15 
PATHOLOGY. 
and, after four or five days, when the body is a little re- veterate afthma, after all other remedies have been tried 
cruited, purging ; three days after, cupping and fcarifying. in vain. One, he fays, fiiould be made on each fide, near 
He repeats thefe evacuations, and fometimes finapifms, at the middle of the joining of the clavicle, taking care 
convenient diftances, and in the intervals gives proper not to touch the wind-pipe: two other little ones are 
nourilhment, and ufes warm medicines, fuch as caftor, then to be made near the carotids under the chin, one on 
mint, rue, and the cyrenaic juice. Whether this be 
taken out of Pofidonius, as, by reading Aetius upon the 
fame head, there may be fome reafon to fufpeCt, we can¬ 
not tell; but the method is certainly right, and agreeable 
to a rational practice. The epitome of what Galen had 
faid upon the fame argument, in the next chapter, is by 
no means fo full and circumflantial. Thefe few infiances 
will be fufficient to (how, that even this author, though 
he be chiefly a collector, may furnifii us with fome new 
and ufeful reflections in phyfic; and he who reads him 
with this view, may find fome other paflages of the fame 
kind, not to be met with in the more ancient writers. 
Aetius lived very near the end of the fifth or the be¬ 
ginning of the fixth century. He was a native of Amida 
in Me!opo.tamia, ftudied at Alexandria, and was probably 
a Chriftian, which perhaps may be the reafon why many 
have confounded him with another of that name, a fa¬ 
mous Arian of Antioch, who lived in the time ot Julian. 
In fome manufcripts he has the ftyle of Kopn; O-vJ/ixta, 
Comes ObJ'equii; i.e. the chief officer of thole who ufed 
to go before the emperor, as his attendants and harbin¬ 
gers. We find in hint feveral particularities relating to 
the Egyptian pharmacy. He has collected a great multi¬ 
tude of receipts, particularly thofe which had been much 
celebrated, or ufed as noltrums by their inventors. Some 
of thefe he feems to mention with no other defign than 
to expofe them, and to let us fee the extravagant rate people 
were induced to pay for them: for inftance, the colly- 
riutn of Danaus, which was fold in Confiantinople for one 
hundred and twenty numifmata, and with great difficulty 
obtained from him ; the colical antidote of Nicofiratus, 
called very prefumptuoufly Ifotheos, bought for two ta¬ 
lents. He feems alfo to be the firft: Greek writer among 
the Chriftians who gives us any fnecimen of medicinal 
fpells and charms, fo much in vogue with the old Egyp¬ 
tians ; fuch as that of St. Blafius, in removing a bone 
which flicks in the throat; and another in relation to 
two fiftulse. 
The followfing fample of a remedy for the gout is re¬ 
marked by Dr. Freind as being the firll ofits kind in the 
hiflory of phyfic. It is an external medicine : he calls it 
the grand dryer : the patient is to ufe it for a whole year, 
and obferve the following diet befides in each month. 
He calls the months by the Alexandrian or Egyptian 
names, but in Engliffi, the direction runs thus : “ In Sep¬ 
tember to eat and drink milk : in October to eat garlick : 
in November to abltain from bathing: in December not 
to eat cabbage: in January fo take a glafs of pure wine 
in the morning: in February to eat no bete: in March 
to mix fweet things both in eatables and drinkables: in 
April not to eat horfe-radifh: nor in May the filh called 
polypus : in June to drink cold water in a morning : in 
July to avoid venery : and laftly, in Augufi to eat no 
mallows.” This may give us fome idea of the quackery 
of thofe times. 
