pened or was produced without fome caufe; and that what was called nature was in reality no more than matter and motion. From this laft principle, he inferred that Hippocrates knew not what he faid, when he fpoke of Nature as an intelligent being, and afcribed qualities of different kinds to her. For the fame reason he ridiculed Hippocrates's doctrine of crifis; and afferted that the termination of diseases might be as well accounted for from mere matter and motion. He maintained, that we were deceived, if we imagined that nature always did good; as it was evident that the often did a great deal of harm. As for the days particularly fixed upon by Hippocrates for crifes, or thofe on which we ufually obferve a change either for the better or the worse, Afclepiades denied that such alterations happened on thofe days rather than on others. Nay, he afferted that the crifis did not happen at any time of its own accord, or by the particular determination of nature, but that it depended on the addrefs and dexterity of the physician; that we ought never to wait till a diftemper terminates of its own accord, but that the phyfician by his care and medicines muft haften on and advance the cure. Hippocrates and other ancient physicians (be faid) attended their patients rather to obferve how they died than in order to cure them; and this under pretence that nature ought to do all berfelf without any affiftance. 66. According to ASCLEPIADES, the particu. lar affemblage of the various corpufcles abovementioned and reprefented as of different figures, is the reason why there are feveral pores or inter. fices within the common mass, formed by these corpufcles; and why thefe pores are of a different ize. As these pores are in all the bodies we obferve, it must follow that the human body has lome peculiar to itfelf, which, as well as thofe of al other bodies, contain other minute bodies, which pafs and repass by thofe pores that communicate with each other; and as thefe pores or interftiges are larger or smaller, so the corput ces which pass through them differ proportion aby as to largenefs and minutenefs. The blood confifts of the largest of these corpufcles, and the pirits, or the heat, of the smallest. From thefe principles he infers, that as long as the corpuf cles are freely received by the pores, the body remains in its natural ftate; and, on the contrary, begins to recede from that ftate, when the corpufcles find any obstacle to their paffage. Health therefore depends on the juft proportion between al the pores and the corpufcles they are deftined to receive and tranfmit; as diseases, on the contrary, proceed frota a difptoportion between these pores and the corpufcles. The moft ufual ob ftacle on this occafion proceeds from the corpuf cles embracing each other, and being retained in fome of their ordinary paffages, whether thefe corpufcles arrive in too large a number, are of inegular figures, move too faft or too flow, &c. 67. Among the diforders produced by the corpafcles flopping of their own accord, Afclepiades reckoned phrenfies, lethargies, pleurifies, and burnng fevers. Pains, in particular, are claffed among the accidents which derive their origin from a ftagnation of the largest of all the corpufcles of which the blood confifts. Among the diforders produced by the bad ftate and difpofition of the pores, he placed deliquiums, languors, extenua tions, leannefs, and dropfies. Thete laft diforders he thought proceeded from the pores being too much relaxed and opened: the dropfy, in particular, he thinks, proceeds from the fleth being perforated with various fmall holes, which convert the nourishment received into them into water. Hunger, and especially that species of it called fames canina, proceeds from an opening of the large pores of the ftomach and belly; and thirft from an opening of their small ones. Upon the fame principles he accounted for intermittent fevers. Quotidian fevers are caused by a retention of the largest corpufcles, thofe of the tertian kind by a retention of corpufcles fomewhat smaller, and quartan fevers by a retention of the very fmallest corpufcles. 