HISTORY OF THE SCIENCE. 4415 
fapius were publicly suspended, and the priests alone 
undertook the examination and thie search of officinal 
plants, and the treatment of different diseases. “They 
were, as followers of Aesculapius called Asclepiades. 
The father of medicine, Hippocrates, added to the 
observations of Aesculapius a great many of his own, 
and first published several works on medicine. In 
his writings, the diseased and the healthy state of 
man are very fully treated of, and in speaking of 
the methods of cure, he has mentioned about 234 
plants. But these are only names. Hippocrates was 
born 459 years before Curisr, at the island Ces. 
He lived to a very old age, though the accounts differ, 
some saying he lived to be 89 years old, some 90, 
others 104, and a few indeed 109 years. The names 
of plants mentioned can be scarcely guessed at, for 
though great natural philosophers and linguists have 
attempted long ago to fix them properly, notwith- 
standing all those endeavours, they still remain very 
doubtful. 
Cratevas or Cratejas, was a cotemporary of Hip- 
pocrates. ‘Cratejas is said to have been very well ac- 
quainted with all the herbs and roots of Greece. His 
work, ‘entitled ‘PiCcrogixov, has been almost entirely 
fost, which is much to be regretted, because, most 
probably, the different plants mentioned in the cure 
of diseases by Hippocrates, were more accurately 
described by him. In the imperial library at Vienna 
some single fragments of his work are still preserved, 
as Tam told. | 
Aristotle first undertook, at the expence of 
Alexander the Great, to write a complete natural 
history. 
