440 GENERAL ZOOLOGY 



bodies of monkeys and swine as being near to man in struc- 

 ture. His work represents the highest attainments of Greek 

 medicine. 



The genius of Rome was not manifested along the line of 

 biology, and there is in the whole course of Roman history 

 no really great name in this science. We may mention, how- 

 ever, the Roman naturalist Pliny (born A.D. 23), who lost 

 his life while attempting to approach Vesuvius during the 

 great eruption in A.D. 79, which overwhelmed the cities of 

 Herculaneum and Pompeii. Pliny was not so much an origi- 

 nal observer as a voluminous writer and collector of the opin- 

 ions of others. His books are a great storehouse of the facts 

 and fancies of antiquity. 



The Middle Ages. History tells how Greece was conquered 

 by Rome, to what height Rome attained, and how the down- 

 fall of the Western Roman Empire in A.D. 476 brought to a 

 close the ancient history of Europe and ushered in a new 

 civilization built on the ruins of the old. The period from 

 the fifth to the sixteenth century is usually spoken of as the 

 Middle Ages. In the early part of this period (from the fifth 

 to the eleventh century, often called the Dark Ages) the 

 many wars left little time for the pursuit of science. The 

 habit of observing natural phenomena and the desire to seek 

 an explanation had given place to a slavish acceptance of the 

 statements of others. Blind adherence to authority reigned 

 everywhere. In all this time no new fact of importance ap- 

 pears in the history of our science ; no great original student 

 of the subject was born. 



While Europe was in this condition of darkness the Ara- 

 bians, originally a shepherd race, stirred to national life by 

 their prophet, Mohammed (born A.D. 570 or 571), began a 

 long series of wars, which resulted in the conquest of a large 

 part of western Asia and northern Africa. They even pushed 

 their way into Europe, conquering the whole of the peninsula 



