HISTORY OF SCIENCE. 



influence of the famous theory of " the Humours." For, according to 

 Hippocrates, the human body contained four humours; namely, 

 blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile. Disease was occasioned 

 by the undue accumulation of some one of these humours in par- 

 ticular organs, and it was the office of the physician to get rid of the 

 peccant humours by various evacuant remedies, such as bleeding, 

 purging, sinapisms, blisters, diaphoretics, etc., etc. 



Hippocrates the physician must not be confounded with another 

 Hippocrates, who as a mathematician had also a very high reputation 

 among the ancients. To this mathematician we shall refer again in 

 the next chapter, although he really belongs to the earlier period of 

 Greek science. 



Two treatises by a pupil of Aristotle's named THEOPHRASTUS (c. B.C. 

 370), have come down to us almost entire, and they constitute the 

 earliest known writings on botanical science. In these works, about 

 five hundred species of plants are referred to, and descriptions are 

 given, but these are of so imperfect a character that many of the 

 species described cannot now be identified with certainty. To Theo- 

 phrastus the world is indebted for the care of the works of his great 

 master, who, when dying, left them in his charge. Theophrastus is 

 said to have lived to his hundred and seventh year, and to have died 

 lamenting the shortness of life. 



THE PARTHENON. 



