Ws 
London until he had signed a recantation of his error in having 
impugned the infallibility of Galen.” Human dissection being 
again forbidden, Galen had to form his opinions by dissecting ani- 
mals. One of his ideas was that health and disease are dependent 
upon the relative proportions of solids and liquids in the body. 
During this period the use of special earths or clays for pharma- 
ceutical purposes became popular. One of these was obtained 
from a pit in the island of Lemnos, which could be opened only on 
a certain hour of a special day of the year, and then only to the ac- 
companiment of certain religious rites. Other earths or clays came 
from Malta, Portugal, and Hungary. Clays are still official in the 
U. S. Pharmacopoeia, their value being due to their agglutinating 
effect on bacteria, which are attracted and adsorbed. Incidentally, 
the subject of cosmetics may properly be classified as a branch of 
pharmacy, and a branch of very great economic importance if we 
are to judge by the amount of money received from the public. 
Toward the end of the 5th century (476 A.D.) Rome fell com- 
pletely into the hands of the Germanic hordes—invading Gothic 
tribes from the north and east—and there ensued a long period, 
lasting nearly 1000 years, of general intellectual darkness and 
stagnation, which is called the Medieval Period, or Middle Ages. 
The Middle Ages. It is chiefly to the Arabs that we are in- 
debted for any advance in pharmacy and medicine during the early 
part of the medieval period. The Arabians were largely respon- 
sible for the development of alchemy, i.e. the search for a method 
of transmuting the baser metals into gold. It included also a 
search for an elixir of life and for a universal medicine—one which 
would cure any or all diseases. Investigations of this sort, to 
which some notable figures, such as Lully (1235-1315), devoted a 
large share of their lives, were chiefly of value because through 
them progress was made in chemistry. 

“The Arabian pharmacists were called ‘sandalini’; their stocks 
were regularly inspected and punishment was meted to those who 
were found guilty of selling spurious and deteriorated drugs. The 
effect of Arabian chemistry and pharmacy was felt for hundreds 
of years and influenced and stimulated the production of many 
pharmacopoeias of the Middle Ages.” (LaWall, p. 114.) 
The part played by the monasteries during this period was im- 
