When we say "cool as a cucumber," we
are talking Galenism. The seeds of that vegetable ranked as one of "the
four greater cold seeds" of this system.
Galenism prevailed mostly in the south of Europe and France. The readers
of Moliere will have no difficulty in recalling some of its favorite
modes of treatment, and the abundant mirth he extracted from them.
These Galenists were what we should call "herb-doctors" to-day. Their
insignificant infusions lost credit after a time; their absurdly
complicated mixtures excited contempt, and their nauseous prescriptions
provoked loathing and disgust. A simpler and bolder practice found
welcome in Germany, depending chiefly on mineral remedies, mercury,
antimony, sulphur, arsenic, and the use, sometimes the secret use, of
opium. Whatever we think of Paracelsus, the chief agent in the
introduction of these remedies, and whatever limits we may assign to the
use of these long-trusted mineral drugs, there can be no doubt that the
chemical school, as it was called, did a great deal towards the
expurgation of the old, overloaded, and repulsive pharmacopoeia. We
shall find evidence in the practice of our New-England physicians of the
first century, that they often employed chemical remedies, and that, by
the early part of the following century, their chief trust was in the few
simple, potent drugs of Paracelsus.
We have seen that many of the practitioners of medicine, during the first
century of New England, were clergymen.
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