n condemning
tracheotomy. His books are not written in a good literary style.

_Soranus_, of Ephesus, was an eminent physician of the Methodist school,
who practised in Rome in the reigns of Trajan and Hadrian. He wrote a
great work on diseases of women, of which a Greek manuscript, copied in
the fifteenth century, was discovered in La Bibliotheque Royale in Paris
by Dietz, who was commissioned by the Prussian Government to explore the
public libraries of Europe. The same investigator also discovered
another copy of the work, in a worse state of preservation however, in
the Vatican library. Parts of the writings of Soranus are preserved in
the writings of Oribasius. There is no doubt that Soranus was a very
accomplished obstetrician and gynaecologist. His description of the
uterus and its ligaments and the displacements to which the organ is
liable reveals a practical knowledge of anatomy. Unlike most medical
writers of ancient times, he did not adopt the method of recording
various methods of treatment copied from previous writers, but his
textbook is systematic. In writing about a disease he begins with a
historical introduction, and proceeds to describe its causation,
symptoms, and course, and the treatment of its various phases. His
account of obstetrics shows that the art was well understood in his
time. His work on the subjects of dystocia, inflammation of the uterus,
and prolapse is perhaps the best. He refers also to hysterectomy. It is
interesting to note that he used the speculum. He describes the
qualifications of a good midwife. She need not know very much anatomy,
but should have been trained in dietetics, materia medica, and minor
surgical manipulations, such as version. She should be free from all
corrupt and criminal practices, temperate, and not superstitious or
avaricious.

In dealing with the subject of inversion of the uterus, Soranus points
out that this condition may be caused by traction on the cord. It is
noteworthy that he recognized the method of embryotomy as necessary when
other measures had failed.

In his time leprosy was very prevalent. It had probably been brought in
the first place from the East into Italy by Pompey. Some of the remedies
used by Soranus for this disease are to be found in the works of Galen.
Soranus wrote books on other medical subjects, but there is difficulty
in deciding as to what is spurious and what is genuine in the works
attributed to his authorship. There were