Medicīna
（
ἰατρική). The ancients ascribed the origin of the medical
art to the gods (Pliny ,
Pliny H. N. xxix. 2),
and Prometheus, Chiron, and Asclepius were among those who made it known to men. It was also
believed to have been improved by the observation of the remedies instinctively sought out by
animals when suffering from injuries or disease (Pliny ,
Pliny
H. N. viii. 97). Thus, dogs taught the Egyptians the use of
purgatives, bleeding was learned from the hippopotamus, and enemata from the ibis. Sheep and
cattle led men to the use of the natural saline and chalybeate waters. The results of these
and various other observations of cures were recorded on tablets, and suspended by the priests
in the temples of the gods both in Egypt and in Greece. These tablets were the beginnings of
medical literature.
The Asclepiadae, to which family Hippocrates belonged, were, in a way, hereditary physicians
(see
Aesculapius), and founded a number of
medical schools, of which the most famous in early times were those of Rhodes, Cnidos, and Cos
(Galen,
De Meth. Med. i. 1). From the second came the collection of medical
observations called
Κνίδιαι Γνῶμαι, “Cnidian
Maxims,” which long enjoyed a considerable repute. The school of Cos was, however,
the best known of the three, and one of its representatives was Hippocrates himself. Herodotus
mentions other schools at Crotona in Italy and Cyrené in Africa (iii. 131). Of the
different medical sects that sprang up at different times, the following deserve especial
mention:
1.
The
Dogmatĭci or Hippocratĭci, founded about B.C. 400 by Thessalus, the son,
and Polybus, the son-in-law of Hippocrates;
2.
the
Empirĭci, founded in the third
century B.C., and so called because they professed to base their knowledge and practice on
experience alone;
3.
the Methodïci, founded in the first century B.C. by
Themison, who taught doctrines partly theoretical and partly empirical;
4.
the Pneumatĭci, founded by Athenaeus in the first
century a.d.; and
5.
the
Eclectĭci, founded at about the
same time by Agathinus of Sparta, or perhaps his pupil Archigenes.
For further details regarding ancient medicine, see the articles
Celsus;
Chirurgia;
Dioscorides;
Galenus;
Hippocrates; and
Medicus.
