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diff --git a/old/63591-0.txt b/old/63591-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index ab9fd05..0000000 --- a/old/63591-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,4804 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Greek Biology and Greek Medicine, by Charles -Joseph Singer - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this ebook. - -Title: Greek Biology and Greek Medicine - -Author: Charles Joseph Singer - -Release Date: November 01, 2020 [EBook #63591] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -Produced by: Paul Marshall, Turgut Dincer and the Online Distributed - Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was - produced from images generously made available by The Internet - Archive) - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GREEK BIOLOGY AND GREEK -MEDICINE *** - - - - -Transcriber’s Notes: - - Underscores “_” before and after a word or phrase indicate _italics_ - in the original text. - Carat symbol “^” designates a superscript. - Small capitals have been converted to SOLID capitals. - Illustrations have been moved so they do not break up paragraphs. - Typographical errors have been silently corrected. - - - - - CHAPTERS IN THE HISTORY - OF SCIENCE - - GENERAL EDITOR CHARLES SINGER - - - I - GREEK BIOLOGY - & - GREEK MEDICINE - - BY - CHARLES SINGER - - OXFORD - At the CLARENDON PRESS - 1922 - - Oxford University Press - - _London_ _Edinburgh_ _Glasgow_ _Copenhagen_ - _New York_ _Toronto_ _Melbourne_ _Cape Town_ - _Bombay_ _Calcutta_ _Madras_ _Shanghai_ - - Humphrey Milford Publisher to the UNIVERSITY - - 2540.1 - PRINTED IN ENGLAND. - - - - -PREFACE - - -This little book is an attempt to compress into a few pages an account -of the general evolution of Greek biological and medical knowledge. The -section on _Aristotle_ appears here for the first time. The remaining -sections are reprinted from articles contributed to a volume _The -Legacy of Greece_ edited by Mr. R. W. Livingstone, the only changes -being the correction of a few errors and the addition of some further -references to the literature. - -In quoting from the great Aristotelian biological treatises, the -_History of Animals_, the _Parts of Animals_, and the _Generation of -Animals_, I have usually availed myself of the text of the Oxford -translation edited by Mr. W. D. Ross. For the _De anima_ I have used -the version of Mr. R. D. Hicks. - -I have to thank my friends Mr. R. W. Livingstone, Dr. E. T. Withington, -and Mr. J. D. Beazley for a number of suggestions. To my colleague -Professor Arthur Platt I have to record my gratitude not only for -much help in the writing of these chapters but also for his kindness -and patience in reading and rereading the work both in manuscript and -proof. I am specially indebted, moreover, to the notes appended to his -translation of the _Generation of Animals_. - - C. S. - - UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON. - _March 1922._ - - - - -LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS - - - GREEK BIOLOGY - FIGURE PAGE - - 1. Lioness and young, from an Ionian vase of the - sixth century B. C. 7 - - 2. A, Jaw bones of lion; B, head of - lioness from Caere vase 7 - - 3. Paintings of fish on plates: Italo-Greek work of - the fourth century B. C. 8 - - 4. Head and talons of the Sea-eagle, - _Haliaëtus albicilla_: A, from an Ionic - vase of the sixth century B. C.; B, - drawn from the object 9 - - 5. Minoan gold cup, sixteenth century B. C. _facing_ 12 - - 6. Horse’s head, from Parthenon. 440 B. C. ” 12 - - 7. Aristotle. From Herculaneum; probably work of fourth - century B. C. ” 18 - - 7 _a_. The Order of Living Things according to Aristotle 30 - - 7 _b_. The Four Elements and the Four Qualities 39 - - 8. Theophrastus. From Villa Albani; - copy (second century A. D.?) of earlier work _facing_ 60 - - 9, 10. Fifth century drawings from Juliana Anicia MS., - copied from originals of the first century - B. C. (?): 9, Σογκός τρυφερός = _Crepis paludosa_, - Moen.; 10, Γεράνιον = _Erodium malachoides_, L. ” 64 - - 11. Illustrating Galen’s physiological teaching 67 - - GREEK MEDICINE - - 1. Hippocrates. British Museum, second or - third century B. C. _facing_ 90 - - 2. Asclepius. British Museum, fourth century B. C. ” 90 - - 3, 4. From MS. of Apollonius of Kitium, of ninth century - (copied from a pre-Christian original): 3, reducing - dislocated shoulder; 4, reducing dislocated jaw ” 104 - - 5. A Greek clinic of about 400 B. C.: from a vase-painting 106 - - 6. A kylix, from the Berlin Museum, of about 490 B. C. 107 - - 7. Athenian funerary monument. British Museum, - second century A. D. _facing_ 114 - - 8. Votive tablet, representing cupping and bleeding - instruments, from Temple of Asclepius at Athens ” 120 - - - - -GREEK BIOLOGY - - -§ 1. _Before Aristotle_ - -What is science? It is a question that cannot be answered easily, nor -perhaps answered at all. None of the definitions seem to cover the -field exactly; they are either too wide or too narrow. But we can -see science in its growth and we can say that being a process it can -exist only as growth. Where does the science of biology begin? Again -we cannot say, but we can watch its evolution and its progress. Among -the Greeks the accurate observation of living forms, which is at least -one of the essentials of biological science, goes back very far. The -word _Biology_, used in our sense, would, it is true, have been an -impossibility among them, for _bios_ refers to the life of man and -could not be applied, except in a strained or metaphorical sense, to -that of other living things.[1] But the _ideas_ we associate with the -word are clearly developed in Greek philosophy and the foundations of -biology are of great antiquity. - -[1] The word _Biology_ was introduced by Gottfried Reinhold Treviranus -(1776-1837) in his _Biologie oder die Philosophie der lebenden Natur_, -6 vols., Göttingen, 1802-22, and was adopted by J.-B. de Lamarck -(1744-1829) in his _Hydrogéologie_, Paris, 1802. It is probable that -the first English use of the word in its modern sense is by Sir William -Lawrence (1783-1867) in his work _On the Physiology, Zoology, and -Natural History of Man_, London, 1819; there are earlier English uses -of the word, however, contrasted with _biography_. - -The Greek people had many roots, racial, cultural, and spiritual, and -from them all they inherited various powers and qualities and derived -various ideas and traditions. The most suggestive source for our -purpose is that of the Minoan race whom they dispossessed and whose -lands they occupied. That highly gifted people exhibited in all stages -of its development a marvellous power of graphically representing -animal forms, of which the famous Cretan friezes, Vaphio cups (Fig. -5), and Mycenean lions provide well-known examples. It is difficult -not to believe that the Minoan element, entering into the mosaic of -peoples that we call the Greeks, was in part at least responsible for -the like graphic power developed in the Hellenic world, though little -contact has yet been demonstrated between Minoan and archaic Greek Art. - -For the earliest biological achievements of Greek peoples we have -to rely largely on information gleaned from artistic remains. It -is true that we have a few fragments of the works of both Ionian -and Italo-Sicilian philosophers, and in them we read of theoretical -speculation as to the nature of life and of the soul, and we can thus -form some idea of the first attempts of such workers as Alcmaeon -of Croton (_c._ 500 B. C.) to lay bare the structure of animals by -dissection.[2] The pharmacopœia also of some of the earliest works -of the Hippocratic collection betrays considerable knowledge of both -native and foreign plants.[3] Moreover, scattered through the pages of -Herodotus and other early writers is a good deal of casual information -concerning animals and plants, though such material is second-hand and -gives us little information concerning the habit of exact observation -that is the necessary basis of science. - -[2] The remains of Alcmaeon are given in H. Diels’ _Die Fragmente der -Vorsokratiker_, Berlin, 1903, p. 103. Alcmaeon is considered in the -companion chapter on _Greek Medicine_. - -[3] Especially the περὶ γυναικείης φύσιος, _On the nature of woman_, -and the περὶ γυναικείων, _On (the diseases of) women_. - -[Illustration: FIG. 1. Lioness and young from an Ionian vase of the -sixth century B. C. found at Caere in Southern Etruria (Louvre, Salle -E, No. 298), from _Le Dessin des Animaux en Grèce d’après les vases -peints_, by J. Morin, Paris (Renouard), 1911. The animal is drawing -itself up to attack its hunters. The scanty mane, the form of the -paws, the udders, and the dentition are all heavily though accurately -represented.] - -[Illustration: FIG. 2. A, Jaw bones of lion; B, head of lioness from -Caere vase (Fig. 1), after Morin. Note the careful way in which the -artist has distinguished the molar from the cutting teeth.] - -Something more is, however, revealed by early Greek Art. We are in -possession of a series of vases of the seventh and sixth centuries -before the Christian era showing a closeness of observation of animal -forms that tells of a people awake to the study of nature. We have thus -portrayed for us a number of animals—plants seldom or never appear—and -among the best rendered are wild creatures; we see antelopes quietly -feeding or startled at a sound, birds flying or picking worms from -the ground, fallow deer forcing their way through thickets, browsing -peacefully, or galloping away, boars facing the hounds and dogs chasing -hares, wild cattle forming their defensive circle, hawks seizing -their prey. Many of these exhibit minutely accurate observation. The -very direction of the hairs on the animals’ coats has sometimes been -closely studied, and often the muscles are well rendered. In some -cases even the dentition has been found accurately portrayed, as in a -sixth century representation on an Ionian vase of a lioness—an animal -then very rare on the Eastern Mediterranean littoral, though still well -known in Babylonia, Syria, and Asia Minor. The details of the work show -that the artist must have examined the animal in captivity (Figs. 1 and -2). - -[Illustration: FIG. 3. Paintings of fish on plates. Italo-Greek work of -the fourth century B. C. From Morin. - -A. Sargus vulgaris.] - -[Illustration: B. Crenilabrus mediterraneus. - -C. Uranoscopus scaber?] - -Animal paintings of this order are found scattered over the Greek world -with special centres or schools in such places as Cyprus, Boeotia, -or Chalcis. The very name for a painter in Greek, _zoographos_, -recalls the attention paid to living forms. By the fifth century, -in representing them as in other departments of Art, the supremacy -of Attica had asserted itself, and there are many beautiful Attic -vase-paintings of animals to place by the side of the magnificent -horses’ heads of the Parthenon (Fig. 6). In Attica, too, was early -developed a characteristic and closely accurate type of representation -of marine forms, and this attained a wider vogue in Southern Italy in -the fourth century. From the latter period a number of dishes and vases -have come down to us bearing a large variety of fish forms, portrayed -with an exactness that is interesting in view of the attention to -marine creatures in the surviving literature of Aristotelian origin -(Fig. 3). - -These artistic products are more than a mere reflex of the daily life -of the people. The habits and positions of animals are observed by the -hunter, as are the forms and colours of fish by the fisherman; but -the methods of huntsman and fisher do not account for the accurate -portrayal of a lion’s dentition, the correct numbering of a fish’s -scales or the close study of the lie of the feathers on the head, and -the pads on the feet, of a bird of prey (Fig. 4). With observations -such as these we are in the presence of something worthy of the name -_Biology_. Though but little literature on that topic earlier than -the writings of Aristotle has come down to us, yet both the character -of his writings and such paintings and pictures as these, suggest the -existence of a strong interest and a wide literature, biological in the -modern sense, antecedent to the fourth century. - -[Illustration: FIG. 4. Head and talons of the Sea-eagle, _Haliaëtus -albicilla_: - -A, From an Ionic vase of the sixth century B. C. - -B, Drawn from the object. - -From Morin.] - -Greek science, however, exhibits throughout its history a peculiar -characteristic differentiating it from the modern scientific standpoint. -Most of the work of the Greek scientist was done in relation to -man. Nature interested him mainly in relation to himself. The Greek -scientific and philosophic world was an anthropocentric world, and -this comes out in the overwhelming mass of medical as distinct from -biological writings that have come down to us. Such, too, is the -sentiment expressed by the poets in their descriptions of the animal -creation: - - Many wonders there be, but naught more wondrous than man: - - * * * * * - - The light-witted birds of the air, the beasts of the weald and - the wood - He traps with his woven snare, and the brood of the briny flood. - Master of cunning he: the savage bull, and the hart - Who roams the mountain free, are tamed by his infinite art. - And the shaggy rough-maned steed is broken to bear the bit. - - Sophocles, _Antigone_, verses 342 ff. - (Translation of F. Storr.) - -It is thus not surprising that our first systematic treatment of -animals is in a practical medical work, the περὶ διαίτης, _On regimen_, -of the Hippocratic Collection. This very peculiar treatise dates from -the later part of the fifth century. It is strongly under the influence -of Heracleitus (_c._ 540-475) and contains many points of view which -reappear in later philosophy. All animals, according to it, are formed -of fire and water, nothing is born and nothing dies, but there is a -perpetual and eternal revolution of things, so that change itself -is the only reality. Man’s nature is but a parallel to that of the -universal nature, and the arts of man are but an imitation or reflex -of the natural arts or, again, of the bodily functions. The soul, a -mixture of water and fire, consumes itself in infancy and old age, and -increases during adult life. Here, too, we meet with that singular -doctrine, not without bearing on the course of later biological -thought, that in the foetus all parts are formed simultaneously. On -the proportion of fire and water in the body all depends, sex, temper, -temperament, intellect. Such speculative ideas separate this book from -the sober method of the more typical Hippocratic medical works with -which indeed it has little in common. - -After having discussed these theoretical matters the work turns to its -own practical concerns, and in the course of setting out the natures -of foods gives in effect a rough classification of animals. These are -set forth in groups, and from among the larger groups only the reptiles -and insects are missing. The list has been described, perhaps hardly -with justification, as the _Coan classificatory system_. We have here, -indeed, no _system_ in the sense in which that word is now applied to -the animal kingdom, but we have yet some sort of definite arrangement -of animals according to their supposed natures. The passage opens with -mammals, which are divided into domesticated and wild, the latter being -mentioned in order according to size, next follow the land-birds, -then the water-fowl, and then the fishes. These fish are divided into -(1) the haunters of the shore, (2) the free-swimming forms, (3) the -cartilaginous fishes or Selachii, which are not so named but are placed -together, (4) the mud-loving forms, and (5) the fresh-water fish. -Finally come invertebrates arranged in some sort of order according to -their structure. The characteristic feature of the ‘classification’ is -the separation of the fish from the remaining vertebrates and of the -invertebrates from both. Of the fifty animals named no less than twenty -are fish, about a fifth of the number studied by Aristotle, but we must -remember that here only edible species are mentioned. The existence of -the work shows at least that in the fifth century there was already a -close and accurate study of animal forms, a study that may justly be -called scientific. The predominance of fish and their classification -in greater detail than the other groups is not an unexpected feature. -The Mediterranean is especially rich in these forms, the Greeks were a -maritime people, and Greek literature is full of imagery drawn from the -fisher’s craft. From Minoan to Byzantine times the variety, beauty, and -colour of fish made a deep impression on Greek minds as reflected in -their art. - -Much more important however for subsequent biological development, than -such observations on the nature and habits of animals, is the service -that the Hippocratic physicians rendered to Anatomy and to Physiology, -departments in which the structure of man and of the domesticated -animals stands apart from that of the rest of the animal kingdom. It -is with the nature and constitution of man that most of the surviving -early biological writings are concerned, and in these departments are -unmistakable tendencies towards systematic arrangement of the material. -Thus we have division and description of the body in sevens from the -periphery to the centre and from the vertex to the sole of the foot,[4] -or a division into four regions or zones.[5] The teaching concerning -the four elements and four humours too became of great importance -and some of it was later adopted by Aristotle. We also meet numerous -mechanical explanations of bodily structures, comparisons between -anatomical conditions encountered in related animals, experiments -on living creatures,[6] systematic incubation of hen’s eggs for the -study of their development, parallels drawn between the development of -plants and of human and animal embryos, theories of generation, among -which is that which was afterwards called ‘pangenesis’—discussion of -the survival of the stronger over the weaker—almost our survival of -the fittest—and a theory of inheritance of acquired characters.[7] All -these things show not only extensive knowledge but also an attempt -to apply such knowledge to human needs. When we consider how even in -later centuries biology was linked with medicine, and how powerful and -fundamental was the influence of the Hippocratic writings, not only -on their immediate successors in antiquity, but also on the Middle -Ages and right into the nineteenth century, we shall recognize the -significance of these developments. - -[4] περὶ ἑβδομάδων. The Greek text is lost. We have, however, an early -and barbarous Latin translation, and there has recently been printed -an Arabic commentary. G. Bergsträsser, _Pseudogaleni in Hippocratis de -septimanis commentarium ab Hunaino Q. F. arabice versum_, Leipzig, 1914. - -[5] περὶ νούσων δ’. - -[6] περὶ καρδίης. - -[7] Especially in the περὶ γονῆς. - -[Illustration: Fig. 5. MINOAN GOLD CUP. SIXTEENTH CENTURY B. C.] - -[Illustration: Fig. 6. HORSE’S HEAD. FROM PARTHENON. 440 B. C.] - -Such was the character of biological thought within the fifth century, -and a generation inspired by this movement produced some noteworthy -works in the period which immediately followed. In the treatise περὶ -τροφῆς, _On nourishment_, which may perhaps be dated about 400 B. C., -we learn of the pulse for the first time in Greek medical literature, -and read of a physiological system which lasted until the time of -Harvey, with the arteries arising from the heart and the veins from the -liver. Of about the same date is a work περὶ καρδίης, _On the heart_, -which describes the ventricles as well as the great vessels and their -valves, and compares the heart of animals with that of man. - -A little later, perhaps 390 B. C., is the treatise περὶ σαρκῶν, _On -muscles_, which contains much more than its title suggests. It has -the old system of sevens and, inspired perhaps by the philosophy of -Heracleitus (_c._ 540-475), describes the heart as sending air, fire, -and movement to the different parts of the body through the vessels -which are themselves constantly in movement. The infant in its mother’s -womb is believed to draw in air and fire through its mouth and to eat -_in utero_. The action of air on the blood is compared to its action -on fire. In contrast to some of the other Hippocratic treatises the -central nervous system is in the background; much attention, however, -is given to the special senses. The brain resounds during audition. The -olfactory nerves are hollow, lead to the brain, and convey volatile -substances to it which cause it to secrete mucus. The eyes also have -been examined, and their coats and humours roughly described; an -allusion, the first in literature, is perhaps made to the crystalline -lens, and the eyes of animals are compared with those of man. There is -evidence not only of dissection but of experiment, and in efforts to -compare the resistance of various tissues to such processes as boiling, -we may see the small beginning of chemical physiology. - -An abler work than any of these, but exhibiting less power of -observation is a treatise, περὶ γονῆς, _On generation_, that may -perhaps be dated about 380 B. C.[8] It exhibits a writer of much -philosophic power, very anxious for physiological explanations, but -hampered by ignorance of physics. He has, in fact, the weaknesses and -in a minor degree the strength of his successor Aristotle, of whose -great work on generation he gives us a foretaste. He sets forth in -considerable detail a doctrine of pangenesis, not wholly unlike that of -Darwin. In order to explain the phenomena of inheritance he supposes -that vessels reach the seed, carrying with them samples from all parts -of the body. He believes that channels pass from all the organs to the -brain and then to the spinal marrow (or to the marrow direct), thence -to the kidneys and on to the genital organs; he believes, too, that -he knows the actual location of one such channel, for he observes, -wrongly, that incision behind the ears, by interrupting the passage, -leads to impotence. As an outcome of this theory he is prepared to -accept inheritance of acquired characters. The embryo develops and -breathes by material transmitted from the mother through the umbilical -cord. We encounter here also a very detailed description of a specimen -of exfoliated _membrana mucosa uteri_ which our author mistakes for an -embryo, but his remarks at least exhibit the most eager curiosity.[9] - -[8] The three works περὶ γονῆς, περὶ φὐσιος παιδίον, περὶ νούσων δ’, -_On generation_, _on the nature of the embryo_, _on diseases, book IV_, -form really one treatise on generation. - -[9] περὶ φὐσιος παιδίον, _On the nature of the embryo_, § 13. The same -experience is described in the περὶ σαρκῶν, _On the muscles_. - -The author of this work on generation is thus a ‘biologist’ in the -modern sense, and among the passages exhibiting him in this light is -his comparison of the human embryo with the chick. ‘The embryo is in a -membrane in the centre of which is the navel through which it draws and -gives its breath, and the membranes arise from the umbilical cord.... -The structure of the child you will find from first to last as I have -already described.... If you wish, try this experiment: take twenty -or more eggs and let them be incubated by two or more hens. Then each -day from the second to that of hatching remove an egg, break it, and -examine it. You will find exactly as I say, for the nature of the bird -can be likened to that of man. The membranes [you will see] proceed -from the umbilical cord, and all that I have said on the subject of -the infant you will find in a bird’s egg, and one who has made these -observations will be surprised to find an umbilical cord in a bird’s -egg.’[10] - -[10] περὶ φὐσιος παιδίον, _On the nature of the embryo_, § 29. - -The same interest that he exhibits for the development of man and -animals he shows also for plants. - - ‘A seed laid in the ground fills itself with the - juices there contained, for the soil contains in itself - juices of every nature for the nourishment of plants. - Thus filled with juice the seed is distended and - swells, and thereby the power (= faculty ἡ δὗύναμις) - diffused in the seed is compressed by living principle - (pneuma) and juice, and bursting the seed becomes the - first leaves. But a time comes when these leaves can no - longer get nourished from the juices in the seed. Then - the seed and the leaves erupt, for urged by the leaves - the seed sends down that part of its power which is yet - concentrated within it and so the roots are produced as - an extension of the leaves. When at last the plant is - well rooted below and is drawing its nutriment from the - earth, then the whole grain disappears, being absorbed, - save for the husk, which is the most solid part; - and even that, decomposing in the earth, ultimately - becomes invisible. In time some of the leaves put - forth branches. The plant being thus produced by - humidity from the seed is still soft and moist. Growing - actively both above and below, it cannot as yet bear - fruit, for it has not the quality of force and reserve - (δύναμις ὶσχυρὴ καὶ πιαρἀ) from which a seed can be - precipitated. But when, with time, the plant becomes - firmer and better rooted, it develops veins as passages - both upwards and downwards, and it draws from the soil - not only water but more abundantly also substances that - are denser and fatter. Warmed, too, by the sun, these - act as a ferment to the extremities and give rise to - fruit after its kind. The fruit thus develops much from - little, for every plant draws from the earth a power - more abundant than that with which it started, and - the fermentation takes place not at one place but at - many.’[11] - -[11] περὶ φὐσιος παιδίον, _On the nature of the embryo_, § 22. - -Nor does our author hesitate to draw an analogy between the plant and -the mammalian embryo. ‘In the same way the infant lives within its -mother’s womb and in a state corresponding to the health of the mother -... and you will find a complete similitude between the products of the -soil and the products of the womb.’ - -The early Greek literature is so scantily provided with illustrations -drawn from botanical study, that it is worth considering the remarkable -comparison of generation of plants from cuttings with that from seeds -in the same work. - - ‘As regards plants generated from cuttings ... that - part of a branch where it was cut from a tree is - placed in the earth and there rootlets are sent out. - This is how it happens: The part of the plant within - the soil draws up juices, swells, and develops a - _pneuma_ (πνεῦμα ἴσχει), but not so the part without. - The pneuma and the juice concentrate the power of the - plant below so that it becomes denser. Then the lower - end erupts and gives forth tender roots. Then the - plant, taking from below, draws juices from the roots - and transmits them to the part above the soil which - thus also swells and develops pneuma; thus the power - from being diffused in the plant becomes concentrated - and budding, gives forth leaves.... Cuttings, then, - differ from seeds. With a seed the leaves are borne - first, then the roots are sent down; with a cutting - the roots form first and then the leaves.’[12] - -[12] _Ibid_. § 23. - -But with these works of the early part of the fourth century the -first stage of Greek biology reaches its finest development. Later -Hippocratic treatises which deal with physiological topics are on a -lower plane, and we must seek some external cause for the failure. Nor -have we far to seek. This period saw the rise of a movement that had -the most profound influence on every department of thought. We see -the advent into the Greek world of a great intellectual movement as a -result of which the department of philosophy that dealt with nature -receded before Ethics. Of that intellectual revolution—perhaps the -greatest the world has seen—Athens was the site and Socrates (470-399) -the protagonist. With the movement itself and its characteristic fruit -we are not concerned. But the great successor and pupil of its founder -gives us in the _Timaeus_ a picture of the depth to which natural -science can be degraded in the effort to give a specific teleological -meaning to all parts of the visible Universe. The book and the picture -which it draws, dark and repulsive to the mind trained in modern -scientific method, enthralled the imagination of a large part of -mankind for wellnigh two thousand years. Organic nature appears in this -work of Plato (427-347) as the degeneration of man whom the Creator has -made most perfect. The school that held this view ultimately decayed as -a result of its failure to advance positive knowledge. As the centuries -went by its views became further and further divorced from phenomena, -and the bizarre developments of later Neoplatonism stand to this day as -a warning against any system which shall neglect the investigation of -nature. But in its decay Platonism dragged science down and destroyed -by neglect nearly all earlier biological material. Mathematics, not -being a phenomenal study, suited better the Neoplatonic mood and -continued to advance, carrying astronomy with it for a while—astronomy -that affected the life of man and that soon became the handmaid of -astrology; medicine, too, that determined the conditions of man’s life, -was also cherished, though often mistakenly, but pure science was -doomed. - -But though the ethical view of nature overwhelmed science in the end, -the advent of the mighty figure of Aristotle (384-322) stayed the tide -for a time. Yet the writer on Greek Biology remains at a disadvantage -in contrast with the Historian of Greek Mathematics, of Greek -Astronomy, or of Greek Medicine, in the scantiness of the materials -for presenting an account of the development of his studies before -Aristotle. The huge form of that magnificent naturalist completely -overshadows Greek as it does much of later Biology. - - -§ 2. _Aristotle_ - -With Aristotle we come in sight of the first clearly defined -personality in the course of the development of Greek biological -thought—for the attribution of the authorship of the earlier -Hippocratic writings is more than doubtful, while the personality of -the great man by whose name they are called cannot be provided with -those clear outlines that historical treatment demands. - -Aristotle was born in 384 B. C. at Stagira, a Greek colony in the -Chalcidice a few miles from the northern limit of the present monastic -settlement of Mount Athos. His father, Nicomachus, was physician to -Amyntas III of Macedonia and a member of the guild or family of the -Asclepiadae. From Nicomachus he may have inherited his taste for -biological investigation and acquired some of his methods. At seventeen -Aristotle became a pupil of Plato at Athens. After Plato’s death in 347 -Aristotle crossed the Aegean to reside at the court of Hermias, despot -of Atarneus in Mysia, whose niece, Pythias, he married. It is not -improbable that the first draft of Aristotle’s biological works and the -mass of his own observations were made during his stay in this region, -for in his biological writings much attention is concentrated on the -natural history of the Island of Lesbos, or Mytilene, that lies close -opposite to Atarneus. Investigation has shown that in the _History of -Animals_ there are frequent references to places on the northern and -eastern littoral of the Aegean, and especially to localities in the -Island of Lesbos; on the other hand places in Greece proper are but -seldom mentioned.