Medicine and philosophy - Classical Homeopathy Online

60 Hippocratic Corpus and Diocles of Carystusgrowth, and that the prophasies are mentioned because they are simply theexternal starting-points of this process, which set the mechanism in motion.It turns out that neither of the two interpretations is completely free fromdifficulties. Yet it seems that the problems involved in the first are morenumerous and compelling than those inherent to the second; moreover,the second is closer to the wording of the text. Therefore, it is preferable toconclude that according to the author of On the Sacred Disease diseases aredivine in virtue of having a nature, and that the supposedly divine statusof their prophasies has nothing to do with it. But in any case, as far as thequestion of the ‘theology’ of the treatise is concerned, it suffices to say thaton both views the divine character of the disease is based upon naturalfactors.3 reconstructions of the author’s theologyOn the basis of either of these interpretations, or a combination of them,scholars have tried to reconstruct the author’s theology or religious thought.These reconstructions have resulted in a conception in which ‘the divine’(to theion) is regarded as an immanent natural principle or natural ‘law’governing all natural processes and constituting the imperishable orderwithin the ever flowing natural phenomena. It is sometimes stated that this‘divine’ is identified with nature and that to theion is equal to hē phusis or tokata phusin. 38 As a consequence, it is claimed that the author of On the SacredDisease does not believe in supernatural divine intervention within naturalprocesses and human affairs. For the practical interest of the physician thisconception has two important implications. First, diseases are no longerregarded as concrete effects of deliberate divine dispensation or as godsentpollutions; second, for the treatment of the disease an appeal to thehealing power of the gods (as made in temple medicine) is unnecessary oreven useless, since the cure of the disease can be accomplished by ordinarynatural means.Both implications seem to obtain for the writer of On the Sacred Disease,for he explicitly denies the diseases are god-sent in the traditional sense (1.44,6.362 L.) and he claims that the disease can be cured by means of dieteticmeasures (18.3–6, 6.394–6 L.). In this way his positive theological statementsmight be viewed as providing the general philosophical framework on whichhis aetiological and therapeutic views are based.38 Lloyd (1979) 31; Ducatillon (1977) 202.