GREEK BIOLOGY AND MEDICINE 



There exist but fragments of the Pre-Socrat- 

 ics, and Xenophon's Memoirs of Socrates 

 contain scant notice of biology or physics. 

 Recently it has been recognized that a mine 

 of suggestion, if not information, as to the 

 early Greek thoughts upon the working of 

 Nature in living organisms is to be found in 

 that large and most significant body of medi- 

 cal and even biological literature which trails 

 the authorship of Hippocrates. He was Soc- 

 rates' contemporary; and although it is diffi- 

 cult to prove his authorship of any one of these 

 treatises, a goodly part are from the fifth 

 century, when he lived, and are convincingly 

 associated with the great physician to whom 

 they are ascribed. Other portions of the 

 Hippocratic corpus are affected by the theories 

 of the natural philosophers, and reflect con- 

 temporary conceptions of Nature. 



For example: " Hippocrates speaks of 

 Nature as arranging the vitals in the inner 

 parts; says of the auricles of the heart that 

 they are instruments by which she takes in the 

 air, adding that they seem to be the handiwork 

 of a good craftsman; refers to the vis medica- 

 trix naturae, Nature having discovered the 

 methods without understanding and untaught; 

 [10] 



