Travels in Europe and the East, embracing observations made during a tour ... in the years 1834, ... 1841

Front matter

TRAVELS IN EUROPE AND THE EAST. TRAVELS i\ EUROPE AND THE EAST. BY VALENTINE MOTT, M.D. PRESIDENT OF THE MEDICAL FACULTY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK. LONDON : LONGMAN, BROWN, GREEN, AND LONGMANS. 1842. TRAVELS IN EUROPE AND THE EAST, EMBRACING OBSERVATIONS MADE DURING A TOUR THROUGH GREAT BRITAIN, IRELAND, FRANCE, BELGIUM, HOLLAND, PRUSSIA, SAXONV, BOHEMIA, AUSTRIA, BAVARIA, SWITZERLAND, LOM- BARDY, TUSCANY, THE PAPAL STATES, THE NEAPOLITAN DOMINIONS, MALTA, THE ISLANDS OF THE ARCHIPELAGO, GREECE, EGYPT, ASIA MINOR, TURKEY, MOLDAVIA, WALLACHIA, AND HUNGARY, in the years 1834, '35, '36, '37, '38, '39, '40, and '41. BY VALENTINE MOTT, M.D., PRESIDENT OF THE MEDICAL FACULTY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF NEW-YORK, AND PROFESSOR OF SURGERY, &C, &C. NEW-YORK: PUBLISHED BY IL.RPER k BROTHERS, 82 CLIFF-STREET. 18 4 2.

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1842, by Harper & Brothers, In the Clerk's Office of the Southern District of New-York, TRAVELS IN EUROPE AND THE EAST. BY VALENTINE MOTT, M.D. & P. " (Patriam) absens, absentem, auditque videtque." — Virg.

Preface

In reflecting upon a suitable subject for an introduc tory lecture, after accepting of the Professorship of Sur gery in the University of this city, with which I was honoured before my return from abroad, I knew of no thing that seemed more appropriate than a summary of the general observations which I had made on the progress and condition of medicine and surgery in the different countries I had visited during my six years' absence. I found, however, that, to do justice to the theme I had proposed, it expanded to such volume on matters of miscellaneous interest to the general reader as well as on those strictly professional, that it might more properly assume the form of a book of travels. In Great Britain, France, Germany, and Switzerland, it will be perceived that I have studiously avoided touch ing upon those tedious and trite subjects which have been completely worn threadbare by guide-books and tourists, and become repugnant and insipid by their rep etition.

My attention has been confined, in those countries named, almost exclusively to subjects of more special and piquant interest in my own profession. Instead of dilating on castles and cathedrals, palaces and parliaments, crowns and coronets, chateaus and courtiers, -^* VI

PREFACE.

. peers and princes, the military or commercial power, and statistical condition of this or that people, I have selected a theme which more deeply interests the welfare of the whole human race, and appeals more directly to all the sympathies and charities of the heart than anything which is purely political, or which relates merely to that artificial state of society which consti tutes the difference between one nation, or form of gov ernment, and another. The healing art is one which concerns alike the whole human family ; and wherever I have travelled I have endeavoured to study the masses of population in all those physical and social relations, habits, and cus toms, mental and corporeal pursuits, localities and climates, which might seem to me to suggest anything curious or useful, in illustrating the progress and present condition of the most useful of sciences, that which may remove or relieve human suffering, and add to the general amount of human happiness in every part of the earth.

While, therefore, the first third of this book, under the heads of Great Britain, Ireland, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany, and Switzerland, will be found to embrace almost exclusively matters seldom dwelt upon by tourists, and that relate to medical science and to details of interviews with some of the more extraordinary individuals of my profession, and visits to the more celebrated hospitals and medical schools; it will be per ceived that, as we advance into the more ancient coun tries of Southern Europe and the East, the degraded

PREFACE.

. VII condition of medicine there, and the consequent preva lence of various endemial and epidemic diseases which have thereby become almost hereditary among those enslaved nations, furnish again occasion to revert to the prouder epochs of their history in bygone ages, and which are vividly recalled to us in the magnificent and classic ruins which they have left as monuments of the elevated intellectual and social rank which they once had reached. In the greater and concluding portion of this volume, therefore, which comprises Italy, Greece, Egypt, Asia Minor, and Turkey, it will be found that professional subjects necessarily occupy but a very limited space, and that we have consequently dwelt upon those objects in that part of the world which so intensely absorb and captivate all who make a pilgrimage thither to mourn over the ruins of a land that was once adorned by the most powerful and polished nations that ever existed.

At every step some vast edifice, some shattered column or mouldering temple, some pointed obelisk or towering pyramid, furnishes a theme for fruitful meditation, and admonishes us of the transitory duration of human glory. They foretel that the same sceptre of power and of civilization which has passed from the Pharaohs and the Ptolemies, from Cambyses and Xerxes, and Alexan der and Titus, and the Cæsars and the Caliphs — which descended successively to the Egyptian, the Mede, the Persian, the Greek, and the Roman, and the Saracen, ultimately into the possession of Northern and Western Europe — will, in all probability, continue its onward

PREFACE.

. VIII course to this other and American hemisphere, to whom, next to Western Europe, seems to be assigned the destiny to become the inheritors of the unextinguished and un extinguishable and Divine light of mental and of moral culture, but which may again depart from us to be re vived once more in that benighted Eastern Asia, which was, perhaps, the first cradle of its existence. When I left my country, the impaired state of my health too much occupied me to suppose that I should ever have it in my power to undergo the perils and fa tigues, the severe personal sufferings, in fact, from cli mate, want of food, and every comfort, which I found myself, as I advanced in my travels, more and more ca pable of enduring. My nerves became strengthened and hardened, in truth, by these privations ; and to this, therefore, am I indebted for being enabled now to present some of the fruits of the trials and dangers which I cheerfully and voluntarily submitted to, and which I hope may not prove unacceptable to my countrymen.

The following observations, which comprise the ex ordium of the introductory lecture to which I have allu ded, will explain the object of my visit abroad, and the fortunate issue which it had in the restoration of my health.