68. ASCLEPIADES's practice was fuited to remove these imaginary caufes of diforders. He compofed a book concerning remedies, which he principally reduced to 3, viz. geftation, friction, and wine. By various exercifes he proposed to render the pores more open, and to make the juices and small bodies, which cause diseases by their retention, pafs more freely; and while the former phyficians had no recourfe to gestation till towards the end of long-continued diforders, and when the patients, though entirely free from fever, were yet too weak to take fufficient exercise by walking, Afclepiades used gestation from the very beginning of the moft burning fevers. He laid it down as a maxim, that one fever was to be cured by another; that the ftrength of the patient was to be exhaufted by making him watch and endure thirst to fuch a degree, that, for the two firft days of the diforder, he would not allow them to cool their mouths with a drop of water. Celfus obferves, that though Afclepiades treated his patients like a butcher during the first days of the diforder, he indulged them fo far afterwards as even to give directions for making their beds in the fofteft manner. On feveral occafions Afclepiades ufed frictions to open their pores. The dropfy was one of the distempers in which this remedy was ufed; but the moft fingular attempt was by this method to lull phrenetic patients afleep. But though he enjoined exercise fo much to the fick, he denied it to thofe in health; a piece of conduct not a little furprifing. He allowed wine freely to patients in fevers, provided the violence of the diftemper was fomewhat abated. Nor did he forbid it to those who were afflicted with a phrenzy; nay, he ordered them to drink it till they were intoxicated, to make them fleep; becaufe, he faid, wine had a narcotic quality, and procured fleep, which he thought abfolutely neceffary for those who laboured under that diforder. To lethargic patients he used it on purpose to excite them, and roufe their fenfes : he alfo made them smell ftrong-fcented fubftances, fuch as vinegar, caftor, and rue, to make them fneeze; and applied to their heads cataplafms of muftard made up with vinegar. 69. ASCLEPIADES alfo enjoined his patients abfinence to an extreme degree. For the first 3 days, according to Celfus, he allowed them no Bb 2 aliment aliment whatever; but on the 4th began to give them victuals. According to C. Aurelianus, however, he began to nourish his patients as foon as the acceffion of the difeafe was diminfhed, not waiting till an entire remiffion; giving to fome aliments on the firft, to others on the 2d, to others on the 3d, and fo on to the 7th day. It feems almoft incredible, that people thould have been able to faft till this laft term; but Celfus affures us, that abftinence till the 7th day was enjoined by the predeceffors of Afclepiades, and by Heraclides Tarentinus. 70. The next great revolution in the medicinal art was brought about by THEMISON, the difciple of Afclepiades, who lived a fhort time before Celfus, about the end of the reign of Auguftus, or beginning of that of Tiberius. The fect founded by him was called METHODIC, because he endeavoured to find a method of rendering medicine more easy than formerly. He maintained, that a knowledge of the causes of difeafes was not neceffary, provided we obferve what diseases have in common and analogous to one another. On this principle, he divided all difeafes into two, or at most three, kinds. The first included difeases arifing from ftricture; the 2d those arifing •from relaxation; and the 3d, thofe of a mixed nature, or fuch as partook both of ftricture and relaxation. He alfo afferted, that diseases are fometimes acute and fometimes chronical; that for a certain time they increase; that at a certain time they are at their height; and that at laft they diminifh. Acute difeafes therefore, according to him, must be treated in one way, and chronical ones in another; one method must be followed with fuch as are in their augmentation, another with fuch as are in their height, and a 3d with fuch as are in their declenfion. He afferted, that the whole of medicine confifted in the obfervation of these few rules, which are founded upon things altogether evident. He faid, that all diforders, whatever their nature was, if included under any of the kinds above mentioned, ought to be treated precifely in the fame way, in whatever country, and with whatever fymptoms they arife. Upon thefe principles, he defined medicine to be a method of conducting to the knowledge of what difeafes have in common with each other, and which 'at the fame time is evident. 