Part 696

"Since Athanasius Kircher [1601-1680] mistook blood and pus corpuscles for small worms, and built up on his mistake a new theory of disease and putrefaction, and since Christian Lange, the Professor of Pathological Anatomy in Leipzig, in the preface to Kircher's book (1671) expressed his opinion that the purpura of lying-in-women, measles, and other fevers were the result of putrefaction caused by worms or animalculæ, a 'Pathologia Animata' has, from time to time, been put forward to explain the causation of disease. … Remarkable as were Kircher's observations, still more wonderful were those of Anthony van Leeuwenhoek, a native of Delft in Holland, who in his youth had learned the art of polishing lenses, and who was able, ultimately, to produce the first really good microscope that had yet been constructed. Not only did Leeuwenhoek make his microscope, but he used it to such good purpose that he was able to place before the Royal Society of London a series of most interesting and valuable letters giving the result of his researches on minute specks of living protoplasm. … The world that Leeuwenhoek … opened up so thoroughly was rapidly invaded by other observers and theorists. The thoughtful physicians of the time believed that at last they had found the 'fons et origo mali,' and Nicolas Andry, reviewing Kircher's' Contagium Animatum,' replaced his worms by these newly-described animalculæ or germs, and pushing the theory to its legitimate and logical conclusion, he also evolved a germ theory of putrefaction and fermentation. He maintained that air, water, vinegar, fermenting wine, old beer, and sour milk were all full of germs; that the blood and pustules of smallpox also contained them, and that other diseases, very rife about this period, were the result of the activity of these organisms. Such headway did he make, and such conviction did his arguments carry with them, that the mercurial treatment much in vogue at that time was actually based on the supposition that these organisms, the 'causæ causantes' of disease, were killed by the action of mercury and mercurial salts. With a kind of prophetic instinct, and certainly as the result of keen observation, Varro and Lancisi ascribed the dangerous character of marsh or swamp air to the action of invisible animalculæ; in fact the theory was so freely and forcibly propagated that even where no micro-organisms could be found their presence was inferred with the inevitable result, as Löffler points out, that these 'inconceivable' worms became the legitimate butts for the shafts of ridicule; and in 1726 there appeared in Paris a satirical work, in which these small organisms received the name of 'fainter,' 'body-pincher,' 'ulcerator,' 'weeping fistula,' 'sensualist'; the whole system was thus laughingly held up to satire, and the germ theory of disease completely discredited. {2139} Linnæus [1707-1778], however, with his wonderful powers of observation and deduction, considered that it was possible that there might be rescued from this 'chaos' small living beings which were as yet insufficiently separated and examined, but in which he firmly believed might lie not only the actual contagium of certain eruptive diseases, and of acute fevers, but also the exciting causes of both fermentation and putrefaction. The man, however, who of all workers earliest recognized the importance of Linnæus' observations was a Viennese doctor, Marcus Antonius Plenciz. … He it was who, at this time, insisted upon the specific character of the infective agent in every case of disease; for scarlet fever there was a scarlet fever seed or germ—a seed which could never give rise to smallpox. He showed that it was possible for this organism to become disseminated through the air, and for it to multiply in the body; and he explained the incubation stage of a febrile disease as dependent on the growth of a germ within the body during the period after its introduction, when its presence had not yet been made manifest. … As regards putrefaction, having corroborated Linnæus' observations and found countless animalculæ in putrefying matter, he came to the conclusion that this process was the result of the development, multiplication, and carrying on of the functions of nutrition and excretion by these germs; the products of fermentation being the volatile salts set free by the organisms, which, multiplying rapidly by forming seeds or eggs, rendered the fluid in which they developed thick, turbid, and foul. This theory, admirable as it was, and accurate as it has since been proved to be, could not then be based on any very extensive or detailed observation, and we find that some of the most prominent and brilliant men of the period did not feel justified in accepting the explanation that Plenciz had offered as to the causes of disease and fermentation processes."

_G. S. Woodhead, Bacteria and their Products, chapter 3._

MEDICAL SCIENCE: 17-18th Centuries. Hahnemann and the origin of the System of Homœopathy.

