GREEK BIOLOGY AND 

 MEDICINE 



I. THE EARLY BIOLOGY 



BEYOND all other ancient people, the 

 better sort of men among the dwellers 

 in the Ionian cities on the west coast 

 oi Asia Minor and the neighboring islands were 

 blessed with lively intellectual curiosity. They 

 were also free, and meant to keep their free- 

 dom. Their cities might for a time be brought 

 within the sway of a Lydian monarch or the 

 Great King of Persia; but such intermittent 

 pressure from without did not hamper the com- 

 merce of these coast and island towns, or re- 

 strict the free thinking of their citizens. 

 Religion was tolerant or uncertain; there was 

 no constraining caste of priests. Men might 

 think as they saw fit upon the origin and order 

 of the world, and freely express their opinions. 

 And it came to pass that the gifted thought- 

 leaders of Ionian Greece devised conceptions of 



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