71. THEMISON was old when he laid the foundation of the METHODIC SECT; and it was only brought to perfection by THESSALUS, who lived under Nero. Galen and Pliny accufe this phyfician of intolerable infolence and vanity, and report that he gave himself the air of defpifing all other phyficians; and that he affumed the title of the conqueror of phyficians, which he caufed to be put upon his tomb in the Appian way. Never was mountebank (fays Piiny) attended by a greater number of spectators than Theffalus had generally about him; and this circumftance is the lefs to be wondered at, if we confider that he promifed to teach the whole art of medicine in lefs than fix months. In reality, the art might be learned much fooner if it comprehended no more than what the methodifts thought neceffary: for they cut off the examination of the causes of difcafes followed by the dogmatifts; and substituted in the room of the laborious obfervations of the empirics, indications drawn from the analogy of difeafes, and the mutual refemblance they bear to each other. 72. The moft fkilful of all the methodic fect, and he who put the laft hand to it, was SoRANUS. He lived under Trajan and Adrian, and was a native of Ephesus. 73. One of the most celebrated medical writers of antiquity was CELSUS, who lived under Tiberius, but his country is uncertain. It is even difputed whether he was a profeffed physician. Certain it is, however, that his books on medicine are the most valuable of all the ancients next to those of Hippocrates. From the latter, indeed, he has taken fo much as to acquire the name of the Latin Hippocrates; but he has not attached himself to him so closely as to reject the affiftance of other authors. In many particulars he has preferred Afclepiades. With him he laughs at the critical days of Hippocrates, and afcribes the invention of them to a fuperftitious attachment to the Pythagorean doctrine of numbers. He also rejected the doctrine of Hippocrates as to venefection, of which he made a more general ufe; but did not take away fo much at a time, thinking it safer to repeat the operation than weaken the patient by too great an evacuation at once. He used cupping alfo much more frequently, and differed from him with regard to purgatives. In the beginning of diforders, he faid, the patients ought to endure hunger and thirst: but afterwards they were to be nourished with good aliments. He does not fpecify how long the patient ought to practise abftinence; but affirms, that, in this particular, it is neceffary to have regard to the difeafe, the patient, the feafon, the climate, and other circumftances. The figns drawn from the pulfe he confidered as very precarious, for this among other reasons, that the pulfe is eafily changed by the arrival of the phyfician, in confequence of the patient's anxiety to know what judgment he will pass upon his cafe. To prevent this, the phyfician must not feel the patient's pulle on his firft arrival: he must first fit down by him, affume a cheerful air, inform himself of his condition: and if he is under any dread, endeavour to remove it by encouraging difcourfe; after which he may examine the beatand in many particulars differed from his predeing of the artery." Celfus thought for himself. ceffors. But in his writings, which are not only preserved, but have gone through almost innumer able editions, we have a compendious view of the practice of almoft all his predeceffors: and he treats of the healing art in all its branches, whether performed manu, vidu, vel medicamentis. His writings, therefore, will naturally be had recourse to by every one who wishes either to become ac quainted with the practice of the ancients, prior to the fall of the Roman empire, or to read medical Latin in its greatest purity. 74. About A. D. 131, in the reign of the empe ror Adrian, lived the celebrated GALEN, a native of Pergamus, whofe name makes fuch a confpicuous figure in the hiftory of phyfic. At this time the dogmatic, empiric, methodic, and other fects had each their abettors. The methodics were held in great efteem, and reckoned fuperion to to the dogmatics, who were ftrangely divided, crafy of conftitution. Owing to this idiofyncrafy, fome following Hippocrates, others Erafiftratus, fome have an averfion to one kind of aliment and and others Afclepiades. The empirics made the fome to another; fome cannot endure particular leaft confiderable figure. Galen undertook the fmells, &c. But though these 8 last mentioned reformation of medicine, and restored dogmatifm. conftitutions fall fhort of the perfection of the He feems to have been of that sect called ECLEC- firft, it does not follow, that those to whom they TIC, from their choosing out of different authors belong are to be classed among the valetudinary what they efteemed good in them, without being and diseased. A disease only begins when the departicularly attached to any one. This declara- viation becomes fo great as to hinder the action tion he indeed fets out with, yet he follows Hip- of the parts. pocrates much