Page:History of Greece Vol IV.djvu/272

 254 HISTORY OF GKEECE. three hundred and eighty-three pounds sterling, an jEginasaii tal ent). The year afterwards he was invited to come to Athens, then under the Peisistratids, at a salary of one hundred mina?, or one and two-thirds of a talent ; and in the following year, Polykrates of Samos tempted him by the offer of two talents. With that known in the works of Hippokrates, under the title 'Eirtdquiat. (Xotes of visits to different cities), is very illustrative of what Herodotus here men- tions about Demokedes. Consult, also, the valuable Prolegomena of M. Littre', in his edition of Hippokrates now in course of publication, as to the Character, means of action, and itinerant habits of the Grecian iaTpoi: see particularly the preface to vol. v, p. 12, where he enumerates the various places visited and noted by Hippokrates. The greater number of the Hippo kratic observations refer to various parts of Thrace, Macedonia, and Thes- saly ; but there are some, also, which refer to patients in the islands of Syros and Dclos, at Athens, Salamis, Elis, Corinth, and CEniadas in Akar- uania. " On voit par la combien etoit juste le nom de Periodeutcs ou voyageurs donnes a ces anciens medecins." Again, M. Littre, in the same preface, p. 25, illustrates the proceedings and residence of the ancient larpof : " On se tromperoit si on se represen- toit la dcmeure d'un medecin d'alors comme celle d'un me'decin d'aujourd'- hui. La maison du medecin de I'antiquitc, du moins au temps d'Hippocrate et aux epoques voisines, renfermoit un local destine u la pratique d'un grand nombre d'operations, contenant les machines et les instrumcns neces- saires, et de plus etant aussi une boutique dc pharmacie. Ce local se nom- mait larpelov" See Plato, Legg. i, p. 646, iv, p. 720. Timaeus accused Aristotle of having begun as a surgeon, practising to great profit in surgery, or iarpclov, and having quitted this occupation late in life, to devote him- self to the study of science, ao Tco^vTifirj-rov larpuov upriu^ u-rroKeKMiKora (Polyb. xii, 9). See, also, the Remarques Retrospectives attached by M. Littre to volume iv, of the same work (pp. 654-658), where he dwells upon the intimate onion of surgical and medical practice in antiquity. At the same time, it must be remarked that a passage in the remarkable medical oath, published in the collection of Hippokratic treatises, recognizes in the plainest manner the distinction between the physician and the operator, the former binds himself by this oath not to perform the operation " even of lithotomy, but to leave it to the operators, or workmen : " Ov Tffitu de oi'de ftf/v /.idiuvrac, eKxupf/cu 6e kpyuTyaiv uvdpuat Trpfj^iof Triads (CEuvres d'Hippocrate, vol. iv. p. 630, ed. Littre). M. Littre (p. 617) contests this explanation, remarking that the various Hippokratic treatises represent the iarpof as performing all sorts of operations, even such as require violent and mechanical dealing. But the words of the oath are so explicit, that it seems more reasonable t3 assign to the oath itself a later date than the treatises, when the habits of practitioners may hare changed.