[13] Thus his biological investigations, in outline -at least, are probably the earliest of his extant works and preceded -the philosophical writings which almost certainly date from his second -sojourn in Athens. - -[13] See a valuable note by D’Arcy W. Thompson prefixed to his -translation of the _Historia Animalium_, Oxford, 1910. - -[Illustration: Fig. 7. ARISTOTLE - -From HERCULANEUM - -Probably work of fourth century B. C.] - -In 342 B. C., at the request of Philip of Macedon, Aristotle became -tutor to Philip’s son, Alexander. He remained in Macedonia for seven -years and about 336, when Alexander departed for the invasion of Asia, -returned to Athens where he taught at the Lyceum and established his -famous school afterwards called the Peripatetic. Most of his works -were produced during this the closing period of his life between 335 -and 323 B. C. After Alexander’s death in 323 and the break up of his -empire, Aristotle, who was regarded as friendly to the Macedonian -power, was placed in a difficult position. Regarded with enmity by the -anti-Macedonian party, he withdrew from Athens and died soon after in -322 B. C. at Chalcis in Euboea at about sixty-two years of age. - -The scientific works to which Aristotle’s name is attached may be -divided into three groups, physical, biological, and psychological. In -size they vary from such a large treatise as the _History of Animals_ -to the tiny tracts which go to make up the _Parva naturalia_. So far as -the scientific writings can be distinguished as separate works they may -be set forth as follows: - - _Physics._ - - φυσικὴ ἀκρόασις _Physics._ - περὶ γενέσεως καὶ φθορᾱς _On coming into being and passing away._ - περὶ οὐρανοῡ. _On the heavens._ - μετεωρολογικά. _Meteorology._ - [περὶ κόσμου. _On the universe._] - [μηχανικά. _Mechanics._] - [περὶ ἀτόμων γραμμῶν. _On indivisible lines._] - [ἀνέμων θέσεις καὶ προσηγορίαι. _Positions and descriptions - of winds._] - _Biology in the restricted sense._ - - (a) _Natural History_. - περὶ τὰ ζῳα ἱστορίαι. _Inquiry about animals = Historia animalium._ - περὶ ζῴων μορίων. _On parts of animals._ - περὶ ζῴων γενέσεως. _On generation of animals._ - [περὶ φυτῶν. _On plants._] - - (b) _Physiology._ - περὶ ζῴων πορείας. _On progressive motion of animals._ - περὶ μακροβιότητος καὶ βραχυβιότητος. _On length and shortness - of life._ - περὶ ἀναπνοῆς. _On respiration._ - περὶ νεότητος καὶ γήρως. _On youth and age._ - [περὶ ζῴων κινήσεως. _On motion of animals._] - [φυσιογνωμονικά. _On physiognomy._] - [περὶ πνεύματος. _On innate spirit._] - - _Psychology and Philosophy with biological bearing._ - - περὶ ψυχῆς. _On soul._ - περὶ αἰσθήσεως καὶ αἰσθητῶν. _On sense and objects of sense._ - περὶ ζωῆς καὶ θανάτου. _On life and death._ - περὶ μνήμης καὶ ἀναμνήσεως. _On memory and reminiscence._ - περὶ ὓπνου καὶ ἐγρηγόρσεως. _On sleep and waking._ - περὶ ἐνυπνίων. _On dreams._ - [προβλήματα. _Problems._] - [περὶ χρωμάτων. _On colours._] - [περὶ ἀκουστῶν. _On sounds._] - [περὶ τῆς καθ’ ὔπνον μαντικῆς. _On prophecy in sleep._] - -Of these works some, the names of which are placed here in brackets, -are clearly spurious in that they were neither written by Aristotle nor -are they in any form approaching that in which they were cast by him. -Yet all are of very considerable antiquity and contain fragments of -his tradition in a state of greater or less corruption. In addition to -works here enumerated there are many others which are spurious in a yet -further sense in that they are merely fathered on Aristotle and contain -no trace of his spirit or method. Such, for example, is the famous -mediaeval work of oriental origin known as the _Epistle of Aristotle to -Alexander_. - -In a general way it may be stated that the _physical_ works, with -which we are not here directly concerned, while they show ingenuity, -learning, and philosophical power, yet betray very little direct and -original observation. They have exerted enormous influence in the -past and for at least two thousand years provided the usual physical -conceptions of the civilized world both East and West. After the -Galilean revolution in physics, however, they became less regarded and -they are not now highly esteemed by men of science. The _biological_ -works of Aristotle, on the other hand, excited comparatively little -interest during the Middle Ages, but from the sixteenth century on -they have been very closely studied by naturalists. From the beginning -of the nineteenth century, and especially as a result of the work of -Cuvier, Richard Owen, and Johannes Müller, Aristotle’s reputation as a -naturalist has risen steadily, and he is now universally admitted to -have been one of the very greatest investigators of living nature. - -The philosophical bases of Aristotle’s biology are mainly to be found -in the treatise _On soul_ and in that _On the generation of animals_. -His actual observations are contained in this latter work—which is in -many ways his finest scientific production—in the great collection on -the _History of animals_, and in the remarkable treatise _On parts of -animals_. Certain of his deductions concerning the nature and mechanism -of life can be found in his two works which deal with the movements of -animals (one of which is very doubtfully genuine) and in his tracts -_On respiration_, _On sleep_, &c. The treatise _On plants_ and the -_Problems_ in their present form are late and spurious, but they are -based on works of members of his school. They were, however, perhaps -originally prepared at the other end of the Greek world in Magna -Graecia. - -Aristotle was a most voluminous author and his biological writings -form but a small fraction of those to which his name is attached. -Yet these biological works contain a prodigious number of first-hand -observations and it has always been difficult to understand how one -investigator could collect all these facts, however rapid his work -and skilful his methods. The explanations that have reached us from -antiquity are, indeed, picturesque, but they are neither credible in -themselves nor are they consistent with each other. Thus Pliny writing -about A. D. 77 says ‘Alexander the Great, fired by desire to learn of -the natures of animals, entrusted the prosecution of this design to -Aristotle.... For this end he placed at his disposal some thousands of -men in every part of Asia and Greece, and among them hunters, fowlers, -fishers, park-keepers, herds-men, bee-wards, as well as keepers of -fish-ponds and aviaries in order that no creature might escape his -notice. Through the information thus collected he was able to compose -some fifty volumes.’[14] Athenaeus, who lived in the early part of the -third century A. D., assures us that ‘Aristotle the Stagirite received -eight hundred talents [i.e. equal to about £200,000 of our money] -from Alexander as his contribution towards perfecting his _History -of Animals_’.[15] Aelian, on the other hand, who lived at a period a -little anterior to Athenaeus, tells us that it was ‘Philip of Macedon -who so esteemed learning that he supplied Aristotle with ample funds’ -adding that he similarly honoured both Plato and Theophrastus.[16] - -[14] Pliny, _Naturalis historia_, viii. 17. - -[15] Athenaeus, _Deipnosophistae_, ix. 58. - -[16] Aelian, _Variae historiae_, iv. 19. - -Now in all Aristotle’s works there is not a single sentence in praise -of Alexander and there is some evidence that the two had become -estranged. In support of this we may quote Plutarch (_c._ A. D. 100) -who gives a detailed description of a conspiracy in 327 B. C. against -Alexander by Callisthenes, a pupil of Aristotle who appears to have -kept up a correspondence with his master.[17] Alexander himself wrote -of Callisthenes, according to Plutarch: ‘I will punish this sophist, -together with those who sent him to me and those who harbour in their -cities men who conspire against my life’ and Plutarch adds that -Alexander ‘directly reveals in these words a hostility to Aristotle in -whose house Callisthenes ... had been reared, being a son of Hero who -was a niece of Aristotle’.[18] Yet the Alexandrian conquests, bringing -Greece into closer contact with a wider world and extending Greek -knowledge of the Orient, must have had their influence in stimulating -interest in rare and curious creatures and in a general extension of -natural knowledge. That the interest in these topics extended beyond -the circle of the Peripatetics is shown by the fact that Speusippus, -the pupil of Plato and his successor as leader of his school, occupied -himself with natural history and wrote works on biological topics and -especially on fish. - -[17] The statement of the relation of Callisthenes to Aristotle rests -on the somewhat unsatisfactory evidence of Simplicius (sixth century) -who states that Callisthenes sent Aristotle certain astronomical -observations from Babylon. Simplicius, _Commentarii_ (Karsten), p. 226. - -[18] Plutarch, _Alexander_, lv. - -Nevertheless, remarkable as is Aristotle’s acquaintance with animal -forms, investigation shows that he is reliable only when treating of -creatures native to the Aegean basin. As soon as he gets outside that -area his statements are almost always founded on hearsay or even on -fable.[19] Whatever assistance Aristotle may have received in the -preparation of his biological works came, therefore, probably from no -such picturesque and distant source as the gossip of Pliny or Aelian -would suggest. We can conjecture that he received aid from the powerful -relatives of his wife at Atarneus and in Lesbos, and we may most -reasonably suppose that after his return to Athens much help would have -been given him by his pupils within the Lyceum. To them may probably -be ascribed many passages in the biological writings; for it seems -hardly possible that Aristotle himself would have had time for detailed -biological research after he had settled as a teacher in Athens. Of the -work of these members of his school a fine monument has survived in -two complete botanical treatises and fragments of others on zoological -and psychological subjects by Theophrastus of Eresus, his pupil and -successor in the leadership of the Lyceum and perhaps his literary -legatee. - -[19] The subject is well discussed by W. Ogle in the introduction to -his _Aristotle on the Parts of Animals_, London, 1882. - -When we turn to the Aristotelian biological works themselves we -naturally inquire first into the question of genuineness, and here a -difficulty arises in that all his extant works have come down to us -in a state that is not comparable to those of any other great writer. -Among the ancients admiration was expressed for Aristotle’s eloquence -and literary powers, but, in the material that we have here to -consider, very little trace of these qualities can be detected by even -the most lenient judge. The arrangement of the subject-matter is far -from perfect even if we allow for the gaps and disturbances caused by -their passage through many hands. Moreover, there is much repetition -and often irrelevant digression, while the language is usually plain -to baldness and very frequently obscure. We find sometimes the -lightening touch of humour, but the style hardly ever rises to beauty. -Furthermore, even in matters of fact, while many observations exhibit -wonderful insight and, forestalling modern discovery, betray a most -searching and careful application of scientific methods, yet elsewhere -we find errors that are childish and could have been avoided by the -merest tyro. - -This curious state of the Aristotelian writings has given rise to much -discussion among scholars and to explain it there has been developed -what is known as the ‘notebook theory’. It is supposed that the -bases of the material that we possess were notebooks put together by -Aristotle himself for his own use, probably while lecturing. These -passed, it is believed, into the hands of certain of his pupils and -were perhaps in places incomprehensible as they stood. Such pupils, -after the master’s death, filled out the notebooks either from the -memory of his teaching or from their own knowledge—or ignorance. Thus -modified, however, they were still not prepared for publication, even -in the limited sense in which works may be said to have been published -in those days, but they formed again the fuller bases of notes for -lectures delivered by his successors. In this form they have finally -survived to our time, suffering, however, from certain further losses -and displacements on a larger scale. Some of the ‘Aristotelian’ works -are undoubtedly more deeply spurious, but the works that are regarded -as ‘genuine’ do not seem to have been seriously tampered with, except -by mere scribal or bookbinders’ blunders, at any date later than a -generation or two following Aristotle’s own time. These notebooks as -they stand are in fact probably in much the state in which we should -find them were we able to retrieve a copy dating from the first or -second century B. C.[20] - -[20] The problem of genuineness is discussed in detail by R. Shute, _On -the history of the process by which the Aristotelian writings arrived -at their present form_, Oxford, 1888. - -In the opening chapter of one of his great biological works Aristotle -sets forth in detail his motives for the study of living things. The -passage is in itself noteworthy as one of the few instances in which he -rises to real eloquence. - -‘Of things constituted by nature some are ungenerated, imperishable, -and eternal, while others are subject to generation and decay. The -former are excellent beyond compare and divine, but less accessible -to knowledge. The evidence that might throw light on them, and on the -problems which we long to solve respecting them, is furnished but -scantily by sensation; whereas respecting perishable plants and animals -we have abundant information, living as we do in their midst, and ample -data may be collected concerning all their various kinds, if only we -are willing to take sufficient pains. Both departments, however, have -their special charm. The scanty conceptions to which we can attain of -celestial things give us, from their excellence, more pleasure than all -our knowledge of the world in which we live; just as a half glimpse -of persons we love is more delightful than a leisurely view of other -things, whatever their number and dimensions. On the other hand, in -certitude and in completeness our knowledge of terrestrial things has -the advantage. Moreover, their greater nearness and affinity to us -balances somewhat the loftier interest of the heavenly things that -are the objects of the higher philosophy.... For if some [creatures] -have no graces to charm the sense, yet even these, by disclosing to -intellectual perception the artistic spirit that designed them, give -immense pleasure to all who can trace links of causation, and are -inclined to philosophy. We therefore must not recoil with childish -aversion from the examination of the humbler animals. Every realm of -nature is marvellous. It is told of Heraclitus that when strangers -found him warming himself at the kitchen fire and hesitated to go in, -he bade them enter since even in the kitchen divinities were present. -So should we venture on the study of every kind of animal without -distaste, for each and all will reveal to us something natural and -something beautiful.[21] Absence of haphazard and conduciveness of -everything to an end are to be found in Nature’s works in the highest -degree, and the resultant end of her generations and combinations is a -form of the beautiful. - -‘If any person thinks the examination of the rest of the animal kingdom -an unworthy task, he must hold in like disesteem the study of man. -For no one can look at the primordia of the human frame—blood, flesh, -bones, vessels, and the like—without much repugnance. Moreover, when -any one of the parts or structures, be it which it may, is under -discussion, it must not be supposed that it is its material composition -to which attention is being directed or which is the object of the -discussion, but the relation of such part to the total form.... - -‘As every instrument and every bodily member subserves some partial -end, that is to say, some special action, so the whole body must be -destined to minister to some plenary sphere of action. Thus the saw is -made for sawing, since sawing is a function, and not sawing for the -saw. Similarly, the body too must somehow or other be made for the -soul, and each part of it for some subordinate function to which it is -adapted.’[22] - -[21] I have somewhat abbreviated this and the previous sentence. - -[22] _De partibus animalium_, i. 5; 644ᵇ 21. - -Aristotle is, in the fullest sense a ‘vitalist’. He believes that the -presence of a certain peculiar principle of a non-material character -is essential for the exhibition of any of the phenomena of life. This -principle we may call _soul_, translating his word ψυχή. Living things, -like all else in nature, have, according to Aristotle, an end or -object. ‘Everything that Nature makes,’ he says, ‘is means to an end. -For just as human creations are the products of art, so living objects -are manifestly the products of an analogous cause or principle.... And -that the heaven, if it had an origin, was evolved and is maintained -by such a cause, there is, therefore, even more reason to believe, -than that mortal animals so originated. For order and definiteness are -much more manifest in the celestial bodies than in our own frame.’[23] -It was a misinterpretation of this view that especially endeared him -to the mediaeval Church and made it possible to absorb Aristotelian -philosophy into Christian theology. It must be remembered that the -cause or principle that leads to the development of living things is in -Aristotle’s view, not external but _internal_. - -While putting his own view Aristotle does not fail to tell us of the -standpoint of his opponents. ‘Why, however, it must be asked, should -we look on the operations of Nature as dictated by a final cause, and -intended to realize some desirable end? Why may they not be merely the -results of necessity, just as the rain falls of necessity, and not -that the corn may grow? For though the rain makes the corn grow, it no -more occurs in order to cause that growth, than a shower which spoils -the farmer’s crop at harvest-time occurs in order to do that mischief. -Now, why may not this, which is true of the rain, be true also of the -parts of the body? Why, for instance, may not the teeth grow to be such -as they are merely of necessity, and the fitness of the front ones -with their sharp edge for the comminution of the food, and of the hind -ones with their flat surface for its mastication, be no more than an -accidental coincidence, and not the cause that has determined their -development?’[24] - -[23] _De partibus animalium_, i. 1; 641ᵇ 12. - -[24] _Physics_, ii. 8, 3; 198ᵇ 6. This passage is considerably -abbreviated and slightly paraphrased. - -The answers to these questions form a considerable part of Aristotle’s -philosophy where we are unable to follow him. For the limited field of -biology, however, the question is on somewhat narrower lines. ‘What,’ -he asks, ‘are the forces by which the hand or the body was fashioned -into shape? The wood carver will perhaps say, by the axe or the -auger.... But it is not enough for him to say that by the stroke of his -tool this part was formed into a concavity, that into a flat surface; -but he must state the reasons why he struck his blow in such a way as -to effect this and what his final object was ... [similarly] the true -method [of biological science] is to state what the definite characters -are that distinguish the animal as a whole; to explain what it is both -in substance and in form, and to deal after the same fashion with its -several organs.... If now this something, that constitutes the form of -the living being, be the soul, or part of the soul, or something that, -without the soul, cannot exist, (as would seem to be the case, seeing -at any rate that when the soul departs, what is left is no longer a -living animal, and that none of the parts remain what they were before, -excepting in mere configuration, like the animals that in the fable -are turned into stone;) ... then it will come within the province of -the natural philosopher to inform himself concerning the soul, and to -treat of it, either in its entirety, or, at any rate, of that part of -it which constitutes the essential character of an animal; and it will -be his duty to say what this soul or this part of a soul is.’[25] Thus -in the Aristotelian writings the discussion of the nature and orders of -‘soul’ is almost inseparable from the subjects now included under the -term Biology. - -[25] _De partibus animalium_, i. 1; 641ᵅ 7. - -There can be no doubt that through much of the Aristotelian writings -runs a belief in a _kinetic_ as distinct from a static view of -existence. It cannot be claimed that he regarded the different kinds of -living things as actually passing one into another, but there can be no -doubt that he fully realized that the different kinds can be arranged -in a series in which the gradations are easy. His scheme would be -something like that represented on p. 30 (Fig. 7 a). - -‘Nature,’ he says, ‘proceeds little by little from things lifeless to -animal life in such a way that it is impossible to determine the exact -line of demarcation, nor on which side thereof an intermediate form -should lie. Thus, next after lifeless things in the upward scale comes -the plant, and of plants one will differ from another as to its amount -of apparent vitality; and, in a word, the whole _genus_ of plants, -whilst it is devoid of life as compared with an animal, is endowed -with life as compared with other corporeal entities. Indeed, there is -observed in plants a continuous scale of ascent towards the animal. So, -in the sea, there are certain objects concerning which one would be at -a loss to determine whether they be animal or vegetable.’[26] - -[26] _Historia animalium_, viii. 1; 588ᵇ 4. - -[Illustration: Fig. 7a. The Order of Living Things according to -Aristotle.] - -‘A sponge, in these respects completely resembles a plant, in that ... -it is attached to a rock, and that when separated from this it dies. -Slightly different from the sponges are the so-called Holothurias ... -as also sundry other sea-animals that resemble them. For these are free -and unattached, yet they have no feeling, and their life is simply -that of a plant separated from the ground. For even among land-plants -there are some that are independent of the soil—or even entirely free. -Such, for example, is the plant which is found on Parnassus, and which -some call the Epipetrum [probably _Sempervivum tectorum_, the common -houseleek]. This you may hang up on a peg and it will yet live for a -considerable time. Sometimes it is a matter of doubt whether a given -organism should be classed with plants or with animals. The Tethya, -for instance, and the like, so far resemble plants as that they never -live free and unattached, but, on the other hand, inasmuch as they have -a certain flesh-like substance, they must be supposed to possess some -degree of sensibility.’[27] - -‘The Acalephae or Sea-nettles, ... lie outside the recognized groups. -Their constitution, like that of the Tethya, approximates them on the -one side to plants, on the other side to animals. For seeing that some -of them can detach themselves and can fasten on their food, and that -they are sensible of objects which come in contact with them, they must -be considered to have an animal nature.... On the other hand, they -are closely allied to plants, firstly by the imperfection of their -structures, secondly by their being able to attach themselves to the -rocks, which they do with great rapidity, and lastly by their having no -visible residuum notwithstanding that they possess a mouth.’[28] - -Thus ‘Nature passes from lifeless objects to animals in such unbroken -sequence, interposing between them beings which live and yet are not -animals, that scarcely any difference seems to exist between two -neighbouring groups owing to their close proximity.’[29] - -[27] _De partibus animalium_, iv. 5; 681ᵅ 15. - -[28] _De partibus animalium_, iv. 5; 681ᵅ 36. - -[29] _De partibus animalium_, iv. 5; 681ᵅ 10. - -Some approach to evolutionary doctrine is also foreshadowed by -Aristotle in his theories of the development of the individual. This is -obscured, however, by his peculiar view of the nature of procreation. -On this topic his general conclusion is that the material substance -of the embryo is contributed by the female, but that this is mere -passive formable material, almost as though it were the soil in which -the embryo grows. The male by giving the principle of life, the soul, -contributes the essential generative agency. But this _soul_ is not -material and it is, therefore, not theoretically necessary for anything -material to pass from male to female. The material which does in fact -so pass with the seed of the male is an accident, not an essential, for -the essential contribution of the male is not matter but _form_ and -_principle_. The female provides the _material_, the male the _soul_, -the _form_, the _principle_, that which makes life. Aristotle was thus -prepared to accept instances of fertilization without material contact. - -‘The female does not contribute semen to generation but does contribute -something ... for there must needs be that which generates and that -from which it generates.... If, then, the male stands for the effective -and active, and the female, considered as female, for the passive, it -follows that what the female would contribute to the semen of the male -would not be semen but material for the semen to work upon.... - -‘How is it that the male contributes to generation, and how is it -that the semen from the male is the cause of the offspring? Does [the -semen] exist in the body of the embryo as a part of it from the first, -mingling with the material which comes from the female? Or does the -semen contribute nothing to the material body of the embryo but only to -the power and movement in it?... The latter alternative appears to be -the right one both _a priori_ and in view of the facts.’[30] - -[30] _De generatione animalium_, i. 21; 729ᵅ 21. - -This discussion leads to the question of the natural process of -generation itself. It is a topic that we have seen discussed by an -earlier writer who had set forth a sort of doctrine of pangenesis (see -p. 14). His view Aristotle declines to share. ‘We must’, he says, ‘say -the opposite of what the ancients said. For whereas they said that -semen is that which _comes from all_ the body, we shall say that it -is that whose nature is to _go to all_ of it, and what they thought a -waste-product seems rather to be a secretion.’ According to Aristotle -semen is derived from the same nutritive material in the blood vessels -that is distributed to the rest of the body. The semen, however, is -strained or secreted off from this nutritive material—as being its most -essential and representative portion—before the distribution actually -takes place.[31] But why, it may be asked, if the semen does not come -from the various parts of the body, is it yet able to reproduce those -various parts? The answer, on the Aristotelian view, seems to be that -the semen contains special and peculiar fractions of the nutritive -fluid which have been so modified and adapted that, if not secreted -off as semen, they would be distributed to the different parts of the -body to nourish each of these various parts. These substances have -been elaborated by the _soul_ or vital principle in a manner that is -specifically suited for each organ, hand, liver, face, heart, &c., and -from each of these specific substances a specific essence is separated -off into the semen corresponding to hand, liver, face, heart, &c., of -the offspring. - -The next question that arises is the mechanism by which the offspring -come to resemble their parents. The mechanism in the case of inheritance -from the father is comprehensible when we consider the origin and -nature of the semen, but the inheritance from the mother requires -further explanation. The view of Aristotle is based upon the nature -of the catamenia and their disappearance during gestation. ‘The -catamenia’, in his view, ‘are a secretion as the semen is.’[32] The -female contributes the material by which the embryo grows and she does -this through the catamenia which are suspended during gestation for -this very purpose. The matter is thus summed up by Aristotle. - -[31] _De generations animalium_, i. 18; 725ᵅ 22. - -[32] _De generatione animalium_, i. 19; 727ᵅ 31. - -‘The male does not emit semen at all in some animals, and where he -does, this is no part of the resulting embryo; just so no material part -comes from the carpenter to the material, i.e. to the wood in which he -works, nor does any part of the carpenter’s art exist within what he -makes, but the shape and the form are imparted from him to the material -by means of the motion he sets up. It is his hands that move his tools, -his tools that move the material; it is his knowledge of his art, and -his _soul_, in which is the form, that move his hands or any other -part of him with a motion of some definite kind, a motion varying with -the varying nature of the object made. In like manner, in the male of -those animals which emit semen, Nature uses the semen as a tool and as -possessing motion in actuality, just as tools are used in the products -of any art, for in them lies in a certain sense the motion of the -art.’[33] - -‘For the same reason the development of the embryo takes place in the -female; neither the male himself nor the female emits semen into the -female, but the female receives within herself the share contributed -by both, because in the female is the material from which is made -the resulting product. Not only must the mass of material from which -the embryo is in the first instance formed exist there, but further -material must constantly be added so that the embryo may increase -in size. Therefore the birth must take place in the female. For the -carpenter must keep in close connexion with his timber and the potter -with his clay, and generally all workmanship and the ultimate movement -imparted to matter must be connected with the material concerned, as, -for instance, architecture is _in_ the buildings it makes.’