more than any of the reft. Though before his time several phyficians had commented on the works of Hippocrates, yet Galen says that none of them had understood his meaning. His first attempt therefore was to explain the works of Hippocrates, and next to compofe a fyftem of bis own. In his book, entitled, Of the establishment of medicine, he defines the art to be one which teaches to preferve health and cure difeafes. In another book, however, he gives the following definition: "Medicine (fays he) is a science which teaches what is found, and what is not fo; and what is of an indifferent nature, or holds a medibetween what is sound and what is the reverie." He affirmed, that there are three things which conftitute the objects of medicine, and which the physician ought to confider as found, as not found, or of a neutral and indifferent nature. These are the body itself, the figns and the cafes. He efteems the human body found when it is in a good state with regard to the fimple parts of which it is composed, and when there is a juft proportion between the organs formed of thefe fimple parts. On the contrary, the body is anfound when it recedes from this state, and the fut proportion above mentioned. It is in a ftate of indifference, when it is in a medium between oundness and its oppofite ftate. The falutary gns are fuch as indicate prefent health, and progpoticate that the man may remain in that ftate for fome time to come. The infalubrious figns indicate a prefent disorder, or give caufe for fufpecting the approach of one. The neutral or indifferent figns denote neither health nor indifpoSition, either for the prefent or the future. In ke manner, he speaks of causes falutary and unLalutary, and indifferent. 76. GALEN defcribes, at great length, the figns of a good or bad conftitution, as well as thofe of what he calls a neutral babit. These figns are drawn from the original qualities of cold, hot, moift, and dry, and from their juft proportion or disproportion with respect to the bulk, figure, and fituation, of the organical parts. With Hippocrates he establishes 3 principles of an animal body; the parts, the humours, and the spirits. By the parts he properly meant no more than the folid parts; and these he divided into fimilar and organical. Like Hippocrates, he also acknowledged 4 humours; the blood, the phlegm, the yellow bile and black bile. He established 3 different kinds of fpirits; the vital, the animal, and the natural. The firft are, according to him, nothing but a fubtle vapour arifing from the blood, which draws its origin from the liver, the organ of fanguification. After these spirits are conveyed to the heart, they, in conjunction with the air we draw into the lungs, become the matter of the 2d fpecies, that is, of the vital spirits, which are again changed into thofe of the animal kind in the brain. He fuppofed that these 3 species of spirits ferved as inftruments to three kinds of faculties, which refide in the respective parts where these faculties are formed. The natural faculty is the firft of thefe, which he placed in the liver, and imagined to prefide over the nutrition, growth, and generation, of the animal. The vital faculty he lodged in the heart, and supposed that by means of the arteries it communicated warmth and life to all the body. The animal faculty, the nobleft of all the three, and with which the reasoning or governing faculty was joined, according to him, has its feat in the brain; and by means of the nerves, diftributes a power of motion and fenfation to all the parts, and prefides over all the other faculties. The original fource or principle of motion in all these faculties, Galen, as well as Hippocrates, defines to be NATURE. 75. Thefe 3 difpofitions of the body, its foundnels, the reverse, and a neutral ftate, comprehend all the differences between health and difeafe; and each of them has a certain extent. A perfectly found habit of body is very rare, perhaps 77. Upon these principles Galen defined a difnever to be met with; but fuch a model may be eafe to be " fuch a preternatural difpofition or af(appofed for regulating our judgment with refpect fection of the parts of the body, as primarily, and to different conftitutions. On this principle Galen of itself, hinders their natural and proper action." eftablishes 8 other principal conftitutions, all of He eftablished 3 principal kinds of diseases: the which differ more or lefs from the perfect model. firft relates to the fimilar parts; the 2d, to the orThe 4 firft are fuch as have one of the 4 qualities ganical; and the 3d is common to both. The of