CELSUS.

who have acquired claims to the memory of men, Hippocrates of Cos, a disciple—it is believed—of Democritus, and no less illustrious for his knowledge than for his eloquence, is the first who separated medicine from philosophy. Diocles of Carystus, Praxagoras, and Chrysippus, then Herophilus and Erasistratus, cultivated the science successively after him and engaged it in diverse paths. Around this time, it was divided into three branches: the first treating of diet, the second of medicines, and the third of the aid of the hand. The Greeks called the first dietetics the branch focused on diet and regimen, the second pharmaceutics the branch focused on drugs/remedies, and the third surgery the branch focused on manual procedures. The medical branch whose object is to heal by regimen counts the greatest writers, who, striving to delve deeper into science, sought to penetrate the very nature of things, persuaded that without this, medicine would always be powerless and mutilated. Serapion, coming after them, was the first of all to claim that the rational method is not suitable for medicine, which must consist entirely of practice and experience. This opinion was admitted by Apollonius and Glaucias, and a little later by Heraclides of Tarentum and other commendable physicians, who, in accordance with their manner of practicing, took the name of empirics those relying solely on observed experience. A new division was thus established in dietetic medicine: some appealing to reasoning, and others limiting themselves to practice. The ideas transmitted by the physicians mentioned above underwent no change until the time when Asclepiades came to renew almost entirely the exercise of the art.