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A mid-seventeeth century defence of Galenism

This rare little book1 provides an on the ignorance of their patients opportunity to discuss one of the but also poison them with their major medical disputes of early toxic remedies of which antimony is modern times, that between the a prime – but by no means the only physicians who belonged to the – example. The opinions of the Galenic school of practice and those iatrochemists are not explained who followed the precepts of the except where an ‘explanation’ is a ‘chemical doctors’, the iatrochemists. hook on which to hang further The book is presented as a ridicule and invective. The ‘disputation’ held at the Faculté de observations expand on some of the Médecine in Paris on ‘Thursday topics which the author finds most morning, 2nd April under the repulsive such as the use of antimony, presidency of Master Charles Guille- of laudanum to replace opium – meau, Doctor of Medicine of the which is in any case so very dangerous Faculté de Paris’ at which the that it should scarcely ever be used question for debate was: La Methode – unicorn horn, precious stones, d’Hippocrate est-elle la plus certaine, la bezoar and the supposed universal plus seure, & la plus excellente de antidote ‘mithridate’; all are useless, toutes à guarir les maladies? Is the some are also deadly. It is implicit Hippocratic method the most ex libris RCPE that the iatrochemists were certain, safe and excellent of all ways Charles Guillemeau (J-B Moreau) purveyors of all of these. The diatribe of treating diseases? Question cardinale a disputer aux extends over 94 pages and was escholles de médecine ... probably music to the ears of many At the end of the main text we find: ‘A of the Faculté on that April morning Paris: Chez Nicolas Boisset; 1648. ces theses respondra Jean-Baptiste in 1648. But why is this outpouring MOREAU, Parisien…’ so it would seem of invective and ridicule of any that the text is Moreau’s thesis (probably for the degree interest? In what follows I have drawn on Debus2 and of Doctor of Medicine), set in the form of a question, as Trevor-Roper3 where much more detail will be found. was usual. A Latin version of the thesis exists and it is that which would have been presented to the Faculté. GALENIC PHYSICIANS VERSUS ‘CHEMICAL Moreau was apparently the author of the main text and, DOCTORS’ probably, of the eleven ‘observations’ which follow it, expanding on some topics. Someone, perhaps Moreau Under the guise of a question about the pre-eminence himself, must have felt that the thesis was of sufficient of the Hippocratic method, the thesis presents a version public interest to publish a vernacular version. Charles of one side of a bitter quarrel which raged over more Guillemeau was the son of surgeon Jacques Guillemeau. than a century and in several countries. It was most Born in 1588, he qualified in medicine in Paris in 1626 bitter in Paris where one of its manifestations was the and was Doyen (Dean) of the Faculté de Médecine in ‘antimony wars’ between 1566 and 1666; in 1566 the 1634 and 1635; in 1648 he would have been a senior Faculté first condemned the therapeutic use of antimony, member of the Faculté. Nothing more seems to be in 1637 it added it to its newly drawn up ‘livre de known of Jean-Baptiste Moreau. medicamens’ (pharmacopoeia) but did not approve its use, and finally in 1666 its use in therapeutics was MOREAU’S THESIS approved.4 In 1556 and 1666 the Faculté’s resolution was confirmed by edict of the Parlement of Paris. But the The thesis is a vituperative attack on all who do not case of antimony was only the most celebrated symptom follow the Galenic school. Beginning by saying that of the quarrel. Hippocrates was the best of men and the best of all doctors of all times, it admits that his meaning was often The roots of the two opposing views lie in the results of obscure until Galen explained his principles and set two sets of events, the influx from the East after the them out in a form which has provided the framework mid-fifteenth century of ‘new’ ancient texts previously of all sound medicine since. All those who do not accept unknown in the West – or known only in incomplete this doctrine are ignorants, charlatans, profiteers, and a and corrupt versions – and the religious upheavals that history danger to the populace. And the worst of them are the followed Martin Luther’s attack on the Church, the pestilential crew of chemical doctors who not only prey Reformation, whose overt beginning can be placed

