The Judgment of Animals in Classical Greece: Animal Sculpture and ...

ordinary food, but is not connected to a specific disease. The passage suggests that
puppy meat was an accepted item of food in the dietary treatment of patients in general.
Both puppy meat and that of an adult dog are also prescribed as curative food for
diseases that are explicitly identified in the Hippocratic treatises. All these prescriptions
include other accepted items of ordinary food, such as fruits, vegetables, fish, meat, and
wine. The dominance, however, of puppy meat over that of an adult dog is striking.
The Flesh of Adult Dogs as Dietary Treatment for Certain Diseases
1. Erysipelas of the Lungs
In Internal Affections (c. 400-390 B.C.) the discussion of the disease identified as
erysipelas (inflammation) of the lungs begins with the description of the accompanying
symptoms—expectoration of sputum, chills, fever, and vomiting. As treatment, the
patient is advised to follow a diet of silphium juice, dry wine, garlic, and radishes. When
the chills and fever subside, the food to be eaten should be switched to cereals and the
meats of boiled ass or dog (kunei/oisi) (6.26-6.32) [110]. The boiled flesh of an adult dog
again features as curative food. Of interest here is the specified time at which the patient
could eat this food: after the chills and fever subside. Such evidence seems to be related
to the idea seen previously in the Regimen that dogs’ flesh dries [and] heats,” an idea,
which automatically makes it an unsuitable food for patients with fever, and explains the
above recommendation. From this evidence, it seems reasonable to conclude that the
medicinal properties of dog flesh were so carefully observed that they even determined
the time when dog flesh was administered as treatment within the course of a disease.
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