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ARTISTIC AND LITERARY CHARACTER OF THE MEDICINE-STAMP INSCRIPTIONS.

As in most other ancient Roman inscriptions, the lettering upon the oculist-stamps would be considered at the present day very defective in various respects. In many of the seals there is a gross miscalculation in regard to the space or length which the whole legend would occupy, rendering it necessary (despite even the most awkward elisions and omissions) to give, in some instances, only a truncated part of the inscriptions; and in other instances, to gain suitable space for the words, some of the letters are engraved of a smaller size than the others, as in the two o's in the CROCODES of the Tranent stone, or the CHLORON of the Kenchester stamp. Often two or more letters are braced together in a monogrammic form, as in the Lippitudo of the Cirencester stamp. These defects, however, are defects not by any means peculiar to the medicine-stamp inscriptions, but they are to be found in most old Roman inscriptions, whether numismatic, votive, monumental, or of other kinds.

But the engravers seem to have been more deficient in their knowledge of the literature, than even in their knowledge of the mechanical part of their art. In many of the inscriptions there is no affectation of any attempt towards punctuation; and frequently there is no kind of separation even between the terminal and initial letters of the consecutive words. The whole words of the legend are thus often run, as it were, into one. The inscriptions abound, also, as we have seen, in errors of orthography. These errors exist, not only in the long professional terms which are sometimes used, but even in short words, such as the engraving of AT for AD. In all these respects, however, it is still, let me repeat, to be recollected, that the medicine-stamp inscriptions do not differ from the numerous other Roman inscriptions which time has spared for us.

The slightest study of these medicine-stamp inscriptions cannot, I think, but suggest one reflection. The inscriptions, with their numerous elisions and omissions, are sometimes read with difficulty by any scholars who endeavour to interpret them at the present day. But the very fact of the common eye-medicines of the Roman colonial practitioners being inscribed with such inscriptions, tends to show us, that it was taken for granted, that the general body of the Roman colonists who did use these medicines in Britain, Gaul, and Germany, were capable of reading the inscriptions themselves, thus taking for granted, in matters of practice, an amount of educational knowledge among the Roman settlers and subjects in ancient times,

1 One of the greatest Latin scholars and teachers of modern times endeavoured, some years ago, to decypher the inscriptions on the Tranent stone (see stamp, No. I.), but ultimately came to the conclusion, that they were merely strings of letters without any sense or meaning whatever.

for which historians have hitherto given them little credit. And yet some of the later Roman classics are not without significant allusions as to the extent to which education, even in some of its higher branches, was carried in Gaul and Britain during the times of their Roman colonisation. Suetonius tells us that the emperor Caligula instituted at Leyden, contests among competitors with regard to their proficiency in Greek and Roman literature. Juvenal, dealing in figurative language, but in such figurative language as evidently had its foundation more or less in actual report and actual fact, speaks (Satire xv., v., iii.) of learned Gaul serving as a school of instruction to British lawyers; and even, he adds, Thule (Shetland?) talks of hiring a rhetorician—

Gallia causidicos docuit facunda Brittanos:

De conducendo loquitur jam Rhetore Thule.

Before passing from these engraved inscriptions themselves, let me make one more remark. The history of most important discoveries is marked by this fact, that these discoveries were often all but reached and accomplished long before they were actually and fully perfected. Here, with these oculist-stamps, we have the colonists of Rome printing in wax or other fictile matters, thirteen or fourteen centuries before the grand era of the discovery of type-printing. We cannot resist wondering now, that the whole art of printing should not have become divulged to them, seeing they did practise constantly, though partially, the art of printing with such stamps as we have described, and with their potter's stamps, signet-seals, &c. Some historians have stated that Guttenberg himself was led to the happy thought of printing with separate and moveable types, in consequence of looking at the inscriptions on the ring which he used to wear:

Annulus in digitis erat illi occasio prima

Palladium ut coelo sollicitaret opus.2

Nothing is more likely than that the great thought of separate types and printing different words, sentences, pages, and books, by their aid, might have been suggested to Guttenberg's original and strong mind in the way here averred. But still there was a vast and mighty distinction between taking impressions from the fixed inscriptions of stamps and seals, whether cut in relief or in intaglio, and printing from types that were moveable, and capable of infinite re

The unsuccessful competitors were, according to Suetonius, sometimes severely and unhandsomely punished for those vanquished in a purely literary contest. For they were occasionally obliged, he informs us, not only to laud their conquerors, but to lick out their own unhappy compositions with their tongues, or be beat with a ferula, or ducked in the Rhine.-See Suetonius's Life of Caligula, chap. 20.

2 See Wolf's Monumenta Typographica, p. 17. NEW SERIES.-NO. XVI. APRIL 1851.

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arrangements and combinations. The magnitude of Guttenberg's discovery consisted in appreciating the great difference between these two methods of making permanent literary impressions, and in reducing his theory to actual practice. The power of taking or printing impressions from signets, stamps, &c., had been known long even before the time of the Romans, and had been turned to comparatively little account. The art had been used for thousands of years; but during that long period it had exercised little or no influence upon the progress of civilisation. The higher art of type printing has only, on the contrary, been known for four centuries; but, in the course of that comparatively brief period, it has already completely modified and changed both the intellectual and the general history of the human race.

