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]
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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![9] CHAPTER IV. HEROPHILUS—ERASISTRATUS—AND THE MEDICAL SCHOOL OF ALEXANDRIA. We have seen that, before the appearance of Hip- pocrates, medicine consisted of only a few isolated facts, and was by no means entitled to the name of a science. Its treasury contained only the scattered observations of chance practitioners, and the record of cures performed at the Esculapian temples ; the theories of disease being- made the sport of every do- minant maxim of philosophy. It was the great phy- sician of Cos, who first pointed out the proper view in which medicine ought to be considered; fixed its particular laws from the results of observation ; dis- criminated between it and general philosophy; and treated his patients on a plan, which rested on the basis of uniformity and experience. As a proof, however, that his genius far overflew the spirit of his age, even his immediate successors, with his brilliant example to guide them, had not fortitude to walk in his footsteps ; but again, ignorantly and su- perstitiously blending medicine with the reigning sophisms of philosophy, suffered themselves to be](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21364047_0113.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
