NEW CONCEPTIONS IN SCIENCE 



large degree, by the lack of exact measurements. 

 That is all that divides the astronomy of that day 

 from our own. 



These two acute and resourceful Alexandrians 

 were the immediate predecessors of the true founder 

 of astronomical science. That honor belongs to Hip- 

 parchus; it was he who discovered the precession 

 of the equinoxes, who made the first catalogue of 

 stars, who invented the planisphere, and first ap- 

 plied the methods of spherical trigonometry to the 

 solution of astronomical problems. Whether the 

 great Hipparchus was actually a professor in the 

 Alexandrian school, as had been disputed, matters 

 little. Spiritually, if not corporeally, he was of its 

 line; its heritage was his; his work was continued 

 by the savants of Alexandria, and culminated in the 

 masterly expositions of Ptolemy (A.D. 130). The 

 latter 's conceptions of the world dominated the 

 minds of men for 1500 years, and until Copernicus, 

 Galileo, and Newton had come. 



Alexandria must have been, likewise, the seat 

 of the first great medical school. It was founded 

 by Philadelphus upon the sure basis of anatomy, 

 and its professors were authorized to practise dis- 

 section. To touch a corpse in Egypt was held to 

 be an abomination, but the strong hand of Ptolemy 

 resolutely carried out his design, which was to know 

 not merely the true structure of the body but the 



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