hot, cold, moift, or dry, prevailing in too great firft kind of diseases confifts in the intemperature a degree; and receive their denomination from of the fimilar parts; and this is divided into an that quality which prevails moft. The 4 other intemperature quithout matter, and an intemperafpecies receive their denominations from a com- ture with matter. The firft difcovers itself when bination of the abovementioned; fo that, accord- a part has more or less heat or cold than it ought ng to his definition, there may be a hot and dry, to have, without that change of quality in the a bot and moift, a cold and moift, and a cold and part being fupported and maintained by any matdry, conftitution. Befides thefe differences, there ter. Thus, a perfon's head may be overheated are others, refulting from occult and latent caufes, and indifpofed by being exposed to the heat of which, by Galen, are faid to arife from an idiofyn- the fun, without that heat being maintained by the the continuance or congeftion of any hot humour in the part. The 2d lurt of intemperature is when any part is not only rendered hot or cold, but also filled with a hot or cold humour, which are the causes of the heat or cold felt in the part. Galen acknowledged a fimple intemperature: that is, when one of the original qualities, fuch as heat or cold, exceeds alone and feparately; and a compound intemperature, when two qualities are joined together, fuch as heat and drynefs, or coldnefs and humidity. He alfo established an equal and unequal temperature. The former is that which is equally in all the body, or in any particular part of it, and which creates no pain, be cause it is become habitual, fuch as drynefs in the hectic conftitution. The latter is diftinguifhed from the former, in that it does not equally fubfift in the whole of the body, or in the whole of a part. Of this kind of intemperature we have examples in certain fevers, where heat and cold, equally, and almoft at the fame time, attack the fame part; or in other fevers, which render the furface of the body cold as ice, while the internal parts burn with heat; or laftly, in cafes where the ftomach is cold and the liver hot. 78. The 2d kind of disorders, relating to the organical parts, refults from irregularities of these parts, with refpect to the number, bulk, figure, fituation, &c.; as when one has 6 fingers, or only 4; when one has any part larger or fmaller than it ought to be, &c. The 3d kind, which is common both to the fimilar and the organical parts, is a folution of continuity, which happens when any fimilar or compound part is cut, bruifed, or corroded. 79. Galen, like Hippocrates, diftinguifhed difeafes into acute and chronical; and, with refpect to their nature and genius, into benign and malignant; alfo into epidemic, endemic, and fporadic. After diftinguishing the kinds of diseases, Galen explains the causes; which he divides into external and internal. The external caufes, according to him, are 6 things, which contribute to preferve health when properly used, but produce a contrary effect when imprudently used or ill difpofed. These are, air, aliments and drink, motion and reft, fleeping and watching, retention and excretion, and the paffions. All these are called the procatarctic or beginning causes, because they put in motion the internal caufes; which are of two kinds, the antecedent and the conjunct. The former is difcovered only by reafoning; and confifts, for the most part, in a peccancy of the humours, either by plenitude or cacochymy, i. e. a bad ftate of them. When the humours are in too large a quantity, the cafe is called a PLE THORA; but we muft obferve, that this word equally denotes too large a quantity of all the humours together, or a redundance of one particular humour which prevails over the reft. Accord. ing to thefe principles, there may be a fanguine, a bilious, a pituitous, or a melancholy plenitude: but there is this difference between the fanguine and the three other plenitudes, that the blood, which is the matter of the former, may far furpafs the reft: whereas, if any of the three laft men tioned ones do fo, the cafe is no longer called plenitude, but cacochymy; becaufe thefe humours, abounding more than they ought, corrupt the blood. The caufes he alfo divides into fuch as are manifeft and evident, and fuch as are latent and obfcure. The firft are such as spontaneously come under the cognizance of our fenfes when they act or produce their effects: the ad are not of themselves perceptible, but may be difcovered by reasoning: the 3d fort, i. e. fuch as he calls occult or concealed, cannot be difcovered at all. Among this last he places the cause of the hydrophobia. 