mutantur saecla animantum,
Et, quasi cursores vitai lampada tradunt."
--OVID.

One nation rises to supreme power in the world, while another declines,
and, in a brief space of time, the sovereign people change,
transmitting, like racers, the lamp of life to some other that is to
succeed them.

"There is one Science of Medicine which is concerned with the inspection
of health equally in all times, present, past and future."

--PLATO.

I

INTRODUCTION

Under the term Old-Time Medicine most people probably think at once of
Greek medicine, since that developed in what we have called ancient
history, and is farthest away from us in date. As a matter of fact,
however, much more is known about Greek medical writers than those of
any other period except the last century or two. Our histories of
medicine discuss Greek medicine at considerable length and practically
all of the great makers of medicine in subsequent generations have been
influenced by the Greeks. Greek physicians whose works have come down to
us seem nearer to us than the medical writers of any but the last few
centuries. As a consequence we know and appreciate very well as a rule
how much Greek medicine accomplished, but in our admiration for the
diligent observation and breadth of view of the Greeks, we are sometimes
prone to think that most of the intervening generations down to
comparatively recent times made very little progress and, indeed,
scarcely retained what the Greeks had done. The Romans certainly justify
this assumption of non-accomplishment in medicine, but then in
everything intellectual Rome was never much better than a weak copy of
Greek thought. In science the Romans did nothing at all worth while
talking about. All their medicine they borrowed from the Greeks, adding
nothing of their own. What food for thought there is in the fact, that
in spite of all Rome's material greatness and wide empire, her world
dominance and vaunted prosperity, we have not a single great original
scientific thought from a Roman.

Though so much nearer in time medieval medicine seems much farther away
from us than is Greek medicine. Most of us are quite sure that the
impression of distance is due to its almost total lack of significance.
It is with the idea of showing that the medieval generations, as far as
was possible in their conditions, not only preserved the old Greek
medicine for us in spite