lifeless body was viewed and to the slow development of its ancillary 

 sciences the progress of medicine up to the beginning of the nine- 

 teenth century was necessarily slow. Medicine, on the whole, how- 

 ever, has advanced during periods of great intellectual activity and 

 during times of intellectual torpor has remained in a quiescent 

 state. The rise and fall of systems and methods would dispose 

 one to wonder if the end is yet; if we have at last reached 

 the bedrock of fact in a scientific sense. The great advantage 

 of truth over error is that though at times crushed to earth, 

 it will rise again. Not until science and philosophy had freed them- 

 selves from the throes of ecclesiasticism, was any marked forward 

 movement possible, for, during the first fifteen centuries of the Chris- 

 tian era the most preposterous ideas of physiology obtained, being 

 founded upon the sacred writings and superstitions of the saints. 

 The growth of knowledge through observation was scarcely possible 

 until the priest was no longer physician. With this great event is 

 associated the name of Hippocrates who was the first to make deduc- 

 tions based upon experiment and observation. He lived during the 

 Golden Age when Pericles ruled with mild persuasion; when Phidias 

 made immortal the sculptured art of Greece and Herodotus recorded 

 the history of the illustrious people ; when Democritus proclaimed 

 the atomic theory of the universe and Socrates taught that the 

 greatest knowledge was to "Know thyself." Experiment, observation 

 and deduction have been aptly called the tripod of science. Though 

 much that Hippocrates taught has been discarded, yet in the field of 

 clinical observation many of his teachings prevail today. The "facies 

 Hippocrates" still designates the characteristic signs of impending 

 death. We have many accurate descriptions of disease made from 

 careful observations, but perhaps more than all else we owe to him 

 that lofty idealistic note which comes down to us in the Hippocratic 

 oath. 



It was not until men disregarded authority and made direct appeal 

 to nature that medicine experienced its renaissance. Such was the 

 method of Harvey, Beaumont and of others whose contributions are of 

 permanent value. The sincere student of nature approaches his subject 

 with an open mind ; his is the quest for truth. He possesses "that en- 

 thusiasm for truth, that fanaticism for veracity, which is a greater 

 possession than much learning; a nobler gift than the power of in- 

 creasing knowledge." As Sir Michael Poster once said, "His nature 

 must be one which vibrates in unison with that of which he is in 

 search ; the seeker after truth must himself be truthful, truthful with 

 the truthfulness of nature, which is far more imperious, far more ex- 

 acting than that which man sometimes calls truthfulness." Such is 

 the religio medici. 



