editors' preface 



the history of human culture. When the time 

 arrives, we shall have a record of fanatic de- 

 votion, of literal and uninspired acceptance, 

 of forgetfulness, of an inspiring rediscovery 

 with a quickening of scientific interest, of direct 

 observation of Nature's phenomena, with a 

 consequent skepticism toward ancient dogma, 

 and of a final great scientific revival which has 

 resulted in a recognition of the true worth of 

 the ancients. Through the mazes of Arabic 

 civilization, over the collapse of the religious 

 medieval period and the pride of the Re- 

 naissance, through the fourteenth and sixteenth 

 centuries, the great ancients have come to us. 

 It is largely through their inspiration that we 

 have learned our independent pursuit of Na- 

 ture's mysteries in the courageous Greek spirit 

 of love of truth, reason and freedom. Doubt- 

 less in the field of medicine, this has carried 

 with it a certain emancipation, as Gilbert 

 Murray has said, from the dead hand of the 

 past, but it is an emancipation from the errors 

 of the past alone. The twentieth century is 

 gradually approaching a true appraisal of the 

 values of the ancient medicine and biology, 

 so eloquently expressed years ago in Darwin's 

 gracious phrase. 



[ viii ] 



