ivators, some pursuing it as a liberal science, and
some as a mere industrial occupation. In those times, as in our own,
many who were not favoured with the gifts of fortune were constrained to
fall into the latter ranks. Thus Aristotle, than whom few have ever
exerted a greater intellectual influence upon humanity, after spending
his patrimony in liberal pursuits, kept an apothecary's shop at Athens.
Aristotle the druggist, behind his counter, selling medicines to chance
customers, is Aristotle the great writer, whose dictum was final with
the schoolmen of the Middle Ages. As a general thing, however, the
medical professors were drawn from the philosophical class. Outside of
these divisions, and though in all ages continually repudiated by the
profession, yet continually hovering round it, was a host of impostors
and quacks, as there will always be so long as there are weak-minded and
shallow men to be deluded, and vain and silly women to believe.

[Sidenote: Egyptian medicine. The Museum.]

[Sidenote: Philadelphus founds medicine on anatomy.]

[Sidenote: He authorizes dissection and human vivisection.]

[Sidenote: Physicians of the Alexandrian school.]

When the Alexandrian Museum was originated by Ptolemy Philadelphus, its
studies were arranged in four faculties--literature, mathematics,
astronomy, medicine. These divisions are, however, to be understood
comprehensively: thus, under the faculty of medicine were included such
subjects as natural history. The physicians who received the first
appointments were Cleombrotus, Herophilus, and Erasistratus; among the
subordinate professors was Philo-Stephanus, who had charge of natural
history, and was directed to write a book on Fishes. The elevated ideas
of the founder cannot be better illustrated than by the manner in which
he organized his medical school. It was upon the sure basis of anatomy.
Herophilus and his colleagues were authorized to resort to the
dissection of the dead, and to ascertain, by that only trustworthy
method, the true structure of the human body. The strong hand of Ptolemy
resolutely carried out his design, though in a country where popular
sentiment was strongly opposed to such practices. To touch a corpse in
Egypt was an abomination. Nor was it only this great man's intention to
ascertain the human structure; he also took measures to discover the
mode in which its functions are carried forward, the manner in which it
works. To this end he autho