Medicine and philosophy - Classical Homeopathy Online

Diocles of Carystus on the method of dietetics 99the ‘highly useful distinction’ () between ‘foodstuffs’ ()and ‘drugs’ () – that is to say, for not having pointed out underwhat circumstances a particular substance acts like a foodstuff (which onlypreserves the state of the body) or as a drug (which changes the state ofthe body) – just as he failed to deal, Galen adds maliciously, with the otherdistinctions discussed by him in the previous paragraphs.In fact, in the context of another treatise, namely On Medical Experience(De experientia medica, De exp. med.), 57 Galen expresses himself in a muchmore positive way on Diocles’ position, although his characterisation of itseems to be based on the same passage from Diocles’ Matters of Health toPleistarchus:As for me, I am surprised at the sophists of our age, who are unwilling to listen tothe word of Hippocrates when he says: ‘In the case of food and drink experienceis necessary’, and are not content to accept for themselves and their followersan opinion concerning which the generality of men are completely unanimous,to say nothing of the élite. For if everything which is ascertained is ascertainedonly by reasoning, and nothing is ascertained by experience, how is it possiblethat the generality, who do not use reason, can know anything of what is known?And how was it that this was unanimously asserted among the elder doctors,not only by Hippocrates, but also by all those who came after him, Diogenes,Diocles, Praxagoras, Philotimus, and Erasistratus? For all of these acknowledge thatwhat they know concerning medical practice they know by means of reasoning inconjunction with experience. In particular, Diogenes and Diocles argue at lengththat it is not possible in the case of food and drink to ascertain their ultimate effectsbut by way of experience.In this testimony, the view of Diocles and the other ancient authoritiesis obviously referred to in order to support Galen’s argument against anexclusively theoretical approach to medicine. And although we should notassign much independent value to this testimony – which, apart from itsvagueness, is a typical example of Galen’s bluffing with the aid of one ofhis lists of Dogmatic physicians – it is compatible both with the pictureof Diocles’ general medical outlook that emerges from the collection offragments as a whole and with his approach to dietetics as reflected in ourfragment 176. Diogenes and Diocles are mentioned by Galen in particular ... ).57 Fr. 16 (Galen, De exp. med. 13.4–5, p.109 Walzer, whose translation I have adopted, except forthe translation of logos, which Walzer leaves untranslated but which I have rendered by ‘reason’)[see n. 58]; this fragment is also (but obviously for different reasons) lacking in Wellmann.