Twentieth Century History of Findlay and Hancock County, Ohio, and Representative Citizens, Part 150

Author: Jacob Anthony Kimmell
Publication date: 1910
Publisher:
Number of Pages: 1189

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Dante was a lover of art. These and other reasons are .. sented on the list of choice.

The "Guild of Doctors and Apothecaries of Florence"; incorporated in the twelfth century. It grew rapidly in portance during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. : soon became a very important power in the republi: Florence.

A statute applying to the physicians lays down that, "! doctor may be allowed to practice unless he has first been !. licly examined by the consuls of the guild." To apply a. apothecary imposed no examination, as it did for a doctor, c: required merely registration. Those engaged in the mas". and selling of books and other literary matter were many; of this guild; so too the painters and engravers. The then that Dante enrolled as a member of this guild cannot : be taken as evidence that he devoted himself to the stud; medicine in order to qualify as a member. We are told b: : less an authority and student of Dante than Kraus, that De knew medicine and practiced it as a means of support in exile. Lowell tells us that " to the trivium and quadrici .. Dante afterward added painting, theology and medieit- Whether or not Dante was versed or trained in medicine ! fact remains that he did not write as a physician. In atter" ing to interpret his medical references in the Divine Cec:, it is often difficult to discriminate between what shall or - not be regarded as such. A liberal interpretation must in ... many things, that are but the expression of a common ix ledge held by all men of his time. For a better understand: of what the Divine Comedy contains of medical intere- may not be amiss to recall briefly the state of affairs ca. which medicine labored in the thirteenth and fourtet:" centuries.

All medicine during this period was held fast by the tar the inexorable idolatry of Galen, and, as did all learnir .: this period, suffered heavily under clerical, feudal and schx. tic conceits. Under the oppression of a ruling despotism i mystical tendencies, a spirit of individual research could : flourish, and the men of medicine were known less by the Ex." of their works than by their love for instructing and the t. they displayed in the propagation of such knowledge as ? had borrowed from the ancients. However, the Arabie ": sions of Greek medicine had been rendered into Latin frK. books of Rhazes, Albucasis, Avicenna and others, and gave a worthy impulse to medical progress. The schon: Salerno, Bologna, Padua, Montpellier and Paris, as liber: stitutions of learning, had reached and were advancing reputable height. But philosophy which was most ard: pursued at these institutions held medicine wrapt in its de permitting it to become little more than a philosophical scie: It tended on the one hand toward Galenism, on the other conformed with the Arabic system or again strove along : new and untrodden medico-philosophical path. Unde: heads of these various systems all observations were Tett" blindly. That conditions such as these could produce but " real medical writers worthy to arrest our attention is de evident. Besides the universities, the cloisters were ale *.

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metoo much with nemicine ana even gave memselves to practice of surgery, though frequently against the wishes their superiors. Those who taught medicine at the univer- es and other institutions of learning usually also practiced they did little, however, with surgery, and spent much of ir time commentating the works of the ancients. Of the cticing physicians proper, some had an established resi- ce, others traveled from place to place. The former were ally men systematically trained at the universities and were nted the right to practice their art under certain provisions. se being laid down in an edict of Frederick II in 1224, by ue of which no individual in the kingdom who had not been mined previously and created a master by the school of erno could practice. It required that the study of logic, ; is philosophy and philology, be pursued for three years a course in medicine, including surgery, for five years. student had to furnish a certificate of legitimate birth and e attained his twenty-fifth year. He was examined publicly the therapeutics of Galen, the first book of Avicenna and aphorisms of Hippocrates. He could not enter legally into tice, however, until he had served a year as apprentice to older and experienced physician. Besides these resident licists, there were those who practiced as traveling scholars, ig from place to place, often in company with a buffoon or rake, visiting the markets and places of public gathering, ertising their "wares." This species of charlatan played no ll part in the practice of medicine during the whole of the dle Ages. The pure surgeons of the day were obliged to fol- the teachings of a faculty for one year. This period was ted principally to the study of anatomy. Further know- e pertaining to their art they gleaned from a master to m they were apprenticed. They were given the title of istri chirurgiae and permitted to practice surgery only. y of these were resident surgeons and members of guilds. ers, as surgeons of the short robe, traveled about perform- often brutally enough, operations for hernias, cutting for 2, doing operations upon the eye, among which couching first rank, and always making sure to be out of reach of avenger before the result became manifest. Lastly, there

the barbers and bathers, the former being privileged to upping and bleeding, extract teeth and set fractures and cations and execute various minor operations and often gh they were guilty of transgressing upon the field of the ons. The bathers, like the barbers, did cupping and ing and gave clysters.