[34] - -[33] _De generatione animalium_, i. 22; 730ᵇ 10. - -[34] _De generatione animalium_, i. 22; 730ᵅ 34. - -The problem of the nature of generation is one in which Aristotle never -ceased to take an interest, and among the methods by which he sought to -solve it was embryological investigation. In his ideas on the methods -of reproduction we must seek also the main bases of such classification -of animals as he exhibits. His most important embryological researches -were made upon the chick. He asserts that the first signs of -development are noticeable on the third day, the heart being visible -as a palpitating blood-spot whence, as it develops, two meandering -blood vessels extend to the surrounding tunics. - -‘Generation from the egg’, he says, ‘proceeds in an identical manner -with all birds.... With the common hen after three days and nights -there is the first indication of the embryo.... The heart appears like -a speck of blood in the white of the egg. This point beats and moves as -though endowed with life, and from it two vessels with blood in them -trend in a convoluted course ... and a membrane carrying bloody fibres -now envelops the yolk, leading off from the vessels.’[35] - -Aristotle lays considerable stress on the early appearance of the heart -in the embryo. Corresponding to the general gradational view that he -had formed of Nature, he held that the most primitive and fundamentally -important organs make their appearance before the others. Among the -organs all give place to the heart, which he considered ‘the first to -live and the last to die’.[36] - -A little later he observed that the body had become distinguishable, -and was at first very small and white. - -[35] _Historia animalium_, vi. 3; 561ᵅ 4. - -[36] _Cor primum movens ultimum moriens._ This famous sentence is the -sense though not the phrasing of _De generatione animalium_, ii. 1 and -4. - -‘The head is clearly distinguished and in it the eyes, swollen out to -a great extent.... At the outset the under portion of the body appears -insignificant in comparison with the upper portion.... - -‘When an egg is ten days old the chick and all its parts are distinctly -visible. The head still is larger than the rest of the body and the -eyes larger than the head. At this time also the larger internal -organs are visible, as also the stomach and the arrangement of the -viscera; and the vessels that seem to proceed from the heart are now -close to the navel. From the navel there stretch a pair of vessels, -one [vitelline vein] towards the membrane that envelops the yolk, -and the other [allantoic vein] towards that membrane which envelops -collectively the membrane wherein the chick lies, the membrane of the -yolk and the intervening liquid.... About the twentieth day, if you -open the egg and touch the chick, it moves inside and chirps; and it is -already coming to be covered with down when, after the twentieth day, -the chick begins to break the shell.’[37] - -[37] _Historia animalium_, vi. 3; 561ᵅ 18. - -Aristotle recognized a distinction in the mode of development of -mammals from that of all other viviparous creatures. Having divided the -apparently viviparous animals into two groups, one of which is truly -and internally and the other only externally viviparous, he pointed -out that in the mammalia, the group regarded by him as internally -viviparous, the foetus is connected until birth with the wall of -the mother’s womb by the navel-string. These animals, in his view, -produce their young without the intervention of an ovum, the embryo -being ‘living from the first’. Such non-mammals, on the other hand, as -are viviparous are so in the external sense only, that is, the young -which he considered to arise in this group from ova may indeed develop -within the mother’s womb and be born alive, but they go through their -development without organic connexion with the mother’s body, so that -her womb acts but as a nursery or incubator for her eggs. It was indeed -a sort of accident among the ovipara whether in any particular species -the ovum went through its development inside or outside the mother’s -body. ‘Some of the ovipara’, he says, ‘produce the egg in a perfect, -others in an imperfect state, but it is perfected outside the body as -has been stated of fish.’[38] - -Yet though Aristotle regarded fish as an oviparous group, he knew -also of kinds of fish that were externally viviparous. It is most -interesting to observe, moreover, that he was acquainted with one -particular instance among fish in which matters were less simple and -in which the development bore an analogy to that of the mammalia, his -true internal vivipara. ‘Some animals’, he says, ‘are viviparous, -others oviparous, others vermiparous. Some are viviparous, such as man, -the horse, the seal and all other animals that are hair-coated, and, -of marine animals, the Cetaceans, as the dolphin, _and the so-called -Selachia_.’[39] - -Aristotle tells us elsewhere that a species of these Selachia which -he calls _galeos_—a name still used for the dog-fish by Greek -fishermen—‘has its eggs in betwixt the [two horns of the] womb; these -eggs shift into each of the two horns of the womb and descend, and the -young develop with the navel-string attached to the womb, so that, -as the egg-substance gets used up, the embryo is sustained to all -appearances just as in quadrupeds. The navel-string is ... attached -as it were by a sucker, and also to the centre of the embryo in the -place where the liver is situated.... Each embryo, as in the case of -quadrupeds, is provided with a chorion and separate membranes.’[40] - -[38] _De generatione animalium_, iii. 9; 758ᵅ 37. - -[39] _Historia animalium_, i. 5; 489ᵅ 35. - -[40] _Historia animalium_, vi. 10; 565ᵇ 2. - -The remarkable anatomical relationship of the embryo of _Galeus_ -(_Mustelus_) _laevis_ to its mother’s womb was little noticed by -naturalists until the whole matter was taken up by Johannes Müller -about 1840.[41] That great observer demonstrated the complete accuracy -of Aristotle’s description and the justice of his comparison to and -contrast with the mammalian mode of development.[42] The work of -Johannes Müller at once had the effect of drawing the attention of -naturalists to the importance and value of the Aristotelian biological -observations. - -[41] The history of this discovery is given by Charles Singer, _Studies -in the History and Method of Science_, vol. ii, Oxford, 1921, pp. 32 ff. - -[42] Johannes Müller, _Ueber den glatten Hai des Aristoteles_, Berlin, -1842. - -Aristotle attempts to explain the viviparous character of the -Selachians. His explanation has perhaps little meaning for the modern -biologist, just as many of our scientific explanations will seem -meaningless to our successors. But such explanations are often worth -consideration not only as stages in the historical development of -scientific thought, but also as illustrating the fact that while the -ultimate object of science is a _description_ of nature, the immediate -motive of the best scientific work is usually an _explanation_ of -nature. Yet it is usually the descriptive, not the explanatory element -that bears the test of time. - -‘Birds and scaly reptiles’, says Aristotle, ‘because of their heat -produce a perfect egg, but because of their dryness it is only an -egg. The cartilaginous fishes have less heat than these but more -moisture, so that they are intermediate, for they are both oviparous -and viviparous within themselves, the former because they are cold, the -latter because of their moisture; for moisture is vivifying, whereas -dryness is farthest removed from what has life. Since they have neither -feathers nor scales such as either reptiles or other fishes have, all -of which are signs rather of a dry and earthy nature, the egg they -produce is soft; for the earthy matter does not come to the surface in -their eggs any more than in themselves. That is why they lay eggs in -themselves, for if the egg were laid externally it would be destroyed, -having no protection.’[43] - -[43] _De generatione animalium_, ii. 1; 733ᵅ 6. - -This explanation is based on Aristotle’s fundamental doctrine of the -opposite _qualities_, heat, cold, wetness, and dryness, that are found -combined in pairs in the four _elements_, earth, air, fire, and water. -The theory was of the utmost importance for the whole subsequent -development of science and was not displaced until quite modern -times. It was not an original conception of Aristotle, for something -resembling it had been set forth long before his time in figurative -language by Empedocles (_c._ 500-_c._ 430 B. C.), as Aristotle himself -tells us.[44] The same view had been foreshadowed by Pythagoras (_c._ -580-_c._ 490 B. C.) at an even earlier date and was perhaps of much -greater antiquity. But Aristotle developed the doctrine and was the -main channel for its conveyance to later ages, so that his name will -always be associated with it. Matter in general and living matter in -particular was held by him to be composed of these four essential -so-called _elements_ (στοιχεῑ), each of which is in turn compounded -from two of the primary _qualities_ (δυνάμεις) which Aristotle brought -into relation with the elements. Thus earth was cold and dry, water -cold and wet, air hot and wet, and fire hot and dry (Fig. 7b). - -[44] _Metaphysics_, i. 4. _De generatione et corruptione_, ii. 1. - -[Illustration: Fig. 7b. The Four Elements and the Four Qualities.] - -The theory of the elements and qualities is applicable to all matter -and not specially to living things. The distinction between the -living and not-living is to be sought not so much in its material -constitution, but in the presence or absence of ‘soul’, and his -teaching on that topic is to be found in his great work περὶ ψυχῆς, -_On Soul_. He does not think of matter as organic or inorganic—that -is a distinction of the seventeenth century physiologists—nor does he -think of things as divided into animal, vegetable, and mineral—that is -a distinction of the mediaeval alchemists,—but he thinks of things as -either with soul or without soul (ἔμψυχα or ἄαψυχα). - -His belief as to the relationship of this soul to material things is a -difficult and complicated subject which would take us far beyond the -topics included in biological writings to-day, but he tells us that -‘there is a class of existent things which we call substance, including -under that term, firstly, matter, which in itself is not this nor that; -secondly, shape or form, in virtue of which the term this or that is -at once applied; thirdly, the whole made up of matter and form. Matter -is identical with potentiality, form with actuality,’ the soul being, -in living things, that which gives the form or actuality. ‘Of natural -bodies’, he continues, ‘some possess life and some do not: where by -life we mean the power of self-nourishment and of independent growth -and decay’.[45] It should here be noted that in the Aristotelian sense -the ovum is not at first a living thing, for in its earliest stage -and before fertilization it does not possess soul even in its most -elementary form. - -[45] _De anima_, ii. 1, ii. - -‘The term life is used in various senses, and, if life is present in -but a single one of these senses, we speak of a thing as living. Thus -there is intellect, sensation, motion from place to place and rest, the -motion concerned with nutrition, and, further, [there are the processes -of] decay and growth,’ all various meanings or at least exhibitions -of some form of life. Hence even ‘plants are supposed to have life, -for they have within themselves a faculty and principle whereby they -grow and decay.... They grow and continue to live so long as they are -capable of absorbing nutriment. This form of life can be separated -from the others ... and plants have no other faculty of soul at all,’ -but only this lowest vegetative soul. ‘It is then in virtue of this -principle that all living things live, whether animals or plants. But -it is sensation which primarily constitutes the animal. For, provided -they have sensation, even those creatures that are devoid of movement -and do not change their place are called animals.... As the nutritive -faculty may exist without touch or any form of sensation, so also touch -may exist apart from other senses.’[46] Apart from these two lower -forms of soul, the _vegetative_ or nutritive and reproductive and the -_animal_ or sensitive, stands the _rational_ or intellectual soul -peculiar to man, a form of soul with which we shall here hardly concern -ourselves.[47] - -[46] _De anima_, ii. 2, ii; 413ᵅ 22. - -[47] The question of Aristotle’s meaning in connexion with this topic, -of primary importance for all thought, has a vast literature. An -authoritative work is R. D. Hicks, _Aristotle, De anima_, Cambridge, -1907. - -The possession of one or more of the three types of soul, vegetative, -sensitive, and rational, provides in itself a basis for an elementary -form of arrangement of living things in an ascending scale. We -have already seen that Aristotle certainly describes something -resembling a ‘Scala Naturae’ and that such a scheme can easily be -drawn up from passages in his works. It may, however, be doubted -whether his phraseology is capable of extension so as to include a -true _classification_ of animals in any modern sense. It is true -that he repeatedly divides animals into classes, _Sanguineous_ and -_Non-sanguineous_, _Oviparous_ and _Viviparous_, _Terrestrial_ -and _Aquatic_, &c., but his divisions are for the most part simply -dichotomic. He certainly defines a few groups of animals as the Lophura -(_Equidae_), the Cete (_Cetacea_), and the Selache (_Elasmobranchiae_ -together with the _Lophiidae_) in a way that fairly corresponds -to similar groups in later systems. In most cases, however, his -definitions are not exact enough for modern needs, for the same -animal may fall into more than one of his classes and widely -different animals into the same class. Thus he invents a category -_Carcharodonta_ for animals with sharp interlocking teeth and includes -in it carnivores, reptiles, and fish; again, the horse kind must be -included both among his _Anepallacta_ or animals having flat crowned -teeth as well as among the _Amphodonta_ or animals with front teeth in -both jaws. Such words as these are really terms of _description_, not -of classification in the modern biological sense of that word. - -There are, however, scattered through the biological works, certain -terms which are applied to animal groups and organs and are defined in -such a way as to suggest that they might ultimately have been developed -for classificatory purposes. Thus his lowest group is the _species_. -‘The individuals comprised within a single _species_ (εîδος) ... are -the real existences; but inasmuch as these individuals possess one -common specific form, it will suffice to state the universal attributes -of the species, that is, the attributes common to all its individuals, -once and for all.’[48] This is surely not very far removed from the -modern biological conception of a species. - -[48] _De partibus animalium_, i. 4; 644ᵅ 22. - -‘But as regards the larger groups—such as birds—which comprehend many -species, there may be a question. For on the one hand it may be urged -that as the ultimate species represent the real existences, it will be -well, if practicable, to examine these ultimate species separately, -just as we examine the species Man separately; to examine, that is, not -the whole class Birds collectively, but the Ostrich, the Crane, and the -other indivisible groups or species belonging to the class. - -‘On the other hand, this course would involve repeated mention of the -same attribute, as the same attribute is common to many species, and so -far would be somewhat irrational and tedious. Perhaps, then, it will be -best to treat generically the universal attributes of the groups that -have a common nature and contain closely allied subordinate forms, -whether they are groups recognized by a true instinct of mankind, -such as Birds and Fishes, or groups not popularly known by a common -appellation, but withal composed of closely allied subordinate groups; -and only to deal individually with the attributes of a single species, -when such species—man, for instance, and any other such, if such there -be—stands apart from others, and does not constitute with them a larger -natural group. - -‘It is generally similarity in the shape of particular organs, or of -the whole body, that has determined the formation of the larger groups. -It is in virtue of such a similarity that Birds, Fishes, Cephalopoda, -and Testacea have been made to form each a separate _genus_ (γένος). -For within the limits of each such _genus_, the parts do not differ -in that they have no nearer resemblance than that of analogy—such as -exists between the bone of man and the spine of fish—but they differ -merely in respect of such corporeal conditions as largeness smallness, -softness hardness, smoothness roughness, and other similar oppositions, -or, in one word, in respect of degree.’[49] - -[49] _De partibus animalium_, i. 4; 644ᵅ 27. - -The Aristotelian _genus_ thus differs widely from the term as used in -modern biology. In another passage he comes nearer to defining it and -the analogy of parts which extends from genus to genus. - -‘Groups that differ only in the degree, and in the more or less of -an identical element that they possess are aggregated together under -a single _genus_; groups whose attributes are not identical but -_analogous_ are separated. For instance, bird differs from bird by -gradation, or by excess and defect; some birds have long feathers, -others short ones, but all are feathered. Bird and Fish are more remote -and only agree in having analogous organs; for what in the bird is -feather, in the fish is scale. Such _analogies_ can scarcely, however, -serve universally as indications for the formation of groups, for -almost all animals present analogies in their corresponding parts.’[50] - -Aristotle nowhere gives to his term _genus_ a rigid application that -can be applied throughout the animal kingdom. He uses the word in fact -much as we should use the conveniently flexible term _group_, now -for a larger and less definite, now for a smaller and more definite -collection of species. This varying use of a technical word makes it -impossible to draw up a classification based on his _genera_ or indeed -with any consistent use of the terms which he actually employs. - -The difficulty or impossibility of drawing up a satisfactory -classificatory system from the Aristotelian writings has not, however, -deterred numerous naturalists and scholars from making the attempt, and -the subject has in itself a considerable history and literature[51] -extending from the days of Edward Wotton (1492-1555) downward.[52] The -more recent efforts at drawing up an Aristotelian classificatory system -have been based on the methods of reproduction to which he certainly -attached very great importance.[53] Provided that it be remembered -that Aristotle does not himself detail any such system there can be -no harm in constructing one from his works. At worst it will serve as -a _memoria technica_ for the extent and character of his knowledge of -natural history, and at best it may represent a scheme to which he was -tending. - -[50] _De partibus animalium_, i. 4; 644ᵅ 16. - -[51] The classificatory system of Aristotle and its history are -discussed in great detail by J. B. Meyer, _Aristoteles’ Thierkunde: -ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Zoologie, Physiologie und alten -Philosophie_, Berlin, 1855. - -[52] The work by which Wotton is known is his _De differentiis -animalium_, Paris, 1552. - -[53] There is a valuable chapter on the subject of the Aristotelian -classificatory system as based on the method of reproduction in W. -Ogle, _Aristotle on the Parts of Animals_, London, 1882. - - _ENAIMA_ (_Sanguineous and either viviparous or oviparous_) - = _vertebrates_. - - { 1. ἅνθρωπος. Man. - { 2. κήτη. Cetaceans. - { 3. ζῷα τετράποδα ζωοτόκα ὲν αὑτοῖς. - { Viviparous quadrupeds. - { (a) μὴ ἀμφώδοντα. Non-amphodonts - Viviparous in the { = Ruminants with incisor in - internal sense. { lower jaw only and with cloven - { hoofs. - { (b) μώνυχα. Solid-hoofed animals. - { i. λόφουρα. Equidae. - { ii. μώνυχα ἔτερα. Other - solid-hoofed animals. - - { 4. ὄρνιθες. Birds. - { (a) γαμψώνυχα. Birds of prey with - { talons. - { (b) στεγανόποδες. Swimmers with - { With { webbed feet. - { perfect { (c) περιστεροειδῆ. Pigeons, doves, &c. - { ovum. { (d) ἄποδες. Swifts, martins, &c. - { { (e) ὄρνιθες ἕτεροι. Other birds. - Oviparous { { 5. ζὌῷα τετράποδα ῷοτόκα. Oviparous - though { { quadrupeds = Amphibians and most - sometimes { { reptiles. - _externally_ { { 6. ὀφιώδη. Serpents. - viviparous. { - { { 7. ἰχθύες. Fishes. - { With { (a) σελάχη. Selachians. Cartilaginous - { imperfect { fishes and, doubtfully, the - { { fishing-frog. - { ovum. { (b) ιχθύες ἕτεροι. Other fishes. - - _ANAIMA_ (_Non-sanguineous and either viviparous, vermiparous or - budding_) = _Invertebrates_. - - With perfect ovum. { 8. μαλάκια. Cephalopods. - { 9. μαλακόστρακα. Crustaceans. - - With ‘scolex’. 10. ἔντομα. Insects, spiders, - scorpions, &c. - With generative }11. ὀστρακόδερμα. Molluscs (except - slime, buds or } Cephalopods), Echinoderms, &c. - spontaneous generation. } - - With spontaneous }12. ζωόφυτα. Sponges, Coelenterates, - generation only. } &c. - -Some of the elements in this classification are fundamentally -unsatisfactory in that they are based on negative characters. Such -is the group of _Anaima_ which is parallelled by our own equally -convenient and negative though morphologically meaningless equivalent -_Invertebrata_. Others, such as the subdivisions of the viviparous -quadrupeds, can only be forcibly extracted out of Aristotle’s text. -But there are yet others, such as the separation of the cartilaginous -from the bony fishes, that exhibit true genius and betray a knowledge -that can only have been reached by careful investigation. Remarkably -brilliant too is his treatment of Molluscs. There can be no doubt that -he dissected the bodies and carefully watched the habits of octopuses -and squids, _Malacia_ as he calls them. He separates them too far from -the other Molluscs, grouped by him as _Ostracoderma_, but his actual -descriptions of the structure and sexual process of the cephalopods -are exceedingly remarkable, and after being long disregarded or -misunderstood were verified and repeated in the course of the -nineteenth century.[54] - -[54] The rediscovery and verification of this and other Aristotelian -observations is detailed by C. Singer, ‘Greek Biology and the Rise of -Modern Biology,’ _Studies in the History and Method of Science_, vol. -ii, Oxford, 1921. - -Passing from his general ideas on the nature and division of living -creatures we may turn to some of the most noteworthy of his actual -observations. In the realm of comparative anatomy proper we may -instance that of the stomach of ruminants. He must have dissected -these animals, for he gives a clear and correct account of the four -chambers. ‘Animals’, he says, ‘present diversities in the structure -of their stomachs. Of the viviparous quadrupeds, such of the horned -animals as are not equally furnished with teeth in both jaws are -furnished with four such chambers. These animals are those that are -said to chew the cud. In these animals the oesophagus extends from -the mouth downwards along the lung, from the midriff to the _big -stomach_ [_rumen_, or paunch], and this stomach is rough inside and -semi-partitional. And connected with it near to the entry of the -oesophagus is what is called the _kekryphalos_ [_reticulum_, or -honeycomb bag]; for outside it is like the stomach, but inside it -resembles a netted cap; and the kekryphalos is a good deal smaller -than the _big stomach_.’ The term _kekryphalos_ was applied to the net -that women wore over their hair to keep it in order. ‘Connected with -this kekryphalos,’ he continues, ‘is the _echinos_ [_psalterium_, or -_manyplies_], rough inside and laminated, and of about the same size as -the kekryphalos. Next after this comes what is called the _enystron_ -[_abomasum_], larger and longer than the echinos, furnished inside with -numerous folds or ridges, large and smooth. After all this comes the -gut....’[55] ‘All animals that have horns, the sheep for instance, the -ox, the goat, the deer and the like, have these several stomachs.... -The several cavities receive the food one from the other in succession: -the first taking the unreduced substances, the second the same when -somewhat reduced, the third when reduction is complete, and the fourth -when the whole has become a smooth pulp....’[56] ‘Such is the stomach -of those quadrupeds that are horned and have an unsymmetrical dentition -(μὴ ἀμφώδοντα); and these animals differ one from another in the shape -and size of the parts, and in the fact of the oesophagus reaching the -stomach central-wise in some cases and sideways in others. Animals that -are furnished equally with teeth in both jaws (ἀμφώδοντα) have one -stomach; as man, the pig, the dog, the bear, the lion, the wolf.’[57] - -[55] _Historia animalium_, ii. 17; 507ᵅ 33. - -[56] _De partibus animalium_, ii. 17; 507ᵇ 12. - -[57] _Historia animalium_, ii. 17; 507ᵇ 12. - -A very famous example in the Aristotelian works anticipating modern -biological knowledge is afforded by his reference to the mode of -reproduction of the cephalopods. ‘The Malacia such as the octopus, -the sepia, and the calamary, have sexual intercourse all in the same -way; that is to say, they unite at the mouth by an interlacing of -their tentacles. When, then, the octopus rests its so-called head -against the ground and spreads abroad its tentacles, the other sex -fits into the outspreading of these tentacles, and the two sexes then -bring their suckers into mutual connexion. Some assert that the male -has a kind of penis in one of his tentacles, the one in which are the -largest suckers; and they further assert that the organ is tendinous -in character growing attached right up to the middle of the tentacle, -and that the latter enables it to enter the nostril or funnel of the -female.’[58] - -[58] _Historia animalium_, v. 6; 541ᵇ 1. The hectocotylization of the -cephalopod arm which is here recorded as an element in the reproductive -process of these animals is denied in the _De generatione animalium_, -i. 15; 720ᵇ 32, where we read that ‘the insertion of the arm of -the male into the funnel of the female ... is only for the sake of -attachment, and it is not an organ useful for generation, for it is -outside the passage in the male and indeed outside the body of the male -altogether.‘ Yet even here Aristotle knows of the physical relationship -of the arm. See note on this point in the translation of the passage by -A. Platt, Oxford, 1910. - -The reproductive processes of the Cephalopods were unknown to modern -naturalists until the middle of the nineteenth century. Before that -time several observers had noted the occasional presence of a peculiar -parasite in the mantle cavity of female cephalopods and had described -its supposed structure without tracing any relationship to the process -of generation. In 1851 it was first shown that this supposed parasite -was the arm of the male animal specially modified for reproductive -purposes and broken off on insertion into the mantle cavity of the -female[59]. The actual process of reproduction does not seem to have -been observed until 1894[60]. - -[59] J. B. Verany, _Mollusques méditerranéens_, Genoa, 1851. - -[60] E. Racovitza. _Archives de zoologie experimentale_, Paris, 1894. - -Aristotle is perhaps at his best and happiest when describing the -habits of living animals that he has himself observed. Among his most -pleasing accounts are those of the fishing-frog and torpedo. In these -creatures he did not fail to notice the displacement of the fins -associated with the depressed form of the body. - -‘In marine creatures,’ he says, ‘one may observe many ingenious devices -adapted to the circumstances of their lives. For the account commonly -given of the frog-fish or angler is quite true; as is also that of the -torpedo.... - -‘In the Torpedo and the Fishing-frog the breadth of the anterior part -of the body is not so great as to render locomotion by fins impossible, -but in consequence of it the upper pair [_pectorals_] are placed -further back and the under pair [_ventrals_] are placed close to the -head, while to compensate for this advancement they are reduced in size -so as to be smaller than the upper ones. - -‘In the Torpedo the two upper fins [pectorals] are placed in the tail, -and the fish uses the broad expansion of its body to supply their -place, each lateral half of its circumference serving the office of a -fin.... The torpedo narcotizes the creatures that it wants to catch, -overpowering them by the force of shock that is resident in its body, -and feeds upon them; it also hides in the sand and mud, and catches -all the creatures that swim in its way and come under its narcotizing -influence. This phenomenon has been actually observed in operation.... -The torpedo-fish is known to cause a numbness even in human beings. - -‘The frog-fish has a set of filaments that project in front of its -eyes; they are long and thin, like hairs, and are round at the tips; -they lie on either side, and are used as baits.... The little creatures -on which this fish feeds swim up to the filaments, taking them for bits -of seaweed such as they feed upon. Accordingly, when the frog-fish -stirs himself up a place where there is plenty of sand and mud and -conceals himself therein, it raises the filaments, and when the little -fish strike against them the frog-fish draws them in underneath into -its mouth.... That the creatures get their living by this means is -obvious from the fact that, whereas they are peculiarly inactive, -they are often caught with mullets, the swiftest of fishes, in their -interior. Furthermore, the frog-fish is usually thin when he is caught -after losing the tips of his filaments.’