have asked Euclid for a "shorter way to the higher mathematics than that by which pupils were led in the lecture-room." Euclid, as if to remind him of the Royal roads of Persia which ran by the sides of the public highway, but were kept clean and free for the King's use, gave him the well-known reply, "There is no royal road to geometry." Neither is there any royal road to medicine.

To-day I do not propose to trace the rise and progress of the history of medicine, but I shall select only one small part of a vast chapter, viz., the Dawn and Rise of Physiology, and try to bring before you by word and picture the early beginnings from which has arisen that vast elaborated body of knowledge and theory which go to make up the subject of physiology—a subject fascinating in its details and its theories, and one on which the science of medicine is founded. I would remind myself of the famous Hippocratic maxim: Art is long, life is short, experience is deceptive, judgment difficult. I must contrive to condense what I wish to bring before you in the space of an hour. It is a singular fact that in the English language we have no large work on the history of medicine. That of Dr. Friend comes down only to the 16th century. It was dedicated to the famous Dr. Mead, and part of it was written when its author was in prison. There are several translations of French and German works. The history of physiology is so bound up with that of medicine and with speculative philosophy that to go back to the period of its dawn and rise one would have to refer to the early history of medicine in Egypt, India and China. According to Sprengel, the first phase dates back as far as the Egyptian Isis, who represents the moon, and is said to have restored her son Horus, to life. Horus and Hermes in Egypt are the prototypes of Apollo and Mercury.

Recent investigations in Egypt have brought to light the fact that one called Sahu-Ra, who lived 3533 B.C., had dedicated to him. a tablet which, on being interpreted, reads: "He who holds the things that give life, Principal Physician of the Royal Hospital of Pharaoh." Thus we have a record of a physician and hospital 5,400 years ago. Herodotus tells us that in Egypt in later times Each physician applies himself to one disease only, not more, some for the eyes, others for the head, others for the teeth, others

for the parts above the belly, and others for internal diseases." Leaving Egyptian medicine for the moment, let us turn to that of Greece. Prior to the worship of Asklepios in Attica-whom the Romans called Esculapius--Amymos was the Deity of Healing, for as yet there was no medicine, it was the healing art. A chapel and a precent in his honour have recently been found in Athens. between the Acropolis and the Pnyx. The embalmers must have been familiar with the interior of the body, and their practice must have given them a knowledge into the results of disease. The first period is mystical and mythological, but withal interesting. Zeus (Heaven) is the supreme God, the dweller of the sky. The oakwoods of Dordona in Northern Epirus were his earliest sanctuary. This was too far out of the way, and the astute priests of Delphi, which is situated "under snowy Parnassus," saw the advantage of the central position of their Temple so that by the 7th century B.C. the Delphic oracle was "the adviser of European Greece." In Greek mythology Apollo was the god of light and purity. He was the god of healing as well as a deity who on occasion visited humanity with plagues and pestilence. This theory at once determined the practice, for theory is the pivot on which practice must turn. If pestilences, plagues, and all the ills that flesh is heir to be God-sent, and represent the vengeance of an angry God, then the best way would be to propitiate the ire of the God, and where better could this be done than in the Temples devoted to the worship of the Deity. According to tradition Asklepios was the son of Apollo by the nymph Koronis. He was rescued from the flames by Apollo and handed over to the Centaur Chiron, who instructed him in the art of healing and how to cure all diseases; nay, even to restore the dead to life. Pluto of the infernal regions complained to Zeus that the supply of subjects reaching his quarters was therefore not satisfactory, and Asklepios is said to have been killed by Zeus by means of a flash of lightning. Asklepios was said to be especially conversant with the uses of plants. He was regarded as both the inventor and god of the healing art, and he received Divine honours after his death. Festivals called Asclepia were celebrated in his honour and temples were erected to his memory, and for his worship in many places, including Titanus, Epidaurus,

