His Pathology was mythology. A malformed foetus, as the readers of Winthrop's Journal may remember, was enough to scare the colonists from their propriety, and suggest the gravest fears of portended disaster. The student of the seventeenth century opened his Licetus and saw figures of a lion with the head of a woman, and a man with the head of an elephant. He had offered to his gaze, as born of a human mother, the effigy of a winged cherub, a pterocephalous specimen, which our Professor of Pathological Anatomy would hardly know whether to treat with the reverence due to its celestial aspect, or to imprison in one of his immortalizing jars of alcohol.
His pharmacopoeia consisted mainly of simples, such as the venerable "Herball" of Gerard describes and figures in abounding affluence.
St. John's wort and Clown's All-heal, with Spurge and Fennel, Saffron and Parsley, Elder and Snake-root, with opium in some form, and roasted rhubarb and the Four Great Cold Seeds, and the two Resins, of which it used to be said that whatever the Tacamahaca has not cured, the Caranna will, with the more familiar Scammony and Jalap and Black Hellebore, made up a good part of his probable list of remedies. He would have ordered Iron now and then, and possibly an occasional dose of Antimony. He would perhaps have had a rheumatic patient wrapped in the skin of a wolf or a wild cat, and in case of a malignant fever with "purples" or petechiae, or of an obstinate king's evil, he might have prescribed a certain black powder, which had been made by calcining toads in an earthen pot; a choice remedy, taken internally, or applied to any outward grief.
Except for the toad-powder and the peremptory drastics, one might have borne up against this herb doctoring as well as against some more modern styles of medication. Barbeyrac and his scholar Sydenham had not yet cleansed the Pharmacopoeia of its perilous stuff, but there is no doubt that the more sensible physicians of that day knew well enough that a good honest herb-tea which amused the patient and his nurses was all that was required to carry him through all common disorders.
The student soon learned the physiognomy of disease by going about with his master; fevers, pleurisies, asthmas, dropsies, fluxes, small-pox, sore-throats, measles, consumptions. He saw what was done for them. He put up the medicines, gathered the herbs, and so learned something of materia medico and botany. He learned these few things easily and well, for he could give his whole attention to them. Chirurgery was a separate specialty. Women in child-birth were cared for by midwives. There was no chemistry deserving the name to require his study. He did not learn a great deal, perhaps, but what he did learn was his business, namely, how to take care of sick people.
Let me give you a picture of the old=fashioned way of instruction, by carrying you with me in imagination in the company of worthy Master Giles Firmin as he makes his round of visits among the good folk of Ipswich, followed by his one student, who shall answer to the scriptural name of Luke. It will not be for entertainment chiefly, but to illustrate the one mode of teaching which can never be superseded, and which, I venture to say, is more important than all the rest put together. The student is a green hand, as you will perceive.
In the first dwelling they come to, a stout fellow is bellowing with colic.
"He will die, Master, of a surety, methinks," says the timid youth in a whisper.
"Nay, Luke," the Master answers, "'t is but a dry belly-ache. Didst thou not mark that he stayed his roaring when I did press hard over the lesser bowels? Note that he hath not the pulse of them with fevers, and by what Dorcas telleth me there hath been no long shutting up of the vice naturales. We will steep certain comforting herbs which I will shew thee, and put them in a bag and lay them on his belly. Likewise he shall have my cordial julep with a portion of this confection which we do call Theriaca Andromachi, which hath juice of poppy in it, and is a great stayer of anguish. This fellow is at his prayers to-day, but I warrant thee he shall be swearing with the best of them to-morrow."
They jog along the bridle-path on their horses until they come to another lowly dwelling. They sit a while with a delicate looking girl in whom the ingenuous youth naturally takes a special interest.
The good physician talks cheerfully with her, asks her a few questions. Then to her mother: "Good-wife, Margaret hath somewhat profited, as she telleth, by the goat's milk she hath taken night and morning. Do thou pluck a maniple--that is an handful--of the plant called Maidenhair, and make a syrup therewith as I have shewed thee.
Let her take a cup full of the same, fasting, before she sleepeth, also before she riseth from her bed." And so they leave the house.
"What thinkest thou, Luke, of the maid we have been visiting?" "She seemeth not much ailing, Master, according to my poor judgment. For she did say she was better. And she had a red cheek and a bright eye, and she spake of being soon able to walk unto the meeting, and did seem greatly hopeful, but spare of flesh, methought, and her voice something hoarse, as of one that hath a defluxion, with some small coughing from a cold, as she did say. Speak I not truly, Master, that she will be well speedily?"
"Yea, Luke, I do think she shall be well, and mayhap speedily. But it is not here with us she shall be well. For that redness of the cheek is but the sign of the fever which, after the Grecians, we do call the hectical; and that shining of the eyes is but a sickly glazing, and they which do every day get better and likewise thinner and weaker shall find that way leadeth to the church-yard gate. This is the malady which the ancients did call tubes, or the wasting disease, and some do name the consumption. A disease whereof most that fall ailing do perish. This Margaret is not long for earth--but she knoweth it not, and still hopeth."