BRISTOL PHARMACEUTICAL ASSOCIATION. 
609 
Gathering experience from each other’s sorrows, and acting either from individual 
judgment or the advice of neighbours, a traditional collection of recipes grew up. 
Amongst the early Egyptians, to whom belongs the honour of first making an at¬ 
tempt to study and classify the properties of medicines, a custom prevailed of expos¬ 
ing the sick in public places, that amongst the passing throng, some who had them¬ 
selves suffered, and attracted by that “fellow-feeling which makes us wondrous kind,” 
might suggest a remedy or apply a cure. 
Very soon, however, the priests, partly from a superior knowledge, partly from that 
love of power which some amongst their followers retain even in this present year of 
grace, invited patients to the temples, and, invoking the aid of their god3, became 
truly the first apothecaries. 
In the temple archives a record of the remedies and treatment was kept, and as 
some of you enter your prescriptions to-morrow, you may find satisfaction in thinking 
of yourselves, as the followers of the Egyptian priests, ministering in the temple ot 
Serapis. . , . , 
Three thousand six hundred years ago, we have the fact that spices, balms, ana 
myrrh were carried into Egypt, and it is probable that at this early period—-tv o 
hundred and fifty years before the birth of Moses—the Egyptians had some consider¬ 
able knowledge of medicines, and regularly imported odorous and healing gums from 
India, China, Persia, and Arabia. . 
In the year of the world 2076, Hermes Trismegistus lived, an Egyptian apothecary 
and alchemist; his fame was wide, and some early writings on alchemy are attributed 
to him, the authenticity of which, however, is very doubtful.. 
In connection with early Egyptian pharmacy, there exists in the museum at -Berlin 
a curious medicine chest or portable surgery, said to have been found in one of the 
tombs at Thebes, and which is probably as old as the Pyramids; and it is a most sin¬ 
gular fact, that the Egyptians very early introduced the specialty system, now so po¬ 
pular in the Metropolis. , , 
Herodotus informs us that there were doctors for the eyes, head, teeth, stomach, etc., 
and that the lowest order of priests, known as Neocoroi, alone exercised the pro- 
^Although earliest in the field, the Egyptians were soon distanced, both in skill and 
knowledge, by the ancient Greeks. ... 
The late Dr. Pereira quotes a classic legend of the early use of hellebore, which may 
prove of interest to any of my friends present who are like Ccelebs in search of a wife. 
He saysHellebore was introduced (about 3270 years ago) by Melampus, a Greek 
shepherd, who is also described as a soothsayer and a physician, and who observed the 
effects of the plants on goats, which, when sick, instinctively resorted to it. Melampus 
was applied to by Prcetus, king of Argos, to cure his three daughters of insanity, lhe 
princesses, it is said, imagined themselves to be cows, and were running about the 
fields, and imitating the cries of cattle. Melampus asked a high price for the cure, 
namely, the third of the kingdom, and the king refused to accede to the terms, until 
the disease becoming contagious amongst the Argian women, he was obliged to con¬ 
sent Melampus purged them by hellebore, cured them, and obtained the most hand¬ 
some of the three for his wife, with one-third of the kingdom as a dowry. 
It is as well perhaps that you should be warned not to speak of “ vinum tern as a 
veru recent preparation, as this same Melampus cured Iplndes, son of Philacus, by 
the rust of iron digested in wine ; and Dr. Pereira considers this as probably the first 
instance of the internal administration of iron, now the favourite sport of the inven¬ 
Amongst the most famous of Grecian physicians and apothecaries, may be e 
tioned Hippocrates, who flourished 460 years B.C., and whose works on materia medico, 
include notices of nearly 40 mineral, 300 vegetable, and 150 animal substances, and 
who, withal, held fast to the theory of the influence of the stars ; advising his son 
Tliessalus to study them, because their rising and setting had a vast effect upon dis- 
^15uti notwithstanding, his name and his researches remain to us; and the Sydenham 
Society published some few years ago an edition of the “ Genuine Works of ippo- 
crates.” Dr. Adams, in his preface to this work, speaks of him as strictly the phy- 
