Mat 9, 1913] 



SCIENCE 



701 



more vigorous exercise of the dormant 

 power whieh resides in the union of the il- 

 lustrious bodies which together constitute 

 the International Association of Acad- 



®™^^®- Arthur Schuster 



EoTAL Society op London 



SIE WILLIAM OSLEB'S SILLIMAN 

 LEC TUBES 



Sir Willum Oslek delivered the first of 

 his six lectures on the " Evolution of Modern 

 Medicine " on the Silliman foundation at 

 Tale University on Monday afternoon, April 

 21. The last lecture was delivered on the 28 

 ult. 



In his first lecture, according to the report 

 in the Yale Alumni WeeJcly, Dr. Osier dealt 

 with the origin of medicine in primitive man 

 and its relation to magic and religion. Cer- 

 tain special practises, such as trephining, 

 were described and illustrated by the lecturer. 

 Egyptian medicine was considered in its three 

 important aspects — magic, the use of animal 

 extracts, and the specialized modes of practise 

 recorded in the famous Ebers, Hearst and 

 Berlin papyri. Divination, particularly by in- 

 spection of the liver, astrology and the Ham- 

 murabi code, were taken as illustrating the 

 special features of Assyrian and Babylonian 

 medicine. The extension of astrology was 

 traced through Greece and Rome. Among 

 the Hebrews the excellent hygienic regula- 

 tions were discussed and brief reference was 

 made to the miraculous healing in the New 

 Testament. Dr. Osier showed that the char- 

 acter of ancient medicine may be studied to- 

 day in China, where charms, enchantments 

 and death-banishing herbs are universally em- 

 ployed. 



In the second lecture Professor Osier dealt 

 with the beginnings of science in Greece, deal- 

 ing first with the nature philosophers of Ionia 

 and south Italy, whose contributions to medi- 

 cine, while not numerous, were of great im- 

 portance as influencing the thought of subse- 

 quent workers. The physicians of this 

 school were independent of the Osculapian 



cult, the growth of which he then sketched as 

 met with at Epidaurus and Cos. The work of 

 Hippocrates was discussed and his funda- 

 mental proposition that disease was a natural 

 phenomenon to be studied. The high ethical 

 character of Greek medicine was illustrated 

 by the famous oath of Hippocrates. The rise 

 of the Alexandrian School and the study of 

 human anatomy was then considered, and 

 the high-water mark of the period was reached 

 in Galen of Pergamus, whose life and work 

 were described. 



In the third of his lectures he treated 

 medieval medicine. He traced the stream of 

 Greek medicine through the three channels in 

 the middle ages — the first continuous Greek 

 tradition in south Italy, which found its high- 

 est development in the School of Salernum; 

 secondly, through the Byzantine sources; 

 thirdly, through the Arabs, who by the ninth 

 century had had translated for them all of the 

 Greek writers. From the Spanish translators 

 of the thirteenth century, from Salernum, and 

 by the dispersion of learned Greeks with their 

 manuscript after the fall of Constantinople, 

 Greek medicine reached modern Europe. He 

 then traced the growth of the universities of 

 Bologna and Montpelier and their influence 

 upon medicine, particularly the former, where 

 anatomy was first studied. Medicine of the 

 middle ages was a restatement from century 

 to century of the facts and theories of the 

 Greeks, modified here and there by Arabian 

 practise. In Bacon's phase there was much 

 iteration, small addition. 



In lecture four Professor Osier dealt with 

 the beginnings of modern medicine as illus- 

 trated in the lives and works of three men. 

 Paracelsus represented the spirit of revolt 

 against authority and tradition. His positive 

 contribution to medicine was small in com- 

 parison with the stimulus which his antagon- 

 ism to the older writers aroused in his genera- 

 tion. Vesalius was the first to describe and 

 illustrate with system and accuracy the struc- 

 tvire of the human body. He may be said to 

 be the creator of human anatomy as we know 

 it. Professor Harvey Gushing, of Harvard, 



