Eminent medical men of Asia, Africa, Europe and America, who have advanced medical science; for the use of students and for the Vydians and Hakims of India / by Edward Balfour.

  • Balfour Edward (Edward Green), 1813-1889.
Date:
1876
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Eminent medical men of Asia, Africa, Europe and America, who have advanced medical science; for the use of students and for the Vydians and Hakims of India / by Edward Balfour. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    343, is said to have invited Aristotle to accept the ofBco of tutor in the following letter: King Philip of Macedo| to Aristotle greeting;—Know that a son has been born me. I tbank the gods not so much that they have givi him to me, as that they have permitted hira to bo born the time of Aristotle. I hope that thou wilt form him be a king worthy to succeed me, and to rule the Macedi nians, On Alexander departing for Asia, Aristotle - turned to Athens where he taught and wrote. His scli ^ was called the Peripatetic The greatest of his works w^ on Natural History, but hia writings comprised treatise on Medicine, Generation, Destruction, Metaphysics, Pliii«8 sophy. Ethics, Rhetoric, Poetry, Physics, Political, Ecoii*^! mical and Mental Science. He had in bis youth paid paf- ticular attention to •anatomy and may possibly have pvj tised medicine. He was the first writer who published a regular treatises on comparative anatomy and physiolo?^ and his works on these subjects may be still read with ■. much interest, after all the additions which have been n.uda to them by the labours of the moderns. Later in hie it was to the study of philosophy and the investigation of nature that he devoted his whole time, and he was largely aided in his researcbes by his former pupil Alexander, who sent him ^ the animals of the various countries he overran. Aristotle j beino- accused of atheism, left Athens with his pupils, >uit he is supposed to have died of disease of the stomach at Chalcis B. 0. 322, aged 63. Some said he took pr.isoi], voluntarily on being summoned to appear at Athens to an-, swer an accusation of complicity in the death of Alexander . but this is not credited. His writings were very voluinm-, ous, but few of them have come down to us. ihey wer< , partly elaborate works, composed in a strictly scieniim manner; and partly popular treaUses, written with obiect of enlightening the public as to his own views tJi( Platonic philosophy being at that time so widely diflusee throuo-h all classes that it was deemed almost a duty for ever] educated man to be a follower of Plato, and the philosophy o Aristotle differed greatly from that of Plato. The latt«i gave a free scope to his imagination and by his doctrine ol ideas, independent of the objects which they represent opened a wide door to the dreams of mysticism. • totle was a close and strict observer of both mental anc