156 
NATURE 
| Dec. 9, 1869 
anything to do with the success which attended the Roman 
armies, and led to the formation of that enormous Roman 
empire? Let the facts speak for themselves. What strikes 
one more in reading the classical authors of those coun- 
tries than the continual mention of gymnasia and of 
baths? We find that a certain portion of time was set 
apart daily for bodily exercise, and thus a full develop- 
ment of the body was produced, and the greatest resistance 
given to those two great enemies of mankind, disease and 
death. It is true that all this training was part of a grand 
military system, that the youths were thus encouraged to 
compete for the prizes in the Olympic games and in the 
Roman gymnasia that they might become good soldiers ; 
but did this prevent the cultivation of mental acquire- 
ments? Again let the facts give the decision. Do you 
wish to see fine buildings, buildings so well constructed 
that they have lasted comparatively untouched by decay 
for centuries? Do you wish to study beautiful sculptures, 
statues anatomically perfect to the minutest details, and 
of unsurpassed artistic elegance? You go to Athens! 
You go to Rome! Do not fancy that we contend for 
bodily exercise as against mental studies: we merely 
maintain that a sufficient daily corporal exercise is ab- 
solutely necessary for the proper performance of the 
functions, both of mind and body. 
But we have not yet done with Rome. We have men- 
tioned the baths of that city ; but how were they supplied 
with water? Ah! here we have need to hide our faces 
for shame, Surely we, with all the immense advantages 
of scientific engineering, manage to supply our cities with 
water as well as the people of two thousand years ago ; 
at any rate, with all our steam engines and manufactories, 
we require at least as much as they did. When we turn 
to the pages of Frontinus, what do we find? That at the 
time at which he wrote, about A.D. 92, there were actually 
nine large aqueducts by which water was brought into 
Rome, beside some smaller channels ; these aqueducts 
were in some cases entirely covered over throughout their 
whole length, and were driven underground or supported 
by high arches, as occasion required. Several of them, as 
the Anio Vetus, the Claudian, and the Anio Novus, were 
from 42 to 49 miles in length, while the total length of 
the Marcian was actually 54 miles. The water was 
brought by the two Anios from the river Anio, by the 
others from various springs and lakes around Rome; the 
two newest ones, the Claudian and the Anio Novus, were 
made because “seven agueducts seemed scarcely sufficient 
for private purposes and public amusements.” 
The supply appears to have been equivalent to more 
than 332 millions of gallons per day, or (since the popula- 
tion was certainly not more than a million) at least 332 
gallons per head per day—say, six times the amount that 
we have now in London. 
But beside the aqueducts, there was a capital system of 
sewers at Rome, consisting of the “ Cloaca Maxima” and 
a series of smaller channels flowing into it. The above 
remarks give an idea of the admirable manner in which 
the means for the conservation of the public health were 
made a subject of State legislation in ancient Rome, and 
of the determined way in which all obstacles were van- 
quished, in order that the city might be made as healthy 
as possible, 
Not only have we the example of the ancients in these 
matters, but we have hygiene reduced to a system by 
Hippocrates, and associated, as it should always be, with 
medicine. In reading his Aphorisms, one is struck by the 
excellent dietetic regulations which he gives, for the ob- 
servance of gymnasts, and for the guidance of physicians 
in treating acute and chronic diseases. His third section, 
which treats of the influence of the seasons of the year, 
and of the various ages of man in the production of 
diseases, is also very remarkable. 
The very names of the works of Hippocrates show how 
great a hygienist he was. “ About Food,’ “About the 
Use of Liquids,” “About the Diet of Healthy People,” and 
especially his treatises on “ Air, Water, and Localities,” 
and on “Epidemics,” are works which well entitle 
their author to be considered the father of experimental 
hygiene. 
After Hippocrates comes Celsus, during the 1st century 
of our era, who devotes the first chapter of his first book 
“De Re Medica” to the exposition of rules concerning 
diet, and recommends the avoidance of too great regu- 
larity by healthy persons. 
But we must not pass over the works of Galen, which 
were sO numerous as to form a complete treatise of 
medicine, and which exercised so enormous an influence 
over the medical practice of the whole world during many 
centuries. Galen flourished during the latter part of the 
2nd century after Christ, and was for some time physician 
to the gymnasia at Rome. He revived the doctrines of 
Hippocrates, especially the celebrated one of the four 
humours (blood, bile, phlegm, and atrabile), and con- 
sidered that the different temperaments were produced by 
mixtures in various proportions of these humours with the 
four elements—earth, air, fire, and water, and with the 
four physical qualities—heat, cold, moisture, and dryness. 
The Sicilian School sprang up in the 11th century, and 
was the offspring of the ancient Greek and Arabian 
medical schools. Its practice is handed down to us in a 
quaint Latin poem, in which a great deal of truth is mixed 
up with a great deal of trash, and in which we find bad 
therapeutics based upon faulty pathology. It is from tis 
school that the doctrines of Hippocrates and Galen, 
together with the fancies of later times, were spread 
abroad over Europe. Thus we find that the experimental 
methods of the fathers of medicine were confused with a 
host of traditions derived from the Arabian alchemists ; 
so that the rational methods of treatment, adopted by 
Hippocrates and his more immediate successors, were 
neglected ; and diseases were treated instead by a host 
of supposed infallible remedies, of which the action was 
not at all investigated. And what do we find as the 
result of this change of practice? That epidemics raged 
with the most fearful intensity all over Europe, epi- 
demics which were only known accidentally before, and 
which, finding favourable conditions for their spread 
in the utter neglect of hygiénic observances, came from 
their natural seats in hot eastern countries, and com- 
mitted unheard-of ravages in Europe. Look at the 
Plague, that fearful epidemic of the eastern part of the 
Mediterranean! It is true that we have accounts of 
terrible visitations of it in Greece, and particularly of one 
which depopulated Athens in the second year of the 
Peloponnesian war, when the disease was introduced into 
that city (then fearfully overcrowded) by a ship from 
