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Louis Pasteur in his laboratory

By permission, from the painting by Albert Edelfelt

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Copyright, 1897

BY G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS

Entered at Stationers' Hall, London

Copyright, 1861, 1862, 1883, 1889, 1890, 1891
BY OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES

Copyright, 1892

BY HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & COMPANY
All Rights Reserved

Copyright, 1910

BY P. F. COLLIER & SON

Designed, Printed, and Bound at
The Collier Press, New York

HIPPOCRATES, the celebrated Greek physician, was a contemporary of the historian Herodotus. He was born in the island of Cos between 470 and 460 B. C., and belonged to the family that claimed descent from the mythical Æsculapius, son of Apollo. There was already a long medical tradition in Greece before his day, and this he is supposed to have inherited chiefly through his predecessor Herodicus; and he enlarged his education by extensive travel. He is said, though the evidence is unsatisfactory, to have taken part in the efforts to check the great plague which devastated Athens at the beginning of the Peloponnesian wår. He died at Larissa between 380 and 360 B. C.

The works attributed to Hippocrates are the earliest extant Greek medical writings, but very many of them are certainly not his. Some five or six, however, are generally granted to be genuine, and among these is the famous "Oath." This interesting document shows that in his time physicians were already organized into a corporation or guild, with regulations for the training of disciples, and with an esprit de corps and a professional ideal which, with slight exceptions, can hardly yet be regarded as out of date.

One saying occurring in the words of Hippocrates has achieved universal currency, though few who quote it to-day are aware that it originally referred to the art of the physician. It is the first of his "Aphorisms": "Life is short, and the Art long; the occasion fleeting; experience fallacious, and judgment difficult. The physician must not only be prepared to do what is right himself, but also to make the patient, the attendants, and externals cooperate."

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