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Title: The Harvard Classics Volume 38

Scientific Papers (Physiology,

Medicine, Surgery, Geology)

Author: Various

Release Date: May, 2004 [EBook

#5694] [Yes, we are more than one yearahead of schedule] [This file was firstposted on August 9, 2002]

Edition: 10

Language: English

*** START OF THE PROJECT

GUTENBERG EBOOK HARVARDCLASSICS V.38 ***

Produced by David Turner, CharlesFranks and the Online DistributedProofreading Team.

The Harvard Classics Volume 38Scientific Papers (Physiology,Medicine, Surgery, Geology)

THE OATH OF HIPPOCRATES

THE LAW OF HIPPOCRATES

JOURNEYS IN DIVERSE PLACES … AMBROISE PARE TRANSLATED BY STEPHEN PAGET

ON THE MOTION OF THE HEART AND BLOOD IN ANIMALS WILLIAM HARVEY TRANSLATED BY ROBERT WILLIS THE THREE ORIGINAL PUBLICATIONS

ON VACCINATION AGAINST SMALLPOX

… EDWARD JENNER

THE CONTAGIOUSNESS OF

PUERPERAL FEVER O W HOLMES

ON THE ANTISEPTIC PRINCIPLE OF THE PRACTICE OF SURGERY LORD LISTER

THE PHYSIOLOGICAL THEORY OFFERMENTATION

LOUIS PASTEUR

TRANSLATED BY F FAULKNERAND D C ROBB (Revised)

THE GERM THEORY AND ITS

APPLICATIONS TO MEDICINE ANDSURGERY (Revised) … LOUISPASTEUR

UNIFORMITY IN THE SERIES OF PAST CHANGES IN THE ANIMATE AND

INANIMATE WORLD SIR CHARLES LYELL

INTRODUCTORY NOTE

Hippocrates, the celebrated Greekphysician, was a contemporary of thehistorian Herodotus He was born in theisland of Cos between 470 and 460 B.C., and belonged to the family that

claimed descent from the mythical

AEsculapius, son of Apollo There wasalready a long medical tradition inGreece before his day, and this he issupposed to have inherited chieflythrough his predecessor Herodicus; and

he enlarged his education by extensive

travel He is said, though the evidence isunsatisfactory, to have taken part in theefforts to check the great plague whichdevastated Athens at the beginning of thePeloponnesian war He died at Larissabetween 380 and 360 B C.

The works attributed to Hippocrates arethe earliest extant Greek medical

writings, but very many of them arecertainly not his Some five or six,

however, are generally granted to begenuine, and among these is the famous

"Oath." This interesting document showsthat in his time physicians were alreadyorganized into a corporation or guild,with regulations for the training of

disciples, and with an esprit de corps

and a professional ideal which, withslight exceptions, can hardly yet be

regarded as out of date

One saying occurring in the words ofHippocrates has achieved universalcurrency, though few who quote it to-dayare aware that it originally referred tothe art of the physician It is the first ofhis "Aphorisms": "Life is short, and theArt long; the occasion fleeting;

experience fallacious, and judgmentdifficult The physician must not only beprepared to do what is right himself, butalso to make the patient, the attendants,and externals cooperate."

THE OATH OF

HIPPOCRATES

I swear by Apollo the physician andAEsculapius, and Health, and All-heal,and all the gods and goddesses, that,according to my ability and judgment, Iwill keep this Oath and this stipulation

—to reckon him who taught me this Artequally dear to me as my parents, toshare my substance with him, and

relieve his necessities if required; tolook upon his offspring in the samefooting as my own brothers, and to teachthem this art, if they shall wish to learn

it, without fee or stipulation; and that byprecept, lecture, and every other mode

of instruction, I will impart a knowledge

of the Art to my own sons, and those of

my teachers, and to disciples bound by astipulation and oath according to the law

of medicine, but to none others I willfollow that system of regimen which,according to my ability and judgment, Iconsider for the benefit of my patients,and abstain from whatever is deleteriousand mischievous I will give no deadlymedicine to any one if asked, nor suggestany such counsel; and in like manner Iwill not give to a woman a pessary toproduce abortion With purity and withholiness I will pass my life and practice

my Art I will not cut persons labouring

under the stone, but will leave this to bedone by men who are practitioners ofthis work Into whatever houses I enter, Iwill go into them for the benefit of thesick, and will abstain from every

voluntary act of mischief and corruption;and, further, from the seduction of

females or males, of freemen and slaves.Whatever, in connection with my

professional practice, or not in

connection with it, I see or hear, in thelife of men, which ought not to be spoken

of abroad, I will not divulge, as

reckoning that all such should be keptsecret While I continue to keep thisOath unviolated, may it be granted to me

to enjoy life and the practice of the art,respected by all men, in all times But

should I trespass and violate this Oath,may the reverse be my lot.