In the works of Aetius we find many obfervations 
omitted by Celfus and Galen, particularly on furgical 
operations and on difficult parturition. He firft took no¬ 
tice of the Dracunculus, or Guinea worm, not known 
to Galen. It is curious to remark the exceffive extent to 
which the aCtual and potential cauteries were carried in 
the time of this practitioner. In a palfy, he fays, that 
he fiiould not at all hefitate to make an elchar either way, 
and this in feveral places; one in the nape, where the 
fpinal marrow takes its rife, two on each fide of it; three 
or four on the top of the head, one juft in the middle, 
and three others round it : he adds, that, in this cafe, if 
the ulcers continue running a conliderable time, he fiiould 
not doubt'of a perfect recovery. He is ftill more parti¬ 
cular when he comes to order this application for an in- 
each fide, fo that the cauftic may penetrate no further 
than the fkin ; two others under the breafts, between the 
third and fourth ribs ; and again, two more backwards 
towards the fifth and fixth ribs. Befides thefe, there 
ought to be one in the middle of the thorax, near the be¬ 
ginning of the xiphoid cartilage, over the orifice of the 
rtomach; one on each fide between the eighth andninth 
ribs; and three others in the back, one in the middle, and 
the two others juft below it, on each fide of the vertebra;. 
Thofe below the neck ought to be pretty large, not very 
fuperficial, not very deep : and all thefe ulcers fiiould be 
kept open for a very long time. » 
Alexander, who flouriffied in the reign of Jultinian, is 
a more original author than either of the two former. 
He was furnamed Trallianus, being born at Tralles, a 
famous city of Lydia, where the Greek language was fpo- 
ken in great perfection : he lived in the fixth century, 
fome time after Aetius. He was a man of very extend ve 
praftice and of great fame, whence he was emphatically 
called Alexander the phyfician. His therapeutical direc¬ 
tions are very full and explicit, aftd were chiefly the re- 
fults of experiments made by hirnfelf. His practice was 
remarkable for the judicious introduction of aperient me¬ 
dicines in cafes of fever, and the ufe of bleeding in fyn- 
cope, adifeafe which, according to his defeription, feems 
to apply to the epilepfy of our own times. But the molt 
valuable part of Alexander’s writings was his book on 
gout, for the cure of which he recommends purging, and 
particularly with the herb hermodadlylus, which is fiip- 
pofed to be the colchicum lately brought up again and ac¬ 
quiring great reputation in the. cure of the fame complaint. 
He is the firft author who recommended the life of-rhu¬ 
barb, which he had recourfe to in vveaknefs of the liver 
and in dyfentery. Alexander is recommended by Dr. 
Freind as one of the bell practical writers among the an¬ 
cients, and well worthy the perufal of any modern. 
Paulus, the fourth and laft of the old Greek writers, 
was born in the ifland Aigina, and lived in the feventh 
century, though placed by Mr. le Clerc as high as tlie 
fourth. He vras a great traveller, and had opportunities 
of feeing an extenfive practice in different countries. 
He tranferibes a great deal from Alexander and other 
phyficians. His deferiptions are fhort and accurate. He 
treats particularly of women’s diforders ; and feems to 
be the firft inftance upon record of a profeffed man-midzoije, 
for fo he was called by the Arabians : and accordingly he 
begins his work with the diforders incident to pregnant 
women. He treats alfo very fully of furgehy, and gives 
fome direClions, according to J>r. Freind, not to be found 
in the more ancient writers. He direCls the manner of 
extruding darts, and of operating for hernia ; he deferibes 
one fpecies of aneurifm ; treats of the mode of opening 
the jugular veins, and alfo the arteries behind the ear. 
He likewife deferibed the operation'of bronchotomy, and 
ftiowed the propriety of performing it in cafes of fuffoca- 
tion. This operation had been derided by Aurelianus, 
and fome fevere objections were Halted againftit by Are- 
taeus. It was firft; performed by Antyllus, from whom 
Paulus copied it. 
With Paulus clofes the period of the Greek clujjlcal 
phyficians: fo we venture to call them; becaufe, if we 
compare any of the Greek writers on pathology, from 
the very firfi of them, Hippocrates, to the time we are 
now fpeaking of, with the very bell of their contempora¬ 
ries in any art or profeffion whatever, they will be found 
not at all inferior to them either in the difpofition of their 
matter, the clearnefs of their reafoning, or the propriety 
of their language. Some of them have even written 
above the ftandard of the age they lived in ; an incon- 
teftible inftance ®f which is Aretseus. Galen, alfo, was 
not 
