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JOHN STUART, LL.D.
JOHN STUART, LL.D.
VOL. I. EDINBURGH EDMONSTON AND DOUGLAS PUBLISHERS TO THE SOCIETY OF ANTIQUARIES MDCCCLXXII Printed by R. & R. Clark , Edinburgh . The late Sir James Simpson, in the midst of his anxious professional labours, was wont to seek for refreshment in the pursuit of subjects of a historical and archæological character, and to publish the results in the Transactions of different Societies and in scientific journals. Some of these papers are now scarce, and difficult of access; and a desire havin
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ITS PAST AND ITS FUTURE WORK.[8]
ITS PAST AND ITS FUTURE WORK.[8]
It has become a practice of late years in this Society for one of the Vice-Presidents to read an Annual Address on some topic or topics connected with Archæology. I appear here to-night more in compliance with this custom than with any hope of being able to state aught to you that is likely to prove either of adequate interest or of adequate importance for such an occasion. In making this admission, I am fully aware that the deficiency lies in myself, and not in my subject. For truly there are f
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ARCHÆOLOGICAL ESSAYS
ARCHÆOLOGICAL ESSAYS
BY THE LATE SIR JAMES Y. SIMPSON, BART. M.D., D.C.L. ONE OF HER MAJESTY'S PHYSICIANS FOR SCOTLAND, AND PROFESSOR OF MEDICINE AND MIDWIFERY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH EDITED BY JOHN STUART, LL.D. SECRETARY OF THE SOCIETY OF ANTIQUARIES OF SCOTLAND VOL. II. EDINBURGH EDMONSTON AND DOUGLAS PUBLISHERS TO THE SOCIETY OF ANTIQUARIES MDCCCLXXII Printed by R. & R. Clark, Edinburgh...
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PART I.
PART I.
Few subjects in pathology are more curious, and at the same time more obscure, than the changes which, in the course of ages, have taken place in the diseases incident either to the human race at large, or to particular divisions and communities of it. A great proportion of the maladies to which mankind are liable have, it is true, remained entirely unaltered in their character and consequences from the earliest periods of medical history down to the present day. Synocha, Gout, and Epilepsy, for
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PART II.
PART II.
THE NOSOLOGICAL NATURE OF THE DISEASE. In the preceding Part we have shown the extent to which leprosy prevailed during the middle ages in Great Britain; the number of hospitals that were instituted for the reception and seclusion of the infected; the government and regulations of these hospitals; and the dates of the commencement and disappearance of the disease in the kingdoms of England and Scotland. Before proceeding farther, we propose,—in this Second Part,—to pause and discuss the strictly
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PART III.
PART III.
THE ETIOLOGICAL HISTORY OF THE DISEASE. To conclude the present hurried sketch of the British leprosy of the middle ages, it now only remains for me to consider, in relation to the etiology or causation of the disease, the rank, age, sex, etc., of those that were attacked by it; the effects of its hereditary transmission; and the question of its propagation by contagion. In connection with this last subject, I shall attempt to bring together under one view the stringent regulations and usages th
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APPENDIX.
APPENDIX.
ADDITIONAL NOTES BY JOSEPH ROBERTSON, LL.D. Leper Hospital of Glasgow. Sir James Simpson’s Paper, Part I. p. 10.—“In 1350, in the reign of David II., the Lady of Lochow, daughter of Robert, Duke of Albany, erected a leper hospital at the Gorbals of Glasgow, near the old bridge.—(Gibson’s Hist. of Glasg. p. 52; Cleland’s Glasg. vol. i. p. 68.)” There is some mistake here. If the leper hospital was founded by the Lady of Lochow, daughter of the Duke of Albany, it must have been a hundred years aft
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NOTES ON SOME ANCIENT GREEK MEDICAL VASES FOR CONTAINING LYKION; AND ON THE MODERN USE OF THE SAME DRUG IN INDIA.
NOTES ON SOME ANCIENT GREEK MEDICAL VASES FOR CONTAINING LYKION; AND ON THE MODERN USE OF THE SAME DRUG IN INDIA.