Samuel Hahnemann, originator of the system of medicine called "Homœopathy," was born in 1755, at Meissen, in Saxony. He studied medicine at Leipsic, and afterwards at Vienna. In 1784 he settled in Dresden, but returned to Leipsic in 1789. "In the following year, while translating Cullen's Materia Medica out of English into German, his attention was arrested by the insufficient explanation's advanced in that work of the cure of ague by cinchona bark. By way of experiment, he took a large dose of that substance to ascertain its action on the healthy body. In the course of a few days he experienced the symptoms of ague; and it thus occurred to him that perhaps the reason why cinchona cures ague is because it has the power to produce symptoms in a healthy person similar to those of ague. To ascertain the truth of this conjecture, he ransacked the records of medicine for well-attested cures effected by single remedies; and finding sufficient evidences of this fact, he advanced a step further, and proposed, in an article published in Hufeland's Journal, in the year 1797, to apply this new principle to the discovery of proper medicines for every form of disease. Soon afterwards he published a case to illustrate his method. It was one of a severe kind of colic cured by a strong dose of veratrum album. Before this substance gave relief to the patient it excited a severe aggravation of his symptoms. This induced Hahnemann, instead of drops or grains, to give the fraction of a drop or grain, and he thus introduced infinitesimal doses. Some years later he applied his new principle in the treatment of scarlet fever; and finding that belladonna cured the peculiar type of that disease, which then prevailed in Germany, he proposed to give this medicine as a prophylactic, or preventive against scarlet fever; from that time it has been extensively employed for this purpose. In the year 1810 he published his great work, entitled Organon of Medicine, which has been translated into all the European languages, as well as into Arabic. In this book he fully expounded his new system, which he called Homœopathy. His next publication was a Materia Medica, consisting of a description of the effects of medicines upon persons in health. These works were published between the years 1810 and 1821, at Leipsic, where he founded a school, and was surrounded by disciples. As his system involved the administration of medicines, each separately by itself, and in doses infinitely minute, there was no longer any need of the apothecaries' intervention between their physician and the patient. In consequence of this the Apothecaries Company brought to bear upon Hahnemann an act forbidding physicians to dispense their own medicines, and with such effect that he was obliged to leave Leipsic. The Grand Duke of Anhalt Köthen, appointed him his physician, and invited him to live at Köthen. Thither, accordingly, he removed in the year 1821, and there he prepared various new editions of his Organon, and new volumes of his Materia Medica for publication. In 1835 he married a second time; his wife was a French lady of considerable position; and in the same year he left Köthen, and settled in Paris, where he enjoyed a great reputation till his death, which took place in the year 1843."

_W. Bayes, Origin and Present Status of Homœopathy (Translation of the Homœopathic Medical Society of the State of New York, 1869, article 21)._

ALSO IN: _W. Aneke, History of Homœopathy._

_J. C. Burnett, Ecce Medicus; or Hahnemann as a man and as a physician._

MEDICAL SCIENCE: 18th Century. The work of John Hunter in surgery and anatomy.

"John Hunter [born 1728, died 1793] was not only one of the most profound anatomists of the age in which he lived, but he is by the common consent of his successors allowed to be one of the greatest men that ever practised surgery. One of the most striking discoveries in this part of his profession— indeed one of the most brilliant in surgery of his century—was the operation for the cure of popliteal aneurism by tying the femoral artery above the tumour in the ham, and without interfering with it. He improved the treatment of the rupture of the tendo achillis, in consequence of having experienced the accident himself when dancing. He invented the method of curing fistula lacrymalis by perforating the os unguis, and curing hydrocele radically by injection. His anatomical discoveries were numerous and important—amongst others the distribution of the blood-vessels of the uterus, which he traced till their disappearance in the placenta. {2140} He was the first who demonstrated the existence of lymphatic vessels in birds; described the distribution of the branches of the olfactory nerve, as well as those of the fifth pair; and to him we owe the best and most faithful account of the descent of the testicle in the human subject, from the abdomen into the scrotum. Physiology is also indebted to him for many new views and ingenious suggestions. … 'Before his time surgery had been little more than a mechanical art, somewhat dignified by the material on which it was employed. Hunter first made it a science; and by pointing out its peculiar excellence as affording visible examples of the effects and progress of disease, induced men of far higher attainments than those who had before practised it to make it their study.' The best monument of his genius and talents, however, is the splendid museum which he formed by his sole efforts, and which he made, too, when labouring under every disadvantage of deficient education and limited means. It shows that as an anatomist and physiologist he had no superior."

_W. Baird, Hunter (The Imperial dictionary of universal biography)._

ALSO IN: _S. D. Gross, John Hunter and his Pupils._

MEDICAL SCIENCE: 18th Century. Preventive Inoculation against Smallpox.

