CHAPTER I.

THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. The Dawn of Modern Science.—The Reformation of Medicine.—Paracelsus—The Sceptics.—The Protestantism of Science.—Influenza.—Legal Recognition of Medicine in England.—The Barber-Surgeons.—The Sweating Sickness.—Origin of the Royal College of Physicians of London.—“Merry Andrew.”—Origin of St. Bartholomew’s Hospital.—Caius.—Low State of Midwifery.—The Great Continental Anatomists.—Vesalius.—Servetus.—Paré.—Influence of the Reformation.—The Rosicrucians.—Touching for the Evil.—Vivisection of Human Beings.—Origin of Legal Medicine. The discovery of America in 1492 fitly typifies the still grander mental world about to disclose its wonders to the newly liberated minds of scientific investigators. The revolt against authority in religion was paralleled by a scientific Protestantism; the mind of man, long held in bondage to absurd and groundless fancies, struggled to set itself free, to investigate, to test and explore on its account, instead of accepting for granted doctrines elaborated in the philosopher’s brains. The revolt of medicine against the authority of Galen may be compared to the revolt against Aristotle in philosophy. The authority of the Arabian schools was overthrown, the principles of Hippocrates were in the ascendant. The era of the Renaissance was not more an era of Protestantism than an age of Scepticism. Faith had become credulity, and credulity had sunk into imbecility. The power of the printing press, the spread of humanism, the beginning of scientific inquiry, the discovery of the splendid treasure of classic literature, long buried beneath the dust of dark and barbarous ages, the widening of the mental horizon as the world doubled itself before the prows of the discoverers’ vessels—all these factors brought about the new birth of Science. It was the golden age of the medical sciences. Anatomy and surgery awoke, from their long slumber, and Europe entered upon a period of scientific investigation such as the world had never known before. Medicine formed an alliance with what are called its accessory sciences; chemistry liberated from slavery to the alchemist, botany set free from the delusions of the doctrine of “signatures,” pharmacy elevated into a branch of medical science from the kitchen and the confectioner’s store-room, lent their aid, in conjunction with the hydraulics and pneumatics of the natural philosopher, to advance it. All these things meant revolt against the old order, Protestantism against the outworn creeds of Greek and Arabian dogmatists. They meant more than this. Ere the ground could be cleared for the new palace of physical science which the glorious sixteenth century was to rear, scepticism must lend its withering and desolating aid; foul undergrowths must be destroyed; evil germs, bred of the stagnant marshes of the dark ages, must perish under the wholesome, if ruthless, disinfectants of reason and unbelief. There was a stern need of this. The demon theory of disease had lasted from primeval ages up to this dawn of the sixteenth century. From glacial times, through savage ages and religions, and often in beautifully poetic faiths, the disease-demon held its own. Even in the hallowed and renovating pages of the gospels the disease-demon stalks unchallenged save by the thaumaturgist. Now he is to be banished from the mind of civilized man for ever; and to reach this goal atheism was needed. The sixteenth century, so far as medicine and physical science are concerned, opens with the Cabalist Theosophists, Trithemius, Cornelius Agrippa, Cardan, and their followers. Giordano Bruno, the aggressive atheist and martyr of science, Montaigne, the philosophic sceptic, Charron, the opponent of all religion, and Rabelais, the witty scoffer at the gross corruptions of orthodoxy, helped to clear the ground for the work of the scientists. Meanwhile Paracelsus, from his chair at Basel University, having made an _auto-da-fe_ of ancient and dogmatic medicine, lays the foundation-stone of the medicine of the modern era. An army of savants begins to work for science as well as literature. Linacre has introduced Italian Humanism to the doctors of England; Caius busies himself with the Greek and Latin texts of the great writers on medicine; Gesner, the German Pliny, and Aldrovandi promote the study of natural history. Everywhere men are busy with the beginnings of electricity, chemistry, mineralogy, botany, and the other sciences which are to be the handmaidens of medicine. One clear voice is heard from Basel. It is that of Paracelsus, exhuming physical science: “You Italy, you Dalmatia, you Sarmatia, Athens, Greece, Arabia, and Israel, follow me. Come out of the night of the mind!” The teacher of Paracelsus, who exercised the greatest influence upon his mental development, was the celebrated TRITHEMIUS, the abbot of the Spanheim Benedictines (about 1500), who was so famous a student of chemistry and the occult philosophy that scholars and mighty nobles went on pilgrimages and princes sent ambassadors, to his monastery to gather some fragments of his vast learning. Amongst many works, he published several on magical subjects, and was the first who told the wondrous story of Dr. Faustus, in whose magical doings he was a devout believer.