--broken.

Because of this relationship between European and American medicine, an
acquaintance with seventeenth-century European medicine makes it
possible to give additional support to some of the information in the
early sources about medicine in colonial Virginia. In addition,
knowledge of the European background allows reasonable speculation as
to what happened in Virginia when the early sources are silent.

In discussing the background for American medicine it is not necessary
to make a firm distinction between England and the rest of Europe. As
today, science--in this case, medical science--frequently ignored
national boundaries. The same theories relative to the structure of the
body (anatomy), to the functions of the organs and parts of the body
(physiology), and to other branches of medical science were common to
England and Europe. Medical practice, like theory, varied but in detail
from nation to nation in Western Europe.

Seventeenth-century Europe relied heavily upon ancient authority in the
realm of medical theory. The European and colonial Virginia physician,
surgeon, and even barber (when functioning as a medical man)
consciously or unconsciously drew upon, or practiced according to,
theories originated or developed by Hippocrates (460-377 B.C.) and
Galen (131-201 A.D.). Hippocrates is remembered not only for his
emphasis upon ethical practices but also for his inquiring and
scientific spirit, and Galen as the founder of experimental physiology
and as the formulator of ingenious medical theories. Most often
Hippocrates was studied in Galen's commentaries.

No longer do scholars or physicians scoff at the ancient authorities
who dominated medical thinking for so many centuries. The
seventeenth-century physician striving to reduce the frightful inroads
that disease made into the colony at Jamestown may have been
handicapped by the erroneous doctrines of the gossamer-fine _a priori_
speculation of Galen, but the physicians to a large extent practiced
according to a science rather than to superstition and magic--because
the voluminous writings of Galen survived the centuries. Nor would the
European physician, or his Virginia counterpart, have demonstrated the
same appreciation for close observation if Hippocrates had not still
been an influence.

In the realm of pathology (the nature, causes, and manifestations of
disease) the humoral theory, with its many variations, was extremely
popular. The humora