ness.
,.c,~ Druggists also with various remedies claimed the curative worth of their prescriptions. There were survivals of folk-medicine. Women practised as midwives, when they were past the age of child- bearin". They treated diseases which it was not proper"for men to know or for women to divulge to men. Some of these announced themselves as ' beauty ' doctors. .
The chief centres of medicine were Gyrene, Crotona, Cnidos, and Cos— the last the home of the dogmatists. Pythagoras (born c. 575 B.C.), founder of a gild at Crotona, appears to have studied the structure of the body and reproduction, but knew
very little of surgery, advocated poultices and salves, inculcated dietetic an.l gymnastic practices and advised a limited amount of meat but no lish or beans. The I'ythagorcans were the hrst to visit their patients at home ; they also went froni city to city and thus gained the name of ambuhint physit'ians. I'-ollowing Pythagoras, whose order was dissolved by law about 5U0 li.C, were Alkmaion of Crotona, who from bis dissection of annuals was reiiorted to he the first Greek anatomist, and Denioklcs (c. 5-20 B.C.), the first physician of whom we have a reliable account. He migrated froin Crotona to ^gina, where he was made "'cdical officer with a salary of one talent (about i.lW) a year. Later, at Athens, he received £4Ufa ; later still, at Samos under I'olykrates, £4S0. After- wards, taken captive and brought to the court of Dareios, he cured the king of a sprained ankle and treated his gum for mammary abscess.
Particular occasion for the rapid advance in Greek medicine is contact with Egypt and the East, knowledge of drugs, rivalry of centres ot culture, and separation of the priestly class from
medicine. , , . . . ,
An account of the history of physicians m general
would be incomplete without at least a cursory
reference to the great philosophers of the uth and
4th centuries B.C. They furnished the philosophy
on which physicians often based their theories ot
disease. Aristotle (384-3-22 B.C.), descended from
a lone line of physicians, investigated anatomy,
embryology, and physiology, and for the first time
held that animal life is spontaneous movement.
Anaxagoras of Clazoraenae (c. 555 B.C ) practised
dissection of animals and even dissected the brain.
Empedokles (490-430 B.C.) followed Pythagoras,
and also professed magical powers of healing. Ue
resolved all conditions into warm, cold, moist, and
dry • held the doctrine of the four substances, hre,
air water, and earth, to which he assigned a soul--
hvlozoism. Love and hate rule development and
dissolution. At Selinos and Agrigentum he put an
end to two pestilences by seeking for and reniedy-
ing the natural causes. He discovered the laby-
riiitli of the ear.
The name, however, which stands out above all others in the history of Greek medicine is that of Hip- pokrates. Born at Cos about 460 or 459 B.C., son of Herakleides, his descent was traced on his father a side from Asklepios, on his mother's from Herakles. He was the second of seven of this name. He was a contemporary of Pheidias, Perikles, Sophokles and Euripides, Tbukydides, Praxiteles and Zeuxis. Plato assigned him a place alongside of Pheidias and Polykleitos. Aristotle called him ' the Great, Galen 'the Divine ' ; and from that day to this he has been acclaimed 'the Father of Me<licine. Of the writings attributed to him m the Corpus Hippocraticicm, it seems impossible to decide which portions are genuine, and which belong to an earlier or later period. They form, however a tolerably compact body of writings, and for 2,000 years have turned attention away from specuhrtion to observation, and thus have profoundly inHucnced the medical ideal. So far as his ch.aracter .can be made out from these treatises and from tradition, be was a man of great genius and noble cliaracter, with an unsullied regard for his art, bis patients, and his pupils. The peculiarities of his system may be summarized. (1 ) He followed Empedokles in holding to the four elements and the four con- ditions, but added the four humour.s— black bile, yellow bile, blood, and phlegm. He recognized no supernatural cause of disease: 'none is more divine or human than anotlier,' and 'none arises without a natural cause.' (2) He held a tlieory of crises or critical days. Diseases jiass through tliree stages to a climax ; the crude humours are
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PHYSICIAN
' coolced,' and finally resolved, either being excreted or causing death. Sometimes nature eliminates the disease by sweating or vomiting, sometimes the physician aiiled by bleeding, or administering pur- gatives and <liuretics. (3) To phyds a,nA dynainis, which is really the vis inedicatrix naturw, in dis- tinction from the power of the gods, all recovery is referred. ' Natural powers are the healers of disease.' The task of the physician is to observe the progress of the disease, to interfere, direct, divert. ' Nature suffices for everything under all conditions.' (4) Prognosis is recommended for securing and retaining the esteem of others, for freeing the physician from blame which might arise, and as an aid towards etl'ecting a cure througli its appeal to expectancy. By prognosis is meant a complete knowledge of the patient together with the tendency of the disease. ' The best physician is the one who is able to establish a prognosis, pene- trating and exposing, first of all at the bedside, the present, past, and future of his patients, and adding what they omit.' An essential aspect of his practice was appeal to suggestion in the patient. One-eighth of the entire Corpus Hippocratiruni is occupied with the subject of prognosis. (5) Hippo- krates emancipates medicine from all but practical aims. In his hands it was freed from theurgy and speculation, and placed on a secure empirical basis, not that of casual observation, but of taking account of all facts which have bearing on the case. He left forty-two histories of clinical cases, twenty- five of which cases issued fatally — a practice almost wholly neglected for 2,000 years until the 17th century. His treatises on ' Fractures' and ' Dislo- cations' have been claimed as the ablest works ever written by a physician. A Hippokratic maxim runs, ' Life is short, art is long, opportunity fleeting, experiment fallacious, and judgment difficult.' He laboured under serious limitations. Naturally he had no knowledge of either ele- mentary and physiological chemistry or of bacteriology ; he took no account of pulse, tempera- ture, respiration, or .analysis of urine. Owing to customary reverence for bodies of the dead, autop- sies were unknown, unless indeed a criminal or a traitor may have furnished material, and anatomical knowledge, apart from that concerning bones, had to be derived from dissecting animals, from sacri- ficial animals, and surgical cases. Two significant designations have survived : ' Hippokratic suc- cession,' and Fades Hippocratica. The Hippokratic Oath is herewith given :