could not be otherwise than that the death of Hippocrates should have caused a recession in the progress of medicine; nor that he should have been followed by a host of puerile imitators, who were incapable of living up to the exalted standard he set for them. He was several centuries in advance of the multitude, and time was required for them to digest and assimilate the mental pabulum which he left for them, before another genius should appear.

It is also generally understood that his sons, Thessalus and Draco, and Polybus, his son-in-law, succeeded to the profession of their illustrious father. Historians are accustomed to say that "he transmitted his profession to his sons," and so he did, as far as it was possible for him so to do. They at least succeeded to his calling, they and their sons, and their sons' sons for many generations. They do not appear to have risen to their great sire's work however. Polybus seems to have made contributions to medicine, more or less creditable, and to have palmed them off to the world as the veritable writings of his illustrious father-in-law; at least, so says M. Le Clerc (par. I, liv. iii.). Indeed, for many centuries following the death of Hippocrates he had many imitators; and many were the writings that were falsely fostered upon his name to the discredit of his name and fame. Foësius, who lived at Metz, France, a physician and surgeon of distinguished note, and a scholar of excellence, born about the

middle of the sixteenth century, made a discriminate collection of Hippocrates' accredited books and published a Greek edition of them, following this later by translating them into Latin (1595). To Foësius' unselfish generosity, therefore, are we indebted for a fairly genuine copy of Hippocrates' works in Greek and Latin, and to Dr. Francis Adams, and to the Sydenham Society of London, for an excellent edition in English, to which we have already referred.1

Among the Asclepiada, who, after the death of Hippocrates, distinguished themselves in medicine, we have to mention the names of Diocles and Praxagoras, the latter of Cos. Both were followers of their master, Hippocrates, and are said to have added materially to the medical art, more especially in diagnosis. The name of Chrysippus is also prominent at that period as a reformer. He is noted chiefly on account of his objection to bloodletting and the excessive use of purgatives, both of which were part of the Hippocratian method of treating certain

cases.

It should be observed that Draco and Thessalus, the sons of Hippocrates, together with his sonin-law, Polybus, were the first to form themselves into a sect called the Dogmatic, and to establish

I

To the Sydenham Society the author feels under great obligations for its translations and publication of works by foreign authors; and the English-speaking profession generally must feel under like obligations. It has done a great work for them, mostly gratuitously.

a school of medicine under that caption. Hippocrates was certainly the prince of Empirics at the outset of his career, since it was by experience and the observation of facts that data could be established on which to base conclusions, or to draw inductions in the prosecution of his profession. It is difficult to believe that he was ready or prepared to abandon that method and to act on the assumption that sufficient knowledge had been acquired, and sufficient data established to justify taking the position of the dogmatists. His sons evidently thought differently. Their object would seem to have been in forming a medical sect to avoid innovations, bar the acceptance of new or incompatible ideas of practice, and in that way to keep medicine purely Hippocratian. Be that as it may, it was the beginning of a partisan warfare in the progress of medicine that was waged with relentless bitterness through subsequent centuries down to within living memory. Indeed, vestiges of that contest may still be observed. And when we pause to reflect on the phenomenon, which at first thought seems so strange and irrational, no course could have been more natural to purblind man. It is in his heart, when once he gains an advantage over his fellows, to take means to maintain it. It may be observed in the Christian Church as well as in business and politics, under the lead of men ambitious of official distinction, or of personal preferment or fame; and it is often inspired, it