a gradual depravation of manners. No wide-sweeping reforms are mentioned in their history. Idolatry had no "revivals" or "reformations." The people were not, however, universally depraved. Personal integrity and social purity were perhaps fully equal to what we see, on the average, in our own communities among that large portion of our population who make no profession of regard for the teachings of the Church. It may have been equal to the condition of some of the people of modern Europe.

One of the most remarkable institutions in Greece were "temples of health," or what might be termed hospitals, though we find no evidence that the poor and helpless were systematically admitted to them for medical treatment; and yet as these hospitals were religious temples, consecrated to the worship of Esculapius, it may be reasonably doubted whether a suffering person would be excluded from refuge in them on account of poverty.

These Asclepia, or temples of health, were usually erected on elevated, salubrious spots, sometimes by mineral springs, or on the sea-shore, well furnished with baths, and were undoubtedly as numerous as hospitals are now in modern Christian nations.* Schulze, in his history of medicine, gives a list of sixty-four of these temples, and Sprengel maintains that the practice of medicine in them was consistent and scientific. Grote, referring to the gens or tribe of physicians who had charge of these temples at Trikku, Kos, Knidus, Epidaurus, and many other places in Greece, remarks that there can be no doubt that their means of medical observation must have been largely extended by their vicinity to temples so much frequented by the sick, who came in confident hopes of divine relief, and who, while they offered up sacrifice and prayer to Esculapius, and slept in the temple in order to be favored with healing suggestions in their dreams, might, in case the god withheld his supernatural aid, consult his living descendants, the physicians.†

The people undoubtedly attributed their cures largely to the god, but the physicians who gave the medicines and took their

* See Xenophon's Memorabilia, iii, 13. Also Pausanias, ii, 2.

Grote's History of Greece, part i, chapter ix. London edition, 1851, vol. i, pp. 250.

pay out of sacrificial' offerings soon learned that the cure depended upon their skill and faithfulness.

Hippocrates enjoyed all the advantages of a medical superintendent of a large hospital. He was the most noted physician in the famous temple of health at Cos. Here, on this small and beautiful island, enjoying the salubrious breezes from the ocean, prescribing for patients who resorted to the splendid temple of Esculapius, he seems to have spent all of his long life, except the intervals that he devoted to travel, that he might improve his professional skill by observation and conversation with other eminent men.

He was trained as a physician from his boyhood. He lost no time in studying other languages, living or dead; he simply extended his researches into science and philosophy, as the demands of his profession seemed to require, and as the library connected with the temple, and the scholars who from time to time resorted to it for rest and the renewing of their health, afforded him opportunity. The Asclepiade or physicians had noted down with care the cases of sickness that had come before them, and the means resorted to for cure, and the result. These Hippocrates studied. He availed himself also of the information of the periodenta or traveling physicians, who in those days itinerated, each with his iatrium, or store of drugs and surgical instruments. That there were skillful physicians and good medical writers before Hippocrates, the "father of medicine," what reasonable man can doubt? It is true the works of none are extant. So, too, where is the poetry that preceded Homer? Where is the philosophy that preceded Plato? Where is the logic that preceded Aristotle? To suppose that these men flashed up as meteors, with the permanency of stars, is contrary to reason, and to the ordinary course of nature. Socrates is represented by Xenophon as expressly stating that medical works were numerous in his time, and in one of the treatises attributed to Hippocrates the same fact is mentioned. He himself writes of "Ancient Medicine," attributing the origin of the profession not to Esculapius or Apollo, but to the efforts naturally made by reasonable men to improve their diet by observation, both in health and sickness. Hygiene was, in the opinion of Hippocrates, the mother of medicine. Two of the works attributed to him by many writers, the First

Book of Prorrhetics, and the Coan Prognostics, were undoubtedly written before his time, and were a part of the library which he was accustomed to study.

Mercifully, perhaps, much of the past has perished. Even Solomon could exclaim, "of making many books there is no end," though of the volumes that called forth the remark not one is now extant. But for the art of printing, and but for such associations as Historical Societies, antiquarians, etc., how long would the Anglo-Saxon and English poems that preceded Milton, and the works that formed the foundation of the stories of Shakspeare, abide? Spenser and Chaucer even, to say nothing of the hundreds of minor writers, would soon shrink into a sentence, or effloresce into a few poetical myths. The past cannot be reproduced. The picture we have of it must be largely fanciful, though in its day filled with fact.

The writings of Hippocrates undoubtedly had many rivals for the esteem of the profession in their day. They have perished; his abide. Whether merit, chance, or Providence has saved them, none can tell. We may naturally infer the former. His writings deserve all the eulogy they generally receive. None can read them without admiring his candor, breadth of view, science, and sound judgment. Dr. Francis Adams, himself an eminent medical practitioner, as well as author, says, "I verily believe him to be the highest exemplar of professional excellence which the world has ever seen." Indeed, it would be difficult to point out what in him was wanting.

