of 
THE AUTHOR. 
THE 
PROPHYLACTIC 
AND 
THERAPEUTIC RESOURCES 
OF 
MANKIND. 
A Paper read before the International Congress of 
Anthropology, held at Columbia College, 
New York, June 4-7, 1888. 
BY HENRY G. HANCHETT, M. D. 
Member N. Y. Academy of Anthropology, Author of "Modern Domestic 
Medicine," " Sexual Health," " Teaching as a Science," 
Etc., Etc. 
Reprinted from the 
NEW YORK MEDICAL TIMES, 
For July, 1888. THE 
PROPHYLACTIC 
AND 
THERAPEUTIC RESOURCES 
OF 
MANKIND. „ , 
A Paper read before the International Congress of 
Anthropology, held at Columbia College, 
New York, June 4-7, 1888. 
BY HENRY G. HANCHETT, M. D. 
Member N. Y. Academy of Anthropology, Author of "Modern Domestic 
Medicine," "Sexual Health," "Teaching as a Science," 
Etc., Etc. 
Reprinted from the 
NEW YORK MEDICAL TIMES, 
For July, 1888. THE 
PEOPHYLAOTIO AND THEEAPEUTIO EESODEOES 
OF MANKIND. 
UNFORTUNATELY in our study of anthro- 
pology we cannot overlook the sick man, 
and it is the purpose of the present paper to in- 
quire into the preventive and remedial resources 
upon which men have drawn, with a view spe- 
cially of discovering what influence, if any, in- 
crease in intelligence and culture has had in 
directing the mind toward aids of real and per- 
manent value in combatting disease. 
The first physicians were the priests, because 
the untutored mind, ignorant of the true causes 
of disease, naturally counted them among those 
unknown things with which it is the office of the 
priest to deal. Superstitious rites of some kind 
were the earliest remedial resources, and very 
probably the highest antiquity may be assigned 
to incantations. 
It is at least unlikely that swallowing poisons 
was an early method of treating disease, because 
the accidental eating of poisonous herbs and ber- 
ries might easily have caused the first form of 
sickness, and the primitive man could hardly 
have argued that, having swallowed a poiSon, 
the best thing to do would be to swallow more 
poison-such reasoning would imply a long series 
of scientific observations, and logical powers of a. 
high order. He would be more likely to conclude 
tfiat his cramps, spasms and evacuations were 4 
evidences of the anger of some deity, and that the 
thing for him to do was to see the priest and get 
him to placate the offended spirit. 
But in very early days polytheism prevailed, 
and since now recovery and now death would cer- 
tainly follow the incantations of any priest, we 
can readily imagine that a specially fortunate 
medicine-man would soon gain for his deity credit 
for an unusual number of cures. This would at- 
tract multitudes of the sick to the ministrations 
of this priest, but his incantations being followed 
by death in many cases, he or his deity might 
soon come to be credited with cures of a certain 
class of troubles, while other classes would seem 
to meet more successful treatment from some 
other god. In some such way we may without 
violence conceive the first step in medical prog- 
ress, namely the establishment of specialization, 
to have been taken. Certain it is that among 
the Egyptians at a very early day there were 
physicians for all diseases; each of whom limited 
himself to his own specialty. The idea was gen- 
erally accepted that there was a deity peculiarly 
in charge of each separate portion of the body. 
Our almanacs preserve evidence of this super- 
stition in the representation of a human figure 
presided over by the zodiacal signs, each one of 
which was conceived to be the home of a god who 
cared specially for one region of the body. In 
the Roman church, too, not so very long ago, a 
list of saints was accepted, to each of whom 
prayers were to be offered for recovery from a 
particular ailment. 
The next medical resource of the race was 
probably the talisman, and grew out of the early 5 
astronomical observations. The zodiacal signs, 
the homes of the gods, being out of sight for a 
part of the year, men attempted to design some- 
thing that should represent them during their 
absence. These representations or substitutes 
were the first talismans, and were found to be 
quite as efficient remedies as the constellations 
themselves. 