[829] His famous library consisted of the rare possession of two thousand volumes. Cornelius Agrippa was his pupil, and in a letter which he sent to his old master, with the manuscript of his _Occult Philosophy_, we find a passage which throws a light on the studies of the worthy abbot: “We conferred much about chemical matters, magic, cabalism, and other things which at the present time lie hidden as secret sciences and arts.”[830] THEOPHRASTUS BOMBASTUS PARACELSUS OF HOHENHEIM (1493-1541), “The Reformer of Medicine,” “Luther Alter,” effected a revolution in medicine, and is one of the most remarkable characters, not only in the history of the medical profession, but in that of civilization. There was so much in this great man’s conduct to admire, and so much of which to disapprove, that it is not surprising that he has been either wholly praised or entirely condemned, and by very few considered dispassionately. Perhaps Mr. Browning, in his noble poem _Paracelsus_, has given the world the truest conception of a man who did for his profession and for humanity the enormous service of liberating medicine from a slavish adhesion to authority, though it must be admitted that he was guilty of extravagances and excesses we may find it difficult to excuse, even though for the most part they were faults common to his country and his age. Paracelsus was born ten years later than Luther, at Einsiedeln, near Zurich. He studied under the abbot Trithemius of Spanheim, who was a great adept in magic, alchemy, and astrology. Under this teacher he acquired a taste for occult studies, and formed a determination to use them for the welfare of mankind. Trithemius was a theosophist. As was the custom of the times, Paracelsus became an itinerant student after his course at the University of Basel. He studied chemistry in the laboratory of the Fuggers at Schwatz, in the Tyrol. Attached to the armies, he travelled widely as a military surgeon in the Netherlands, the Romagna, Naples, Venice, Denmark. He worked in the mines, that he might acquire a knowledge of metals, working as a common labourer for his bread. In Bohemian fashion he wandered over the world, visiting Spain, Portugal, Egypt, Tartary, and the East. He picked up his scientific knowledge by any means rather than from books. He said, “Reading never made a doctor, but practice is what forms a physician. For all reading is a footstool to practice, and a mere feather broom. He who meditates discovers something.” And so he held converse with the common folk, and talked and drank with boors, shepherds, Jews, gypsies, and tramps, gaining odd scraps of knowledge wherever he could. He had no books. His only volume was Nature, whom he interrogated at first-hand. He would rather learn medicine and surgery from an old country nurse than from an university lecturer. If there was one thing which he detested more than another, it was the principle of authority. He bent his head to no man. In the year 1525 Paracelsus went to Basel, where he was fortunate in curing Froben, the great printer, by his laudanum, when he had the gout. Froben was the friend of Erasmus, who was associated with Œcolampadius, and soon after, upon the recommendation of Œcolampadius, he was appointed by the city magnates a professor of physics, medicine, and surgery, with a considerable salary; at the same time they made him city physician, to the duties of which office he requested might be added inspector of drug shops. This examination made the druggists his bitterest enemies, as he detected their fraudulent practices; they combined to set the other doctors of the city against him, and as these were exceedingly jealous of his skill and success, poor Paracelsus found himself in a hornet’s nest. We find him a professor at Basel University in 1526. He has become famous as a physician, the medicines which he has discovered he has successfully used in his practice; he was now in the eyes of his patients at least, “The wondrous Paracelsus, life’s dispenser, Fate’s commissary, idol of the schools and courts.” He began his lectures at Basel by lighting some