Medicine and philosophy - Classical Homeopathy Online

26 Medicine and Philosophy in Classical Antiquityespecially because of his anatomical research and discoveries, his views onphysiology, embryology and the role of pneuma, his views on gynaecology,and his development of a theory of regimen in health, food, and lifestyle,thus contributing to the increasing influence of doctors and medical writerson areas such as hygiene, cookery, gymnastics and sports.Apart from Diocles’ more specifically medical views, his relationship tothe Hippocratic writers is also manifest in two issues that reflect the ‘metamedical’or philosophical nature of his approach to medicine. First, thereare the principles of Dioclean therapeutics, which are at the heart of thequestion about the purposes of medical activity, and especially therapeuticintervention, in the light of more general considerations regarding the ethicalaspects of medical practice and the question of the limits of doctors’competence with regard to areas not strictly concerned with the treatmentof disease (ch. 3). The Hippocratic writings, and especially the famousOath, first of all reflect on the duties and responsibilities the doctor has inrelation to the patient, for example in articulating such famous principlesas ‘to do no harm’, not to cause death, or in advocating confidentiality,self-restraint, discretion, gentleness, acting without fear or favour. Yet, interestingly,they also emphasise the need for moral and religious integrityof the practitioner and for correspondence between theory and practice.Furthermore, in the field of dietetics, the Hippocratics’ development of thenotions of moderation, ‘the mean’, and the right balance between oppositesprovided concepts and ways of thinking that found their way into ethicaldiscussions as we find them in Plato and Aristotle; and, paradoxically, theirtendency to ‘naturalise’ aspects of human lifestyle such as sexual behaviour,physical exercise, eating and drinking patterns by presenting these in termsof healthy or harmful provided useful arguments to those participants inethical debates stressing the naturalness or unnaturalness of certain formsof human behaviour.A further issue that occupied the interests of philosophers as well asmedical writers like the Hippocratic writers and Diocles was the questionof the location of the mind, or the question of the cognitive function ofthe heart, the blood and the brain (ch. 4). This was a question that laterattracted great interest in Hellenistic philosophy, where medical evidenceplayed a major (though by no means decisive) role in the discussion, butthe way for this debate was already paved in the medical writings of the fifthcentury, though in a slightly different context, for in their discussions ofdisease, the Hippocratic writers frequently also discussed mental illness andother disturbances of the mental, cognitive, behavioural or motor functionsof the body. What is striking here is that in many of these cases the authors