THE LAW OF

HIPPOCRATES

Medicine is of all the arts the mostnoble; but, owing to the ignorance ofthose who practice it, and of those who,inconsiderately, form a judgment ofthem, it is at present far behind all theother arts Their mistake appears to me

to arise principally from this, that in thecities there is no punishment connectedwith the practice of medicine (and with

it alone) except disgrace, and that doesnot hurt those who are familiar with it.Such persons are like the figures which

are introduced in tragedies, for as theyhave the shape, and dress, and personalappearance of an actor, but are not

actors, so also physicians are many intitle but very few in reality

2 Whoever is to acquire a competentknowledge of medicine, ought to bepossessed of the following advantages: anatural disposition; instruction; a

favorable position for the study; earlytuition; love of labour; leisure First ofall, a natural talent is required; for, whenNature leads the way to what is mostexcellent, instruction in the art takesplace, which the student must try to

appropriate to himself by reflection,becoming an early pupil in a place well

adapted for instruction He must alsobring to the task a love of labour andperseverance, so that the instructiontaking root may bring forth proper andabundant fruits.

3 Instruction in medicine is like theculture of the productions of the earth.For our natural disposition, is, as itwere, the soil; the tenets of our teacherare, as it were, the seed; instruction inyouth is like the planting of the seed inthe ground at the proper season; theplace where the instruction is

communicated is like the food imparted

to vegetables by the atmosphere; diligentstudy is like the cultivation of the fields;and it is time which imparts strength to

all things and brings them to maturity.

4 Having brought all these requisites tothe study of medicine, and having

acquired a true knowledge of it, we shallthus, in travelling through the cities, beesteemed physicians not only in namebut in reality But inexperience is a badtreasure, and a bad fund to those whopossess it, whether in opinion or reality,being devoid of self-reliance and

contentedness, and the nurse both oftimidity and audacity For timidity

betrays a want of powers, and audacity alack of skill They are, indeed, two

things, knowledge and opinion, of whichthe one makes its possessor really toknow, the other to be ignorant

5 Those things which are sacred, are to

be imparted only to sacred persons; and

it is not lawful to impart them to theprofane until they have been initiated inthe mysteries of the science

JOURNEYS IN

DIVERSE PLACES

BY AMBROISE PARE

TRANSLATED BY STEPHEN PAGET

Ambroise Pare was born in the village

of Bourg-Hersent, near Laval, in Maine,France, about 1510 He was trained as abarber- surgeon at a time when a barber-surgeon was inferior to a surgeon andthe professions of surgeon and physicianwere kept apart by the law of the Churchthat forbade a physician to shed blood

Under whom he served his

apprenticeship is unknown, but by 1533

he was in Paris, where he received anappointment as house surgeon at theHotel Dieu After three or four years ofvaluable experience in this hospital, heset up in private practise in Paris, but forthe next thirty years he was there only inthe intervals of peace; the rest of thetime he followed the army He became amaster barber-surgeon in 1541

In Pare's time the armies of Europe werenot regularly equipped with a medicalservice The great nobles were

accompanied by their private physicians;the common soldiers doctored

themselves, or used the services of

barber-surgeons and quacks who

accompanied the army as adventurers

"When Pare joined the army" says Paget,

"he went simply as a follower of

Colonel Montejan, having neither rank,recognition, nor regular payment Hisfees make up in romance for their

irregularity: a cask of wine, fifty doubleducats and a horse, a diamond, a

collection of crowns and half-crownsfrom the ranks, other honorable presentsand of great value'; from the King

himself, three hundred crowns, and apromise he would never let him be inwant; another diamond, this time fromthe finger of a duchess: and a soldieronce offered a bag of gold to him."

