C. The most famous of
these physician philosophers was Pythagoras, whose life and work had an
extraordinary influence upon medicine, particularly in connection
with his theory of numbers, and the importance of critical days. His
discovery of the dependence of the pitch of sound on the length of the
vibrating chord is one of the most fundamental in acoustics. Among the
members of the school which he founded at Crotona were many physicians.
who carried his views far and wide throughout Magna Graecia. Nothing in
his teaching dominated medicine so much as the doctrine of numbers, the
sacredness of which seems to have had an enduring fascination for the
medical mind. Many of the common diseases, such as malaria, or typhus,
terminating abruptly on special days, favored this belief. How dominant
it became and how persistent you may judge from the literature upon
critical days, which is rich to the middle of the eighteenth century.
One member of the Crotonian school, Alcmaeon, achieved great distinction
in both anatomy and physiology. He first recognized the brain as the
organ of the mind, and made careful dissections of the nerves, which he
traced to the brain. He described the optic nerves and the Eustachian
tubes, made correct observations upon vision, and refuted the common
view that the sperma came from the spinal cord.
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