Page:Greek Biology and Medicine.djvu/154

 GREEK BIOLOGY AND MEDICINE in saying that it has been accepted by the best medical practice from the time of Hippocrates to our own day! One might write an interesting history of medicine, as the story of the conflicts and alliances between theory and practice. One should, however, bear in mind that the differ- ences among the doctors of any period in the actual treatment of disease have been less marked than their controversies might seem to indicate. Celsus told us of the Empirics who pro- tested that they would have nothing to do with remote and hidden causes; of the Methodists who were partial to generalizations. More interesting were the Pneumatics, with their vital principle of the Pneuma, an idea almost as old as man. Yet these ancient schools were not so very wide apart in practice. A century later, Galen, sagaciously survey- ing the medicine of his own time and the older teachings, strove to make a system from his conceptions of the medical wisdom of Hippo- crates and the biology of Aristotle. Although a great observer, he was in love with logical a priori construction: with him, intelligent people were " those who understand the conse- quences of their hypotheses." [ 132 ]