knowledge of the loves
and desires of the body and how to satisfy them or not; and the best
physician is he who is able to separate fair love from foul, or to
convert one into the other; and he who knows how to eradicate and how to
implant love, whichever is required, and can reconcile the most hostile
elements in the constitution and make them loving friends, is a skilful
practitioner."

(22a) Professor Gildersleeve's view of Eryximachus is less
favorable (Johns Hopkins University Circular, Baltimore,
January, 1887). Plato, III, 186--Jowett, I, 556.

The second great note in Greek medicine illustrates the directness
with which they went to the very heart of the matter. Out of mysticism,
superstition and religious ritual the Greek went directly to nature and
was the first to grasp the conception of medicine as an art based on
accurate observation, and an integral part of the science of man. What
could be more striking than the phrase in "The Law," "There are,
in effect, two things, to know and to believe one knows; to know is
science; to believe one knows is ignorance"?(23) But no single phrase in
the writings can compare for directness with the famous aphorism which
has gone into the literature of all lands: "Life is short and Art
is long; the Occasion fleeting, Experience fallacious, and Judgment
difficult."

(23) Littre: OEuvres d'Hippocrate, Vol. IV, pp. 641-642.

Everywhere one finds a strong, clear common sense, which refuses to
be entangled either in theological or philosophical speculations. What
Socrates did for philosophy Hippocrates may be said to have done for
medicine. As Socrates devoted himself to ethics, and the application
of right thinking to good conduct, so Hippocrates insisted upon the
practical nature of the art, and in placing its highest good in the
benefit of the patient. Empiricism, experience, the collection of facts,
the evidence of the senses, the avoidance of philosophical speculations,
were the distinguishing features of Hippocratic medicine. One of the
most striking contributions of Hippocrates is the recognition that
diseases are only part of the processes of nature, that there is nothing
divine or sacred about them. With reference to epilepsy, which was
regarded as a sacred disease, he says, "It appears to me to be no wise
more divine nor more sacred than other diseases, but has a natural cause
from which it originates like other affections; men regard its natur