z6 THEHISTORYOFBIOLOGY 



Earliest medical xvritings 

 The oldest known medical writings date from a period when medical science 

 was still materially, if not also in its ideals, dependent on the temples of 

 y^sculapius. There were in particular three famous shrines of the god from 

 which profane medical science was thus derived, and these were situated on 

 the islands of Rhodes, Cnidus, and Cos, all near the coast of Asia Minor. 

 The situation of these places shows, as did also the first nurseries of philoso- 

 phy, that oriental influence had been at work, and this influence did in fact 

 prove of incalculable importance for Greek medical science; particularly in 

 Egypt the art of healing had from the very earliest times been highly de- 

 veloped, and in historical times, too, was highly reputed even amongst 

 foreign peoples. Of the Greek temple schools mentioned, that on the Isle of 

 Rhodes was the earliest, that at Cos the most famous. The Coan school is 

 principally indebted for its fame to the family of Asclepiads originating from 

 there, which gave the world one of the greatest pioneers of medical science 

 known to history — namely, Hippocrates. 



History has preserved the memory of seven Greek physicians called 

 Hippocrates; the one here in question is generally spoken of as Hippocrates 

 the Second or the Great. He is believed to have lived between the years 460 

 and 377 B.C. — that is to say, at the time of Democritus. He was born in the 

 Isle of Cos of the family of the Asclepiads which for several generations had 

 been attached to the temple of ^^sculapius on the island. He received his 

 medical education from his father, Heracleides, who, however, evidently 

 died when his son was still a youth. The young Hippocrates then betook 

 himself to Athens, where he studied philosophy with the Sophist Gorgias of 

 Leontini, and afterwards made several journeys in the Balkan Peninsula and 

 Asia Minor, eventually settling down in Thessaly, where he established a 

 large practice and finally died in the city of Larissa. His sons and grandsons 

 were likewise doctors whose reputation was high, though not comparable 

 to his own. 



Hippocrates' fame as a pioneer of medical science is based chiefly on his 

 medical authorship. Even in ancient times, however, there prevailed some 

 uncertainty as to whether the writings that go under his name are genuinely 

 his, and in our own time only a few treatises out of what is called the Hippo- 

 cratic Collection can be accepted as coming from his own hand; the rest are 

 supposed to be partly the work of his school, partly Asclepiad writings dat- 

 ing from before his time, partly, and m.ostly, essays by considerably younger 

 authors. Hippocrates' own main treatise, Airs, Waters, and Places, con- 

 tains extraordinarily brilliant observations on climatical and geophysical 

 conditions and their influence on mankind in sickness and health, in their 

 material and spiritual aspects. The treatises in the Hippocratic Collection 

 dealing with anatomy and physiology, which are thus of interest for the 



