A Source Book in Greek Science (Source Books in the History of the Sciences) [Hardcover]

Morris R. Cohen (Author), I. E. Drabkin (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0674823206 | ISBN-13: 978-0674823204 | Publication Date: January 1, 1948 | Edition: First Edition

Covering the general fields of mathematics, astronomy, mathematical geography, physics, chemistry and chemical technology, geology and meteorology, biology, medicine, and physiological psychology, the present collection surveys the field of Greek scientific achievement over a thousand-year period. Many Greek scientific treatises were written and read by cultivated people who did not regard themselves as specialists. These works should appeal today to those readers who wish to understand not only the foundations of modern science, but also a vital element of the humanistic tradition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 610 pages
• Publisher: Harvard University Press; First Edition edition (January 1, 1948)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0674823206
• ISBN-13: 978-0674823204
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.2 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,459,099 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An invaluable informant, March 21, 2010

By 

Jake Le Master (Lawrenceville, GA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Source Book in Greek Science (Source Books in the History of the Sciences) (Hardcover)

When first released most contributions that dealt with the history of Greek science had been written primarily for the specialist and few scholarly works were available that gave a panoramic picture of the whole field of ancient scientific thought and achievement. Furthermore, much of the vast literature on the ancient Greek scientific efforts was dispersed among philological books and periodicals not readily available to the average student. There was a definite need for a book giving a range of primary sources in the various disciplines of the natural sciences for which more precise references could have been found. This contribution of Morris Cohen and I.E. Drabkin filled such a need, and it should even today have a special appeal not only to the biologist and other students of the natural sciences but to the cultured layman as well.

The main effort of this volume is to achieve comprehensive coverage of topics, which have been grouped under the following modern categories: Mathematics, Astronomy, Mathematical Geography, Physics, Chemistry, Geology and Meteorology, Biology, Medicine, and Physiological Psychology. This arrangement facilitates finding material that may be of particular interest to various specialists. There are excluded from this work the myths, superstition, and astrology of the soberest Hellenic chroniclers of science. In 558 pages of text, it is the rare selection that takes up more than five pages, and a great many occupy only a half-page or page of print. Although the passages are abstracted from their contexts, the authors have overcome this disadvantage by a generous use of explanatory footnotes, and the authors have shown commendable asceticism in confining their notes and footnotes to the essential task of clarifying their texts and putting them in their historical setting, and have refrained from overexercising their philosophic erudition.

The general idea that the scientific method began only three or four hundred years ago, and that the ancient Greeks were mere armchair speculators or philosophers given only to qualitative thinking, is certainly in error. If we consider the collected works going under the name of Hippocrates of Cos, the treatises of Galen, or the writings of Oribasius or Theophrastus, there is much evidence that the scientific method of inquiry began at least in the 5th century B.C., and probably earlier. Fragmentary data seem to reveal that Praxagoras, Erasistratus, and Herophilus certainly used the experimental method in their studies on brain, spinal cord, eye, and vascular system. Erasistratus of Ceos, a contemporary of Herophilus at Alexandria (around 300 years B.C.), apparently distinguished between motor and sensory nerves. There are also indications that he employed quantitative experimentation on metabolism almost 2,000 years before Sanctorius. Still later, Galen (A.D. 130- 200) reported his observations on the results of sectioning the spinal cord at various levels.

It appears that Cohen and Drabkin have been concerned in trying to draw a fine line between what may be considered truly representative of ancient Greek scientific observation and what is folklore. Future historians who wade through specialized scientific journals of today will doubtless be beset by similar difficulties of discrimination and so probably will be their historians. The difference between sense and nonsense in such matters is a relative one. The now seemingly absurd conclusions sometimes arrived at by even such scholars as Aristotle, Theophrastus, Ptolemy, and Galen are not quite so ridiculous when it is borne in mind that they were made on the basis of the information available at the time. It is a simple matter today to classify the work of the ancients into science or superstition, with the 2,000 or more years of accumulated information we have at our disposal. The amazing thing is that they did so well on so little. Viewed in this perspective, there is little indication that man's capacity to interpret data has increased, and what appears today as an improvement in this function is only an apparent one. Man simply has more factual information to work with.

Readers who desire to gain broader or more intensive insights can, however, consult the valuable 10-page bibliography at the end. This book is unhesitatingly recommended as an addition to the personal libraries of all those interested in the progress of the natural sciences. It undoubtedly should be on the shelves of all modern libraries