2 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XX. No. 496. 



the Egyptian. After 1,700 years of prog- 

 ress we still find many'' disciples of Galen 

 among us, and the remedies whicTi are 

 'purely vegetable,' or advertised to be, find 

 yet amon'g the ignorant the largest sale. 



The beginnings of chemical and medical 

 knowledge came to western Europe through 

 the Arab conquest of Spain and in that 

 country were nurtured through many years. 

 Alchemy and theology, howevei*, developed 

 more rapidly and the learned showed great- 

 er interest in the transmutation of metals 

 and the saving of souls than in the perfec- 

 tion of means for curing the ills of the 

 body. The system of Galen remained ade- 

 quate for the needs of physicians through 

 a period of 800 years following the Moorish 

 conquest. It could not be otherwise with 

 miracle shrines in every village and burn- 

 ing fagots for all that doubted- 



In the sixteenth century we recognize the 

 first systematic attempts made to improve 

 on the materia mediea brought down from 

 Greece and Egypt. Paracelsus began to 

 teach the value of artificial products in the 

 curing of disease, and, although meeting 

 with great opposition, he with his pupils 

 gradually built up a creed which flourished 

 a century and a half. Paracelsus, familiar 

 with the doctrines of the alchemists, and 

 through extensive travels well acquainted 

 also with the operations in metallurgy in 

 many countries, set about to apply the 

 gradually accumulating knowledge to the 

 production of chemical remedies for human 

 ailments. He promulgated a crude theory 

 of the normal conditions of the body and, 

 like Galen, assumed that variations from 

 that normal could be corrected by chemical 

 agents. Civilized as well as uncivilized 

 man has usually been a believer, in materia 

 mediea, and the notion that arsenic or 

 mercury or antimony or sulphur could 

 build up what disease had torn down pos- 

 sessed an element of plausibility that rapid- 

 ly attracted adherents. Medicine became. 



in effect, a branch of applied chemistry and 

 the chief energies of physicians were bent 

 in the direction of medication rather than 

 toward the development of diagnosis. "We 

 can not wonder at the subsequent failure 

 of the system, since it grew into a kind of 

 exaggerated empiricism not far removed 

 from quackery. Indeed, it is difficult to 

 realize at the present time how the iatro 

 chemistry developed and flourished as long 

 as it did. It must be remembered that 

 chemical analysis was then quite unknown, 

 and of chemical compounds only such were 

 in use as could be easily made from a small 

 number of native minerals and the simple 

 inorganic acids and alkalies then available. 

 Of the substances called organic very few 

 had been discovered. A system of chemical 

 therapeutics based on so slim a foundation 

 failed, then, because of the wide divergence 

 between what was confidently promised and 

 what experience showed was practically 

 realizable. But while no good came direct- 

 ly from this approach of chemistry to medi- 

 cine, the indirect results were more impor- 

 tant, since the large number of physicians 

 turned chemists accomplished the discovery 

 of many new substances. 



We hear little more of the influence of 

 chemistry on medicine through the one 

 hundred years following the decline of the 

 iatro school. Not, indeed, until the time 

 of Lavoisier and his colleagues, when the 

 explanation of the respiration process in 

 its relation to oxidation and combustion 

 and the investigations by the calorimeter 

 on the origin of animal heat called again 

 attention to the possibilities of chemistry 

 in the development of medicine. About 

 the same time came the discoveries of Gal- 

 vani and Volta, the importance of which 

 was soon recognized. Those were inspiring 

 times for the real science of chemistry new- 

 ly born, when each day, almost, added some 

 new fact to the rapidly filling store-house. 

 The learned in all lands stood amazed at 