"One of the most notable events of the 18th century, or for that matter, in the history of medicine, was the introduction of the systematic practice of preventive inoculation against small-pox. We are so generally taught that this is entirely due to the efforts of Jenner, or rather we are so often allowed to think it without being necessarily taught otherwise, that the measure deserves a historical sketch. The communication of the natural disease to the healthy in order to protect them from the same natural disease, in other words, the communication of small-pox to prevent the same, reaches back into antiquity. It is mentioned in the Sanskrit Vedas as then performed, always by Brahmins, who employed pus procured from small-pox vesicles a year before. They rubbed the place selected for operation until the skin was red, then scratched with a sharp instrument, and laid upon the place cotton soaked in the variolous pus, moistened with water from the sacred Ganges. Along with this measure they insisted upon most hygienic regulations, to which in a large measure their good results were due. Among the Chinese was practised what was known as 'Pock-sowing,' and as long ago as 1000 years before Christ they introduced into the nasal cavities of young children pledgets of cotton saturated with variolous pus. The Arabians inoculated the same disease with needles, and so did the Circassians, while in the states of north Africa incisions were made between the fingers, and among some of the negroes inoculation was performed in or upon the nose. In Constantinople, under the Greeks, the custom had long been naturalized and was practised by old women instructed in the art, who regarded it as a revelation of St. Mary. The first accounts of this practice were given to the Royal Society by Timoni, a physician of Constantinople, in 1714. The actual introduction of the practice into the West, however, was due to Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, who died in 1762, and who was wife of the English ambassador to the Porte in 1717. She had her son inoculated in Constantinople by her surgeon Maitland, and after her return to London, in 1721, it was also performed upon her daughter. During the same years experiments were undertaken by Maitland upon criminals; and as these turned out favorably, the Prince of Wales and his sisters were inoculated by Mead. The practice was then more or less speedily adopted on this side of the ocean as well as on that, but suffered occasional severe blows because of unfortunate cases here and there, such as never can be avoided. The clergy, especially, using the Bible, as designing men always can use it, to back up any view or practice, became warm opponents of vaccination, and stigmatized it as a very atrocious invasion of the Divine prerogative of punishment. But in 1746 the Bishop of Worcester recommended it from the pulpit, and established houses for inoculation, and thus made it again popular. In Germany the operation was generally favored, and in France and Italy a little later came into vogue."

_Roswell Park, Lectures on the History of Medicine (in MS.)._

MEDICAL SCIENCE: 18th Century. Jenner and the discovery of Vaccination.

Many before the English physician, Dr. Jenner, "had witnessed the cow-pox, and had heard of the report current among the milkmaids in Gloucestershire, that whoever had taken that disease was secure against smallpox. It was a trifling, vulgar rumor, supposed to have no significance whatever; and no one had thought it worthy of investigation, until it was accidentally brought under the notice of Jenner. He was a youth, pursuing his studies at Sodbury, when his attention was arrested by the casual observation made by a country girl who came to his master's shop for advice. The smallpox was mentioned, when the girl said, 'I can't take that disease, for I have had cow-pox.' The observation immediately riveted Jenner's attention, and he forthwith set about inquiring and making observations on the subject. His professional friends, to whom he mentioned his views as to the prophylactic virtues of cow-pox, laughed at him, and even threatened to expel him from their society, if he persisted in harassing them with the subject. In London he was so fortunate as to study under John Hunter [1770-1773] to whom he communicated his views. The advice of the great anatomist was thoroughly characteristic: 'Don't think, but try; be patient, be accurate.' Jenner's courage was greatly supported by the advice, which conveyed to him the true art of philosophical investigation. He went back to the country to practise his profession, and carefully to make observations and experiments, which he continued to pursue for a period of twenty years. His faith in his discovery was so implicit that he vaccinated his own son on three several occasions. At length he published his views in a quarto of about seventy pages, in which he gave the details of twenty-three cases of successful vaccination of individuals, to whom it was found afterwards impossible to communicate the smallpox either by contagion or inoculation. It was in 1798 that this treatise was published; though he had been working out his ideas as long before as 1775, when they began to assume a definite form. How was the discovery received? First with indifference, then with active hostility. He proceeded to London to exhibit to the profession the process of vaccination and its successful results; but not a single doctor could be got to make a trial of it, and after fruitlessly waiting for nearly three months, Jenner returned to his native village. {2141} He was even caricatured and abused for his attempt to 'bestialize' his species by the introduction into their systems of diseased matter from the cow's udder. Cobbett was one of his most furious assailants. Vaccination was denounced from the pulpit as 'diabolical.' It was averred that vaccinated children became 'ox-faced,' that abscesses broke out to 'indicate sprouting horns,' and that the countenance was gradually 'transmuted into the visage of a cow, the voice into the bellowing of bulls.' Vaccination, however, was a truth, and notwithstanding the violence of the opposition belief in it spread slowly. In one village where a gentleman tried to introduce the practice, the first persons who permitted themselves to be vaccinated were absolutely pelted, and were driven into their houses if they appeared out of doors. Two ladies of title,—Lady Ducie and the Countess of Berkeley,—to their honor be it remembered,—had the courage to vaccinate their own children; and the prejudices of the day were at once broken through. The medical profession gradually came round, and there were several who even sought to rob Dr. Jenner of the merit of the discovery, when its vast importance came to be recognized. Jenner's cause at last triumphed, and he was publicly honored and rewarded. In his prosperity he was as modest as he had been in his obscurity. He was invited to settle in London, and told that he might command a practice of £10,000 a year. But his answer was, 'No! In the morning of my days I have sought the sequestered and lowly paths of life,—the valley, and not the mountain,—and now, in the evening of my days, it is not meet for me to hold myself up as an object for fortune and for fame.' In Jenner's own lifetime the practice of vaccination had been adopted all over the civilized world; and when he died, his title as Benefactor of his kind was recognized far and wide. Cuvier has said, 'If vaccine were the only discovery of the epoch, it would serve to render it illustrious forever."

