Hippocrates: timeless still

. . . I wish I had known of these views of Hippocrates before I had published, for they seem almost identical with mine merely a change of terms and an application of them to classes of facts necessarily unknown to the old philosopher. The whole case is a good illustration of how rarely anything is new. . . .Hippocrates has taken the wind out of my sails, but I care very little about being forestalled. I advance the views merely as a provisional hypothesis, but with the secret expectation that sooner or later some such view will have to be admitted. . . . I do not expect the reviewers will be so learned as you otherwise, no doubt, I shall be accused of wilfully stealing Pangenesis from Hippocrates, for this is the spirit some reviewers delight to show.