M E D 
M E D 
w* the same year succeeded by the noble, 
the tfubie ot which was half a mark. Henry 
the Fifth diminished the value of the noble ; 
Henry the Sixth restored it to its size, and 
gave it the name of ryal; while Edward the 
hourth, in 1465, supplanted it with the angel. 
Henry the Eighth, in 1523, added the gold 
•crown and half crown at their present value: 
the sovereign of 22s. 6d. ; the ryal at 1 Is. 3d . ; 
the angel at 7s. M . ; and the noble at its old 
value. In 1546, he coined sovereigns and 
half-sovereigns, the former to go at 20, s. and 
the latter in proportion. Charles the Second, 
however, instead ot the sovereign, introduced 
the guinea and half-guinea. George the First 
added the quarter-guinea. But though it was 
continued in the early part of the reign of his 
present majesty, the seven-shilling piece has 
been preferred. 
The history of our copper coinage, the 
last in order of chronology, will be shorter. 
From the reign of Henry the Eighth till the 
close ot queen Elizabeth’s reign, the scarcity 
of silver larthings and halfpence gave rise to 
the introduction of tokens or pledges for mo- 
ney among tradesmen, many of which are 
undoubtedly alluded to in what has been said 
by Erasmus and other writers about leaden 
money. Elizabeth, it appears, would never 
hear of a copper coinage for the country: 
and though farthing tokens of copper were 
issued both by James and Charles the First, 
they were considered rather as pledges of 
' government than legitimate money. - The 
I death of Charles the First put an effectual 
stop to their farther currency: and till 1672, 
the countiy again swarmed with town pieces 
and tradesmen's pledges; when, in the latter 
year, halfpence and farthings of copper were 
made public money, and the circulation of 
tokens forbidden. His present majesty has 
added two-penny pieces. 
MED LOLA, climbing African aspara- 
gus, a genus of the hexandria order, in the 
trigynia class of plants, and in the natural 
method ranking under the 11th order, sar- 
mentaceax There is no calyx; the corolla 
is sexpartite and revoluted ; the berry tri- 
spermous. Its characters are these :*the dower 
has no empalement; it has six oblong oval 
petals, and six awl-shaped stamina terminated 
by incumbent summits; and three horned 
germina terminating the style; the germina 
afterward turn to a roundish trifid berry with 
three cells, each containing one heart-shaped 
seed. There are three species. 
MEDICAGO, snail-trefoil, a genus of the 
decandria order, in the diadelphia class of 
plants, and in the natural method ranking 
under the 32d order, papilionacea:. The le- 
gi linen is compressed and screwed ; the ca- 
rina of the corolla luring down from the vex- 
illum. 'I here are 11 species, though only 
live are commonly cultivated in this country. 
They are low trailing plants, adorned with 
small yellow dowers, succeeded by small 
round snail-shaped fruit, which are downy, 
and armed with a few short spines. They 
are all easily propagated by seeds. The M. 
jsativa or lucern, has been’ latterly much re- 
commended as a green fodder for "cattle, and 
has been cultivated by some farmers with 
success. 
MEDICINE, is the art of preserving 
health, and of curing or alleviating disease. 
<t is the same science in its application to 
wiimal, as agriculture to vegetable, life. 
U E D 
Origin and progress of medicine. “ Me- 
dicina nusquam non est.” This art arises 
out of the natural, as others more gradually 
and indirectly originate from the artificial and 
adventitious, wants of mankind. The exact 
period, however, in which medicine began 
to be formally practised as an art, or sepa- 
rately cultivated as a profession, has by no 
means been accurately ascertained. All the 
accounts which have been transmitted on this 
subject from a date prior to the time of Hip- 
pocrates, are either conjectural or fabulous. 
Hippocrates first effected a separation of me- 
dicine from philosophy and religion, and gave 
it the form of a distinct science : he lias there- 
fore been generally regarded by the moderns 
as the father of physic ; and from his time 
the history of this science may. be made with 
propriety to commence. 
Hippocrates was a native of Greece. He 
was born in the island of Cos, and nourished 
about 400 years prior to the Christian sera. 
Of his character as a physician, an estimate 
cannot, confessedly with much accuracy, be 
formed from his writings, or from those works 
which have been attributed to him, but which 
are generally regarded as in a great measure 
the inventions of his disciples and successors. 
“ Hippocrates,’’ says a modern author, 
“ lived at too early a period to be acquainted 
with the collateral branches of science. He 
studied life and disease in the book of nature, 
and had the merit of an original observer.” 
