ART OF HEALING.

Auckland Star, Volume LIV, Issue 174, 24 July 1923, Page 8

ART OF HEALING.

EARLY GRECIAN METHODS.

LECTURE BY DR. MACKENZIE.

An interesting survey of the evolution of medicine amongst the early Greeks was made by Dr. K. Mackenzie in the course of an address on "Ancient Greek Medicine" delivered at the Auckland Institute laet efening. Professor H. VV. Segar presided over a fair attendance.

The lectu.sr showed that the development of medical science had proceeded from times" when the priest, physician and magician were united in one person. In the effecting of cures in early timee there was a preponderance of spiritual treatment with a residue of physical treatment. In the Egyptian civilisation the practice of medicine' was in the hands of the priests, who attributed the cures of ailments to Thath. It was through contact with the Egyptians that the early Greeks gained a knowledge of drugs. The Babylonian and Assyrian empires which followed the . Samarian civilisation gave rise 'to the influence of astrological influence in medicine. . The next civilisation wae the Minoan, the original source of Grecian culture. The medical history of Greece, said Dr. Mackenzie, began "about 800 B.C. li "as divided into two periods, the pre"Hippocratic and the classical. In the first period diseases were treated in the temples of Aesculapius, the Greek. god of healing. These were built on the wooded hillsides or by the side of springe. Suggestion must have been a great factor in curing ailments in those days. The belief in the existence of four humours in the body held back the practice of medicine for' a num bcr of years.

The classical period opened with Hippocrates about 460 8.C., who made a close and accurate observation of disease and medicine. He did not concern himself with theories nor experiments, and was the first to use 'the inductive method in the treatment of disease. In the centur-

ies following embryology, ibotany, anatomy and physiology were introduced into the study of medicine. There was little to note in Athene, the seat of learning .being transferred to Alexandria, where a more scientific study began. Erasistratus (about 300 8.C.) came very near to the discovery of the circulation of the blood, eventually made in 1628 toy William Harvey. The first organised school of physicians in the modern sense sprang up in Alexandria. It raised the standard of medicine and differentiated between the genuine healer and the quack and charlatan.

The Romans were attended Tiy Greek surgeons. Galen, who marked the end of the Grecian period, went to Rome, where he spent some years in study. In 200 AD. he experimented with the nervous system and the epinal column. He also demonstrated the action of the nerves of the voice. The influence of Galen, ■however, was to stop progress for a number of centuries, the dogmatic deductive process militating against the development of the science.