sulphur in a chafing dish, and burning the books of his great predecessors in the medical art, Avicenna, Galen, and others, saying: “Sic vos ardebitis in gehennâ.” He boasted that he had read no books for ten years, though he protested that his shoe-buckles were more learned than the authors whose works he had burned. It must have been a wonderful spectacle when this new teacher took his place before his pupils. The benches occupied hitherto by a dozen or two of students were crowded with an eager audience anxious for the new learning. Literature had been exhumed many years before, and now it was the turn of Science! Leaving the morbid seclusion of the cloisters, men had given up dreaming for inquiry, and baseless visions for the acquisition of facts. This was the childhood of our science, and its days were bright with the poetry of youth. It is a sight to arouse our enthusiasm to see in the early dawn of our modern science this man standing up alone to pit himself against the whole scientific authority of his day. He rises from the crucibles and fires where his predecessors had been vainly seeking for gold and silver, ever and again pretending to have found them, and always going empty-handed to a deluded world. Henceforth, he says, his alchemy shall serve a nobler purpose than gold seeking; it shall aid in the healing of disease. He casts aside the sacred books of medicine which have been handed down the ages by his predecessors; destroying them, he declares, with an earnestness which is less tinged by arrogance than by conviction, that these men had been blind guides, that he alone has the clue of the maze, and he forsakes all to follow Truth, though she lead him to death. In his generous impulse to serve mankind he has spoken harshly of his opponents. They would not have helped him, any way. He was above them; they could not understand him, so they hated him, and he scorned them. As too often happens to such heroes, he forgot the love of his neighbour in his love for mankind. Paracelsus found his pupils holding fast by the teachings of the school of Salerno, and there seems no ground for supposing that the healing art had made the slightest progress in Europe from the foundation of that school in 1150, except perhaps in pharmacy. On the day that Paracelsus stood up before his audience at Basel University, he cried, “Away with Ætius, Oribasius, Galen, Rhasis, Serapion, Avicenna, Averroes, and the other blocks!” He had diplomas sent him from Germany, France, and Italy, and a letter from Erasmus. In 1528 we find him at Colmar, in Alsatia. He has been driven by priests and doctors from Basel. He had been called to the bedside of some rich cleric who was ill. He cured him, but so speedily that his fee was refused. Though not at all a mercenary man (for he always gave the poor his services gratuitously), he sued the priest; but the judge refused to interfere, and Paracelsus used strong language to him, and had to fly to escape punishment. We must not be too hard upon the canon. Disease was treated with profound respect in those days, and great patients liked to be cured with deliberation and some ceremonial. The closing scenes of the life of Paracelsus were passed in a cell in the hospital of Salzburg, in the year 1541, when he died at the age of forty-eight, a martyr of science. Recent investigations in contemporary records have proved that he had been attacked by the servants of certain physicians who were his jealous enemies, and that in consequence of a fall he sustained a fracture of the skull, which proved fatal in a few days. Within a period of time covering fifteen years he had written some 106 treatises on medicine, alchemy, natural history and philosophy, magic, and other subjects. He despised University learning. “The book of Nature,” he declared, “was that which the physician should read, and to do so he must walk over its leaves.” His library consisted of a Bible, St. Jerome on the Gospels, a volume on medicine, and seven manuscripts. His epitaph tells but a part of his honours. “Here lies Philippus Paracelsus, the famous doctor of medicine, who, by his wonderful art, cured bad wounds, lepra, gout, dropsy, and other incurable diseases, and to his own honour divided his possessions among the poor.” This but feebly expresses what medicine owes to him. He discovered the metal zinc, and hydrogen gas. In place of the elaborate concoctions and filthy messes which were given as medicines in his time, he taught doctors to give tinctures and quintessences of drugs. He invented laudanum, and anticipated our discovery of transfusion of blood. He opposed the barbarous method of reducing dislocations and dealing with fractures, introduced the use of mercury in the treatment of syphilis, and came very near to the discoveries which go under the name of Darwinism. He taught that chemistry was to be employed, not in making gold, but for the preparation of medicines; and he introduced into practice mineral remedies, including mineral baths, iron, sulphur, antimony, arsenic, gold, tin, lead, etc. Amongst the vegetable remedies employed by him was arnica. Paracelsus used chemical principles, says Sprengel, for the explanation of particular diseases. “Most or all diseases, according to him, arise from the effervescence of salts, from the combustion of sulphur, or from the coagulation of mercury.”