[61] - -[61] The paragraphs concerning the fishing-frog and torpedo are made up -of sentences rearranged from the _De partibus animalium_, iv. 13; 696ᵅ -26, and the _Historia animalium_, ix. 37; 620ᵇ 15. - -The modification of the musculature of the torpedo-fish for electric -purposes and the fishing habits of the fishing-frog or _Lophius_ are -now well known, but it was many centuries before naturalists had -confirmed the observations of the father of biology. - -When we turn from Aristotle’s observations in the department of natural -history to his discussion of the actual mechanism of the living body, -the subject now contained under the heading _Experimental Physiology_, -we are in the presence of much less satisfactory material. Aristotle -here exhibits his weakness in physics and not being endowed with any -experimental knowledge of that subject his physiological development is -very greatly handicapped. He seems often to accept fancies of his own -in place of generalizations from collated observations. This tendency -of his was conveyed to his successors and delayed physiological -advance for many centuries. It forms a striking contrast to the -method of certain of the Hippocratic works such as the _Epidemics_ -and the _Aphorisms_ which exhibit an investigator intent on recording -actual observations and on deducing general laws therefrom. Had the -Hippocratic method been extended by Aristotle beyond the field of -natural history, where he freely follows it, to that of physiology, the -succeeding generations might have established medicine far more firmly -as a science. - -An important factor in Aristotle’s physical and physiological -teaching is the doctrine that matter is continuous and not made -up of indivisible parts. He thus rejected the atomic views of his -predecessors Leucippus and Democritus which have been preserved for us -by the poem of Lucretius. The different kinds of matter existing merely -in their state of simple mixture formed various uniform or homogeneous -substances, _homoeomeria_, of which the _tissues_ of living bodies -provided one type. We now consider tissues as having structure made up -of living cells or their products, but to Aristotle their structure was -an essential fact following on their particular elemental constitution. -The structure of muscle or flesh was perhaps comparable to that of -a crystalline substance, for, as we have seen, Aristotle made no -fundamental distinction between organic and inorganic _substances_, -which are in his view alike subject to the processes of generation and -corruption. The difference between them lies not in their structure -but in their potential relation to the various degrees of soul, the -vegetative, the animal, and the rational. - -‘There are’, says Aristotle, ‘three degrees of composition, and of -these the first in order is composition out of what some call the -_elements_, earth, air, water, and fire.... - -‘The second degree of composition is that by which the _homogeneous_ -parts of animals (ὁμοιομερῆ), such as bone, flesh, and the like, are -constituted out of [these] primary substances. - -‘The third and last stage is the composition which forms the -_heterogeneous_ parts (ἀνομοιομερῆ) such as face, hand, and the -rest.’[62] - -[62] _De partibus animalium_, ii. 1; 646ᵅ 12. - -The distinctions are not altogether clear but may perhaps be explained -along such lines as the following. The division into homogeneous and -heterogeneous corresponds in a general way to the later division -into Tissues and Organs, the former, however, including much that we -should not call tissue. The homogeneous parts were again of two kinds: -(_a_) simple tissues or stuffs without any notion of size or shape, -that is, mere substance capable of endowment with life or soul, e.g. -cartilaginous or osseous tissues; and (_b_) simple structure, that is -actual structure made of such a single tissue but with definite form -and size, matter to which form had been added and which either was -actually or had been endowed with soul, e.g. _a_ cartilage or _a_ bone. - -As a physiologist Aristotle is, in fact, in much the same position as -he is as a physicist. He never dissected the human body, he had only -the roughest idea of the course of the vessels, and his description of -the vascular system is so difficult and confused that a considerable -literature has been written on its interpretation. He regarded the -heart as the central organ of the body and the seat of sensation and he -probably believed that the arteries contained air as well as blood. He -made no adequate distinction between veins and arteries. He tells us -that two great vessels arise from the heart and that the heart is, as -it were, a part of these vessels. The two vessels are apparently the -aorta and the vena cava, and a very elementary and not very accurate -description is given of the branches of these vessels. He believed that -the heart had three chambers or cavities and that it took in air direct -from the lung. - -The brain was for him mainly an organ by which were secreted certain -cold humours which prevented any overheating of the body by the furnace -of the heart under the action of the bellows of the lung. He formally -rejected the older views of Diogenes of Apollonia, of Alcmaeon of -Croton, and of the Hippocratic writings, that placed the seat of -sensation in the brain.[63] He failed to trace any adequate relation of -sense organs and nerves to brain. He considered that the spinal marrow -served to hold the vertebrae together. - -[63] _De partibus animalium_, ii. 10. - -In general we may say that his physiology is on a much lower plane than -his natural history, since in dealing with physiological questions he -always seems to have in mind the body as a whole and seldom pauses for -any detailed investigation of a particular part. The physiological -views of Aristotle were far from being fully accepted even by the -generation which followed him. There was already growing up a school -of physiologists whose work culminated five centuries later in that of -Galen, where we find quite other views of the bodily functions. It is -these views which we may take as more typical of the bases of Greek -physiology (see p. 66). - -In much of the Aristotelian material that we have discussed we have -seen the development of a class of interests very foreign to those -of the modern biologist, in whose work the general discussion of the -ultimate nature and origin of life seldom plays a large part. The -business of the modern biologist is mainly with vital phenomena as he -encounters them and he is not concerned with the deeper philosophical -problems. The man of science considers a part of the Universe where the -philosopher makes it his business to regard the whole. With Aristotle -this modern scientific process of taking a part of the sensible -Universe, such as a particular group of animals or the particular -action of a particular organ, and considering it in and by and for -itself without reference to other things, had not yet fully emerged. -Philosophy and science are still inextricably linked and there is no -clear demarcation between them. - -This is at least his theoretical view. But besides being a philosopher -by choice he was a supreme naturalist by his natural endowments and he -cannot suppress his love for nature and his capacity for observation. -We see Aristotle the naturalist at his greatest as a direct observer -or when reasoning directly about the observations that he has made. -When he disregards his own observations and begins to erect theories -on the observations or the views of others, he becomes weaker and less -comprehensible. - - -§ 3. _After Aristotle_ - -All Aristotle’s surviving biological works refer primarily to the -animal creation. His work on plants is lost or rather has survived -as the merest corrupted fragment. We are fortunate, however, in the -possession of a couple of complete works by his pupil and successor -Theophrastus (372-287), which may not only be taken to represent the -Aristotelian attitude towards the plant world, but also give us an -inkling of the general state of biological science in the generation -which succeeded the master. - -These treatises of Theophrastus are in many respects the most complete -and orderly of all ancient biological works that have reached our time. -They give an idea of the kind of interest that the working scientist -of that day could develop when inspired rather by the genius of a -great teacher than by the power of his own thoughts. Theophrastus -is a pedestrian where Aristotle is a creature of wings, he is in a -relation to the master of the same order that the morphologists of the -second half of the nineteenth century were to Darwin. For a couple -of generations after the appearance of the _Origin of Species_ in -1859 the industry and ability of naturalists all over the world were -occupied in working out in detail the structure and mode of life of -living things on the basis of the Evolutionary philosophy. Nearly -all the work on morphology and much of that on physiology since his -time might be treated as a commentary on the works of Darwin. These -volumes of Theophrastus give the same impression. They represent the -remains—alas, almost the only biological remains—of a school working -under the impulse of a great idea and spurred by the memory of a great -teacher. As such they afford a parallel to much scientific work of our -own day, produced by men without genius save that provided by a vision -and a hope and an ideal. Of such men it is impossible to write as of -Aristotle. Their lives are summed up by their actual achievement, and -since Theophrastus is an orderly writer whose works have descended to -us in good state, he is a very suitable instance of the actual standard -of achievement of ancient biology. ‘Without vision the people perish’ -and the very breath of life of science is drawn, and can only be drawn, -from that very small band of prophets who from time to time, during the -ages, have provided the great generalizations and the great ideals. In -this light let us examine the work of Theophrastus. - -In the absence of any adequate system of classification, almost all -botany until the seventeenth century consisted mainly of descriptions -of species. To describe accurately a leaf or a root in the language -in ordinary use would often take pages. Modern botanists have -invented an elaborate terminology which, however hideous to eye and -ear, has the crowning merit of helping to abbreviate scientific -literature. Botanical writers previous to the seventeenth century were -substantially without this special mode of expression. It is partly to -this lack that we owe the persistent attempts throughout the centuries -to represent plants pictorially in herbals, manuscript and printed, and -thus the possibility of an adequate history of plant illustration. - -Theophrastus seems to have felt acutely the need of botanical terms, -and there are cases in which he seeks to give a special technical -meaning to words in more or less current use. Among such words are -_carpos_ = fruit, _pericarpion_ = seed vessel = pericarp, and _metra_, -the word used by him for the central core of any stem whether formed of -wood, pith, or other substance. It is from the usage of Theophrastus -that the exact definition of fruit and pericarp has come down to -us.[64] We may easily discern also the purpose for which he introduces -into botany the term _metra_, a word meaning primarily the _womb_, and -the vacancy in the Greek language which it was made to fill. ‘_Metra_,’ -he says, ‘is that which is in the middle of the wood, being third in -order from the bark and [thus] like to the marrow in bones. Some call -it the _heart_ (καρδίαν), others the _inside_ (ἐντεριώνην), yet others -call only the innermost part of the metra itself the heart, while -others again call this _marrow_.’[65] He is thus inventing a word to -cover all the different kinds of core and importing it from another -study. This is the method of modern scientific nomenclature which -hardly existed for botanists even as late as the sixteenth century of -our era. The real foundations of our modern nomenclature were laid in -the later sixteenth and in the seventeenth century by Cesalpino and -Joachim Jung. - -[64] It is possible that Theophrastus derived the word pericarp from -Aristotle. Cp. _De anima_, ii. 1, 412ᵇ 2. In the passage τὸ φύλλον -περικαρπίου σκέπασμα, τὸ δὲ περικάρπιον καρποῦ, in the _De anima_ the -word does not, however, seem to have the full technical force that -Theophrastus gives to it. - -[65] _Historia plantarum_, i. 2, vi. - -Theophrastus understood the value of developmental study, a conception -derived from his master. ‘A plant’, he says, ‘has power of germination -in all its parts, for it has life in them all, wherefore we should -regard them not for what they are but for what they are becoming.’[66] -The various modes of plant reproduction are correctly distinguished -in a way that passes beyond the only surviving earlier treatise -that deals in detail with the subject, the Hippocratic work _On -generation_. ‘The manner of generation of trees and plants are these: -spontaneous, from a seed, from a root, from a piece torn off, from a -branch or twig, from the trunk itself, or from pieces of the wood cut -up small.’[67] The marvel of generation must have awakened admiration -from a very early date. We have already seen it occupying a more -ancient author, and it had also been one of the chief pre-occupations -of Aristotle. It is thus not remarkable that the process should impress -Theophrastus, who has left on record his views on the formation of the -plant from the seed. - -[66] _Ibid._ i. 1, iv. - -[67] _Historia plantarum_, ii. 1, i. - - ‘Some germinate, root and leaves, from the same - point, some separately from either end of the seed. - Thus wheat, barley, spelt, and all such cereals - [germinate] from either end, corresponding to the - position [of the seed] in the ear, the root from the - stout lower part, the shoot from the upper; but the - two, root and stem, form a single continuous whole. - The bean and other leguminous plants are not so, but - in them root and stem are from the same point, namely, - their place of attachment to the pod, where, it is - plain, they have their origin. In some cases there is - a process, as in beans, chick peas, and especially - lupines, from which the root grows downward, the leaf - and stem upward.... In certain trees the bud first - germinates within the seed, and, as it increases in - size, the seeds split—all such seeds are, as it were, - in two halves; again, all those of leguminous plants - have plainly two lobes and are double—and then the - root is immediately thrust out. But in cereals, the - seeds being in one piece, this does not happen, but the - root grows a little before [the shoot]. - - ‘Barley and wheat come up monophyllous, but peas, - beans, and chick peas polyphyllous. All leguminous - plants have a single woody root, from which grow - slender side roots ... but wheat, barley, and the other - cereals have numerous slender roots by which they are - matted together.... There is a contrast between these - two kinds; the leguminous plants have a single root and - have many side-growths above from the [single] stem - ... while the cereals have many roots and send up many - shoots, but these have no side-shoots.’[68] - -There can be no doubt that here is a piece of minute observation on the -behaviour of germinating seeds. The distinction between dicotyledons -and monocotyledons is accurately set forth, though the stress is -laid not so much on the cotyledonous character of the seed as on the -relation of root and shoot. In the dicotyledons root and shoot are -represented as springing from the same point, and in monocotyledons -from opposite poles in the seed. - -No further effective work was done on the germinating seed until -the invention of the microscope, and the appearance of the work of -Highmore (1613-85),[69] and the much more searching investigations of -Malpighi (1628-94)[70] and Grew (1641-1712)[71] after the middle of the -seventeenth century. The observations of Theophrastus are, however, so -accurate, so lucid, and so complete that they might well be used as -legends for the plates of these writers two thousand years after him. - -[68] _Historia plantarum_, viii. 1, i. - -[69] Nathaniel Highmore, _A History of Generation_, London, 1651. - -[70] Marcello Malpighi, _Anatome plantarum_, London, 1675. - -[71] Nehemiah Grew, _Anatomy of Vegetables begun_, London, 1672. - -Much has been written as to the knowledge of the sex of plants among -the ancients. It may be stated that of the sexual elements of the -flower no ancient writer had any clear idea. Nevertheless, sex is often -attributed to plants, and the simile of the Loves of Plants enters -into works of the poets. Plants are frequently described as male and -female in ancient biological writings also, and Pliny goes so far as -to say that some students considered that all herbs and trees were -sexual.[72] Yet when such passages can be tested it will be found that -these so-called males and females are usually different species. In -a few cases a sterile variety is described as the male and a fertile -as the female. In a small residuum of cases diœcious plants or flowers -are regarded as male and female, but with no real comprehension of the -sexual nature of the flowers. There remain the palms, in which the -knowledge of plant sex had advanced a trifle farther. ‘With dates’, -says Theophrastus, ‘the males should be brought to the females; for the -males make the fruit persist and ripen, and this some call by analogy -_to use the wild fig_ (ὀλυνθάζειν).[73] The process is thus: when the -male is in flower they at once cut off the spathe with the flower -and shake the bloom, with its flower and dust, over the fruit of the -female, and, if it is thus treated, it retains the fruit and does not -shed it.’[74] The fertilizing character of the spathe of the male date -palm was familiar in Babylon from a very early date. It is recorded by -Herodotus[75] and is represented by a frequent symbol on the Assyrian -monuments. - -[72] Pliny, _Naturalis historia_, xiii. 4. - -[73] The curious word ὀλυνθάζειν, here translated _to use the wild -fig_, is from ὄλυνθος, a kind of wild fig which seldom ripens. The -special meaning here given to the word is explained in another work -of Theophrastus, _De causis plantarum_, ii. 9, xv. After describing -caprification in figs, he says τὸ δὲ ἐπὶ τῶν φοινίκων συμβαῖνον οὐ -ταὐτὸν μέν, ἔχει δέ τινα ὁμοιότητα τούτω δι’ ὁ καλοῦσιν ὀλυνθάζειν -αὐτούς. ‘The same thing is not done with dates, but something analogous -to it, whence this is called ὀλυνθάζειν’. - -[74] _Historia plantarum_, ii. 8, iv. - -[75] Herodotus i. 193. - -The comparison of the fertilization of the date palm to the use of the -wild fig refers to the practice of Caprification. Theophrastus tells -us that there are certain trees, the fig among them, which are apt -to shed their fruit prematurely. To remedy this ‘the device adopted -is caprification. Gall-insects come out of the wild figs which are -hanging there, eat the tops of the cultivated figs, and so make them -swell’.[76] These gall-insects ‘are engendered from the seeds’.[77] -Theophrastus distinguished between the process as applied to the fig -and the date, observing that ‘in both [fig and date] the male aids -the female—for they call the fruit-bearing [palm] _female_—but whilst -in the one there is a union of the two sexes, in the other things are -different’.[78] - -[76] _Historia plantarum_, ii. 8, i. - -[77] _Ibid._ ii. 8, ii. - -[78] _Historia plantarum_, ii. 8, iv. - -Theophrastus was not very successful in distinguishing the nature -of the primary elements of plants, though he was able to separate -root, stem, leaf, stipule, and flower on morphological as well -as to a limited extent on physiological grounds. For the root he -adopts the familiar definition, the only one possible before the -rise of chemistry, that it ‘is that by which the plant draws up -nourishment’,[79] a description that applies to the account given by -the pre-Aristotelian author of the work περὶ γονῆς, _On generation_. -But Theophrastus shows by many examples that he is capable of following -out morphological homologies. Thus he knows that the ivy regularly puts -forth roots from the shoots between the leaves, by means of which it -gets hold of trees and walls,[80] that the mistletoe will not sprout -except on the bark of living trees into which it strikes its roots, -and that the very peculiar formation of the mangrove tree is to be -explained by the fact that ‘this plant sends out roots from the shoots -till it has hold on the ground and roots again: and so there comes to -be a continuous circle of roots round the tree, not connected with -the main stem, but at a distance from it’.[81] He does not succeed, -however, in distinguishing the real nature of such structures as bulbs, -rhizomes, and tubers, but regards them all as roots. Nor is he more -successful in his discussion of the nature of stems. As to leaves, he -is more definite and satisfactory, though wholly in the dark as to -their function; he is quite clear that the pinnate leaf of the rowan -tree, for instance, is a leaf and not a branch. - -[79] _Ibid._ i. 1, ix. - -[80] _Ibid._ iii. 18, x. - -[81] _De causis plantarum_, ii. 23. - -[Illustration: Fig. 8. THEOPHRASTUS - -From VILLA ALBANI - -Copy (second century A. D.?) of earlier work] - -Notwithstanding his lack of insight as to the nature of sex in flowers, -he attains to an approximately correct idea of the relation of flower -and fruit. Some plants, he says, ‘have [the flower] around the fruit -itself as vine and olive; [the flowers] of the latter, when they drop, -look as though they had a hole through them, and this is taken for a -sign that it has blossomed well; for if [the flower] is burnt up or -sodden, the fruit falls with it, and so it does not become pierced. -Most flowers have the fruit case in the middle, or it may be the flower -is on the top of the pericarp as in pomegranate, apple, pear, plum, -and myrtle ... for these have their seeds below the flower.... In -some cases again the flower is on top of the seeds themselves as in -... all thistle-like plants’.[82] Thus Theophrastus has succeeded in -distinguishing between the hypogynous, perigynous, and epigynous types -of flower, and has almost come to regard its relation to the fruit as -the essential floral element. - -[82] _Historia plantarum_, i. 13, iii. - -Theophrastus has a perfectly clear idea of plant distribution as -dependent on soil and climate, and at times seems to be on the point -of passing from a statement of climatic distribution into one of real -geographical regions. The general question of plant distribution long -remained at, if it did not recede from, the position where he left -it. The usefulness of the manuscript and early printed herbals in the -West was for centuries marred by the retention of plant descriptions -prepared for the Greek East and Latin South, and these works were saved -from complete ineffectiveness only by an occasional appeal to nature. - -With the death of Theophrastus about 287 B. C. pure biological science -substantially disappears from the Greek world, and we get the same -type of deterioration that is later encountered in other scientific -departments. Science ceases to have the motive of the desire to know, -and becomes an applied study, subservient to the practical arts. It -is an attitude from which in the end applied science itself must -suffer also. Yet the centuries that follow were not without biological -writers of very great ability. In the medical school of Alexandria -anatomy and physiology became placed on a firm basis from about 300 -B. C., but always in the position subordinate to medicine that they -have since occupied. Two great names of that school, Herophilus -and Erasistratus, we must consider elsewhere.[83] Their works have -disappeared and we have the merest fragments of them. In the last -pre-Christian and the first two post-Christian centuries, however, -there were several writers, portions of whose works have survived and -are of great biological importance. Among them we include Crateuas, a -botanical writer and illustrator, who greatly developed, if he did not -actually introduce, the method of representing plants systematically by -illustration rather than by description. This method, important still, -was even more important when there was no proper system of botanical -nomenclature. Crateuas by his paintings of plants, copies of which have -not improbably descended to our time, began a tradition which, fixed -about the fifth century, remained almost rigid until the rediscovery -of nature in the sixteenth. He was physician to Mithridates VI Eupator -(120-63 B. C.), but his work was well known and appreciated at Rome, -which became the place of resort for Greek talent.[84] - -[83] See the companion chapter on _Greek Medicine_. - -[84] The works of Crateuas have recently been printed by M. Wellmann -as an appendix to the text of Dioscorides, _De re medica_, 3 vols., -Berlin, 1906-17. The source and fate of his plant drawings are -discussed in the same author’s _Krateuas_, Berlin, 1897. - -Celsus, who flourished about 20 B. C., wrote an excellent work on -medicine, but gives all too little glimpse of anatomy and physiology. -Rufus of Ephesus, however, in the next century practised dissection -of apes and other animals. He described the decussation of the optic -nerves and the capsule of the crystalline lens, and gave the first -clear description that has survived of the structure of the eye. He -regarded the nerves as originating from the brain, and distinguished -between nerves of motion and of sensation. He described the oviduct of -the sheep and rightly held that life was possible without the spleen. - -The second Christian century brings us two writers who, while -scientifically inconsiderable, acted as the main carriers of such -tradition of Greek biology as reached the Middle Ages, Pliny and -Dioscorides. Pliny (A. D. 23-79), though a Latin, owes almost -everything of value in his encyclopaedia to Greek writings. In his -_Natural History_ we have a collection of current views on the nature, -origin, and uses of plants and animals such as we might expect from an -intelligent, industrious, and honest member of the landed class who -was devoid of critical or special scientific skill. Scientifically the -work is contemptible, but it demands mention in any study of the legacy -of Greece, since it was, for centuries, a main conduit of the ancient -teaching and observations on natural history. Read throughout the ages, -alike in the darkest as in the more enlightened periods, copied and -recopied, translated, commented on, extracted and abridged, a large -part of Pliny’s work has gradually passed into folk-keeping, so that -through its agency the gipsy fortune-teller of to-day is still reciting -garbled versions of the formulae of Aristotle and Hippocrates of two -and a half millennia ago. - -The fate of Dioscorides (flourished A. D. 60) has been not dissimilar. -His work _On Materia Medica_ consists of a series of short accounts -of plants, arranged almost without reference to the nature of the -plants themselves, but quite invaluable for its terse and striking -descriptions which often include habits and habitats. Its history has -shown it to be one of the most influential botanical treatises ever -penned. It provided most of the little botanical knowledge that reached -the Middle Ages. It furnished the chief stimulus to botanical research -at the time of the Renaissance. It has decided the general form of -every modern pharmacopœia. It has practically determined modern plant -nomenclature both popular and scientific. - -Translated into nearly every language from Anglo-Saxon and Provençal -to Persian and Hebrew, appearing both abstracted and in full in -innumerable beautifully illuminated manuscripts, some of which are -still among the fairest treasures of the great national libraries, -Dioscorides, the drug-monger, appealed to scholasticized minds for -centuries. The frequency with which fragments of him are encountered in -papyri shows how popular his work was in Egypt in the third and fourth -centuries. One of the earliest datable Greek codices in existence is a -glorious volume of Dioscorides written in capitals,[85] thought worthy -to form a wedding gift for a lady who was the daughter of one Roman -emperor and the betrothed of a second.[86] The illustrations of this -fifth century manuscript are a very valuable monument for the history -of art and the chief adornment of what was once the Royal Library at -Vienna[87] (figs. 9-10). Illustrated Latin translations of Dioscorides -were in use in the time of Cassiodorus (490-585). A work based on it, -similarly illustrated, but bearing the name of Apuleius, is among -the most frequent of mediaeval botanical documents and the earliest -surviving specimen is almost contemporary with Cassiodorus himself.[88] -After the revival of learning Dioscorides continued to attract an -immense amount of philological and botanical ability, and scores of -editions of his works, many of them nobly illustrated, poured out of -the presses of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. - -[85] The manuscript in question is Med. Graec. 1 at what was the Royal -Library at Vienna. It is known as the _Constantinopolitanus_. After the -war it was taken to St. Mark’s at Venice, but either has been or is -about to be restored to Vienna. A facsimile of this grand manuscript -was published by Sijthoff, Leyden, 1906. - -[86] The lady in question was Juliana Anicia, daughter of Anicius -Olybrius, Emperor of the West in 472, and his wife Placidia, daughter -of Valentinian III. Juliana was betrothed in 479 by the Eastern Emperor -Zeno to Theodoric the Ostrogoth, but was married, probably in 487 when -the manuscript was presented to her, to Areobindus, a high military -officer under the Byzantine Emperor Anastasius. - -[87] The importance of this manuscript as well as the position of -Dioscorides as medical botanist is discussed by Charles Singer in an -article ‘Greek Biology and the Rise of Modern Biology’; _Studies in the -History and Method of Science_, vol. ii, Oxford, 1921. - -[88] This manuscript is at the University Library at Leyden, where it -is numbered Voss Q 9. - -[Illustration: Fifth century drawings from JULIANA ANICIA MS., copied -from originals of first century B. C.