The step from the talisman to the amulet was 
short, as the latter was simply a talisman which 
to be of value must be carried about the person. 
But the history of amulets shows some real ad- 
vances in medicine resulting from the fact that 
among the vast number of substances that were 
worn about the person as charms, some were 
composed of drugs which could gain access to the 
system by absorption and inhalation, and thus 
exert a true pharmacological influence. Cam- 
phor, arsenic, mercury and some other drugs 
were certainly employed as amulets at a compar- 
atively recent period. Even early amulets, al- 
though composed mostly of inert substances, had 
yet so much of value as resulted from their 
power of calming and assuring the credulous 
mind. No intelligent man to-day doubts the 
power of the mind to so influence the body as to 
protect it from, and even to cure it of, many 
forms of disease, and therefore whatever puts the 
mind in a position to use that power is a cure or 
preventive of such disease. Not only did talis- 
man, amulet and charm accomplish just this 
for the credulous-every medical resource that 
man has used in any age down to the present has 
acted in this manner in a larger or smaller number 
of the cases in which it has been tried. And this is 6 
exactly one of the facts that has made the study of 
pharmaco-dynamics so difficult. It can never be 
exactly known just how much of the apparent 
effect of any medicine is due to the influence of 
the mind of the person taking it. Confidence and 
hope are the best doctors, and by their aid many 
a quack has been enabled to pose as a benefactor 
of his race. 
The great step in advance involved in the 
swallowing of medicines may possibly have re- 
sulted from the use of amulets. Whether with 
the idea of securing efficient contact with the 
person or not, it is certain that some substances 
advised as amulets were held to be specially valu- 
able when ground to powder and swallowed. 
Lapis lazuli, garnet, coral and gold are among 
the substances so employed. 
Although they are still in use even by intelli- 
gent persons to-day, it may be truly said that the 
death blow was given to reliance upon super- 
stitious cures when that greatest physician of 
antiquity, Hippocrates, showed that diseases de- 
pend upon physical causes which may be dis- 
covered, understood and in many cases removed 
or conquered. He taught that disease was due 
to an improper balance of the four humors of the 
body, and was caused by seasons, climate, envi- 
ronment, diet, exercise, etc. In thus directing 
men's minds to a natural cause of disease, he gave 
the great impulse to the study of rational thera- 
peutics, He himself introduced or at least used 
the dietetic treatmeht which has been a favorite 
medical resource ever since. We have sought to 
strengthen the liver by eating liver, and the 
blood by drinking blood. We have fancied we 7 
could concentrate the virtues of a whole market 
in a few cans of patent food, and save sick nature 
a deal of digestive trouble while giving her better 
results, by artificially prepared peptones and 
pancreatic emulsions. We have analized the 
tissues and devoured phosphorous to make brains 
and iron to make strength. We have tried 
Schiissler's biochemical system, and provided the 
salt whose deficiency or bad behavior in some 
tissue has originated the disease in hand, trusting 
nature to assign our contribution to the organ in 
which it could do the most good. 
Then some genius discovered that it devolves 
upon the physician to maintain the four humors 
of the body in proper equilibrium. From this 
idea arose the theory of plethora and the plan of 
treatment by bleeding, which had such an endur- 
ing hold upon the medical mind, but has now 
sunk to an obscurity which further investigation 
may determine to be not wholly deserved. Then 
followed depurition; and purging, vomiting and 
sweating are the items thought necessary for the 
recovery of the sick. That such results would 
follow the ingestion of certain substances must 
have been learned from the accidental swallowing 
of poisonous fruits and herbs, another possible 
way in which the plan of taking medicines into the 
stomach may have been introduced. One of the 
objects of the alchymists was to discover a sub- 
stance which would cure every disease, and try- 
ing all the products of creation, they must have 
become acquainted with many emetics and 
cathartics even if they observed no finer effects 
of the drugs they sent into inoffensive stomachs 
in far from infinitesimal doses. Certain it is that 8 
at one time or another almost every substance to 
be found in the animal, vegetable or mineral 
kingdom, from the granite rock and upheaved 
lava to the parasites, moulds, pathological and 
putrefactive products, and animal excrements, has 
been swallowed as a medicine with results pro- 
nounced to be most gratifying. 
