A HISTORY OF SCIENCE 



age of Columbus would have balked at the greater dis- 

 tance, and since the protests of the sailors, which 

 nearly thwarted his efforts, were made long before the 

 distance as estimated by Ptolemy had been covered; 

 nevertheless it is interesting to recall that the great geo- 

 graphical doctrines, upon which Columbus must chiefly 

 have based his arguments, had been before the world 

 in an authoritative form practically unheeded for more 

 than twelve hundred years, awaiting a champion with 

 courage enough to put them to the test. 



GALEN THE LAST GREAT ALEXANDRIAN 



There is one other field of scientific investigation to 

 which we must give brief attention before leaving the 

 antique world. This is the field of physiology and 

 medicine. In considering it we shall have to do with 

 the very last great scientist of the Alexandrian school. 

 This was Claudius Galenus, commonly known as Galen, 

 a man whose fame was destined to eclipse that of all 

 other physicians of antiquity except Hippocrates, and 

 whose doctrines were to have the same force in their 

 field throughout the Middle Ages that the doctrines 

 of Aristotle had for physical science. But before we 

 take up Galen's specific labors, it will be well to inquire 

 briefly as to the state of medical art and science in the 

 Roman world at the time when the last great physician 

 of antiquity came upon the scene. 



The Romans, it would appear, had done little in the 

 way of scientific discoveries in the field of medicine, but, 

 nevertheless, with their practicality of mind, they had 

 turned to better account many more of the scientific 

 discoveries of the Greeks than did the discoverers them- 



272 