_S. Smiles, Self-help, chapter 4._

ALSO IN: _J. Barron, Life of Edward Jenner._

MEDICAL SCIENCE: 18th Century. The Brunonian System of Stimulation.

"John Brown, born of obscure parents in a village of Berwick, in Scotland, was remarkable, from his early youth, for an extraordinary aptitude for acquiring languages, a decided inclination for scholastic dispute, a pedantic tone and manner, and somewhat irregular conduct. Having abandoned theology for medicine, he fixed his residence in Edinburgh. … He was particularly entertained and countenanced by Cullen, who even took him into his family in the character of preceptor of his children. This agreeable relation subsisted during twelve consecutive years between these two men, whose characters and minds were so different. … But some trifling matters of mutual discontent grew at length into coldness, and changed the old friendship which had united them into an irreconcilable hatred. Their rupture broke out about the year 1778, and in a short time after, Brown published his Elements of Medicine. … Brown employed some of the ideas of his master to develop a doctrine much more simple in appearance, but founded entirely on abstract considerations; a doctrine in which every provision seems to be made for discussion, but none for practice. Cullen had said that the nervous system receives the first impression of excitants, and transmits it afterwards to the other organs endowed with motion and vitality. Brown explains thus, the same thought: 'Life is only sustained by incitation. It is only the result of the action of incitants on the incitability of organs.' Cullen regarded the atony of the small vessels as the proximate cause of fever. Brown, improving on this hypothesis, admits, with hardly any exceptions, only hyposthenic diseases. … The Scotch physiologist distinguished only two pathological states—one consisting in an excess of incitability, which he names the sthenic diathesis; the other, constituted by a want, more or less notable, of the same faculty, which he designates as the asthenic diathesis. Besides, Brown considers these two states as affecting the entire economy, rather than any organ in particular. … After having reduced all diseases to two genera, and withdrawn from pathology the study of local lesions, Brown arrives, by a subtile argumentation, to consider the affections of the sthenic order as prevailing in a very small number of instances, so that the diseases of the asthenic type comprehend nearly the totality of affections. According to this theory, a physician is rarely ever mistaken if he orders in all his cases, remedies of an exciting nature. … Never since the days of Thessalus (of charlatan memory) had anyone simplified to such a point the study and practice of medicine. We may even say that in this respect the Scotch pathologist left far in the rear the physician of Nero. To this attraction, well calculated to tempt students and practitioners, the doctrine of Brown joined the advantage of being presented in an energetic and captivating style, full of imagery, which suffices to explain its rapid progress. But this doctrine, so seductive in its exposition, so easy in its application, is one of the most disastrous that man has been able to imagine, for it tends to propagate the abuse of diffusible stimulants, of which spirituous liquors make a part, an abuse excessively injurious to health in general, and the intellectual faculties in particular—an abuse to which man is too much inclined, naturally, and which the sophisms of Brown may have contributed to spread in all classes of English society. … Notwithstanding its defects, the system of Brown made rapid progress, principally in Germany and Italy."

_P. V. Renouard, History of Medicine, pages 555-560._

MEDICAL SCIENCE: 18th Century. The System of Haller.