372 pltnt's natural history. [Book XXIX, 



Chrysippiis, by Erasistratus, son^ of the daughter of Aristotle. 

 For the cure of King Antiochus — to give our first illustration 

 of the profits realized by the medical art — Erasistratus re- 

 ceived from his son, King Ptolemaeus, the sum of one hundred 

 talents. 



CHAP. 4. THE EMPIRIC BRATfCn OF MEDICINE. 



Another sect again, known as that of the Erapirics^^ — be- 

 cause it based its rules upon the results of experiment — 

 took its rise in Sicily, having for its founder Acron of Agri- 

 gen turn, a man recommended by the high authority of Empe- 

 docles" the physician. 



CDAP. 5. PARTICULARS RELATIVE TO HEROPHILITS AND OTHER 



CELEBRATED PHYSICIANS. THE VARIOUS CHANGES THAT HAVE 

 BEEN MADE IN THE SYSTEM OF MEDICINE. 



These several schools of medicine, long at variance among 

 themselves, were all of them condemned by Ilerophilus,^- who 

 regulated the arterial pulsation according to the musical''^ 

 scale, correspondingly with the age of the patient. In suc- 

 ceeding years again, the theories of this sect were abandoned, 

 it being found that to belong to it necessitated an acquaintance 

 with literature. Changes, too, were efifected in the school, of 

 Avhich, as already^^* stated, Asclepiades had become the founder. 

 His disciple, Themison," who at first in his writings implicitly 

 followed him, soon afterwards, in compliance with the growing 

 degeneracy of the age, went so far as to modify his own me- 

 thods of treatment ; which, in their turn, were entirely dis- 

 placed, with the authorization of the late Emperor Augustus, 

 by Antonius Musa,^^ a physician who had rescued that prince 



^ Pythias, the daughter of Aristotle, was his stepmother, and adopted 

 him. liis mother's name was Cretoxena. 



^" Or " Sect of Experimentalists." They based their practice upon ex- 

 perience derived from the observation of facts. The word " Empiric " is 

 used only in a bad sense at the present day. For an account of Hippo- 

 crates, see end of B. vii. ; of Chrysippus, see end of B. xx. ; and of Erasis- 

 tratus, see end of B. xi. 



" See end of B. xi. ^- See end of B. xi. 



'•^ See B. xi. c. 88. The Chinese, Ajasson remarks, ap])ly the musical 

 scale to the pulsation ; it being- a beli»^f of the Mandarins that the body is 

 a musical instrument, and that to be in health it must be kept in tune. 



*^' In B. xxvi. cc. 7, 8. 



1* See end of B. xi. ^^ See B. xix. c. 38. 



