Page:The growth of medicine from the earliest times to about 1800.djvu/224

 Despite his duties as a practicing physician of the very highest rank—duties which he could not wholly set aside when he accepted the office of Quaestor of Constantinople—and despite the necessity of devoting considerable time to the work which this non-medical official position entailed, Oribasius, like Pliny, appears to have been a most energetic contributor to medical literature. We possess to-day, for example, a large part of the medical cyclopaedia (72 books) which he prepared at the command of the Emperor Julian, and which—even in its incomplete state—contains very full information regarding anatomy, physiology, surgery, pathology and pharmacology. Although the work is simply a compilation, its present value is great, for it contains numerous extracts from earlier and contemporary treatises, many of which have entirely disappeared,—treatises of which we should have had no knowledge whatever if Oribasius had not introduced numerous extracts from them into his cyclopaedia.

About the year 390 A. D., when Oribasius was already an old man, he published (in nine books) a "Synopsis" of the larger work, chiefly for the benefit of his son Eustathios, who was at that time studying medicine. Surgery is omitted from this work, as that branch of medicine was assumed to belong entirely to specialists. At a still later date (about 395 A. D.), Oribasius published a third work (in four books) entitled "Euporista," which was intended chiefly for the use of laymen. The subject-matter of this treatise consists of diet, hygiene and general therapeutics. Neuburger speaks well of all three of the published works of Oribasius, and furnishes a fairly full analysis of the contents of each one.

Bussemaker and Daremberg have published, in six volumes (Paris, 1856-1876), an excellent French version of the works of Oribasius.

Priscianus.—Theodorus Priscianus lived during the latter part of the fourth and the first part of the fifth century of the present era. Very little is known about his professional career beyond the facts that he was a pupil of Vindicianus, a distinguished physician who lived during