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ANNEX

THE

MEDICAL PROFESSION

IN

ANCIENT TIMES.

AN ANNIVERSARY DISCOURSE

DELIVERED BEFORE THE

NEW YORK ACADEMY OF MEDICINE,

NOVEMBER 7, 1855.

BY

JOHN WATSON, M. D.

SURGEON TO THE NEW YORK HOSPITAL.

[PUBLISHED BY ORDER OF THE ACADEMY.]

NEW YORK:

PRINTED FOR THE ACADEMY BY BAKER & GODWIN,

CORNER NASSAU AND SPRUCE STREETS.

1856.

TOR LIBR

NEW-YORK

1

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1856, by

JOHN WATSON, M. D.,

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Southern District of New York.

PREFACE.

In the preparation of the following discourse, I have endeavored to trace the origin and progress of medicine among the ancients in as succinct a manner as possible consistent with perspicuity; and at the same time to omit nothing of importance or interest in relation to the subject.

Though small, the work is the result of no inconsiderable research; much of which might have been spared, had I been disposed to rely simply on the historians. But as my investigations were undertaken for my own gratification, I have, as far as leisure and opportunity would permit, drawn the facts and opinions here embodied, from the earliest authorities.

But while resorting to the ancients, I am not indisposed to acknowledge the assistance I have received from modern and recent writers. Without the learned researches of Le Clerc, Freind, Schulze, and Sprengel, much that has since appeared on the history of medicine might never

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