LETTER CXXXVI. CLEANDER to ALEXIAS, chief Physician to ARTAXERXES, King of Persia. ACCORDING to thy desire, I have employed an able friend to procure thee a copy of HIPPOCRATES's genuine works, a business that requires no small judgment; for a great number of spurious pieces are published under the name of this famous physician. I have likewise endeavoured to get thee some account of his life and character; for which purpose I have made many enquiries of a philosopher here in Athens, who has applied himself more particularly to the sudy of physick. He informs me, that the practice of this art has long been in the hands of the meanest and most ignorant of the people. Any, who by chance had got a few receipts, immediately called themselves physicians, and were applied to as such, though they had no general knowledge of the natures and virtues of simples, and were wholly ignorant of the structure of the human body; the study of these being kept entirely among the philosophers. Such was the state of physick, when HIPPOCRATES, the son of HERACLIDES, was born in the island of Cos. He is descended from a long race of physicians; being the seventeenth in a direct line from ESCULAPIUS, the deified inventor of healing amongst the Greeks, whose art was professed by all his descendants down to HIPPOCRATES. For the Egypian custom of instructing the children in their parents' employment prevails so much among the physicians here, that their disciples and followers are always called called by a peculiar title, the Sons of the Physicians. Besides the family receipts, which had been handed down from father to son, and the collected experience of all his ancestors, HIPPOCRATES increased that knowledge which was his patrimony, by hearing HERODICUS, the inventor of gymnatick physick, which is too severely called by a certain Athenian, "The art of preserving their lives who ought "not to live, and continuing valetudinarians a burden to them"selves and society." His native island of Cos afforded him a singular advantage, by having in it a temple of ESCULAPIUS full of votive tablets, on which were registered many cures, and the means by which they were effected; all which he diligently studied and transcribed. He has farther endeavoured to inform himself of the practice which obtained wherever he travelled, as he has done into most countries, though he has chiefly been confined to Thessaly. For this the Greek physicians are obliged to do, not only in pursuit of knowledge, and for their improvement, but for their employment and support; the states here, unlike our luxurious cities, being unable to maintain a settled physician. It is hard to say, whether he has most advanced the knowledge or the usefulness of physick, by introducing a practice, which was not common before his time, of constantly visiting the sick in their beds; by which careful attendance to the whole course of the distemper, he has not only been able to give a timely assistance against every inconvenient or dangerous accident, but is become superior to all other physicians in the knowledge of diseases, and in foretelling their events. From this practice he has got the name of a Clinic physician. Nor is he less indebted to nature for a sound understanding, than to fortune and his own industry for these uncommon opportunities of improving it. No wonder, therefore, that he soon found himself at the head of his contemporary practitioners. But this glory was too little for HIP POCRATES; pro POCRATES; he saw with regret, that part of his province was invaded by the philosophers; and resolved to take it out of their hands. With this view he applied himself to HERACLITUS of Ephesus, to GORGIAS. the Sophist, and DEMOCRITUS of Abdera. Of them he not only learned the reasons and foundations of his practice, but was also enabled to write with method and elegance; which has justly gained him the reputation of being the first who collected the scattered precepts of physick into an art, and delivered them in a clear and eloquent manner. He has taken great pains to secure to the physicians so much of the study of nature as they are concerned with, distinct from the other parts of philosophy, and has in all bability separated the two professions for ever. If his philosophy makes him far superior to the common practisers of physick, his practice makes him no less excel the speculative students of it. On the one hand, he is preserved from the useless refinements of theorists; as on the other from the gross errors and superstitions of vulgar empiricks; both which my friend, with his usual candour, acknowledges, that he frequently rallies with great good sense; telling the speculative philosophers, that "their visionary inquiries about the principles and formation of the human body, would be of as much "use to a painter in drawing its form, as to a physician in curing "its diseases." And as for the empiricks, upon occasion of their calling the epilepsy a sacred distemper, he says, "that this was first con“secrated by them, in order that its divinity might be an asylum "for their ignorance and inability to cure it; since it gave them a pretence to attack it with charms and expiations; and if these "did not succeed, the gods only were to be blamed." My philosophical acquaintance assures me, that this is the true merit of HIPPOCRATES; and that, for all beyond it, he is indebted to the common vanity in disciples, of magnifying their master, and to that humour humour of mankind, which will not let them sit down contented with any thing moderate. He frequently expresses his apprehensions, that the extravagant, character which some have given him may do a great deal of mischief, if it makes men rest in what he has done, and refer every thing to his authority. For though (my friend continued) he is somewhere so sanguine as to assert, that the whole of physick is now found out; yet in reality the art is but still in its infancy, and this great man has only begun what cannot be perfected without the accurate observations of many ages. In particular, he is not master of a sufficient number of simples for all the various purposes of physick, and does not perhaps fully understand the true uses and qualities of those he has; for too much stress seems to be laid on some ineffectual ones, while others, more violent in their effects, are used with too little caution. The study of anatomy is still less advanced; all that is known of it is derived, either comparatively from the animals that are sacrificed, or from the Ægyptian embalmers of human bodies; and I much doubt, whether HIPPOCRATES ever saw a human body dissected. However, he has endeavoured to supply from fancy and conjecture, his imperfect knowledge of the structure and true use of the parts; but as is usual where this is done, his accounts are generally improbable, often ridiculous and inconsistent. He has farther often lamented to me, when I have thrown this subject in his way, that HIPPOCRATES has endeavoured to dazzle the world with a specious shew of knowledge, where there is great reason to believe that he is wholly ignorant in attempting to unfold the causes and hidden nature of distempers; "which (said my friend) he had much better have let alone, and “confined himself to (what is the only valuable part of his works) "a faithful history of diseases, though even here he is justly suspected of asserting more than he was ever authorised from ob 66 "servation |