Greek Medicine 89 



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 Empe- 

 docles, 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. 1 



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 

 4 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 



1 Galen, ntpl avaTopiKuv cy^ftpijo-ecav, On anatomical preparations, I, 

 K. II, p. 282. 



