is explained his use of sternutatories, and his belief in the
efficacy of sneezing. Galen's classification of inflammations shows that
his pathology was not nearly so accurate as his anatomy and physiology.
He described (_a_) simple inflammation caused by excess of blood alone;
(_b_) inflammation the result of excess of both pneuma and blood; (_c_)
erysipelatous inflammation when yellow bile gains admission, and (_d_)
scirrhous or cancerous when phlegm is present. He did good service by
dividing the causes of disease into remote and proximate, the former
subdivided into two classes--predisposing and exciting.

IV.--ON DIAGNOSIS.

He relied greatly on the doctrine of "critical days," which were thought
to be influenced to some extent by the moon. His studies of the pulse
were very useful to him in diagnosis. No doubt, he was an expert
diagnostician mainly owing to his long, varied, and costly medical
education, and his great natural powers of judgment. He asserted that
with the help of the Deity he had never been wrong, but even his most
ardent admirers would not be wanting in enthusiasm if they amended
"never" into "hardly ever."

V.--ON PHARMACY, MATERIA MEDICA, AND THERAPEUTICS.

In these subjects Galen was not as proficient as Dioscorides, whose
teaching he adopted with that of other medical authors. In Galen's works
there are lengthy lists of compound medicines, several medicines being
recommended for the same disease, and never with very marked
confidence. He paid high prices for various nostrums, and, sad to
relate, placed great faith in amulets, belief in which was general in
his time, and nowhere held more strongly than in superstitious Rome.
Medicines were classified by him according to their qualities, by which
he meant, not their therapeutic effects, but their inherent dryness or
moistness, coldness or heat. A medicine might be cold in the first
degree, and not in the second degree. Paulus AEgineta followed this
strange and foolish doctrine of Galen very closely, as the following
extracts from his book on Materia Medica will show:--

"Cistus (rock-rose).--It is an astringent shrub of gently cooling
powers. Its leaves and shoots are so desiccative as to agglutinate
wounds; but the flowers are of a more drying nature, being about the
second degree; and hence, when drunk, they cure dysenteries and all
kinds of fluxes."[24]

"Ferrum (iron).--When frequently extinguished in water, it imparts a
consider