The physicians and surgeons who, in ancient times, pursued their medical profession at Rome, and in different parts of the Roman empire, have left us various palpable relics of their craft. Thus, in the ruins of Pompeii and Herculaneum, numerous surgical instruments, pharmacy and drug-bottles, etc., have been found; and elaborate drawings and accounts of these have lately been published by Savenko, Vulpes, Renzi, and others. On the sites of the old Roman cities and colonies throughout Western Eu
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WAS THE ROMAN ARMY PROVIDED WITH MEDICAL OFFICERS?
WAS THE ROMAN ARMY PROVIDED WITH MEDICAL OFFICERS?
Little or nothing has hitherto been written by archæologists regarding the medical staff of the Roman army. Indeed, in none of our common works on Roman antiquities, as in those of Rosini, Kennet, Adam, Smith, Ramsay, etc., is there any allusion whatever made to the question, whether or not the Roman troops were furnished with medical officers. In one anonymous work on Roman antiquities, translated from the French, and published in London in 1750, the subject is referred to, the author stating t
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SECTION I.
SECTION I.
INTRODUCTORY REMARKS ON THE DISCOVERY, CHARACTERS, ETC., OF ROMAN MEDICINE STAMPS. About two hundred years ago there were found at Nymegen, in Holland, two small, greenish, flat, square-shaped stones or tablets, each engraved on its four lateral surfaces or edges with inscriptions, the letters of which were cut incuse and retrograde. In his work on the Roman and other antiquities of Nymegen, 424 Schmidt, one of the greatest archæologists of his day, described these two stones; but he confessedly
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SECTION II.
SECTION II.
STAMP NO. I.—FOUND AT TRANENT. The Scottish specimen of Roman medicine-stamp, to which I have adverted in the preceding page, was discovered some years ago at Tranent in East Lothian, not far distant from the old, and doubtlessly in former times extensive, Roman settlement or Municipium at Inveresk. 443 The stamp now belongs to the Museum of the Society of Scottish Antiquaries. It was presented to the Museum by the late Mr. Drummond Hay, formerly one of the Secretaries of the Society. From Mr. H
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SECTION III.
SECTION III.
STAMP NO. II.—CONTAINED IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM. This large stamp consists (Plate I., No. II. 460 ) of a flat quadrilateral stone, about an inch and a half broad, and engraved upon three of its sides. A portion of one corner of the stone is broken off. The probable deficiency which is thus produced in one of the inscriptions is supplied in this, and in some other similar instances in the sequel, by Italic letters. The three inscriptions read as follow:— The name of the oculist— Sextus Julius Sedat
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SECTION IV.
SECTION IV.
STAMP NO. III.—CONTAINED IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM. A second Roman medicine-stamp is (as I have already stated, p. 244) contained in the British Museum. The stone is small and broken, and only engraved on one side (see Plate I., No. III.) The inscription does not include, as usual, the name of the oculist who possessed and employed it. The lettering on this stamp is very distinct, except in one particular. It is doubtful whether the third last letter is intended for an “L,” or stands, as suggested b
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SECTION V.
SECTION V.
STAMP NO. IV.—FOUND AT COLCHESTER. The first Roman medicine-stamp discovered in Great Britain was described about a hundred and thirty years ago by Mr. Chishull in the learned “Dissertatio De Nummo ϹΚωΠΙ,” which he addressed to Haym, and which this last-mentioned author has published in the preface to his second volume of the Tesoro Brittanico . The stamp had been found some years previously at Colchester, a well-known and extensive Roman colonial station. Mr. Chishull believed it to have belong
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SECTION VI.
SECTION VI.
STAMP NO. V.—FOUND AT BATH. This stamp was found, in the year 1731, at Bath, a well-known Roman station. It was discovered in a cellar in the Abbey-yard. Shortly afterwards the stamp was exhibited to the Antiquarian Society of London by Mr. Cutler. Mr. Mitchell of Bristol, who possessed the stone about the middle of the last century, submitted it also for examination to the Royal Society of London. I have, through Mr. Norman of Bath, and other friends in England, at tempted to trace out the pres
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SECTION VII.
SECTION VII.