[831] His ætiology attributed diseases to five causes:—1. The Ens astrale (a certain power of the stars); this means no more than foul air. 2. The Ens veneni (power of poison), arising from errors of assimilation and digestion. 3. The Ens naturale (power of nature or of the body); diatheses. 4. Ens spirituale (power of the spirit); the disorders which arise from perverted ideas. 5. Ens Dei (power of God); the injuries or causes of disease predetermined by God.[832] When Paracelsus came upon the scene of medical history, alchemy had just begun to lose its credit. The true students of science had discovered its deceptions and had abandoned it to the quacks. It has often happened, and happens still, that certain pretended sciences, when cast aside as worthless, are taken from their hiding-places and made to do duty in another and perhaps nobler form. Paracelsus set himself the task of rehabilitating alchemy. The deeper thinkers, the more ardent truth-seekers in religion and science, imbued with philosophy and penetrated by the scholasticism of the age, were quite ready for a new reign of theosophical medicine to take the place of the Arabian polypharmacy. GEORGE AGRICOLA (1494-1555) was a physician who practised in Bohemia, and was the first to raise mineralogy to the dignity of a science. He did so much for it, in fact, that no great advance was made in it from the point at which he left it, till the eighteenth century. CONRAD GESNER (1516-1565), surnamed the German Pliny, was a famous naturalist of vast erudition, and imbued with an enthusiastic love of science. In 1541 he was professor of physics and natural history at Zurich. He wrote several books on ancient medicine and botany. To prepare himself to write his _History of Animals_, he read 250 authors, travelled nearly all over Europe, and gathered information from every source, even from hunters and shepherds. His medical works show that he was far above the absurd fancies and prejudices of his time. ANDREAS CÆSALPINUS (1519-1603), the first systematical botanist, and the founder of the work which Linnæus developed, studied, if he did not also teach, anatomy and medicine at Pisa. He had a clear idea of the circulation of the blood, at least through the lungs, and he was the first to use the term “circulation.” Claims have been made on his behalf as the discoverer of the circulation; but they cannot be substantiated, as he did not know of the _direct_ flow of the blood from the arteries to the veins. CARDAN (1501-1576), a physician and astrologer, was also a half-crazy magician. He was a skilful physician, and visited King Edward VI. to calculate his nativity, and Cardinal Beaton to cure him in his sickness. GIORDANO BRUNO (1548-1600) was an Italian philosopher of the Renaissance, who, from a determination to study the universe for himself, threw off the restraints of the Christian religion and revolted against the authority of Aristotle and tradition. His most popular and characteristic work is the _Spaccio_. He was not an atheist, as has been asserted, but a pantheist. He considered the soul of man as a thinking monad, and as immortal. He was burnt at the stake for his opinions, which, it must be admitted, were in some respects detrimental to morality as well as to faith. MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE (1533-1592), the sceptical founder of a new philosophy, and one of the most delightful of essayists, anticipated the scientific spirit by his minute and critical observation upon the curious facts connected with human nature. FRANÇOIS RABELAIS (_c._ 1490-1553) entered the faculty of medicine at Montpellier. EURICUS CORDUS (1486-1535), who studied medicine at Erfurt, is famous for the following admirable epigram:— “Three faces wears the doctor: when first sought, An angel’s—and a God’s, the cure half wrought; But, when that cure complete, he seeks his fee, The Devil looks then less terrible than he.” His son, VALERIUS CORDUS (1515-1544), was the discoverer of sulphuric ether. ANTONIO BENIVIENI (_c._ 1500), a physician of Florence, was the morning star of a new era for surgery, when he insisted that the compilations of the ancients and Arabians ought to be given up for the observation of nature.