Medicine and philosophy - Classical Homeopathy Online

112 Hippocratic Corpus and Diocles of Carystusthis division is nowhere stated explicitly in either the texts of the Hippocraticwriters 27 or the fragments of Diocles, Praxagoras or any other ofthe physicians mentioned, 28 nevertheless there is evidence that Hippocraticdoctors regarded pharmacology and surgery as special types of treatmentseparate from the more regular dietetic measures.As for pharmacology, the treatise On Affections (Aff. ) frequently refersfor further details about the drugs to be administered to a (lost) workentitled Pharmakitis or Pharmaka. 29 Judging from these references, thiswork not only dealt with the preparation of drugs, 30 but also with theirworkings and the conditions under which they were to be administered. 31Furthermore, the author of On Regimen in Acute Diseases refers to a separate(not extant) discussion of composite drugs ( ). 32 Again,in other nosological works, such as On Internal Affections (Int. Aff. ) andAppendix to On Regimen in Acute Diseases, it is frequently stated that inaddition to a number of measures ‘a drug () should be given’ or‘a treatment with drugs’ () should, or should not, be adopted. 33Similarly, surgical measures are frequently referred to in a way suggestingthat they are considered to belong to a separate category. Thus On Diseases1.14 distinguishes between ‘letting blood from the vessels of the arms’ and‘a regimen’. 34 The author of Appendix to On Regimen in Acute Diseases27 The formulations that come closest are Oath: (‘I will use dietetic measures . . . I will not give a drug . . . nor will I use the knife’),and On the Art of Medicine 6 (6.10 L.) and 8 (6.14 L.): (‘drugs . . . dietetic measures . . . medicalinstruments that burn . . . fire . . . all other instruments of the medical art’).28 For the dubious evidence in the case of Diocles see the discussion in van der Eijk (2001a) 6 n. 15 and80–1.29 E.g. in chs. 4 (6.212 L.), 9 (6.216 L.), 15 (6.224 L.) and 18 (6.226 L.).30 Aff. 4 (6.212 L.): ‘one should at once give gargles, preparing them as has been described in the bookson drugs’ ( ).31 Aff. 27 (6.238 L.): ‘In the case of cholera, if the patient has pain, one should give what has beendescribed in the books on drugs as stopping pain’ ( ).32 On Regimen in Acute Diseases 64 (2.364 L.): ‘this [i.e. the use of drinks and the correct time of theirusage] will be described in relation to this disease, as will be done with the other composite drugs’( ).33 E.g. Int. Aff. 15 (7.204 L.); 17 (7.208 L.). Appendix to On Regimen in Acute Diseases 8 (2.408 L.), 12(2.418 L.), 27 (2.448 L.), 32 (2.462 L.); Aff. 20 (6.230 L.). Cf. Aphorisms 1.20 and 1.14 (4.464–6 L.). OnHippocratic pharmacology see Stannard (1961) 497–518. For the special status of drugs over dieteticmeasures cf. also Diocles, frs. 153,2–3 and fr. 183a, lines 25, 48 and 62–3 (although this fragment is ofdubious authenticity); and Plato, Timaeus 89 b 3–4.34 On Diseases 1.14 (6.164 L.): ‘It benefits such patients [i.e. those suffering from suppuration of thelung], when one undertakes to treat them in the beginning, to let blood from the vessels in the hands,and to give them a regimen that is most drying and bloodless’ ( ).