mechanical force pump and the blood
was analogous to other fluids in motion. How many physicians,
practicing in the same intellectual environment as this Englishman,
must have carried the mechanical analogy to the extent of thinking of
the teeth as scissors, the lungs as bellows, the stomach as a flask,
and the viscera as a sieve?

The iatrochemical school existed alongside the iatrophysical. Whereas
the iatrophysical thought primarily in terms of matter, forces, and
motions, the iatrochemical thought chemical relationships were
fundamental. One of the founders of this school, the Dutch scientist
Sylvius (1614-72), explained diseases chemically (an approach not
completely unlike the humoral of Galen) and treated them on the basis
of a supposed chemical reaction between drug and disease. Another
leading figure in the iatrochemical school, Thomas Willis (1621-75),
was an Englishman. These two advocated the use of drugs at a time when
their respective nations were developing great colonial empires rich
with the raw materials of pharmacology.

However, it would be an error to think of the medicine of the period,
either European or Virginian, only in terms of rational or scientific
theories. Treatment was too often based on magic, folklore, and
superstition. There were physicians relying upon alchemy and astrology;
the Royal Touch was held efficacious; and in the _materia medica_ of
the period were such substances as foxes' lungs, oils of wolves, and
Irish whiskey. Nor should it be forgotten that many of the sick never
saw a medical man but relied upon self-treatment.

With theories from the ancient authorities and from experimenting
scientists to draw upon, the practicing physicians could deduce
therapeutic techniques or justify curative measures, but the emphasis
on theory brought with it the danger of ignoring experience and
abandoning empirical solutions. Aware that many of his fellow
physicians tended to overemphasize theory Thomas Sydenham (1624-89),
who received his doctorate of medicine from Cambridge University,
recommended personal experience drawn from close observation. He
scoffed at physicians who learned medicine in books or laboratory, and
never at the bedside. His study of epidemics, his emphasis on geography
and climate as casual factors in the genesis of disease, make this
Englishman's views and practices especially relevant to the medical
history of Virginia where geography and climate did play such imp