(?) - -Fig. 9. - -ΣΟΝΚΟΣ ΤΡΥΦΕΡΟΣ = _Crepis paludosa_, _Mœn._] - -[Illustration: Fig. 10. - -ΓΕΡΑΝΙΟΝ = _Erodium malachoides_, _L._] - -But the greatest biologist of the late Greek period, and indeed one of -the greatest biologists of all time, was Claudius Galen of Pergamon -(A. D. 131-201). Galen devoted himself to medicine from an early -age, and in his twenty-first year we hear of him studying anatomy at -Smyrna under Pelops. With the object of extending his knowledge of -drugs he early made long journeys to Asia Minor. Later he proceeded to -Alexandria, where he improved his anatomical equipment, and here, he -tells us, he examined a human skeleton. It is indeed probable that his -direct practical acquaintance with human anatomy was limited to the -skeleton and that dissection of the human body was no longer carried -on at Alexandria in his time. Thus his physiology and anatomy had to -be derived mainly from animal sources. He is the most voluminous of -all ancient scientific writers and one of the most voluminous writers -of antiquity in any department. We are not here concerned with the -medical material which mainly fills these huge volumes, but merely with -the physiological views which not only prevailed in medicine until -Harvey and after, but also governed for fifteen hundred years alike -the scientific and the popular ideas on the nature and workings of the -animal body, and have for centuries been embedded in our speech. A -knowledge of these physiological views of Galen is necessary for any -understanding of the history of biology and illuminates many literary -allusions of the Middle Ages and Renaissance. - -Between the foundation of the Alexandrian school and the time of Galen, -medicine was divided among a great number of sects. Galen was an -eclectic and took portions of his teaching from many of these schools, -but he was also a naturalist of great ability and industry, and knew -well the value of the experimental way. Yet he was a somewhat windy -philosopher and, priding himself on his philosophic powers, did not -hesitate to draw conclusions from evidence which was by no means always -adequate. The physiological system that he thus succeeded in building -up we may now briefly consider (fig. 11). - -The basic principle of life, in the Galenic physiology, is a _spirit_, -_anima_ or _pneuma_, drawn from the general world-soul in the act of -respiration. It enters the body through the _rough artery_ (τραχεῖα -ἀρτηρία, _arteria aspera_ of mediaeval notation), the organ known to -our nomenclature as the trachea. From this trachea the pneuma passes to -the lung and then, through the _vein-like artery_ (ἀρτηρία φλεβώδης, -_arteria venalis_ of mediaeval writers, the pulmonary vein of our -nomenclature), to the left ventricle. Here it will be best to leave it -for a moment and trace the vascular system along a different route. - -Ingested food, passing down the alimentary tract, was absorbed as chyle -from the intestine, collected by the portal vessel, and conveyed by it -to the liver. That organ, the site of the innate heat in Galen’s view, -had the power of elaborating the chyle into venous blood and of imbuing -it with a spirit or pneuma which is innate in all living substance, -so long as it remains alive, the _natural spirits_ (πνεῦμα φυσικόν, -_spiritus naturalis_ of the mediaevals). Charged with this, and also -with the nutritive material derived from the food, the venous blood is -distributed by the liver through the veins which arise from it in the -same way as the arteries from the heart. These veins carry nourishment -and _natural spirits_ to all parts of the body. _Iecur fons venarum_, -the liver as the source of the veins, remained through the centuries -the watchword of the Galenic physiology. The blood was held to ebb and -flow continuously in the veins during life. - -[Illustration: FIG. 11. Illustrating Galen’s physiological teaching.] - -Now from the liver arose one great vessel, the hepatic vein, from -division of which the others were held to come off as branches. Of -these branches, one, our _common vena cava_, entered the right side -of the heart. For the blood that it conveyed to the heart there were -two fates possible. The greater part remained awhile in the ventricle, -parting with its impurities and vapours, exhalations of the organs, -which were carried off by the _artery-like vein_ (φλὲπς ἀρτηριώδης, -the mediaeval _vena pulmonalis_, our pulmonary artery) to the lung -and then exhaled to the outer air. These impurities and vapours gave -its poisonous and suffocating character to the breath. Having parted -thus with its impurities, the venous blood ebbed back again from the -right ventricle into the venous system. But for a small fraction of -the venous blood that entered the right ventricle another fate was -reserved. This small fraction of venous blood, charged still with -the _natural spirits_ derived from the liver, passed through minute -channels in the septum between the ventricles and entered the left -chamber. Arrived there, it encountered the external pneuma and became -thereby elaborated into a higher form of spirit, the _vital spirits_ -(πνεῦμα ζωτικόν, _spiritus vitalis_), which is distributed together -with blood by the arterial system to various parts of the body. In the -arterial system it also ebbed and flowed, and might be seen and felt to -pulsate there. - -But among the great arterial vessels that sent forth arterial blood -thus charged with vital spirits were certain vessels which ascended -to the brain. Before reaching that organ they divided up into minute -channels, the _rete mirabile_ (πλέγμα μέγιστον θαῦμα), and passing -into the brain became converted by the action of that organ into a yet -higher type of spirits, the _animal spirits_ (πνεῦμα ψυχικόν, _spiritus -animalis_), an ethereal substance distributed to the various parts of -the body by the structures known to-day as nerves, but believed then to -be hollow channels. The three fundamental faculties (δυνάμεις), the -_natural_, the _vital_, and the _animal_, which brought into action the -corresponding functions of the body, thus originated as an expression -of the primal force or pneuma. - -This physiology, we may emphasize, is not derived from an investigation -of human anatomy. In the human brain there is no _rete mirabile_, -though such an organ is found in the calf. In the human liver there -is no _hepatic vein_, though such an organ is found in the dog. Dogs, -calves, pigs, bears, and, above all, Barbary apes were freely dissected -by Galen and were the creatures from which he derived his physiological -ideas. Many of Galen’s anatomical and physiological errors are due to -his attributing to one creature the structures found in another, a fact -that only very gradually dawned on the Renaissance anatomists. - -The whole knowledge possessed by the world in the department of -physiology from the third to the seventeenth century, nearly all the -biological conceptions till the thirteenth, and most of the anatomy and -much of the botany until the sixteenth century, all the ideas of the -physical structure of living things throughout the Middle Ages, were -contained in a small number of these works of Galen. The biological -works of Aristotle and Theophrastus lingered precariously in a few -rare manuscripts in the monasteries of the East; the total output of -hundreds of years of Alexandrian and Pergamenian activities was utterly -destroyed; the Ionian biological works, of which a sample has by a -miracle survived, were forgotten; but these vast, windy, ill-arranged -treatises of Galen lingered on. Translated into Latin, Syriac, Arabic, -and Hebrew, they saturated the intellectual world of the Middle Ages. -Commented on by later Greek writers, who were themselves in turn -translated into the same list of languages, they were yet again served -up under the names of such Greek writers as Oribasius, Paul of Aegina, -or Alexander of Tralles. - -What is the secret of the vitality of these Galenic biological -conceptions? The answer can be given in four words. _Galen is a -teleologist_; and a teleologist of a kind whose views happened to fit -in with the prevailing theological attitude of the Middle Ages, whether -Christian, Moslem, or Jewish. According to him everything which exists -and displays activity in the human body originates in and is formed -by an intelligent being and on an intelligent plan, so that the organ -in structure and function is the result of that plan. ‘It was the -Creator’s infinite wisdom which selected the best means to attain his -beneficent ends, and it is a proof of His omnipotence that he created -every good thing according to His design, and thereby fulfilled His -will.’[89] - -[89] A good instance of Galen’s teleological point of view is afforded -by his classical description of _the hand_ in the περὶ χρείας τῶν -ἐν ἀνθρώπου σώματι μορίων, _On the uses of the parts of the body of -man_, i. 1. This passage is available in English in a tract by Thomas -Bellott, London, 1840. - -After Galen there is a thousand years of darkness, and biology ceases -to have a history. The mind of the Dark Ages turned towards theology, -and such remains of Neoplatonic philosophy as were absorbed into the -religious system were little likely to be of aid to the scientific -attitude. One department of positive knowledge must of course persist. -Men still suffered from the infirmities of the flesh and still sought -relief from them. But the books from which that advice was sought had -nothing to do with general principles nor with knowledge as such. -They were the most wretched of the treatises that still masqueraded -under the names of Hippocrates and Galen, mostly mere formularies, -antidotaries, or perhaps at best symptom lists. And, when the -depression of the western intellect had passed its worst, there was -still no biological material on which it could be nourished. - -The prevailing interest of the barbarian world, at last beginning to -settle into its heritage of antiquity, was with Logic. Of Aristotle -there survived in Latin dress only the _Categories_ and the _De -interpretatione_, the merciful legacy of Boethius, the last of the -philosophers. Had a translation of Aristotle’s _Historia animalium_ -or _De generatione animalium_ survived, had a Latin version of the -Hippocratic work _On generation_ or of the treatises of Theophrastus -_On plants_ reached the earlier Middle Ages, the whole mental history -of Europe might have been different and the rediscovery of nature might -have been antedated by centuries. But this was a change of heart for -which the world had long to wait; something much less was the earliest -biological gift of Greece. The gift, when it came, came in two forms, -one of which has not been adequately recognized, but both are equally -her legacy. These two forms are, firstly, the well-known work of the -early translators and, secondly, the tardily recognized work of certain -schools of minor art. - -The earliest biological treatises that became accessible in the west -were rendered not from Greek but from Arabic. The first of them was -perhaps the treatise περὶ μυῶν κινήσεως, _On movement of muscles_ of -Galen, a work which contains more than its title suggests and indeed -sets forth much of the Galenic physiological system. It was rendered -into Latin from the Arabic of Joannitius (Hunain ibn Ishaq, 809-73), -probably about the year 1200, by one Mark of Toledo. It attracted -little attention, but very soon after biological works of Aristotle -began to become accessible. The first was probably the fragment _On -plants_. The Greek original of this is lost, and besides the Latin, -only an Arabic version of a former Arabic translation of a Syriac -rendering of a Greek commentary is now known! Such a work appeared from -the hand of a translator known as Alfred the Englishman about 1220 or a -little later. Neither it nor another work from the same translator, _On -the motion of the heart_, which sought to establish the primacy of that -organ on Aristotelian grounds, can be said to contain any of the spirit -of the master.[90] - -[90] C. H. Haskins, ‘The reception of Arabic science in England,’ -_English Historical Review_, London, 1915, p. 56. - -A little better than these is the work of the wizard Michael the Scot -(1175?-1234?). Roger Bacon tells us that Michael in 1230 ‘appeared -[at Oxford], bringing with him the works of Aristotle in natural -history and mathematics, with wise expositors, so that the philosophy -of Aristotle was magnified among the Latins’. Scott produced his work -_De animalibus_ about this date and he included in it the three great -biological works of Aristotle, all rendered from an inferior Arabic -version.[91] Albertus Magnus (1206-80) had not as yet a translation -direct from the Greek to go upon for his great commentary on the -_History of animals_, but he depended on Scott. The biological works -of Aristotle were rendered into Latin direct from the Greek in the -year 1260 probably by William of Moerbeke.[92] Such translations, -appearing in the full scholastic age when everything was against -direct observation, cannot be said to have fallen on a fertile ground. -They presented an ordered account of nature and a good method of -investigation, but these were gifts to a society that knew little of -their real value.[93] - -[91] The latest and best work on the Aristotelian translations of Scott -is an inaugural dissertation by A. H. Querfeld, _Michael Scottus und -seine Schrift, De secretis naturae_, Leipzig, 1919. - -[92] J. G. Schneider, _Aristotelis de animalibus historiae_, Leipzig, -1811, p. cxxvi. L. Dittmeyer, _Guilelmi Moerbekensis translatio -commentationis Aristotelicae de generatione animalium_, Dillingen, -1915. L. Dittmeyer, _De animalibus historia_, Leipzig, 1907. - -[93] The subject of the Latin translations of Aristotle is traversed -by A. and C. Jourdain, _Recherches critiques sur l’âge des -traductions latines d’Aristote_, 2nd ed., Paris, 1843; M. Grabmann, -_Forschungen über die lateinischen Aristoteles-Übersetzungen des -XIII. Jahrhunderts_, Münster i/W., 1916; and F. Wüstenfeld, _Die -Übersetzungen arabischer Werke in das Lateinische seit dem XI. -Jahrhundert_, Göttingen, 1877. - -Yet the advent of these texts was coincident with a returning desire to -observe nature. Albert, with all his scholasticism, was no contemptible -naturalist. He may be said to have begun first-hand plant study in -modern times so far as literary records are concerned. His book _De -vegetabilibus_ contains excellent observations, and he is worthy -of inclusion among the fathers of botany. In his vast treatise _De -animalibus_, hampered as he is by his learning and verbosity, he shows -himself a true observer and one who has absorbed something of the -spirit of the great naturalist to whose works he had devoted a lifetime -of study and on which he professes to be commenting. We see clearly -the leaven of the Aristotelian spirit working, though Albert is still -a schoolman. We may select for quotation a passage on the generation -of fish, a subject on which some of Aristotle’s most remarkable -descriptions remained unconfirmed till modern times. These descriptions -impressed Albert in the same way as they do the modern naturalist. To -those who know nothing of the stimulating power of the Aristotelian -biological works, Albert’s description of the embryos of fish and his -accurate distinction of their mode of development from that of birds, -by the absence of an allantoic membrane in the one and its presence -in the other, must surely be startling. Albert depends on Aristotle—a -third-hand version of Aristotle—but does not slavishly follow him. - -‘Between the mode of development (_anathomiam generationis_) of birds’ -and fishes’ eggs there is this difference: during the development of -the fish the second of the two veins which extend from the heart [as -described by Aristotle in birds] does not exist. For we do not find -the vein which extends to the outer covering in the eggs of birds -which some wrongly call the navel because it carries the blood to the -exterior parts; but we do find the vein that corresponds to the yolk -vein of birds, for this vein imbibes the nourishment by which the limbs -increase.... In fishes as in birds, channels extend from the heart -first to the head and the eyes, and first in them appear the great -upper parts. As the growth of the young fish increases the albumen -decreases, being incorporated into the members of the young fish, and -it disappears entirely when development and formation are complete. The -beating of the heart ... is conveyed to the lower part of the belly, -carrying pulse and life to the inferior members. - -‘While the young [fish] are small and not yet fully developed they have -veins of great length which take the place of the navel-string, but as -they grow and develop, these shorten and contract into the body towards -the heart, as we have said about birds. The young fish and the eggs are -enclosed and in a covering, as are the eggs and young of birds. This -covering resembles the dura mater [of the brain], and beneath it is -another [corresponding therefore to the pia mater of the brain] which -contains the young animal and nothing else.’[94] - -In the next century Conrad von Megenberg (1309-98) produced his _Book -of Nature_, a complete work on natural history, the first of the kind -in the vernacular, founded on Latin versions, now rendered direct -from the Greek, of the Aristotelian and Galenic biological works. It -is well ordered and opens with a systematic account of the structure -and physiology of man as a type of the animal creation, which is then -systematically described and followed by an account of plants. Conrad, -though guided by Aristotle, uses his own eyes and ears, and with him -and Albert the era of direct observation has begun.[95] - -[94] The enormous _De Animalibus_ of Albert of Cologne is now available -in an edition by H. Stadler, _Albertus Magnus De Animalibus Libri -XXVI nach der cölner Urschrift_, 2 vols., Münster i/W., 1916-21. The -quotation is translated from vol. i, pp. 465-6. - -[95] Conrad’s work is conveniently edited by H. Schultz, _Das Buch der -Natur von Conrad von Megenberg, die erste Naturgeschichte in deutscher -Sprache, in Neu-Hochdeutsche Sprache bearbeitet_, Greifswald, 1897. -Conrad’s work is based on that of Thomas of Cantimpré (1201-70). - -But there was another department in which the legacy of Greece found -an even earlier appreciation. For centuries the illustrations to -herbals and bestiaries had been copied from hand to hand, continuing -a tradition that had its rise with Greek artists of the first century -B. C. But their work, copied at each stage without reference to the -object, moved constantly farther from resemblance to the original. At -last the illustrations became little but formal patterns, a state in -which they remained in some late copies prepared as recently as the -sixteenth century. But at a certain period a change set in, and the -artist, no longer content to rely on tradition, appeals at last to -nature. This new stirring in art corresponds with the new stirring in -letters, the Arabian revival—itself a legacy of Greece, though sadly -deteriorated in transit—that gave rise to scholasticism. In much of the -beautiful carved and sculptured work of the French cathedrals the new -movement appears in the earlier part of the thirteenth century. At such -a place as Chartres we see the attempt to render plants and animals -faithfully in stone as early as 1240 or before. In the easier medium of -parchment the same tendency appears even earlier. When once it begins -the process progresses slowly until the great recovery of the Greek -texts in the fifteenth century, when it is again accelerated. - -During the sixteenth century the energy of botanists and zoologists was -largely absorbed in producing most carefully annotated and illustrated -editions of Dioscorides and Theophrastus and accounts of animals, -habits, and structure that were intended to illustrate the writings of -Aristotle, while the anatomists explored the bodies of man and beast -to confirm or refute Galen. The great monographs on birds, fishes, and -plants of this period, ostensibly little but commentaries on Pliny, -Aristotle, and Dioscorides, represent really the first important -efforts of modern times at a natural history. They pass naturally into -the encyclopaedias of the later sixteenth century, and these into the -physiological works of the seventeenth. Aristotle was never a dead hand -in Biology as he was in Physics, and this for the reason that he was a -great biologist but was not a great physicist. - -With the advance of the sixteenth century the works of Aristotle, and -to a less extent those of Dioscorides and Galen, became the great -stimulus to the foundation of a new biological science. Matthioli -(1520-77), in his commentary on Dioscorides (first edition 1544), which -was one of the first works of its type to appear in the vernacular, -made a number of first-hand observations on the habits and structure -of plants that is startling even to a modern botanist. About the same -time Galenic physiology, expressed also in numerous works in the -vulgar tongue and rousing the curiosity of the physicians, became the -clear parent of modern physiology and comparative anatomy. But, above -all, the Aristotelian biological works were fertilizers of the mind. -It is very interesting to watch a fine observer such as Fabricius ab -Acquapendente (1537-1619) laying the foundations of modern embryology -in a splendid series of first-hand observations, treating his own great -researches almost as a commentary on Aristotle. What an impressive -contrast to the arid physics of the time based also on Aristotle! ‘My -purpose’, says Fabricius, ‘is to treat of the formation of the foetus -in every animal, setting out from that which proceeds from the egg: for -this ought to take precedence of all other discussion of the subject, -both because it is not difficult to make out Aristotle’s view of the -matter, and because his treatise on the Formation of the Foetus from -the egg is by far the fullest, and the subject is by much the most -extensive and difficult.’[96] - -[96] Hieronimo Fabrizio of Acquapendente, _De formato foetu_, Padua, -1604. - -The industrious and careful Fabricius, with a wonderful talent for -observation lit not by his own lamp but by that of Aristotle, bears -a relation to the master much like that held by Aristotle’s pupil -in the flesh, Theophrastus. The works of the two men, Fabricius and -Theophrastus, bear indeed a resemblance to each other. Both rely -on the same group of general ideas, both progress in much the same -ordered calm from observation to observation, both have an inspiration -which is efficient and stimulating but below the greatest, both are -enthusiastic and effective as investigators of fact, but timid and -ineffective in drawing conclusions. - -But Fabricius was more happy in his pupils than Theophrastus, for -we may watch the same Aristotelian ideas fermenting in the mind of -Fabricius’s successor, the greatest biologist since Aristotle himself, -William Harvey (1578-1657).[97] This writer’s work _On generation_ is a -careful commentary on Aristotle’s work on the same topic, but it is a -commentary not in the old sense but in the spirit of Aristotle himself. -Each statement is weighed and tested in the light of experience, and -the younger naturalist, with all his reverence for Aristotle, does not -hesitate to criticize his conclusions. He exhibits an independence of -thought, an ingenuity in experiment, and a power of deduction that -places his treatise as the middle term of the three great works on -embryology of which the other members are those of Aristotle and Karl -Ernst von Baer (1796-1870).[98] - -[97] William Harvey, _Exercitationes de generatione animalium_, London, -1651. - -[98] Karl Ernst von Baer, _Ueber die Entwickelungsgeschichte der -Thiere_, Königsberg, 1828-37. - -With the second half of the seventeenth century and during a large part -of the eighteenth the biological works of Aristotle attracted less -attention. The battle against the Aristotelian physics had been fought -and won, but with them the biological works of Aristotle unjustly -passed into the shadow that overhung all the idols of the Middle Ages. - -The rediscovery of the Aristotelian biology is a modern thing. The -collection of the vast wealth of living forms absorbed the energies -of the generations of naturalists from Ray (1627-1705) and Willoughby -(1635-72) to Réaumur (1683-1757) and Linnaeus (1707-1778) and beyond to -the nineteenth century. The magnitude and fascination of the work seems -almost to have excluded general ideas. With the end of this period -and the advent of a more philosophical type of naturalist, such as -Cuvier (1769-1832) and members of the Saint-Hilaire family, Aristotle -came again to his own. Since the dawn of the nineteenth century, -and since naturalists have been in a position to verify the work of -Aristotle, his reputation as a naturalist has continuously risen. -Johannes Müller (1801-58), Richard Owen (1804-92), George Henry Lewes -(1817-78), William Ogle (1827-1912) are a few of the long line of those -who have derived direct inspiration from his biological work. With -improved modern methods of investigation the problems of generation -have absorbed a large amount of biological attention, and interest -has become specially concentrated on Aristotle’s work on that topic -which is perhaps, at the moment, more widely read than any biological -treatise, ancient or modern, except the works of Darwin. That great -naturalist wrote to Ogle in 1882: ‘From quotations I had seen I had a -high notion of Aristotle’s merits, but I had not the most remote notion -what a wonderful man he was. Linnaeus and Cuvier have been my two gods, -though in very different ways, but they were mere schoolboys to old -Aristotle.’ - - - - -GREEK MEDICINE - - -Ἡρόφιλος δὲ ᾝἐν τῷ Διαιτητικῷ καὶ σοφίαν φησὶν ἀνεπίδεικτον καὶ τέχνην -ἄδηλον καὶ ἰσχὺν ἀναγώνιστον καὶ πλοῦτον ἀχρεῖον καὶ λόγον ἀδύνατον, -ὑγιείας ἀπούσης. - -Herophilus, a Greek philosopher and physician (_c._ 300 B. C.), has -truly written ‘that Science and Art have equally nothing to show, -that Strength is incapable of effort, Wealth useless, and Eloquence -powerless if Health be wanting’.[99] All peoples therefore have had -their methods of treating those departures from health that we call -disease, and among peoples of higher culture such methods have been -reduced in most cases to something resembling a system. In antiquity, -as now, a variety of such systems were in vogue, and those nations who -practised the art of writing from an early date have left considerable -records of their medical methods and doctrines. We may thus form a -fairly good idea of the medical principles of the Mesopotamian, the -Egyptian, the Iranian, the Indian, and the Chinese civilizations. Much -in these systems, as in the medical procedure of more primitive tribes, -was based upon some theory of disease which fitted in with a larger -theory of the nature of evil. Of these theories the commonest was and -is the demonic, the view that regards deviation from the normal state -of health as due either to the attacks of supernatural beings or to -their actual entry into the body of the sufferer. A medical system -based on such a view is susceptible of great elaboration in a higher -civilization, but not being founded on observation is hardly capable of -indefinite development, for a point must ultimately be reached at which -the mind recoils from complex conclusions far remote from observed -phenomena. The medicine of the ancient and settled civilization of such -a people as the Assyro-Babylonians, for instance, of which substantial -traces have been recovered, is hardly, if at all, more effective, -though far more systematized, than that of many a wild and unlettered -tribe that may be observed to-day. Of such medicine as this we may give -an account, but we can hardly write a _history_. We cannot establish -those elements of continuity and of development from which alone -history can be constructed. - -[99] The works of Herophilus are lost. This fine passage has been -preserved for us by Sextus Empiricus, a third century physician, in -his πρὸς τοὺς μαθηματικοὺς ἀντιρῥητικοί, which is in essence an attack -on all positive philosophy. It is an entertaining fact that we should -have to go to such a work for remains of the greatest anatomist of -antiquity. The passage is in the section directed against ethical -writers, xi. 50. - -It is the distinction of the Greeks alone among the nations of -antiquity that they practised a system of medicine based not on theory -but on observation accumulated systematically as time went on. The -claim can be made for the Greeks that some at least among them were -deflected by no theory, were deceived by no theurgy, were hampered by -no tradition in their search for the facts of disease and in their -attempts at interpreting its phenomena. Only the Greeks among the -ancients could look on their healers as _physicians_ (= naturalists, -φύσις = nature), and that word itself stands as a lasting reminder of -their achievement.[100] - -[100] The word φυσικός, though it passed over into Latin (Cicero) with -the meaning _naturalist_, acquired the connotation of _sorcerer_ among -the later Greek writers. Perhaps the word _physicianus_ was introduced -to make a distinction from the charm-mongering _physicus_. In later -Latin _physicus_ and _medicus_ are almost always interchangeable. - -At a certain stage in the history of the Western world—the exact point -in time may be disputed but the event is admitted by all—men turned -to explore the treasures of the ancient wisdom and the whole mass of -Greek medical learning was gradually laid before the student. That -mass contained much dross, material that survived from early as from -late Greek times which was hardly, if at all, superior to the debased -compositions that circulated in the name of medicine in the middle -centuries. But the recovered Greek medical writings also contained some -material of the purest and most scientific type, and that material and -the spirit in which it was written, form the debt of modern medicine to -antiquity. - -It is a debt the value of which cannot be exaggerated. The physicians -of the revival of learning, and for long after, doubtless pinned their -faith too much to the written word of their Greek forbears and sought -to imprison the free spirit of Hippocrates and Galen in the rigid -wall of their own rediscovered texts. The great medical pioneers of -a somewhat later age, enraged by this attempt, the real nature of -which was largely hidden from them, not infrequently revolted and -rightly revolted against the bondage to the Greeks in which they had -been brought up. Yet it is sure that these modern discoverers were -the true inheritors of the Greeks. Without Herophilus we should have -had no Harvey and the rise of physiology might have been delayed for -centuries; had Galen’s works not survived, Vesalius would never have -reconstructed Anatomy, and Surgery too might have stayed behind with -her laggard sister, Medicine; the Hippocratic collection was the -necessary and acknowledged basis for the work of the greatest of modern -clinical observers, Thomas Sydenham, and the teaching of Hippocrates -and of his school is the substantial basis of instruction in the wards -of a modern hospital. In the pages which follow we propose therefore -to review the general character of medical knowledge in the best Greek -period and to consider briefly how much of that great heritage remained -accessible to the earlier modern physicians. The reader will thus be -able to form some estimate of the degree to which the legacy has been -passed on to our own times. - -It is evident that among such a group of peoples as the Greeks, -varying in state of civilization, in mental power, in geographical -and economic position and in general outlook, the practice of medicine -can have been by no means uniform. Without any method of centralizing -medical education and standardizing teaching there was a great variety -of doctrines and of practice in vogue among them, and much of this -was on a low level of folk custom. Such lower grade material of Greek -origin has come down to us in abundance, though much of it, curiously -enough, from a later time. But the overwhelming mass of earlier Greek -medical literature sets forth for us a pure scientific effort to -observe and to classify disease, to make generalizations from carefully -collected data, to explain the origin of disease on rational grounds, -and to apply remedies, when possible, on a reasoned basis. We may thus -rest fairly well assured that, despite serious and irreparable losses, -we are still in possession of some of the very finest products of the -Greek medical intellect. - -There is ample evidence that the Greeks inherited, in common with many -other peoples of Mediterranean and Asiatic origin, a whole system of -magical or at least non-rational pharmacy and medicine from a remoter -ancestry. Striking parallels can be drawn between these folk elements -among the Greeks and the medical systems of the early Romans, as well -as with the medicine of the Indian Vedas, of the ancient Egyptians, and -of the earliest European barbarian writings. It is thus reasonable to -suppose that these elements, when they appear in later Greek writings, -represent more primitive folk elements working up, under the influence -of social disintegration and consequent mental deterioration, through -the upper strata of the literate Greek world. But with these elements, -intensely interesting to the anthropologist, the psychologist, the -ethnologist, and to the historian of religion, we are not here greatly -concerned. Important as they are, they constitute no part of the -special claim of the Greek people to distinction, but rather aid us in -uniting the Greek mentality with that of other kindred peoples. Here we -shall rather discuss the course of Greek scientific medicine proper, -the type of medical doctrine and practice, capable of development -in the proper sense of the word, that forms the basis of our modern -system. We are concerned, in fact, with the earliest evolutionary -medicine. - -We need hardly discuss the first origins of Greek Medicine. The -material is scanty and the conclusions somewhat doubtful and -perhaps premature, for the discovery of a considerable fragment of -the historical work of Menon, a pupil of Aristotle, containing a -description of the views of some of the precursors of the Hippocratic -school, renews a hope that more extended investigation may yield -further information as to the sources and nature of the earliest Greek -medical writings.