Book Description

An excerpt from the beginning of the PREFACE: THE words and phrases cited in this work are either peculiar to the third Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles, or else, though not peculiar to them, are for the most part more frequently employed in these writings than in those of the other N. T. authors. The extant Greek medical writers from whom the examples of the medical use of such words are taken are Hippocrates, B. C. 460-357; Aretaeus, who lived in the first century after Christ, probably in the reign of Nero or Vespasian; Gralen, A.D. 130-200; and Dioscorides, who lived in the first or second century of the Christian era. The edition of these writers quoted is that of Kühn (Leipsic 1821-30). Hippocrates is quoted by the Sections of Foësius; Aretaeus, by those of the Ed. Oxon., both of which are given in Kühn; Dioscorides, by the usual division of chapters. Gralen's works are so extensive, occupying twenty-one volumes in Kühn's edition, that they have been quoted by the volume and page (appended in brackets), as well as by the titles and sections of the several treatises. In order to bring the work within reasonable bounds, it was found necessary that the number of examples of the medical use of a word should not, in any case, exceed ten; in many instances they could be cited indefinitely. The few cases in which they are not of very frequent use in the medical authors have been noticed under the words, and the examples have, generally speaking, been taken, as far as possible, from all the medical authors, to show the continuous and varied use of the words in medical language. An asterisk has been prefixed to those words which are peculiar to the third Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles, and also to a few words, which, though not peculiar to these writings, are used in them alone of the New Testament in a medical sense. A Note has been appended, at the end of the book, which, though not strictly connected with the subject of the work, has reference to a question which is of some interest in connexion with St. Luke in his medical capacity.