V
FROM HIPPOCRATES TO GALEN.
Medicine is a science which hath been more professed than
laboured, and yet more laboured than advanced; the labour having
been, in my judgment, rather in circle than in progression. For I
find much iteration, but small addition.—Bacon, "Advancement of
Learning."—Book 2.
The fame of Hippocrates caused naturally a great multiplication of works attributed to him. The Ptolemies when founding the Library of Alexandria, which they were determined should be more important than that of Pergamos, commissioned captains of ships and other travellers to buy manuscripts of the Greek physician at almost any price; an excellent method of encouraging forgeries. The works attributed to Hippocrates have been subject to the keenest scrutiny by scholars, but even now the verdict of Galen in regard to their genuine or spurious character is the consideration which carries the greatest weight. Even the imitations go to prove how free the physician of Cos was from superstitious practices or prejudiced theories.
Between him and Galen an interval of some six hundred years elapsed and, especially in the latter half of that period, pharmacy developed into enormous