88 history 89 Ex LibrisEx Treatment Treatment They particularly They The proportions in The proportions Ortus Baptista medicinae…Joannes of THE GALENIC SCHOOL OF THOUGHT THE GALENIC SCHOOL OF were schools of the Galenic The bases and iatrochemical that the economy The Galenists believed very different. interacting four of system a on based was body the of cold, of heat, whose properties the humours, principles, Aristotelian dryness paralleled the four moisture and shared humour Each water. and air earth, fire, elements, wet, and hot was blood elemental properties: two dryand hot bile was yellow wet, and cold was phlegm and black bile was cold and dry. individual produced in an mixed were humours which the of disturbance a from arose Disease ‘temperament’. the artthe and the of humours, the of proportions the correct and the disturbance was to recognise physician as no diseases were In Galenic medicine there it. patients. diseased were there entities, separate the balance of the humours the theory; based on was which those removing by principally was readjusted vomiting induced purging, bleeding, by in excess were But, at the end of the sixteenth century, the viciously viciously the century, end of the sixteenth at the But, religion of wars the bloody climate of political unstable and an uneasy truce be in to what would was settling of the power on the relative effects this had profound the chemical doctors. enemies, Faculté and of their had Faculté the Parlement, the of edicts by Authorised those it only medical practice; over a monopoly in Paris and the custom could practise legally approved a not was who anyone refuse to was Faculté the of medical school. graduate of the Parisian abhorred graduates of Montpellier (the oldest medical medical oldest (the Montpellier of graduates abhorred regarded medical school they school in France) whose tainted but dangerously its Galenism lax in as not only heresy. with religious a was IV Henri 1589 in accession his of time the At battle against the a four-year following Huguenot but, permanently he decided to re-convert Catholic League, to Henri continued However, to Catholicism in 1593. he in 1593, his old Huguenot friends and, favour Ordinaryin Calvinist the Physician as appointed Other (Quercetanus). Duschene Joseph iatrochemist notably most followed, physicians royal Huguenot being after who, – Montpellier of graduate a – Mayerne to physician principal became IV, Henri to physician chemical as well employed He I (VI) in London. James detested Faculté Paris the as Much remedies. Galenic as they midst, their in vipers iatrochemical of nest the their and physicians royal the against powerless were protégés. Huguenot and iatrochemical the state of affairs at the time of our This is roughly what appeared in that year Ironically, thesis in 1648. text of all, influential iatrochemical be the most would the posthumous Helmont. van 2013; 43:88–90 2013; J R Coll Physicians Edinb Coll Physicians J R © 2013 RCPE around 1520. These events resulted in a huge outpouring outpouring huge in a resulted events These 1520. around rapidly- and development to the thanks of texts which, their influences exerted printing, of prevalence increasing have than would rapidly more much and widely more been possible earlier. begun had that texts ancient of flood in the late Rather century texts of the Greek came in the previous in assumed generally medicine – of school Hippocratic single physician, a of be the works to the Renaissance ‘Greek’ the by – and various works Hippocrates of Kos in wrote and worked who Galen surgeon and physician Galen and Hippocrates AD. century Rome in the second the but earlier much West in the famous course, of were, to the greatly added particularly Galen’s, texts, new of knowledge to the accuracy particularly, quantity and, in of Greek Knowledge of ancient medical practice. sixteenth centuries early fifteenth and late the in Europe texts these new was not common but the influx of and its teaching of revival to stimulus a powerful proved anatomy, on writers as now known Best learning. Sylvius (Jacques Andernach and Iacobus Guinter von and of, translators particularly prominent were Dubois) the 1520s Paris From texts. Greek on, commentators an industry of became the centre from of translation via (usually to French little a later, and, to Latin, Greek résumé exegesis, Latin) and of a plethora of commentary, were works ‘ancient’ The new explanation. and influential and their teachings became the immediately of medicine of which the Galenic system of a new basis the promoter, became Médecine Faculté de Parisian another also was There defender. vigorous and developer powerful more politically older, Paris, in doctors of set the of Doctors the dangerous, certainlyand more Faculties These two the theologians. – Sorbonne the during especially and, as, themselves regarded of the later sixteenth century political upheavals Sorbonne the public’; the of ‘guardians became, effectively beliefs and religious of effect in – public morals the of of the safety the Faculté de Médecine of – and practices the From private health of the populace. the public and century mid-sixteenth were hegemonies these and religion the reformed by the Sorbonne challenged; the rise in the numbersthe Faculté by of iatrochemists, iatrochemical The popularity. and their increasing the writings of by been triggered had movement influenced been largely have may in turn, which, Paracelsus Corpus the ancient alchemical work, new another yet by The about 1460. West Hermeticum which came to the and aggressively strictly of the Sorbonne were Doctors staunchly of the Faculté were Catholic and the Doctors Galenic and very – though not largely and aggressively were The iatrochemists – Catholic also. quite exclusively so it was natural, Calvinist protestants predominantly their conflate to Faculté the for common and convenient, tenets and condemn opponents’ medical and religious and as heretics. them both as medical renegades Ex libris

