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the horrors of pestilence:-he received this answer. enjoy, in my own country, cloathing, lodging, and nourishment: I am not in want of any thing. As a Greek, it would be disgraceful in me to aspire to the riches and the grandeur of barbarians; and I shall not go to benefit the enemies of my country, and the destroyers of its liberty."

Upon another occasion, Hippocrates refused to go to the assistance of a foreign nation, because he foresaw, by the direction of the wind, that Greece would be speedily devastated by an epidemical disease: he remained, for that reason, in his native country, and occupied himself, with his disciples, in devising means to prevent, or, at least, to lessen the evil with which it was threatened.

These important services, these signal proofs of his disinterestedness, and devotion to the public good, were recompensed by the admiration and the gratitude of his countrymen-the only prize worthy the acceptance of elevated minds.

The Argians and the Athenians intermixed a degree of zeal, and an exaltation almost religious, in the expression of their gratitude. The former consecrated a statue of gold to Hippocrates: the second awarded him a crown; bestowed upon him, by decree, the rights of a citizen; and gave, to the young men of Cos, who might come to study at Athens, the same rights and privileges which the youth of that city enjoyed.

The works of Hippocrates are numerous: they were brought, like the other scientific and literary treasures, from the east, at the epoch of the overthrow of the

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empire of Constantine. It is believed that one of the first editions was made from a manuscript in the library of Cardinal Bessario. The Greek text of the edition of Fæsius passes for the least defective; but it would be desirable that a new edition were formed, after the concordances of different manuscripts, which are disseminated in the great libraries of Europe.

Hippocrates has not been surpassed, nor even equalled, in every thing that relates to medical physiognomy; and, as it has been remarked by the author of a curious note upon Lavater*, no observer more accurately perceived, described, or better appreciated, than Hippocrates, the various modifications of man, under disease, and the numerous alterations and changes of the countenance; all of which have a particular signification. No one better understood the nature of every pang, of every expression; in a word, the multiplicity of the symptoms to which so many hopes, and so many anxieties are attached, so many favourable and dangerous crises; from the appearance of a salutary hemorrhage, to the decomposition of the features, which have since been called la face Hippocratique, which seems, in some measure, to express the horrors of death, of which it is the melancholy indication.

It would however be unjust to conclude from thence, that physic has made no progress since the days of Hippocrates. To elucidate this question, it becomes necessary to consider, separately, in the great father of medicine, the man of science, and the medical observer.

See the Art de connoitre les Hommes, by Lavater, with the additions of Physiology, or Natural History, by M. Moreau de la Sarthe. Paris, 1806.

As a man of observation, Hippocrates is certainly the first of physicians; no one can be compared with him in the difficult art of understanding, during the course of diseases, that variety of changes, and of symptoms, which it is impossible sometimes to describe, but which habit, practice, the continual exercise of the senses, and the mind, can only make us appreciate: for which reason, Le Clerc has judiciously observed, "that an eminent physician acquires, by time and experience, a large portion of knowledge, not traditional, which perishes with him, and renders his loss of national importance."

As a man of science, Hippocrates had not the same advantage: he has done all that genius, patience, and observation, could execute; but, since the celebrated epoch when his name became established in the annals of the art, medical science has greatly advanced; anatomy, and positive physiology, of which the Greeks had scarcely any idea, have been completely understood; diseases themselves have become more numerous, and more varied, and the subjects of observation, in consequence, much multiplied; chronic disorders, especially, have opened, to the moderns, a new field of experience. The means of art, their resources, their instruments, have, from age to age, been rendered more perfect, by the happy application of physic, of chemistry, and of natural history. Not to acknowledge his real excellence; not to distinguish in Hippocrates the vast portion of the knowledge of his time, which he acquired; to confound science and art; and to pretend that physicians, during more than twenty centuries, have added nothing to medical sciences, is to act in opposition to truth; to merit the reproach of Bacon to the learned men of his time,who assigned to the empire of knowledge limits, as soon exceeded,

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and as easily overcome as the pillars of Hercules, which the presumptuous ignorance of the first geographers had considered the boundaries of the earth.

What Hippocrates has particularly done for the progress of his art, consists principally in the union of philosophy and physic, in the introduction of diet in the treatment of acute disorders, and in the manner of describing diseases, which may serve as a model to practitioners in the present day. It appears, before his time, they did not treat the sick regularly at home, and that he was, in some sort, the founder of the clinical system.

Hippocrates, says the Abbé Barthelemy, expresses many things in few words. He never deviates from his object, and in his course to it, leaves, by the way, emanations of light, more or less perceptible according to the intelligence of the reader. This was the method of the ancient philosophers, who were more solicitous to point out new ideas than to dwell upon such as were

common.

The character of this great man is developed in his writings. Nothing is more affecting than the candour with which he details his mischances and his faults:here you read a list of the disordered he attended; and of whom the greater part died in his arms: there you behold him near a Thessalian, wounded on the head by a stone: he does not, at first, perceive it is necessary to have recourse to the trepan; distressing symptoms at length apprize him of his mistake; the operation was made on the fifteenth day, and the patient died on the next. From his own lips we hear this avowal: superior to every species of self-love, he, himself, is soli

citous that his errors even should become lessons to his

successors.

Hippocrates required these endearing qualities in every person worthy of the name of a physician. He was desirous that greatness of mind should be associated with the extent and variety of human acquirements; that the physician should possess all the virtues of his art; and what are those virtues? This point scarcely admits of a single exception, since the profession of physic is inseparable with the union of all the qualities of mind and heart. In fact, if we have no confidence in the wisdom of a physician, and in his discretion, what father of a family would not be apprehensive, in consulting him, that he was introducing either a spy, or an intriguer, into his house; a seducer of his wife or his daughter? How could we rely upon his humanity, if he only approached his patients with a revolting gaiety, or with a rude and morose demeanour; upon his firmness, if, by servile flattery, he acquiesces in their disgusts, or yields to their caprice; upon his prudence, if always occupied with his outward appearance; if perfumed, and in magnificent apparel, we beheld him running from town to town, to pronounce, in honour of his art, discourses, grafted on certain axioms of the poets; upon his understanding, if, beside the general equity which an honest man observes to the world, he only possesses that justice which the sage exercises on himself, and which teaches him that, in the midst of the greatest wisdom, there is more scarcity than abundance?

The respect for Hippocrates, in different ages, may be regarded as the measure of the progress of physic.. It was almost carried to a species of worship, when Galen

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