EAST AND WEST 139 



like other papyri, a collection of recipes and charms, but a system- 

 atic treatise arranged "a capite ad cakem" — from head to foot — 

 an order which was followed down to the end of our Middle 

 Ages. It contains the consideration of forty-eight cases, each of 

 which is reported in the same order: name, examination, diagnosis, 

 judgment, treatment, gloss. 



These examples will convince you that a considerable body of 

 systematized knowledge was far anterior to Greek science. In fact 

 this helps to explain what one might call the miracle of Greek 

 civilization. To be sure no intelligent man could read the Iliad and 

 the Odyssey, which were the primitiae of that civilization, with- 

 out wondering what had made such masterpieces possible. They 

 could not possibly appear like bolts from the blue. Like every 

 glorious beginning, this was not only the prelude of one evolu- 

 tion but the end, the climax, of another. Students of Greek mathe- 

 matics, of Greek astronomy, and Greek medicine could not help 

 asking themselves similar questions. How could the relative per- 

 fection of the Greek scientific treatises be accounted for? The 

 explanation is still very incomplete, but no doubt exists as to the 

 main fact: the Greeks borrowed a large quantity of observations 

 and of crude theories from the Egyptians and the peoples of 

 Mesopotamia. Unfortunately, it is hardly possible in any case to 

 describe the complete transmission of elements from, say, Egypt 

 to Hellas. This is partly due to the revolutionary events which 

 occurred about the beginning of the first millennium; these events 

 were probably connected with the early use of iron (instead of 

 bronze) and almost obliterated the older Aegean culture. Our 

 ignorance may be dissipated by later archaeological discoveries, 

 for example by the deciphering of Minoan and Mycenaean texts, 

 but it is doubtful whether the whole story will ever be revealed 

 to us, for the introduction of the iron age was an upheaval of 

 extraordinary magnitude and destructiveness. At any rate, in the 

 present state of our knowledge, there is a gap of more than a 

 thousand years between the golden age of Egyptian science and 

 the golden age of Greek science. We are certain that much of the 



