noble a course, very little was added to the stock of knowledge that he left as an inestimable legacy to succeeding generations; and it will be observed that throughout the bulky volumes of his commentators and translators, little fresh material was introduced, and even that little of inferior importance. To Hippocrates succeeded many theorists, and we all know that wherever theory abounds facts are scarce. In the present day one author writes a large book upon his favourite theory; and perhaps before the first edition of his work is sold, another equally voluminous writer strains every nerve to upset his predecessor. Such is the fate of theorists; their existence, except when they closely build upon fact-as Cuvier, Prichard, Grant, and Owen have done in our day-must necessarily be ephemeral. The book, however, that is filled with well-recorded facts, and some few obvious deductions from them, will always remain as a land-mark in literature; and on this account it is that we read, for instance, the Aphorisms of Hippocrates, and his remarks on meteorology and climate, with so much benefit, even at a time when the world was never nore craving after novelty. The works of Hippocrates contain enough, if a selection were made, to occupy a student's attention at all periods of his career, and he will do well to remember what they have taught him; for at the bedside they will serve him, and in his study they will prove a prolific source of information. APHORISMS AND STATISTICS. In the writings of the early professors of medicine and philosophy, statistics, as we now receive the term, are not to be found; but their observations, which were generally made with much common sense, guided them to an approximation to the truth, which for practical purposes is eminently useful, although of course not so implicitly to be depended on as the result of accurate numerical calculation. These rough guesses, or rather statements, are in a most extraordinary manner borne out by the statistics of the present enlightened and accurate age: differences, however, there are between them, and they ought naturally to be expected, on comparing the observations made on the north coast of the Mediterranean and the results of the investigations carried on in our own isles and colonies,-for climate is the grand modifier of disease; and as its influence is universal, so must we expect to find that in the direct ratio of its modifications are the variations that will obtain in all nosometrical tables that include extensive regions. The aphorisms of the antients are in their way still as useful, and perhaps ever will be so, as the numbers of the modern statistician; for many will remember them, whilst few will have memory sufficient to retain the array of figures that is to be met with in that valuable epitome of knowledge, the RegistrarGeneral's Reports. Most minds are ill constituted for the study of statistics, although the generality of persons are pleased with the result of a series of calculations, when statistics assume the aphoristic form. Men in general like anything that is short, pithy, and epigrammatic. The royal road to learning is still believed in, and many suppose that they have attained it; little thinking how important series of facts have been arrived at through the brains of others. It is very well to be able to say that more males than females die of a certain disease; but the route to such a fact is often wearisome and dark, and the superficial dabbler in science, without considering this, is often found pluming himself upon his borrowed knowledge, forgetful of the source whence he derived it, like the insignificant and brainless heir to a title gained by industry and talent. The value of aphorisms is in the direct ratio of their general truth: exact correctness can hardly be expected. Statistics, therefore, have a certain advantage over them. For instance, a statement to the effect that to every hundred males so many females die, is more informing than the vague assertion that the mortality is greater among men than women, and after a little time equally well remembered. The study of statistics has grown out of the crude observations of past ages, and, like a dutiful child, often reflects great lustre upon its parents. The more salient facts with regard to mortality and disease have long been known; but only now have they assumed that rigid truthfulness so characteristic of the age. Science, like man, is sportive, imaginative, impressionable in her youth; but grave, rigid, exact, and unpoetical in her maturity. THE IATRO-METEOROLOGY OF HIPPOCRATES. I SHALL now endeavour to give a brief outline of that branch of medical science which may with propriety be termed latrometeorology, and show to those interested in studying it how the great Hippocrates anticipated them in their appreciation of its value as one of the helpmates of medicine. They will find in his writings, especially in his Epidemics, Aphorisms, and Airs, Waters, and Places, very many minute meteorological observations in connection with disease; and when we consider how deficient he was in those appliances which modern science has given to us to facilitate our pursuits, we cannot but acknowledge the consummate wisdom and foresight of one, who saw the relation between atmospheric change and disease more than two thousand years ago, and who, in the application of his knowledge, was nearly, if not quite, as advanced as our professors in the present day. Hippocrates says, in the opening paragraph of his treatise On Airs, Waters, and Places :-"Whoever desires properly to investigate the art of medicine, must do this: first, take into consideration the seasons of the year, and how each is capable of operating (on the system); for they not only do not resemble each other, but differ widely the one from the other in the changes (they bring about). Then the cold and hot winds (must be noted), especially those that are common to all nations, and then those that are peculiar to any particular district."* “Ἰητρικὴν ὅστις βούλεται ὀρθῶς ζητέειν, τά δε χρὴ ποιέειν· πρῶτον μὲν ἐνθυ· μέεσθαι τὰς ὥρας τοῦ ἔτεος, ὅτι δύναται ἀπεργάζεσθαι ἑκάστη· οὐ γὰρ ἐοίκασιν οὐθεν, ἀλλὰ πουλὺ διαφέρουσιν αυταί τε ἑωυτέων και ἐν τῇσι μεταβολῆσιν· ἔπειτα δὲ τὰ πνεύηατα τὰ θερμάτε καὶ τὰ ψυχρά μάλιστα μὲν τὰ κοινὰ πᾶσιν ανθρωποισιν, ἔπειτα δὲ και τὰ ἐν ἑκάστῃ χώρη επιχωρία εόντα.” Περὶ ̓Αέρων, Ὑδάτων, Τόπων, ed. Köln, vol. i. p. 523. His mode of observation, which will be found in the first and third books of his Epidemics, was very simple: in these instances he gave a description of the seasons of three different years, particularised the peculiarities of each season, and then concluded with an account of the most remarkable diseases that prevailed during each. The assemblage of meteoric phenomena observed during the year, he comprised under the term Karaoraσic, which is equivalent to "the state" or "constitution" of the seasons, τῶν ὁρέων. I will proceed at once to give a short detail of these observations, and for the sake of easy reference will place them in a tabular form (see opposite page). First Constitution.—The observations grouped within the first three tables were made at Thasos, now Tasso, N. lat. 40° 30′, E. long. 24° 28', a small island in the north of the Grecian Archipelago (the Egean Sea), on the coast of Thracia, now Roumelia, in the south of Turkey. It was remarkable for its fertility, insomuch that it became proverbial. The people were much addicted to both drinking and venery. Geologically considered, the island is composed of pure white marble, and has mines of gold and silver; and with regard to its meteorological position, according to A. Petermann, it is situated about the isothermal line of 58° Fahr. average mean annual temperature. The same author places it in a central position in relation to the northern and southern limits of the cultivation of the vine, for which it has ever been celebrated; and Virgil, in giving an account of the cultivation of the vine in his second book of the Georgics, mentions the Thasian vines as being more adapted for a light soil than some others, for instance, the vine of Mareotis, a lake in Egypt. "Sunt Thasiæ vites, sunt et Mareotides albæ |