THE INFIRMARY.

385 was introduced rather by way of Spain than through the Crusaders.

We may conclude with a brief outline of medical practice in nunneries. St. Hildegard and her receipt book have been noticed in the text, but we know more about the Convent of the Paraclete, the abbess of which was the famous Heloissa (1101-64). There was no hospital. Anxious as she is to conform in all things to the rule of St. Benedict, Heloissa points out that there are obvious objections to the indiscriminate reception of strangers in a convent of females. Even to admit persons of their own sex might afford the less spiritually-minded nuns dangerous opportunities for communicating with the outer world. But there was an infirmary, and the following were the duties of the infirmaria as defined by Abælard :—

"Let the infirmaria look after the sick, preserving them at once from sin and from want (tam a culpa quam ab indigentia). Whatever their infirmity requires, whether in food, baths, or anything else, is to be given them. Meat is never to be withheld, except on Fridays and special vigils and fasts. The more they think upon their death the better they will be kept from sin, and especially should they study silence, and be instant in prayer, as it is written: My son in thy sickness be not negligent; but pray unto the Lord and He will make thee whole' (Eccl. xxxviii. 9), There must always be some one on duty to give aid when requisite, and the place must be provided with all things needed in sickness. Drugs also must be got if necessary, according to the opportunities of the locality, and this will be done the more easily if the presiding sister is not without medical knowledge. It is she also who must look after those who are bled, and some sister should be skilled in venesection, that it may not be requisite for a man to come in for this purpose. Opportunity for religious exercises must be provided, so that patients may communicate at least on the Lord's Day, always with confession and penance so far as possible. The recommendation of St. James, the apostle, as to anointing the sick must be carefully observed, especially in desperate cases. Let two elderly monks, with a deacon to carry the holy oil, come in and celebrate this sacrament, the sisters being present, but with a screen interposed. And the infirmary should be so built that the monks may have access and regress

without seeing the sisters or being seen by them. The deaconess and cellaress shall visit the sick at least once daily, and carefully provide for their needs spiritual and bodily, that they may merit to hear that saying of the Lord: 'I was sick and ye visited me'. When a sick person comes into the agony, she who attends her shall instantly run into the convent and beat a board, and the whole convent at whatever hour of the day or night shall hasten to the dying, unless prevented by religious exercises. In this case, since nothing must be put before the service of God, let the deaconess, with those whom she shall choose, go, and let the rest follow as soon as possible. And as they go, let them at once begin the litany as far as the invocation of saints, and then sing psalms or hymns suitable to the occasion. But how salutary it is to go to the sick or dead is pointed out by the preacher (vi. 2, 3).”

This passage is condensed by Lacroix (Science and Literature of the Middle Ages) into the somewhat misleading assertion that "Abælard exhorted the nuns of the Paraclete convent to learn surgery for the benefit of the poor," whence English writers have drawn pictures of the nuns running about the neighbourhood like so many parish nurses or ladies bountiful. Considering the care taken to exclude even female visitors, and to protect the nuns from the gaze of elderly monks performing a sacramental office, it seems hardly likely that such freedom would have been permitted, far less encouraged.

NOTE.

The chronicles of Leo and Peter are printed in Pertz, Monumenta Germania Historica, vol vii. Peter's biographical work may be found in Muratori, vol vi. The letters of Popes Benedict, Urban, and Innocent are given in full by Tosti, Storia della Badia di Monte Cassino, Naples, 1842. The quotation from Abælard is from Migne's edition (in his Patrologia), p. 278, ep. viii.

APPENDIX IV.

THE GALENIC" SYSTEM OF MEDICINE.

THE Introduction to Medicine (Isagoge) of Honain ben Isaac, or Joannitius as he was called by the Christians, contains such an

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excellent account of the Galenic and mediæval medical theories, that it is worth while to give a complete translation of the Latin version, which formed one of the most popular text-books of the later middle ages :

"Medicine is divided into two parts, theoretic and practical, of which the former has three divisions, the consideration of the naturals, the non-naturals, and the contra-naturals, upon which the knowledge of health and disease depends.

I. ON THE NATURAL THINGS.

The "naturals" are seven in number; elements, qualities, humours, members, faculties, operations, and spirits. To which some add four more, age, colour, figure and sex.

Elements are four: fire, air, earth and water. Fire is hot and dry, air hot and moist, water cold and moist, earth cold and dry.

Qualities are nine; eight unequal, and one equal. Of the unequal four are simple, hot, cold, moist and dry, and four compound, hot and dry, hot and moist, cold and dry, cold and moist. The equal is when the body contains a moderate amount of each simple quality.

