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

7. Disease of the Kidneys
Explicit reference to the boiled flesh of a puppy as a curative is made in a part of
Epidemics VII (c. 350 B.C.), 333 which discusses the case of a person who suffered from
nephritic affections. According to the text, the patient abstained from food for seven
days, and drank melicrat in a strong mixture. Afterwards, he ate bean broth and
sometimes pea soup, and drank water; later, he ate some boiled young dog (skulaki/ou),
and a little barley cake (7.62) [117]. The passage again shows that dog flesh was given to
the patient at a specific, that is, later stage of his condition.
Dog Flesh as Non-Indicated Dietary Treatment
Apart from accepting the flesh of a puppy as curative food, the Hippocratic
treatises also preserve an instance of a prescription in which this food is to be avoided: in
the treatment of surfeit. As the author of Regimen III, (end of fifth/beginning of fourth
century B.C.), 334 suggests, the physician should “use warm, fermented bread, crumbling
it into dark wine or into pork broth. Also fish boiled in acrid brine. Use also fleshy
meats, such as pig’s feet well boiled and fat roast pork, but be sparing of sucking-pig, and
the flesh of puppies (skula&kwn) and kids” (3.75) [123]. The passage clearly states that
the flesh of puppies was not considered food that could help eliminate the feeling of
excessive fullness. Such advice implies that this food was probably conceived of as
having the opposite effect, that is, inducing appetite. This view of dog flesh may not be
divorced from the already seen propensity of the animal to steal food and eat it all up.
333 Jouanna, Hippocrates 390, maintains that some of the passages are later than 358-357 B.C.—the date of
the siege of Datum by Philip II mentioned in Epidemics VII, 121—whereas others are prior to 348 B.C.—
the date of the destruction of Olynthus by Philip II mentioned in Epidemics VII.
334 Jouanna, Hippocrates 409.
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