[101] The study of Mesopotamian star-lore has linked -it up with early Greek astronomical science. The efforts of cuneiform -scholars have not, however, been equally successful for medicine, and -on the whole the general tendency of modern research is to give less -weight to Mesopotamian and more to Egyptian sources than had previously -been admitted; thus, as an instance, some prescriptions in the Ebers -papyrus of the eighteenth dynasty (about the sixteenth century B. C.) -discovered at Thebes in 1872 resemble certain formulae in the Corpus -Hippocraticum. A number of drugs, too, habitually used by the Greeks, -such as _Andropogon_, _Cardamoms_, and _Sesame orientalis_, are of -Indian origin. There are also the Minoan cultures to be considered, -and our knowledge is not yet sufficient to speak of the heritage that -Greek medicine may or may not have derived from that source, though -it seems not improbable that Greek hygiene may here owe a debt.[102] -Omitting, therefore, this early epoch, we pass direct to the later -period, between the sixth and fourth centuries, from which documents -have actually come down to us. - -[101] This fragment has been published in vol. iii, part 1, of the -_Supplementum Aristotelicum_ by H. Diels as _Anonymi Londinensis ex -Aristotelis Iatricis Menonis et Aliis Medicis Eclogae_, Berlin, 1893. -See also H. Bekh and F. Spät, _Anonymus Londinensis, Auszüge eines -Unbekannten aus Aristoteles-Menons Handbuch der Medizin_, Berlin, 1896. - -[102] It is tempting, also, to connect the Asclepian snake cult with -the prominence of the serpent in Minoan religion. - -The earliest medical school of which we have definite information is -that of Cnidus, a Lacedaemonian colony in Asiatic Doris. Its origin may -perhaps reach back to the seventh century B. C. We have actual records -that the teachers of Cnidus were accustomed to collect systematically -the phenomena of disease, of which they had produced a very complex -classification, and we probably possess also several of their actual -works. The physicians of Cos, their only contemporary critics whose -writings have survived, considered that the Cnidian physicians paid -too much attention to the actual sensations of the patient and to -the physical signs of the disease. The most important of the Cnidian -doctrines were drawn up in a series of _Sentences_ or Aphorisms, and -these, it appears, inculcated a treatment along Egyptian lines of the -symptom or at most the disease, rather than the patient, a statement -borne out by the contents of the gynaecological works of probable -Cnidian origin included in the so-called ‘Hippocratic Collection’. -A few names of Cnidian physicians have, moreover, come down to us -with titles of their works, and a later statement that they practised -anatomy. There can be little doubt too that the Cnidian school drew -also on Persian and Indian Medicine. - -The origin of the school of the neighbouring island of Cos was a little -later than that of Cnidus and probably dates from the sixth century -B. C. Of the Coan school, or at least of the general tendencies that -it represented, we have a magnificent and copious literary monument -in the Corpus Hippocraticum, a collection which was probably put -together in the early part of the third century B. C. by a commission -of Alexandrian scholars at the order of the book-loving Ptolemy Soter -(reigned 323-285 B. C.). The elements of which this collection is -composed are of varying dates from the sixth to the fourth century B. -C., and of varying value and origin, but they mainly represent the -point of view of physicians of the eastern part of the Greek world in -the fifth and fourth centuries. - -The most obvious feature, the outstanding element that at once -strikes the modern observer in these ‘Coan’ writings, is the enormous -emphasis laid on the actual course of disease. ‘It appears to me a -most excellent thing’, so opens one of the greatest of the Hippocratic -works, ‘for a physician to cultivate _pronoia_.[103] Foreknowing -and foretelling in the presence of the sick the past, present, and -future (of their symptoms) and explaining all that the patients are -neglecting, he would be believed to understand their condition, so that -men would have confidence to entrust themselves to his care.... Thus he -would win just respect and be a good physician. By an earlier forecast -in each case he would be more able to tend those aright who have a -chance of surviving, and by foreseeing and stating who will die, and -who will survive, he will escape blame....’[104] - -[103] This word _pronoia_, as Galen explains (εἰς τὸ Ἱπποκράτους -προγνωστικόν, K. xviii, B. p. 10), is not used in the philosophic -sense, as when we ask whether the universe was made by chance or by -_pronoia_, nor is it used quite in the modern sense of _prognosis_, -though it includes that too. _Pronoia_ in Hippocrates means knowing -things about a patient before you are told them. See E. T. Withington, -‘Some Greek medical terms with reference to Luke and Liddell and -Scott,’ _Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine_ (_Section of the -History of Medicine_), xiii, p. 124, London, 1920. - -[104] _Prognostics_ 1. - -Just as the Cnidians by dividing up diseases according to symptoms -over-emphasized diagnosis and over-elaborated treatment, so the Coans -laid very great force on prognosis and adopted therefore a largely -expectant attitude towards diseases. Both Cnidian and Coan physicians -were held together by a common bond which was, historically if not -actually, related to temple worship. Physicians leagued together in the -name of a god, as were the Asclepiadae, might escape, and did escape, -the baser theurgic elements of temple medicine. Of these they were as -devoid as a modern Catholic physician might be expected to be free from -the absurdities of Lourdes. But the extreme cult of prognosis among -the Coans may not improbably be traced back to the medical lore of the -temple soothsayers whose divine omens were replaced by indications of -a physical nature in the patient himself.[105] We are tempted too to -link it with that process of astronomical and astrological prognosis -practised in the Mesopotamian civilizations from which Ionia imitated -and derived so much. Religion had thus the same relation to medicine -that it would have with a modern ‘religious’ medical man as suggesting -the motive and determining the general direction of his practice though -without influence on the details and method. - -[105] There is a discussion of the relation of the Asclepiadae to -temple practice in an article by E. T. Withington, ‘The Asclepiadae -and the Priest of Asclepius,’ in _Studies in the History and Method of -Science_, edited by Charles Singer, vol. ii, Oxford, 1921. - -During the development of the Coan medical school along these lines in -the sixth and fifth centuries, there was going on a most remarkable -movement at the very other extreme of the Greek world. Into the course -and general importance of Sicilian philosophy it is not our place to -enter, but that extraordinary movement was not without its repercussion -on medical theory and practice. Very important in this direction was -Empedocles of Agrigentum (_c._ 500-_c._ 430 B. C.). His view that the -blood is the seat of the ‘innate heat’, ἔμφυτον θερμόν, he took from -folk belief—‘the blood is the life’—and this innate heat he closely -identified with soul. More profitable was his doctrine that breathing -takes place not only through what are now known as the respiratory -passages but also through the pores of the skin. His teaching led to a -belief in the heart as the centre of the vascular system and the chief -organ of the ‘pneuma’ which was distributed by the blood vessels. This -pneuma was equivalent to both soul and life, but it was something more. -It was identified with air and breath, and the pneuma could be seen -to rise as shimmering steam from the shed blood of the sacrificial -victim—for was not the blood its natural home? There was a pneuma, too, -that interpenetrated the universe around us and gave it those qualities -of life that it was felt to possess. Anaximenes (_c._ 610-_c._ 545 -B. C.), an Ionian predecessor of Empedocles, may be said to have -defined for us these functions of the pneuma; οῖον ἡ ψυχὴ ἡ ἡμετέρα -ἀὴρ οῧσα συγκρατεί ἡμᾶς, ὅλον τὸν κόσμον πνεῦμα καὶ ἀὴρ περιέχει ‘As -our soul, being air, sustains us, so pneuma and air pervade the whole -universe’;[106] but it is the speculation of Empedocles himself that -came to be regarded as the basis of the Pneumatic School in Medicine -which had later very important developments. - -[106] The works of Anaximenes are lost. This phrase of his, however, is -preserved by the later writer Aetios. - -Another early member of the Western school who made important -contributions to medical doctrine—in which relation alone we need -consider him—was Pythagoras of Samos (_c._ 580-_c._ 490 B. C.). For -him number, as the purest conception, formed the basis of philosophy. -Unity was the symbol of perfection and corresponded to God Himself. The -material universe was represented by 2, and was divided by the number -12, whence we have 3 worlds and 4 spheres. These in turn, according -at least to the later Pythagoreans, give rise to the four elements, -earth, air, fire, and water—a primary doctrine of medicine and of -science derived perhaps from ancient Egypt and surviving for more than -two millennia. The Pythagoreans taught, too, of the existence of an -animal soul, an emanation of the soul of the universe. In all this we -may distinguish the germ of that doctrine of the relation of man and -universe, microcosm and macrocosm, which, suppressed as irrelevant in -the Hippocratic works, reappears in the Platonic and especially in -the Neoplatonic writings, and forms a very important dogma in later -medicine. - -A pupil of Pythagoras and an older contemporary of Empedocles was -Alcmaeon of Croton (_c._ 500 B. C.), who began to construct a positive -basis for medical science by the practice of dissection of animals, and -discovered the optic nerves and the Eustachian tubes. He even extended -his researches to Embryology, describing the head of the foetus as the -first part to be developed—a justifiable deduction from appearances. -Alcmaeon introduced also the doctrine that health depends on harmony, -disease on discord of the elements within the body. Curiosity as to the -distribution of the vessels was excited by Empedocles and Alcmaeon and -led to further dissection, and Alcmaeon’s pupils Acron (_c._ 480 B. C.) -and Pausanias (_c._ 480 B. C.), and the later Philistion of Lokri,[107] -the contemporary of Plato, all made anatomical investigations. - -[107] For the work of these physicians see especially M. Wellmann, -_Fragmentsammlung der griechischen Aerzte_, Bd. I, Berlin, 1901. - -The views of Empedocles, and especially his doctrine that regarded -the heart as the main site of the pneuma, though rejected by the Coan -school as a whole, were not without influence on Ionia. Diogenes -of Apollonia, the philosopher of pneumatism, a late fifth century -writer who must have been contemporary with Hippocrates the Great, -himself made an investigation of the blood vessels; and the influence -of the same school may be traced in a little work περὶ καρδίης, _On -the heart_, which is the best anatomical treatise of the Hippocratic -Collection. This work describes the aorta and the pulmonary artery as -well as the three valves at the root of each of the great vessels, -and it speaks of experiments to test their validity. It treats of the -pericardium and of the pericardial fluid and perhaps of the musculi -papillares, and contrasts the thickness of the walls of right and left -ventricles. The author considers that the left ventricle is empty of -blood—as indeed it is after death—and is the source of the innate heat -and of the absolute intelligence. These views fit in with the doctrines -of Empedocles, so that we may perhaps even venture to regard this work -as a surviving document of the Sicilian school. It is interesting to -observe that we have here the first hint of human dissection, for the -author tells us that the hearts of animals may be compared to that -of man. The distinction of having been the first to write on human -anatomy, as such, belongs however, probably to a later writer, Diocles, -son of Archidamus of Carystus, who lived in the fourth century B. -C.[108] - -[108] Galen, περὶ ἀνατομικῶν ἐγχειρήσεων, _On anatomical preparations_, -§ 1, K. II, p. 282. - -We may now turn to the Hippocratic Corpus as a whole. This collection -consists of about 60 or 70 separate works, written at various periods -and in various states of preservation. At best only a very small -proportion of them can be attributed to Hippocrates, but the discussion -of the general question of the ‘genuineness’ of the works is now -admitted to be futile, for it is certain that we have no criteria -whatever to determine whether or no a particular work be from the pen -of the Father of Medicine, and the most we can ever say of such a -treatise is that it appears to be of his school and in his spirit. Yet -among the great gifts of this collection to our time and to all time -are two which stand out above all others, the picture of a man, and the -picture of a method. - -The man is Hippocrates himself. Of the actual details of his life we -know next to nothing. His period of greatest activity falls about -400 B. C. He seems to have led a wandering life. Born of a long -line of physicians in the island of Cos, he exerted his activities -in Thrace, Abdera, Delos, the Propontis (Cyzicus), Thasos, Thessaly -(notably at Larissa and Meliboea), Athens, and elsewhere, dying at -Larissa in extreme old age about the year 377 B. C. He had many -pupils, among whom were his two sons Thessalus and Dracon, who also -undertook journeys, his son-in-law Polybus, of whose works a fragment -has been preserved for us by Aristotle,[109] together with three -other Coans bearing the names Apollonius, Dexippus, and Praxagoras. -This is practically all we know of him with certainty. But though -this glimpse is very dim and distant, yet we cannot exaggerate the -influence on the course of medicine and the value for physicians of -all time of the traditional picture that was early formed of him and -that may indeed well be drawn again from the works bearing his name. -In beauty and dignity that figure is beyond praise. Perhaps gaining in -stateliness what he loses in clearness, Hippocrates will ever remain -the type of the perfect physician. Learned, observant, humane, with a -profound reverence for the claims of his patients, but an overmastering -desire that his experience shall benefit others, orderly and calm, -disturbed only by anxiety to record his knowledge for the use of his -brother physicians and for the relief of suffering, grave, thoughtful -and reticent, pure of mind and master of his passions, this is no -overdrawn picture of the Father of Medicine as he appeared to his -contemporaries and successors. It is a figure of character and virtue -which has had an ethical value to medical men of all ages comparable -only to the influence exerted on their followers by the founders of -the great religions. If one needed a maxim to place upon the statue -of Hippocrates, none could be found better than that from the book -Παραγγελίαι, _Precepts_: - - ἢν γὰρ παρῆ φιλανθρωπίη πάρεστὶ καὶ φιλοτεχνίη - ‘Where the love of man is, there also is love of the Art.’[110] - -[109] _Historia animalium_, iii. 3, where it is ascribed to Polybus. -The same passage is, however, repeated twice in the Hippocratic -writings, viz. in the περὶ φύσιος ἀνθρώπου, _On the nature of man_, -Littré, vi. 58, and in the περὶ ὀστέων φύσιος, _On the nature of -bones_, Littré, ix. 174. - -[110] Παραγγελίαι, § 6. - -[Illustration: Fig. 1. HIPPOCRATES - -British Museum, second or third century B. C.] - -[Illustration: Fig. 2. ASCLEPIUS - -British Museum, fourth century B. C.] - -The numerous busts of him which have reached our time are no portraits. -But the best of them are something much better and more helpful to us -than any portrait. They are idealized representations of the kind of -man a physician should be and was in the eyes of the best and wisest of -the Greeks. (See Fig. 1.) - -The method of the Hippocratic writers is that known to-day as the -‘inductive’. Without the vast scientific heritage that is in our own -hands, with only a comparatively small number of observations drawn -from the Coan and neighbouring schools, surrounded by all manner of -bizarre oriental religions in which no adequate relation of cause and -effect was recognized, and above all constantly urged by the exuberant -genius for speculation of that Greek people in the midst of whom they -lived and whose intellectual temptations they shared, they remain -nevertheless, for the most part, patient observers of fact, sceptical -of the marvellous and the unverifiable, hesitating to theorize beyond -the data, yet eager always to generalize from actual experience; calm, -faithful, effective servants of the sick. There is almost no type of -mental activity known to us that was not exhibited by the Greeks and -cannot be paralleled from their writings; but careful and constant -return to verification from experience, expressed in a record of -actual observations—the habitual method adopted in modern scientific -departments—is rare among them except in these early medical authors. - -The spirit of their practice cannot be better illustrated than by the -words of the so-called ‘Hippocratic oath’: - - ‘I swear by Apollo the healer, and Asclepius, and Hygieia, - and All-heal (Panacea) and all the gods and goddesses ... - that, according to my ability and judgement, I will keep - this Oath and this stipulation—to reckon him who taught me - this Art as dear to me as those who bore me ... to look upon - his offspring as my own brothers, and to teach them this - Art, if they would learn it, without fee or stipulation. By - precept, lecture, and all other modes of instruction, I will - impart a knowledge of the Art to my own sons, and those of - my teacher, and to disciples bound by a stipulation and - oath according to the Law of Medicine, but to none other. - I will follow that system of regimen which, according to - my ability and judgement, I consider for the benefit of - my patients, and abstain from whatever is deleterious and - mischievous. I will give no deadly medicine to any one - if asked, nor suggest any such counsel; nor will I aid - a woman to produce abortion. With purity and holiness I - will pass my life and practise my Art.... Into whatever - houses I enter, I will go there for the benefit of the - sick, and will abstain from every act of mischief and - corruption; and above all from seduction.... Whatever in - my professional practice—or even not in connexion with - it—I see or hear in the lives of men which ought not to - be spoken of abroad, I will not divulge, deeming that - on such matters we should be silent. While I keep this - Oath unviolated, may it be granted me to enjoy life and - the practice of the Art, always respected among men, but - should I break or violate this Oath, may the reverse be my - lot.’ - -Respected equally throughout the ages by Arab, Jew, and Christian, the -oath remains the watchword of the profession of medicine.[111] The -ethical value of such a declaration could not escape the attention even -of a Byzantine formalist, and it is interesting to observe that in our -oldest Greek manuscript of the Hippocratic text, dating from the tenth -century, this magnificent passage is headed by the words ‘from the oath -of Hippocrates according as it may be sworn by a Christian.’[112] - -[111] It must, however, be admitted that even in the Hippocratic -collection itself are cases of breach of the oath. Such, for instance, -is the induction of abortion related in περὶ φύσιος παιδίον, _On the -nature of the embryo_. There is evidence, however, that the author of -this work was not a medical practitioner. - -[112] Rome Urbinas 64, fo. 116. - -When we examine the Hippocratic corpus more closely, we discern that -not only are the treatises by many hands, but there is not even a -uniform opinion and doctrine running through them. This is well brought -out by some of the more famous of the phrases of this remarkable -collection. Thus a well-known passage from the _Airs, Waters, and -Places_ tells us that the Scythians attribute a certain physical -disability to a god, ‘but it appears to me’, says the author, ‘that -these affections are just as much divine as are all others and that no -disease is either more divine or more human than another, but that all -are equally divine, for each of them has its own nature, and none of -them arise without a natural cause.’ But, on the other hand, the author -of the great work on _Prognostics_ advises us that when the physician -is called in he must seek to ascertain the nature of the affections -that he is treating, and especially ‘if there be anything divine in -the disease, and to learn a foreknowledge of this also.’[113] We may -note too that this sentence almost immediately precedes what is perhaps -the most famous of all the Hippocratic sentences, the description of -what has since been termed the _Hippocratic facies_. This wonderful -description of the signs of death may be given as an illustration of -the habitual attitude of the Hippocratic school towards prognosis and -of the very careful way in which they noted details: - -[113] Kühlewein, i. 79, regards this as an interpolated passage. - - ‘He [the physician] should observe thus in acute diseases: - first, the countenance of the patient, if it be like to - those who are in health, _and especially if it be like - itself, for this would be the best_; but the more unlike to - this, the worse it is; such would be these: _sharp nose, - hollow eyes, collapsed temples_; _ears cold, contracted, - and their lobes turned out_; _skin about the forehead - rough, distended, and parched_; _the colour of the whole - face greenish or dusky_. If the countenance be so at the - beginning of the disease, and if this cannot be accounted - for from the other symptoms, inquiry must be made whether he - has passed a sleepless night; whether his bowels have been - very loose; or whether he is suffering from hunger; and if - any of these be admitted the danger may be reckoned as less; - and it may be judged in the course of a day and night if the - appearance of the countenance proceed from these. But if - none of these be said to exist, and the symptoms do not - subside in that time, be it known for certain that death is - at hand.’[114] - -Again, in the work _On the Art [of Medicine]_ we read: ‘I hold it to -be physicianly to abstain from treating those who are overwhelmed by -disease’,[115] a prudent if inhumane procedure among a people who might -regard the doctor’s powers as partaking of the nature of magic, and -perhaps a wise course to follow at this day in some places not very -far from Cos. Yet in the book _On Diseases_ we are advised even in the -presence of an incurable disease ‘to give relief with such treatment as -is possible’.[116] - -[114] Littré, ii. 112; Kühlewein, i. 79. The texts vary: Kühlewein is -followed except in the last sentence. - -[115] Περὶ τέχνες, § 3. - -[116] Περὶ νούσων α’, § 6. - -Furthermore, works by authors of the Hippocratic school stand sometimes -in a position of direct controversy with each other. Thus in the -treatise _On the Heart_ an experiment is set forth which is held to -prove that a part at least of imbibed fluid passes into the cavity -of the lung and thence to the parts of the body, a popular error in -antiquity which recurs in Plato’s _Timaeus_. This view, however, is -specifically held to be fallacious by the author of the work _On -Diseases_, who is supported by a polemical section in the surviving -Menon fragment. - -Passages like these have convinced all students that we have to deal -in this collection with a variety of works written at different dates -by different authors and under different conditions, a state that may -be well understood when we reflect that among the Greeks medicine was -a progressive study for a far longer period of time than has yet been -the case in the Western world. An account of such a collection can -therefore only be given in the most general fashion. The system or -systems of medicine that we shall thus attempt to describe was in vogue -up to the Alexandrian period, that is, to the beginning of the third -century B. C. - -Anatomy and physiology, the basis of our modern system, was still a -very weak point in the knowledge of the pre-Alexandrians. The surface -form of the body was intimately studied in connexion especially with -fractures, but there is no evidence in the literature of the period -of any closer acquaintance with human anatomical structure.[117] The -same fact is well borne out by Greek Art, for in its noblest period the -artist betrays no evidence of assistance derived from anatomization. -Such evidence is not found until we come to sculpture of Alexandrian -date, when the somewhat strained attitudes and exaggerated musculature -of certain works of the school of Pergamon suggest that the artist -derived hints, if not direct information, from anatomists who, we know, -were active at that time. It is not improbable, however, that separate -bones, if not complete skeletons, were commonly studied earlier, for -the surgical works of the Hippocratic collection, and especially those -on fractures and dislocations, give evidence of a knowledge of the -relations of bones to each other and of their natural position in -the body which could not be obtained, or only obtained with greatest -difficulty, without this aid. - -[117] A reference to dissection in the περὶ ἄρθρων, _On the joints_, § -1, appears of the present writer to be of Alexandrian date. - -There are in the Hippocratic works a certain number of comparisons -between human and animal structures that would have been made possible -by surgical operations and occasional accidents. The view has been put -forward that some anatomical knowledge was derived through the practice -of augury from the entrails of sacrificial animals. It appears, -however, improbable that a system so scientific and so little related -to temple practice would have had much to learn from these sources, -and, moreover, since we know that animals were actually dissected as -early as the time of Alcmaeon it would be unnecessary to invoke the -aid of the priests. The unknown author of the περὶ τόπων τῶν κατὰ -ἄνθρωπον, _On the sites of [diseases] in man_, a work written about -400 B. C., declares indeed that ‘physical structure is the basis of -medicine’, but the formal treatises on anatomy that we possess from -Hippocratic times give the general anatomical standard of the corpus, -and it is a very disappointing one. The tract _On Anatomy_, though -probably of much later date (perhaps _c._ 330 B. C.), is inferior even -to the treatise _On the Heart_ (perhaps of about 400 B. C.). - -Physiology and Pathology are almost as much in the background as -anatomy in the Hippocratic collection. As a formal discipline and -part of medical education we find no trace of these studies among -the pre-Alexandrian physicians. But the meagreness of the number of -ascertained facts did not prevent much speculation among a people eager -to seek the causes of things. Of that speculation we learn much from -the fragments of contemporary medical writers and philosophers, from -the medical works of the Alexandrian period, and to some extent from -the Hippocratic writings themselves. But the wiser and more sober among -the writers of the Hippocratic corpus were bent on something other -than the causes of things. Their pre-occupation was primarily with the -suffering patient, and the best of them therefore excluded—and we may -assume consciously—all but the rarest references to such speculation. - -The general state of health of the body was considered by the -Hippocratists to depend on the distribution of the four elements, -earth, air, fire, and water, whose mixture (_crasis_) and cardinal -properties, dryness, warmth, coldness, and moistness, form the body -and its constituents. To these correspond the cardinal fluids, blood, -phlegm, yellow bile and black bile. The fundamental condition of life -is the _innate heat_, the abdication of which is death. This innate -heat is greatest in youth when most fuel is therefore required, but -gradually declines with age. Another necessity for the support of -life is the _pneuma_ which circulates in the vessels. All this may -seem fanciful enough, but we may remember that the first half of the -nineteenth century had waned before the doctrine of the humours which -had then lasted for at least twenty-two centuries became obsolete, and -perhaps it still survives in certain modern scientific developments. -Moreover, the finest and most characteristic of the Hippocratic works -either do not mention or but casually refer to these theories which are -not essential to their main pre-occupation. Their task of observation -of symptoms, of the separation of the essentials from the accidents of -disease, and of generalization from experience could go on unaffected -by any view of the nature of man and of the world. Even treatment, -which must almost of necessity be based on _some_ theory of causation, -was little deflected by a view of elements and humours on which it was -impossible to act directly, while therapeutics was further safeguarded -from such influence by the doctrine of _Nature as the healer of -diseases_, νούσων φύσεις ἰητροί, the _vis medicatrix naturae_ of the -later Latin writers and of the present day. - -Diseases are to be cured, in the Hippocratic view, by restoring the -disturbed harmony in the relation of the elements and humours. These, -in fact, tend naturally to an equilibrium and in most cases if left to -themselves will be brought to this state by the natural tendency to -recovery. The process is known as _pepsis_ or, to give it the Latin -form, _coctio_, and the turning-point at which the effects of this -process exhibit themselves is the _crisis_, a term which, together -with some of its original content, has still a place in medicine. Such -a turning-point does in fact occur in many diseases, especially those -of a zymotic character, on certain special days, though undue emphasis -was laid by the Greek physicians upon the exact numerical character of -the event. It was no unimportant duty of the physician to assist nature -by bringing his remedies to bear at the critical times. If the crisis -is wanting, or if the remedies are applied at the wrong moment, the -disease may become incurable. But diseases were only immediately or -proximately caused by disturbances in the balance or harmony of the -humours. This was a mere hypothesis, as the Hippocratists themselves -well knew. There were other more remote causes which came into the -actual purview of the physician, conditions which he could and did -study. Such conditions were, for instance, injudicious modes of life, -exposure to climatic changes, advancing age, and the like. Many of -these could be directly corrected. But for those that could not there -were various therapeutic measures at hand. - -That human bodies are and normally remain in a state of health, and -that on the whole they tend to recover from disease, is an attitude -so familiar to us to-day that we scarcely need to be reminded of it. -We live some twenty-three centuries later than Hippocrates; for some -sixteen of those centuries the civilized world thought that to retain -health periodical bleedings and potions were necessary; for the last -century or two we have been gradually returning on the Hippocratic -position! - -The chief glory of the Hippocratic collection regarded from the -clinical point of view is perhaps the actual description of cases. A -number of these—forty-two in all—have survived.