But still, while finding
time for services to other men, he could produce as much out of his own
study as though he had no part in the life beyond its walls."
A large majority of these early naturalists and botanists were
physicians.(3) The Greek art of observation was revived in a study of
the scientific writings of Aristotle, Theophrastus and Dioscorides and
in medicine, of Hippocrates and of Galen, all in the Greek originals.
That progress was at first slow was due in part to the fact that the
leaders were too busy scraping the Arabian tarnish from the pure gold of
Greek medicine and correcting the anatomical mistakes of Galen to bother
much about his physiology or pathology. Here and there among the great
anatomists of the period we read of an experiment, but it was the art of
observation, the art of Hippocrates, not the science of Galen, not the
carefully devised experiment to determine function, that characterized
their work. There was indeed every reason why men should have been
content with the physiology and pathology of that day, as, from a
theoretical standpoint, it was excellent. The doctrine of the four
humors and of the natural, animal and vital spirits afforded a ready
explanation for the symptoms of all diseases, and the practice of the
day was admirably adapted to the theories.
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