[833] Thus, before the time of Ambroise Paré (1509-1590), the way for the reception of the true modern surgery was prepared in Italy by the efforts of those who strove to induce educated and talented men to devote their attention to this branch of the healing art. INFLUENZA. A violent and extensive catarrhal fever prevailed in France and Europe generally in 1510. Hecker considers there is evidence that it had its origin in the remotest parts of the East.[834] His description of this influenza is as follows: “The catarrhal symptoms, which, on the appearance of disorders of this kind, usually form their commencement, seem to have been quite thrown into the background by those of violent rheumatism and inflammation. The patient was first seized with giddiness and severe headache; then came on a shooting pain through the shoulders and extending to the thighs. The loins, too, were affected with intolerably painful dartings, during which an inflammatory fever set in with delirium and violent excitement. In some the parotid glands became inflamed, and even the digestive organs participated in the deep-rooted malady; for those affected had, together with constant oppression at the stomach, a great loathing for all animal food, and a dislike even of wine. Among the poor as well as the rich many died, and some quite suddenly, of this strange disease, in the treatment of which the physicians shortened life not a little by their purgative treatment and phlebotomy, seeking an excuse for their ignorance in the influence of the constellations, and alleging that astral diseases were beyond the reach of human art.” LEGAL RECOGNITION OF MEDICAL PRACTITIONERS. The first Act of Parliament dealing with the medical profession in England was passed in the year 1511, and is entitled “AN ACT FOR THE APPOINTING OF PHYSICIANS AND SURGEONS,” the preamble of which runs as follows:— “Forasmuch as the science and cunning of Physick and Surgery (to the perfect knowledge of which be requisite both great learning and ripe experience) is daily within this realm exercised by a great multitude of ignorant persons, of whom the greater part have no manner of insight in the same, nor in any other kind of learning; some also can read no letters on the book, so far forth that common artificers, as smiths, weavers, and women, boldly and accustomably take upon them great cures, and things of great difficulty, in the which they partly use sorcery and witchcraft, partly apply such medicines unto the disease as be very noxious, and nothing meet therefore, to the high displeasure of God, great infamy to the faculty, and the grievous hurt, damage, and destruction of many of the king’s liege people; most especially of them that cannot discern the uncunning from the cunning. Be it therefore (to the surety and comfort of all manner of people) by the authority of this present Parliament enacted:—That no person within the city of London, nor within seven miles of the same, take upon him to exercise and occupy as a Physician or Surgeon except he be first examined, approved, and admitted by the Bishop of London, or by the Dean of St. Paul’s, for the time being, calling to him or them four Doctors of Physic, and for Surgeons, other expert persons in that faculty; and for the first examination such as they shall think convenient, and afterwards alway four of them that have been so approved.[835] ... “That no person out of the said city and precinct of seven miles of the same, except he have been (as is aforesaid) approved in the same, take upon him to exercise and occupy as a Physician or Surgeon, in any diocese within this realm; but if he be first examined and approved by the Bishop of the same diocese, or, he being out of the diocese, by his vicar-general; either of them calling to them such expert persons in the said faculties, as their discretion shall think convenient....”[836] THE BARBER-SURGEONS. The occupation of shaving and trimming beards was anciently considered a profession, and was united to that of surgery. In the reign of Louis XIV. of France the hairdressers were formally separated from the Barber-Surgeons, who were incorporated as a distinct medical body. A London Company of Barbers was formed in 1308, and the first year of the reign of Edward IV. (1462) the barbers were incorporated by a charter which was confirmed by many succeeding monarchs. In 1540 the Company of Barbers, and those who practised purely as Surgeons, were united as “the commonalty of Barbers and Surgeons of London.” It was enacted (32 Hen. VIII.) that “No person using any shaving or barbery in London shall occupy any surgery, letting of blood, or other matter, except only drawing of teeth.” The Surgeons’ corporation in London two years later petitioned Parliament to be exempted from bearing arms and serving on juries, so that they might be free to attend to their practice.