Medicine and philosophy - Classical Homeopathy Online

To help, or to do no harm 109A comparison between the two accounts shows that the therapeutic instructionsderived from On Treatments are much more detailed and showgreater differentiation according to the individual patient. The fact thata lead pill is not mentioned in the report of the therapeutic section ofAffection, Cause, Treatment may be a matter of coincidence, or of Caelius’selectivity in reporting, but it may be significant that such a pill is also mentionedin another testimony where the two works are compared, in Caelius’discussion of Diocles’ treatment of epilepsy (Chronic Affections 1.4.132). 17Moreover, in this text, as in Acute Affections 3.8.87 (which deals with thetreatment of tetanus), Caelius suggests that the therapeutic section ofDiocles’ Affection, Cause, Treatment differentiated according to the cause ofthe disease, as one would expect from a work with this title. 1817 ‘Again, Diocles, in the book in which he wrote on affections, recommends venesection for thosewho have caught this affection because of excessive drinking or eating of meat, [thereby] consideringantecedent causes rather than present ones. Yet for those who have incurred this affection becauseof the usual state of their body, he recommends the withdrawal of a thick humour, which he calledphlegma. He also applies drugs that stimulate the urinary passages, which people call diuretica, andalso walking and being carried around. Yet even if these were real remedies, because of the smallnessof their number and of their power it could hardly be said that they are strong enough against thisgreat affection, or that they are sufficient for its destruction. Again, in the book of treatments heapplies venesection and uses as medicine a pill which turns the stomach and causes vomiting afterdinner by filling the head with exhalations. He gives vinegar to drink, and by causing sneezingbefore the patients fall asleep he troubles the sensory passages at a highly untimely moment. He alsogives wormwood, centaury, ass’s milk, and the scab of horses or mules not indicating the time thesemeasures should be applied but afflicting the patients with dreadful things’ (Item Diocles libro, quo depassionibus scripsit, in his, qui ex uinolentia uel carnali cibo istam passionem conceperint, phlebotomiamprobat, antecedentes potius quam praesentes intuens causas. in his uero, qui ex corporis habitudine inistam uenerint passionem, humoris crassi detractionem probat adhibendam, quem appellauit phlegma.utitur etiam urinalibus medicamentis, quae diuretica uocant. item deambulatione ac gestatione, quae sietiam uera essent adiutoria, ob paruitatem tamen numeri et magnitudinis suae, magnae passioni difficilepossent paria pronuntiari aut eius destructioni sufficere. Item libro curationum phlebotomans utiturmedicamine catapotio, quod stomachum euertit atque post cenam uomitum facit, exhalationibus implenscaput. potat etiam aceto sternutamentum commouens priusquam in somnum ueniant aegrotantes,profecto intemporaliter commouet sensuales uias. dat etiam absinthium, centaurion et lac asininum etequorum impetigines uel mulorum neque tempus adiciens factis et odiosis aegrotantes afficiens rebus);Diocles, fr. 99 vdE; the title de passionibus is an abbreviation for de passionibus atque causis earum etcurationibus; the singular libro curationum is not in accordance with the other references to the work(see n. 12 above), which is possibly, again, due to lack of precision on Caelius Aurelianus’ part. Onthe relative infrequence of the use of pills in early Greek medicine see Goltz (1974) 206–7.18 ‘Diocles, in the book in which he wrote on affections, causes and treatments, says that with peoplesuffering from tetanus one should apply drugs that promote urine, which he called “diuretics”, andthen one should purge and evacuate the stomach. He also gives raisin wine mixed with water to drinkto children or to those who have contracted the affection because of a wound. He also prohibits thegiving of food and he prescribes the application of vapour baths to the [parts] that are stiffened bythe affection and to make them flexible. Again, in the third book On Treatments, he similarly uses aclyster and gives sweet wine to drink and applies vapour baths, sometimes dry ones, sometimes wetones, and he anoints the affected parts with wax-salve and covers them with wool’ (Diocles libro, quopassiones atque causas atque curationes scripsit, tetanicis inquit adhibenda mictoria medicamina,quae appellauit diuretica, tum uentrem deducendum atque uacuandum. dat etiam bibendum passum