Medicine and philosophy - Classical Homeopathy Online

132 Hippocratic Corpus and Diocles of CarystusThe structure of the explanation is clear: the disease is caused by ablockage of the passages which tentacle out from a cognitive centre over therest of the body and which are responsible for transporting ‘consciousnessbearing’material, in this case pneuma. The brain is the ‘cause’ (aitios) ofthe disease, and its condition can be influenced by a number of externalcausal factors (prophaseis) such as age, climate, season, the right or left sideof the body, and the like.A haematocentric approach to epilepsy can be found in the Hippocraticwriting On Breaths. The author of this highly rhetorical treatise (probablywritten at the end of the fifth century bce) assigns a pivotal role to air(pneuma, phusa) in the life of organisms. He takes the view that the maincause of diseases consists in a shortage or excess of air in the body or inthe contaminated state of this air. This may either have external causes orbe due to bad digestion of food, which also contains air, in the body (forinstance because there is too much of it in the body) which causes all kindsof harmful gases to form. Such a disturbing effect of air due to a surplusof it is also what causes the ‘so-called sacred disease’. It is again strikinghow the author incorporates the empirically perceptible phenomena of thedisease in his own explanation:In my view, the same cause is also responsible for the disease called sacred . . . Ibelieve that none of the parts of the body that contribute to consciousness in anyoneis more important than blood. So long as this remains in a stable condition,consciousness, too, remains stable; but when the blood undergoes change, consciousnessalso changes. There are many things that testify that this is the case. Firstof all, an affection which is common to all living beings, namely sleep, testifies towhat has just been said. When sleep comes upon the body, the blood is chilled,for it is the nature of sleep to cause chill. When the blood is chilled, its passagesbecome more sluggish. This is evident; the body leans and gets heavy . . . the eyesclose, and consciousness is changed, and certain other thoughts remain present,which are called dreams . . . So if all of the blood is brought in a state of completeturmoil, consciousness is completely destroyed. . . . I state that the sacred diseaseis caused in the following way. When much wind has been mixed throughoutthe body with all the blood, many obstructions arise in many places in the bloodvessels. Whenever therefore much air weighs, and continues to weigh, upon thethick, blood-filled blood vessels, the blood is prevented from passing on. So inone place it stops, in another it passes slowly, in another more quickly. When theprogress of the blood through the body becomes irregular, all kinds of irregularitiesoccur. The whole body is torn in all directions; the parts of the body are shaken inobedience to the troubling and disturbance of the blood; distortions of every kindoccur in every manner. At this time the patients are unconscious of everything –deaf to what is spoken, blind to what is happening, and insensible to pain. Sogreatly does a disturbance of the air disturb and pollute the blood. Foam rises