The works of Hippocrates consist of sixteen tracts or treatises, varying in length from about a single octavo page to a hundred pages, in all constituting perhaps a volume of five hundred pages as large as those of this Review. Written in a singularly concise style, containing observations professing to be based entirely on fact, it would be difficult to find a modern treatise of the size exhibiting a sounder judgment or a more patient study of facts. Besides these are several other treatises, attributed to Hippocrates on the same principle that anonymous witticisms always cluster about the names of famous wits. His genuine works are enough for the glory of one man, and the others, many of them being worthy of his reputation, only demonstrate

the perfection of the medical profession in ancient Greece. In none of his writings do we detect any traces of superstition, though he lived in a temple consecrated to a heathen divinity. He even states of "the sacred disease," epilepsy, that "it appears to me to be nowise more divine nor more sacred than other diseases, but has a natural cause from which it originates like other affections." He argues at length against the practices of mountebanks and charlatans, who in those days pretended to have intercourse with the gods, and expresses incidentally his own opinion thus: "Neither truly do I count it a worthy opinion to hold that the body of man is polluted by God, the most impure by the most holy; for were it defiled, or did it suffer from any other thing, it would be like to be purified and sanctified rather than polluted by God. For it is the divinity which purifies and sanctifies the greatest of offenses and the most wicked, and which proves our protection from them."*

This same sentiment he also very clearly expresses in his hygienic treatise on Airs, Waters, and Places.†

It is remarkable that some of the most modern ideas and discoveries in the profession are foreshadowed in his writings. Even the fundamental principle of homeopathy, similia similibus curantur, is clearly laid down and illustrated in the treatise "On the Places in Man," which is attributed to Hippocrates by all ancient authorities. While, however, he recommends practice on this system in certain cases, he takes the ground of physicians generally, that these cases are few and exceptional, and that the proper method generally is to attack a disease with an antagonistic medicine.

Physicians in ancient Greece were a kind of clan, or gens, like the priesthood, bound to sustain their profession. This is illustrated by the oath which was written by Hippocrates, evidently to be sworn to by medical students. As an illustration of the ancient character of the profession it is worthy of preservation. It was as follows:

I swear by Apollo the physician, and Esculapius, and Health, and All-heal, and all the gods and goddesses, that according to my ability and judgment I will keep this oath and this stipulation-to reckon him who taught me this art equally dear to me as my

*Vol. ii, p. 846.

+ Vol. i, p. 216.

parents; to share my substance with him and relieve his necessities if required; to look upon his offspring in the same footing as my own brothers, and to teach them this art if they shall wish to learn it, without fee or stipulation; and that, by precept, lecture, and every other mode of instruction, I will impart a knowledge of the art to my own sons, and those of my teachers, and to disciples bound by a stipulation and oath according to the law of medicine, but to none others. I will follow that system of regimen which according to my ability and judgment I consider for the benefit of my patients, and abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischievous. I will give no deadly medicine to any one if asked, nor suggest any such counsel; and in like manner I will not give to a woman a pessary to produce abortion. With purity and with holiness I will pass my life and practice my art. I will not cut persons laboring under the stone, but will leave this to be done by men who are practitioners of this work. Into whatever houses I enter, I will go into them for the benefit of the sick, and will abstain from every voluntary act of mischief and corruption; and further, from the seduction of females or males, of freemen and slaves. Whatever, in connection with my professional practice, or not in connection with it, I see or hear in the life of men which ought not to be spoken of abroad, I will not divulge, as reckoning that all such should be kept secret.

While I continue to keep this oath unviolated, may it be granted to me to enjoy life and the practice of the art respected by all men in all times! But should I trespass and violate this oath, may the reverse be my lot!

Such was the theoretical standard of honor in the profession in Greece twenty-three hundred years ago. Such was the division of labor then that regular physicians did not perform the surgical operation of lithotomy, leaving that to a particular class of skilled performers, though the physician was to direct when the operation was necessary.

Hippocrates lived to the age of eighty-five years, dying in the year 370 B. C., having neither sought nor attained any honors outside of his profession. His work was too human, scientific, and precise to expose him, like Esculapius and perhaps Apollo, once mere physicians like himself, to an apotheosis after death. His works live after him, and he has simply the high honor of being regarded as "the father of medicine," the first man who is known to have swept the whole field of the profession with a scientific eye, and an analytic and comprehensive mind. Though all that he learned may seem but small compared with the vast and minute researches of modern times, yet he constructed the very frame-work of the science,