Page:The age of Justinian and Theodora (Volume 1).djvu/248

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zoology and comparative anatomy.^[1] The resources of therapeutics were extensive and varied, but the action of drugs was not well understood. Remedies were compounded not only from the vegetable kingdom, but also with animal substances^[2] to an extent which seems likely to be equalled by the more precise medication with the principles of living tissues gaining ground at the present day. Knowledge of minerals, however, was too deficient for such bodies to take a prominent place in pharmacology.^[3]

3. The arts of Greece, after having flourished in perfection from the time of Pericles to that of Alexander in the various departments of architecture, sculpture, painting, and literature, remained dormant for some centuries until the establishment of universal peace under the dominion of Rome provided a new theatre for their exercise. Fostered in the Augustan age by the indolence and luxury of the Imperial city, which offered the prospect of fortune to every artist of ambition and talent, they were communicated to the Latins, who strove earnestly to imitate and equal their masters. The

↑ What appears to be an epitome of current knowledge of natural history and botany is given by Cicero in De Nat. Deor., ii, 47, etc.
↑ See especially Dioscorides, ii. Tinctures and ointments made from toads, scorpions, bugs, woodlice, centipedes, cockroaches, testes of stag and horse, etc., were staple preparations. The realistic coloured illustrations in the great edition published by Lonicerus in 1563 with a colossal commentary, are worth looking at. The pills of seminal fluid (à la Brown-Séquard) decried in the Pistis Sophia appear to have been merely a mystic remedy.
↑ The profession did not yet stand apart from the lay community as pronouncedly as at present. Thus Celsus, author of a noted medical treatise, was an amateur, a Roman patrician in fact; and the precious MS. of Dioscorides, with coloured miniatures, preserved at Vienna, was executed (c. 500) for a Byzantine princess, Julia Anicia, daughter of Olybrius, one of the fleeting emperors of the West.

[1] What appears to be an epitome of current knowledge of natural history and botany is given by Cicero in De Nat. Deor., ii, 47, etc.

[2] See especially Dioscorides, ii. Tinctures and ointments made from toads, scorpions, bugs, woodlice, centipedes, cockroaches, testes of stag and horse, etc., were staple preparations. The realistic coloured illustrations in the great edition published by Lonicerus in 1563 with a colossal commentary, are worth looking at. The pills of seminal fluid (à la Brown-Séquard) decried in the Pistis Sophia appear to have been merely a mystic remedy.

[3] The profession did not yet stand apart from the lay community as pronouncedly as at present. Thus Celsus, author of a noted medical treatise, was an amateur, a Roman patrician in fact; and the precious MS. of Dioscorides, with coloured miniatures, preserved at Vienna, was executed (c. 500) for a Byzantine princess, Julia Anicia, daughter of Olybrius, one of the fleeting emperors of the West.

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