iring this period, too, medical superstition, growing as it upon a soil so well prepared by vainglorious philosophy by a scholasticism which had usurped all clear human ning, had reached a high stage. Faith in the healing in- ce of certain astrological phenomena was universal, as also elief, heightened by religious fanaticism, that the divine ence could and always did alter and direct the functions e body. Belief in the evil workings of the devil, the heal- f the sick by the power of the saints and through relics, ets and gems was in high favor throughout the Middle

seventeenth century. Closely associated with these beliefs was that in the magic art and magic medicine. Though con- demned by early Christian emperors, its ideas still survived and its methods frequently shade so insensibly into the super- stitution, yes, into the religion and philosophy of this period that it often becomes imposible to decide to which of these do- mains the one or the other belongs.

In the lowest Hell, where punishment for graver sins awaits the doomed, Dante sees among others the workers in the magic art. One of these Virgil points out to him as Michael Scott --

* * * who of a verity

Of magical illusions knew the game. (Inf. XX, 116.)

Scott, astrologer of the Hohenstauffen monarch, Frederick II, deserves our recognition as the supposed translator of Avicenna's commentary on Aristotle's De Animalibus. The workers in magic medicine who are associated with Scott in this Bolgia are referred to as they who

* * * wrought their magic spells with herb and image.

(Inf. XX, 123.)

The belief in the healing power of gems appears to have been strongly influenced by the writings of Michael Psellus (1020-1105), whose book on the therapeutic action of stones is frequently referred to in medieval medical literature. How deeply this belief had taken root we can gather from later medical writers. Cardan and Paracelsus gave space to its promulgation. From Sir Thomas Browne's Vulgar Errors, the sixth edition published in 1672, I quote the following. Browne writes: "That lapis lazuli hath in it a purgative fac- ulty we know; that bezoar is antidotal, lapis judaicus diureti- cal, coral anti-epileptical we will not deny. That cornelians, jaspis, heliotropes and bloodstones may be of virtue to those intentions they are employed, experience and visible effects will make us grant. But that an amethyst prevents inebriation; that an emerald will break if worn in copulation; that a dia- mond laid under a pillow, will betray the incontinency of a wife; that a sapphire is preservative against enchantments; that the fume of an agate will avert a tempest or the wearing of a chrysophrase make one out of love with gold as some have delivered, we are yet, I confess to believe and in that infidelity are likely to end our days."

Dante refers several times to the mystic virtue of gems, recounting the ruby, topaz, heliotrope and sapphire. Led by Beatrice into the Empyrean, its splendor and brightness be- reaves Dante of his vision, but with the aid of Beatrice and by the virtue derived of drinking from the waters of the river of light he becomes enabled to see,

Both of the Courts of Heaven made manifest. (Par. XXX, 96.)

Out of this river issued living sparks, And on all sides sank down into the flowers, Like unto rubies that are set in gold. (Par. XXX, 64.)

The water of this river, Beatrice informs him, he needs must drink that his sight might comprehend all the gladness of that Heaven. It is safe to assume that Dante's reference to the

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ruby here rests upon the belief that the ruby powdered and taken in water cured diseases of the eyes.

It was during Dante's time that the veneration paid to the Virgin Mary, in earlier times very great, rose to an almost exclusive idolatry. By prayer her aid was invoked in the cure of all ailments, though her particular virtues in this respect were believed to manifest themselves at the natal hour. It is of interest in this connection to quote from the Calendaria of Cardanus (1505-1576) who by the aid of astrology affirms that in this event the request to the Virgin would be sure to be complied with, if on the first day of April at 8 a. m. a prayer invoking her aid were offered. On the fifth terrace of Purga- tory, Dante hears uttered amid the weeping,

* "Sweet Mary!"

Even as a woman doth who is in child-birth. (Purg. XX, 19.) In Paradise the spirit of his ancestor Cacciaguida recites of the beauty and simplicity of Florentine customs in his day and adds to such a beautiful life,

Did Mary give me, with loud cries invoked. (Par. XV, 133.) The same spirit relating of his birth, says of this,

From uttering of the Ave, till the birth In which my mother, who is now a saint,

Of me was lightened who had been her burden. (Par. XVI, 34.)

