Medicine and philosophy - Classical Homeopathy Online

72 Hippocratic Corpus and Diocles of CarystusRegimen is another matter which cannot be discussed here – though here,too, interpreters have been misguided by a priori conceptions of ‘mythic religiosity’.65 It will be clear that on the above interpretation of On the SacredDisease the positions advanced in the two treatises are not so far removedfrom each other. An important point is that the author of On Regimenrecommends prayers in various sorts of diseases, whereas the writer of Onthe Sacred Disease would probably do so only – if ever – in hopeless cases.On the other hand it must be conceded that the author of On Regimensubstantiates his claim to the ability to cure far more elaborately than theauthor of On the Sacred Disease, who confines himself to just a few generalremarks on therapy which may apply to any disease. 66 But the treatisesdiffer so widely in purpose and method that comparisons are problematic.The sole object of mentioning On Regimen is to show the danger of usingapparent differences in ‘theology’ or ‘religiosity’ between the variousHippocratic treatises as evidence for establishing the relative dates of thetreatises. 67PostscriptMajor discussions of On the Sacred Disease that have come out since theoriginal publication of this paper are Stol (1993), Roselli (1996), Hankinson(1998c), Wöhlers (1999), Laskaris (2002), Jouanna (2003) and Lloyd (2003)43–50. While some scholars (Hankinson, Jouanna, Roselli) have acceptedmy position regarding the author’s religious beliefs, others (Laskaris, Lloyd)prefer to read the author’s arguments in chapter 1 predominantly as rhetoricaland not necessarily expressing the author’s own views. My suggestionto prefer the reading in 18.2 has been adopted by Roselli, though65 See Nörenberg (1968) 78: ‘Trotz seiner medizinischen Kenntnisse verschiedener Diäten undkrankhafter Zustände unterliegt dieser Verfasser noch ganz dem Aberglauben’; and Thivel (1975)64: ‘Il existe probablement, dans la Collection hippocratique, peu de traités qui se tiennent aussiéloignés du véritable esprit scientifique.’ Both Kudlien and Nörenberg point to the belief in divinedreams (4.87.1) as evidence of this; but this belief was hardly ever questioned throughout the classicalperiod (with the exception of Aristotle). One of the interesting characteristics of On Regimen 4 is thatthe author states that he will not deal with divine dreams, but only with those dreams which have aphysical origin, while at the same time incorporating religious instructions among his therapeuticremarks. This is, of course, not an inconsistency or a sign of the alleged ‘compilatory’ character ofthe book (as van Lieshout (1980, 186–7) seems to think), but an interesting example of the surprisingrelations between science and religion of which Greek medicine provides evidence (see Lloyd (1979)42).66 This may be because his claims concerning the curability of the disease are actually quite weak (seeLloyd (1979) 22, 49 and 56–7), but it may just as well be due to the purpose of the treatise, whichdoes not aim at giving therapeutic details. [It should further be noted that the author of On Regimenis first of all concerned with the prevention of disease rather than its cure; see van der Eijk (2004a).]67 Contra Kudlien (1977) 274 and Nörenberg (1968) 78.