[118] They are not only -unique as a collection for nearly 2,000 years, but they are still to -this day models of what succinct clinical records should be, clear and -short, without a superfluous word, yet with all that is most essential, -and exhibiting merely a desire to record the most important facts -without the least attempt to prejudge the case. They illustrate to the -full the Greek genius for seizing on the essential. The writer show’s -not the least wish to exalt his own skill. He seeks merely to put the -data before the reader for his guidance under like circumstances. It -is a reflex of the spirit of full honesty in which these men lived and -worked that the great majority of the cases are recorded to have died. -Two of this remarkable little collection may be given: - - ‘The woman with quinsy, who lodged with Aristion: her - complaint began in the tongue; voice inarticulate; tongue - red and parched. _First day_, shivered, then became heated. - _Third day_, rigor, acute fever; reddish and hard swelling - on both sides of neck and chest; extremities cold and livid; - respiration elevated; drink returned by the nose; she could - not swallow; alvine and urinary discharges suppressed. - _Fourth day_, all symptoms exacerbated. _Fifth day_, she - died.’ - -[118] They are to be found as an Appendix to Books I and III of the -_Epidemics_ and embedded in Book III. - -We probably have here to do with a case of diphtheria. The quinsy, -the paralysis of the palate leading to return of the food through -the nose, and the difficulty with speech and swallowing are typical -results of this affection which was here complicated by a spread of -the septic processes into the neck and chest, a not uncommon sequela -of the disease. The rapid onset of the conditions is rather unusual, -but may be explained if we regard the case as a mild and unnoticed -diphtheria, subsequently complicated by paralysis and by secondary -septic infection, for which reasons she came under observation. - - ‘In Thasos, the wife of Delearces who lodged on the plain, - through sorrow was seized with an acute and shivering fever. - From first to last she always wrapped herself up in her - bedclothes; kept silent, fumbled, picked, bored and gathered - hairs [from the clothes]; tears, and again laughter; no - sleep; bowels irritable, but passed nothing; when urged - drank a little; urine thin and scanty; to the touch the - fever was slight; coldness of the extremities. _Ninth day_, - talked much incoherently, and again sank into silence. - _Fourteenth day_, breathing rare, large, and spaced, and - again hurried. _Seventeenth day_, after stimulation of the - bowels she passed even drinks, nor could retain anything; - totally insensible; skin parched and tense. _Twentieth - day_, much talk, and again became composed, then voiceless; - respiration hurried. _Twenty-first day_, died. Her - respiration throughout was rare and large; she was totally - insensible; always wrapped up in her bedclothes; throughout - either much talk, or complete silence.’ - -This second case is in part a description of low muttering delirium, -a common end of continued fevers such as, for instance, typhoid. The -description closely resembles the condition known now in medicine as -the ‘typhoid state’. Incidentally the case contains a reference to -a type of breathing common among the dying. The respiration becomes -deep and slow, as it sinks gradually into quietude and becomes rarer -and rarer until it seems to cease altogether, and then it gradually -becomes more rapid and so on alternately. This type of breathing is -known to physicians as ‘Cheyne-Stokes’ respiration in commemoration of -two distinguished Irish physicians of the last century who brought it -to the attention of medical men.[119] Recently it has been partially -explained on a physiological basis. We may note that there is another -and even better pen-picture of Cheyne-Stokes respiration in the -Hippocratic collection. It is in the famous case of ‘Philescos who -lived by the wall and who took to his bed on the first day of acute -fever’. About the middle of the sixth day he died and the physician -notes that ‘the respiration throughout was _like that of a person -recollecting himself_ and was large and rare’. Cheyne-Stokes breathing -is admirably described as ‘that of a person recollecting himself’. - -[119] John Cheyne (1777-1836) described this type of respiration in -the _Dublin Hospital Reports_, 1818, ii, p. 216. An extreme case of -this condition had been described by Cheyne’s namesake George Cheyne -(1671-1743) as the famous ‘Case of the Hon. Col. Townshend’ in his -_English Malady_, London, 1733. William Stokes (1804-78) published his -account of Cheyne-Stokes breathing in the _Dublin Quarterly Journal of -the Medical Sciences_, 1846, ii, p. 73. - -Such records as these may be contrasted with certain others that have -come down from Greek antiquity. We may instance two steles discovered -at Epidaurus in 1885, bearing accounts of forty-four temple cures. The -following two are fair samples of the cures there described: - - ‘_Aristagora of Troizen._ She had tape-worm, and while - she slept in the Temple of Asclepius at Troizen, she saw a - vision. She thought that, as the god was not present, but - was away in Epidaurus, his sons cut off her head, but were - unable to put it back again. Then they sent a messenger to - Asklepius asking him to come to Troizen. Meanwhile day came, - and the priest actually saw her head cut off from the body. - The next night Aristagora had a dream. She thought the god - came from Epidaurus and fastened her head on to her neck. - Then he cut open her belly, and stitched it up again. So she - was cured.’ - - ‘A man had an abdominal abscess. He saw a vision, and - thought that the god ordered the slaves who accompanied him - to lift him up and hold him, so that his abdomen could be - cut open. The man tried to get away, but his slaves caught - him and bound him. So Asclepius cut him open, rid him of the - abscess, and then stitched him up again, releasing him from - his bonds. Straightway he departed cured, and the floor of - the Abaton was covered with blood.’[120] - -In the records of almost all temple cures, a great number of which -have survived in a wide variety of documents, an essential element is -the process of ἐγκοίμησις, _incubation_ or temple sleep, usually in a -special sleeping-place or Abaton. The process has a close parallel in -certain modern Greek churches and in places of worship much further -West; there are even traces of it in these islands, and it is more than -probable that the Christian practice is descended by direct continuity -from the pagan.[121] The whole character of the temple treatment -was—and is—of a kind to suggest to the patient that he should dream of -the god, an event which therefore usually takes place. Such treatment -by suggestion is applicable only to certain classes of disease and -is always liable to fall into the hands of fanatics and impostors. -The difficulty that the honest practitioner encounters is that the -sufferer, in the nature of the case, can hardly be brought to believe -that his ailment is what in fact it is, a lesion of the mind. It is -this which gives the miracle-monger his chance. - -[120] The Epidaurian inscriptions are given by M. Fraenkel in the -_Corpus Inscriptionum Graecarum_ IV, 951-6, and are discussed by Mary -Hamilton (Mrs. Guy Dickins), _Incubation_, St. Andrews, 1906, from -whose translation I have quoted. Further inscriptions are given by -Cavvadias in the _Archaiologike Ephemeris_, 1918, p. 155 (issued 1921). - -[121] We are almost told as much in the apocryphal _Gospel of -Nicodemus_, § 1, a work probably composed about the end of the fourth -century. - -Examine for a moment the two cases from Epidaurus, which are quite -typical of the series. We observe that the first is described simply -as a case of ‘tape-worm’ without any justification for the diagnosis. -It is not unfrequent nowadays for thin and anxious patients to state, -similarly without justification, that they suffer from this condition. -They attribute certain common gastric experiences to this cause of -which perhaps they have learned from sensational advertisements, -and then they ask cure for a condition which they themselves have -diagnosed, but which has no existence in fact. Such a case is often -appropriately treated by suggestion. Though the elaborateness of the -suggestion in the temple cure is a little startling, yet it can easily -be paralleled from the legends of the Christian saints. Moreover, we -must remember that we are not here dealing with an account set down by -the patient herself, but with an edificatory inscription put up by the -temple officials. - -In the second inscription, the man with an abdominal abscess, we have -a much simpler state of affairs. It is evident that an operation was -actually performed by the priest masquerading as Asclepius, while the -patient was held down by the slaves. He is assured that all is a dream -and departs cured with the tell-tale comment ‘and the floor of the -Abaton was covered with blood’. - -These cases might be multiplied indefinitely without great profit for -our particular theme, for in such matters there is no development, no -evolution, no history. There can be no doubt that a very large part -of Greek practice was on this level, as is a small part of modern -medicine, but it is not a level with which we are here dealing and we -shall therefore pass it by. But a word of caution must be added. Such -temple worship has been compared with modern psycho-analysis. That -method, like all methods, has doubtless been abused at times; but it is -in essence, unlike the temple system, a purely scientific process by -which the ultimate basis of the patient’s delusions are laid bare and -demonstrated to him. - -There is indeed another side to these Asclepian temples. They gradually -developed along the lines of our health resorts and developed many -of the qualities—lovely and unlovely—that we associate with certain -continental watering places. On the bad side they became gossiping -centres or even something little better than brothels, as we may gather -from the _Mimes_ of Herondas. On the good side they formed a quiet -refuge among beautiful and interesting surroundings where the sick, -exhausted, and convalescent might gain the benefits that accrue from -pure air, fine scenery, and a regular and regulated mode of life. It is -more than probable too that the open air and manner of living benefited -many cases of incipient phthisis. - -Returning to the Hippocratic collection, the purely surgical treatises -will be found no less remarkable than those of clinical observation. -A very able surgeon, Francis Adams (1796-1861), who was eminent as a -Greek scholar, gave it as his opinion in the middle of the nineteenth -century that no systematic writer on surgery up to his time had given -so good and so complete an account of certain dislocations, notably of -the hip-joint, as that to be found in the Hippocratic collection. Some -types of injury to the hip, as described in the Hippocratic writings, -were certainly otherwise quite inadequately known until described -by Sir Astley Cooper (1768-1841), himself a peculiarly Hippocratic -character.[122] The verdict of Adams was probably just, though since -his time the surgery of dislocations, aided especially by X-rays, -has been enabled to pass very definitely beyond the Hippocratic -position. Admirable, too, is the Hippocratic description of dislocation -of the shoulder and of the jaw. In dislocation of hip, shoulder, or -jaw, as in most similar lesions, there is considerable deformity -produced. The nature and meaning of this deformity is described with -remarkable exactness by the Hippocratic writer, who also sets forth -the resulting disability. The principles and indeed the very details -of treatment in these cases are, save for the use of an anaesthetic, -practically identical with those of the present day. The processes are -unfortunately not suitable for detailed quotation and description here, -but they are of special interest since a graphic record of them has -come down to us. There exists in the Laurentian Library at Florence -a ninth century Greek surgical manuscript which contains figures of -surgeons reducing the dislocations in question. There is good reason to -suppose that these miniatures are copied from figures first prepared -in pre-Christian times many centuries earlier, and we may here see the -actual processes of reduction of such fractures, as conducted by a -surgeon of the direct Hippocratic tradition[123] (see Figs. 3, 4). - -[122] Astley Paston Cooper, _Treatise on Dislocations and Fractures of -the Joints_, London, 1822, and _Observations on Fractures of the Neck -and the Thighbone_, &c., London, 1823. - -[123] This famous manuscript is known as Laurentian, Plutarch 74, 7, -and its figures have been reproduced by H. Schöne, _Apollonius von -Kitium_, Leipzig, 1896. - -In keeping with all this is most of the surgical work of the -collection. We are almost startled by the modern sound of the whole -procedure as we run through the rough notebook κατ’ ἰητρεῖον, -_Concerning the Surgery_, or the more elaborate treatise περὶ ἰητροῦ, -_On the Physician_, where we may read minute directions for the -preparation of the operating-room, and on such points as the management -of light both artificial and natural, scrupulous cleanliness of -the hands, the care and use of the instruments, with the special -precautions needed when they are of iron, the decencies to be observed -during the operation, the general method of bandaging, the placing of -the patient, the use and abuse of splints, and the need for tidiness, -order, and cleanliness. Many of these directions are enlarged upon in -other surgical works of the collection, among which we find especially -full instructions for bandaging and for the diagnosis and treatment -of fractures and dislocations. A very fair representation of such a -surgery as these works describe is to be found on a vase-painting -of Ionic origin which is of the fifth century and therefore about -contemporary with Hippocrates himself (see fig. 5). There are also -several beautiful representations on vases of the actual processes of -bandaging (fig. 6). - -[Illustration: From MS. of APOLLONIUS OF KITIUM, of Ninth Century - -Copied from a pre-Christian original - -Fig. 3. - -REDUCING DISLOCATED SHOULDER] - -[Illustration: Fig. 4. - -REDUCING DISLOCATED JAW] - -Among the surgical procedures of which descriptions are to be found in -the Hippocratic writings are the opening of the chest for the condition -known as _empyema_ (accumulation of pus within the pleura frequently -following pneumonia), and trephining the skull in cases of fracture of -that part—two fundamental operations of modern surgery. Surgical art -has advanced enormously in our own times, yet a text-book containing -much that is useful to this day might be prepared from these surgical -contents of the collection alone. - -When we pass to the works on Medicine, in the restricted sense, we -enter into a region more difficult and perhaps even more fascinating. -We are no longer dealing with simple lesions of known origin, but with -the effects of disease and degeneration, of the essential character -of which the Hippocratic writers could in the nature of the case know -very little. Rigidly guarding themselves from any attempt to explain -disease by more immediate and hypothetical causes and thus diverting -the reader’s energies in the medically useless direction of vague -speculation—the prevalent mental vice of the Greeks—the best of these -physicians are content if they can put forward generalized conclusions -from actually observed cases. Many of their thoughts have now become -household words, and they have become so, largely as a direct heritage -from these ancient physicians. But it must be remembered that ideas so -familiar to us were with them the result of long and carefully recorded -experience and are like nothing that we encounter in the medicine of -other ancient nations. Such conclusions are best set forth perhaps -in the wonderful book of the _Aphorisms_ from which we may permit -ourselves a few quotations: - -[Illustration: FIG. 5. A GREEK CLINIC OF ABOUT 400 B. C. From a -vase-painting. - - In the centre sits a physician holding a lancet and - bleeding a patient from the median vein at the bend of - the right elbow into a large open basin. Above and behind - the physician are suspended three cupping vessels. To the - right sits another patient awaiting his turn; his left arm - is bandaged in the region of the biceps. The figure beyond - him smells a flower, perhaps as a preservative against - infection. Behind the physician stands a man leaning on a - staff; he is wounded in the left leg, which is bandaged. By - his side stands a dwarfish figure with disproportionately - large head, whose body exhibits deformities typical of the - developmental disease now known as _Achondroplasia_; in - addition to these deformities we note that his body is hairy - and the bridge of his nose sunken; on his back he carries - a hare which is almost as tall as himself. Talking to the - dwarf is a man leaning on a long staff, who has the remains - of a bandage round his chest. - - See E. Pottier, ‘Une Clinique grecque au Vᵉ siècle (vase - antique du collection Peztel)’, _Fondation Eugène Piot, - Monuments et Mémoires_, xiii. 149, Paris, 1906. (Some of our - interpretations differ from those of M. Pottier.) -] - -[Illustration: ΣΟΣΙΑΣ ΕΠΟΙΗΣΕΝ - - FIG. 6. A kylix from the Berlin Museum of about - 490 B. C. It bears the inscription ΣΟΣΙΑΣ ΕΠΟΙΗΣΕΝ, - _Sosias made (me)_, and represents Achilles bandaging - Patroclus, the names of the two heroes being written round - the margin. The painter is Euphronios, and the work is - regarded as the masterpiece of that great artist. The left - upper arm of Patroclus is injured, and Achilles is bandaging - it with a two-rolled bandage, which he is trying to bring - down to extend over the elbow. The treatment of the hands, - a department in which Euphronios excelled, is particularly - fine. Achilles was not a trained surgeon, and it will be - observed, from the position of the two tails of the bandage, - that he will have some difficulty when it comes to its final - fastening! -] - -‘Life is short, and the Art long; the opportunity fleeting; experiment -dangerous, and judgement difficult. Yet we must be prepared not only -to do our duty ourselves, but also patient, attendants, and external -circumstances must co-operate.’[124] - -In this one memorable paragraph, so condensed in the original as -to be almost untranslatable, he who ‘first separated medicine from -philosophy’ puts aside at once all speculative interest while in the -actual presence of the sick. His whole energy is concentrated on the -case in hand with that peculiar attitude, at once impersonal and -intensely personal, that has since been the mark of the physician, and -that has made of Medicine both a science and an art. - -‘For extreme diseases, extreme methods of cure.’[125] - -[124] The first lines are the source of the famous lines in Goethe’s -_Faust_: - -‘Ach Gott! die Kunst ist lang Und kurz ist unser Leben, Mir wird bei -meinem kritischen Bestreben Doch oft um Kopf und Busen bang.’ - - -[125] The extreme of treatment refers in the original to the extreme -restriction of diet, ἐς ἀκριβείην, but the meaning of the Aphorism has -always been taken as more generalized. - -‘The aged endure fasting most easily; next adults; next young persons, -and least of all children, and especially such as are the most lively.’ - -‘Growing bodies have the most innate heat; they therefore require the -most nourishment, and if they have it not they waste. In the aged there -is little heat, and therefore they require little fuel, for it would be -extinguished by much. Similarly fevers in the aged are not so acute, -because their bodies are cold.’ - -‘In disease sleep that is laborious is a deadly symptom; but if sleep -relieves it is not deadly.’ - -‘Sleep that puts an end to delirium is a good symptom.’ - -‘If a convalescent eats well, but does not put on flesh, it is a bad -symptom.’ - -‘Food or drink which is a little less good but more palatable, is to be -preferred to such that is better but less palatable.’ - -‘The old have generally fewer complaints than young; but those chronic -diseases which do befall them generally never leave them.’ - -Here we have a group of observations, some of which have become -literally household words, nor is it difficult to understand how -such sayings have passed from professional into lay keeping. This -magnificent book of _Aphorisms_ was very early translated into Latin, -probably before and certainly not later than the sixth century of -the Christian era, and thus became accessible throughout the West. -Manuscripts of this Latin version, dating from the ninth and tenth -centuries of our era, have survived in the actual places in which they -were written, at Monte Cassino in Southern Italy and at Einsiedeln in -Switzerland, and in 991 the book of _Aphorisms_ was well known and -closely studied at the Cathedral school of Chartres. From France the -_Aphorisms_ reached England, and they are mentioned in documents of the -tenth or eleventh century. By now, too, the book had been translated -into Syriac and later into Arabic and Hebrew, so that in the true -mediaeval period it was known both East and West, and in the vernacular -as well as the classical tongues. From the oriental dialects several -further translations were again made into Latin. An enormous number of -manuscripts of the work have survived in almost every Western dialect, -and these show on the whole that the text has been surprisingly little -tampered with. In the middle of the thirteenth century some of the -better-known Aphorisms were absorbed into a very popular Latin poem -that went forth in the name of the medical school of Salerno, though -with a false ascription to a yet earlier date. The Salernitan poem, -being itself translated into every European vernacular, further helped -to bring Hippocrates into every home. - -But by no means all the Aphorisms are of a kind that could well become -absorbed into folk medicine. It is only those concerning frequently -recurring states to which this fate could befall. The book contains -also a number of notes on rare conditions seldom seen or noted save by -medical men. Such are the following very acute observations: - -‘Spasm supervening on a wound is fatal.’ - -‘Those seized with tetanus die within four days, or if they survive so -long they recover.’ - -‘A convulsion, or hiccup, supervening on a copious discharge of blood -is bad.’ - -‘If after severe and grave wounds no swelling appears, it is very -serious.’ - -These four sentences all concern wounds. The first two refer to the -disease _tetanus_, which is very liable to supervene on wounds fouled -with earth, especially in hot and moist localities. The disease is -characterized by a series of painful muscular contractions which in -the more severe and fatal form may become a continuous spasm, a type -that is referred to in the first sentence. It is true of tetanus that -the later the onset after the wound is sustained the better the chance -of recovery. This is brought out by the second sentence. The third and -fourth sentences record untoward symptoms following a severe wound, -now well recognized and watched for by every surgeon. There were, of -course, innumerable illustrations of the truth of these Aphorisms in -extensive wounds, especially those involving crushed limbs, in the late -war. - -‘Phthisis occurs most commonly between the ages of eighteen and -thirty-five.’ - -‘Diarrhœa supervening on phthisis is mortal.’ - -The period given by the _Aphorisms_ for the maximum frequency of onset -of the disease is closely borne out by modern observations. The second -Aphorism is equally valid; continued diarrhœa is a very frequent -antecedent of the fatal event in chronic phthisis, and post-mortem -examination has shown that secondary involvement of the bowel is an -exceedingly common condition in this disease. - -No less remarkable is the following saying: ‘In jaundice it is a grave -matter if the liver becomes indurated.’ Jaundice is a common and -comparatively trivial symptom following or accompanying a large variety -of diseases. In and by itself it is of little importance and almost -always disappears spontaneously. There is a small group of pathological -conditions, however, in which this is not the case. The commonest and -most important of these are the fatal affections of cirrhosis and -cancer of the liver in which that organ may be felt to be enlarged and -hardened. If therefore the liver can be so felt in a case of jaundice, -it is, as the Aphorism says, of gravest import. Representations of -such cases have actually come down to us from Greek times. Thus on -a monument erected at Athens to the memory of a physician who died -in the second century of the Christian era we may see the process of -clinical examination (fig. 7). The physician is palpating the liver of -a dwarfish figure whose swollen belly, wasted limbs, and anxious look -tell of some such condition as that described in the Aphorism. The -ridge caused by the enlarged liver can even be detected on the statue. - -‘We must attend to the appearances of the eyes in sleep as presented -from below; for if a portion of the white be seen between the closing -eyelids, and if this be not connected with diarrhœa or severe purging, -it is a very bad and mortal symptom.’ In this, the last Aphorism which -we shall quote, we see the Hippocratic physician actually making his -observations. Now during sleep the eyeball is turned upward, so that -if the eye be then opened and examined only the white is seen. In the -later stages of all wasting and chronic diseases the eyelids tend not -to be closed during sleep. Such patients, as is well known, often die -with the eyes open and sometimes exhibiting only the whites. - -But the Hippocratic physician was not content to make only passive -observation; he also took active measures to elicit the ‘physical -signs’. In modern times a large, perhaps the chief, task of the student -of medicine is to acquire a knowledge of these so-called physical -signs of disease, the tradition of which has been gradually rebuilt -during the last three centuries. Among the most important measures -in which he learns to acquire facility is that of auscultation. This -useful process has come specially into vogue since the invention of -the stethoscope in 1819 by Laennec, who derived valuable hints for it -from the Hippocratic writings. Auscultation is several times mentioned -and described by the Hippocratic physicians, who used the direct -method of listening and not the mediate method devised by Laennec. -There are, however, certain cases in which the modern physician still -finds the older non-instrumental Hippocratic method superior. In the -Hippocratic work περὶ νούσων, _On diseases_, we read of a case with -fluid in the pleura that ‘you will place the patient on a seat which -does not move, an assistant will hold him by the shoulders, and you -will shake him, applying the ear to the chest, so as to recognize on -which side the sign occurs’. This sign is still used by physicians and -is known as _Hippocratic succussion_. In another passage in the same -work the symptoms of pleurisy are described and ‘a creak like that of -leather may be heard’. This is the well known _pleuritic rub_ which the -physician is accustomed to seek in such cases, and of which the creak -of leather is an excellent representation. - -Such quotations give an insight into the general method and attitude -of the Hippocratics. Of an art such as medicine, which even in those -times had a long and rational tradition behind it, it is impossible -to give more than the merest glimpse in such a review as this. The -actual practice is far too complex to set down briefly. This is -especially the case with the ancient teaching as regards epidemic -disease at which we must cursorily glance. The Hippocratic physicians -and indeed all antiquity were as yet ignorant of the nature, and -were but dimly aware of the existence, of infection.