110 
" the combination of the four elements into the four states or 
qualities with which they were affected, of hot, cold, moist and 
dry, gave rise to the four fluids or humours of the body ; 
blood, phlegm, bile, and black bile, which originally tended 
to produce the four temperaments, and which, in their turn, 
contributed to the excess or defect of each of the humours." 
Hence arose the pathological doctrines, which, under the 
denomination of the Humoral Pathology, became the pre- 
vailing opinion of all sects and of all theorists, until the 
commencement of the eighteenth century. (Cycl. of Pract. 
Med. 1. p. xi). Dr. Bostock has, however, justly observed, 
that Hippocrates " appears to have had the sagacity to 
discover the great and fundamental truth, that in medicine, 
probably even more than in any other science, the basis of 
all our knowledge is the accurate observation of actual 
phenomena, and that the correct generalization of these 
phenomena should be the sole foundation of all our reasoning. 11 
In examining the modes of applying remedies by Hippo- 
crates as stated by Le Clerc, and the list of his Materia 
Medica, as given in the Index of Faesius, the works of 
Sprengel and Dierbach, we find that he was indebted for 
it to the same sources as his successors, of whom, adopting 
the ascending series, we have already treated. Thus, with 
a great majority of European plants, we find the products 
of the Persian region, with drugs from Egypt, and spices 
and aromatics from India. Since mineral and metallic 
substances are mentioned chiefly for external exhibition, 
his Materia Medica consisted almost entirely of vegetable 
substances. These, it has been observed, from their being 
simply named in prescription, it is more difficult to deter- 
mine, than where we have had their nature described ; or 
lind them arranged with similar products, as in the works 
of Theophrastus and Dioscorides. But as there is no reason 
to suppose that these authors applied the names found in 
