Occult science in medicine

Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected. Variations in hyphenation and accents have been standardised but all other spelling and punctuation remains unchanged.

A variety astrological, alchemical and mystical symbols are used, as many are unavailable they have been replaced by {symbol}.

The anchor of footnote 22 on page 41 was missing. The present location was chosen by the transcriber.

The contents list shows five chapters, with chapter V being entitled The Medicine of the Future. In the body chapter IV is followed immediately by Chapter VI entitled The Physician of the Future. It is assumed that this is a missprint rather than a missing chapter and has been altered accordingly.

Italics are represented thus italic, and bold thus =bold=.

OCCULT SCIENCE

IN

MEDICINE

BY

FRANZ HARTMANN, M.D.

(All rights reserved.)

THEOSOPHICAL PUBLISHING SOCIETY 7, DUKE STREET, ADELPHI, LONDON, W.C. “THE PATH,” 144, Madison Avenue, New York, U.S.A. “THE THEOSOPHIST” OFFICE, Adyar, Madras, India.

1893.

DEDICATED

TO EVERY STUDENT OF MEDICINE

“That which is looked upon by one generation as the apex of human knowledge is often considered an absurdity by the next, and that which is regarded as a superstition in one century, may form the basis of science for the following one.” (Theophrastus Paracelsus.)

PREFACE.

“Nothing designates the character of people so well as that which they find ridiculous.”—Goethe.

It is a fact not entirely unknown to those who have studied nature, that there is a certain law of periodicity, according to which forms disappear and the truths which they contained reappear again, embodied in new forms. Seasons go and come, civilizations pass away and grow again, exhibiting the same characteristics possessed by the former, sciences are lost and rediscovered, and the science of medicine forms no exception to this general rule. Many valuable treasures of the past have been buried in forgetfulness; many ideas that shone like luminous stars in the sky of ancient medicine have disappeared during the revolution of thought, and begin to rise again on the mental horizon, where they are christened with new names and stared at in surprise as something supposed never to have existed before.

Ages of spirituality have preceded the past age of materiality, and other eras of higher spiritual thought are certain to follow. During these preceding ages many eminently valuable truths were known, which have been lost sight of in modern times, and although the popular science of the present, which deals with the external appearances of physical nature, is undoubtedly greater than that of former times, a study of the ancient books on medicine shows that the sages of former times knew more of the fundamental laws of nature than what is admitted to-day.

There is a great science and a little science; one that flies around the spires of the temple of wisdom, another that penetrates into the sanctuary; both are right in their places; but the one is superficial and popular, the other profound and mysterious; the one makes a great deal of clamour and show, the other is silent and not publicly known.