GREEK BIOLOGY AND MEDICINE 



cratic precept; and well for him and all with 

 whom he came in contact if he have drawn 

 into his nature, and reflect in his professional 

 conduct, the Hippocratic ethics of the heal- 

 ing art. 



And if modern medicine and biology no 

 longer draw directly from the old Greek store, 

 we still may reflect upon the antecedent in- 

 fluence by which we profit. The guiding knowl- 

 edge, which we no longer need, did its work 

 in our immediate or mediate predecessors, and 

 thus led on to us. The shoulders that we 

 stand on are the taller because the men before 

 us, or the men before them, stood upon the 

 shoulders of the Greeks. So the Greek founda- 

 tion stones have their place in our edifice of 

 knowledge. And still at the summit waves the 

 flag of nature, — the old Hippocratic <j>i)<ns — 

 as the healer of the body's ills: vovawv <j>v<rei,s 

 i-qrpol, vis medicatrix naturae. Today more 

 universally than ever, if not more profoundly, 

 we realize that the power of an organism to 

 heal or restore itself is one of the universal 

 marks dividing all living organisms — plants, 

 and animals, and man — from the inorganic 

 world. 



[138] 



