Medicine and philosophy - Classical Homeopathy Online

To help, or to do no harm 117‘to die with’ (), 63 the patient – which reminds one of whatis sometimes said about incurable but non-fatal conditions (such as chronicfatigue syndrome): ‘It is not that you die of it, you die with it.’ It is clearthat Hippocratic doctors regarded this as something highly undesirable:disease is something to be resisted and to be fought against, not somethingto resign onseself to. 64 But this has to be done in the awareness of thelimitations of the art. 65Thirdly, as a passage in On Internal Affections indicates, treatment doesnot stop after recovery: ‘If the patient is not cared for after he has recovered,and does not keep a watch over himself, in many the disease has returnedand killed them.’ 66 The body needs to be looked after not only when itis healthy or when it is sick, but also when it has turned from sickness tohealth.This comprehensive approach to therapeutics is continued and further developedby Diocles, whose dietetic fragments, in their meticulous attentionto even the slightest detail, display an impressive degree of sophistication –some might say decadence. 67 Yet, as we have seen, in Diocles’ work dieteticsand therapeutics seem to constitute two distinct areas of the overarchingcategory ‘medicine’. This is further reflected in a fragment of Diocles’ contemporaryMnesitheus of Athens, who divided medicine into two branches,the preservation of health and the dispelling of disease. 68 These classificationsmay be related to an increasing sense of unease in Greek society63 Int. Aff. 5 (7.180 L.); 46 (7.280 L.).64 Epidemics 1.11 (2.636 L.): .65 See On the Art of Medicine 8 (cf. Arist. Rh. 1355 b 12: ‘nor is it the purpose of medicine to makea patient healthy, rather it is to promote this only in so far as is possible; for even those who areincapable of recovery can nevertheless be treated’ ( [sc. ] ).66 Int. Aff. 1 (7.172 L.): .Cf.On Ancient Medicine 14 (1.600 L.): ‘and itis these things [i.e. food and drink] on which life completely depends, both for the healthy personand for the one that recovers from illness and for the sick person’ ( ); On Regimen 2.76 (6.620 L.): ‘andif the patient recovers in a month, one should subsequently treat him with what is proper; but ifsome (of the disease) remains, one should continue the treatment’ ( ).67 See Diocles ‘Regimen in Health’ in fr. 182, and the discussion by Edelstein (1967a) 303–16.68 Mnesitheus, fr. 11 Bertier: ‘Mnesitheus said that the doctor either preserves health for those who arehealthy or provides treatment of disease to those who are sick’ ( ). Seealso the Galenic Definitiones medicae 9 (19.351 K.): ‘Medicine is the art that treats healthy peopleby regimen and sick people by therapeutics’ ( ).