n6 Greek Medicine 



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. 1 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. 



It has been found possible to reconstruct especially a treatise 

 on anatomy by Herophilus with a considerable show of proba- 



1 K. F. H. Marx, Herophilus^ em Beitrag zur Gescbicbte der Medizin, 

 Karlgruhe, 1838. 



