Page:The growth of medicine from the earliest times to about 1800.djvu/142

 he takes in describing how the plant should be prepared for remedial purposes. "Boil a bunch of the plant in water until the mass is thoroughly cooked; then cast it into a fresh supply of boiling water (to drive out still more of its bitter quality); and finally, upon removing it from the boiling water, place it for conservation in a receptacle containing oil. When it is required for use add a small quantity of weak vinegar." Galen, in commenting jocosely upon the stress which Erasistratus lays upon these details, makes the remark: "As if our domestics did not know how to cook a bunch of chicory!"

Speaking of the effects produced by venom when one is bitten by a poisonous snake, Erasistratus remarks that "from the effects which the poison introduced in this manner produces, we may derive a general indication as to how a cure may be obtained. The poison, it will be noted, destroys very quickly the parts with which it comes in contact, and then, by spreading throughout the body, causes death. The thing to do, therefore, is to draw it as quickly as possible out of the body and thus arrest its further spread. To this end the wound should first be enlarged and its sides scarified; then, after it has been sucked, a cupping glass should be applied over it; and, finally, it should be cauterized."

Erasistratus cultivated surgery as well as the other branches of medicine. He was a bold operator, as may be inferred from the fact that, in cases of scirrhus or other variety of tumor of the liver, he did not hesitate to incise the skin and overlying integuments, and then, after the peritoneal cavity had been opened, to apply directly to the seat of the disease such medicaments as seemed to him appropriate. On the other hand, he did not approve of paracentesis abdominis in cases of dropsical effusion, as a means of evacuating the fluid accumulated in the peritoneal cavity.

It appears that the disciples and successors of Herophilus and Erasistratus soon abandoned the exact methods which these two great masters had inaugurated and which, in a comparatively short time, had produced such admirable