6 MODERN BIOLOGIC THERAPEUSIS 



ical and surgical medicine, in that he collated 

 the loose plant-lore of the woodmen and rhizoto- 

 mists into a systematic treatise. 



Greek medicine was finally established on a 

 respectable footing in Rome in the personality, 

 tact, and superior ability of Asclepiades (llM- 

 B.C.) who was the first to mention tracheotomy. 

 Dioscorides, the originator of the materia med- 

 ica, was a Greek Army surgeon in the service of 

 Nero, and utilized his opportunity of travel in 

 the study of plants. His work is an authorita- 

 tive source on the materia medica of antiquity 

 of which he describes about 600 plants and 

 plant-principles. As Theophrastus was the first 

 scientific botanist, so Dioscorides was the first 

 to write on medical botany as an applied science. 



Aretaeus, the Cappadocian, comes nearer 

 than any other Greek to the spirit and method 

 of Hippocrates and, on this account, may be 

 readily appreciated by modern readers. As a 

 clinician, he ranks next to the Father of Medi- 

 cine for the graphic accuracy of his pictures of 

 disease, of which he has given the classic first- 

 hand account of pneumonia, diabetes, tetanus 

 and diphtheria. The natural history of Pliny 

 the elder (23-79 A.D.) is a vast compilation of 



