MllDICAL SCIENCES. 



to relax the tissues which were too contracted, or to contract those which 

 were too relaxed. The methodists had no idea of the action of the mind 

 upon the morbid state of the human Ixxl . 



It was the philosophy of Plato, renewed and revived in the schools, which 

 inspired the doctrine of pneumatism, which attributed to the soul (mrS/ia in 

 Greek) a considerable part in the diseases of the body as well as in all the acts 

 of human existence. Pneumatism, adopting the formulae of the peripatetics, 

 and based upon precise data of anatomy, in time gave birth to eclecticism, 

 which was professed by Athemeus of Cilicia, Agathus of Sparta, Philip of 

 Caesarea, Aretous of Cappadocia, and, lastly, by Galen, who was the greatest 

 of the eclecticians. Galen, born at Pergamus in the year 131 B.C., studied in 

 the school of Alexandria, and it was there that he learnt to argue with much 

 talent against the already discredited methods, from out of the elements of 

 which, duly sifted and selected, he created the eclectic system, founded upon 

 anatomy and observation. His encyclopaedic spirit, the success of his teaching, 

 the excellent results of his scientific journeys, the diversity and the variety 

 of his writings, caused him to be looked upon as nothing short of an oracle 

 when, upon coming to Rome, he became the physician of the Emperor 

 Marcus Aurelius. The sympathies of that monarch for the Christians were 

 undoubtedly shared by Galen, who was as well versed in the Bible as in the 

 books of Plato. He was an anatomist in his early career, but he specially 

 distinguished himself afterwards as a physiologist and psychologist. No 

 doctor, before him, had formed any conception as to the extent of Divine 

 action upon the least important of human affairs : he defined and compre- 

 hended the part of the soul beneath its corporal covering, but without pro- 

 nouncing as to the question of its immortality. This ingenious definition 

 of the irvev/ia, the part which he assigns it in the sensorial functions, the 

 difference which he distinctly asserts between the nerves of feeling and those 

 of motion, and his division of the forces of the body into three kinds vital, 

 animal, and natural are so many touches of genius, which, though but mere 

 glimmers of truth at first, afterwards shone out as bright lights and resplen- 

 dent truths. According to Galen, the health of the body depended upon an 

 equal and uniform mixture of solids and liquids, and its illness from their 

 disproportion and inequality. Consequently, a clever physician should always 

 foresee illness, by judging as to its immediate or remote causes, its predis- 

 posing or accidental causes. Galen was in advance of his time ; his ideas as 



