GREEK BIOLOGY AND MEDICINE 



the world, the impress of which has never bee 

 expunged from human thinking. 



The old Ionian speculation upon Nature or 

 4>v(Ti,s was curious as to the material of the 

 world, and considered how its visible compo- 

 nent rocks and earth and waters came to be. 

 This speculation, supplemented by investiga- 

 tion, was directed also to the origins of plants 

 and animals, to the manner of their growth 

 and to their living structure. Accordingly, 

 the (j)V(no\oyia, which is to say the natural 

 history or philosophy, of these physicists, in- 

 cluded the beginnings of biology, which is the 

 science of all living things, if we use this com- 

 paratively modern word in its most compre- 

 hensive sense. 



There is no need to re-state the physical 

 theories of the early Ionian philosophers and 

 of their compeers who were Greeks even when 

 not so evidently lonians. It is more to our 

 purpose to remark that for us Greek biology 

 begins in some extraordinary fragments 

 ascribed to the great Milesian Anaximander, 

 who was a younger friend of Thales and lived 

 through the first half of the sixth century be- 

 fore Christ. They are as follows: 



" Living creatures arose from the moist ele- 



[4] 



