GREEK BIOLOGY AND MEDICINE 



and other relaxing or invigorating measures as 

 the case seemed to require. 



Expressing his own opinion, Celsus decides 

 for a middle course, whereby medicine should 

 rely upon experience rationally: let one treat 

 the evident causes of the disease, and as for the 

 remote, meditate on them. Students should 

 learn anatomy from the bodies of the dead and 

 from study of living and wounded men. The 

 surgical portions of Celsus's handbook are 

 particularly good. 



Theories sat rather lightly on these excellent 

 practitioners of the Greco-Roman time, who 

 might call themselves by one name or another. 

 This remark applies to members of the so- 

 called " Pneumatic " School, who were gen- 

 erally eclectic, adopting the best features of 

 medical practice in the second half of the first 

 century. They were affected by the Stoic 

 physics, in which borrowed materials filled out 

 a system novel in form. Accepting the old 

 working elements, they found the life-giving 

 principle to be the " Pneuma," like unto air 

 and breath. It is innate, yet constantly re- 

 newed through breathing, and circulates with 

 the blood through the arteries and veins to all 

 parts of the body, — the arteries conveying 



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