. . .ble to be obtained and if possible is not necessary; that our sole guide must be experience and that if we step beyond this, either as learned from our own observations or that of others on whose testimony we can rely, we are always liable to fall into dangerous and often fatal errors. According to Celsus, the founder of the Empirics was Serapion, who was said to be a pupil of Herophilus. At this period, and for some centuries later, all physicians were included in one or the other of these rival sects, and from the evidence of history the two sects or schools were about equal. From Phiny, who wrote about the middle and sixth, seventh and eighth decades of the first century, we learn that medicine was introduced into Rome at a later period than the other arts and sciences.

The first person who seems to have made it a distinct profession, separate from priestcraft, was Archagathus, a Peloponnesian, who settled at Rome about B. C. 200. His treatment . . . Read More