HISTORY OF MEDICINE. 381 



permanent, and at least we might have expected some testimony 

 in their favour to have remained. The noted sceptic Sextus 

 was a physician, and has commonly been called Empiricus ; 

 but he was not truly such in his own profession, which he cer- 

 tainly would have been if the sect had produced any fruits suit- 

 able to their sceptical pretences. (See Hypotyp. Pyrrhon. Lib. 

 i. cap. 34.) We have nothing more to observe with regard to 

 the history of the empiric sect 



Fourth Period. The dogmatists were still the most consid- 

 erable party among physicians ; and now, after the period we 

 have mentioned, the only revolutions in the state of physic to 

 be taken notice of, are the different modifications of dogmatism. 

 As an instance of this kind, we have marked the rise of the 

 sect called Methodic. This happened at Rome ; and to intro- 

 duce our account of the methodic sect, we must take some no- 

 tice of the progress of physic in that city and its dominions. 

 The illustrious commonwealth of Rome was for more than five 

 hundred years without arts of any refinement ; and they had 

 that of physic only in its rude and natural state. At length, 

 however, Rome received the arts of Greece, and amongst the 

 rest their physic. When the first Greek practitioner, Arcaga- 

 thus, presented himself at Rome, he was very kindly received ; 

 but his employment of many chirurgical remedies appeared se- 

 vere and cruel to the Romans, and occasioned a general disgust 

 of the Greek physic. Accordingly we do not find that it made 

 any progress among them for a long time after, nor till Ascle- 

 piades, an elegant and artful man, and the friend and physician 

 of Cicero, introduced the mild practice of Erasistratus. Ascle- 

 piades attached himself to none of the sects of physicians a- 

 mong the Greeks, which were but little known at Rome. He 

 formed a plan and system of his own, but very nicely adjusted 

 it to the manners and philosophy that then prevailed at Rome. 

 His philosophy was that of his cotemporary Lucretius the Epi- 

 curean ; and he readily framed a theory of the human body 

 adapted to his purpose. He observed that fluids were in constant 

 motion in the body ; and he supposed that these fluids consisted 

 of particles of different sizes and figures, and consequently that 

 there must be as many different pores and passages adjusted to 

 the transmission of these in different parts of the system. Upon 



