MEDICAL NUMISMATICS* by FIELDING H
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MEDICAL NUMISMATICS* By FIELDING H. GARRISON, M.D. LIEUTENANT COLONEL, MEDICAL CORPS, U. S. ARMY WASHINGTON, D. C. T is said that Billroth, in looking over were struck off regularly by the old Acad- a collection of medical medals, observed emy of Medicine of Paris to commemorate that “hardly a single one of them had the biennial election of each new Dean of been struck off to commemorate any- the Paris Medical Faculty, and copies of thing more than respectable mediocrity.” these jetons, in silver or bronze, were ILike all epigrams and stories of the ben presented to all the members of the Faculty. trovato type, the assertion has a shade of The Dean was not a professor in the Faculty exaggeration and an element of truth. but its chief administrative officer, hence The earlier medical medals tended to a prominent rather than an eminent figure commemorate things rather than people, in the history of early French medicine. later on, physicians prominent on account The Academy of Medicine (Paris) possesses of their connection with institutions and 108 of these rare pieces. The numismatic societies, finally physicians recognized as collection of the Army Medical Museum eminent by reason of their contributions (Washington) has ninety-one. The last to to scientific medicine. The same tendency be struck off was that of Claude Bourru, is noticeable throughout the history of who was Dean for three successive terms medicine with regard to medical authorship. (1788-1793). When, in 1793, the scientific Before Hippocrates, recorded medicine, societies, medical schools and corporated whether Assyro-Babylonian, Egyptian, Cre- institutions of France were swept away by tan or Mycenaean, was the work of priestly the Revolution, the jetons disappeared castes or of medical corporations or guilds, with the Academy.1 Any one who went and while we know the names of various through the formality of the burlesque practicing physicians of Egypt or Babylon, examinations recorded by Wickersheimer the papyric and cuneiform medical litera- could now be qualified as a practitioner of ture is invariably anonymous. It is through medicine or surgery.2 But Napoleon soon the individualizing tendencies of Greek found that such quacks and humbugs would medicine that the author begins to be poor material for the medical personnel appear. The same thing is true of the of his armies. He therefore established medicine of ancient India, China and three “Ecoles de sante,” or schools of Japan. The existence of such an encyclo- military medicine, at Paris, Montpellier pedia as that of Celsus signalizes a tendency and Strassburg, in 1795. The Academy of which was to become a fixture during the Medicine, however, remained unnoticed long period of the Dark and Middle Ages; until 1823, when it was reestablished under the author begins to disappear and only Charles x. The time-honored custom of the name of the compiler, editor or publisher striking of jetons of Deans of the Faculty remains. Medical books begin to appear died, however, with the old Academy. again under the authors’ names in the But if we examine Kluyskens’ volumes on fifteenth century. During the four cen- the commemoration of men eminent in turies elapsing between 1395 and J792, science and art by numismatic devices jetons or small flat medals, like coins, 1 Allemann, A. Jetons of the Old Paris Academy * Substance of remarks made at a meeting of the of Medicine, etc. Ann . Med . Histo ry , N. Y., Historical Section, College of Physicians of Phila- 1917, 1, 155-158. delphia, on February 16, 1926. Published by per- 2 Wickersheimer, E. Un examen de medecine en mission of the Surgeon General, U. S. Army. fan xii. Paris Med., 1912-1913, suppl., 749-751. (1859), we find medals of comparatively Except in size, shape and substance, these recent vintage in honor of Bichat (1802), coins are all alike: the obverse shows a Blumenbach (1825, 1826), Boerhaave (1819), ship sailing, with the name and attributes Bouillaud (1838), Brodie (1841), Cuvier of the monarch as legend; the reverse shows (1820), Descartes (1819, 1822), Dupuytren St. Michael slaying the dragon, with the (1821, 1833), Fernelius (1822), Fracastorius legend “Soli Deo Gloria.” A plaster cast (1805), Gall (1805), C. F. von Graefe reproduction of a touch-piece of Elizabeth’s (1829), Haller (1821), Harvey (1823), Heim reign, presented to the Museum by Sir (1822), Hufeland (1833), Jenner (1801, William Osler, I am not able to show, on 1803, 1811), Lavoisier (1821, 1844), Mor- account of its extreme friability. These gagni (1808), Orfila (1821), Palfyn (1858), coins may be said to illustrate an earlier Pare (1819), Rabelais (1818), Reil (1813), or primitive phase of English medicine, of Scarpa (1819), Soemmerring (1828), Syden- which the locus classicus is in Macbeth4: ham (1828), Tiedemann (1854), Vesalius England. A room in the King’s palace. (1810, 1820), Leonardo da Vinci (1817, 1825), with many others of much earlier Malc olm : Comes the King forth I pray you? Doct or : Ay, Sir: there are a crew of wretched souls, date. The tendency of the Napoleonic That stay his cure: their malady convinces period, like that of the Periclean, was The great assay of art; but, at his touch, individualistic. Physicians now began to Such sanctity hath Heaven given his hand, come into their own. Soon we find streets They presently amend. of the city of Paris named after them. Malco lm : I thank you Doctor. In 1808, the U. S. Mint at Philadelphia Exit Doctor. Mac du ff : What’s the disease he means? struck off two different obstetric medals Malc olm : Tis call’d the evil: in honor of Benjamin Rush, who was at A most miraculous work in this good king; that time still alive and treasurer of the Which often, since my here-remain in institution.3 The tendency has gone on England, apace, up to the elegant placques and I have seen him do. How he solicits medallions of eminent physicians which Heaven, Himself best knows; but strangely-visited have become familiar to us through the people, work of the artists of the Paris Mint and of All swoln and ulcerous, pitiful to the eye, such sculptors as Tait McKenzie. The mere despair of surgery, he cures; A good example of the time-honored Hanging a golden stamp about their custom of associating coins and medals necks, Put on with holy prayers: and ’tis spoken, with things and ideas rather than with To the succeeding royalty he leaves people is to be found in the touch-pieces for The healing benediction. scrofula, issued in the reigns of various monarchs, of which nine English specimens The subject of touching for scrofula has a are now in the Army Medical Museum at curious history. The first record is that of Washington. These include three gold touch- Helgald, a monk of the eleventh century, pieces of James 11, Charles 11 and Queen who relates that, in France, Robert the Anne, and silver pieces of James 11, his son Pious (996-1031) cured scrofula by touch. Prince James of Scotland, who, as Pre- Guibert, Abbot of Nogent, records that tender to the crown was declared James in Philip 1 of France (1061-1108) and his by Louis xiv of France, of the Young Cheva- son Louis vi (1108-1137) also touched for lier, Charles Edward (as Charles in), and scrophas circa jugulum, and the custom was of Henry, Cardinal York (as Henry ix). maintained up to Louis xvi, and was revived at the coronation of Charles x (1824), when 3 Storer, H. R. The medals of Benjamin Rush, obstetrician. J. A. M. A., Chicago, 1889, xm, Dupuytren and Alibert presented 121 330*335- 4 Act iv, sc. 3 (1606-7). patients. In England, according to William to him in a most exhaustive and pains- of Malmesbury, the practice was begun by taking monograph.7 Perhaps the most Edward the Confessor in 1066, but fell into remarkable books on medical numismatics disuse among the Norman Kings, to be of recent vintage are those on the pest and revived by Henry 11, Henry 111 and the three famine medals by Pfeiffer and Ruland,8 Edwards. It was then discontinued until the “Death in Art” by Dr. F. Parkes Weber9 time of Henry vii , who began to touch in and the above mentioned monograph of 1462, with an elaborate ceremonial and the Miss Farquhar on the touch-pieces.10 minting of a special coin, the gold Angel, in Until recently the only Americans seri- 1465. This ritual, with the minting of touch- ously interested in medical numismatics pieces and of medals, as tickets of admission, were the late Dr. George J. Fisher, of New was kept up until the time of Queen Anne, York, the late Dr. William Lee of Washing- who even touched Dr. Johnson for scrofula- ton, whose collections went to the Army The touch-pieces of the Young Pretender, Medical Museum, and the late Dr. Horatio Charles Edward, and of Henry, Cardinal of R. Storer (1832-1922), of Newport, Rhode York, constituted the last sigh of the exiled Island, whose collections will go to the Stuarts “over the water.” Touching was Boston Medical Library. Of these, Dr. discarded by George 1. The history of Storer was in every way the most remark- touching for scrofula is given at length in able. He was, in his lifetime, perhaps the interesting book on King’s Evil by Dr. the ablest and most devoted medical numis- Raymond Crawford (1911). The subject of matist in the world. His collection of medi- touch-pieces has been handled in most cal coins and medals is unrivalled, in this exhaustive and scholarly manner by Miss country at least.