But the alchymists could hardly have investi- 
gated the many substances they are known to 
have tested, without noticing at least that differ- 
ent drugs produce different effects. Armed with this 
knowledge, the various medical theorists, as they 
studied anatomy and tried to develop therapeutic 
systems from its revelations, had some basis for 
their arrangement of medicines into classes to 
suit their changing theories. Thus when health 
was thought to depend upon the " state of the 
juices" of the body, medicines were classified as 
solvents, expectorants, alteratives and the like. 
When all diseases are grouped as either sthenic 
or asthenic, medicines must be either stimulant 
or depressant-the former class including musk, 
volatile alkali, ether, opium, animal food, spices, 
moderate warmth, wine and exercise; the latter, 
blood-letting, purgatives, emetics, vegetable diet, 
sudorifics, cold, rest and abstenance from food. 
When disease is supposed to depend upon irrita- 
bility of nerves and muscles, medicines rank as 
tonic, astringent, antispasmodic, emollient and 
the like. 
But the progress in the study of medical re- 
sources which these classifications imply is incon- 
siderable in comparison with the strides that 
have been made since the general adoption of 
Haller's suggestion, that the action of drugs 9 
ought to be studied by careful and systematic 
physiological experiment. This idea, first prac- 
tically and extensively worked out by Hahnemann, 
is now regarded by the whole profession as the 
only sound basis of scientific pharmacology. 
But man in his fight with disease has resorted 
to many prophylactics and remedies not calcu- 
lated for introduction into the stomach. Hippo- 
crates himself taught that climate was a cause of 
disease, and hence that change of climate was a 
means of cure. This idea has never lost its hold 
upon the medical profession, and in its develop- 
ment we have sought to analyze climatic elements 
and apply such of them as the received theory of 
disease seemed to demand, to any given case at 
the patient's home. Thus we have oxygen and 
other gases in various combinations, condensed 
into receivers and dispensed for home inhalation. 
Small inhaling tubes are filled with salts and sold 
as " Italian air," not only for the treatment of 
bronchial and laryngeal affections, but also to 
enable singers to acquire such voices as have 
made Italy famous in the annals of music. Pa- 
tients have been advised to frequent stables and 
gashouses for the purpose of inhaling the air; 
pine-needles and other fragrant substances have 
been made into invalids' pillows. It has been as- 
serted quite recently regarding certain districts 
of London where factories have introduced smoke- 
consuming appliances, that throat and lung dis- 
eases have noticeably increased. Treatment by 
inhalation has developed the idea of forcing into 
the intestines gaseous enemata. To the varia- 
tions in atmospheric pressure noticed in different 
localities medicinal powers have been ascribed, 10 
and they have been imitated and modified in 
pneumatic cabinets. 
Light and heat are climatic elements that have 
been used to restore health, and the plain sun- 
bath has been modified by the intervention of 
blue glass, while to various other colors, espe- 
cially red and yellow, therapeutic powers have 
been ascribed. The Turkish bath has brought 
the torrid zone within easy access, while the Rus- 
sian bath offers us a damp climate without chill- 
ing effects. Heat and moisture in various com- 
binations, and applied by numerous methods, 
constitute the resources of the hydropathist, who 
usually calls to his aid that great clarifier of the 
atmosphere, electricity, now more and more 
relied upon to develop new life in bodies wrasted 
by disease, worry and overwork. 
Mother Earth herself has been utilized as a 
medicine, not merely in the form of mud baths, 
as applied in some hydropathic institutions, but 
in propria persona by the plan of burying a 
patient up to the neck in fresh earth to cure the 
effects of lightning stroke. 
