regarding which their efforts require a few words of special
comment. This was the field of medicine.

The Byzantines of this time could boast of two great medical men,
Aetius of Amida (about 502-575 A.D.) and Paul of Aegina (about
620-690). The works of Aetius were of value largely because they
recorded the teachings of many of his eminent predecessors, but
he was not entirely lacking in originality, and was perhaps the
first physician to mention diphtheria, with an allusion to some
observations of the paralysis of the palate which sometimes
follows this disease.

Paul of Aegina, who came from the Alexandrian school about a
century later, was one of those remarkable men whose ideas are
centuries ahead of their time. This was particularly true of Paul
in regard to surgery, and his attitude towards the supernatural
in the causation and treatment of diseases. He was essentially a
surgeon, being particularly familiar with military surgery, and
some of his descriptions of complicated and difficult operations
have been little improved upon even in modern times. In his books
he describes such operations as the removal of foreign bodies
from the nose, ear, and esophagus; and he recognizes foreign
growths such as polypi in the air-passages, and gives the method
of their removal. Such operations as tracheotomy, tonsellotomy,
bronchotomy, staphylotomy, etc., were performed by him, and he
even advocated and described puncture of the abdominal cavity,
giving careful directions as to the location in which such
punctures should be made. He advocated amputation of the breast
for the cure of cancer, and described extirpation of the uterus.
Just how successful this last operation may have been as