214 
EDITORIAL OBSERVATIONS. 
teracted tlie action of the other; or, the laws of incom¬ 
patibility or affinities not being understood by them, one 
agent decomposed the other, and a new compound was 
formed. Under this head it would be easy to adduce proofs, 
but we refrain. 
The assertion is perhaps too bold, that nothing of real 
value was ever discovered by accident; the probability being 
that the beneficial effects of most substances used in the 
early period of medicine were thus ascertained. Indeed, we 
are told that the origin of this division of science may 
be traced as follows : 
“ The early subsistence of mankind was doubtlessly derived 
from fruits, plants, and roots; and in their search for edible pro¬ 
ducts they must soon have become acquainted with many, the 
use of which was attended with very remarkable effects. These 
were noticed by them, and in all probability recorded; or, if 
not, their action became traditional. Thus a number of 
receipts, if we may so call them, were collected, which passed 
from man to his neighbour, and from father to son, without 
any attempt at system; and which, perhaps, often were em¬ 
ployed at hazard, without any distinct reference to the 
symptoms of particular diseases. 
ff We read that it was the custom, even among such advanced 
nations as the Egyptians and Babylonians, to expose the sick 
in public places, that those who passed by might be induced 
to communicate the processes or medicines which had been 
useful to them when labouring under similar diseases. In 
process of time patients were taken to the temples, not only 
as places of public resort, but, in the expectation of assist¬ 
ance from the God to whom the temple was dedicated. 
This among the Egyptians was the famed temple of Serapis, 
and among the Greeks that of ASsculapius; and thus it was 
that the science of medicine (if such it could be then called) . 
gradually came into the hands of the priests, who in most 
countries were the earliest physicians. And this did not 
arise exclusively from the influence of their sacerdotal cha¬ 
racter, but from their being the first to qualify themselves 
for the service. They saw the advantage that would ulti¬ 
mately result from it, since the symptoms of the various 
diseases, and the means resorted to for their cure, would be 
registered by them in their archives; and the accumulation 
of such cases would enable them to give advice to patients, 
without their exposure in public places; and the appeal to 
