PROGRESS IN ANATOMY 



more pneuma, and the veins more blood. 

 Pneuma vivifies the body, and makes it a 

 living unity, carries on the energies of growth 

 and reproduction, as well as of sensation, de- 

 sire, and thought. The normal condition and 

 proper tovos or tension of the pneuma means 

 health, and this is indicated by the pulse; 

 while sickness springs from disorder of the 

 pneuma, due to irregularities of the warm and 

 cold or dry and moist elements, and the conse- 

 quent morbid excess of one or the other of the 

 humors. 



While these " Pneumatics " rejected the 

 fundamental theory of the Methodists, they 

 availed themselves of their treatment of dis- 

 ease, and drew upon all the best medical 

 knowledge of the time. They were wise 

 physicians, following many a precept of Hip- 

 pocrates, and efficient surgeons. One among 

 them, Archigenes, a contemporary of Trajan, 

 seems to have been extraordinarily resourceful 

 and inventive: "what we need is to be fertile 

 in expedients, not to be always attending to the 

 writings of other people," said he. 



Says Sir Clifford Allbutt: "The ancient 

 Greeks shrank from mutilation; and amputa- 

 tion, mentioned by the Hippocratean physi- 



[95] 



