GREEK BIOLOGY AND MEDICINE 



cians only in gangrene as a subsidiary aid, 

 seems, even in Alexandria, to have made no 

 great progress; for Celsus also regarded it as 

 a last sad resource in gangrene: yet by the 

 time of Trajan, under Archigenes, amputation 

 had become a recognized procedure for ulcers, 

 growths, injuries and even deformities. The 

 limb to be removed was bandaged to expel 

 the blood, and a tourniquet was placed above 

 the line of severance; or sometimes the chief 

 blood-vessels were first cut down and tied, and 

 the smaller tied or twisted, during the opera- 

 tion — ' transfixing them with a sharp hook 

 and twisting them round and round and clos- 

 ing them by this twisting ' — a proceeding of 

 which there is no trace in Hippocrates, nor 

 apparently in the earlier Alexandria. These 

 good methods were afterwards obliterated by 

 the bad fashion of the searing-iron." ^^ 



From the side of philosophy as well as 

 physiology, it is interesting to note how the 

 Pneumatic School represents a stage in the 

 mind's search for a vital principle to account 

 for the living man, and more specifically to 

 account for the animal heat, which is a clearly 

 vital quality, and yet indicative of ill when- 

 ever it rises above a certain degree, as in 



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