AMONG ancient writers Erotian is the only one
who expressly ascribes this little treatise to Hippocrates
himself. Modern critics generally regard it as
old, but as not by Hippocrates, the chief exception
being Littré. Adams is uncertain, but is inclined to
think that Hippocrates was not the author.
Thus the external evidence in support of the view
that Hippocrates was the author of this treatise is very
slight indeed. The internal evidence is considerably
(1) The writer, like Hippocrates,1
health is caused by a "coction" of the "humours."
(2) He recognises the importance of "critical"
days in an illness.
(3) He holds that medical science is founded on
observation and reasoning, not on speculation.
(4) He attaches great importance to the use of
"slops" of various degrees of consistency.
All these doctrines are in conformity with the
views expounded in the works assigned to Hippocrates.
On the other hand, no stress is laid upon
prognosis, which Hippocrates considered of primary
importance. Again, it would be impossible to show
from the works of Hippocrates that the father of
medicine thought little of the power of heat and
cold in producing health or disease ; our author,
however, rates them very low. Moreover, like the
Pythagorean physician Alcmaeon, he holds that
there is an indefinite number of "opposites," the
harmony or crasis
of which produces health. The
historical Hippocrates is said to have reduced the
number of the humours to four, although I can find
no trace of this limitation to four in any treatise
earlier than the one on the Nature of Man
is not generally considered authentic.
It may be said that, were the external evidence
stronger, the treatise would be accepted as an
authentic work of Hippocrates.
argues that the well-known passage in the
where "Hippocrates the Asclepiad" is
mentioned as holding a theory that a knowledge
of the human body is impossible without a knowledge
of the universe--interpreted to mean an examination
of the δύναμις2
) of a body
according to its inter-relations with other things--refers
to Chapter XX of the περὶ ἀρχαίης2 ἰητρικῆς2
and not, as Galen maintains, to the treatise On the
Nature of Man.
also points out that a
in our treatise5
is very similar to one in Regimen
, the authenticity of which is undoubted.
Littré may have shown that there is a resemblance
to our author in the Phaedrus
however, show merely that the writer was
Hippocratic, not that he was Hippocrates.
The reference, in Chapter XV, to participation
) in εἴδη
and to "absolute existences" (αὐτό
τι ἐΦ᾽ ἑωυτοῦ
) might lead a critic to infer that the
writer lived in the age of Plato. But there are two
insuperable difficulties to this hypothesis. One is
that in Chapter XX the word ς1οΦις1τής2
is used in its
early sense of "philosopher," which implies that
the writer lived before Plato attached to the word
the dishonourable meaning it has in later Greek.
The other is that the writer attacks the intrusion of
philosophic speculation into the science of medicine,
and the speculation he has constantly in mind, as
being, apparently, the most influential in his day, is
that of Empedocles,6
who is actually mentioned in
Chapter XX as a typical writer περὶ Φύς1εως2
. There is
a sentence in Chapter XIV which closely resembles,
in both thought and diction, the fragments of Anaxagoras.7
It certainly looks as though the writer of
was not unfamiliar with the works
of this philosopher. All this evidence tends to fix
the date as approximately 430-420 B.C., and to
suggest as the writer either Hippocrates or a very
capable supporter of the medical school of which
Hippocrates was a contemporary member.
The author of Ancient Medicine
in Chapter II asserts
that empiric medicine was in his day an old art, and
that the attempt to foist the method of philosophy
upon it was comparatively modern. He is obviously
correct. Hippocratic science must have been the
ripe fruit of a long period of active inquiry ;
philosophy began early in the sixth century B.C.,
and it was late in that century that medicine
and philosophy were combined in the persons of
It was only
as the main interest of philosophy shifted from
cosmology to biology, philosophy should occupy
itself with medical problems. The union was closest
in Empedocles, thinker, seer, and "medicine-man,"
but by the end of the fifth century philosophy
had discarded medicine, although to its great loss
medicine did not discard philosophy.9
Several recent critics, notably Professor A. E.
pointed out the importance of this
little work in the history of thought. It has even
been urged that it proves that the technical phrases,
and perhaps the doctrine also, of the theory of
Ideas, usually ascribed to Plato, were well-known
to educated men a generation at least before Plato.
The language used in Chapter XV is, indeed,
strikingly like the terminology of Plato, far too
much so to be a mere coincidence.
However this may be, it is plain that in the fifth
century B.C. there were thinkers, holding principles
nearly akin to those of modern science, who were
violently opposed to the application of philosophic
procedure to science. This procedure the writer
calls the method of ὑποθές1εις2
. The student of Plato
is at once reminded of the Phaedo, Republic
, in which dialogues a theory of knowledge
is expounded which is stated to be the best possible
method of inquiry until the Ideas have been apprehended.
