SCIENCE IN THE ANCIENT WORLD 55 



workers of Greece and Rome. Starting from the 

 world, the sky and the stars in space, which he regarded 

 as a kind of pantheistic deity, he passed in review the 

 earth, with terrestrial phenomena, such as earthquakes, 

 and dealt successively with geography, with man, 

 his mental and physical qualities, with animals, birds, 

 trees, agricultural operations, forestry, fruit-growing, 

 wine-making, the nature and use of metals, and the 

 origin and practice of the fine arts. Pliny discourses 

 with equal satisfaction on the natural history of the 

 lion, the unicorn and the phoenix, unable to distin- 

 guish between the real and the imaginary, the true, 

 the credible and the impossible. He preserves for us 

 the superstitions of the time, and recounts in all good 

 faith the practice and utility of various forms of 

 magic. But, to his credit, it must not be forgotten 

 that he died a victim to his curiosity in natural 

 knowledge. He was in command of the Roman fleet 

 at the time of the great eruption of Vesuvius which 

 destroyed Pompeii and Herculaneum. He landed in 

 order to watch the development of the upheaval, 

 advanced too far inland, and was overcome and borne 

 down by the storm of falling ashes. 



The greatest physician of the Roman period was 

 Galen, born at Pergamos, in Asia Minor, about 130 A.D. 

 Galen reunited the divided schools of medicine, 

 and worked at the dissection of animals. His system 

 of medicine, in opposition to the materialistic views of 

 the atomists, was founded on the Hippocratic theory 

 of four elements, combined with the idea of a spirit 

 pervading all parts of the body. It was for dogmas 

 deduced with great dialectic subtlety from these views, 

 rather than for his experimental observations or prac- 



