THE HELLENIC PERIOD 53 



and gangrene result. The crisis of the disease can be 

 foreseen, and the skill of the physician consists in 

 giving it a favourable turn. All the followers of 

 Hippocrates agree on the importance of prognosis and 

 diagnosis. The urine, salts, perspiration, respiration, 

 sleep, temperature, etc., must be examined, and also 

 the body as a whole. " It is not difficult to recognize 

 the state of health of a man seen naked on the 

 palaestra." Hence there are descriptions of the pro- 

 gress of disease, the accuracy of which is becoming 

 recognized more and more by modern science. For 

 example, Littre, for a long time, was unable to identify 

 one of the epidemics mentioned in the Hippocratic 

 writings, which, after " having affected the throat, 

 leaves traces of paralysis. He could do so, however, 

 when in i860 it was recognized by English and French 

 doctors that this results from a form of diphtheria. 1 



In therapeutics, the school of Cos seems to have 

 recommended regimens, rather than the remedies used 

 by the school of Cnidus, which chiefly consisted of 

 herbal decoctions. 



As to anatomy, it progressed as far as was possible 

 at a time when only the dissection of animals was 

 sanctioned. The Hippocratists were acquainted with 

 the general structure of the skeleton and the heart ; 

 they distinguished between the veins (conducting 

 channels of the blood) and the arteries which, accord- 

 ing to them, contained air. They knew nothing of 

 the nervous system. Hippocrates, however, places the 

 seat of intelligence in the brain, but this knowledge, 

 inherited from Alcmaeon, was afterwards lost and had 

 to be re-discovered by science. The treatment of 

 fractures and sprains was described in a manner which 

 is remarkable, but not so surprising, when one remem- 

 bers the part played by gymnastics in Greece. In 

 surgery, the Hippocratists were not afraid to perform 



1 15 Heiberg, Naturwiss., p. 18. 



