MEDICINE, the bealingart, or science of therapeutics. In this extensive and ge neral sense, it includes the Materia Me dics, or substances employed in medi cine ; Pharmacy, or the mode com pounding them ; and Praxis, or the phre. nomena of diseases and practice of medi cine. In a more limited, and perhaps a more correct sense, however, the term is confined to the last division; and in this sense alone we shall understand it in the present instance, referring the reader to the article Msrxru. Manic, for the sub stances employed in the art of healing, and to the article PICA011ACT for the mode of compounding them, and their respec tive results in a state of combination.
ailITORY 01 111DICII12.
The commencement of the medical profession, whether regarded as an art or a science, or both, is lost in the darkness of the earliest ages ; the fabulous history of the ancients derives it immediately from their gods; and, even among the moderns, some writers of established re putation are of opinion that it may justly be considered as of divine origin ; but, without adopting any supposition of which no probable evidence can be given, we may conclude that mankind were natural ly led to it from casual observations on the diseases to which they found them selves subjected, and that therefore, in one sense at least, it is as ancient as the human race ;. but at what period it began to be practised as an art, by particular in. dividualsfollowing it professionally, is not known. The most ancient physicians we read of were those who embalmed the body of the patriarch Jacob by order of his son Joseph ; the sacred writer styles these physicians servants to Joseph, whence we may be assured that they were not priests, as the first physicians are generally supposed to have been ; for in that age we know the Egyptian priests were in such high favour, that they re tained their liberty, when, through a pub.
lic calamity, all the rest of the people were made slaves to the prince ; it is not probable, therefore, that, among the Egyptians, religion and medicine were originally conjoined; and if we suppose the Jews not to have invented the art, but to have received it from some other nation, it is as little probable that the priests of that nation were their physi. cians, as those of Egypt. That the Jew ish physicians were absolutely distinct from their priests is very certain. Yet, as the Jews resided for such a long time in Egypt, it is probable they would retain many of the Egyptian customs, from which it would be very difficult to free them : we read, however, that when king Asa was diseased in his feet, he sought not to the Lord, but to the physi cians; hence we may 'conclude, that among the Jews the medicinal art was looked upon as a mere human invention; and it was thought that the deity never cured diseases by making people Sc.
quainted with the virtues of herbs, but only by his miraculous power. That the same opinion prevailed among the hea thens, who were neighbours to the Jews, is also probable, from what we read of Ahaziah, king of Judah, who having sent messengers to inquire of Baalzebub, god of Ekron, concerning his disease, did not desire any remedy from him or his priests, but simply to know whether he should recover or not ; what seems most probable on this subject, therefore, is, that religion and medicine intermixed themselves only in consequence of that degeneracy into ignorance and supersti tion, which took place among all nations.
The Egyptians, we know, came at last to be sunk in the most ridiculous and ab surd superstition ; and then, indeed, it is not wonderful to find their priests com menci ng physicians, and mingling charms, incantations, &c. with their That this was the case, til 0,i 11 ig after the days of Joseph, we are %, certain, and indeed it seems as Thaw i 1,)r igno rance and barbarism to combine religion with physic, as it is for a civilized and en. lightened people to keep them separate; hence we see, that among all modern barbarians their priests or conjurers are their only physicians. We are so little acquainted with the state of physic among the Egyptians, that it is needless to say much concerning them. They attributed the invention of medicine, as they did also that of many other arts, to Thoth, the Hermes or Mercury of the Greeks ; he is said to have written many things in hiero glyphic characters upon certain pillars, in order to..perpetuate his knowledge, and render it useful to others. These were transcribed by Agathodemon, or the se cond Mercury, the father of Teut, who is said to have composed books of them that were kept in the most sacred places of the Egyptian temples. The existence of such a person, however, is very dubi ous, and many of the books ascribed to him were accounted forgeries as long ago as the days of Galen ; there is also great reason to suspect, that those books were written many ages after Hermes, and when physic had made considerable ad vances. Many of the hooks attributed to him are trifling and ridiculous ; and though sometimes lie is allowed to have all the honour of inventing the art, he is, on other occasions, obliged to share it with Osiris, Isis, and Apis, or Serapis. After all, the Egyptian physic appears to have been little else than a collection of absurd superstitions. Orig,en informs us, that they believed there were thirty-six Clemons or gods of the air, who divided the human body among them ; that they had names for all of them : and that by in yoking them, according to the part affect ed, the patient was cured.