From the period at which we are now arrived, till the commencement of the six teenth century, the history of medicine furnishes no particulars of interest. It was this epoch that gave birth to Paracel sus, who, having plunged deeply into the science of alchemy, if such a term as sci ence be not prostituted by an application to such a subject, proscribmgby one broad sweep all the reasonings of the ancient au thorn, endeavoured to explain all the facts and doctrines of medicine upon the prin ciples of the fashionable science of the day.
It was in 1628, that medicine acquired a knowledge of the momentous fact of the circulation of the blood, through the in defatigable labours of Dr. W. Harvey, who nevertheless had to struggle for years against a double torrent of nearly equal violence, before the jealousies and pre judices of the profession were completely mastered: some denying the fact altoge ther, and others contending that it was a point that had been ascertained for ages, and consequently that he was by no means entitled to the honour of the dis covery. The establishment of this impor tant fact, however, did not, even for a long period after its general admission, produce all the advantages which might have been expected from it For the phy siologists of the day, in reasoning upon the powers by which this phenomenon, as well as various others of the animal frame, was accomplished, unfortunately took hold of the mechanical philosophy as their guide; and every function was immediately attempted to be explained by the laws of projectiles, till the system at length destroyed itself by'the absurdity of thy extent to which it was pushed.
Boerbaave, at this period, led the way to an admirable reformation, both of prin ciple and practice ; and, by uniting the doctrines of Hippocrates with the philo sophy of the times, framed a theory of medicine upon the supposition of acrimo ny, lentor, and other changes in the cir culating fluids.
Contemporary with Boerhaave were Hoffman and Stahl ; both of whom devi ating from the theory of Boerbaave, the first laid the foundation of the spasmodic hypothesis, by resolving the origin of all diseases into an universal stony, or an uni vernalin the primary moving pow ers of ; and the second into the action of certain noxious agents, con trolled, however, by the internal exist ence of a rational soul that directs the en tire economy. The humeral pathology, nevertheless, continued to prevail, till, un der the auspices of Dr. Cullen, the theo ries of Hoffman and Stahl were united into one common and ingenious system ; a system which still holds its ground, though it has been since controverted by the sensorial hypothesis of Dr. Brown and Dr. Darwin.