xviii PREFACE. 



The other day I sent up to town for a work I saw 

 advertised on Climate, Weather, and Disease, published 

 recently by Churchill, the medical publisher. I thought, of 

 course, to receive a book giving the latest ideas on the 

 subject, since the title gave me no reason to suppose 

 otherwise ; imagine then my surprise when I received 

 from my booksellers a work treating upon the climate of 

 Greece, as observed by Hippocrates, the Father of Medicine, 

 who was born B.C. 460, just 2347 years ago. This, then, 

 was the result of my desire for nineteenth-century opinions 

 on the great subject of climate as affecting disease. This 

 and other matters lead me to suppose that beneath the 

 sun there is nothing new ; and of this I am still further 

 convinced, when reminded that we may seek of the Romans 

 instruction in the science of road-making. I am persuaded, 

 since this is the case, that no one can be certain of treating 

 a subject with positive originality or even of giving 

 utterance to an entirely original thought. What appears to 

 people living at the present day as an invention of the 

 very latest date may be only an old practice revived — 

 something which existed centuries ago but was never 

 completed or sufficiently established in people's favour to 

 secure recognition ; numberless, no doubt, are the things 

 which we now regard as resulting from an advanced 

 education, and the infinite information we possess, with which, 

 if the truth were known, the ancients were well acquainted, 

 as regards road-making : this is especially the case, since 

 we might even at this period not be asliamed to follow in 

 their footsteps or benefit by their wisdom. 



Any one who reads Xenophon's treatise on the horse 

 cannot fail to be surprised at his remarks on this subject, 

 since his advice upon grooming and the general care and 

 treatment of the horse might well be, with a few exceptions, 

 written at the present day; and the works of other Greek 

 and Roman authors frequently convey this impression, 

 particularly those of Horace and the younger Pliny. 



The Greeks were not very famous for their roads^ and the 



