Herbis et Curis,' and divers other books written on the art of medicine, which by God's help I have been able to provide for you in my library." The monasteries are thus seen to have been in touch with Greek medicine from the earliest medieval time. The other important historical documents relating to Medieval Medicine which we possess concern the work of the men born and brought up in Asia Minor, for whom the Greeks were so close as to be living influences. Aëtius, Alexander of Tralles, and Paul of Ægina have each written a series of important chapters on medical subjects, full of interest because the writers knew their Greek classic medicine, and were themselves making important observations. Aëtius, for instance, had a good idea of diphtheria. He speaks of it in connection with other throat manifestations under the heading of "crusty and pestilent ulcers of the tonsils." He divides the anginas generally into four kinds. The first consists of inflammation of the fauces with the classic symptoms; the second presents no inflammation of the mouth nor of the fauces, but is complicated by a sense of suffocation--apparently our neurotic croup. The third consists of external and internal inflammation of the mouth and throat, extending towards the chin. The fourth is an affection rather of the neck, due to an inflammation of the vertebræ--retropharyngeal abscess--which may be followed by luxation, and is complicated by great difficulty of respiration. All of these have as a common symptom difficulty of swallowing. This is greater in one variety than in another at different times. In certain affections he remarks that even "drinks when taken are returned through the nose." Aëtius declares quite positively that all the tumours of the neck region, with the exception of scirrhus, are easily cured, yielding either to surgery or to remedies. The exception is noteworthy. He evidently saw a good many of the functional disturbances and the enlargements of the thyroid gland, which are often so variable in character as apparently to be quite amenable to treatment, and which have actually been "cured" in the history of medicine by all sorts of things from the touch of the hangman's rope to the wrapping of the shed skin of the snake around the neck. A few cervical tumours were beyond resource. Aëtius suggests the connection between hypertrophy of the clitoris and certain exaggerated manifestations of the sexual instinct, as well as the development of vicious sexual habits.