and left her poor and decayed in all ways, drained by taxation, and oppressed by laws contrary to every principle of sound economy, downtrodden by the clergy, and burdened by a weak and vicious aristocracy.
Bibliography.—G. Capponi, Storia della republica di Firenze (Florence, 1875); F. T. Perrens, Histoire de Florence depuis la domination des Médicis jusqu’à la chute de la république (Paris, 1888, &c.); W. Roscoe, Life of Lorenzo de Medici (new ed., London, 1872) and Life of Leo X. (London, 1846); A. von Reumont, Geschichte Toscanas seit der Ende des florent. Freistaates (2 vols., Gotha, 1876) and Lorenzo de’ Medici (Leipzig, 1874); A. Fabroni, Laurentii Medicei magnifici vita (2 vols., Pisa, 1784) and Magni Cosimi Medicei vita (2 vols., Pisa, 1789); Buser, Lorenzo de’ Medici als italienischer Staatsmann (Leipzig, 1879) and Die Beziehungen der Mediceer zu Frankreich (Leipzig, 1879); E. Armstrong, Lorenzo de' Medici (London, 1896); P. Villari, La Storia di Girolamo Savonarola (Florence, 1887) and Machiavelli (Florence, 1878–1883, several subsequent editions); Galluzzi, Storia del granducato di Toscana sotto il governo di casa Medici (5 vols., Florence, 1787); E. Robiony, Gli ultimi Medici (Florence, 1905); E. L. S. Horsburgh, Lorenzo the Magnificent and Florence in her Golden Age (1908); and Janet Ross, Lives of the Medici from their Letters (1910). See also under Florence and Tuscany. (P. V.)
MEDICI, GIACOMO (1817–1882), Italian patriot and soldier,
was born at Milan in January 1817. Exiled in 1836, he fought
in Spain against the Carlists between 1836 and 1840, and in
1846 joined Garibaldi at Montevideo. Returning to Italy with
Garibaldi in 1848, he raised a company of volunteers to fight
against Austria, and commanded the volunteer vanguard in
Lombardy, proceeding thence to Rome, where he gained distinction
by defending the “Vascello,” a position near the Porta
San Pancrazio, against the French. During the siege of Rome
he himself was wounded. In the war of 1859 he commanded
a volunteer regiment, and was sent by Cavour into Tirol. In 1860
he tried in vain to dissuade Garibaldi from the Marsala expedition,
but, after his chief’s departure, he sailed for Sicily with the
second expedition, taking part in the whole campaign, during
which he forced Messina to capitulate after an eight days’ siege.
Joining the regular army, he was appointed military
commandant of Palermo, in which capacity he facilitated the abortive
campaign of Garibaldi in 1862. In 1866 he commanded the
division which invaded Tirol, but the effect of his victories
was neutralized by the conclusion of peace. Returning to
Palermo he did good work in restoring order in Sicily. He
became a senator in 1870, and marquis of the “Vascello” and
first aide-de-camp to the king in 1876. He died on the 9th of
March 1882.
MEDICINE.—The science of medicine, as we understand it, has for its province the treatment of disease. The word “medicine” (Lat. medicina: sc. ars, art of healing, from mederi, to heal) may be used very widely, to include Pathology (q.v.), the theory of the causation of disease, or, very narrowly, to mean only the drug or form of remedy prescribed by the physician—this being more properly the subject of Therapeutics (q.v.) and Pharmacology (q.v.). But it is necessary in practice, for historical comprehensiveness, to keep the wider meaning in view.
Disease (see Pathology) is the correlative of health, and the word is not capable of a more penetrating definition. From the time of Galen, however, it has been usual to speak of the life of the body either as proceeding in accordance with nature (κατὰ φύσιν, secundum naturam) or as overstepping the bounds of nature (παρὰ φύσιν, praeter naturam). Taking disease to be a deflexion from the line of health, the first requisite of medicine is an extensive and intimate acquaintance with the norm of the body. The structure and functions of the body form the subject of Anatomy (q.v.) and Physiology (q.v.).
