An author of this era, and of the Methodic sect, whose works arc lost, was Soranus of Ephesus; and we have reason to regret it, because Galen, who loses no opportunity of criticizing the Methodics, speaks respectfully of Soranus. They were translated in a barbarous style by Coelius Aurelianus, an African; but even in this dress they have reached us in an imperfect state. Yet from Coelius we have the only systematic and connected view of the Methodic doctrine; for by Soranus only it was brought to a perfect state. As the cycles of the Methodics are often mentioned in medical works, we shall add a short description of the meaning.

The cycles were periods supposed to consist of three days each, or combinations of three, and during these the same plans were continued; but at the end of each cycle the exertions were increased, so as at last to rise to the most active measures. The resumptive cycle consisted of common foods: the metasyncritic of a more acrid and stimulating diet, with frictions, baths, rubefacients, sternutatories, etc. The cyclus vomitorius was distinguished into two, as the vomits accompanied the sparer diet of the first, or the more stimulating diet of the second. Each cycle consisted of four diatriti, though sometimes prolonged to sixteen days; the additional diatrition containing four days.

We have already observed, that in all the wanderings of the fancy, the natural good sense of physicians occa-. sionally brought them back to the safer road of patient thinking, and accurate observation, which so much distinguished the Hippocratic school, the real of the healing art: but we have now to notice the revolution which for ages gave a stability to the science of medicine, and fixed an oracle, who for more than one thousand five hundred years dictated to the world, and whose decisions were listened to with the most implicit deference. We allude to Claudius Galenus, of Pergamus. Galen lived in the second century of the Christian era, and was born during the reign of Severus. He studied at Alexandria, but chiefly practised at Rome, and was the physician of the amiable and benevolent Marcus Aurelius,one of the few emperors who added lustre to the purple. Galen was distinguished in his earliest years, for a lively fancy and uncommon ingenuity. He attained all the learning of that era, and was soon disgusted with the prevailing systems of medicine. He professed, indeed, to select from each what was most valuable; but has almost exclusively confined himself to commenting on and illustrating the works of Hippocrates, which he thinks succeeding physicians had either misunderstood or misrepresented. Yet he seems to have taken the qualities of the four elements from Athenaeus; and though Hippocrates mentions, somewhat equivocally, the Spirit, he apparently borrows the vital, animal, and natural spirit from the Pneumatics. Galen wrote very diffusely on every part of medicine; but he added only dress and ornament to the system of Hippocrates. In fact, minute distinctions, refined speculations, and abstract reasoning are the whole for which the medical world is indebted to him. They did not lead Galen himself from the path of truth; but they had the most fatal influence on his successors, who speculated when they should have observed, and reasoned when they should have acted. The doctrine of concoction, the most fatal idea which ever occurred, was completely established in the school of Galen.

The splendour of Galen's famedazzled his cotempora-ries and successors, so that we find few who afterwards dared to think beyond his circle. ' Quintus Serenus Samonicus wrote, in Latin verse, on medicine in the following century; but whether that was the work of the father or the son is still doubtful; nor does its real merit call on us to enlarge on it. Alexander Aphro-disaus, who wrote a treatise on fevers, and a work in-titled Interdicta Medica, and Problematica Physica, scarcely deserves more attention. Oribasius has been styled the ape of Galen. The twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth books contain, indeed, an abridgment of

Galen's anatomy; but we find a description of the salivary glands, which, if known to the Pergamenian, has never reached us in any of his works. Oribasius, who lived till near the latter end of the fourth century, was the physician of Julian, and his collections were completed about the year 360. It is not, however, true that he collected from Galen only; for even in his first fifteen books, the only ones we possess, except the anatomical ones, other authors are mentioned, and we find numerous quotations from preceding physicians. Oribasius was not only a physician, but high in the confidence of the emperor Julian, who appointed him the Quaestor of Constantinople; and though in the succeeding reign he was for a time disgraced, and even banished, his real merits were too considerable to admit of the continuance of his exile.

His anatomy, we have observed, was copied from Galen; but the remaining books of his medical collections, amounting, it is said, in the whole to seventy-two, besides his quotations from authors now lost, contain some practical remarks of importance. His recommendation of scarifications, instead of cupping, is not, we think, one of these; for ligatures, bathing the legs, and the application of stimulants previous to the use of the lancet or needle., answered the same purpose as the rarefaction or exhaustion of the air.

Oribasius first described the singular madness styled in which the patients avoid the society of mankind, haunting the most desolate places, and wounding themselves with stones, etc. Some critical disquisitions have been employed to determine whether they

"open" the tombs, or only"dwell" among them. The question is of little importance, though, as it is confessedly the disease mentioned in the New Testament, if we recollect rightly, the possessed are there said to