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IN ALEXANDRIA. 79
leaders of the Alexandrian school neglected, unfortunately,
the exact methods of inquiry which HEROPHILOS had carried
to remarkable results, and trod the convenient, easy paths of
speculation. Only a few like the anatomist EuDEMOS, the
doctors BACCHIOS of Tanagra and MANTIAS who did good
service in materia medica, the obstetricians DEMETRIOS of
Apamea and ANDREAS of Karystus, who gave a comprehensive
and fairly complete exposition of the various causes
of difficult labour, the surgeon PHILOXENOS and others were
notable exceptions. Certain of them transported their
classes to other localities and founded and fostered medical
schools like ZEUXIS at Laodicea and HlKESlOS at Smyrna.
The slight differences between the followers of HERO-
PHILOS and ERASISTRATOS respectively became gradually
less and less : the former distinguishing themselves from the
latter chiefly in being more conservative and in ascribing a
greater authority to the writings of the Hippokratic authors
which they furnished with commentaries. But both schools
were doomed to destruction inasmuch as they ceased to
strive, by independent investigations, after an increase of
knowledge and confined themselves' to holding fast to
theories which had been handed down to them and which
gradually congealed into dead formulas. "Truly it were
easier" writes PLINY "to sit and listen quietly in the
schools, than to be up and wandering over deserts and to
seek out new plants every day." *
Under such circumstances it was not surprising, that
thinking doctors forsook these dogmatists and swore
allegiance to an empiricism which, though certainly
not promising a solution of physiological and pathological
problems, satisfied the requirements of medical
practice. Under the influence of the scepticism which,
started by PYRRHON and extended by KARNEADES the
founder of the so-called third Platonic Academy, had
reached a commanding position in the world, they arrived
at the opinion that on this earth there is no certainty, no
* PLINIUS: Hist. nat. xxvi, 6.