“In the year 331 B.C.,” says Kingsley,[408] “one of the greatest intellects whose influence the world has ever felt, saw, with his eagle glance, the unrivalled advantages of the spot which is now Alexandria; and conceived the mighty project of making it the point of union of two, or rather of three worlds. In a new city, named after himself, Europe, Asia, and Africa were to meet and to hold communion.” When Greece lost her intellectual supremacy with her national independence, the centre of literature, philosophy, and science was shifted to this unique position. With all the treasures of Egyptian wisdom around her, with all the stores of Eastern thought on the one hand and those of Europe on the other, Alexandria became in her schools the rallying-point of the world’s thought and activity. If we turn to an atlas of ancient geography, we shall be struck with the unrivalled facilities possessed by this city for gathering to itself the treasures, intellectual and material, of the conquered world of Alexander the Great. From the Danube, Greece, Phœnicia, Palestine, Persia, Asia Minor, India, Italy, and the Celtic tribes, there came embassies to Egypt to seek the protection and alliance of Alexander of Macedon, and each must have contributed something to the greatness of the city which he had founded. Just as every traveller in after years who passed through the place was compelled to leave a copy of any work which he had brought with him, to the Alexandrian library, so from the first foundation of the town was every visitor a donor of some idea to its stores of thought. At the dismemberment of Alexander’s vast empire, after his death, the Egyptian portion fell to the share of Ptolemy Soter. It was this sovereign who founded the famous Alexandrian Library; a great patron of the arts and sciences, he placed this institution under the direction of Aristotle. He also established the Schools of Alexandria, and encouraged the dissection of the human body. CHRYSIPPUS, the Cnidian, who lived in the fourth century _B.C._, was the father of the Chrysippus who was physician to Ptolemy Soter, and he was tutor to Erasistratus. Pliny says that he reversed the practice of preceding physicians in the most extraordinary manner. He would not permit bleeding, because the blood contains the soul; did not practise purging, though he sometimes permitted the use of enemata and emetics. He wrote on herbs and their uses, and drove the blood out of limbs previous to their amputation on the principles recently re-introduced by Esmarch. He introduced the use of vapour baths in the treatment of dropsy. As there were several physicians of the name of Chrysippus, and as their works are lost, it is very difficult to distinguish their maxims. Amongst the disciples of the Cnidian physician of this name were MEDIUS, ARISTOGENES, METRODORUS, and ERASISTRATUS, as we have said.