Page:History of Greece Vol VI.djvu/179

 SECOND AND THIRD YEARS OF THE WAR. 157 vision in regard to the future, the same sentiment which Th j- cydides mentions in his preface, 1 as having animated him to the composition of his history, was at that time a duty so little understood, that we have reason to admire not less the manner in which he performs it in practice, than the distinctness with which he conceives it in theory. We may infer from his lan- guage that speculation in his day was active respecting the causes of this plague, according to the vague and fanciful physics and scanty stock of ascertained facts, which was all that could then be consulted. By resisting the itch of theorising from one of those loose hypotheses which then appeared plausibly to explain everything, he probably renounced the point of view from which most credit and interest ^ould be derivable at the time : but his simple and precise summary of observed facts carries with it an imperishable value, and even affords grounds for imagining, that he was no stranger to the habits and training of his contempo rary, Hippokrates, and the other Asklepiads of Cos. 2 unusual rains, watery quality of grain, absence of the Etesian winds, etc., may perhaps be true of the revival of the epidemic in the fifth year of the war, but can hardly be true of its first appearance ; since Tlmcydides states that the year in other respects was unusually healthy, and the epidemic was evidently brought from foreign parts to Peirseus. 1 Thucyd. i, 22. baai vird larpuv uvo/j,aa/4evai elaiv, fcirrtsaav, which would seem to indicate a familiarity with the medical terminology : compare also his allusion to the speculations of the physicians, cited in the previous note; and c. 51 rci irdaij diairy depaKEVofieva, etc. In proof how rare the conception was, in ancient times, of the impor- tance of collecting and registering particular medical facts, I transcribe the following observations from M. Littre ((Euvres d'Hippocrate, torn, iv, p. 646, Rcmarques Retrospectives). " Toutefois ce qu'il importe ici de constatcr, ce n'cst pas qu'Hippocrate a observe' de telle ou telle maniere, mais c'est qu'il a cu 1'idc'e de recueillir et de consigner des fails particuliers. En offer, rien, dans 1'antiquite, n'a etc pins rare que ce soin : outre Hippocrate, je nc connois qu'Erasistrate qui so soit occupe* de relatcr sous cctte forme les rdsultats dc son experience cliniquc. Ni Galicn lui-meme, ni Aretec, ni Soranus, ni les autrcs qui sont arrive's jusqu'a nous, n'ont suivi un aussi louable exemple. Les observa- tions consignees dans la collection Hippocratique constituent la plus grand* partic, a. bcaucoup pres. de cc quo 1'antiquite' a posse'de' en ce genre : et si, en commcntant le travail d'Hippc~rate, on 1'avait un pcu finite', nous
 * See the words of Tlmcydides, ii, 49. KOI uiroKadupaeic o/,j)f nuaai,