Medicine and philosophy - Classical Homeopathy Online

Diocles of Carystus on the method of dietetics 87the tendency of searching for causes at any cost which Fredrich foundcharacteristic of the same ‘Compilator’. 30 Now there is in itself nothingimplausible about one person criticising another person in one respectbut praising him in another; besides, not too much consistency can beexpected from a ‘Compilator’. But Fredrich’s construction of the debatebecomes problematic when he suggests that Diocles shows a common frontwith the Hippocratic author of On Ancient Medicine, who in his turn issaid by Fredrich to be criticising the author of On Regimen for having thetemerity ‘to attribute to individual foods and drinks the properties cold,hot, dry or wet’. 31 Within the space of three pages and in a dazzling course ofargument, Fredrich applied a complete metamorphosis to claim one, whichwas first said to be the claim that On Regimen is opposing, but which islater associated with what On Ancient Medicine and Diocles are opposingand which is identified by Fredrich as the view held by the compiler of OnRegimen.On this kind of identification it may be appropriate to quote Josef-HansKühn, who with regard to a similar question concerning the opponentsof On Ancient Medicine made the following remark: ‘The tendency tomake connections between the few treatises from antiquity that have beenpreserved is understandable and justified. On the other hand, the sheernumber of works dealing with medical topics must have been so large that itwould be a great coincidence if the rather arbitrary selection of the traditionhad preserved precisely those treatises which refer to each other.’ 32 Kühnconcludes that the best we can do is to regard the writings that have beenpreserved as examples of a no longer extant but presumably much broaderspectrum of medical views, and to restrict ourselves to a reconstruction ofthe view that is being criticised without immediately putting a label on itor associating it with another treatise that has been preserved. Yet I would 30 Fredrich (1899) 171; this point has been misunderstood by Torraca (1965) 108.31 Fredrich (1899) 169: ‘den einzelnen [Speisen und Getränken] die Eigenschaften Kalt, Warm, Trockenoder Feucht beizulegen’.32 J.-H. Kühn (1956) 84: ‘Die Neigung, innerhalb der wenigen überlieferten Schriften der Antike immerwieder direkte Bezugsverhältnisse herstellen zu wollen, ist verständlich und berechtigt. Andererseitsmuß die Fülle der Arbeiten, die sich mit medizinischen Fragen beschäftigen, so groß gewesen sein,daß es ein großer Zufall wäre, wenn die mehr oder minder zufällige Auswahl unserer Überlieferunggerade die Schriften erhalten hätte, welche aufeinander Bezug nehmen.’