Medicine and philosophy - Classical Homeopathy Online

286 Late antiquity‘powers’ () is likely to bring many errors with it. 20 For a generalisingstatement about the supposed dietetic or pharmacological powerof a substance may in many particular cases turn out to be completelyfalse when it lacks important qualifications () concerning theparticular bodily constitution of the patient and the circumstances underwhich it is to be administered. 21 This error may be due to the fact thatthe empirical evidence adduced in favour of the statement has not beenproperly interpreted, for instance because it has been torn out of context orincorrectly extrapolated or generalised. 22 Galen illustrates this by means ofexamples concerning the digestibility or laxativeness of certain foodstuffssuch as honey-drink () and ‘rock fish’ ( ). 23 Thusa foodstuff which is said to be easily digestible may in certain cases be quitedifficult to digest because of an incidental or structural predominance ofyellow bile in the intestines due to a bad temperament () orapeculiarity of the bodily condition of the patient ( ). 24A general statement about the power of this particular foodstuff shouldtake this kind of complicating, variable factors into account.20 1.1.7 (CMG v4, 2, p.204.6–7 Helmreich, 6.457 K.). On the connection between error and lackof qualification see n. 7 above and von Staden (1997). As becomes clear from the sequel of Galen’sargument, his criticism is especially directed towards too rash generalisations and overconfident causalexplanations; cf. De simpl. med. fac. 1.34 (11.441 K.): ‘Neither of the two statements is true whenput simply and without qualification, neither when people say that all astringent substances cause awound to close, nor when they say that all [wounds] that are closed are closed because of astringentsubstances’ ( ), and 2.3 (11.466 f. K.). This Galenic criticism stands in a long tradition already attestedin the Hippocratic Corpus and in Diocles: see ch. 2 in this volume.21 The term occurs a number of times in this chapter: see p. 210.14–16 (6.469 K., a criticismof Diocles’ failure to distinguish between the notions of ‘foodstuff’ and ‘drug’), p. 212.3 and 7 (6.472K.), p. 215.19 (6.478 K.), p. 216.5 and 14 Helmreich (6.479 K.).22 On undue generalisations see also De alim. facult. 1.1.43 (CMG v4, 2,p.215.18–20 Helmreich, 6.478K.): ‘I said “not few”, being very careful not to say “all”, for here, too, qualifications are neededaccording to which the conditions of people with chronic diarrhoea will be discovered’ ( , ).23 Thus at 1.1.8 (CMG v4, 2,p.204.17 Helmreich, 6.458 K.) he refers to Erasistratus (fr. 117 Garofalo)for having pointed out that ‘neither does honey-wine cause the stomach to flow in all cases, nor dolentils check it in all cases; rather is it the case that some people, in addition to experiencing neitherof these, are affected by the opposite, to the effect that their stomachs are checked by honey-wine,but are caused to flow by lentils; and some people have been found to digest beef more easily thanrock fish’ ( ).24 1.1.9–10 (CMG v4, 2, p.205.5ff. Helmreich, 6.459 K.).