156 Dr Craigie''s Observations on the 



anatomical sketches from the ThncBus of Plato, and labours to 

 shew the proofs of design in the construction of the animal ma- 

 chine. Little, however, can be expected from an author who 

 evidently labours under the prejudice common to the Romans, 

 of regarding dissection as a degrading and contaminating occu- 

 pation, and who informs his readers, that, from motives of deli- 

 cacy, he omits the description of the alimentary canal. From 

 this censure I am happy to except the elegant and philosophical 

 Celsus, who has left an accurate description of the relative posi- 

 tion of the windpipe and lungs, and the heart, the windpipe and 

 oesophagus (stomachus), which leads to the stomach (ventiicu- 

 lus), the intestinal canal in general, the diaphragm, liver, spleen 

 and kidneys. In osteology his information is minute, and in ge- 

 neral accurate. 



The Romans, however, were never distinguished for the culti- 

 vation of science ; and if their literature cannot justly be said to 

 be of indigenous growth, the few scientific treatises which they 

 possessed, were either the production of some Grrecian scholar, 

 or copied from the works of some of the Greek authors. The 

 Greek language, which was not confined to Greece, but spoken 

 over the whole of Asia Minor, was diffused after the conquests 

 of Alexandria over Egypt and much of the south of Africa ; 

 and even by the successive extension of the Roman dominion, 

 the general prevalence of the language, literature, and science 

 of the Greeks was promoted. In this manner, many learned 

 Greeks, and others speaking the Greek language, or what are de- 

 nominated Hellenizing foreigners, found their way to Rome, the 

 great centre of enterprize, and the only place where their learn- 

 ing was likely to be employed or appreciated. It is a curious 

 fact, indeed, that most of those who were distinguished among 

 the Romans for the cultivation of literature, and especially 

 science, after the Augustan age, were either native Greeks or 

 foreigners who wrote in the Greek language ; and, among other 

 sciences, medicine and anatomy had its full share of these votaries. 

 With the single exception of Pliny, to whom, as a servile copyist 

 of Aristotle, I can scarcely assign a place in this sketch, all 

 those whose names are recorded as naturalists, physicians, or 

 anatomists, belong to the class now defined. Such were Are- 

 taeus the Cappadocian^ Agathinus, Soranus of Ephesus, Mos- 