80. He next confiders the symptoms of diseases. A SYMPTOM he defines to be " a preternatural affection depending upon a disease, or which fol lows it as a fhadow does a body." He acknow ledged 3 kinds of fymptoms; the first and mo confiderable confifted in the action of the parts being injured or hindered; the 2d in a change o the quality of the parts, their actions in the mean time remaining entire; the 3d related to defect in point of excretion and retention. 81. Galen next treats of the SIGNS of difeafes Thefe are divided into diagnostic and prognostic The firft are fo called because they enable us to know diseases, and diftinguish them from each other. They are of two forts, pathognomonic and ad junc. The first are peculiar to every disease, make known its precise species, and always accompany it, fo that they begin and end with it. The ad an common to feveral diseases, and only serve to poin out the difference between difeafes of the fam fpecies. In a pleurify, for inftance, the pathogno monic figns are a cough, difficulty of breathing, a pain of the fide, and a continued fever; the adjunc figns are the various forts of matter expectorated which are fometimes bloody, fometimes bilious &c. The diagnostic figns were drawn, ift, from the defective or difordered difpofition of the parts or from the diseases themselves; 2dly, from the caufes of diseases; 3dly, from their symptoms and, laftly, from the particular difpofitions of each body, from things which prove prejudicial ar thofe that do fervice, and from epidemical diseases The prognoftic figns he gathered from the fpecies virulence, and peculiar genus of the difeafe. H method of cure differed little from that of Hippo crates; but from the fpecimen already given o Galen's method of teaching the medical art, it i evident that his fyftem was little elfe than a co lection of fpeculations, diftinctions, and reafor ings; whereas that of Hippocrates was founde immediately upon facts, which he had either o ferved himfelf, or had learned from the obferva tion of others. 82. GALEN'S fyftem, however, notwithstandin its defects and abfurdities, remained almoft u contradicted for a very long period. Indeed, may be confidered as having been the prevailin fyftem till the inundation of the Goths and Va dals put an almoft entire ftop to the cultivation of letters in Europe. But during the general pre valence of Galen's fyftem, there appeared for writers to whom medicine was indebted for m provements, at least in certain particulars. Amor the moft diftinguished of these were Oribafius Aetius, Alexander, and Paulus. 83. ORIBASIUS flourished, about A. D. 360 and was phyfician to the emperor Julian. H fpeaks very fully of the effects of bleeding by wa C of fcarification, which was little noticed by former writers; from his own experience he affures us that he had found it fuccefsful in a fuppreffion of the menfes, defluxions of the eyes, headach, and ftraitnefs of breathing, even when the perfon was extremely old. He tells his own cafe particularly, when the plague raged in Afia, and he himself was taken ill, that the 2d day he fcarified his leg, and took away 2 lb. of blood; by which means he entirely recovered, as did feveral others who used it. In this author also we find the firft defcription of a furprifing and terrible diftemper, which he termed Auxarga, a species of melan, choly and madnefs, which he describes thus: The perfons affected get out of their houfes in the night-time, and in every thing imitate wolves, and wander among the fepulchres of the dead till day-break. You may know them by thefe fymptas: Their looks are pale; their eyes heavy, ballow, dry, without the least moisture of a tear; their tongue exceedingly parched and dry, no patle in their mouth, extreme thirft; their legs, from the falls and the bruises they receive, full of incurable fores and ulcers." 