Medical science at Rome culminated in Galen, as it did at Athens in Hippocrates.  Galen was patronized by Marcus Aurelius, and availed himself of all the knowledge of preceding naturalists and physicians.  He was born at Pergamos about the year 130 A.D., where he learned, under able masters, anatomy, pathology, and therapeutics.  He finished his studies at Alexandria, and came to Rome at the invitation of the Emperor.  Like his imperial patron, Galen was one of the brightest ornaments of the heathen world, and one of the most learned and accomplished men of any age.  He left five hundred treatises, most of them relating to some branch of medical science, which give him the name of being one of the most voluminous of authors.  His celebrity is founded chiefly on his anatomical and physiological works.  He was familiar with practical anatomy, deriving his knowledge from dissection.  His observations about health are practical and useful; he lays great stress on gymnastic exercises, and recommends the pleasures of the chase, the cold bath in hot weather, hot baths for old people, the use of wine, and three meals a day.  The great principles of his practice were that disease is to be overcome by that which is contrary to the disease itself,—­hence the name Allopathy, invented by the founder of Homoeopathy to designate the fundamental principle of the general practice,—­and that nature is to be preserved by that which has relation with nature.  His “Commentaries on Hippocrates” served as a treasure of medical criticism, from which succeeding annotators borrowed.  No one ever set before the medical profession a higher standard than Galen advanced, and few have more nearly approached it.  He did not attach himself to any particular school, but studied the doctrines of each.  The works of Galen constituted the last production of ancient Roman medicine, and from his day the decline in medical science was rapid, until it was revived among the Arabs.

The physical sciences, it must be confessed, were not carried by the ancients to any such length as geometry and astronomy.  In physical geography they were particularly deficient.  Yet even this branch of knowledge can boast of some eminent names.  When men sailed timidly along the coasts, and dared not explore distant seas, the true position and characteristics of countries could not be ascertained with the definiteness that it is at present.  But geography was not utterly neglected in those early times, nor was natural history.

Herodotus gives us most valuable information respecting the manners and customs of Oriental and barbarous nations; and Pliny wrote a Natural History in thirty-seven books, which is compiled from upwards of two thousand volumes, and refers to twenty thousand matters of importance.  He was born 23 A.D., and was fifty-six when the eruption of Vesuvius took place, which caused his death.  Pliny cannot be called a scientific genius in the sense understood by modern savants; nor was he an original