42 
HISTORY OF PHARMACY. 
from their competitors the means of carrying offtheir literary 
treasures. 
It was then, and during the reign of Eumenes, King of 
Pergamus, that parchment was invented.* 
Alexandria soon became the centre of civilization, the 
sanctuary of knowledge, and the rendezvous of philosophers 
and savants, who nocked thither from all quarters, attracted 
together by the resources presented for instruction, and the 
liberality of sovereigns, as well as by the beauty and salu- 
brity of the climate. 
Distant expeditions having multipled the relations with 
the East, and the commerce of the Egyptians being consid- 
erably extended, Alexandria became at the same time the 
great commercial mart of the civilized world, and the natu- 
ral route by which the productions of India, such as drugs, 
spices, and medicines, arrived in Europe, furnishing im- 
mense materials for the study of naturalists. This glorious 
and prosperous condition existed for nearly two centuries, 
under the dynasty of the Lagides. 
The majority of the princes of this family made them- 
selves remarkable by their taste for erudition and their 
scientific researches. Evergetes second, and seventh of 
Ptolemies, (or rather the eighth agreeably to modern dis- 
covery,) a disciple of Aristarchus, cultivated the natural 
sciences with success, and wrote a treatise upon animals. 
It was under his reign, however, that the prosperity of the 
Alexandrian school was arrested. Having excited his sub- 
jects to rebel against him, this cruel prince was obliged to 
retire to the Isle of Cyprus ; repossessed of his estates, he 
perpetrated such acts of vengeance that Alexandria soon 
became a desert. The persecution operated chiefly upon 
philosophers, savants and physicians, who abandoned 
Egypt and retired to Athens, where they revived for a time 
* It is evidently from the word Pergamus, that parchment borrows 
its name. 
