Medicine and philosophy - Classical Homeopathy Online

38 Medicine and Philosophy in Classical Antiquitythat a particular observation is ‘worth writing down’ (axion graphēs); 56 andan interesting passage in On Regimen in Acute Diseases refers to initial codification(sungraphein) of the ‘Cnidian sentences’ and subsequent revision(epidiaskeuazesthai) by a later generation in the light of further discoveriesand growing experience (2.224–8 L.). Another remarkable reference to theuse of written records is to be found at Epidemics 6.8.7 (5.346 L.), wherea section of text is introduced by the words ‘(data) derived from the smallwriting-tablet’ (ta ek tou smikrou pinakidiou), suggesting that the authoris drawing on an existing collection (an archive or ‘database’) of information.57 As Langholf has suggested, the fact that many ‘chapters’ or ‘sections’in the Hippocratic Epidemics are of approximately the same length, maybe explained by reference to the material conditions in which informationwas stored, such as the size of writing-tablets. 58These passages indicate that the Hippocratic writers gradually realisedthe importance of written documents for the preservation and transmissionof knowledge; also that they regarded these written records not as the intellectualproperty of one person, but as a common reservoir of knowledgeaccessible to a group of physicians (who copied and used the same informationmore than once, as can be seen from the doublets in the Hippocraticwritings) and admitting of additions and changes by this same group ofphysicians. The significance of this for our understanding of these texts canhardly be overstated. Rather than claiming that in the case of Hippocraticmedicine the transition from orality to literacy brought about a change inmental attitude and even in thinking, as has been suggested by Miller andLonie, 59 it seems more likely that, conversely, the development of prosewriting, and the various forms in which the Hippocratic writers expressedthemselves, is to be understood as a consequence of new ways of thinking –or rather as the result of a new attitude towards knowledge, resulting ina desire to store data gained by practical experience, to systematise themand to make them accessible for future use. It seems very likely that theHippocratic authors regarded writing as an instrument for the organisationof knowledge concerning a great variety of phenomena, that is, not onlyin order to prevent knowledge from being forgotten – a desire they sharedwith, for example Herodotus – but also to keep knowledge available for56 On Regimen in Acute Diseases 3 (2.238 L.); 16 (2.254 L.); On Joints 10 (4.104 L.).57 For a discussion of this phrase, and in general of the material conditions for writing in the HippocraticCorpus, see Langholf (1989a); Nieddu (1993); Althoff (1993). Cf. also the Hippocratic Prorrheticon2.4 (9.20 L.).58 Langholf (1989a).59 G. L. Miller (1990); Lonie (1983); more in general Goody (1968) and Havelock (1982a).