Sketches from the history of medicine : ancient and modern.

  • W. Sedgwick Saunders
Date:
[1868]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Sketches from the history of medicine : ancient and modern. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    Hippocrates was descended from Escukpius by his father's side, and from Hercules by his mother's, and was the son of Heraclides, a physician of the family of the Asclepiadfe, who furnish us with the very earliest instance of a body of philosophers devoting themselves to the healing art; for, although Pythago- ras, who lived immediately before Hippocrates, and Democritus, who was his contemporary, were both learned physicians, yet, whatever fame they acquired, was ascribed to their powers as mental philosophers and rhetoricians. It has been urged by way of apology for the mystery in which the philosophers shrouded their wisdom, that science, like modesty, should cover itself with a veil to increase the charms of the treasure it conceals; and this principle has been, throughout all ages, more generally acted upon than avowed. The character of Hippocrates is at once a study for the physician and the moralist; the former will appre- ciate the astonishing evidences which his works afford, of a deep acquaintance with the whole subject of medi- cine, and his admiration will be increased by the re- membrance that all the principles laid down by this