Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 15.djvu/833

Rh HISTORY.] MEDICINE 801 In the treatment of disease, the Hippocratic school attached great importance to diet, the variations necessary in different diseases being minutely defined. Medicines were regarded as of secondary importance, but not neglected, two hundred and sixty-five drugs being mentioned at different places in the Hippocratic works. Blood-letting was known, but not greatly practised. The highest importance was attached to applying all remedies at the right moment, and the general principle enforced of making all influences internal and external co-operate for the relief of the patient. The principles of treatment just mentioned apply more especially to the cure of acute diseases ; but they are the most salient characteristics of the Hippocratic school. In chronic cases diet, exercise, and natural methods were chiefly relied upon. The school of Cnidus, as distinguished from that of Cos, of which Hippocrates is the representative, appears to have differed in attaching more importance to the differences of special diseases, and to have made more use of drugs. A treatise on the diseases of women, contained in the Hippocratic collection, and of remarkable practical value, is attributed to this school. The above sketch of Hippocratic medicine will make it less necessary to dwell upon the details relating to sub sequent medical schools or sects in ancient times. The gensral conception of the physician s aim and task remained the same, though, as knowledge increased, there was much divergence both in theory and practice, even opposing schools were found to be developing some part of the Hippocratic system. Direct opponents or repucliators of the authority of Hippocrates were rare, all generally appealing to his authority. But, insensibly, the least valuable part of the Hippocratic work, the theory, was made permanent; the most valuable, the practical, neglected. Post-IIippocratic Medicine. After Hippocrates the pro gress of medicine in Greece does not call for any special remark in such a sketch as this, but mention must be made of one great name. Though none of Aristotle s writings are strictly medical, he has by his researches in anatomy and physiology contributed greatly to the progress of medicine. It should also be remembered that he was of an Asclepiacl family, and received that partly medical education which was traditionil in such families, and also himself is said to have practised medicine as an amateur. Moreover, his works on natural history doubtless furthered the progress among the Greeks of sciences tributary to medicine, though the only specimens of such works which have come down to us from the Peripatetic school are those of Theophrastus, who may be considered the founder of the scientific study of botany. Among his encyclopaedic writings were some on medical subjects, of which fragments only have been preserved. The Peripatetic school may have been more favourable to the development of medicine, as of other departments of natural knowledge, than any other ; but there is no evidence that any of the philosophical schools had important influence on the pro gress of medicine. The fruit of Aristotle s teaching and example was seen later on in the schools of Alexandria. The century after the death of Hippocrates is a time almost blank in medical annals. It is probable that the science, like others, shared in the general intellectual decline of Greece after the Macedonian supremacy; but the works of physicians of the period are almost entirely lost, and were so even in the time of Galen. Galen classes them all as of the dogmatic school ; but, whatever may have been their characteristics, they are of no import ance in the history of the science. Alexandrian School of Medicine. The dispersion of Greek science and intellectual activity through the world by the conquests of Alexander and his successors led to the formation of more than one learned centre, in which medicine among other sciences was represented. Perga- mum was early distinguished for its medical school ; but in this as in other respects its reputation was ultimately effaced by the more brilliant fame of Alexandria. It is here that the real continuation and development of Hippo cratic medicine can be traced. In one department the Alexandrian school rapidly sur passed its Greek original, namely, in the study of anatomy I The dissection of the human body, of which some doubtful traces or hints only are found in Greek times, was assiduously carried out, being favoured or even suggested perhaps by the Egyptian custom of disembowelling and embalming the bodies of the dead. There is no doubt that the organs were also examined by opening the bodies of living persons, criminals condemned to death being given over to the anatomists for this purpose. Two eminent names stand in the first rank as leaders of the two earliest schools of medicine which arose in Alexandria, Herophilus and Erasistratus. Herophilus was a Greek of Chalcedon, a pupil of the schools both of Cos and of Cnidus. He was especially noted for his profound researches in anatomy (see vol. i. p. 802), and in the knowledge and practice of medicine he appears to ha&quot;ve been equally renowned. He professed himself a close adherent of Hippocrates, and adopted his theory of the humours. He also made extensive use of drugs, and of bleeding. The reputation of Herophilus is attested by the fact that four considerable physicians wrote works about him and his writings, and he is further spoken of with the highest respect by Galen and Celsus. By the general voice of the medical world of antiquity he was placed only second to Hippocrates. Erasistratus was the contemporary and rival of Herophilus. Little is known of his life, except that he spent some time at the court of Seleucus Nicator at Antioch before coming to Alexandria, and that he culti vated anatomy late in life, after he had taken up his abode in the latter city. His numerous works are also almost entirely lost, fragments only being preserved by Galen and others. Erasistratus, instead of following Hippocrates as Herophilus did, depreciated him, and seems to have been rather aggressive and independent in his views. He appears to have leaned to mechanical explanations of the symptoms of disease, as was especially the case with inflammation, of which he gave the first rational, though necessarily inadequate, theory. The two schools composed of the followers of Herophilus and Erasistratus respectively long divided between them the medical world of Alexandria. The names of many prominent members of both sects have been preserved, but it would be useless to repeat them. The Herophilists still reverenced the memory of Hippocrates, and wrote numerous commentaries on his works. They produced many eminent anatomists, but in the end seem to have become lost in theoretical subtleties, and to have maintained too high a standard of literary cultivation. The school of Erasistratus was less distinguished in anatomy than that of Herophilus, but paid more attention to the special symptoms of diseases, and employed a great variety of drugs. It was longer-lived than that of Herophilus, for it still numbered many adherents in the 2d century after Christ, a century after the latter had become extinct. The Erasistrateans paved the way for what was in some respects the most important school which Alexandria pro duced, that known as the empiric, which, though it recog nized no master by name, may be considered to have been founded by Philinus of Cos (280 B.C.), a pupil of Herophilus ; but Serapion, a great name in antiquity, and Glaucias of Tarentum, who traced the empirical doctrine XV. 101