STAMP NO. VI.—FIRST DESCRIBED BY MR. DOUCE. Mr. Douce published in 1778 504 a notice of a square flattened Roman medicine-stamp, a quarter of an inch thick, and each side or edge measuring about two inches. Mr. Gough published in the Archæologia a sketch of this stamp, which is copied into Pl. II., No. VI. Some wax impressions were taken of the stone, but the stone itself was (it is stated in the same volume of the Gentleman’s Magazine , 1778, p. 510) “lost out of a pocket that had a hole in it,
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SECTION VIII.
SECTION VIII.
STAMP NO. VII.—CONTAINED IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM. In his paper in the Archæologia (vol. ix.), Mr. Gough published a sketch and account of a medicine-stamp, inscribed on three of its sides, and remarkable in one or two respects. The sketch which he has given of it is copied into Plate II., No. VII. The stamp itself is preserved in the British Museum. It is thicker, and more rounded at the edges, than the generality of these flat medicine-stones. After quoting the three inscriptions on its sides, Mr
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SECTION IX.
SECTION IX.
STAMP NO. VIII.—FOUND AT SOUTHWELL. An anonymous correspondent, C. D., sent to the Gentleman’s Magazine , in 1772, a sketch and notice of what, no doubt, is a Roman medicine-stamp, but both the sketch given of it and the description are excessively meagre. The correspondent dates his letter from Southwell, in Nottinghamshire. He says, “The inscribed stone was found lately by casting up the ground, in the neighbourhood of Littleborough in this county. The stone is oblong, about two inches long, a
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SECTION X.
SECTION X.
STAMP NO. IX.—FOUND AT WROXETER. This seal is remarkable both from its inscription, and from its round form. In this last respect it is, I believe, as yet unique,—no other specimen of a medicine-stamp of the same circular figure having, as far as I know, been hitherto described. The stone is about seven-eighths of an inch in diameter, and a quarter of an inch thick. Its form and inscription are seen in Plate III. No. IX., where the upper figure shows the stamp presenting the usual incuse and rev
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SECTION XI.
SECTION XI.
STAMP NO. X.—FOUND AT KENCHESTER. In the Journal of the British Archæological Association for 1849, Mr. Roach Smith has described a medicine-stamp found at Kenchester, in Herefordshire, and communicated to him by Mr. Johnson. I myself am indebted to the kindness of Mr. Johnson for both a model and drawings of this medicine-stamp, which is quadrilateral, and engraved on its four sides. It has, besides, the word SENIOR inscribed on one of its flat surfaces; and the four first letters of the same w
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SECTION XII.
SECTION XII.
STAMP NO. XI.—FOUND AT CIRENCESTER. In the beautiful work on the Roman remains of Cirencester, published last year by Professor Buckman and Mr. Newmarch, a Roman medicine-stamp is described. 567 It was found, in 1818, in the Leauses garden at Cirencester, deposited in a fictile urn. This stamp is of the form of a parallelogram, and is inscribed on two of its sides. Plate III., No. XI., shows the lettering of these two inscriptions, as well as the size of the sides, and the rude cross-markings th
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SECTION XIII.
SECTION XIII.
STAMP NO. XII.—FOUND IN IRELAND. A Roman medicine-stamp has lately turned up in these islands, in a locality in which its presence could be little expected—viz., in the county of Tipperary, in Ireland. It has been described by Mr. Albert Way in an interesting paper, published after the first part of the present essay appeared in the Monthly Journal of Medical Science . 569 Dr. Dowsley, of Clonmel, who now possesses this stone, has kindly furnished me with a wax impression of its inscription, and
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PART I.
PART I.
Medical men are, for the most part, agreed upon two points in relation to the history of syphilis—viz. that it is a species of disease which was unknown to the Greek, Roman, and Arabian physicians; and that it first began to prevail in Europe in the later years of the fifteenth century. The non-existence of syphilis in ancient times, and the circumstance of its original appearance in Europe about the date alluded to, are opinions strongly borne out by two sets of facts. For, first, no definite a
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PART II.
PART II.
The preceding notices, however brief and imperfect, relative to the first introduction and dissemination of syphilis in Scotland, are not simply matters calculated to gratify mere antiquarian curiosity. They appear to me to be capable of a much higher application, for they offer so many elements tending to illustrate the general history of the first appearance of syphilis in Europe. Besides, we may, I believe, be justified in drawing from the data they afford several not uninteresting nor unimpo
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