It may be remarked that there were many physicians of the name of Asclepiades. It was a way they had of assuming a connection with the famous medical family of that name. The disciples of Asclepiades were called Asclepiadists. A few of them became celebrities in their day. PHILONIDES OF DYRRACHIUM lived in the first century, and wrote some forty-five works on medicine. ANTONIUS MUSA lived at the beginning of the Christian era, and was a freedman and physician to the Emperor Augustus. When his Imperial patient was seriously ill and had been made worse by a hot regimen and treatment, Antonius cured him with cold bathing and cooling drinks. Augustus rewarded him with a royal fee and permission to wear a gold ring, and a statue was erected to him near that of Æsculapius by public subscription. He wrote several works on pharmacy. He was also physician to Horace. MUSA introduced into medicine the use of adder’s flesh in the treatment of malignant ulcers; he discovered some of the properties of lettuce, chicory, and endive. Many of his medicines continued in use for ages. For colds he used the over-potent remedies henbane, hemlock, and opium. He was also celebrated for various antidotes which he discovered.[457] His brother, named EUPHORBIUS, was a physician also, and gave his name to a genus of plants, the _Euphorbiaceæ_ (Plin., lib. xxv., c. 7). THEMISON OF LAODICEA (B.C. 50) was the founder of the school known as the Methodical. This was a rival to that of the Hippocratic system, which had hitherto been the dominant one. Themison was the most important pupil of Asclepiades. He wrote on chronic diseases, and was the first to describe elephantiasis in a treatise. He would have written upon hydrophobia, but having in his youth once seen a case, it so frightened him that he was attacked with some of the symptoms, and dreaded a relapse if he set himself to write about it.[458] He invented several famous remedies, such as diacodium, a preparation of poppies, and diagrydium, a purgative of scammony. Asclepiades had his “atoms,” Themison had his “pores.” You cannot found a medical system without flying a particular flag. Themison’s “flag” was the “status strictus,” or “laxus” of the pores; that is to say, disease is either a condition of increased or diminished tension. He was the first who described rheumatism, and probably the first European physician who used leeches.[459] He is said to have been attacked with hydrophobia, and to have recovered. Juvenal satirised him (probably) in the lines— “How many patients Themison dispatched In one short autumn!”[460] Themison’s principles differed from those of his master in many respects, and besides rectifying his errors he introduced a greater precision into his system.[461]