Hippocrates, the wise physician and father of medicine, was according to Soranus the son of Heraclides and Phænaretes, descended from Hercules and Æsculapius. He was a Coan by birth, and was first instructed by his father, and then by Herodicus, and Democritus of Abdua, the philosopher. He flourished at the time of the Peloponnesian war, and after being instructed in physic and the arts, left his own country for Thessaly, where his fame soon became known, even as far as Persia. He was sent for by Perdiccás, King of Macedonia, who was then thought to be consumptive, but Hippocrates diagnosed it to be a disease of the mind, and soon cured the king. He is also said to have delivered his own country from a war with the Athenians by prevailing upon the Thessalians to come to their assistance, for which he received great honours from the Coans. He taught his art with great candour and liberality to those who were desirous to learn, and at length died full of honours, it is said, in his ninetieth year, and was buried between Gyrton and Larissa. A quaint old tradition states that at his tomb a swarm of bees settled and made their honey for a long time, with which children troubled with aphthas, anointed by their nurses at the grave, were easily cured. He was by no means covetous of money, but grave in his behaviour and a lover of Greece, as appears from his curing those of that nation with the utmost diligence, and freeing many of their cities from the plague, for which he acquired great honours. At first the art of healing was accounted a branch of philosophy, so that the cure of diseases and the study of nature owed their rise to the same persons. Among the many philosophers skilled in the art the most celebrated were Pythagoras, Empedocles, Democritus, and Hippocrates of Cos. After them came Diodes the Carystian, Praxagoras, and Chrysippus, with Hierphilus and Erasistratus, many of whom practised their art in entirely different ways. At this period physic was divided into three schools; the first cured by diet, the second by medicines, the third by manual operations. Those who treated by dietetic methods endeavoured to extend their views farther with the assistance of natural philosophy. Then came Serapion, the apostle of practice and experience, and afterwards Asclepiades, who worked a revolution in medical science as then practised. The knowledge of both surgery and medicine even in the time of Celsus is very remarkable, and many of the forms of administration of medicine are employed at the present day. The enema was largely used by the ancients, a common one being hydromel, described by Dioscorides as being made by mixing two parts of water to one of honey; sea-water was also employed for the same purpose, and Celsus recommends the copious drinking of hot water as a laxative remedy.