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 thertacwm, 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 pharmacopeias. 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 firmiy 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’ 
