A good example of the doctrine of Hippocrates is contained in his anthropology of the Phasis valley, a region which falls sufficiently within the same limits as the Colchis of Herodotus to be worth comparing with his description of the Colchians. Indeed there is some reason to believe that, for reasons both of geographical theory and of popular ideas of utility, this corner of Hither Asia was attracting a good deal of learned attention from the physicists of Greece. This is what Hippocrates[104] has to say about the Phasis and its people. ‘That country is marshy and warm and well watered and thickly clothed with vegetation, and there is heavy and violent rainfall there at all seasons, and the habitat of its men is in the marshes, and their houses are of wood and rushes ingeniously erected in the water, and they do but little walking to and from town and market, but they sail to and fro in dug-out canoes. For there are numerous artificial canals. The waters they drink are warm and stagnant and putrefied by the sun, and replenished by the rains. The Phasis itself too is the most stagnant of all rivers, and of the gentlest current. And the fruits which grow there are all unwholesome, for they are effeminated [he is thinking of the abundance of fleshy pulpy fruit, like the stone fruits--plums, apricots, and nectarines--which were characteristic of this region in antiquity] and flabby by reason of the abundance of water. And that is why they do not ripen fully. And much mist envelops the country as a result of the water. For just these reasons the Phasians have their bodily forms different from those of all other men. For in stature they are tall, in breadth they are excessively broad, and no joint or vein is to be seen upon them. Their complexion is yellow as if they had the jaundice. Their voice is the deepest of all men’s, because their atmosphere is not clear but foggy and moist. And for bodily exertion they are naturally somewhat disinclined.’