Medicine and philosophy - Classical Homeopathy Online

140 Aristotle and his schoolit would be the only way to provide a solid basis for assessing the theorypresented in the Problemata, and because attempts to relate this theory topre-Aristotelian, especially medical views have proved unsuccessful. 5 Despiteextensive research, the concept of melancholy in the HippocraticCorpus remains a complicated issue. 6 Early Hippocratic writings describemelancholy only as a disease, sometimes very specifically as a pathologicalchange of colour of the fluid bile. Significantly, these writings do refer tothe so-called constitutional type of ‘the melancholic’ (ho melancholikos), yetwithout providing clarity on the underlying physiological theory, and inany case it is nowhere related to a bodily fluid called ‘black bile’. 7 The Hippocraticwriting On the Nature of Man (c. 400 bce) seems to be the first torecognise black bile as a bodily fluid in its own right, but this recognitiondoes not result in the concept of ‘the melancholic’. 8 While the details of thisrecognition of black bile – in addition to yellow bile, blood and phlegm –as one of the four bodily fluids that form the basis for physical health arestill open to dispute, 9 it is clear, as Müri and Flashar have shown, thatin order to establish a link between the bodily fluid ‘black bile’ (melainacholē) and the constitutional type of ‘the melancholic’, at least one furtherstep is required. The problem is that, on the one hand, this step was supposedlyfirst made in Aristotle’s school (according to Jouanna (1975) 296),whereas on the other hand the Aristotelian use of ‘the melancholics’ as anestablished term seems to suggest that this step had already been taken. Isay ‘seems’, for it is by no means certain that Aristotle actually associatedthe term ho melancholikos with this ‘constitutional type’ and its affiliatedtheory of the four humours. 10 There is even doubt as to whether Aristotle’suse of the term has anything to do with a physiological theory on blackbile. 11 There is some justification for this doubt in that the adjective melancholikos(just as melancholōdēs and the verb melancholan) was also used innon-medical discourse of the fifth and fourth centuries bce and often5 Müri (1953) 38; Flashar (1962) 714; Flashar (1966) 62.6 In addition to the works by Müri and Flashar see Roy (1981) and Joly (1975) 107–28.7 See Flashar (1966) 32–5; Müri (1953) 30–2; Dittmer (1940) 95.8 Flashar (1966) 43; Jouanna (1975) 296.9 I am referring to the controversy between Joly (1969) 150–7; Joly (1975) 107–10; and Jouanna (1975)48–9; also Roy (1981) 11–19; it concerns the date of this recognition and any differences between thehumoral systems of the schools of Cos and Cnidos (cf. Grensemann (1968c) 103–4 and Lonie (1981)54–62).10 Cf. the following statement by Lucas (1968) 284, which is entirely unfounded: ‘Aristotle, who hadbeen trained as a physician, accepted the Hippocratic theory of the human constitution, namelythat health depends on the proper balance of the four humours present in the body, blood, phlegm,yellow bile, and black bile.’ The fact that Aristotle knew the Hippocratic work On the Nature of Man(cf. Hist. an. 512 b 12) has no bearing on this question.11 Dirlmeier (1956) 491; W.D.Ross(1955) 252.