Five hundred years before Christ,
in the bloom period of thought--the period of AEschylus, Phidias,
Pericles, Socrates, and Plato--appeared Hippocrates, one of the
greatest names in history. Quietly but thoroughly he broke away
from the old tradition, developed scientific thought, and laid
the foundations of medical science upon experience, observation,
and reason so deeply and broadly that his teaching remains to
this hour among the most precious possessions of our race.
His thought was passed on to the School of Alexandria, and
there medical science was developed yet further, especially by
such men as Herophilus and Erasistratus. Under their lead studies
in human anatomy began by dissection; the old prejudice which had
weighed so long upon science, preventing that method of
anatomical investigation without which there can be no real
results, was cast aside apparently forever.[[2]]
But with the coming in of Christianity a great new chain of
events was set in motion which modified this development most
profoundly.
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