As mentioned, faith in the medical virtues of the saints and the evil doings of the devil was markedly manifest dur- ing the Middle Ages and was shared by all classes. As late as the seventeenth century we find traces of this belief still preva- lent among many members of the medical profession.

In the pageant of the Church Militant St. Luke is intro- duced as

One showed himself as one of the disciples Of that supreme Hippocrates, whom nature

Made for the animals she holds most dear. (Purg. XXIX, 136.)

St. Luke, writer of the Acts of the Apostles, is supposed to have been both an artist and a physician. Whether he was ordained as healer of any one specific sickness or exercised this function at large I have been unable to learn with cer- tainty. In the Inferno the aid rendered Constantine by St. Sylvester in curing him of his leprosy finds expression in

But even as Constantine sought out Sylvester To cure his leprosy * * * * (Inf. XXVII, 94.)

This probably finds its source in the Legenda Aurea, by de Voragine (1230-1298). I have been unable to find anywhere that Sylvester's aid was specially invoked in the cure of lep- rosy. Under this heading may be added one further reference. In Paradise, Dante is examined by St. John on Christian love. By the refulgent flame of that saint he becomes so dazzled as to be for the moment bereft of his sight. Beatrice, who

* * * has in her look

The power the hand of Ananias had. (Par. XXVI, 12.)

gives Dante back clear vision. It may appear that these refer- ences are destitute of medical worth, but in the light of the Middle Ages, the era of miracles, a belief in them was firmly fixed an largely through the contributions and teachings of

the clergy. Be it remembered that Pare (1517-15901 : never able to quite divest himself of his belief in saintex: monsters. Firmer and more enduring was the belief in . agency of the devil, afflicting humanity with disease in : various forms. The epidemic of St. Vitus's dance in the !. teenth century, for instance, was attributed to the eril. ings of the devil. Not alone in the creation of disease wer: : activities made manifest, but as Martin Luther, in accordc: with the existing belief, seeks to have us believe, the ink spirit was not loath to assume the rights which should bex mitted only to the husband: " Es ist wahrlich ein gra.i. schrecklich Exempel dass der Teufel kann die Leute pls: dass er auch Kinder zeuget " ("Tischreden "). Among : references expressing the evil workings of the devil, the fol - ing one serves well to portray this medieval conception:

And as he who falls, and knows not how, By force of demons who to earth, down drag him, Or other oppilation that binds man, When he arises and around him looks, Wholly bewildered by the mighty anguish Which he has suffered, and in looking sighs. (Inf. XXIV, E ::

By " other oppilation," I infer with Dr. Carlyle and B .: venuto that Dante would have us understand the fits epilepsy. This surely is a more likely interpretation than t .: given by Jeremy Taylor, who believed that by it is mes: gout, dropsy or catarrh. The epileptics, and insane in 2x ticular, were believed to be the abode of the devil, a belief fs propounded by Origenes, and later greatly furthered by : church. The treatment, often most inhuman, consisted &: in prayers, pilgrimages and exorcisms or in the administrati: of remedies assumed to contain divine puissance. Thus Per of Spain (+ 1277) :

Who down below in volumnes twelve is shining. (Par. XII, I ?!

tells in his Thesaurus pauperum, that the charms of the mo .. are discarded by him, but that to keep free from epileps! : needs but suspend about the neck a piece of paper upon « .. are written the names of the Saints Caspar, Melchior i: Balthasar.

Reaching the tenth gulf of hell, Dante meets the for ;?! and alchemists, who as punishment for their offenses a: afflicted with diverse plagues and diseases. This gives him - casion to liken the intensity of their affliction to the sufferiz: during the plague of Aegina.

I do not think a sadder sight to see Was in Ægina the whole people sick, (When was the air so full of pestilence, The animals, down to the little worm, All fell, . * .

Than was it to behold through that dark valley The spirits languishing in divers heaps. This on the belly, that upon the back One of the other lay, and others crawling Shifted themselves along the dismal road. We step by step went onward without speech, Gazing upon and listening to the sick Who had not strength enough to lift their bodies. (Inf. XXIX, 55

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Metamorphoses, VII), an excerpt of which from Stonestreet's anslation will prove of interest.

