GREEK BIOLOGY AND MEDICINE 



In the last pre-Christian centuries Greek 

 medicine reached Rome. The native Roman 

 practice had been of the homeliest, and accom- 

 panied always with a dose of superstition. For 

 our purpose it is quite negligible. But some 

 of the Latins, in medicine as well as literature, 

 were capable of learning. Such a one was the 

 exceedingly intelligent Celsus who, in the first 

 half of the first Christian century, composed 

 or translated an admirable hand-book of medi- 

 cine and surgery. Whatever the sources of his 

 materials were, he was a man of sense and dis- 

 crimination, and wrote a Latin that assured his 

 book an enthusiastic reception with the Hu- 

 manists when it was re-discovered in the 

 fifteenth century. It was printed at Florence 

 in the year 1478, before the works of either 

 Galen or Hippocrates. 



Celsus knew the history of medicine, and in 

 his Introduction aptly describes the sects of his 

 time. He speaks of the Empirics, who would 

 have nothing to do with the remote and hidden 

 causes of disease, seeing that men always had 

 differed regarding them; only the obvious 

 causes were to be considered and treated. The 

 Empirics were interested in the cure rather 

 than in the cause. Opposed to them were those 



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