GREEK BIOLOGY AND MEDICINE 



correlation among the human organs with the 

 consequent recognition of the general disorder 

 resulting from the sickness of any one of them, 

 is with us still. Likewise the fundamental 

 Hippocratic tenet of assisting nature to work 

 her own cure has remained valid and accepted, 

 in some form at least of re-expression to suit 

 the different and finally larger knowledge of 

 later times. No one disputes it today; and it 

 was doubly wise and sound for men whose 

 knowledge was as pardonably rudimentary as 

 that of Hippocrates. Charles Singer expresses 

 his judgment of the Hippocratics thus : " The 

 work of these men may be summed up by say- 

 ing that without dissection, without any ex- 

 perimental physiology or pathology, and with- 

 out any instrumental aid, they pushed the 

 knowledge of the course and origin of disease 

 as far as it is conceivable that men in such 

 circumstances could push it. This was done as 

 a process of pure scientific induction. Their 

 surgery, though hardly based on anatomy, was 

 grounded on the most carefully recorded ex- 

 perience. In therapeutics they allowed them- 

 selves neither to be deceived by false hopes 

 nor led aside by vain traditions. Yet in diag- 

 nosis, prognosis, surgery and therapeutics 



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