THE BIRTH AND GROWTH OF SCIE^XE IN MEDICINE. 7 



The Greeks absorbed the Babylonian data, and began to 

 reason about them ; in a few centuries they found out that 

 the earth was round and floated in space, and surmised that 

 it was only a member of a larger system of worlds ; they 

 not merely observed, but succeeded in explaining eclipses. 

 They thus founded the science of astronomy. In the 

 same way, as I propose to relate, they laid the foundations 

 of medical science. 



The way in which Greek history is usually taught in 

 schools is, to my mind, a deplorable thing. If one takes 

 up a primer on the subject, one finds it a lamentable 

 record of petty strife and treachery, redeemed, indeed, 

 here and there by some noble and heroic action, but 

 conveying little of the marvellous achievements of the 

 Greeks in the realms of thought and art. What does 

 the Peloponnesian war matter, in comparison with the 

 invention of mathematics and logic, with the rise of 

 democracy, the development of the drama, or the idealism 

 of Greek sculpture ? By all means teach the school-boy 

 what Marathon and Salamis meant for the future of 

 European civilisation, but teach him, too, the significance 

 of Hellenism in art, literature and science. The political 

 failures and downfall of the Greeks may well be relegated 

 to a tragic addendum, to warn him that no intellectual 

 brilliancy and freedom can make a nation long successful 

 in the absence of unselfishness and good faith. 



I take it that few things have ever happened in the 

 world so wonderful as the relatively sudden intellectual 

 development of the ancient Greeks. Ethnologists tell us 

 that a peculiarly happy accident of racial fusion was 

 largely accountable for their genius. Right through the 

 Bronze Age the dominant race in the ^Egean had been 

 that which developed the so-called " Minoan " culture— 

 a people small in stature, active and intelligent, and with 

 a highly developed artistic talent. Their civilisation was 

 overwhelmed by successive waves of migration from the 

 north : the invaders were of Aryan origin, and repre- 

 sented many different tribes. The Achieans, known to 