The humours are four; blood, phlegm, yellow and black bile. Blood is hot and moist, phlegm cold and moist, yellow bile hot and dry, black cold and dry.

There are five varieties of phlegm. Salt phlegm is hotter and dryer than normal, and is infected with yellow bile; sweet phlegm is hotter and moister and is tinged with blood; bitter phlegm is colder and dryer and is influenced by black bile. There is also a glassy phlegm due to cold and coagulation and found in old persons where the natural heat is deficient. Fifth is the cold and moist phlegm with no special savour. Yellow bile has also five varieties (1) Reddish, clear, pure in nature and hot in substance whose origin is from the liver; (2) Light yellow due to excess of watery and phlegmatic humours; (3) Like yolk of egg due to admixture of coagulated phlegm; (4) Greenish like green leeks, originating from the stomach rather than the liver; (5) Green like copperas, and irritant, due to excessive heating of the bile.

Black bile is of two kinds, (1) the normal excrement of the blood, which is genuinely cold and dry, (2) abnormal, due to overheating, and of pernicious quality.

Members have four varieties; for there are some which are principal or fundamental such as brain, heart, liver; and others subservient to these, e.g., nerves ministering to the brain, arteries to the heart, and veins to the liver. Thirdly, there are members which have special virtue due to their properties, as bone, membranes, muscles. A fourth variety have virtue of their own but depend also on the fundamental organs, e.g., stomach, kidneys, intestines, for they absorb and digest food of their own powers but are endowed with sense, life, and motion from the principal members.

Faculties are three, natural, spiritual, animal. The natural faculty ministers or is ministered to; the former generates, nourishes, digests, the latter gives rise to the appetites. The spiritual faculty is also of two kinds, that which operates and that which is operated upon. The former causes the dilation and contraction of the heart and arteries, the latter is affected to anger, domination, care, etc. Animal faculties are three, the first orders, compounds, and discerns, the second gives voluntary motion, the third sensation. From the first proceed imagination (in the forehead), cogitation (in the mid-brain) and memory (in the occiput). The sensory faculties include sight, hearing, taste, touch and smell.

Operations are simple or compound. The former include hunger, due to heat and dryness, digestion, due to heat and moisture, retention, to cold and dryness, expulsion, to cold and moisture. Compound are desires which are made up of appetites and sensations.

Spirits are three; natural, taking origin from the liver; vital, from the heart, and animal, from the brain. The first is diffused through the body by the veins, the second by the arteries, the third by the nerves. These are the seven natural things.

Ages are four, adolescence, manhood, advanced age and senility. Adolescence is hot and moist, marked by growth, and continues till the twenty-fifth or thirtieth year. Manhood is hot and dry, the strength being maintained without diminution till the fortieth year. Advanced age, cold and dry, in which the

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body begins to decrease without affection of the faculties, it persists till fifty-eight or sixty. To this succeeds senility, cold and moist, with excess of phlegm and deficient faculties, which ends with life.

Colours are of two kinds, due to internal or external causes. Internal causes act in two ways by equability of humours, or excess. The former gives red and white, the latter yellow, black, red and white, according as yellow bile, black bile, blood or phlegm respectively predominates. External causes are temperature, as cold among the Scotch (sicut ex rigore Scotis) and heat among the Ethiopians. There are also spiritual colours due to fear, anger and other mental affections. Colours of the hair are four, black, red, glaucus (?) and white. Black is due to abundant overheated bile or blood, red to the same less heated, glaucus to excess of black bile, white to deficiency of the innate heat, and is therefore found mostly in the old. Colours of the eye are four, black, whitish, varius (?) and glaucus (?) The tunics of the eye are seven, and its humours three. The first tunic is the retina, the second secundina, third sclerotic, fourth tela aranea, fifth uvea, sixth cornea, seventh conjunctiva. The humours are the vitreous, the crystalline, and the albugineous which is in front of the uvea (iris ?)

Figures or qualities of the body are five, fatness, thinness sinthesis (?) squalidity and equality. There are two kinds of fatness due to excess of flesh or of fat, the first is caused by over heat, the second by coldness of the humours. Leanness is due to heat and dryness, sinthesis to cold and dryness, squalidity to cold and moisture, equality to an equilibrium of humours and qualities. Sexes: The male differs from the female in being hotter and dryer.

II. THE SIX NON-NATURALS.

(i.) Changes of air are five, due to seasons, constellations, special winds, localities, soils. Seasons are four, spring hot and moist, summer hot and dry, autumn cold and dry, winter cold and moist. The nature of the air is also changed by the planets, for it becomes hotter when they approach the sun and vice versâ. Winds are four: south, hot and dry; west, cool and moist; north, cold and dry; east, hot and moist. Localities are four, height,