Man may be included among the therapeutic 
resources of our race, for the sick have called 
upon him not merely for his sympathy, knowl- 
edge and advice, but for something believed to be 
inherent in his body. The royal touch was an 
important medicine for centuries; mesmerism, 
under various names, has puzzled the profession 
and induced results satisfactory to many patients 
during generations, while old King David and 
Baron Rothschild are probably not the only ones 
who have sought new life and vigor from contact 
with the body of a young virgin. 11 
The mind of the sick man ranks high both as a 
prophylactic and curative agent, never more es- 
teemed than at the present day, when there are 
not wanting those who assert its power to heal 
the body of any and every ill to which flesh is 
heir. To it appeal is made when study, travel or 
entertaining diversions are prescribed, and also 
when faith, prayer, the so-called " Christian 
science," and spiritualism are the nominal cura- 
tive agents. Art and especially music have min- 
istered to the mind diseased, and aided it to effect 
a mind-cure of the sick body ever since the time 
when David was appointed court physician to 
King Saul. 
Imagination has been a favorite remedy for 
many years, having been extensively used by 
various methods both intentionally and uninten- 
tionally. Bread pills have achieved results 
equalled by few other prescriptions, but their 
record seems likely soon to be matched by the 
wonderful powers discovered to reside in the high 
dilutions of ultra homoeopathists. That the use 
of the latter has often occasioned an unintentional 
appeal to the therapeutics of imagination pure 
and simple, is shown by the results of very recent 
investigations in Germany, which proved that a 
large number of pharmacists in that country are 
in the habit of filling homoeopathic prescriptions 
indiscriminately with blank sugar and alcohol. 
The testing of body temperature by placing a 
thermometer under the tongue proved in one case 
to be an excellent and curative remedy for paral- 
ysis, and it is well known that the cure of rheu- 
matism by metallic tractors was quite as suc- 
cessfully accomplished when the tractors were 12 
made of wood, but only so long as the patients 
thought them to be of metal. A large fee 
through its influence on the imagination is often 
a valuable consideration to the patient as well as 
to the physician. " Sympathetic cures " of 
wounds hardly fall under this head, for in that 
method-which consisted in the application of a 
salve or ointment to the weapon by which the 
wound had been inflicted-the physician required 
the injured part to be thoroughly cleansed and 
then left entirely at rest. In this way nature was 
allowed an opportunity to heal the.wound with- 
out interference, and nature was a vastly better 
operator than the meddlesome surgeons who pre- 
ceded the sympathetic curers; nor did she grudge 
to the latter the credit of which they robbed her. 
Although the expedients of surgery and ob- 
stetrics cannot be examined within the limits of 
the present paper, surgical operations must be 
allowed a place among therapeutic resources, 
since removing obstructions, improving natural 
or providing artificial outlets from the body are 
methods that have often been tried for the cure 
of diseases, and mechanical appliances are among 
the most reliable and satisfactory of remedies. 
Even spectacles, by correcting deformities of the 
eye and thus preventing nervous strain, are held 
to have proved curative in headache and nervous 
dyspepsia ; and respirators, supporters, protect- 
ors and devices of clothing must be ranked 
among prophylactic if not among therapeutic 
resources. 
