Medicine and philosophy - Classical Homeopathy Online

312 Late antiquityAnd even if this were hidden in the parts, this would pose no problem for theMethodists, who have proposed general treatments appropriate to diseases, evenmedicaments with which particularly the hidden parts are to be treated. One shouldknow, then, that this disease [sc. catalepsy] originates from the same antecedentcauses by which the other diseases are brought about, indigestion, drunkenness, theeating of meat and things similar to these. , whose views are expoundedhere, which we have humbly intended to put into Latin, tells that he has seen manyyoung children being laid low by this disease as a result of untimely or excessiveeating. Yet he says that it is not necessary to take account of a difference in precedingcauses for the treatment, as it is the present Methodists ought to observe.(13) nos autem superfluum fuisse causas passionis dicere iudicamus, cum sit necessariumid, quod ex causis conficitur, edocere. multo autem ac magis superfluumdicimus etiam causas antecedentes diffinitionibus adiungi. (Acut. 3.19.190)We however judge that it was superfluous to state the causes of a disease, when itis necessary to set forth what is brought about by [these] causes. Yet even muchmore superfluous we consider the inclusion of preceding causes in the definitions.(14) una est enim atque eadem passio ex qualibet veniens causa, quae una atqueeadem indigeat curatione. (Acut. 2.13.87)For the disease is one and the same, from whatever cause it comes, and it calls forone and the same treatment.(15) sed non secundum has differentias erit efficacia curationis mutanda, siquidemantecedentes causae, quamquam diuersae, unam facere passionem uideantur.(Chron. 2.14.196)But the effectiveness of the treatment ought not to be changed in accordance withthese differences, as preceding causes, diverse though they are, seem to bring aboutone [and the same] disease.(16) sunt autem passionis [sc. sanguinis fluoris] antecedentes causae, ut saepe approbatumest, percussio uel casus . . . sed non erit secundum has differentias curationisregula commutanda. (Chron. 2.9.118)The preceding causes of this disease [sc. haemorrhage] are, as has often beenestablished, a blow, a fall . . . but the mode of treatment ought not to be changedaccording to these differences.All these passages (and there are several more in Caelius’ work making thesame point) 58 are in unison and confirm the disregard for causal explanationsof diseases which seems so characteristic of Methodism.However, we frequently find Caelius engaged in the causal explanationof a disease without any explicit reservation, usually in the significatio of thedisease, where he lists the antecedent causes of the disease (in the majority58 E.g. Acut. 1.1.23; 3.6.64; 3.22.221.