HIPPOCKATES. 99 



many lines, commonly ill-defined as if vanishing that 

 tell of past events. 



The work next to be mentioned shows the intellect of 

 the superstitious philosopher from a better point of view. 

 It is the treatise on the Differing of Doctors. 



Many things in the writings of Cardan make it evident 

 that he had studied Galen to good purpose, and it is not 

 unlikely that it pleased him Secretly to feel that he him- 

 self resembled Galen in a good many particukrs. Hip- 

 pocrates stood on his own pedestal, and was a great man 

 by himself. The old father of Medicine, contemporary 

 with the wisest men of Greece younger than Socrates, 

 but at the same time an older man than Plato merited 

 his crown of gold from the Athenians and his dinner in 

 the Prytaneium, for he was morally and intellectually 

 great. He wrote simply, tersely, royally as a king issu- 

 ing wealth from his own mint, not as a rich man pouring 

 out his hoard of coins, with all manner of kings' heads 

 and dates upon them. He was a fearless old fellow who 

 would not move one step for the enemies of Greece. He 

 was a true-hearted physician, who gathered men about 

 him in a grand spirit of kindliness. He visited the poor 

 without reward, loved knowledge for its own sake, bound 

 his disciples by a vow to mutual courtesy, to a religious 

 keeping of all secrets trusted by sick people to their 



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