l practitioner and to him is ascribed the
statement that drugs are the hands of the gods. There is a very modern
flavor to his oft-quoted expression that the best physician was the man
who was able to distinguish between the possible and the impossible.

Erasistratus elaborated the view of the pneuma, one form of which he
believed came from the inspired air, and passed to the left side of
the heart and to the arteries of the body. It was the cause of the
heart-beat and the source of the innate heat of the body, and it
maintained the processes of digestion and nutrition. This was the vital
spirit; the animal spirit was elaborated in the brain, chiefly in the
ventricles, and sent by the nerves to all parts of the body, endowing
the individual with life and perception and motion. In this way a great
division was made between the two functions of the body, and two sets
of organs: in the vascular system, the heart and arteries and abdominal
organs, life was controlled by the vital spirits; on the other hand,
in the nervous system were elaborated the animal spirits, controlling
motion, sensation and the various special senses. These views on the
vital and animal spirits held unquestioned sway until well into the
eighteenth century, and we still, in a measure, express the views of the
great Alexandrian when we speak of "high" or "low" spirits.

GALEN

PERGAMON has become little more than a name associated in our memory
with the fulminations of St. John against the seven churches of Asia;
and on hearing the chapter read, we wondered what was "Satan's seat" and
who were the "Nicolaitanes" whose doctrine he so hated. Renewed interest
has been aroused in the story of its growth and of its intellectual
rivalry with Alexandria since the wonderful discoveries by German
archaeologists which have enabled us actually to see this great Ionian
capital, and even the "seat of Satan." The illustration here shown is of
the famous city, in which you can see the Temple of Athena Polis on the
rock, and the amphitheatre. Its interest for us is connected with the
greatest name, after Hippocrates, in Greek medicine, that of Galen, born
at Pergamon A. D. 130, in whom was united as never before--and
indeed one may say, never since--the treble combination of observer,
experimenter and philosopher. His father, Nikon, a prosperous architect,
was urged in a dream to devote his son to the profession of medicine,
upon which study the lad entered in