Page:The Harveian oration - delivered at the Royal College of Physicians, October 18th, 1899 (IA b24975941).pdf/11

THE HARVEJAN ORATION, 7 the physician of the first century could treat a fracture or dislocation with splints and bandages very much on modern lines; that he could cure a cataract; trephine the skull; and boldly cut for stone without the aid of anæsthetics.

Soot of frankincense was a favourite antiseptic, and his frequent mention of wine and oil for the treatment of wounds bids us remember that Celsus and the "good Samaritan" were trained in the same school. had spent

St. Luke tells us of the woman who all her living on physicians," an echo possibly of the well-known fact that, in the Roman Empire, specialism in medicine and surgery had, for purposes of gain, been pushed to ridiculous extremes.

It must, however, be remembered that the leaders of medicine at this time were men of wide cultivation. Celsus and Galen had "taken all knowledge for their province," and regarded medicine as one branch merely of natural knowledge in the pursuit of which the best intellects were engaged, and of which, as we learn from Pliny, the literature was enormous.

The physician of the first century had probably mastered Euclid's elements; and Euclid, be it remembered, was a natural product of his time, and his work is an eternal monument to the inexorable logic of facts.

Greek philosophy and Greek medicine as a part of it was grounded on the solid basis of observa-