[837] Their petition was granted, and all medical men are in the enjoyment of these privileges at the present time. An Act of Parliament was passed in 1540 allowing the United Companies of Barbers and Surgeons to have yearly four bodies of criminals for purposes of dissection. This is supposed to have been the first legislative enactment passed in any country for promoting the study of anatomy.[838] Surgery in England in the reign of Henry VIII. was in a deplorable condition. Thomas Gale thus describes the surgeons of the time:— “I remember when I was in the wars at Montreuil, in the time of that most famous prince, Henry VIII., there was a great rabblement there that took upon them to be surgeons. Some were sow-gelders, and some horse-gelders, with tinkers and cobblers. This noble sect did such great cures that they got themselves a perpetual name; for like as Thessalus’ sect were called Thessalonians, so was this noble rabblement, for their notorious cures, called dog-leeches; for in two dressings they did commonly make their cures whole and sound for ever, so that they felt neither heat nor cold, nor no manner of pain after. But when the Duke of Norfolk, who was then general, understood how the people did die, and that of small wounds, he sent for me and certain other surgeons, commanding us to make search how these men came to their death, whether it were by the grievousness of their wounds or by the lack of knowledge of the surgeons; and we, according to our commandment, made search through all the camp, and found many of the same good fellows which took upon them the names of surgeons; not only the names but the wages also. We asking of them whether they were surgeons or no, they said they were; we demanded with whom they were brought up, and they, with shameless faces, would answer, either with one cunning man, or another, which was dead. Then we demanded of them what chirurgery stuff they had to cure men withal; and they would show us a pot or a box which they had in a budget, wherein was such trumpery as they did use to grease horses’ heels withal, and laid upon scabbed horses’ backs, with verval and such like. And others that were cobblers and tinkers used shoemaker’s wax, with the rust of old pans, and made therewith ‘a noble salve,’ as they did term it. But in the end this worthy rabblement was committed to the Marshalsea, and threatened to be hanged for their worthy deeds, except they would declare the truth—what they were and of what occupations; and in the end they did confess, as I have declared to you before.” Gale says in another place: “I have, myself, in the time of King Henry VIII., helped to furnish out of London, in one year, which served by sea and land, three score and twelve surgeons, which were good workmen, and well able to serve, and all Englishmen. At this present day there are not thirty-four of all the whole company of Englishmen, and yet the most part of them be in noblemen’s service, so that if we should have need, I do not know where to find twelve sufficient men. What do I say? sufficient men? Nay; I would there were ten amongst all the company worthy to be called surgeons.” In the year 1518 the Barbers and Surgeons were united in one company. The Barbers were restricted from performing any surgical operations, except drawing teeth, and the Surgeons, on their part, had to abandon shaving and trimming beards. Physicians were permitted to practise surgery. In the year 1542 it became necessary to pass an Act to further regulate the practice of Surgery, the chief points of which are the following: “Whereas in the Parliament holden at Westminster, in the third year of the King’s Most Gracious Reign, amongst other things, for the avoiding of sorceries, witchcrafts, and other inconveniences, it was enacted, That no person within the City of London, nor within seven miles of the same, should take upon him to exercise and occupy as Physician and Surgeon, except he be first examined, admitted, and approved by the Bishop of London, etc.... Sithence the making of which said Act, the Company and Fellowship of Surgeons of London, minding onely their owne lucres, and nothing the profit or ease of the diseased or patient, have sued, troubled, and vexed divers honest persons, as well men as women, whom God hath endueed with the knowledge of the nature, kind and operation