Medicine and philosophy - Classical Homeopathy Online

chapter 4The heart, the brain, the blood and the pneuma:Hippocrates, Diocles and Aristotle on thelocation of cognitive processes1 the debate in antiquity on the locationof the mind: origin, developmentand misrepresentationIn one of the first chapters of his systematic account of the treatment ofacute and chronic diseases, the Latin medical author Caelius Aurelianus(fifth century ce) discusses phrenitis, a psychosomatic disorder with symptomsincluding acute fever, mental confusion, a weak and fast pulse andvarious forms of abnormal behaviour such as the picking of threads out ofclothing. 1 Caelius Aurelianus, himself belonging to the medical schoolcalled the Methodists, 2 begins his argument, as usual, with a survey ofthe views on the nature and origin of this disease held by doctors belongingto other schools of thought, in particular their views on the question ofwhich part of the body is affected by the disease. His main reason for doingso is to show the contrast between his own and only correct treatment ofthe disease and the general confusion among other doctors:What part [of the body] is affected in phrenitis? This question has been raisedparticularly by leaders of other sects so that they may apply their treatments accordingto the different parts affected and prepare local remedies for the placesin question . . . Now some say that the brain is affected, others its fundus or base,which we may translate sessio [‘seat’], others its membranes, others both the brainand its membranes, others the heart, others the apex of the heart, others the membranewhich incloses the heart, others the artery which the Greeks call aorte, othersthe thick vein (Greek phleps pacheia), others the diaphragm. But why continuein this way when we can easily clarify the matter by stating what these writersreally had in mind? For in every case they hold that the part affected in phrenitisThis chapter was first published in Dutch in Gewina 18 (1995) 214–29.1 For the problem of identifying ‘phrenitis’ see Potter (1980) 110; Pigeaud (1981a) 72.2 For an outline of the Methodists’ medical views see Edelstein (1967b); Pigeaud (1991); Gourevitch(1991); Pigeaud (1993) 565–99. The epistemological principles of the Methodists are discussed byFrede (1983) and by Lloyd (1983) 182–200. [On Caelius’ version of Methodism see also ch. 11 below.]119