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THE GREEKS 08

that the doctor's shop oiio;hr to he spacious and turnishcd with wide-
openings, to let in ahundance ot hghr. I hese medical stations to w hicli
the sick and infirm repaired in great numhers to ask. advice, to undergo
operations, or receive medical dressings, must have heen of great import-
ance, as is to be presumed from the cited hooks of Hippocrates and Galen.
The greatest doctors ot antuiuitx practised the medical art in these
places. It is also said that the great philosoj'jher and naturalist, Aristotle,
who came of a race of doctors, had inherited a doctor's shop of great
value, but that notwithstanding this he refused to dedicate himself to
the medical profession.
The doctors' shops were at the same time real pharmacies, where
doctors prepared medicines, and where all the remedies then in use,
either simple or compounded, were kept and sold to the public. Besides,
there were to be found instruments of every kind and articles for medi-
cating; and, therefore, bandages, compresses, lint, sponges, cupping
glasses, cauteries, knives, bistouries, lancets, sounds, needles, hooks,
pincers, files, saws, scrapers, splints, appliances for replacement of
lu.xated bones, speculums, trepans, apparatus for fumigation, trusses,
and a thousand things besides.
Naturally, dentistry was also practised in these shops, either by doctors
who occupied themselves with dental maladies as with those of any other
part of the body, or, later on, by individuals who dedicated themselves
exclusively to this specialty.
Medicine and surgery were exercised, however, not only in doctors'
shops, but also at the patients' houses, and it was Hippocrates who
especially inaugurated clinical medicine—that is, the practice of visiting
patients in their beds.
But we must not digress from our argument.
Many observations relative to the teeth are to be found in the seven
books of Hippocrates on Epidemics. Unfortunately, the observations are
not always given in clear and precise terms, which principally depends
on the fact that these books consist for the most part of simple and most
concise notes, written by Hippocrates on cases observed b\ him, and not
intended for publication under such form, but rather constituting the
material for further work.
Here is a passage from the fourth book on Epidemics, which reveals
Hippocrates' extraordinary power of observation, for even teeth that had
fallen out were minutely examined by him, to the end of acquiring
precise ideas on the anatomical conformation of these organs, held by
him to be of the highest importance.
"In the youth suffering from a phagedenic afl^ection in the mouth,
the lower teeth fell out, as well as the front upper ones, which left a
cavity in the bone. The loss of a bone in the roof of the mouth causes