PHYSICIANS AND PHILOSOPHERS. 609 



their service of the god. In this part of Asia, also, philosophy took 

 its rise. For not only was Hippocrates a philosopher as well as a 

 physician, but the same affirmation can be made of a considerable 

 number of Greek thinkers. Diogenes has just been mentioned. More- 

 over the two lines of investigation were often parallel in other parts 

 of the ancient world. Empedocles who was a full generation older 

 is supposed to have been a physician. Pythagoras, who lived still 

 earlier, though perhaps not a physician in the strict sense of the word^ 

 gave, according to tradition, no little attention to the laws of health 

 and formulated a number of precepts supposed to be conducive to its 

 preservation. Plato, though not a special student of the healing art, 

 shows in many passages of his Dialogues, a considerable degree of 

 familiarity with the subject. Aristotle was the son of a physician and 

 was indebted to his father not only for much of his knowledge, but 

 also for his interest in natural history; while his pupil Theophrastus 

 is regarded as the father of medical botany. Among the Eomans we 

 find Pliny paying a good deal of attention to facts or supposed facts 

 in the realm of medicine. The same thing is true of Seneca and still 

 more of Vitruvius, though it would perhaps be as far astray to call 

 him a philosopher as a physician in the strict significance of the terms. 

 Toward the latter part of the second century we are carried back again 

 to Asia Minor to find in Galen of Pergamus, not only a distinguished 

 writer on philosophical subjects, but a man whose reputation as a 

 physician is fully equal to, if not greater than, that of Hippocrates, 

 notwithstanding that he was a man of less native capacity. It may 

 be confidently affirmed that Hippocrates, Celsus and Galen represent 

 the entire healing art until modern times. With respect to Cornelius 

 Celsus, who lived in the reign of Tiberius and who occupies an impor- 

 tant place in the history of ancient medicine, it must be said that it 

 is uncertain whether he was really a physician. It is rather more 

 than probable that he was a savant. On the other hand, the question 

 is raised, Why would any one but a practical physician compile a 

 medical work? Could any other person do it successfully? Another 

 singular fact that has added to the difficulty of defining Celsus' posi- 

 tion is that even as late as the age in which he lived nearly all the 

 physicians in Kome were Greek freedmen. At any rate the work of 

 Celsus at once sprang into prominence, and though it is only part of 

 an encyclopedic compilation, nothing else remains at the present day. 

 As is the case with not a few other works of antiquity, its connection 

 with modern times hangs by the slender thread of a single manuscript 

 from which all later copies have been made. This portion of the 

 encyclopedia of Celsus has also an important historical value since it 

 gives brief sketches of more than seventy physicians who had lived 

 vol. lxvii. — 38. 



