[The Evolution of Modern Medicine by William Osler]@TWC D-Link bookThe Evolution of Modern Medicine CHAPTER II -- GREEK MEDICINE 1/72
OGRAIAE gentis decus! let us sing with Lucretius, one of the great interpreters of Greek thought.
How grand and how true is his paean! Out of the night, out of the blinding night Thy beacon flashes;--hail, beloved light Of Greece and Grecian; hail, for in the mirk Thou cost reveal each valley and each height. Thou art my leader, and the footprints shine, Wherein I plant my own.... * * * * * The world was shine to read, and having read, Before thy children's eyes thou didst outspread The fruitful page of knowledge, all the wealth Of wisdom, all her plenty for their bread. (Bk.
III .-- Translated by D.A.Slater.) Let us come out of the murky night of the East, heavy with phantoms, into the bright daylight of the West, into the company of men whose thoughts made our thoughts, and whose ways made our ways--the men who first dared to look on nature with the clear eyes of the mind. Browning's famous poem, "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came," is an allegory of the pilgrimage of man through the dark places of the earth, on a dismal path beset with demons, and strewn with the wreckage of generations of failures.
In his ear tolled the knell of all the lost adventurers, his peers, all lost, lost within sight of the dark Tower itself-- The round squat turret, blind as the fool's heart, Built of brown stone, without a counterpart In the whole world. lost in despair at an all-encircling mystery.
Not so the Greek Childe Roland who set the slug-horn to his lips and blew a challenge.
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