Leechdoms, wortcunning, and starcraft of early England. Being a ...

PREFACE.
Xxix
a fair practical sense, for tlie purpose they had in view,
pupils in old England receive! instruction in Greek,
and though learning decayed in times of distress, still
there existed some who wished to acquire this knowledge,
and some who were willing to give it. Some day
the monstrous compounds, and the absurd spellings of
our scientific nomenclature, pretending to be Greek, and
a dozen other weak points of the day on this subject,
will be regarded as proofs of barbarism.
It appears, therefore, that the leeches of the Angles
and Saxons had the means, by personal industry or by
the aid of others, of arriving at a competent knowledge
of the contents of the works of the Greek medical
writers. Here, in this volume, the results are visible.
They keep, for the most part, to the diagnosis and
the theory ; they go back in the prescriptions to the
easier remedies ; for whether in Galenos or others
three was a chapter on the svTrogio-Ta, the "parabilia,"
the resources of country practitioners, and of course,
even now, expensive medicines are not prescribed for
poor patients.
On the margin of the pages are some private marks, I'rivate marks,
such as may be observed on the facsimile page. The
pm'port of these marks is evident at fol. 56 a., chap.
Ixxv., which has something near a H with " totum " ;
again, at Ixxvi. with " totum," at fol. 5Q b., chap. Ixxx.,
the figure in the middle of the facsimile margin with
" uotum," fol. 57 a., top line of Ixxxiii. an I. nearly,
with " corum."
These were plainly memoranda secretly
indicating the author from whom the passages so
marked were taken, and " totum " means that the whole
article was taken from that source. The token nearly
an I. occurs at fol. 9 b., at the beginning of ii. ; again
at fol. 31 a., at the end of the folio ; again at I. Ixxxiii.
with " totum " and the Roman numeral xviii. twice ;
again at fol. 94 b., line 8, eye to milre feocum men ;
again at fol. 126 b., to chapter Ixvii. These references
VOL. IT.
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