Their black dry tongues are swelled and scarce can move, And short thick sighs from panting lungs are drove. They gape for air, with fiatt'ring hopes t'abate Their raging flames, but that augments their heat. No bed, no covering can the wretches bear, But, on the ground, exposed to open air, They lie, and hope to find a pleasing coolness there. The suffering earth, with that oppression curst, Returns the heat which they imparted first. * * .

# * Here one, with fainting steps, does slowly creep D'er heaps of dead, and straight augments the heap; Another, while his strength and tongue prevailed, . Bewails his friend, and falls himself bewailed; This with imploring look surveys the skies, The last dear office of his closing eyes, But finds the Heavens implacable and dies.

the sixteenth Canto of Paradise, Dante deplores the down- Il and degeneracy of Florence and its citizens, a cause for hich he sees in the introduction of families from the neigh- ring countries and villages. He is told by Cacciaguida that,

Ever the intermingling of the people

Has been the source of malady in cities, As in the body food it surfeits on. (Par. XVI, 67.) .d

To hear how races waste themselves away, Will seem to thee no novel thing nor hard, Seeing that even cities have an end. (Par. XVI. 76.)

nese lines have been variously interpreted. Longfellow 'ites: " Boccaccio seems to have caught something of the irit of this canto, when lamenting the desolation of Florence

the plague in 1348." It appears that following the epi- mics of Rome (1167) and that of Venice (1172) there itinued to occur in Europe at intervals, with more or less atement, outbreaks of a prevailing pest, to culminate again that horrible, devastating epidemic, the Black Death, which is estimated depopulated Europe during the three years, 18-1351, of twenty-five million human lives. It is unfortu- te so careful a recorder and acute observer as Dante has left no account of any plague visitation, for it appears con- vable that if not an eye witness he must have had plague Tors related to him. The view of Dante that the inter- igling of people is an exciting cause of the spread of diseases cities was expressed by both Plutarch and Thucydides cen- ies before. Thucydides (Jowett's translation) writes of the gue of Athens: " As to its probable origin or the causes ich might or could have produced such a disturbance of na- e, every man, whether a physician or not, will give his own nion. .... The crowding of the people out of the country > the city aggravated the misery ; and the newly arrived suf- ed most. For, having no houses of their own, but inhabit- in the height of summer stifling huts, the mortality among n was dreadful and they perished in wild disorder." Plu-

people were persuaded, "that the sickness was occasioned by the multitude of out dwellers flocking into the city and a num- ber of people stuffed together in the height of summer in small huts and close cabins where they were forced to live a lazy in- active life, instead of breathing the pure open air to which they had been accustomed."

With the anatomical references in the Divine Comedy must be associated those to physiology, for it was not until the late sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries that physiology was placed upon a pure rational and scientific basis through the la- bors of such masters as Galileo, Newton and Borelli in physics and in particular through the efforts and discoveries of Harvey, Hales, Magendie, Spallanzani and others of their type, but especially those of Haller, who has been and is still honored with the proud appelation of the father of physiology. The anatomy and physiology in Dante is largely that propounded by Galen. As deserving of notice Galen was the first to apply methods of experimentation and vivisection to physiology (Baas). Unfortunately he so overburdened his teachings of this science with false speculations and visionary conceits that these more than his experimental science left their impress upon the Middle Ages. To enter upon the physiology of Galen would lead beyond the confines of this paper. It, as did all of what was Galen's, exercised a paramount influence over medicine and was most firmly and slavishly adhered to.

For a better interpretation of the medical references that follow a brief outline of the salient points of Galen's physiology or better philosophico-physiological views may not be amiss. Galen believed that in man there are three actuating im- pulses-namely : spirits, humors and solids. The solids he divided into simple or similar and organic or compound. The former being represented by the bones, flesh, nerves, etc., the latter by the arms, legs, head, etc., because these are formed of the several similar parts. The dynamical forces of the soul or pneuma he divides, with Hippocrates and Aristotle, into four primordial qualities : heat, cold, dryness and humidity. These by their individual or united action influence all trans- formations of the human system. This pneuma vitalizes in the body a natural spirit, located in the liver and renal veins; an animal spirit in the brain and nerves, and a vital spirit in the arteries and heart. Subordinate to these are special facul- ties of the body that function occasionally, as the attractive, the repulsive, the retentive and the secreting faculties. The nat- ural spirits originating with the veins in the liver proceed from thence with the blood to the heart, to be mixed with air, which that viscus attracts from the lungs, and uniting with it forms the vital spirit. This is then conducted by the arteries to all parts of the system, but chiefly to the brain where it is con- verted into the animal spirit. By these essences the action of production, nutrition and growth are maintained.

