ABSTRACT
In England, at any rate, mere archaeology, bibliography, biography, antiquarianism and curiosity-mongering has too often passed muster as the History of Medicine. Since Occidental Medicine of to-day is derived mainly from Greek sources—if occidental philosophers leave on one side all question of Egyptian or other priority—the history of Occidental Medicine runs in parallel with that of Occidental Philosophy. The whole history of Occidental Medicine may indeed be almost indifferently pictured as a swaying struggle between Nominalism and Realism, or between Aristotelianism and Platonism, or between the natural followers of Hippocrates and those of Galen ; but most faithfully, perhaps, as between Hippocratic Cos and antagonistic Cnidus. The classical doctrines of Medicine should enter into the training, if not of every practitioner, yet of every teacher of Medicine, no less insistently than does acquaintance with the works of the Greeks, the Romans, the geniuses of the Renaissance—aye, of the Egyptians, Hindus and Chinese—become indispensable to the teacher and practitioner of Architecture.
