BY THE SAME AUTHOR. Art and Epigram regarding Science and Medicine in Relation to Death, together with an Addition on Epigram and Art in Relation to the Excessive Fear of Death. 1914. Medals and Medallions of the Nineteenth Century, relating to England, by Foreign Artists. With Two Autotype Plates. 1894. Conclusion, to the End of the Year 1900. With Four Plates. 1907. Medals of Centenarians. 1903. BERNARD QUARITCH, LTD., 11, GRAFTON STREET, W. 1, LONDON, ENGLAND. GULIELMO OSLER LIBRI DE AEQUANIMITATE AUCTORI, MEDICO PERITISSIMO, QUI HUMANI NIHIL NEQUE QUICQUID AGUNT HOMINES A SE ALIENUM PUTAT, VIRO STRENUO, QUI FELIX SAEPE POTUIT RERUM COGNOSCERE CAUSAS, LIBELLUM HUNC (LIBELLUM VERBIS POETARUM EXCERPTIS AUCTUM ET ORNATUM, SED CELATUM UT ARBOR TENUIS SILVÂ DENSÂ CELATUR) DE MORTIS IMAGINIBUS, DE SPE, DOLORE, TIMORE, DE RERUM MORTALIUM VICISSITUDINIBUS, TRISTITIÂ ET JUCUNDITATE, DICAT F. P. W. A philosopher lecturing on life and death. From a Roman lamp in the Wellcome Historical Medical Museum (see Fig. 127). Before him is a skeleton, at which he points. Below is a baby in swaddling clothes. Many Romans of the period would probably have interpreted the meaning of the scene somewhat as follows: "There sits a learned man trying to expound the riddle of life and death, but however learned he may be, and however wise his discourse, what does all his teaching amount to? There is only one practical conclusion to be derived from it all, namely, the one which the skeleton tells us: Edite! bibite ! post mortem nulla voluptas!" By early Christianity, which was then commencing, this precept was (incorrectly) held up as the essence of Pagan philosophy; by mediaeval Christianity it was pointed to as a devil's maxim. An exactly similar lamp is figured by Edmond Le Blant in the Mélanges d'Archéologie et d'Histoire, 1887, Pl. vii. Fig. 2. Frontispiece. $7.50 ASPECTS OF DEATH AND CORRELATED ASPECTS OF LIFE CONTRIBUTIONS TOWARDS AN ANTHOLOGY ILLUSTRATED ESPECIALLY BY MEDALS, BY FREDERICK PARKES WEBER, M.A., M.D., F.R.C.P., F.S.A. THIRD EDITION, REVISED AND MUCH ENLARGED. WITH 145 ILLUSTRATIONS. "As soone as wee to bee begunne, We did beginne to be undone." G. WITHER'S Emblems, 1635, p. 45. PAUL B. HOEBER, 67-69, EAST 59TH STREET, NEW YORK, 1918. |