When Pare was a man of seventy, theDean of the Faculty of Medicine in Parismade an attack on him on account of hisuse of the ligature instead of cauterizingafter amputation In answer, Pare

appealed to his successful experience,and narrated the "Journeys in DiversePlaces" here printed This entertainingvolume gives a vivid picture, not merely

of the condition of surgery in the

sixteenth century, but of the military life

of the time; and reveals incidentally apersonality of remarkable vigor andcharm Pare's own achievements arerecorded with modest satisfaction: "Idressed him, and God healed him," is therefrain Pare died in Paris in December,1590

JOURNEYS IN

DIVERSE PLACES

[Footnote: The present translation istaken from Mr Stephen

Paget's "Ambroise Pare and His Times"

by arrangement with Messrs

G P Putnam's Sons.]

1537-1569

THE JOURNEY TO TURIN 1537

I will here shew my readers the towns

and places where I found a way to learnthe art of surgery: for the better

instruction of the young surgeon

And first, in the year 1536, the greatKing Francis sent a large army to Turin,

to recover the towns and castles that hadbeen taken by the Marquis du Guast,Lieutenant-General of the Emperor M.the Constable, then Grand Master, wasLieutenant-General of the army, and M

de Montejan was Colonel-General of theinfantry, whose surgeon I was at thistime A great part of the army beingcome to the Pass of Suze, we found theenemy occupying it; and they had madeforts and trenches, so that we had to fight

to dislodge them and drive them out

And there were many killed and

wounded on both sides,—but the enemywere forced to give way and retreat intothe castle, which was captured, part of

it, by Captain Le Rat, who was posted

on a little hill with some of his soldiers,whence they fired straight on the enemy

He received an arquebus-shot in hisright ankle, and fell to the ground atonce, and then said, "Now they have gotthe Rat." I dressed him, and God healedhim

We entered pell-mell into the city, andpassed over the dead bodies, and somenot yet dead, hearing them cry under ourhorses' feet; and they made my heartache to hear them And truly I repented I

had left Paris to see such a pitiful

spectacle Being come into the city, Ientered into a stable, thinking to lodge

my own and my man's horse, and foundfour dead soldiers, and three proppedagainst the wall, their features all

changed, and they neither saw, heard,nor spake, and their clothes were stillsmouldering where the gunpowder hadburned them As I was looking at themwith pity, there came an old soldier whoasked me if there were any way to curethem; I said no And then he went up tothem and cut their throats, gently, andwithout ill will toward them Seeing thisgreat cruelty, I told him he was a villain:

he answered he prayed God, when heshould be in such a plight, he might find

someone to do the same for him; that heshould not linger in misery.

To come back to my story, the enemywere called on to surrender, which theydid, and left the city with only their livessaved, and the white stick in their hands;and most of them went off to the Chateau

de Villane, where about two hundredSpaniards were stationed M the

Constable would not leave these behindhim, wishing to clear the road for ourown men The castle is seated on a smallhill; which gave great confidence tothose within, that we could not bring ourartillery to bear upon them They weresummoned to surrender, or they would

be cut in pieces: they answered that they

would not, saying they were as good andfaithful servants of the Emperor, as M.the Constable could be of the King hismaster Thereupon our men by nighthoisted up two great cannons, with thehelp of the Swiss soldiers and the

lansquenets; but as ill luck would have

it, when the cannons were in position, agunner stupidly set fire to a bag full ofgunpowder, whereby he was burned,with ten or twelve soldiers; and theflame of the powder discovered ourartillery, so that all night long thosewithin the castle fired their arquebuses

at the place where they had caught sight

of the cannons, and many of our menwere killed and wounded Next day,early in the morning, the attack was

begun, and we soon made a breach intheir wall Then they demanded a parley;but it was too late, for meanwhile ourFrench infantry, seeing them taken bysurprise, mounted the breach, and cutthem all in pieces, save one very fairyoung girl of Piedmont, whom a greatseigneur would have … The captain andthe ensign were taken alive, but soonafterward hanged and strangled on thebattlements of the gate of the city, to giveexample and fear to the Emperor's

soldiers, not to be so rash and mad as towish to hold such places against so great

an army

The soldiers within the castle, seeingour men come on them with great fury,

did all they could to defend themselves,and killed and wounded many of oursoldiers with pikes, arquebuses, andstones, whereby the surgeons had alltheir work cut out for them Now I was

at this time a fresh-water soldier; I hadnot yet seen wounds made by gunshot atthe first dressing It is true I had read inJohn de Vigo, first book, Of Wounds inGeneral, eighth chapter, that woundsmade by firearms partake of venenosity,

