No. 9 IN THE PHYSICIANS’ AND STUDENTS’ READY
REFERENCE SERIES.
Medical Symbolism
IN CONNECTION WITH
HISTORICAL STUDIES IN THE ARTS OF
HEALING AND HYGIENE.
ILLUSTRATED.
BY
THOMAS S. SOZINSKEY, M.D., Ph.D.,
AUTHOR OF “THE CULTURE OF BEAUTY,” “THE CARE AND CULTURE OF CHILDREN,” ETC.
Philadelphia and London:
F. A. DAVIS, PUBLISHER.
1891.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1891, by
EDWARD S. POWER, M.D.,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington, D. C., U. S. A.
Philadelphia:
The Medical Bulletin Printing House,
1231 Filbert Street.
DEDICATION.
The medical profession is often spoken of as non-progressive.As a practical member of it, the authoris of a different opinion. He knows full-well not onlythat, to many, age does not tend to make anythingmedical more worthy of attention, but that the old isapt to be wilfully overlooked. He discovered sometime ago that in the library of the College of Physiciansof Philadelphia—the centre, probably, of medicallearning in the United States—Adams’ edition of theworks of Hippocrates had rested with the leaves uncutfor over twenty years. New things are far too much invogue. If Bacon were alive to-day he might still say,with too much truth, as he said three hundred yearsago: “Let a man look into physicians’ prescripts andministrations and he will find them but inconstanciesand every-day devices, without any settled providenceor project” (“Advancement of Learning”). The ageis too much one of trial, of incoherency, to be eithereminently scientific or highly successful in practice.Beyond question, the medicine of the past is harmfullyneglected; for its literature few have a desirable taste,and fewer yet a sufficient knowledge. Deploring thisstate of things, the author would gladly assist in bringingabout a change. Hence, it affords him pleasure todedicate this essay to his professional brethren.
In this essay I have treated, as the title indicates,of medical symbolism in connection with studies, essentiallyhistorical, in the arts of healing and hygiene.Some parts of it bear only indirectly on the mainsubject; but they serve to render the whole more completeand interesting. Doubtless the reader will notbe inclined to find much fault with any of the apparentdigressions.
In the score of chapters into which the essay isdivided, attention is invited to numerous more or lessremarkable matters pertaining to medicine, most oft