6i 4 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



tombs. The practise of medicine was, however, purely empirical, and 

 the rules followed in the treatment of particular diseases were often 

 of great age. The second king of Egypt is said to have been a physi- 

 cian, and another is reported to have written a book on anatomy. The 

 private physicians of both Cambyses and of Darius were Egyptians. 

 The name of the latter brings to mind that of his son Artaxerxes whose 

 private physician was a man of considerable importance in his day, 

 outside of his profession. Ktesias was a native of Knidos, a contem- 

 porary of Hippocrates, and no doubt personally known to him. Here 

 we have again the philosopher and the physician in the same person. 

 After acquiring considerable reputation in his own country he had the 

 misfortune to fall into the hands of the Persians. Subsequently he 

 was introduced at court, which proved the beginning of his good fortune. 

 After the battle of Cunaxa he healed the wound inflicted upon his 

 master by the brother of the latter. Later he was employed on a 

 diplomatic mission to his native land; and thus after an absence of 

 seventeen years returned home about 398 B.C., to remain for the rest of 

 his life. That he was well treated by the master whose slave he became, 

 according to Persian parlance, and had abundant opportunities for 

 study, is evident from the fact that he compiled a ' History of Persia,' 

 a work in which he charged Herodotus with frequent falsehoods in 

 what he relates about that country. His scholarly tastes are evinced 

 by this extensive collection, as it must have been, since it was divided 

 into twentjr-three books. He also composed a small work on India 

 and one on geography. He is not known to have left any medical 

 writings, and his reputation for impartiality as a historian is not very 

 good. Still it must be regarded as a great misfortune that his extant 

 remains are so meager. 



In later times many Egyptian physicians practised in Rome; for 

 to have studied in the land of the Nile, or, still better, to have been 

 born there, was regarded as a special recommendation. Here too magic 

 formulas of all kinds were in frequent use, not only in the compounding 

 of medicines, but in their application. According to Pliny cadavers 

 were dissected by order of the Ptolemies for the purpose of studying 

 fatal diseases. But it can hardly be inferred from this statement that 

 anatomy was regularly pursued in this way, or that dissection was a 

 common practise. 



Pliny, who had no very high opinion of the medical fraternity for 

 reasons that will appear farther on, makes the assertion that Rome 

 managed to get along six hundred years without physicians. This is 

 manifestly an exaggeration, since many Greeks professed the healing 

 art in the imperial city much earlier than 150 B. C. But neither did 

 Rome produce a philosopher in the proper sense of the term; certainly 

 no man who loved wisdom for its own sake. The Romans were, how- 