by reason of the powder; and for theircure he bids you cauterise them with oil

of elders scalding hot, mixed with alittle treacle And to make no mistake,before I would use the said oil, knowingthis was to bring great pain to the

patient, I asked first before I applied it,

what the other surgeons did for the firstdressing; which was to put the said oil,boiling well, into the wounds, with tentsand setons; wherefore I took courage to

do as they did At last my oil ran short,and I was forced instead thereof to apply

a digestive made of the yolks of eggs, oil

of roses, and turpentine In the night Icould not sleep in quiet, fearing somedefault in not cauterising, that I shouldfind the wounded to whom I had not usedthe said oil dead from the poison of theirwounds; which made me rise very early

to visit them, where beyond my

expectation I found that those to whom Ihad applied my digestive medicamenthad but little pain, and their woundswithout inflammation or swelling,

having rested fairly well that night; theothers, to whom the boiling oil wasused, I found feverish, with great painand swelling about the edges of theirwounds Then I resolved never more toburn thus cruelly poor men with gunshotwounds.

While I was at Turin, I found a surgeonfamed above all others for his treatment

of gunshot wounds; into whose favour Ifound means to insinuate myself, to havethe recipe of his balm, as he called it,wherewith he dressed gunshot wounds.And he made me pay my court to him fortwo years, before I could possibly drawthe recipe from him In the end, thanks to

my gifts and presents, he gave it to me;

which was to boil, in oil of lilies, youngwhelps just born, and earth-worms

prepared with Venetian turpentine Then

I was joyful, and my heart made glad,that I had understood his remedy, whichwas like that which I had obtained bychance

See how I learned to treat gunshot

wounds; not by books

My Lord Marshal Montejan remainedLieutenant-General for the King in

Piedmont, having ten or twelve thousandmen in garrison in the different cities andcastles, who were often fighting amongthemselves with swords and other

weapons, even with arquebuses And ifthere were four wounded, I always had

three of them; and if there were question

of cutting off an arm or a leg, or of

trepanning, or of reducing a fracture or adislocation, I accomplished it all TheLord Marshal sent me now hire nowthere to dress the soldiers committed to

me who were wounded in other citiesbeside Turin, so that I was always in thecountry, one way or the other

M the Marshal sent to Milan, to a

physician of no less reputation than thelate M le Grand for his success in

practice, to treat him for an hepatic flux,whereof in the end he died This

physician was some while at Turin totreat him, and was often called to visitthe wounded, where always he found

me; and I was used to consult with him,and with some other surgeons; and when

we had resolved to do any serious work

of surgery, it was Ambroise Pare that puthis hand thereto, which I would do

promptly and skilfully, and with greatassurance, insomuch that the physicianwondered at me, to be so ready in theoperations of surgery, and I so young.One day, discoursing with the Lord

Marshal, he said to him:

"Signor, tu hai un Chirurgico giovane dianni, ma egli e vecchio di sapere e diesperientia: Guardato bene, perche egli

ti fara servicio et honore." That is to say,

"Thou hast a surgeon young in age, but

he is old in knowledge and experience:

take good care, of him, for he will dothee service and honour." But the goodman did not know I had lived three years

at the Hotel Dieu in Paris, with the

patients there

In the end, M the Marshal died of hishepatic flux He being dead, the Kingsent M the Marshal d'Annebaut to be inhis place: who did me the honour to ask

me to live with him, and he would treat

me as well or better than M the Marshal

de Montejan Which I would not do, forgrief at the loss of my master, who loved

me dearly; so I returned to Paris

THE JOURNEY TO MAROLLE AND

LOW BRITTANY 1543

I went to the Camp of Marolle, with thelate M de Rohan, as surgeon of hiscompany; where was the King himself

M d'Estampes, Governor of Brittany,had told the King how the English hadhoist sail to land in Low Brittany; andhad prayed him to send, to help him,

MM de Rohan and de Laval, because

they were the seigneurs of that country,and by their help the country peoplewould beat back the enemy, and keepthem from landing Having heard this,the King sent these seigneurs to go inhaste to the help of their country; and toeach was given as much power as to theGovernor, so that they were all three theKing's Lieutenants They willingly tookthis charge upon them, and went offposting with good speed, and took mewith them as far as Landreneau There

we found every one in arms, the tocsinsounding on every side, for a good five

or six leagues round the harbours, Brent,Couquet, Crozon, le Fou, Doulac,

Laudanec; each well furnished withartillery, as cannons, demi-cannons,