Exercise, athletics, passive movements, mas- 
sage, jolting, many sorts of deprivations, rest 
more or less absolute, matrimony and vice are 13 
each entitled to a place in our list of remedies, but 
perhaps the strangest medical resource of all is 
disease itself. Without counting those cases in 
which pre-existing maladies have been cured by- 
diseases accidentally contracted, as small-pox, 
which has cured both typhoid fever and catarrhal 
phthisis, there are a number of diseases which 
have been advised as medicines. Hemorrhoids 
and varicose veins have been induced for the pur- 
pose of curing insanity. Erysipelas has been 
engrafted in the hope that it would eradicate 
cancer; eczema has been used as a remedy for 
asthma, and strangest of all, since it is selected 
solely as a prophylactic, throughout the civilized 
world to-day the most intelligent persons are to 
be found deliberately mingling with their own 
presumably healthy blood a vile pathological 
product, the result of a loathsome zymotic dis- 
ease in a beast or fellow-man, and doing it with 
the avowed intention of making themselves sick 
with a malady abundantly capable of destroying 
life and sure to depress the vital energies of the 
body perhaps permanently. They are not only 
doing this, they have passed laws in some of the 
freest States and are endeavoring to extend such 
enactments to others, compelling their fellows 
nolens volens to submit to this same infection, 
and all this in spite of the fact that proof after 
proof has been brought forward demonstrating 
incontrovertibly that this vaccination, as it is 
called, is utterly without avail in protecting 
either the individual or the community from the 
dreaded variola. 
It would seem as if disease was the ultimate 
medical resource, but man has gone a step 14 
further, and appealed, if not to death, at least to 
apparent death as a cure. As a remedy for 
hydrophobia-not in the stage of fully developed 
convulsions, which are conceded to be incurable, 
but while the disease is latent in a person known 
to have been bitten by a rabid animal-it has 
been advised to submerge the patient in water 
until he has ceased to struggle and is actually 
drowned, after which he is to be resuscitated by 
artificial respiration. This is probably the ulti- 
mate limit beyond which medical investigation is 
not likely to be fruitful of results. 
In studying man's efforts to find an antidote to 
disease the singular things are that his hope and 
credulity have been so perennial; that his faith 
in drugs has led him repeatedly to poison himself 
to death, while blindly charging the tragedy upon 
his innocent disease-a thing which has been done 
to such a fearful extent that many eminent phy- 
sicians have said that medicines have done more 
harm than good to the race ; that he has so often 
rediscovered an old and abandoned expedient and 
trusted to it as something new and promising; 
and that he has so uniformly insisted upon finding 
some one resource or class of resources that 
should meet all requirements. Not content to let 
one case be cured by purgatives, another by hom- 
oeopathy, another by the water-cure, and another 
by " Christian science," he has insisted upon 
treating all cases, all diseases and all individuals 
by the method in favor at the time, and in de- 
nouncing all other methods as valueless or dam- 
aging. But perhaps the most singular thing is 
the persistence with which he has kept his eyes 
fixed on externals, and preferably on remedies 15 
rather than prophylactics, and has refused to 
avail himself of the power within, which a loving 
Heavenly Father has provided to withstand and 
conquer disease. The man who asks a phy- 
sician's advice looks aghast at the idea of paying 
a fee if no medicine is ordered. He is willing to 
take anything prescribed by the doctor, the drug- 
gist, the astrologer, the priest or the old wife, 
but not to trust the vis medicatrix naturce 
divinely implanted within him. 
Self indulgence has ever been the prime obstacle 
in the path of sanitary science. To-day, when 
that science has reached its furthest advance, 
popular interest in it is concentrated upon its 
efforts to destroy bacteria, to shut out sewer gas, 
to purify drinking water and to quarantine con- 
tagion, and hears languidly or not at all its 
indictment of tobacco, gluttony, drunkenness, 
luxury and laziness. Most men prefer to see the 
lancet transfer reeking filth-dignified by its 
Latin name of vaccine virus-to their own and 
their children's veins, rather than deny them- 
selves the beer, pork, pudding et id genus omne 
which make small-pox possible. And most 
women are better pleased to dose themselves, and 
allow gynaecology to rank as the most profitable 
medical specialty, than to eat, dress, breathe, ex- 
ercise, sleep and rear children on nature's plan. 
So long as these things are true, so long we may 
expect to see additions made to the pharmacopeia; 
but when the last resource is exhausted, the last 
remedy found, it will still be true, as ever before, 
that the best antidote to disease of whatever 
name is to "fear God and keep His command- 
ments." 
88 W®»t 9th St., New York.