Athens, Smyrna, Cyrene, Rhodes, Cnidos, Cos, Pergamus, and also many in other places in Greece and Asia Minor. A special sect Asclepiades was set apart to superintend the rites and ritual of these ceremonies. The temples were usually placed on a retired and healthy locality well sheltered from the prevailing winds and usually near a mineral spring or therma. Groves of trees and secluded walks afforded shelter, besides refreshing the eye by their vernal foliage. The wife of Asklepios was called Epione (to quiet), and his daughters were Hygeia, the goddess of health and Panacea-all-healing. Nowhere in the Homeric story is he represented as a god. His sons Machaon and Podalirus joined the expedition against Troy, and in the Trojan war acted in the double capacity of combatants and physicians. In these writings there is little said of disease, but much of death and pestilence. Surgery rather than medicine is what one reads of in Homer. These two "divine professors of the healing art knew little of anatomy, for the Greeks had a rooted prejudice against dissection of a dead body. Homer makes reference to those parts of the body where wounds are most fatal. He makes many references to drugs and medicinal plants, introducing in the Odyssey the famous Nepenthe. From the Phoenicians the Greeks learned the art of writing about the beginning of the 9th century, B.C., and thus indirectly through Hellas the alphabet was given to Europe. The Phoenician alphabet was moulded by the genius of the Greeks to meet their own needs. This language was made up of consonants, the Greeks added the vowels. This was about the time of the second Homer. I have said that temples were erected to the memory and for the worship of Asklepios. I am able, through the kindness of my friend and former colleague, Dr. Caton, of Liverpool, to depict to you in word and picture some of the most recent results obtained regarding the famous temple situated near Epidaurus, in the Hieron, six miles from Epidaurus in the Argolic peninsula. It was in this valley that Asklepios was supposed to have been born. The practice of medicine in these temples was a mystery, and the Asclepiades were a close corporation, comparable to a guild, guarding their secrets and transmitting them exclusively to their descendants or those specially initiated. If a layman was admitted

into the guild he came under an oath of fidelity not to divulge their secrets. Therefore there could have been but little progress in the healing art during this mystical and quasi-sacerdotal period. In the Temple of Epidaurus there was a colossal chryselephantine statue representing the god seated on a throne, his right hand holding a sceptre and his left resting on the head of a serpent. A dog, the emblem of vigilance, rested at his feet. It was the work of Trasymedus. The Esculapian serpent of yellowish or brown colour was, according to Pausanias, a variety indigenous to Epidaurus. It was non-venomous and easily

tamed.

The following is the story of the introduction of the worship of Asklepios into Rome:-Aurelius Victor relates, "that during the year 350 of the foundation of Rome, the city was ravaged by a terrible pestilence; the Senate sent six deputies to consult the oracle of Epidaurus. After they had arrived at the temple, and were admiring the colossal statue of the god, suddenly an enormous serpent issued from beneath the pedestal. The sight of it impressed every mind more with veneration than terror. He moved tranquilly through the astonished crowd and entered the vase of the Romans, in the chamber of Ogulnius, the chief of the ambassadors. The sacred reptile was piously borne away, and when the vessel of the ambassadors was approaching the city of Romulus he sprang into the waves and swam to an island in the Tiber. A temple was immediately created to Esculapius, on that spot, and the pestilence ceased." This serpent forms an historic link between the Hieron and Epidaurus and the medicine of what the Germans call the "Abendland."

"The south end of the island of the Tiber was modelled into a great galley of hewn stone. A temple was built adjacent to it, with portico and abaton." The island of the Tiber has through Pagan and Christian times alike been devoted to the cure and treatment of the sick. The stern of the stone galley still exists, with the effigy of the serpent and remains of the image of Esculapius. The serpent is supposed to indicate vigilance, wisdom, and circumspection, and according to others the power of rejuvenescence. The cock often was represented as the bird of sacrifice, and vigilance; and the dog, which is shown at the foot of

the statue, fidelity and honesty. Socrates before he drank the fatal draught requested that a cock be sacrificed to Asklepios. Besides the temples, the art of medicine in ancient Greece was also cultivated in the gymnasia and the schools of philosophy. In the gymnasia music-in its widest sense and gymnastics were taught. Under the latter term was included every art and exercise for improving and strengthening the physique of the body, e.g., running and wrestling. The instruction included not only athletic sports, but also the general rules of health, and attention to diet. The period of instruction lasted from the seventh to the twentieth year. Music included every study for the development of the intellectual and moral faculties.

The study of the healing art was so associated with speculative philosophy that one must refer to some of the views of the ancient Grecian philosophers. Thales, of Miletus (609 B.C.), introduced Egyptian and Asiatic science into Greece, and he is regarded as the father of Greek, and therefore of European, science. He studied astronomy in Egypt and foretold to the Ionians that there would be an eclipse of the sun in a certain year. He was the first Grecian philosopher, and speculated much on the origin of things. He sought for a "common substance, a common principle, which should explain the variety of nature and reduce the world to unity and system. It is a small matter that he found the principle in water; it is his eternal merit to have sought it." Heraclitus, of Ephesus (500 B.C.), was another great philosopher who in some of his theories came near to the views enunciated by Darwin in our own times. He thought out the "doctrine of flux," i.e., the eternal and constant change in all things. Our very existence depends on change. We are, and we are not." These changes observe certain laws. He held to the doctrine of the indestructibility of matter and to struggle and contest as important factors in the development of living things.

Pythagoras, of Samos (b. 582 B.C.), made important discoveries in mathematics, acoustics, and astronomy. He sought to explain the world-material and spiritual-even life itself-by numbers. The healing art was also taught in the schools of philosophy. Pythagoras, a century before Plato, taught in Magna Græcia in Crotona, in the South of Italy. It was taught, how