From the general character of Galen's presentation of the distribution of the sanguinary fluids it is a rational conclusion, perhaps, to assume his practical acquaintanceship with the circulation of the blood, but whether, as some medico-historical writers would have us believe, a knowledge of the utility of the

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venous valves and of the true function of the heart was alone essential to deck him with the laurels that have come to Harvey -had better be relegated to the realm of fruitless speculation.

Of more than common interest are the references found in the Divine Comedy relating to the circulatory system. Much stress has been laid upon the fact that Dante speaks of the pulse and distinguishes between veins and arteries, and upon this fact alone several of his commentators have chosen to base, in part at least, the contention that Dante knew medicine, or would infer that he antedated Harvey even. Thus Schlosser in his Welt Geschichte writes, " Anatomie und Physiologie [kannte er] besser als man für seine Zeiten denken sollte -- Erst durch Harvey wurde nämlich die Lehre vom Blutlauf diesseits der Alpen verbreitet. Dante deutet aber gleich in Anfange seines Gedichts auf Puls und Blutadern hin." The passage to which Schlosser has reference occurs in the first canto of the Inferno. Dante, being driven back from the path he pursued by the she wolf, implores Virgil's protection with

" Do thou protect me from her, famous Sage,

For she doth make my veins and pulses tremble." (Inf. I, 89.)

In recounting the humiliation of Provenzan Salvani, to which he bowed himself, that he might save his friend, the shame of which was so great that

He brought himself to tremble in each vein. (Purg. XI, 138.)

This throbbing of the pulses finds more forcible expression when Dante finds himself deprived of Virgil's guidance in

* * * * * " Not a drachm

Of blood remains in me that doth not tremble." (Purg. XXX, 46.) Whether or not Dante distinguished arterial from venous blood is perhaps given expression to in the ninth canto of Pur- gatory, where Dante likens the third and uppermost stairs of the gate leading to that Heaven, and which is made of porphyry, to the color of blood-

* * * as flaming red

As blood that from a vein is spirting forth. (Purg. IX, 101.)

Lanfranchi (+ 1315) is said to have been the first to dis- tinguish between arterial and venous hemorrhage. Dante ap- pears to have shared with Galen the belief prevalent also in his own time, that the blood was the seat of life. This is ex- pressed in several passages. The shade of De Vinea tells Dante that the fidelity which he, Frederick's chancellor, bore his master was of such magnitude that he thereby lost his sleep and pulses (life) (Inf. XIII, 63). In Purgatory Jacopo del Cassero, reciting his past, speaks of his death from

* * * * the deep wounds, through which Issued the blood wherein I had my seat. (Purg. V, 73.)

In the same book we are told that Christ liberated us with his veins (Purg. XXIII, 74).

It is rather striking to note the frequent references Dante makes to vision, its anatomy and physiology. The flashing, dazzling, brilliant lights in Purgatory and Paradise naturally call for expressions indicating the effect on the vision. How- ever, the fact that he was interested in and busied himself

with optics, and at one time suffered from severe « .. trouble, appears to have left a profound impress upon He speaks of it in the Convito, saying that the stars appe to him as seen through a fog, and that he regained his ve vision only after a lengthy rest of his eyes in dark and. surroundings and by the application of cold compresse .. this may naturally have rendered him more acutely ss: to matters pertaining to vision. The effects of the brigt !!: are well expressed in

Even as a man who gazes, and endeavors To see the eclipsing of the sun a little, And, who by seeing sightless doth become, So I became before that latest fire. (Par. XXV, 118.) And that condition of the sight which is In eyes but lately smitten by the sun . Bereft me of my vision some short while. (Purg. XXXII .:

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Twentieth Century History of Findlay and Hancock County, Ohio, and Representative Citizens, Part 150

Author: Jacob Anthony Kimmell Publication date: 1910 Publisher: Number of Pages: 1189

Author: Jacob Anthony Kimmell
Publication date: 1910
Publisher:
Number of Pages: 1189