Medicine and philosophy - Classical Homeopathy Online

chapter 1The ‘theology’ of the Hippocratic treatiseOn the Sacred Disease1 introductionThe author of the Hippocratic treatise On the Sacred Disease is renownedfor his criticism of magical and superstitious conceptions and modes oftreatment of epilepsy. He has been credited with attempting a ‘natural’or ‘rational’ explanation of a disease which was generally believed to beof divine origin and to be curable only by means of apotropaeic ritualand other magical instruments. 1 One interesting point is that he does notreject the divine character of the disease, but modifies the sense in whichthis disease (and, as a consequence of this conception, all diseases) may beregarded as divine: not in the sense that it is sent by a god, for exampleas a punishment, 2 and is to be cured by this same god, 3 but that it sharesin the divine character of nature in showing a fixed pattern of cause andeffect and in being subordinated to what may perhaps be called, somewhatanachronistically, a natural ‘law’ or regularity. 4On the basis of these positive statements on the divine character of thedisease various interpreters have tried to deduce the writer’s ‘theology’ orreligious beliefs, and to relate this to the development of Greek religiousthought in the fifth century. 5 The details of this reconstruction will concernus later; for the present purpose of clarifying the issue of this chapter itsuffices to say that in this theology the divine is regarded as an immanentThis chapter was first published in Apeiron 23 (1990) 87–119.1 On the various possible reasons why epilepsy was regarded as a ‘sacred’ disease see Temkin (1971)6–10.2 On the moral and non-moral aspects of pollution by a disease see Parker (1983) 235ff.3 On the principle that ‘he who inflicted the injury will also provide the cure’ ( ),as on other details of this belief, see Ducatillon (1977) 159–79. The identity, claims and practices ofthe magicians have also been studied by Lanata (1967); Temkin (1971) 10–15; Dölger (1922) 359–77;Moulinier (1952) 134–7; Nilsson (1955) 798–800.4 On the meaning of the word ‘divine’ (theios) and on the divinity of diseases see section 2 below.5 Edelstein (1967a) 205–46; Kudlien (1977) 268–74; Lain-Entralgo (1975) 315–19; Lloyd (1975c) 1–16;Lloyd (1979) ch. 1; H. W. Miller (1953) 1–15; Nestle (1938) 1–16; Nörenberg (1968); Thivel (1975);Vlastos (1945) 581.45