

MEDICAMENTS AND LIFE. 207 



doctor gave system and definiteness, that, while each sub 

 stance retained its peculiar virtue in the general mixture, 

 the compound enjoyed the properties of all the ingredients 

 used in its preparation, and thus formed a sovereign pan- 

 acea against an infinite number of ills. The most renowned 

 of these compounds is the theriacum, which Borden calls 

 the masterpiece of quackery, devoting to it a page full of 

 wit. At first made up by Mithridates, it gained its perfect 

 finish from the hands of Andromachus, Nero's physician. 

 This theriacum comprised a hundred various elements, ani- 

 mal, vegetable, and mineral, some of them very odd, such 

 as earth from Lemnos, and vipers' flesh. This opiated elec- 

 tuary was destined to occupy for a long time an important 

 place in pharmacopoeias. It was compounded with great 

 ceremony, and its qualities were so prized that rich men 

 always kept a supply of it by them. 



From Galen's time on, medicine is closely connected 

 with scholastic philosophy. The later we come down, the 

 more completely is it mixed up with theosophy and sorcery. 

 The microcosm was held to be nothing but a copy of the 

 macrocosm ; men firmly believed that there is a close bond 

 between the human body and the stars, and the doctor was 

 bid to consult the latter before prescribing a remedy. A 

 practitioner of the day, when asked if barley-gruel is fit for 

 persons attacked by fever, answered that the draught could 

 not do them any good, because it is a substance, while fever 

 is an accident. This is the kind of advantage that medi- 

 cine seems to have gained from that connection. While 

 wrapped in the swaddling-clothes of this mysticism for 

 nearly a thousand years, a travail was going on of the .most 

 amazing kind some would say of the most injurious, but 

 they are wrong. That subtile dialectic of the schools is 

 the tie which binds Plato and Aristotle to modern philoso- 

 phy, and gives continuous life to the tradition of specula- 

 tive thought. That passionate pursuit of the philosophers' 



