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age, and in autumn; and viscidity and superabundance of phlegm in the winter of the year, and the close of human existence. He was particular in his observations on the different temperaments, and their connexion with the vicissitudes of the seasons; and he narrowly watched the effects of air, exercise, sleep, &c., on the operations of the human body.

I think he is entitled to be looked upon as the first to introduce into physiology the Four Elements. In his treatise De Natura Hominis, he combats the doctrine of the age as put forth by Xenocrates and Melissus, who regarded the body as proceeding from one entire primitive matter; and particularly contends for the operation of water, earth, fire, and air, in the various operations of the animal body. This work is not entirely the composition of Hippocrates. The doctrine alluded to formed the basis of the system of the Humorists.

His investigations into the nature of Epidemic Diseases, constitute one of the most interesting portions of his works. The description of them in their severest form, is truly beautiful; their peculiar features are forcibly drawn, and the attention of the physician is directed to the most important parts of their character. In this work he exhibits a remarkable instance of candour. He says that of forty-two sick, of which he has given the history in the first and third books, only seventeen recovered-all the others died. Another equally striking example of his honesty is to be found in a statement made by him, relative to his attendance on Autonomus, who had received a blow upon the head; and he avers that he mistook a fracture for one of the sutures of the cranium, and thereby neglected to employ the necessary means, until it was too late to restore the patient.

He made a division of diseases into acute and chronic, and marked their various stages, noting particularly the crisis, or critical days, attendant upon them. His knowledge of disease was most extensive and intimate, and his prognosis marked by most extraordinary acumen.

As to Therapeutics, his first dependance appears to be as regards the diet. His principle of cure may be stated in his own words: "As contraries cure contraries, so evacuation is the remedy for repletion, and repletion for the loss sustained by evacuation; deficiences are to be supplied, and superfluities retrenched; contraction and relaxation are to be treated with their opposites, and fluids moving in improper courses are to be brought back into their own channels." Medicines of the most active kind, hellebore, elaterium, scammony, colocynth, &c., were employed, but always with great circumspection, and attention to the age and strength of the patient. Bleeding, and to a considerable extent, was a practice familiar to Hippocrates. The origin of this most remedial agent is involved in obscurity. The Egyptians, according

to Prosper Alpinus, practised it both in the arteries and in the veins. Podalirius is cited as the first person by whom bleeding was performed; and the case whence this is deduced, is to be found in the Geographical Lexicon of Stephanus Byzantinus, under the word syrma, where it is said that the royal daughter of Damætus had lamed herself by a fall from the top of a house, but that having been bled in both arms, she recovered, and afterwards married Podalirius. Little dependance, however, is to be placed upon this statement, as the whole history of Æsculapius, and his sons Machaon and Podalirius, cannot but be regarded as fabulous. Bleeding, it is generally supposed, was not in use until the Trojan war. The Asiatics, to this day, are exceedingly adverse to bleeding; and the Chinese have always entertained so great an aversion to it, that Dr. Arnot, of Canton, is said to have been the first person who could prevail upon any of those people to be bled. But to return to Hippocrates. Some of his best writings are, perhaps, those which relate to surgery. He appears to have been a skilful operator; and his treatises on dislocations and fractures exhibit traces of no contemptible information upon the bones. He performed all the known operations of his day, with the exception of that for the stone, from performing which he interdicted his pupils, according to the oath already cited. This, probably, arose from the entire possession of the practice by a particular class of persons. The whole of his works are written in a lucid and methodical manner. They are the earliest medical records we possess, and they justly entitle their author to be regarded as the FATHEr of Medicine.

Many Lexicons were written to explain the more remarkable words used by Hippocrates. Of these two only, those of Erotian and Galen, have descended to us. The Lexicons of Xenocritus, Callimachus, Bacchius, Philinus, Epiceleustus, Apollonius, Dioscorides, &c., are lost. There are Lexicons of a later period by Herodotus the Lycian, Henry Stephen, Gorris, Foesius, Pinus, Baillou, and Dieterich. That of Pine is the most useful, and is applicable to all editions of the works of Hippocrates. It is impossible to ascertain whether many of the works ascribed to Hippocrates be genuine or spurious. Most critics are agreed in considering the following indisputably to belong to him:

1. The first and third books of the Epidemics.

2. The Prognostics.*

3. The Aphorisms. The last two books have been much interpolated.

* The order of this work is thought to have been subverted by a later hand. The excelence of Hippocrates was particularly observable in his Prognosis, from which he derived the title of divine.' This work contains his observations on the crises in acute diseases.

4. The first and second books of the Predictions. These are also much

interpolated.

5. The Treatise on Air, Waters, and Places.*

6. The Regimen in Acute Diseases.t

7. The Treatise on Wounds of the Head.

It would be impossible to particularize the several editions. I can merely notice the best of them: the first Greek edition of the works of Hippocrates was printed by Aldus, at Venice, in 1526, in folio. The best Greek and Latin edition is that by Foesius, published at Geneva, in 1657, in 2 vols. folio. Vander-Lindens, belonging to the Variorum classics, printed at Leyden, in 1665, in 2 vols. 8vo., is not to be so much esteemed, as he took great license in the correction of the text, taken from an inferior edition.

The engraving which accompanies this memoir is from the bust in the British Museum, which was found near Albano, amongst some ruins supposed to have been the villa of Marcus Varro. It offers a very fine specimen of Greek art. It is conjectured to be the head of Hippocrates, as it corresponds with that on a medal which was in the collection of Fulvius Ursinus, and engraved in 1606, in the Illustrium Imagines,' and said to have been struck in honour of the great physician, by the people of Cos. The author of the Iconographie Grecque has declared it to be genuine. The bust appears to have been taken at an advanced age, probably not less than eighty years, and he is represented bald, which agrees with the description given of him by Soranus, his biographer. There were similar busts in the Capitoline Museum, in the French collection at the Villa Albani, and in Mr. R. P. Knight's collection.

*Haller questioned, but upon insignificant grounds, the genuineness of this work. It is altogether a fine production, but has probably suffered from the ignorance of copyists. It displays great moral and political, as well as medical knowledge, and treats of subjects of the highest importance in the natural history of man. It may be consulted with equal advantage by the physician, the moralist, and the legislator.

+ Much valuable information may be gained by a perusal of this work, even at the present day. The acute practitioner is to be seen in almost every sentence.

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