0"T' LAERT> "! - USP

II. MEDICAL TEACHING IN THE MIDDLE AGES.
THE INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY.
THE organization of the Roman State became subject t
insidious diseases which, attacking the vital parts, led to a
long period of infirmity brought finally to an inglorious
conclusion by the victorious assaults of external foes
Incapacity and profligacy upon the Throne, the division of
the government among numerous rulers mutually, envious
and hostile, the corruption of officials and the venality^ a
haughty and overbearing soldiery, undermined the political
basis of the State, while social life in Rome was poisoned
by the loosening of family ties, love of pleasure, pride, the
reckless squandering of riches by the wealthy contrasted
with the misery of the great masses of the people, and
finally the audacious effrontery with which vice manifested
itself on all sides. The people of the North, those healthy
children of Nature, coming to Rome first as mercenary
soldiers, then as regularly engaged defenders, and finally -;
as governing lords, accelerated this process of decay and
gave, out of compassion, the death-blow to the Roman
Empire worn to pieces as it was by internal troubles and
bleeding and maimed by innumerable wounds. The courage
and heroism, which had covered the name of the Romans
with glory and had made their state powerful, were extinct J
or if an isolated courageous act occasionally recalled past |
times it served only to illuminate with a momentary lightening-flash
the dark night of the present. The struggles of
the ambitious towards ideal perfection found outlets rather
in the domain of theology and of self-sacrificing piety.
This mode of thought, led up to by the severe simplicity of
manners of the disciples of the Stoa, but which was first!
extended into more general acceptance by Christianity,