It should be noticed that a ὑπόθες1ις2
something very different from a modern scientific
hypothesis. The latter is a summary of observed
phenomena, intended to explain them by pointing
out their causal relationship. The former is not a
summary of phenomena ; it is a postulate, intended
to be accepted, not as an explanation, but as a foundation
) upon which to build a superstructure.
An hypothesis must by tested by further
appeals to sense-experience ; a ὑπόθες1ις2
must not be
so tested, it must be taken for granted as an obvious
truth. Plato would have nothing to do with appeals
to sense-experience. According to him, if a ὑπόθες1ις2
is not accepted, it must be abandoned, and a more
postulated, until one is reached to
which the opponent agrees.11
as the proper sphere of ὑποθές1εις2
the celestial regions and those beneath the earth.
Here, among τὰ ἀΦανέα τε καὶ ἀπορεόμενα
, where we
have no means of applying a satisfactory test, where
in fact sense-perception fails us, is the proper place
. He would exclude them all from
medicine, but he is constantly suggesting what we
moderns call "hypotheses." The best examples of
are the axioms and postulates of geometry.
These are not tested or proved ; they are assumed,
and upon the assumptions a whole science is built.
In place of ὑποθές1εις2
the author of Ancient Medicine
relies, as a modern scientific thinker relies, on careful
observation and critical examination13
hoping thereby to reach, not the complete and perfect
knowledge Plato hoped to attain through his
Ideas, but an approximation to truth.14
So the two methods, that of Greek philosophy and
that of modern science, stand face to face. The
struggle between them was, for the time being, short.
Medicine, almost the only branch of Greek science
scientifically studied, was worsted in the fight, and
medical science gradually degenerated from rational
treatment to wild speculation and even quackery
The transcendant genius of Plato,
strong in that very power of persuasion the use of
which he so much deprecated, won the day. The
philosophic fervour which longed with passionate
desire for unchangeable reality, that felt a lofty contempt
for the material world with its ever-shifting
phenomena, that aspired to rise to a heavenly region
where changeless Ideas might be apprehended by pure
intelligence purged from every bodily taint, was more
than a match for the humble researches of men who
wished to relieve human suffering by a patient study
of those very phenomena that Plato held of no account.
So for centuries philosophy flourished and science
languished, in spite of Aristotle, Euclid and Archimedes.
(1) The rejection of ὑποθές1εις2
and the defence of
the old method in medicine (Ch. I-III).
(2) The origin of medicine, and its connection
with the art of dieting (III-XII).
(3) The comparative unimportance of the four
"opposites" in health and disease (XIII-XV).
(4) The importance of certain secretions as compared
with heat and cold (XVI-XIX).
(5) The correct method of studying medicine
There has never been published any separate
edition of this treatise, but of course it is included
in all the great editions of Hippocrates. Not much
was done to improve the text before Littré, who
seems to have bestowed care and thought upon the
little book. The edition of Kéhlewein introduced
a radical reformation of the pseudo-ionic forms that
disfigured earlier texts, and also several improvements
in detail, but his changes are not always happy.
The chief manuscript authority is A,16
infinitely superior to all the others. The next most
important manuscript is M, the others being of very
In this edition I have kept closely to the spelling
of Kéhlewein, but the text itself is my own. It
follows the MS. A very closely, but on several
occasions I have accepted (with acknowledgements)
the emendations of Coray, Reinhold, Ermerins,
Littré, Diels and Kéhlewein. One passage I have
rejected on my own authority, and in another I
have presented a new combination of readings which
I think restores sense out of nonsense. I have
generally noted readings only when the choice makes
a decided difference to the translation.
The translator is often perplexed how to render
semi-technical words which belong to a time when
the ideas underlying them were in a transition stage,
or when ideas were current which the progress of
time has destroyed. "Hot" and "cold" were no
longer bodies, but they were not yet qualities. As
shows, the word εἰδος2
elusive, referring to the form, appearance, structure
of a thing, the physique of persons, etc., and yet it is
becoming capable of being applied to immaterial
reality. There are about half a dozen words to
describe the process which we describe by the single
distinctions must be
lost in an English version. The most difficult word
of all is perhaps δύναμις2
. Scientific thought in the
fifth century B.C. held that certain constituents of
the body, and indeed of the material world generally,
manifested themselves to our senses and feelings in
certain ways. These are their δυνάμεις2
or, as we may sometimes translate, "properties,"
"characteristics," "effects." Almost equally difficult
is the word Φύς1ις2
. This appears sometimes to have
the meaning which Professor Burnet shows it has in
early philosophy, "primordial matter," "primitive
element or elements," the "stuff" of which the
world is made. Often, again, it has its later meaning,
"nature," while sometimes the two senses are
combined or confused. In all these cases perfect
consistency of rendering can only be achieved by
sacrificing the thought. In my work I have been
constantly impressed, and depressed, by the truth
of the proverb, "Translators are traitors."