of certain herbs, roots and waters, and the using and ministering of them, to such as have been pained with custumable diseases, as women’s breasts being sore, a pin and the web in the eye, uncomes of the hands, scaldings, burnings, sore mouths, the stone, stranguary, saucelin, and morphew, and such other like diseases.... And yet the said persons have not taken anything for their pains or cunning.... In consideration whereof, and for the ease, comfort, succour, help, relief, and health of the King’s poor subjects, inhabitants of this his realm, now pained or diseased, or that hereafter shall be pained or diseased, Be it ordained, etc., that at all time from henceforth it shall be lawful to every person being the King’s subject, having knowledge and experience of the nature of herbs, roots and waters, etc., to use and minister according to their cunning, experience, and knowledge ... the aforesaid statute ... or any other Act notwithstanding.” THE SWEATING SICKNESS. In 1517 England was visited by a third attack of the Sweating Sickness. Public business was suspended, the King moved his court from place to place, and a panic seized the people. Erasmus, writing to Wolsey’s physician, says: “I am frequently astonished and grieved to think how it is that England has been now for so many years troubled by a continual pestilence, especially by a deadly sweat, which appears in a great measure to be peculiar to your country. I have read how a city was once delivered from a plague by a change in the houses, made at the suggestion of a philosopher. I am inclined to think that this also must be the deliverance for England.” He proceeds to suggest that better ventilation is necessary for dwellings; he remarks that the glass windows admit light, but not air; that such air as does enter comes in as draughts, through holes and corners full of pestilential emanations. The floors laid with clay and covered with rushes, the bottom layer of which was unchanged sometimes for twenty years, harboured expectorations, vomitings, filth, and all sorts of abominations. He advises that the use of rushes should be given up, that the rooms should be so built as to be exposed to the light and fresh air on two or three sides, and that the windows be so constructed as to be easily opened or closed. He declares that at one time, if he ever entered a room which had not been occupied for some months, he was sure to take a fever. He suggests that the people should eat less, especially of salt meats, and that proper officers be appointed to keep the streets and suburbs in better order. Erasmus was thus our first sanitary reformer. Aubrey gives[839] a selection of the favourite prescriptions in use at this period against the Sweating Sickness:— “Take endive, sowthistle, marygold, m’oney and nightshade, three handfuls of all, and seethe them in conduit water, from a quart to a pint, then strain it into a fair vessel, then delay it with a little sugar to put away the tartness, and then drink it when the sweat taketh you, and keep you warm; and by the grace of God ye shall be whole.” “Take half an handful of rew, called herbe grace, an handful marygold, half an handful featherfew, a handful sorrel, a handful burnet, and half a handful dragons, the top in summer, the root in winter; wash them in running water, and put them in an earthen pot with a pottle of running water, and let them seethe soberly to nigh the half be consumed, and then draw aback the pot to it be almost cold, and then strain it into a fair glass and keep it close, and use thereof morn and even, and when need is oftener; and if it be bitter, delay it with sugar candy; and if it be taken afore the pimples break forth, there is no doubt but with the grace of Jesu it shall amend any man, woman or child.” “Another very true medicine.—For to say every day at seven parts of your body, seven paternosters, and seven Ave Marias, with one Credo at the last. Ye shal begyn at the ryght syde, under the ryght ere, saying the ‘_paternoster qui es in cœlis, sanctificetur nomen tuum_,’ with a cross made there with your thumb, and so say the paternoster full complete, and one Ave Maria, and then under the left ere, and then under the left armhole, and then under the left the [thigh?] hole, and then the last at the heart, with one paternoster, Ave Maria, with one Credo; and these thus said daily, with the grace of God is there no manner drede hym.” THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS OF LONDON ESTABLISHED. The Royal College of Physicians of London was founded by Henry VIII. for the repression of irregular and unlearned medical practice. The Letters Patent constituting the College were dated 23rd September,