Medicine and philosophy - Classical Homeopathy Online

126 Hippocratic Corpus and Diocles of Carystuscategorical difference, and the cause for mental disorders is virtually alwayssought in bodily factors.Mental faculties are given a more independent role in the Hippocraticwriting On the Sacred Disease, in which the function of the brain is characterisedas ‘interpreting’ (hermēneus) what is derived from the air outside.This is in many respects a key text, not least because of the author’s polemicstance to rival views:For these reasons I believe that the brain is the most powerful part in a humanbeing. So long as it is healthy, it is the interpreter of what comes to the body fromthe air. Consciousness is provided by the air. The eyes, ears, tongue, hands andfeet carry out what the brain knows, for throughout the body there is a degreeof consciousness proportionate to the amount of air which it receives. As far asunderstanding is concerned, the brain is also the part that transmits this, for whena man draws in a breath it first arrives at the brain, and from there it is distributedover the rest of the body, having left behind in the brain its best portion andwhatever contains consciousness and thought. For if the air went first to the bodyand subsequently to the brain, the power of discerning thinking would be left tothe flesh and to the blood vessels; it would reach the brain in a hot and no longerpure state but mixed with moisture from the flesh and from the blood so that itwould no longer be accurate. I therefore state that the brain is the interpreter ofconsciousness.The diaphragm (phrenes), however, does not have the right name, but it hasgot this by chance and through convention. I do not know in virtue of whatthe diaphragm can think and have consciousness (phronein), except that if a mansuddenly feels pleasure or pain, the diaphragm leaps up and causes throbbing,because it is thin and under greater tension than any other part of the body, andit has no cavity into which it might receive anything good or bad that comesupon it, but because of the weakness of its structure it is subject to disturbanceby either of these forces, since it does not perceive faster than any other partof the body. Rather, it has its name and reputation for no good reason, justas parts of the heart are called auricles though they make no contribution tohearing.Some say that we owe our consciousness to our hearts and that it is the heartwhich suffers pain and feels anxiety. But this is not the case; rather, it is torn justlike the diaphragm, and even more than that for the same reasons: for blood vesselsfrom all parts of the body run to the heart, and it encapsulates these, so that it canfeel if any pain or tension occurs in a human being. Moreover, it is necessary for thebody to shudder and to contract when it feels pain, and when it is overwhelmed byjoy it experiences the same. This is why the heart and the diaphragm are particularlysensitive. Yet neither of these parts has any share in consciousness; rather, it is thebrain which is responsible for all these. (16–17 [6.390–4 L.]) 1515 Translation Jones in Jones and Withington (1923–31) vol. i, modified; section divisions according toGrensemann.