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ANIMAL BIOLOGY 



(460-370 B.C.), the Father of Medicine. Lecturing a generation 

 before Aristotle, at the height of the Age of Pericles, Hippocrates 

 crystallized the knowledge of medicine into a science and gave to 

 physicians a high moral inspiration. 



The history of medicine and of biology as a so-called pure science 

 are so closely interwoven that consideration of the one involves 

 that of the other. Indeed the physicians form the chief bond of 

 continuity in biological history between Greece and Rome. The 

 chief interest of the Romans lay largely in practical affairs so it 

 would seem that the advantages to be gained from medicine should 



Fig. 289. — Theophrastus of Eresus. 



have led them to make important contributions. As it happened, 

 however, two Greek physicians were destined to have the most 

 influence: Dioscorides, an army surgeon under Nero, and Galen, 

 physician to the Emperor Marcus Aurelius. 



Dioscorides wrote the first important treatise on applied 

 botany. This was really a work on the identification of plants for 

 medicinal purposes but, gaining authority with age and being var- 

 iously transformed, it became the standard 'botany' for fifteen 

 centuries. 



Galen (131-201) was the most famous physician of the Roman 

 Empire and his voluminous works represent both a depository for 

 the anatomical and physiological knowledge of his predecessors, 



