EDITORS' PREFACE 



MANY READERS will find in the 

 pages of Doctor Taylor a revelation 

 in the amazing advance made by 

 Greek Biology and Medicine and in the extent 

 of our indebtedness to Hippocrates, Aristotle 

 and Galen. The subject is one not so well 

 known as some other aspects of the Greek and 

 Roman civilizations. We are apt to think of 

 magic and superstition in the medical practice 

 of the ancients, in spite of our Celsus and the 

 oracular Pliny. The specialist may have fol- 

 lowed the expositions of Sir William Osier, 

 Dr. Charles Singer, Sir Clifford Allbutt and 

 Dr. Arthur J. Brock, but this book is addressed 

 to the layman. It is our hope that a wider 

 and deeper interest will result in the achieve- 

 ments of those Greeks who laid the founda- 

 tions, permanent and secure, for the sciences 

 of Biology and Medicine. 



The history of the influence of the Greek 

 biologists and medical men still remains to be 

 written, but it will be a fascinating chapter in 



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