and, sometimes, sweating. The theoretical basis of produce a ‘morbid seed’ (semen morbidum) which Galenism was, as we have seen, inherited from antiquity caused the symptoms of the disease. The object of and, to many physicians, the ancient texts and their treatment was to strengthen the body’s archeus and precepts were sacrosanct and not susceptible to induce it to ‘expel’ the archeus of the infecting disease; if alteration according to the opinions – or, importantly, to this was done the disease would die away and Nature’s the observations – of the lesser modern successors of rule would be restored. the unparalleled ancients. THE THEORIES COMPARED THE IATROCHEMICAL PHILOSOPHY Although the iatrochemists defended their theory as The iatrochemical philosophy was triggered by the fiercely as did the Galenists, at least some of them seem writings of Paracelsus which began to appear around to have been open – at least in principle – to tests of 1550. In its extreme form Paracelsianism condemned their beliefs by comparison of the results of different Aristotle and Hippocrates as heathens and Galen as treatments. Van Helmont and, later, Starkey proposed to anti-Christian and emphasised the study of nature and of their antagonists contests in which groups of patients holy writ. But not all the iatrochemists were blind would be treated by the Galenic and the iatrochemical followers of Paracelsus and, indeed, many of the details method and the results compared. But there is no of the latter’s opinions were quite soon dismissed. The evidence that any such ‘trials’ ever took place. With the chemical doctors added mercury and salt to the passage of time, some physicians took positions between Aristotelian elements – but (though their opponents these two extreme schools of Galenism and often disregarded this distinction) these were not iatrochemistry; generally they were Galenists as to their ‘common’ mercury and salt but rather their ‘philosophical theory and much of their practice but admitted the essences’ and from this emerged a five-principled usefulness of chemical remedies, and, in some cases system based on mercury, sulphur, salt, water and earth. pressed for their addition to the Galenic pharmacopoeia, The system claimed to be based upon the ‘chemical’ and certainly used them themselves. Mayerne is a good nature of the Creation in which the physician’s role was example of such a practitioner. By the end of the that of a divine magician. Since Nature was chemical so seventeenth century probably the majority of physicians was man; the supposed parallelism between the had settled in the middle and practised a sort of macrocosm of Nature and the human microcosm modified Galenism which incorporated a good deal of suggested that disease was related to chemical empiricism and many chemical remedies derived from disturbance and susceptible to cure by chemical the iatrochemical tradition. Unfortunately one manipulation. One of the curious beliefs to emerge from iatrochemical precept did not survive, the opposition to this type of parallelism was that of the ‘power of blood-letting and purging, which continued to be sympathy’ of which the best-known example was the practised enthusiastically. ‘weapon salve’. Treatment with a ‘sympathetic salve’ of the weapon which had caused a wound was believed to REFERENCES heal it. The Galenists accused the iatrochemists of using 1 Guillemeau C, Moreau J-B. Question cardinale a disputer aux minerals and other toxins to poison their patients; to escholles de médecine... Paris: Nicolas Boisset; 1648. French. 2 Debus AG. The French Paracelsians: the chemical challenge to medical this the chemists replied that their preparation of the and scientific tradition in early modern France. Cambridge: Cambridge drugs removed their toxicity and that these University Press; 1991. de-venomised poisons cured by sympathy – poison to 3 Trevor-Roper HR. Europe’s physician: the various life of Sir Theodore drive out poison. One way in which the later de Mayerne. New Haven, Conn.:Yale University Press; 2006. iatrochemists’ treatments may have been of some 4 Diderot D, D’Alembert J. Encyclopédie, ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers. Vol 1. Paris: C Briasson et al.; 1751. practical advantage – as seen from a modern point of p. 503. French. view – was that many of them, following Helmont, were vehemently opposed to the blood-letting which formed the mainstay of Galenic practice. IML Donaldson, Honorary Librarian, RCPE (email: [email protected]) The iatrochemists believed, generally, that the body was controlled by an overarching governor, its archeus and, in addition, each organ had its own local archeus insitus which regulated its activities. The iatrochemical theory of the origins of disease held that diseases were of external origin and, in stark contrast to the Galenic view, had individual existence apart from the body. Each history disease was induced by entry into the body of its archeus which then perverted the body’s own archeus to