Epigraph
“Of making many books there is no end.”—Eccles. xii, 12 (circa 1000 b.c.).
“Augescunt aliae gentes, aliae minuuntur;
Inque brevi spatio mutantur saecla animantum,
Et, quasi cursores vitai lampada tradunt.”
—OVID.
One nation rises to supreme power in the world, while another declines, and, in a brief space of time, the sovereign people change, transmitting, like racers, the lamp of life to some other that is to succeed them.
“There is one Science of Medicine which is concerned with the inspection of health equally in all times, present, past and future.”
—PLATO.