"Time conferreth a dignity upon the most trifling thing that resisteth his power." So, long ago remarked, one of the greatest of English physicians and English writers, the author of the "Religio Medici." The simple innate truth which the remark contains, is the main apology which I have to offer for protracting these Notices to such an unforeseen and unwarrantable length. In framing these Notices, the Tranent stone has served as a kind of historical fossil, around which, as a nucleus, I have attempted to reconstruct an imperfect amount of knowledge, relative to the state of one branch of medicine, as it was practised in Great Britain some fifteen or sixteen centuries ago. How very defective this attempt has been, none of my readers can be more sincerely aware of than I am. But still I do hope that some of them will agree with me in thinking, that it is not altogether uninteresting to recover, after a lapse of sixteen or seventeen hundred years, a glimpse (however slight that glimpse may be), of the state of medical practice in our own country in those distant times, when the Roman soldier and colonist ruled and dwelt among us, and when (as we know from their rediscovered altars), Apollo and Olympian Jove ("Jupiter Optimus Maximus ") were worshipped on the banks of the Forth.

Part Second.

REVIEWS.

Medicines: their Uses and Mode of Administration. By J. MOORE NELIGAN, M.D. Edin., &c. Third Edition. 8vo. Pp. 555. Dublin 1851.

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It is hardly necessary for us to express any general opinion as to the character of a work which has already received two commendatory notices in this Journal, and which possesses the unequivocal testimony in its favour of having reached a third edition. We shall, therefore, content ourselves by stating that in this third edition Dr Neligan continues to uphold the character of his book as a succinct work of reference useful both to the student and practitioner. The interests of the latter class of readers appear to have been more especially studied by the author in preparing this new edition, the increase in size of the volume being chiefly due to the introduction of more extended accounts of the therapeutical action of individual remedies.

In the less practical details, however, Dr Neligan has also brought his book up to the actual state of science, so that the pharmacien and student also will find that their interests have not been neglected. Of course, in this new edition, Dr Neligan has incorporated the changes rendered necessary by the appearance of a new edition of the Dublin Pharmacopoeia, and most people on this side of the Irish Channel will, we think, be inclined to award praise to him for having done so, or rather, had he omitted it, would have thought him most unpatriotically forgetful of "justice to Ireland." It does not appear, however, that such ideas prevail in Dublin, in the very College of Physicians of which Dr Neligan is a licentiate. There, it would seem, it is held that the publishing a new edition of a book on Materia Medica, and bringing it up to the present state of the science in Ireland, is not only not commendable, but is illegal. We had heard some strange whisperings wafted across the Irish Channel, about injunctions and proceedings in the Rolls Court, but we had nearly forgot them till they were recalled to our recollection by the following editorial article in the "Pharmaceutical Journal," which is so curious an account of the Irish way of advancing a knowledge of the Materia Medica, that we are induced to copy it bodily:

"THE COPYRIGHT OF A PHARMACOPOEIA.

"It is reported that King and Queen's College of Physicians of Ireland' has assigned its interest in the Dublin Pharmacopoeia to Dr Apjohn, who has announced his intention of proceeding by injunction against all those who shall copy

the work. This threat is levelled against the authors of Dispensatories or other works on Materia Medica, containing the formulæ of the three colleges, placed in juxtaposition for the convenience of the medical practitioner, the dispenser, and the student. We have heard the names of three authors who are already singled out for attack. We understand that in the case of one of these gentlemen (Dr Neligan), Dr Apjohn served him with a notice a day or two before the appearance of the third edition of his Medicines, their Uses and Mode of Application, warning him not to commit a breach of the law,' in introducing the alterations or additions of the new Dublin Pharmacopoeia.

"The question of copyright was formerly raised by the Royal College of Physicians of London, in reference to the London Pharmacopoeia, the exclusive publication of which had been entrusted to Mr Richard Philips, in lieu of a direct pecuniary consideration for his services in the compilation of the work.

"Dr Collier, in the year 1836, resisted this exclusive right, and contended that the employment of a compiler or editor, not a physician, however qualified he might be as a chemist, was a violation of the spirit and letter of the charter of the College, and he publicly avowed his determination to defend himself against any injunction which might be brought against him. The College, however, did not deem it expedient to institute proceedings, and Mr Philips contented himself with the advantage which priority of publication and the official appointment had given him. We think he acted wisely in retaining the proceeds thus realised, which amounted to a considerable sum, instead of wasting in law that which he had earned by physic.

"From that time to the present, we have heard nothing of the copyright of the London Pharmacopoeia. Several authors have re-published it with notes and commentaries, and it has been amalgamated in numerous works on Materia Medica and Pharmacy, with the Pharmacopoeias of the other two colleges. The principle of free trade in Pharmacopoeias has therefore been tacitly recognised by the London College of Physicians; and when we consider the class of works which would be affected by the restrictive policy-works of a comprehensive nature, and most important, if not necessary, to the student and the professionit cannot be doubted that a return to monopoly would be a very unpopular measure; and that the Dublin College would not rise in the public estimation by making such an attempt.

"We also doubt the legality of the claim. An individual is protected against piracy by the law of copyright, and the justice of this provision is unquestionable. A society, or public body, issuing publications of a proprietary character, may also in fairness enjoy the same protection. But a Royal College of Physicians, publishing a Pharmacopoeia, stands on different ground. The work is issued under the sanction of the Queen in Council for the benefit of the public. The compilation and publication of such a work is one of the duties comprised in the conditions expressed or understood, on which the Charter is held and the Royal sanction enjoyed; and we conceive that from the day that a Pharmacopoeia sees the light, it is public property. Such we presume to have been the opinion of the eminent counsel, before whom, it is reported, Dr Apjohn recently laid a case; for the opinion received was so unfavourable that no further proceedings have been taken by Dr Apjohn."

Not being learned in the law, we do not presume to offer any opinion as to the legality or illegality of Dr Neligan publishing a correct, instead of an incorrect, edition of his book. We should think this question more fitted for a court of common sense than a court of common law. But looking at it professionally, we must say that we have rarely heard of a more extraordinary proceeding on the part of a scientific man or a scientific body. It just amounts to this, that the Dublin Pharmacopoeia is to be held to be, by authorship and copyright, Dr Apjohn's, differing only from any

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