Outlines of the ancient history of medicine ; being a view of the progress of the healing art among the Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, and Arabians / By D.M. Moir.

  • David Macbeth Moir
Date:
1931 (sic) [i.e.1831]
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Licence: In copyright

Credit: Outlines of the ancient history of medicine ; being a view of the progress of the healing art among the Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, and Arabians / By D.M. Moir. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

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    suing his studies, and extending- bis researches ; col- lecting for him, during his campaigning in foreign lands, all the objects of natural curiosity, which were rare or valuable.*1* Indefatigable as were the ex- ertions of the philosopher, he coidd not, without this princely patronage, have succeeded in amassing such a treasury of natural knowledge. The expeditions of the great conqueror supplied materials which were otherwise unattainable. An immense addition was thus made to botany and zoology ; while the penetrating genius of Aristotle systematized the loose facts of his predecessors and cotemporaries, and added what was worthy of preservation to the result of his own observations. Philosophy, which had been hitherto almost confined to the intellect of Greece, was thus extended by comparison with the various tenets ju'ofessed by the sages of India, Persia, and Egypt. The great reputation of Aristotle, however, was. as we have just said, less derived from his medical or physiological discoveries, than from his being the father of comparative anatomy,—a branch of study which has occasionally tended to throw considerable light on human organization.'2' As, in the time of Aristotle, the Greeks continued with the same inveterate prejudice to consider the bodies of the dead, as something sacred and invio- lable, there is every reason to suppose, not only from this circumstance, but from the internal evidence of (]) PUn. lib. vUl. r. 16. (l>) Vide, for example, the Ilis'.or. Animal, lib. :. c. 2. et lib. ii. c. 17.