io6 



Greek Medicine 



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 



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. Pettier, ' Une Clinique grecque au V e siecle (vase antique du 

 collection Peztel) ', Fondation Eugene Piot, Monuments et Memoir es, 

 xiii. 149, Paris, 1906. (Some of our interpretations differ from those of 

 M. Pettier.) 



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 : 



' Life is short, and the Art long ; the opportunity fleeting ; 



