little. This was largely due to the encyclopædic character of the work he undertook; his mental powers were weighed down by an enormous mass of unarranged and ill-digested materials. But it was due also to the peculiar bent of Pliny's mind.. He was not, like Aristotle, an original thinker; he was essentially a student of books, an immensely industrious but not always judicious compiler. Often his selections from other works prove that he failed to appreciate the relative importance of the different subjects to which he made reference. His knowledge of the Greek language appears, too, to have been defective, for he gives at times the wrong Latin names to objects described by his Greek authorities. To these defects must be added his marvellous readiness to believe any statement, provided only that it was uncommon; while, on the other hand, he showed an indefensible scepticism in regard to what was really deserving of attention. The chief value of his work consists in the historical and chronological notes of the progress of some of the subjects of which he treatsfragments of writings which would otherwise be lost to us. Pliny was killed in the destruction of Pompeii, A.D. 79.

Claudius Galenus was born at Pergamus, in Asia Minor, in the hundred and thirty-first year of the Christian era. Few writers ever exercised for so long a time such an undisputed sway over the opinions of mankind as did

this wonderful man. His authority was estimated at a much higher rate than that of all the biological writers combined who flourished during a period of more than twelve centuries, and it was often considered a sufficient argument against a hypothesis, or even an alleged matter of fact, that it was contrary to Galen.

Endowed by nature with a penetrating genius and a mind of restless energy, he was eminently qualified to profit by a comprehensive and liberal education. And such he received. His father, Nicon, an architect, was a man of learning and ability—a distinguished mathematician and an astronomer-and seems to have devoted much time and care to the education of his son. The youth appears to have studied philosophy successively in the schools of the Stoics, Academics, Peripatetics, and Epicureans, without attaching himself exclusively to any one of these, and to have taken from each what he thought to be the most essential parts of their system, rejecting, however, altogether the tenets of the Epicureans. At the age of twenty-one, on the death of his father, he went to Smyrna to continue the study of medicine, to which he had now devoted himself. After leaving this place and having travelled extensively, he took up his residence at Alexandria, which was then the most favourable spot for the pursuit of medical studies. Here he is said to have remained until he was twenty-eight years of age, when his reputation secured

E

his appointment, in his native city of Pergamus, to the office of physician in charge of the athletes in the gymnasia situated within the precincts of the temple of Esculapius. For five or six years he lived in Pergamus, and then a revolt compelled him to leave his native town. The advantages offered by Rome led him to remove thither and take up his residence in the capital of the world. Here his skill, sagacity, and knowledge soon brought him into notice, and excited the jealousy of the Roman doctors, which was still further increased by some wonderful cures the young Greek physician succeeded in effecting. Possibly it was owing to the ill feeling shown to Galen that, on the outbreak of an epidemic a year afterwards, he left the imperial city and proceeded to Brindisi, and embarked for Greece. It was his intention to devote his time to the study of natural history, and for this purpose he visited Cyprus, Palestine, and Lemnos. While at the last-named place, however, he was suddenly summoned to Aquileia to meet the Emperors Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus. He travelled through Thrace and Macedonia on foot, met the imperial personages, and prepared for them a medicine, for which he seems to have been famous, and which is spoken of as the theriac. It was probably some combination of opium with various aromatics and stimulants, for antidotes of many different kinds were habitually taken by the Romans to preserve them from

the ill effects of poison and of the bites of venomous animals.1

With the Emperor M. Aurelius he returned to Rome, and became afterwards doctor to the young Emperor Commodus. He did not, however, remain for a long period at Rome, and probably passed the greater part of the rest of his life in his native country.

2

Although the date of his death is not positively known, yet it appears from a passage in his writings that he was living in the reign of Septimius Severus; and Suidas seems to have reason for asserting that he reached his seventieth year.

Galen's writings represent the common depository of the anatomical knowledge of the day; what he had learnt from many teachers, rather than the results of his own personal research. Roughly speaking, they deal with the following subjects: Anatomy and Physiology, Dietetics and Hygiene, Pathology, Diagnosis and Semeiology, Pharmacy and Materia Medica, Therapeutics.

The only works of this voluminous writer at which we can here glance are those dealing with Anatomy and Physiology. These exhibit numerous illustrations of Galen's familiarity with practical anatomy, although it was most likely comparative rather than human

1 Hence the name Onplakal.

2 "De Antidotis," i. 13, vol. xiv. p. 65, Kuhn.

anatomy at which he especially worked. Indeed, he seems to have had but few opportunities of carrying on human dissections, for he thinks himself happy in having been able to examine at Alexandria two human skeletons; and he recommends the dissection of monkeys because of their exact resemblance to man. To this disadvantage may, perhaps, be attributed the readiness, which sometimes appears, to assume identity of organization between man and the brutes. Thus, because in certain animals he found a double biliary duct, he concluded the same to be the case in man, and in one instance he proceeded to deduce the cause of disease from this erroneous assumption.

He supposed that there were three modes of existence in man, namely

(a) The nutritive, which was common to all animals and plants, of which the liver was the source.

(b) The vital, of which the heart was the source.

(c) The rational, of which the brain was the source.

Again, he considered that the animal economy possessed four natural powers—

(1) The attractive.

(2) The alterative or assimilative.

(3) The retentive or digestive.

(4) The expulsive.

Like his predecessors, he asserted that there were

four humours, namely, blood, yellow bile, black bile, and