RESEARCH IN MEDICINE 507 



responsible for the very term " hypothesis," which, in its scientific ap- 

 plication, he invented. 



Some of the experiments of the Hippocratic schools may be con- 

 sidered as the first in the field of experimental physiology, as for 

 example, the feeding at the same time of different kinds of food and 

 the study, after induced vomiting, of the stage of digestion of each. 

 It is, however, in the field of clinical observation that Hippocrates 

 excelled. His inferences were frequently wrong, but his descriptions 

 of the symptoms of a disease, as an aid to diagnosis and prognosis, 

 were at once picturesque and accurate. How accurate and vivid they 

 were may be seen from the fact that the characteristic signs of impend- 

 ing death are still known as the " facies Hippocrates." This exercise 

 of minute observation and accurate interpretation of every symptom — 

 the method of clinical medicine — which has influenced medicine in all 

 succeeding ages, was the beginning of the study of what we now term 

 the " natural history of disease." In therapy Hippocrates recognized 

 the natural tendency to health (vis medicatrix naturw) and this prin- 

 ciple influenced all his therapeutic efforts. In addition to this sub- 

 stantial service to medicine we owe him certain idealistic influences as 

 shown in the Hippocratic oath and in his constant desire to place all 

 knowledge freely and fully before the profession at large. 



Certainly medicine under Hippocrates, as contrasted with that of 

 the preceding ages, was magnificent, and it is not surprising that after 

 his death, he was deified. To us he represents the beginnings of an 

 •exact medicine, and his influence is seen in many of the theories, 

 methods and ideals of modern practise. Hippocratic medicine, Hip- 

 pocratic doctrine, Hippocratic oath, are current phrases, and the admoni- 

 tion " Back to Hippocrates " is an admonition to beware of theory and 

 seek the solid ground of observation and experiment. 



Between Hippocrates and Galen lie nearly five hundred years with- 

 out progress in medicine, except as the brilliant Alexandrian school, 

 sheltering Euclid, Archimedes and Ptolemy developed, under Heroph- 

 ilus and Erasistratus, a school of anatomy (ca. 300 B.C.) which estab- 

 lished many new anatomical facts. But as Neuburger states in his 

 •discussion of early medical theories, " Collection and observation of 

 facts constitute the first step in science, but not science itself." The 

 observation of anatomical facts during these centuries is naturally of 

 some importance in connection with the growth of anatomy, but 

 unfortunately of no importance as regards the influence of those facts 

 on medical theory, for physiology remained a field for speculation while 

 the facts gained from anatomy were used only to strengthen the older 

 speculation and dogmatism, and to rehabilitate discarded doctrines. 

 To the Alexandrian school and to Galen, however, must be given the 

 -credit of a careful study of anatomy by dissection, and this honor is the 



