gree, pepper was hot in
the fourth, endive was cold and dry in the second, and bitter almonds
were hot in the first and dry in the second degree. 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. This relation between
medicine and theology has existed from a very early period; from the
Egyptian priest to the Indian medicine-man, the alliance has been
maintained in one form or another. The partnership was very common among
our British ancestors. Mr. Ward, the Vicar of Stratford-on-Avon, himself
a notable example of the union of the two characters, writing about
1660, says,

"The Saxons had their blood-letters, but under the Normans physicke,
begunne in England; 300 years agoe itt was not a distinct profession by
itself, but practised by men in orders, witness Nicholas de Ternham,
the chief English physician and Bishop of Durham; Hugh of Evesham, a
physician and cardinal; Grysant, physician and pope; John Chambers, Dr.
of Physick, was the first Bishop of Peterborough; Paul Bush, a bachelor
of divinitie in Oxford,