Theophrastus, whose real name was Tyrtamus, was born at Eresa in the island of Lesbos, 371 B.C., fourteen years after Aristotle. He was the originator of the science of plants; he first learned the details of their structure, the uses of their organs, the laws of their reproduction,—in a word, the physiology of the vegetable world. When Aristotle retired to Chalcis, he chose Theophrastus, to whom he gave that name, signifying “a man of divine speech,” as his successor at the Lyceum. This distinguished philosopher devoted himself alike to the exact and speculative sciences. The greater part of his works have perished; what is preserved to us consists of treatises on the history of the vegetable kingdom, of stones, and some fragments of works on physics, medicine, and some moral works. His History of Plants enumerates about five hundred different kinds, many of which are now difficult to identify. He made some attempts at a vague kind of classification, and has chapters on aquatic, kitchen, parasite, succulent, oleaginous, and cereal plants. He carefully explains the principles of the reproduction of vegetables, and the fecundation of the female flowers by the pollen of the male. He recognises hermaphrodite and unisexual flowers, and points out how the fecundation of the latter is effected by the wind, insects, and by the water in the case of aquatic plants. He knew that double flowers were sterile. He devotes a chapter to the diseases of the vegetable kingdom; he almost recognised the characteristics which distinguish the monocotyledonous from the dicotyledonous plants. In a word, he laid the foundations on which our modern botanists have erected their science.[407]
The School of Alexandria.
“In the year 331 B.C.,” says Kingsley,[408] “one of the greatest intellects whose influence the world has ever felt, saw, with his eagle glance, the unrivalled advantages of the spot which is now Alexandria; and conceived the mighty project of making it the point of union of two, or rather of three worlds. In a new city, named after himself, Europe, Asia, and Africa were to meet and to hold communion.” When Greece lost her intellectual supremacy with her national independence, the centre of literature, philosophy, and science was shifted to this unique position. With all the treasures of Egyptian wisdom around her, with all the stores of Eastern thought on the one hand and those of Europe on the other, Alexandria became in her schools the rallying-point of the world’s thought and activity. If we turn to an atlas of ancient geography, we shall be struck with the unrivalled facilities possessed by this city for gathering to itself the treasures, intellectual and material, of the conquered world of Alexander the Great. From the Danube, Greece, Phœnicia, Palestine, Persia, Asia Minor, India, Italy, and the Celtic tribes, there came embassies to Egypt to seek the protection and alliance of Alexander of Macedon, and each must have contributed something to the greatness of the city which he had founded. Just as every traveller in after years who passed through the place was compelled to leave a copy of any work which he had brought with him, to the Alexandrian library, so from the first foundation of the town was every visitor a donor of some idea to its stores of thought.
At the dismemberment of Alexander’s vast empire, after his death, the Egyptian portion fell to the share of Ptolemy Soter. It was this sovereign who founded the famous Alexandrian Library; a great patron of the arts and sciences, he placed this institution under the direction of Aristotle. He also established the Schools of Alexandria, and encouraged the dissection of the human body.
Chrysippus, the Cnidian, who lived in the fourth century B.C., was the father of the Chrysippus who was physician to Ptolemy Soter, and he was tutor to Erasistratus. Pliny says that he reversed the practice of preceding physicians in the most extraordinary manner. He would not permit bleeding, because the blood contains the soul; did not practise purging, though he sometimes permitted the use of enemata and emetics. He wrote on herbs and their uses, and drove the blood out of limbs previous to their amputation on the principles recently re-introduced by Esmarch. He introduced the use of vapour baths in the treatment of dropsy. As there were several physicians of the name of Chrysippus, and as their works are lost, it is very difficult to distinguish their maxims. Amongst the disciples of the Cnidian physician of this name were Medius, Aristogenes, Metrodorus, and Erasistratus, as we have said.