The medical art (ars medendi) divides itself into departments and subdepartments. The most fundamental division is into internal and external medicine, or into medicine proper and surgery (q.v.). The treatment of wounds, injuries and deformities, with operative interference in general, is the special department of surgical practice (the corresponding parts of pathology, including inflammation, repair, and removable tumours, are sometimes grouped together as surgical pathology); and where the work of the profession is highly subdivided, surgery becomes the exclusive province of the surgeon, while internal medicine remains to the physician. A third great department of practice is formed by obstetric medicine or midwifery (see Obstetrics); and dentistry, or dental surgery, is given up to a distinct branch of the profession.
A state of war, actual or contingent, gives occasion to special developments of medical and surgical practice (military hygiene and military surgery). Wounds caused by projectiles, sabres, &c., are the special subject of naval and military surgery; while under the head of military hygiene we may include the general subject of ambulances, the sanitary arrangements of camps, and the various forms of epidemic camp sickness.
The administration of the civil and criminal law involves frequent relations with medicine, and the professional subjects most likely to arise in that connexion, together with a summary of causes célèbres, are formed into the department of Medical Jurisprudence.
In preserving the public health, the medical profession is again brought into direct relation with the state, through the public medical officers.
History of Medicine
Medicine as Portrayed in the Homeric Poems.—In the state of society pictured by Homer it is clear that medicine has already had a history. We find a distinct and organized profession; we find a system of treatment, especially in regard to injuries, which it must have been the work of long experience to frame; we meet with a nomenclature of parts of the body substantially the same (according to Daremberg) as that employed long afterwards in the writings of Hippocrates; in short, we find a science and an organization which, however imperfect as compared with those of later times, are yet very far from being in their beginning. The Homeric heroes themselves are represented as having considerable skill in surgery, and as able to attend to ordinary wounds and injuries, but there is also a professional class, represented by Machaon and Podalirius, the two sons of Asclepius, who are treated with great respect. It would appear, too, from the Aethiopis of Archinus (quoted by Welcker and Häser) that the duties of these two were not precisely the same. Machaon’s task was more especially to heal injuries, while Podalirius had received from his father the gift of “recognizing what was not visible to the eye, and tending what could not be healed.” In other words, a rough indication is seen of the separation of medicine and surgery. Asclepius appears in Homer as a Thessalian king, not as a god, though in later times divine honours were paid to him. There is no sign in the Homeric poems of the subordination of medicine to religion which is seen in ancient Egypt and India, nor are priests charged, as they were in those countries, with medical functions—all circumstances which throw grave doubts on the commonly received opinion that medicine derived its origin in all countries from religious observances.
Although the actual organization of medicine among the Homeric Greeks was thus quite distinct from religion, the worship of Asclepius (or Aesculapius) as the god of healing demands some notice. This cult spread very widely among the Greeks; it had great civil importance, and lasted even into Christian times; but there is no reason to attribute to it any special connexion with the development of the science or profession of medicine. Sick persons repaired, or were conveyed, to the temples of Asclepius in order to be healed, just as in modern times relief is sought by a devotional pilgrimage or from the waters of some sacred spring, and then as now the healing influence was sometimes sought by deputy. The sick person, or his representative, after ablution, prayer and sacrifice, was made to sleep on the hide of the sacrificed animal, or at the feet of the statue of the god, while sacred rites were performed. In his sleep (incubatio, ἐγκοίμησις) the appropriate remedy was indicated by a dream. Moral or dietetic remedies were more often prescribed than drugs. The record of the cure was inscribed on the columns or walls of the temple; and it has been thought that in this way was introduced the custom of “recording cases,” and that the physicians of the Hippocratic school thus learnt to accumulate clinical experience. But the priests of Asclepius were not physicians. Although the latter were often called Asclepiads, this was in the first place to indicate their real or supposed descent from Asclepius, and in the second place as a complimentary title. No medical writing of antiquity speaks of the worship of Asclepius in such a way as to
