Medicine and philosophy - Classical Homeopathy Online

chapter 3To help, or to do no harm.Principles and practices of therapeuticsin the Hippocratic Corpus and in the workof Diocles of Carystus1 introductionIn a well-known passage from the Hippocratic Epidemics, the doctor’s dutiesare succinctly characterised as follows:[The doctor should] declare what has happened before, understand what is present,and foretell what will happen in the future. This is what he should practise. Asto diseases, he should strive to achieve two things: to help, or to do no harm.The (medical) art consists of three components: the disease, the patient, and thedoctor. The doctor is servant of the art. The patient should combat the disease inco-operation with the doctor. 1The principle that the doctor is there to help, to refrain from anything thatmay be harmful, and to use his skill and knowledge and all the relevantinformation about the disease and the patient in order to assist the patientin his battle against the disease is an idea that frequently recurs in Greekmedicine. It is succinctly summarised here in the words ‘to help, or to dono harm’ ( ), a formula which is often quoted orechoed both in the Hippocratic Corpus and in later Greek and Romanmedical literature. 2This formula is interesting in that it reflects an early awareness of thepossibility that medical treatment can also cause harm. The HippocraticOath, which explicitly mentions the well-being of the patient as the doctor’sThis chapter was first published in slightly different form in I. Garofalo, D. Lami, D. Manetti andA. Roselli (eds.), Aspetti della terapia nel Corpus Hippocraticum (Florence, 1999) 389–404.1 . Epidemics 1.11 (2.634–6 L.).2 E.g. On Affections 47 (6.256 L.); 61 (6.270 L.); for a later echo see Scribonius Largus (first century ce),Compositiones,pref.5: ‘medicine is the science of healing, not of doing harm’ (scientia enim sanandi,non nocendi est medicina).101