of status strictus was made, they gave a relaxing medicine. The terms "laxatives" and "astringents," which are still applied to many drugs, were originated by the Methodists. Bloodletting, for example, was one of the remedies which they used for producing relaxation, and an astringent was employed when a contrary effect was desired. In the list of relaxing remedial agents (aside from bloodletting) were placed the following: warm baths, poultices, inunctions with warm oil, vapor baths, fasting and a restricted diet, diuretics (very carefully watched and employed only in exceptional cases), emetics, diaphoretics and laxatives. The following agents, on the other hand, were classed as contracting, astringent and tonic remedies: washing with cold water, cold baths, the application of cloths dipped in cold water, living in cold air, strengthening diet, wine, vinegar, alum, narcotics, etc. Themison, it should be added, is the first one among the ancient writers to mention the use of leeches as a means of extracting blood. It does not follow from this, however, that he was the discoverer of this method of local bloodletting; for it is highly probable that this procedure had been in common use for many years previous to his time.
Themison, as I have before stated, was an old man when he laid the foundations for Methodism, and it is not probable that it attained much importance as a sect until several years after his death. Then Thessalus, a native of Tralles, a flourishing commercial city of Asia Minor, and a man who had received his medical training in one of the Greek schools, materially added to the body of doctrines held by this sect, and at the same time rendered them more acceptable to physicians generally. He was of humble birth, the son of a wool carder, and his education had been rather neglected; but he nevertheless managed, by his own efforts and in no small degree by the unlimited self-confidence (Galen calls it impudence) which he possessed, to push his way to the top of the ladder.[1] He acquired a
- ↑ It seems almost unnecessary to call attention to the fact that the subject of these remarks is not to be confounded with Thessalus, the son of Hippocrates.
