The first names of any renown that occur subsequently to the death of Galen (about 193 A.D.) are those of Oribasius, Alexander of Tralles, .2Etius, and Paulus LEgineta, who. flourished between the 4th and 7th centuries. They were all zealous Galenists, and those of their writings which are extant are for the most part compilations from their• predecessors, and especially from their great master. With the death of Paulus the Greek school of medicine may be considered to have come to an end, for after his time no works of any inerit were written in this language. The Arabian school was- now beginning to rise into notice. The earliest Arabic writer on medicine of whom we have any certain account is Ahrum, who was contemporary with Paulus. The most cele brated physicians of this school were Rhazes (who flourished in the 9th c., and was the, first to describe the smal?-pox), Avicenna (q.v.), (who flourished in the 11th c., and whose Canon Aredichur may be regarded as a cycloptedia of all that was then known of medicine and the collateral sciences), Aulbucasis (whose works on the practice of sur ,g-ery were for several ages regarded as standard- authorities), Avenzoar, and Averrhoes• (q.v.), (who flourished in the 12th c., and WaS equally celebrated as a physician and a philosopher). The works of Hippocrates and Galen, which, together with thOse of' Aristotle, Plato, and Eudlid, were translated into Arabic in the 9th c., formed the basis of their medical knowledge; but the Arabian physicians did good service to medicine in introducing new articles from the east into the European materia mediea—as, for exam ple, rhubarb, cassia, senna, camphor—and in making known what may be termed the first elements of pharmaceutical chemistry, such as a knowledge of distillation, and of the means of obtaining various metallic oxides and salts.
TJpon the decline of the Saracenic universities. of Spain, which may date from the death of Averrhoes, the only medical knowledge which remained was to be found in Italy, where the school of Salerno acquired a. considerable celebrity, which it maintained for some time, till it was gradually eclipsed by the rising fame of other medical schools at Bologna—where Mondini publicly dissected two human bodies in 1315—Vienna, Paris, Padua, etc. Contemporary With Mondini lived Gilbert, the first English writer on medicine who acquired any repute; and the next century gave birth to Linaere, who, after studying at Oxford, spent a considerable time at Bologna, Florenee, Rome, Venice, and Padua, and subsequently became the founder of the London college of physicians. It WilS itl this•(the 15th) c. that the sect of chemical physicians arose, who maintained that all the phenomena of the living body may be explained by the same chemical laws as those which rule inorganic matter. Although the illustrations and proofs which they adduced were mompletely unsatisfactory, a distinguished physiological school of the present day is merging into a very similar view, with, however, far more cogent argu ments in its support. The chemists of that age, with Paracelsus at their head, did nothing to advance medicine, except to introduce into the materia medica several valu able metallic preparations.
This period seems to have been prolific in originating new diseases. It is in the 13th, 14tb. and 15th centuries that we hear most of leprosy and of the visitations of the plague in Europe. Until,tlic 15th .c. whooping-cough and scurvy were unknown, or, at all events, not accurately .described; and it Was towards the close of that century that syphilis was first recognized in Italy (from which country it rapidly extended over the whole of Europe), and that the sweating sickness (sud,or anglicafrus) made its first appear, ance in this country.
In the 16th c., the study of human anatomy may be said to have been first fairly established by the zeal and labors of Vesalius (q.v.); and in this and the succeeding cen tury we meet with the names of many physicians whose anatomical and physiological investigations materially teuded, either directly or indirectly, to advance the science of medicine. This was the epoch of Eustachius, Fallopius, Asellius, Harvey, Rudbeck, Bartholin, Glisson, Sylvius, Willis, Bellini, etc. Chemistry was now separat ing itself frorn alchemy, and was advancing into the state of a science, and a combina tion n-as now formed between its principles and those of physiology, which gave rise to a new sect of chemical physicians, quite distinct from the sect represented two centuries previously by Paracelsus. They considered that diseases were referrible to certain fer mentations which took place in the blood, and that certain humors were naturally acid, "and others naturally alkaline, and according as one or other of these predominated, so certain specific diseases were the result, which were to be removed by the exhibition of remedies of an opposite nature to that of the disease. They were soon succeeded by the mathematical physicians, or the Iatro-mathematical school, of which Borelli, Sauvages, Keill, .Mead, and Friend were among the most celebrated. In proportion as this sect gained ground that of the chemists declined, while the old Galenists were fast disap pearing. To these rival sects must be added that of the Vitalists, which originated with Van Ilelmont (q.v.), and which, with some modifications, was adopted by Stahl and Hoffmann. The greatest physician of the was, however, unquestionably Syden ham (q.v:), who, though inclining toward the chemical school, did not allow his specula tive opinions regarding the nature of disease to interfere with his treatment.
The most eminent teacher of medicine in the early part of the 18th c. was Boerhaave, who was elected to the chair of medicine at Leyden in 170D. Among the pupils of Boer haave must be especially mentioned Van Swieten, whose commentaries on the aphorising of his master contain a large and valuable collection of practical observations; and Haller (q.v.), the father of modern physiology; -a-bile amongst the most celebrated oppo nents of the Hallerian theory, that irritability and sensibility are specific properties of the muscular and nervous systems, must be mentioned Whytt and Porterfield, phy sicians of high reputation in Edinburgh, and the former professor of medicine in the university.