Herophilus, of Chalcedon in Bithynia, a pupil of Chrysippus of Cnidos and Praxagoras of Cos, was one of the most famous physicians of the ancient world. He was a great anatomist and physiologist, and a contemporary of the philosopher Diodorus Cronos, and of Ptolemy Soter in the fourth and third centuries B.C. He settled at Alexandria, which under Ptolemy I. became the most famous centre of the science of the ancient Greeks. Here Herophilus founded with other physicians of the city the great medical school which ultimately became distinguished above all others, so that a sufficient guarantee of a physician’s ability was the fact that he had received his education at Alexandria. The foundation of the Alexandrian School formed a great epoch in the history of medicine. The dissection of the human body was of the utmost importance to the healing art. While the practice was forbidden, it could only have been performed furtively and in a hasty and unsatisfactory manner. The science of anatomy, on which that of medicine to be anything but quackery must be founded, now took its proper place in the education of the doctor. The bodies of all malefactors were given over for the purposes of dissection.[409] Herophilus is accused of having also dissected alive as many as six hundred criminals. This fact has been denied by some of his biographers, and others have attempted to explain it away; but it is charged against him by Tertullian,[410] and Celsus mentions it[411] as though it were a well-known fact, and without the least suspicion that it was an unjust accusation.
Asked who is the best doctor, he is said to have replied, “He who knows how to distinguish the possible from the impossible.”
In the course of his anatomical researches he made many discoveries and gave to parts of the human body names which remain in common use to this day. Dr. Baas thus sums up his anatomical and physiological knowledge. He knew the nerves, that they had a capacity for sensation, and were subject to the will, were derived from the brain, in which he discovered the calamus scriptorius, the tela choroidea, the venous sinuses, and torcular Herophili. He believed the fourth ventricle to be the seat of the soul. He discovered the chyliferous and lactiferous vessels. He described accurately the liver and Fallopian tubes, the epididymis and the duodenum, to which he gave its name, and also the os hyoides, the uvea, the vitreous humour, the retina, and the ciliary processes. He called the pulmonary artery the vena arteriosa, and the pulmonary vein the arteria venosa. He distinguished in respiration a systole, a diastole, and a period of rest. He founded the doctrine of the pulse, its rhythm, the bounding pulse and its varieties according to age. The pulse is communicated by the heart to the walls of the arteries. He distinguished between arteries and veins, and admitted that the arteries contain blood. He taught that diseases are caused by a corruption of the humours. Paralysis is due to a lack of nerve influence. He laid great stress upon diet, bled frequently, and practised ligation of the limbs to arrest bleeding. He was the first to administer cooking salt as a medicine. A good botanist, he preferred vegetable remedies, which he termed the “Hands of the gods.” He possessed considerable acquaintance with obstetric operations,[412] and wrote a text-book of midwifery.[413]
Erasistratus, of Iulis in the island of Cos, a pupil of Chrysippus was one of the most famous physicians and anatomists of the Alexandrian school. Plutarch says that when he was physician to King Seleucus, he discovered that the young prince Antiochus had fallen in love with his step-mother Stratonice by finding no physical cause for the illness from which he was suffering, and that his heart palpitated, he trembled, blushed, and perspired when the lady entered the room. By adroit management he induced the king to confer on the prince the object of the young man’s passion. Similia similibus curantur. So successful was the treatment that the physician received a fee of 100 talents, which supposing the Attic standard to be meant would amount to £24,375, perhaps the largest medical fee on record.[414] He lived for some time in Alexandria, and gave up medical practice in his old age, that he might devote his whole time to the study of anatomy.
Dr. Baas, in his account of the Anatomy, Physiology, and Medicine of Erasistratus, says that he divided the nerves into those of sensation and those of motion. The brain substance is the origin of the motor and the brain membranes that of the sensory nerves.[415] Like Herophilus, he confounded the nerves and ligaments. He described accurately the structure, convolutions, and ventricles of the brain. He thought that the convolutions, especially those of the cerebellum, are the seat of thought, and located mental diseases in the brain. He knew the lymph and chyle vessels, and the chordæ tendineæ of the heart. He assumed the anastomoses of the arteries and veins. The pneuma in the heart is vital spirits, in the brain is animal spirits. Digestion is due to the friction of the walls of the stomach. He thought that the bile is useless, as is the spleen and other viscera. He shows some acquaintance with pathological anatomy, as he describes induration of the liver in dropsy. His idea of the cause of disease is plethora and aberration of the humours. Inflammation is due to the detention of the blood in the small vessels by the pneuma driven from the heart into the arteries; fever occurs when the pneuma is crowded back to the heart by the venous blood, and blood gets into the large arteries. Dropsy always proceeds from the liver. He discarded bleeding and purgation; recommended baths, enemeta, emetics, friction, and cupping. He was, thinks Dr. Baas, a forerunner of Hahnemann in the doctrine of small doses, as he prescribed three drops of wine in bilious diarrhœa. He opened the abdomen to apply remedies directly to the affected part, and invented a kind of catheter.[416]