Medicine and philosophy - Classical Homeopathy Online

chapter 2Diocles and the Hippocratic writings on the methodof dietetics and the limits of causal explanation1 introductionIn antiquity Diocles of Carystus enjoyed the reputation of being a ‘youngerHippocrates’, or ‘second in fame and venerability to Hippocrates’. 1 Yet thisdid not prevent him from developing his own ideas and from writing medicaltreatises in his own style in the Attic dialect. To be sure, later reports onhis doctrines often represent him as being in perfect agreement with ‘Hippocrates’on various subjects; 2 but the fragments of his works that havebeen preserved, show that the authority of ‘the great Coan’ did not preventhim from taking issue with some ideas and practices that are similar to whatis to be found in texts which we call Hippocratic. 3 Of course we do notknow whether Diocles, if he had actually read these works, took them tobe by Hippocrates – in fact, if we accept Wesley Smith’s suggestion that theHippocratic Corpus was created by third-century Alexandrian philologistswho brought together a number of anonymous medical works into one collectionunder the name of Hippocrates, 4 we may wonder whether anythinglike Hippocratic authority already existed in Diocles’ time (not to mentionthe fact that Diocles’ date itself is the subject of another controversy). It isnot even certain that Diocles had ever heard of Hippocrates or was familiarwith any of his genuine works. 5This chapter was first published in R. Wittern and P. Pellegrin (eds.), Hippokratische Medizin und antikePhilosophie (Hildesheim, 1996) 229–57.1 (Pseudo-)Vindicianus, On the Seed 2 (Diocles, fr. 3); Pliny, Natural History 26.10 (Diocles, fr. 4). TheDiocles fragments are numbered according to my edition (2000a, 2001a), which replaces the editionby Wellmann (1901).2 See, for example, frs. 26, 27, 28, 33, 36 and 52.3 See, for example, frs. 55a, 55b and 57. 4 Smith (1990a) 6–18.5 Notwithstanding Wellmann’s view (1901, 64) that Diocles was familiar with many Hippocratic writingsand even was the creator of the Hippocratic Corpus, there are no verbatim attestations thatDiocles knew Hippocrates’ name or that he took several writings to be Hippocratic. The only exceptionis fr. 55b (Stephanus of Athens, Commentary on Hippocrates’ Aphorisms 2.33,p.210,30ff. Westerink(CMG xi 1, 3, 1)), where Diocles is quoted as arguing explicitly against Hippocrates, but this seemsto be a doxographic construction (Stephanus is generally believed to rely on Galen’s commentary74