Medicine and philosophy - Classical Homeopathy Online

290 Late antiquitymost of the qualifications can be reduced, is to distinguish essential (’) from accidental ( ) factors. Some distinctions concernvariations between different substances, but several may apply to oneand the same substance, or occur with different species of one and the samesubstance.Hence we may say that there is a keen awareness, on Galen’s part, ofthe fact that the outcome of an empirical test of a certain substance’s effectdepends to a very high degree on the conditions under which it is applied.In a number of cases we can see Galen actually defining these conditionson the basis of a set of diorismoi, qualifications or distinctions that are to betaken into account, and on the basis of a knowledge of which conditionsare relevant and which are not. Only by taking the relevant qualificationsinto account can one arrive at a correct general statement () about thepower of a particular substance. 45As for the relation of ‘qualified experience’ to reason and experience, itis interesting to note that Galen, as already stated, presents the notion inopposition both to ‘reason’ () 46 and to ‘experience without reason’. 47This can be well understood when considering the qualifications that I havejust enumerated. Some of these diorismoi can be accepted as observable:for example, we can simply observe that in summer the effects of a givendrug are different from those brought about when it is administered inwinter, or that a certain drug is beneficial to younger people but harmful toolder people, and we may conclude from this that these distinctions are therelevant determining factors (although it may be objected that their actuallyhaving a causative influence is, strictly speaking, not observable). Yet thereare also determining factors which do not admit of being observed, at leastnot in a straightforward sense. This is especially the case with physiologicalstates and processes of the kind referred to in the chapter of On the Powersof Foodstuffs (such as a , a ‘bad mixture’ of humours, a particularstate of the bowels or the stomach, etc.). The existence or occurrence ofthese, and their actually being a conditioning factor, is – as Galen himselfacknowledges without any misgivings 48 – to be theoretically postulated,or to be inferred on the basis of symptoms, such as the occurrence of a45 For examples of such statements see n. 65 below. 46 See n. 17 above.47 De alim. facult. 1.1.7 (CMG v4, 2, p.204.6–9 Helmreich, 6.458 K.); see also next note.48 De alim. facult. 1.1.44 (CMG v4, 2,p.215.21–3 Helmreich, 6.478 K.): ‘For in general it is not possibleto test anything properly by experience without first discovering accurately by means of reason thecondition of the body to which the food or drug that is being tested is applied’ ( (sc. ), ).