The Evolution of Modern Medicine [18]
the Ebers Papyrus was written. From one point of view it is an interesting experiment, as illustrating the state in which a people may remain who have no knowledge of anatomy, physiology or pathology.
Early Japanese medicine has not much to distinguish it from the Chinese. At first purely theurgic, the practice was later characterized by acupuncture and a refined study of the pulse. It has an extensive literature, largely based upon the Chinese, and extending as far back as the beginning of the Christian era. European medicine was introduced by the Portuguese and the Dutch, whose "factory" or "company" physicians were not without influence upon practice. An extraordinary stimulus was given to the belief in European medicine by a dissection made by Mayeno in 1771 demonstrating the position of the organs as shown in the European anatomical tables, and proving the Chinese figures to be incorrect. The next day a translation into Japanese of the anatomical work of Kulmus was begun, and from its appearance in 1773 may be dated the commencement of reforms in medicine. In 1793, the work of de Gorter on internal medicine was translated, and it is interesting to know that before the so-called "opening of Japan" many European works on medicine had been published. In 1857, a Dutch medical school was started in Yedo. Since the political upheaval in 1868, Japan has made rapid progress in scientific medicine, and its institutions and teachers are now among the best known in the world.[28]
[28] See Y. Fujikawa, Geschichte der Medizin in Japan, Tokyo, 1911.
CHAPTER II
GREEK MEDICINE
OGRAIAE gentis decus! let us sing with Lucretius, one of the great interpreters of Greek thought. How grand and how true is his paean!
Out of the night, out of the blinding night Thy beacon flashes;--hail, beloved light Of Greece and Grecian; hail, for in the mirk Thou cost reveal each valley and each height.
Thou art my leader, and the footprints shine, Wherein I plant my own....
* * * * *
The world was shine to read, and having read, Before thy children's eyes thou didst outspread The fruitful page of knowledge, all the wealth Of wisdom, all her plenty for their bread.
[Bk. III.--Translated by D. A. Slater.]
Let us come out of the murky night of the East, heavy with phantoms, into the bright daylight of the West, into the company of men whose thoughts made our thoughts, and whose ways made our ways--the men who first dared to look on nature with the clear eyes of the mind.
Browning's famous poem, "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came," is an allegory of the pilgrimage of man through the dark places of the earth, on a dismal path beset with demons, and strewn with the wreckage of generations of failures. In his ear tolled the knell of all the lost adventurers, his peers, all lost, lost within sight of the dark Tower itself--
The round squat turret, blind as the fool's heart, Built of brown stone, without a counterpart In the whole world.
lost in despair at an all-encircling mystery. Not so the Greek Childe Roland who set the slug-horn to his lips and blew a challenge. Neither Shakespeare nor Browning tells us what happened, and the old legend, Childe Roland, is the incarnation of the Greek spirit, the young, light-hearted master of the modern world, at whose trumpet blast the dark towers of ignorance, superstition and deceit have vanished into thin air, as the baseless fabric of a dream. Not that the jeering phantoms have flown! They still beset, in varied form, the path of each generation; but the Achaian Childe Roland gave to man self-confidence, and taught him the lesson that nature's mysteries, to be solved, must be challenged. On a portal of one of the temples of Isis in Egypt was carved: "I am whatever hath been, is, or ever will be, and my veil no man has yet lifted."
The veil of nature the Greek lifted and herein lies his value to us. What of this Genius? How did it arise among the peoples of the AEgean Sea? Those who wish to know the rock whence science was hewn may read the story told in
Early Japanese medicine has not much to distinguish it from the Chinese. At first purely theurgic, the practice was later characterized by acupuncture and a refined study of the pulse. It has an extensive literature, largely based upon the Chinese, and extending as far back as the beginning of the Christian era. European medicine was introduced by the Portuguese and the Dutch, whose "factory" or "company" physicians were not without influence upon practice. An extraordinary stimulus was given to the belief in European medicine by a dissection made by Mayeno in 1771 demonstrating the position of the organs as shown in the European anatomical tables, and proving the Chinese figures to be incorrect. The next day a translation into Japanese of the anatomical work of Kulmus was begun, and from its appearance in 1773 may be dated the commencement of reforms in medicine. In 1793, the work of de Gorter on internal medicine was translated, and it is interesting to know that before the so-called "opening of Japan" many European works on medicine had been published. In 1857, a Dutch medical school was started in Yedo. Since the political upheaval in 1868, Japan has made rapid progress in scientific medicine, and its institutions and teachers are now among the best known in the world.[28]
[28] See Y. Fujikawa, Geschichte der Medizin in Japan, Tokyo, 1911.
CHAPTER II
GREEK MEDICINE
OGRAIAE gentis decus! let us sing with Lucretius, one of the great interpreters of Greek thought. How grand and how true is his paean!
Out of the night, out of the blinding night Thy beacon flashes;--hail, beloved light Of Greece and Grecian; hail, for in the mirk Thou cost reveal each valley and each height.
Thou art my leader, and the footprints shine, Wherein I plant my own....
* * * * *
The world was shine to read, and having read, Before thy children's eyes thou didst outspread The fruitful page of knowledge, all the wealth Of wisdom, all her plenty for their bread.
[Bk. III.--Translated by D. A. Slater.]
Let us come out of the murky night of the East, heavy with phantoms, into the bright daylight of the West, into the company of men whose thoughts made our thoughts, and whose ways made our ways--the men who first dared to look on nature with the clear eyes of the mind.
Browning's famous poem, "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came," is an allegory of the pilgrimage of man through the dark places of the earth, on a dismal path beset with demons, and strewn with the wreckage of generations of failures. In his ear tolled the knell of all the lost adventurers, his peers, all lost, lost within sight of the dark Tower itself--
The round squat turret, blind as the fool's heart, Built of brown stone, without a counterpart In the whole world.
lost in despair at an all-encircling mystery. Not so the Greek Childe Roland who set the slug-horn to his lips and blew a challenge. Neither Shakespeare nor Browning tells us what happened, and the old legend, Childe Roland, is the incarnation of the Greek spirit, the young, light-hearted master of the modern world, at whose trumpet blast the dark towers of ignorance, superstition and deceit have vanished into thin air, as the baseless fabric of a dream. Not that the jeering phantoms have flown! They still beset, in varied form, the path of each generation; but the Achaian Childe Roland gave to man self-confidence, and taught him the lesson that nature's mysteries, to be solved, must be challenged. On a portal of one of the temples of Isis in Egypt was carved: "I am whatever hath been, is, or ever will be, and my veil no man has yet lifted."
The veil of nature the Greek lifted and herein lies his value to us. What of this Genius? How did it arise among the peoples of the AEgean Sea? Those who wish to know the rock whence science was hewn may read the story told in