THE BIRTH ANt> GROWTH OF SCIENCE: IN MEDICINE. I f 



the rites of the god. But at such health resorts they 

 were also subjected to other inlluences — careful diet, pure 

 water, rest and cheerful associations — and when improve- 

 ment occurred, the physicians had the acuteness to 

 perceive that this simple treatment had probably more 

 to do with the result than the religious rites. 



This brings me to the second name which I naturally 

 commemorate to-day — that of Hippocrates of Cos — the 

 first great clinician of whom we have any knowledge, and 

 one whose name will always be associated with the phase 

 which Greek medicine had now reached. When Hippo- 

 crates was born, about 460 B.C., observational medicine 

 had attained a considerable pitch of excellence. He 

 doubtless imbibed the teachings of other great physicians 

 who had gone before him, but the veneration in which 

 Hippocrates was held by the Greeks themselves assures 

 us that he was a man of outstanding character and attain- 

 ments. We can, however, judge of him more directly. 

 It is certain that only a small part of the Hippocratic 

 treatises which have come down to us are from the pen 

 of the master himself, but we may reasonably take them, 

 as a whole, to represent his teaching, and they give us a 

 fair idea of the stage at which the best Greek medical 

 science had arrived in the fifth century B.C. It was a 

 simple and rational medicine based on careful clinical 

 observation and on a watchful study of the results which 

 followed hygienic treatment. The healing powers of 

 Nature formed a leading tenet of the Coan school : we 

 may almost regard Hippocrates as the founder of sana- 

 torium treatment. Perusal of those of the Books of 

 Epidemics which are most certainly by Hippocrates 

 himself, shows that he was an admirable case-taker ; in 

 the light of our present knowledge we can readily make 

 a diagnosis from many of his descriptions. His medicine 

 shows, of course, the natural limits of a purely observa- 

 tional science : it knows little of anatomy and less of 

 physiology ; its crude pathology is based on the doctrine 

 of " opposites " ; the idea of experiment as a means of 