We do not, however, feel disposed with this 
author fully to acquit the “ Coan sage of the 
many idle theories which have been imputed 
to him." It may well be conceived that he 
was influenced in his opinions on the cause 
of disease and on the nature of healing, if 
not by the splendid fictions of the Greek phi- 
losophy, by preconceived theory and vague 
conjecture. Indeed, the hypotheses contain- 
ed in the reputed w ritings at least of Hippo- 
crates, have been, with trivial modifications, 
the hypotheses of modern times; for in this 
author’s pervading and presiding principle of 
nature, and in his 'attraction, depuration, 
decoction, and crisis of disease, may be traced 
the same mode of theorizing which has been 
adopted by later systematics. 
The humoral pathology, and even the r is 
naturce medicatrix of modern times, appear 
to be modifications or relics of Hippocratic 
reasoning. 
The immediate successors of Hippocrates 
began to direct their researches into the aux- 
iliary departments of medicine; and among 
these, Praxagoras, Chrysippus, Hirophilus, 
and Erasistratus, particularly the two last, 
made no inconsiderable discoveries (when we 
consider the scantiness of their materials) re- 
specting the structure and functions of the 
human frame. It was about this period, ac- 
cording to Celsus, that the science was di- 
vided into the three distinct branches of die- 
tetical, pharmaceutical, and chirurgical me- 
dicine — “ una qua: victu, altera qus medica- 
mentis, tertia qua: manu mederetur.” Shortly 
alter the time of Herophilus, the medical 
world became divided into the two sects of 
empirics and dogmatists: the one, rejecting 
the reasoning and deriding the practice of 
their predecessors affected to disregard all 
authority but that of experience; the other, 
retaining their faith in the scholastic philoso- 
phy of the times, and their conviction of the 
utility of physiological knowledge in detect- 
1 3 1 
ing the causes and regulating the treatment of 
disease. 'The empiric sect was founded by 
Serapion of Alexandria, about 287 years be- 
fore Christ. 
The next revolution of importance in the 
medical art was occasioned by the introduc- 
tion ot the Epicurean philosophy into the 
schools of medicine. This was effected by 
Asclepiades, who was succeeded by Themi- 
son, the founder of the methodic sect, the 
members of which were equally hostile to the 
dogmatists and empirics. They discarded 
what they considered the occult reasoning of 
the former, and substituted in the room of the 
laborious observations of the latter, indica- 
tions of treatments deduced from the analogy 
of diseases, or the mutual resemblance they 
bear to each other, “ nullius causae notitiam 
quicquam ad curationes perlinere; satisque 
esse quaedam communae morborum intueri 
methodici contendunt.” Celsus. The most 
celebrated of Themison’s followers were 
Thessalus, who nourished under the empe- 
ror N ero, and Soranus, a native of Ephesus, 
wh® lived during the time of the emperors 
Trajan and Adrian. 
\Y e have now arrived at a very conspicu- 
ous aera in the science of medicine. About 
the 13 1st year after Christ, in the reign of 
Adrian, lived the celebrated Galen, who was 
born at Pergamus. At this time the dogma- 
tic, empiric, and methodic sects of physicians 
had each their advocates. The methodic*, 
however, were held in greatest estimation. 
Galen undertook the reformation of medi- 
cine, and affected to restore the Hippocratic 
philosophy and practice. Instead, however, 
of abiding by the doctrines of his master, his 
systems were almost entirely of his own in- 
vention. 1 “ Philosophy and science had now 
made some advances ; and from those sources 
Galen introduced many corruptions into me- 
dicine.” Like Hippocrates, he supposed the 
existence of four humours, from the predo- 
minancy or deficiency of one or other of 
which the varieties of constitutions, and like- 
wise the complexion and nature of disease, 
were conjectured to originate. These hu- 
mours are, in the Galenic: system, the blood 
the phlegm, the yellow bile, and the black 
bile. He likewise establishes three distinct 
kinds of spirits — the natural, the vital, and 
the animal ; the first of which lie suppose* to 
be a subtile vapour arising from the blood; 
this, conveyed to the heart, becomes, when 
conjoined to the air taken into the lungs, the 
vital spirits, which are changed into the ani- 
mal kind in (lie brain. 'These three species 
of spirits our author imagined to serve as in- 
struments to distinct faculties: the natural 
faculty, which he supposed to reside in 
the liver, and to preside over the nutrition, 
grow th, and generation of the animal both - 
the vital faculty, whk he lodged in t| e 
heart, and imagined that through the iyt-er- 
ventionof the arteries it communicated wafinth 
and preserved life ; while the animal faculty 
according to Galen, has its seat in the brain’, 
is the cause ol motion and sensation, and pre- 
sides over all the other faculties. The origin 
or principle of motion in these respective fa- 
culties, Galen, as well as Hippocrates, calls 
nature. H 
The authority of Galen, notwithstanding 
the tissue of extravagances and idle conjec- 
tures ot which his sysWns were formed, con- 
