0"T' LAERT> "! - USP

THE GREEKS BEFORE HIPPOKRATES. 45
to the harmonious correspondence of humours in the body,
likening it to a condition of harmony in music,* EPI-
MARCHOS, METRODOROS and others. Probably ALKM^EON
and DEMOKEDES who had received their professional training
in Kroton, belonged to his school. The last-mentioned
by his successful cures spread the fame of the healing art
of his native country in foreign lands and obtained a
prominent position at the court of King DARlUSt whose
sprained foot he was able completely to restore after the
vain attempts of his Egyptian body-surgeons. ALKM/EON
is said to have been the first to undertake anatomical
dissections and by these means he discovered the origin of
the optic nerves from the brainj. He taught that the
human spirit is immortal and. like the stars is engaged in
everlasting movement. He sought to explain the origin of
the five senses and formulated the first theory of sleep.
" When the blood," he said, " retires into the great blood
vessels, sleep comes on ; when it again disperses into the
smaller vessels awakening takes place."§ His views con-cerning
the nourishing of the child in its mother's womb
and concerning the causes which lie at the bottom of the
infertility of hybrids are deserving of less attention. One
of the most prominent natural philosophers of that time
was EMPEDOKLES, who, musing on the eternity of the
universe, attacked || the theory of the origin and extinction
of matter, seeing in it himself nothing but change manifesting
itself in association and division, and being evoketd
by love and hate. He established, as ARISTOTLE tells us,^[
that doctrine of the four elements which exerted the greatest
influence upon the physiology and pathology of later times
* KUHN : Opusc. Acad., Lips. 1827, i, p. 47-86.
f HEROD, iii, c. 129-134.
X CHAI.CIDIUS in Platon. Timaeum ed. Meursius, Lugd-Bat, 1617, p. 340.
M. A. UNNA: De Alcmseone Crotoniata ejusque fragmentis quae supersunt in
CH. PETERSEN : Philologisch-historische Studien, 1. H., Hamburg 1832, S. 41-87.
§ PLUTARCH : de placit. phijos. v, c. 24.
|| HIPPOKRATES op. cit. T.'vi, p. 474.
^f ARISTOTEI.ES : Mataph. i, 3, 4.