5o8 



NA TURE 



[September 22, 1904 



or " ophitic nodules," where augite or hornblende are 

 concerned, has been sanctioned by microscopists, but 

 tends to mislead when actual rock-specimens are 

 examined. Be^'Ond these trifling criticisms, we have 

 nothing but praise for this conscientious exposition of 

 results, behind which lies a vista of personal sacrifice 

 and prolonged observation in the field. 



Grenville \. J. Coi.E. 



ENGLISH MEDICINE IN THE ANGLO-SAXON 

 TIMES. 1 



C" ROM an educational point of view, an acquaintance 

 -'■ with the history of scientific discovery is even 

 more important than a knowledge of the results of 

 scientific investigation up to the most recent date. The 

 J.itter knowledge is essential for progress, as it is for 

 practical application of results already gained. The 

 former is needful in order to understand the methods 

 of science, to imbibe the spirit of discovery, to 

 appreciate the reciprocal action of hypothesis and ex- 

 periment, and to acquire the mental habit of looking 

 with scientific eyes upon every branch of human know- 

 ledge. 



The history of mathematics, of chemistry, of geology, 

 and of the inductive sciences in general, has been 

 adequately treated by many foreign and by some 

 English writers. But one of the most ancient branches 

 of knowledge has been sadly neglected in this country. 

 The history of medicine as the science of disease, and 

 of medicine as the art of prevention and cure, has been 

 far more studied by French and German, Dutch and 

 Italian physicians than by those who write in English. 

 It is therefore a matter of congratulation that the 

 College of Physicians, which dates from the wonderful 

 re-birth of learning in the days of Sir Thomas More, 

 of Dean Colet, of Erasmus, and of Linacre. 

 should have been entrusted by the widow of 

 a learned member, the late Dr. Fitz-Patrick, 

 with the endowment of a lectureship on the 

 history of medicine. 



In this volume Dr. Payne treats with remarkable 

 learning and interest of the art of medicine as it existed 

 among our ancestors before the Conquest. For his 

 purpose he has not the help of such inscriptions as 

 describe and delineate the duties of physicians in the 

 Babylonian and the Egyptian empires, nor the rich 

 and wonderful collection of medical instruments which 

 is preserved in the Museum of Naples. He has only 

 literature to depend on. 



English learning dates from Archbishop Theodore 

 of Tarsus (a.d. 669), who, v/ith the Abbot Adrian, 

 founded a school at Canterbury, where Greek as well 

 as Latin, arithmetic, and astronomy was, according to 

 the testimony of the justly Venerable Bede, successfully 

 taught. Bede himself v^TOte on astronomy, and was 

 pi'obably the author of a treatise " De phlebotomia. " 

 In his " Ecclesiastical History of Britain " he described 

 several epidemics of the true oriental or bubonic 

 plague. St. John of Beverley recorded a case of 

 aphasia in a youth who was also affected with impetigo 

 of the scalp, and was cured of both. .Among the West 

 Saxons in the ninth and tenth centuries literature 

 flourished. Poetry, history, and religious works were 

 written in native English as well as in Latin, and have 

 been adequately studied by more than one German 

 scholar. This civilisation, with its numerous schools 

 and libraries, was interrupted by the disastrous inroads 

 of the Danes ; but up to the Conquest and beyond, 



« /or 190^. By Joseph Frank Payne, M.D. 



Librarian of the Royal Collece of Physicians, 

 St. Thomas's Hospital. Pp. 162 ; with twenty- 

 arly English MSS. (Clarendon Press.) Price 



notable works appeared, and some of these were 

 treatises on medicine. Among others published by 

 Cockayne nearly fifty years ago were " The Leech- 

 Book " of Bald (written when Alfred was king, or 

 soon after his death), a book of recipes and a glossary 

 of the names of plants, of which the manuscript is 

 preserved in the library of the Cathedral of Durham. 



The following remarks by Dr. Payne deserve to be 

 widely read, for their application is general : — 



" Before speaking in detail of the old English 

 medical books. I will venture to say a word about the 

 spirit in which they should be studied. Too often, 

 those few persons who have interested themselves in 

 these monuments of ancient science have treated them 

 in one of two ways. Either they have picked out some- 

 thing especially unlike the ways of modern thought, 

 and held it up to scorn as showing the folly of our 

 ancestors, or else in kinder mood thev have con- 



1 n,- Fitz.Patrick L 

 O.von.. Fellow and H 

 Consulting Physician 



NO. 182 I, VOL. 70] 



[. — Mandragora, Mandrake, with the dog used to put it up. A 

 ^.^.^ simple and probably early form of the legend. (From "The Fitz- 

 Patrick Lectures lor 1903.') 



descended to be amused, and calling anything old and 

 unfamiliar ' quaint,' dismissed it with a smile. Neither 

 of these methods will help us to understand the ancient 

 world. The folly of our ancestors is no e.xplanation. 

 Their knowledge was no doubt extremely limited ; they 

 saw old and distant things through a dense and pre- 

 vailing fog of ignorance. But that they tried to under- 

 stand them at all is a proof of their wisdom, not of 

 their folly. 



" Still more misleading is the habit of regarding 

 the rude features of primitive art, the stammering 

 words of an infant literature, the childish fallacies of 

 early science, as something to be amused at. Till we 

 have got beyond the stage of calline these old things 

 merely ' quaint,' there is no possibility of understand- 

 ing them at all. Therefore, if we quote from the old 

 books things which appear strange in our eyes, foolish 

 things if you like, it is not with the object of raising 