84. ARTIUS lived in the end of the 5th, or beaning of the 6th century. Many paffages in his writings fhow us how much the actual and potental cautery were used by the phyficians of that age. In a paify, he fays, that he fhould not at lefitate to make an efchar either way, and this a feveral places; one in the nape, where the fpical marrow takes its rife, two on each fide of it; 34 on the top of the head, one just in the middle, and 3 others round it. He adds, that in this cafe, if the ulcers continue running a good ale, he should not doubt of a perfect recovery. He is ftill more particular when he orders this application for an inveterate afthma, after all other remedies have been tried in vain. One, he fays, Sould be made on each fide near the middle of the joining of the clavicle, taking care not to tach the wind-pipe: two other little ones are then to be made near the carotids, under the chin, one on each fide, fo that the cauftic may penetrate no further than the fkin; two others under the breafts, between the 3d and 4th ribs; and again, two more backwards towards the sth and 6th Besides these there ought to be one in the middle of the thorax near the beginning of the xiphoid cartilage over the orifice of the ftomach; e on each fide between the 8th and 9th ribs ; and three others in the back, one in the middle, and the two others just below it, on each fide of The vertebra. Those below the neck ought to be pretty large, not very fuperficial, nor very deep; and all these ulcers fhould be kept open for a very long time. 85. Actius takes notice of the worms bred in different parts of the body called DRACUNCULI, which were unknown to Galen. He feems alfo to the firft Greek writer among the Chriftians, who gives us any fpecimen of medicinal fpells and charms; fuch as that of a finger of St Blafius for removing a bone which fticks in the throat, and another in relation to a fiftula. He gives a medy for the gout, which he calls the grand drier; the patient is to ufe it for a whole year, and obferve a particular diet each month; which is too ridiculous to be quoted, but fufficiently shows the quackery of thofe times, and how fuperftition was beginning to degrade the art. 86. ALEXANDER, who flourished in the reign of Juftinian I. is a more original author than either of the two laft. He defcribes the figns of diseases and the methods of cure, without meddling with anatomy, the materia medica, or surgery, as all the reft did. He employs a whole book on the gout. One method he takes of relieving this disease is by purging; and in the most of the purges he recommends hermodactyle. In a caufus, or buning fever, where the bile is predominant, the matter fit for evacuation, and the fever not violent, he prefers purging to bleeding. But if a fyncope happens from crude and redundant humours, he recommends bleeding. In a fyncope fucceeding the fuppreffion of any ufual evacuation, he recommends bleeding, with frictions. His diagnoftica are a face paler and more swelled than ufual, a bloated habit of body, with a little fluggifh pulfe, having long intervals between the ftrokes. In tertian and quartan fevers, he recom mends emetics above all other remedies, and af. firms that by them alone he has cured the most inveterate quartans. On the bulimia, or canine appetite, he makes a new observation, viz. that⚫ it is fometimes caused by worms. He mentions the cafe of a woman who laboured under this ravenous appetite, and had a perpetual gnawing at her ftomach and pain in her head: after taking hiera, fhe voided a worm above a dozen of cubits long, and was entirely cured of her complaints. He is alfo the firft author who takes notice of RHUBARB; which he recommends in a weakness of the liver and dyfentery. Alexander is recommended by Dr Freind as one of the best practical writers among the ancients, and well worthy the perufal of any modern. 87, PAULUS was born in the island of Ægina, and lived in the 7th century. He transcribes a great deal from Alexander and other phyficians. His defcriptions are short and accurate. He treats particularly of women's disorders; and is the firft inftance on record of a professed man-midwife, for fo he was called by the Arabians: and accordingly he begins his book with the diforders incident to pregnant women. He treats alfo very fully of furgery and gives fome directions, fays Dr Freind, not to be found in more ancient writers. 88. After the downfal of the Roman empire, and when the Goths and Vandals had almoft com pletely exterminated literature of every kind in Europe, medicine, though a practical art, fhared the fame fate. Learning, in general, banished from the feat of arms, took refuge among the eastern nations, where the arts of peace ftill con. tinued to be cultivated. To the Arabian phyficians we are indebted, both for the preservation of medical fcience, as it fubfifted among the Greeks and Romans, and for the defcription of fome new difeafes, particularly the fmall-pox. Among the most eminent of the Arabians were Rhafes, Avicenna, Albucafis, and Avenzoar. But of their writings it is unneceffary to give a particular account, as they were for the most part only copiers of the Greeks. We are, however, indebted to them for fome improvements. They were the |