156 PLINY'S NATUKAL HISTOBY. [Book XXVI. 



fixed and determinate classes of maladies, already more than 

 three hundred in number, that he must have new forms of 

 disease to alarm him as well ? And then, in addition to all 

 these, not less in number are the troubles and misfortunes which 

 man brings upon himself! 



The remedies which I am here describing, are those which 

 were universally employed in ancient times, Nature herself, 

 so to say, making up the medicines : indeed, for a long time 

 these were the only medicines employed. 



(2.) Hippocrates, 18 it is well known, was the first to com- 

 pile a code of medical precepts, a thing which he did with the 

 greatest perspicuity, as his treatises, we find, are replete with 

 information upon the various plants. No less is the informa- 

 tion which we gain from the works of Diocles 19 of Carystus, 

 second only in reputation, as well as date, to Hippocrates. 

 The same, too, with reference to the works of Praxagoras, 

 Chrysippus, and, at a later period, Erasistratus 20 of Cos. 

 Herophilus 21 too, though himself the founder of a more refined 

 system of medicine, was extremely profuse of his commenda- 

 tions of the use of simples. At a later period, however, expe- 

 rience, our most efficient instructor in all things, medicine in 

 particular, gradually began to be lost sight of in' mere words 

 and verbiage : it being found, in fact, much more agreeable 

 to sit in schools, and to listen to the talk of a professor, than 

 to go a simpling in the deserts, and to be searching for this 

 plant or that at all the various seasons of the year. 



CHAP. 7. (3.) THE NEW SYSTEM OF MEDICINE : ASCLEPIADES 



THE PHYSICIAN. 



Still, however, the ancient theories remained unshaken, 

 based as they were upon the still existing grounds of uni- 

 versally acknowledged experience ; until, in the time of Pom- 

 peius Magnus, Asclepiades, 22 a professor of rhetoric, who 

 considered himself not sufficiently repaid by that pursuit, and 

 whose readiness and sagacity rendered him better adapted for 

 any other than forensic practice, suddenly turned his attention 

 to the medical art. Having never practised medicine, and 

 being totally unacquainted with the nature of remedies a 



18 See B. xxix. c. i. 19 See end of B. xx. 



20 See B. xxix. c. 3. 21 See B. xxix. c. 5. 



22 See end of B. vii. 



