Page:The growth of medicine from the earliest times to about 1800.djvu/147

 spread abroad, was considered at this time an expert in the science of obstetrics; that, toward the end of the period (first century B. C.), Alexander Philalethes, a disciple of Herophilus and well known as an author of treatises on the pulse and on the doctrines taught by different physicians of that period, acquired widespread celebrity as a gynaecologist; that Straton, a disciple of Erasistratus, had gained considerable distinction as a gynaecologist; and, finally, that two physicians—Gaius of Naples and Demosthenes of Marseilles (Massilia)—were widely celebrated for their skilfulness in the treatment of eye diseases. The latter was also a successful author, for his treatise on ophthalmology retained its popularity down to the Middle Ages. All these men, it should be noted, were directly and indirectly connected with the work at Alexandria, and were physicians of some degree of prominence. It is fair to assume, therefore, that specialization in medical practice had by this time become an accepted fact and was certainly not frowned upon by those in authority. The result is entirely in accord with what might be expected from a body of physicians as enlightened as were the men gathered together at Alexandria during the centuries immediately preceding and that immediately following the birth of Christ; but many additional centuries were yet to elapse before anything like the well-defined specialism of modern times was to become an established fact.