[126] For them -acute disease was something imposed on the patient from outside, but -how it reached him from outside and what it was that thus reached him -they were still admittedly ignorant. In this dilemma they turned to -prolonged observation and noted as a result of repeated experience -that epidemic diseases in their world had characteristic seasonal and -regional distributions. One country was not quite like another, nor was -one season like another nor even one year like another. By a series -of carefully collated observations as to how regions, seasons, and -years differed from each other, they succeeded in laying the basis of -a rational study of epidemiology which gave rise to the notion of an -‘epidemic constitution’ of the different years, a conception which was -very fertile and stimulating to the great clinicians of the seventeenth -and eighteenth centuries and is by no means without value even for the -modern epidemiologist. The work of the modern fathers of epidemiology -was consciously based on Hippocrates. - -[126] The ancients knew almost nothing of infection as _applied -specifically_ to disease. All early peoples—including Greeks and -Romans—believed in the transmission of qualities from object to object. -Thus purity and impurity and good and bad luck were infections, and -diseases were held to be infections in that sense. But there is -little evidence in the belief of the special infectivity of _disease -as such_ in antiquity. Some few diseases are, however, unequivocally -referred to as infectious in a limited number of passages, e. g. -ophthalmia, scabies, and phthisis in the περὶ διαφορᾶς πυρετῶν, _On the -differentiae of fevers_, K. vii, p. 279. The references to infection in -antiquity are detailed by C. and D. Singer, ‘The scientific position of -Girolamo Fracastoro’, _Annals of Medical History_, vol. i, New York, -1917. - -Before parting with the Hippocratic physician a word must be said -as to his therapeutic means. His general armoury may be described -as resembling that of the modern physician of about two generations -ago. During those two generations we have, it is true, added to our -list of effective remedies but, on the other hand, there has been by -common consent a return to the Hippocratic simplicity of treatment. -After rest and quiet the central factor in treatment was Dietetics. -This science regarded the age—‘Old persons use less nutriment than -young’; the season—‘In winter abundant nourishment is wholesome, in -summer a more frugal diet’; the bodily condition—‘Lean persons should -take little food, but this little should be fat, fat persons on the -other hand should take much food, but it should be lean’. Respect -was also paid to the digestibility of different foods—‘white meat is -more easily digestible than dark’—and to their preparation. Water, -barley water, and lime water were recommended as drinks. The dietetic -principles of the Hippocratics, especially in connexion with fevers, -are substantially those of the present day, and it may be said that -the general medical tendency of the last generation in these matters -has been an even closer approximation to the Hippocratic. ‘The more we -nourish unhealthy bodies the more we injure them’; ‘The sick upon whom -fever seizes with the greatest severity from the very outset, must at -once subject themselves to a rigid diet’; ‘Complete abstinence often -acts well, if the strength of the patient can in any way sustain it’; -yet ‘We should examine the strength of the sick, to see whether they be -in condition to maintain this spare diet to the crisis of the disease’. -‘In the application of these rules we must always be mindful of the -strength of the patient and of the course of each particular disease, -as well as of the constitution and ordinary mode of life in each -disease.’ - -Besides diet the Hippocratic physician had at his disposal a -considerable variety of other remedies. Baths, inunctions, clysters, -warm and cold suffusions, massage and gymnastic, as well as gentler -exercise are among them. He probably employed cupping and bleeding -rather too freely, and we have several representations of the -instruments used for these operations (fig. 8). He was no great user of -drugs and seldom names them except, we may note, in the works on the -treatment of women, which are probably of Cnidian origin and whence the -greater part of the 300 constituents of the Hippocratic pharmacopœia -are derived. Thus his list of drugs is small, but several known to him -are still used by us. - -[Illustration: Fig. 7. ATHENIAN FUNERARY MONUMENT - -Second century A. D. British Museum - -Inscription reads: ‘Jason, also called Dekmos, the Acharnian, a -physician’, followed by his genealogy. By side of patient stands a -cupping vessel.] - -The work of these men may be summed up by saying that without -dissection, without any experimental physiology or pathology, and -without any instrumental aid they pushed the knowledge of the course -and origin of disease as far as it is conceivable that men in such -circumstances could push it. This was done as a process of pure -scientific induction. Their surgery, though hardly based on anatomy, -was grounded on the most carefully recorded experience. In therapeutics -they allowed themselves neither to be deceived by false hopes nor led -aside by vain traditions. Yet in diagnosis, prognosis, surgery and -therapeutics alike they were in many departments unsurpassed until -the nineteenth century, and to some of their methods we have reverted -in the twentieth. Persisting throughout the ages as a more or less -definite tradition, which attained clearer form during and after the -sixteenth century, Hippocratic methods have formed the basis of all -departments of modern advance. - -But the history of Greek medicine did not end with the Hippocratic -collection; in many respects it may indeed be held only to begin there; -yet we never get again a glimpse of so high an ethical and professional -standard as that which these works convey. From Alexandrian times -onwards, too, the history of Greek medicine becomes largely a history -of various schools of medical thought, each of which has only a partial -view of the course and nature of medical knowledge. The unravelling of -the course and teachings of these sects has long been a pre-occupation -of professed medical historians, but the general reader can hardly -take an interest in differences between the Dogmatists, Empirics, and -Methodists whose doctrines are as dead as themselves. In this later -Alexandrian and Hellenistic age the Greek intellect is no less active -than before, but there is a change in the taste of the material. A -general decay of the spirit is reflected in the medical as in the -literary products of the time, and we never again feel that elevation -of a beautiful and calmly righteous presence that breathes through the -Hippocratic collection and gives it a peculiar aroma. - -We shall pass over the general course of later Greek medicine with -great rapidity. A definite medical school was established at Alexandria -and others perhaps at Pergamon and elsewhere. Athens, after the death -of Aristotle and his pupils, passes entirely into the background and is -of no importance so far as medicine is concerned. At Alexandria, where -a great medical library was collected, anatomy began to be studied and -two men whose discoveries were of primary importance for the history of -that subject, Erasistratus and Herophilus, early practised there. With -anatomy as a basis medical education could become much more systematic. -It is a very great misfortune that the works of these two eminent men -have disappeared. Of Herophilus fragments have survived embedded in the -works of Galen (A. D. 130-201), Caelius Aurelianus (fifth century), and -others. These fragments have been the subject of one of the earliest, -most laborious, and most successful attempts made in modern times to -reconstruct the lost work of an ancient author.[127] For Erasistratus -our chief source of information are two polemical treatises directed -against him by Galen. Recently, too, a little more information -concerning the works of both men has become available from the Menon -papyrus. - -[127] K. F. H. Marx, _Herophilus, ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der -Medizin_, Karlsruhe, 1838. - -It has been found possible to reconstruct especially a treatise on -anatomy by Herophilus with a considerable show of probability. He -opened by giving general directions for the process of dissection and -followed with detailed descriptions of the various systems, nervous, -vascular, glandular, digestive, generative, and osseous. There was a -separate section on the liver, a small part of which has survived. -It is of his account of the nervous system that we have perhaps the -best record, and it is evident that he has advanced far beyond the -Hippocratic position. In the braincase he saw the membranes that cover -the brain and distinguished between the cerebrum and cerebellum. He -attained to some knowledge of the ventricles of the brain, the cranial -and spinal nerves, the nerves of the heart, and the coats of the eye. -He distinguished the blood sinuses of the skull, and the _torcular -Herophili_ (winepress of Herophilus), a sinus described by him, has -preserved his name in modern anatomical nomenclature. He even made out -more minute structures, such as the little depression in the fourth -ventricle of the brain, known to modern anatomists as the _calamus -scriptorius_, which still bears the name which he gave it (κάλαμος ῷ -γράφομεν), because it seemed to him, as Galen tells us, to resemble -the pens then in use in Alexandria.[128] We still use, too, his term -_duodenum_ (δωδεκαδάκτυλος ἔκφυσις = twelve-finger extension), for as -Galen assures us, Herophilus ‘so named the first part of the intestine -before it is rolled into folds‘.[129] The duodenum is a U-shaped -section of the intestine following immediately on the stomach. Being -fixed down behind the abdominal cavity it cannot be further convoluted, -and this accounts for Galen’s description of it. It is about twelve -fingers’ breadth long in the animals dissected by Herophilus. - -[128] Galen, περὶ ἀνατομικῶν ἐγχειρήσεων, _On anatomical preparations_, -ix. 5 (last sentence). - -[129] Galen, περὶ φλεβῶν καὶ ἀρτηριων ανατομῆς, _On the anatomy of -veins and arteries_, i. - -Erasistratus, the slightly younger Alexandrian contemporary of -Herophilus, has the credit of further anatomical discoveries. He -described correctly the action of the epiglottis in preventing the -entrance of food and drink into the windpipe during the act of -swallowing, he saw the lacteal vessels in the mesentery, and pursued -further the anatomy of the brain. He improved on the anatomy of the -heart, and described the auriculo-ventricular valves and their mode -of closure. He distinguished clearly the motor and sensory nerves. He -seems to have adopted a definitely experimental attitude—a very rare -thing among ancient physicians—and a description of an experiment -made by him has recently been recovered. ‘If ’, he says, ‘you take an -animal, a bird, for example, and keep it for a time in a jar without -giving it food and then weigh it together with its excreta you will -find that there is a considerable loss of weight.’[130] The experiment -is a simple one, but it was about nineteen hundred years before a -modern professor, Sanctorio Santorio (1561-1636), thought of repeating -it.[131] - -[130] The quotation is from chapter xxxiii, line 44 of the _Anonymus -Londinensis_. H. Diels, _Anonymus Londinensis_ in the _Supplementum -Aristotelicum_, vol. iii, pars 1, Berlin, 1893. - -[131] Sanctorio Santorio, _Oratio in archilyceo patavino anno 1612 -habita; de medicina statica aphorismi_. Venice, 1614. - -The anatomical advances made by the Alexandrian school naturally -reacted on surgical efficiency. The improvement so effected may be -gathered, for instance, from an account of the anatomical relationships -in certain cases of dislocation of the hip given by the Alexandrian -surgeon Hegetor, who lived about 100 B. C. In his book περὶ αἰτιῶν, -_On causes [of disease]_, he asks ‘why (certain surgeons) do not seek -another way of reducing a luxation of the hip.... If the joints of -the jaw, shoulder, elbow, knee, finger, &c., can be replaced, the -same, they think, must be true of all parts, nor can they give an -account of why the femur cannot be put back into its place.... They -might have known, however, that from the head of the femur arises a -ligament which is inserted into the socket of the hip bone ... and -if this ligament is once ruptured the thigh bone cannot be retained -in place’.[132] This passage contains the first description of the -structure known to modern anatomists as the _ligamentum teres_, a -strong fibrous band which unites the head of the femur with the socket -into which it fits in the hip bone, like the string that binds the cup -and ball of a child’s toy. This ligament is ruptured in certain severe -cases of dislocation of the hip. - -[132] This is the only passage of Hegetor’s writing that has survived. -It has been preserved in the work of Apollonius of Citium. - -After the establishment of the school at Alexandria, medical teaching -rapidly became organized, but throughout the whole course of -antiquity it suffered from the absence of anything in the nature of -a state diploma. Any one could practise, with the result that many -quacks, cranks, and fanatics were to be found among the ranks of the -practitioners who often were or had been slaves. The great Alexandrian -school, however, did much to preserve some sort of professional -standard, and above all its anatomical discipline helped to this end. - -Between the founding of the Alexandrian school and Galen we are not -rich in medical writings. Apart from fragments and minor productions, -the works of only five authors have survived from this period of -over four hundred years, namely, Celsus, Dioscorides, Aretaeus of -Cappadocia, and two Ephesian authors bearing the names of Rufus and -Soranus. - -The work of Celsus of the end of the first century B. C. is a Latin -treatise, probably translated from Greek, and is the surviving medical -volume of a complete cyclopaedia of knowledge. In spite of its -unpromising origin it is an excellent compendium of its subject and -shows a good deal of advance in many respects beyond the Hippocratic -position. The moral tone too is very high, though without the lofty -and detached beauty of Hippocrates. Anatomy has greatly improved, and -with it surgical procedure, and the work is probably representative -of the best Alexandrian practice. The pharmacopœia is more copious, -but has not yet become burdensome. The general line of treatment is -sensible and humane and the language concise and clear. Among other -items he describes dental practice, with the indications for and -methods of tooth extraction, the wiring of teeth, and perhaps a dental -mirror. There is an excellent account of what might be thought to -be the modern operation for removal of the tonsils. Celsus is still -commemorated in modern medicine by the _area Celsi_, a not uncommon -disease of the skin. The _De re medica_ is in fact one of the very -best medical text-books that have come down to us from antiquity. It -has had a romantic history. Forgotten during the Middle Ages, it was -brought to light by the classical scholar Guarino of Verona (1374-1460) -in 1426, and a better copy was discovered by his friend Lamola in -1427. Another copy was found by Thomas Parentucelli (1397-1455), -afterwards Pope Nicholas V in 1443, and the text was later studied by -Politian (1454-94). Though one of the latest of the great classical -medical texts to be discovered, it was one of the first to be printed -(Florence, 1478), and it ran through very many early editions and had -great influence on the medical renaissance. - -After Celsus comes Dioscorides in the first century A. D. He was a -Greek military surgeon of Cilician origin who served under Nero, and -in him the Greek intellect is obviously beginning to flag. His work -is prodigiously important for the history of botany, yet so far as -rational medicine is concerned he is almost negligible. He begins at -the wrong end, either giving lists of drugs with the symptoms that they -are said to cure or to relieve, or lists of symptoms with a series of -named drugs. Clinical observation and record are wholly absent, and the -spirit of Hippocrates has departed from this elaborate pharmacopœia. - -[Illustration: Fig. 8. VOTIVE TABLET representing cupping and bleeding -instruments from Temple of Asclepius at Athens. - -In centre is represented a folding case containing scalpels of various -forms. On either side are cupping vessels.] - -With the second century of the Christian era we terminate the creative -period of Greek medicine. We are provided with the works of four -important writers of this century, of whom three, Rufus of Ephesus, -Soranus of Ephesus, and Aretaeus of Cappadocia, though valuable for -forming a picture of the state of medicine in their day, were without -substantial influence on the course of medicine in later ages. - -Rufus of Ephesus, a little junior to Dioscorides, has left us the first -formal work on human anatomy and is of some importance in the history -of comparative anatomy. In medicine he is memorable as the first to -have described bubonic plague, and in surgery for his description of -the methods of arresting haemorrhage and his knowledge of the anatomy -of the eye. A work by him _On gout_ was translated into Latin in the -sixth century, but remained unknown till modern times. - -Soranus of Ephesus (A. D. _c._ 90-_c._ 150), an acute writer on -gynaecology, has left a book which illustrates well the anatomy of -his day. It exercised an influence for many centuries to come, and a -Latin abstract of it prepared about the sixth century by one Moschion -has come down to us in an almost contemporary manuscript.[133] It is -interesting as opposing the Hippocratic theory that the male embryo -is originated in the right and the female in the left half of the -womb, a fallacy derived originally from Empedocles and Parmenides, -but perpetuated by Latin translations of the Hippocratic treatises -until the seventeenth century. His work was adorned by figures, and -some of these, naturally greatly altered by copyists, but still not -infinitely removed from the facts, have survived in a manuscript of -the ninth century, and give us a distant idea of the appearance of -ancient anatomical drawings.[134] We may assist our imagination a -little further, in forming an idea of what such diagrams were like, -with the help of certain other mediaeval figures representing the -form and distribution of the various anatomical ‘systems’, veins, -arteries, nerves, bones, and muscles which are probably traceable to an -Alexandrian origin.[135] - -[133] Leyden Voss 4ᵒ 9^* of the sixth century is a fragment of this -work. - -[134] V. Rose, _Sorani Ephesii vetus translatio Latina cum additis -Graeci textus reliquiis_, Leipzig, 1882; F. Weindler, _Geschichte der -gynäkologisch-anatomischen Abbildung_, Dresden, 1908. - -[135] The discovery and attribution of these figures is the work of K. -Sudhoff. A bibliography of his writings on the subject will be found in -a ‘Study in Early Renaissance Anatomy’ in C. Singer’s _Studies in the -History and Method of Science_, vol. i, Oxford, 1917. - -Aretaeus of Cappadocia was probably a contemporary of Galen (second -half of the second century A. D.). As a clinical author his reputation -stands high, perhaps too high, his descriptions of pneumonia, -emphysema, diabetes, and elephantiasis having especially drawn -attention. In treatment he uses simple remedies, is not affected by -polypharmacy, and suggests many ingenious mechanical devices. It -would appear that Aretaeus is not an independent writer, but mainly a -compiler. He relies largely on Archigenes, a distinguished physician -contemporary with Juvenal, whose works have perished save the fragments -preserved in this manner by Aretaeus and Aetius. Aretaeus was a very -popular writer among the Greeks in all ages, but he was not translated -into Latin, and was unknown in the West until the middle of the -sixteenth century.[136] He is philologically interesting as still using -the Ionic dialect. - -[136] First Latin edition Venice, 1552; first Greek edition Paris, 1554. - -There remains the huge overshadowing figure of Galen. The enormous mass -of the surviving work of this man, the dictator of medicine until the -revival of learning and beyond, tends to throw out of perspective the -whole of Greek medical records. The works of Galen alone form about -half of the mass of surviving Greek medical writings, and occupy, in -the standard edition, twenty-two thick, closely-printed volumes. These -cover every department of medicine, anatomy, physiology, pathology, -medical theory, therapeutics, as well as clinical medicine and surgery. -In style they are verbose and heavy and very frequently polemical. They -are saturated with a teleology which, at times, becomes excessively -tedious. In the anatomical works, masses of teleological explanation -dilute the account of often imperfectly described structures. Yet to -this element we owe the preservation of the mass of Galen’s works, for -his intensely teleological point of view appealed to the theological -bias both of Western Christianity and of Eastern Islam. Intolerable -as literature, his works are a valuable treasure house of medical -knowledge and experience, custom, tradition, and history. - -As in the case of the Hippocratic corpus, so in the case of the -Galenic corpus we are dealing to some extent with material from -various sources. In the case of Galen, however, we have a good -standard of genuineness, for he has left us a list of his books -which can be checked off against those which we actually possess. -The general standpoint of the Galenic is not unlike that of the -Hippocratic writings, but the noble vision of the lofty-minded, -pure-souled physician has utterly passed away. In his place we have -an acute, honest, very contentious fellow, bristling with energy and -of prodigious industry, not unkindly, but loving strife, a thoroughly -‘aggressive’ character. He loves truth, but he loves argument quite -as much. The value of his philosophical writings, of which some have -survived, cannot be discussed here, but it is evident that he is -frequently satisfied with purely verbal explanations. An ingenious -physiologist, a born experimenter, an excellent anatomist and eager -to improve, possessing a good knowledge of the human skeleton and an -accurate acquaintance with the internal parts so far as this can be -derived from a most industrious devotion to dissection of animals, -equipped with all the learning of the schools of Pergamon, Smyrna, -and Alexandria, and rich with the experience of a vast practice at -Rome, Galen is essentially an ‘efficient’ man. He has the grace -to acknowledge constantly and repeatedly his indebtedness to the -Hippocratic writings. Such was the man whose remains, along with the -Hippocratic collection, formed the main medical legacy of Greece to the -Western world. - -Some of Galen’s works are mere drug lists, little superior to those -of Dioscorides;[137] with the depression of the intelligence that -corresponded with the break up of the Roman Empire, it was these that -were chiefly seized on and distributed in the West. Attractive too to -the debased intellect of the late Roman world were certain spurious, -superstitious, and astrological works that circulated in the name of -Galen and Hippocrates.[138] The Greek medical writers after Galen -were but his imitators and abstractors, but through some of them -Galen’s works reached the West at a very early period in the Middle -Ages. Such abstractors who were early translated into Latin were -Oribasius (325-403), Paul of Aegina (625-690), and Alexander of Tralles -(525-605). Of the best and most scientific of Galen’s works the Middle -Ages knew little or nothing. - -[137] e. g. περὶ κράσεως καὶ δυνάμεως τῶν ἁπάντων φαρμάκων and the -φάρμακα. - -[138] e. g. _De dynamidiis Galeni_, _Secreta Hippocratis_ and many -astrological tracts. - -Later Galen and Hippocrates became a little more accessible, not by -translation from the Greek, but by translation from the Arabic of a -Syriac version. The first work to be so rendered was a version of -_Aphorisms_ of Hippocrates which, however, as we have seen, were -already available in Latin dress, together with the Hippocratic -_Regimen in acute diseases_, and certain works of Galen as corruptly -interpreted by Isaac Judaeus. These were rendered from Arabic into -Latin by Constantine, an African adventurer who became a monk at Monte -Cassino and died there in 1087. Constantine was a wretched craftsman -with an imperfect knowledge of both Arabic and Latin. More effective -was the great twelfth century translator from the Arabic, Gerard of -Cremona (died 1185), who turned many medical works into Latin from -Arabic, and who was followed by a whole host of imitators. Yet more -important for the advance of medicine, however, was the learned -revival of the thirteenth century. In the main that revival was based -on translations from Arabic, but a certain number of works were -also rendered direct from the Greek. During the thirteenth century -Aristotle’s scientific works began to be treated in this way, but more -important for the course of medicine were those of Galen, and they had -to wait till the following century. The long treatise of Galen, περὶ -χρείας τῶν ἐν ἀνθρώπου σώματι μορίων, _On the uses of the bodily parts -in man_, was translated from the Greek into Latin by Nicholas of Reggio -in the earlier part of the fourteenth century. This work, with all its -defects, was by far the best account of the human body then available. -Many manuscripts of the Latin version have survived, and it was -translated into several vernaculars, including English, and profoundly -influenced surgery. The rendering into Latin of this treatise, and -its wide distribution, may be regarded as the starting-point of -modern scientific medicine. Its appearance is moreover a part of the -phenomenon of the revived interest in dissection which had begun to be -practised in the Universities in the thirteenth century,[139] and was a -generally accepted discipline in the fourteenth and fifteenth.[140] - -[139] Dissection of animals was practised at Salerno as early as the -eleventh century. - -[140] The sources of the anatomical knowledge of the Middle Ages -are discussed in detail in the following works: R. R. von Töply, -_Studien zur Geschichte der Anatomie im Mittelalter_, Vienna, 1898; -K. Sudhoff, _Tradition und Naturbeobachtung_, Leipzig, 1907; and -also numerous articles in the _Archiv für Geschichte der Medizin und -Naturwissenschaften_; Charles Singer, ‘A Study in Early Renaissance -Anatomy’, in _Studies in the History and Method of Science_, vol. i, -Oxford, 1917. - -Until the end of the fifteenth century progress in anatomy was -almost imperceptible. During the fifteenth century more Galenic and -Hippocratic texts were recovered and gradually turned into Latin, but -still without vitally affecting the course of Anatomy. The actual -printing of collected editions of Hippocrates and Galen came rather -late, for the debased taste of the Renaissance physicians continued to -prefer Dioscorides and the Arabs, of whom numerous editions appeared, -so that medicine made no advance corresponding to the progress of -scholarship. The Hippocratic works were first printed in 1525, and an -isolated edition of the inferior Galen in 1490, but the real advance -in Medicine was not made by direct study of these works. So long as -they were treated in the old scholastic spirit such works were of -no more value than those of the Arabists or others inherited from -the Middle Ages. Even Hippocrates can be spoilt by a commentary, and -it was not until the investigator began actually to compare his own -observations with those of Hippocrates and Galen that the real value -of these works became apparent. The department in which this happened -first was Anatomy, and such revolutionaries as Leonardo da Vinci -(1452-1518), who never published, and Vesalius (1514-1564), whose -great work appeared in 1543, were really basing their work on Galen, -though they were much occupied in proving Galen’s errors. Antonio -Benivieni (died 1502), an eager prophet of the new spirit, revived the -Hippocratic tradition by actually collecting notes of a few cases with -accompanying records of deaths and post-mortem findings, among which it -is interesting to observe a case of appendicitis.[141] His example was -occasionally followed during the sixteenth century, as for instance, -by the Portuguese Jewish physician Amatus Lusitanus (1511-_c._ 1562), -who printed no fewer than seven hundred cases; but the real revival -of the Hippocratic tradition came in the next century with Sydenham -(1624-1689) and Boerhaave (1668-1738), who were consciously working -on the Hippocratic basis and endeavouring to extend the Hippocratic -experience. - -[141] Benivieni’s notes were published posthumously. Some of the -spurious Greek works of the Hippocratic collection have also case -notes. - -Lastly surgery came to profit by the revival. The greatest of the -sixteenth century surgeons, the lovable and loving Ambroise Paré -(1510-1590), though he was, as he himself humbly confessed, an ignorant -man knowing neither Latin nor Greek, can be shown to have derived much -from the works of antiquity, which were circulating in translation in -his day and were thus filtering down to the unlearned. - -Texts of Hippocrates and of Galen had formed an integral part in the -medical instruction of the universities from their commencement in -the thirteenth century. The first Greek text of the _Aphorisms_ of -Hippocrates appeared in 1532, edited by no less a hand than that of -François Rabelais. With the further recovery of the Greek texts and -preparation of better translations, these became almost the sole mode -of instruction during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The -translators became legion and their competence varied. One highly -skilled translator, however, is of special interest to English -readers. Thomas Linacre (1460?-1524), Physician to Henry VIII, Tutor -to the Princess Mary, founder and first president of the College of -Physicians, a benefactor of both the ancient Universities and one -of the earliest, ablest, most typical, and most exasperating of the -English humanists, spent much energy on this work of translation for -which his abilities peculiarly fitted him. He was responsible for -no less than six important works of Galen, of which one, the _De -temperamentis et de inaequali intemperie_, printed at Cambridge in -1521, was among the earliest books impressed in that town and is said -to be the first printed in England for which Greek types were used. It -has been honoured by reproduction in facsimile in modern times. Such -works as these, purely literary efforts, had great vogue for a century -and more, and were much in use in the Universities. These humanistic -products sometimes produced, among the advocates of the new scientific -method, a degree of fury which was only rivalled by that of some of -the humanists themselves towards the translators from the Arabic. But -these are now dead fires. As the clinical and scientific methods of -teaching gained ground, textual studies receded in medical education, -as Hippocrates and Galen themselves would have wished them to recede. - -The texts of Hippocrates and Galen have now ceased to occupy a place in -any medical curriculum. Yet all who know these writings, know too, not -only that their spirit is still with us, but that the works themselves -form the background of modern practice, and that their very phraseology -is still in use at the bedside. Modern medicine may be truly described -as in essence a creation of the Greeks. To realize the nature of our -medical system, some knowledge of its Greek sources is essential. It -would indeed be a bad day for medicine if ever this debt to the Greeks -were forgotten, and the loss would be at least as much ethical as -intellectual. But there is happily no fear of this, for the figure and -spirit of Hippocrates are more real and living to-day than they have -been since the great collapse of the Greek scientific intellect in the -third and fourth centuries of the Christian era. - - PRINTED IN ENGLAND - AT THE OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GREEK BIOLOGY AND GREEK MEDICINE *** - -***** This file should be named 63591-0.txt or 63591-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/6/3/5/9/63591/ - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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