HISTORY OF PHARMACY. 
41 
ART. XIII.— HISTORY OF PHARMACY— A FRAGMENT. 
By Mr. Cap. 
( Translated by Augustine Duhamel } 
I. SCHOOL OF ALEXANDRIA.* 
Distribution of Medicine into three professions. 
The flourishing state to which the sciences were elevated 
in Greece, by the labors of the Peripatetic school, and the 
protection of Alexander, could not continue a long time. 
After the death of the King of Macedonia his empire was 
dismembered. In the division, Egypt fell to the lot of 
Ptolemy Soter, son of Lagus and brother-in-law of Alexan- 
der, who had contributed to his conquests and partook of 
his taste for philosophy and the sciences. Ptolemy founded 
at Alexandria the Museum, a vast depot, where he reunited 
the natural productions of all the then known countries, and 
collected a considerable number of manuscripts with which 
he formed an immense library. 
Ptolemy Philadelphus, who succeeded to Soter, further 
enriched these precious collections. The library established 
in the temple of Serapis became enriched with all the works 
which he caused to be bought at Athens, Rhodes, and 
throughout Greece. 
He likewise gathered together a large number of strange 
living animals, with which he formed a menagerie. 
The kings of Syria and Pergamus rivalled with the Pto- 
lemies in the encouragement which they gave to savants 
and philosophers. This rivalry was carried so far that Pto- 
lemy prohibited the exportation of papyrus, in order to take 
* This article forms the second chapter of Book Second of a History 
of Pharmacy, at which the author has been working for several 
years. 
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