[From Schenckius: Observationum Medicarum, Francofurti, 1609.] ANNALS OF MEDICAL HISTORY New Series , Volume I Novembe r , 1929 Number 6 THE MEDIEVAL PHYSICIAN* By T. WINGATE TODD, F.R.C.S. ENG. CLEVELAND, OHIO TO become the to posterity.” By his writings on the first William history of science Doctor Miller has Snow Miller lec- manifested his conviction of the con- turer is an honor tinuity of research, towards which his which I gladly own great contribution on the lungs accept, albeit has given so direct an impetus. It with full realiza- is the attitude of an optimist; as an tion of the grave optimist he has inspired us. And to responsibility of the optimist we bring our grateful my task. I am not come to hold a candle acknowledgement this day. to the sun, but to congratulate you It is said of Odin, the All-Father, upon this decision you have made that he gave of himself to all his sons. to demonstrate, during his life time, The theme is old but it is very true. your affectionate admiration for a In the 1485 Caxton edition of Mallory man who has done much to add to you will find it in another guise. Sir the sum of human knowledge, as Bors de Ganis upon the quest of the the recent bibliography of contribu- Sangreal: tions from the Anatomical Labora- tory amply testifies, and who, by . looked up into a tree, and there he his influence and ensample, by his saw a passing great bird upon an old tree, and it was passing dry, without leaves; erudition and his very being, has and the bird sat above, and had birds, the contributed still more to our common which were dead for hunger. So he smote heritage. “Small erections may be himself with his beak, the which was finished by their first architects” great and sharp. And so the great bird wrote Herman Melville, “grand ones, bled. And the young birds took the life true ones, ever leave the cope-stone by the blood of the great bird. When * Being the first William Snow Miller lecture at the University of Wisconsin, March 29, 1928. Bors saw this he wist well it was a great journey takes us, many slides will tokening and he took his horse and be passed over in silence, their func- yede away. tion being fulfilled in rounding out In the British Army, and no doubt my story which cannot be adequately in others, it is directed that orders set to words. shall be given in a “loud, firm and I would fain have given you more cheerful voice.” That is the voice details of the life and work of each which inspires us to follow our opti- character but I am an inept Latin mistic leader. Catching something of scholar, spelling my way through the vision of him in whose honor we the medieval writings much as my are met I propose to set before you ancestors thumbed along the lines a pageant of the times preceding ours, of Tyndale’s Bible, so that my father sketching the progress of thought was used to echo the sentiments of which formed the background for Sir Henry Slingsby, a cavalier who development of scientific medicine. fought for Charles i. Sir Henry, It is the spirit which is permanent noting that his son, aged five, was and immortal. Hence it is the spirit becoming “duller to learn” confided of the physician which we emphasize, to his diary that “They do ill that not his actual achievement. do foment and cherish that humour in a child and by inventing new sports Prologue increase his desire to play, which We often hear it said of a man that causeth a great aversion to their he is centuries ahead of his times. book; and their mind being at first That loose statement, properly inter- season’d with vanity will not easily preted, would make of its victim a loose the relish of it.” pathological curiosity. It is the time Ideas come to us aplenty; they are which makes the man possible. “Our our own. But words are limited in opinions are grafted one upon number and significance. We build another.” Montaigne wrote: “Whence our sentences with these little blocks it followeth, that the highest mounted of language and who shall say where hath often more honour than merit we have gathered them. Charles For hee is got-up but one inch above Reade accused of plagiarism retorted: the shoulders of the last save one.” “I have milked 300 cows but the So strongly do I feel the force of this cheese therof is mine.” I cannot contention that I have resolved to tell you where the words came from lay before you, as well as imperfect which I shall use nor where the knowledge permits, a sketch of the phrases dipped themselves for colour. Middle Ages themselves, and to place “I am no cutpurse of another’s each physician in the setting of his wit” protested Sir Philip Sydney but day. To this end also the successive he borrowed a phrase of Petrarch’s pictures thrown on the screen are to say it. designed, somewhat as an obligato The story divides itself conven- for the melody of my theme or as a iently into three periods which are Greek chorus to the play. Each slide also the periods of chivalry, from its has its definite significance but as dawn with Tancred, through its zenith it is impossible to portray fully the with the Black Prince, to its setting half millenium through which our with Drake. So I shall pause between the phases that you may know where prostrate dragon. And Christopher, we stand, and for headings I have the patron saint of travellers, must chosen the names of those cities most have his prayer. The living God and closely bound up in my tale, Salerno, the cold presence of the dawn enter Padua, Basel. the shrine together. A light breeze, a ripple on the prow, and we are off Salerno for the great adventure. In one of his stories1 Lord Dunsany It is no easy matter to weave tells of a mountain lifting sheer together the ravelled threads of his- above London, part crystal and part tory from the end of the dark ages mist, where the dreamers go when and to disentangle them from wisps the sound of the traffic has fallen. of legend. Intrigue followed confu- At first they dream lightly for the sion and violence followed intrigue. roar is still echoing in their ears but For the days of comparative safety as the evening wears on the dream and reasonableness when Haroun-al- galleons set out, some East, some Raschid of the Arabian Nights sent West, some into the Future; many to Charlemagne the keys of the Holy the olden harbours of the Past, sailing Sepulchre, had given place to a chaos over the years as over the spaces, for which thrust apart France and Ger- thither the sighs of men are mostly many, Christendom and Islam; a turned and, as the merchantmen chaos of which the world has been before the trade winds along the coast reaping the results even down to the of Africa, so bear the dreamships years of our own great bloodshed. down to where Romance sits cloaked Yet through all these times of upon the distant hills. lawlessness and misery millions of Back for a thousand years our faithful anonymous lives kept secure journey takes us, back and toward the spirit that lies at the core of the East, into that half light of history Christianity and preserved it to make when the adventures of the common a better world possible at last. The man first set themselves successfully oldest thing in England, the church by those of Kings, when the swift tower of Earls Barton, still stands, a advance of the Turks upon the Byzan- silent witness to gracious kindly souls tine Empire seemed like the onset of a who built it in the eighth century, final disaster and Michael vii appealed during that peace after the union to Gregory vii for aid. The earliest of the country, when England lay shafts of medieval dawn were striking apart and free, while German pagan- through the dark ages with a promise ism was tamed by Charlemagne. Un- of splendour to follow. So with a happily the Scandinavian terror was racing tide and midnight bustle, a still to come and shake the very hurrying to and fro and the babel of fabric of Catholic civilization. many diverse tongues we find our- Spreading over the West, bands, selves beside the church whose bells first of mercenaries, then invaders, are ringing for the first crusade. known variously, but for our purpose Tapers light fitfully the image of best characterized as Northmen, Saint George of Cappadocia and the forced the Pope and the Byzantine 1 The unhappy body: See A Dreamer’s Emperor into a weak and ineffectual Tales, p. ioq defensive alliance. For they came through the Rhineland and Italy. the castle of San Angelo, thence- They carried their ships by portages forth the papal stronghold. Gregory through Russia and appeared upon survived this episode by a short the Black and Caspian seas. Among year. Between his death and the the former was a certain Robert accession of Urban 11, for half a year Guiscard, son of Tancred de Haute- there was a pope, called from the ville in Normandy who arrived in monastery of Monte Cassino, Desider- Italy as a pilgrim adventurer and ius, abbot of that house, who took was made Duke of Apulia in 1056.