- 

 pected that many of these temples were scenes of knavery and 

 craft. They were not even, at best, on a footing to gain much 

 by experience, while they kept to their temples, and saw no 

 sick persons but such as could be brought thither. But this 

 state of practice could not serve the purpose of a country ad- 

 vancing in policy and arts, as Greece then was; and we accord- 

 ingly find that either the priests themselves or their disciples 



