376 Human Physiology. 



cessfully denounce the sins of gluttony, drunkenness, filth, and 

 lust, there would be little need of doctors or medicines. 



Hippocrates, a descendant of ^Esculapius (B.C. 460), wrote 

 several works on health and medicine, and his treatment con- 

 sisted chiefly, and often solely, in attention to diet and regimen. 

 He wrote on air, water, and local influences. About 300 years 

 before the Christian era medical schools and sects flourished at 

 Alexandria, especially the two great sects of Dogmatists and 

 Empirics, members of both of which are said to still exist in 

 the medical profession. The Romans lived a long time, and 

 had their best days without doctors. The first doctor who settled 

 in Rome (B.C. 200) was a Greek, but his treatment was so 

 severe and unsuccessful that he was soon banished, and we hear 

 of no other for a hundred years, when one came from Bithynia, 

 who acquired a great reputation by allowing his patients to 

 drink plenty of wine and eat fully of all their favourite dishes, 

 flattering their prejudices and consulting their inclinations. 

 This eminent physician also has some followers. Celsus, the 

 first native Roman physician whose name has come down to 

 us, wrote about the beginning of the Christian era, and Galen 

 wrote and practised a century later. The Arabians, and the 

 Saracens in Spain, continued the study of medical science after 

 the decline of the Roman Empire. In the r5th century Para- 

 celsus and the Chemical school began their ravages by the 

 introduction of mercury, antimony, and other mineral medi- 

 cines. Anatomy and physiology were first regularly studied 

 in the i6th and iyth centuries. To the Chemical school of 

 medicine succeeded the Mathematical, the Vitalists, the Cul- 

 lenians, and the Brunonians. 



It is a mooted point whether the science and practice of 

 medicine have caused more good than evil. In a multiplicity 

 of conflicting theories but one can be true, and where there 

 has been every variety of contradictory practice much must 

 have been mischievous.. When disease was believed to depend 



