5o6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



— a procedure which in our time we associate with good hygiene and 

 the care of those suffering with contagious diseases; with the Persians, 

 however, it was purely a religious form based on a belief in demons. 



After the priestly hygiene of the Egyptians and Persians comes 

 naturally, and probably sequentially, the social hygiene of the Old 

 Testament. I need only remind you of the Mosaic laws, rational even 

 in the light of modern science. 



From the literature of antiquity much else might be cited to show 

 the state of medicine among ancient peoples, the influence of religion, 

 of primitive superstition and mysticism, all of which, however well-in- 

 tentioned, prevented or obscured exact observation and deduction. 

 The development of knowledge by observation and critical argument 

 came slowly, and was possible only when the priest was no longer the 

 physician. This great advance we associate with the period of Greek 

 civilization and the name of Hippocrates. 



Hippocrates may be considered in many ways, as physician, surgeon, 

 philosopher and medical historian, but to one interested in the begin- 

 nings of research in medicine he is of importance as the first to record 

 results based on observation, experiment and deduction, the tripod of 

 the method of science. As a result, although much of his theory has 

 been discarded, many of his procedures based on exact observation still 

 stand the test of time and in many instances form the basis of modern 

 methods. His age (470-361 B.C.) was the age of Pericles; contempo- 

 rary with him, Thucydides wrote history, Phidias carved statues, 

 Democritus originated his atomistic theory of the universe, and Soc- 

 rates talked " human affairs " and " practical reason." That these men 

 were real to one another is shown by the fact that Hippocrates was re- 

 quested to declare Democritus insane and that Pericles died (429 B.C.) 

 of the great plague which Hippocrates attempted to combat. 



From this correlation of names it is evident that medicine shared in 

 the general growth of Greek culture, and there is every evidence that 

 Hippocrates was as great a representative of Greek intellect as were his 

 contemporaries. Greece was at the height of its brilliant progress; it 

 was, for the time being, the political, commercial, intellectual, scien- 

 tific and artistic center of the universe. But among the Greek? the 

 priests were not, fortunately for medicine, political or intellectual lead- 

 ers; leadership was possessed first by the poets and later by the phi- 

 losophers, and, under such circumstances, Greek medicine, freed of re- 

 ligious influence and fostered by philosophy, took a substantial form, 

 and, though it contained much of generalized speculation, it had the 

 solid foundation of unbiased observation. The former has perished 

 under the influence of time and progress; the latter, resting on actual 

 experience and genuine biological knowledge, remains. Of the meth- 

 ods of Hippocrates some idea may be obtained from the fact that he is 



