Medicine and philosophy - Classical Homeopathy Online

28 Medicine and Philosophy in Classical Antiquityquestions; and moving on to the Imperial period, a particular mentionmust be made of Alexander of Aphrodisias, the second-century ce philosopherand commentator on Aristotle’s works. Two works on medical topics(Medical Problems, On Fevers) are attributed to Alexander, and even thoughtheir authenticity is disputed, there is no question that Alexander had agreat interest in medical issues (from a non-clinical, physiological point ofview). And he is clearly taken seriously as an authority in these areas by hisslightly later contemporary Galen. Furthermore, the two most striking representativesof early Hellenistic medicine, Herophilus and Erasistratus, areboth reported to have held close connections with the Peripatetic school.This is most evident in the case of Erasistratus, whose ideas on mechanicalversus teleological explanation mark a continuation of views expressed byTheoprastus and Strato and to some extent already by Aristotle himself.Likewise, Herophilus’ famous, if enigmatic, aphorism that ‘the phenomenashould be stated first, even if they are not first’, can be connected withAristotelian philosophy.Yet to suggest that Erasistratus and Herophilus were ‘Aristotelians’ woulddo grave injustice to their highly original ideas and the innovative aspectsof their empirical research, such as Herophilus’ discovery of the nervoussystem and Erasistratus’ dissections of the brain and the valves of the heart. Italso ignores their connections with developments in other sciences, notablymechanics, and with other philosophical movements, such as Scepticism(in particular regarding whether causes can be known) and Stoicism.The Hellenistic period was also the time in which the medical ‘sects’came into being: Empiricism, Dogmatism and Methodism. What separatedthese groups was in essence philosophical issues to do with the nature ofmedical knowledge, how it is arrived at and how it is justified. The precisechronological sequence of the various stages in this debate is difficult toreconstruct, but the theoretical issues that were raised had a major impacton subsequent medical thinking, especially on the great medical systems oflate antiquity, namely Galen’s and Methodism.Galen is one of those authors who have been rediscovered by classicistsand students of ancient philosophy alike, be it for his literary output,his mode of self-presentation and use of rhetoric, the picture he sketchesof the intellectual, social and cultural milieus in which he works and ofthe traditions in which he puts himself, and the philosophical aspects ofhis thought – both his originality and his peculiar blends of Platonism,Hippocratism and Aristotelianism. Galen’s work, voluminous in size aswell as in substance, represents a great synthesis of earlier thinking and atthe same time a systematicity of enormous intellectual power, breadth and