In the valuable Hippokratic composition — Περὶ Ἀρχαίης Ἰητρικῆς — (vol. i. pp. 570-636, ed. Littré) the author distinguished ἰητροί, properly so-called, from σοφισταί, who merely laid down general principles about medicine. He enters a protest against the employment, in reference to medicine, of those large and indefinite assumptions which characterised the works of Sophists or physical philosophers such as Empedokles (pp. 570-620, Littré). “Such compositions,” he says, “belong less to the medical art than to the art of literary composition” — ἐγὼ δὲ τουτέων μὲν ὅσα τινὶ εἴρηται σοφιστῇ ἢ ἰητρῷ, ἢ γέγραπται περὶ φύσιος, ἧσσον νομίζω τῇ ἰητρικῇ τέχνῃ προσήκειν ἢ τῇ γραφικῇ (p. 620). Such men cannot (he says) deal with a case of actual sickness: they ought to speak intelligible language — γνωστὰ λέγειν τοῖσι δημότῃσι (p. 572). Again, in the Treatise De Aere, Locis, et Aquis, Hippokrates defends himself against the charge of entering upon topics which are μετεωρολόγα (vol. ii. p. 14, Littré).
The Platonic Timæus would have been considered by Hippokrates as the work of a σοφιστής. It was composed not for professional readers alone, but for the public — ἐπίστασθαι ἐς ὅσον εἰκὸς ἰδιώτην — (Hippokrat. Περὶ Παθῶν, vol. vi. p. 208, Littré).
The Hippokratic treatises afford evidence of an established art, with traditions of tolerably long standing, a considerable medical literature, and even much oral debate on medical subjects — ἐναντίον ἀκροατέων (Hipp. Περὶ Νούσων, vol. vi. pp. 140-142-150, Littré). Ὃς ἂν περὶ ἰήσιος ἐθέλῃ ἐρωτᾷν τε ὀρθῶς, καὶ ἐρωτῶντι ἀποκρίνεσθαι, καὶ ἀντιλέγειν ὀρθῶς, ἐνθυμέεσθαι χρὴ τάδε (p. 140) … Ταῦτα ἐνθυμηθέντα διαφυλάσσειν δεῖ ἐν τοῖσι λόγοισιν· ὅ, τι ἂν δέ τις τούτων ἁμαρτάνῃ, ἢ λέγων ἢ ἐρωτῶν ἢ ἀποκρινόμενος, … ταύτῃ φυλάσσοντα χρὴ ἐπιτίθεσθαι ἐν τῇ ἀντιλογίῃ (p. 142).
The method, which Sokrates and Plato applied to ethical topics was thus applied by others to medicine and medical dogmas. How the dogmas of the Platonic Timæus would have fared, if scrutinised with oral interrogations in this spirit, by men even far inferior to Sokrates himself in acuteness — I will not say.
Contrast between the admiration of Plato for the constructors of the Kosmos, and the defective results which he describes.
From the glowing terms in which Plato describes the architectonic skill and foresight of those Gods who put together the three souls and the body of man, we should anticipate that the fabric would be perfect, and efficacious for all intended purposes, in spite of interruptions or accidents. But Plato, when he passes from purposes to results, is constrained to draw a far darker picture. He tells us that the mechanism of the human body will work well, only so long as the juncture of the constituent triangles is fresh and tight: after that period of freshness has passed, it begins to fail.[135] But besides this, there exist a formidable catalogue of diseases, attacking both body and mind: the cause of which (Plato says) “is plain to every one”: they proceed from excess, or deficiency, or displacement, of some one among the four constituent elements of the human body.[136] If we enquire why the wise Constructors put together their materials in so faulty a manner, the only reply to be made is, that the counteracting hand of Necessity was too strong for them. In the Hesiodic and other legends respecting anthropogony we find at least a happy commencement, and the deterioration gradually supervening after it. But Plato opens the scene at once with all the suffering reality of the iron age —
| Πλείη μὲν γὰρ γαῖα κακῶν, πλείη δὲ θάλασσα· Νοῦσοι δ’ ἀνθρώποισιν ἐφ’ ἡμέρῃ ἢδ’ ἐπὶ νυκτὶ Αὐτόματοι φοιτῶσι —[137] |
[135] Plat. Tim. pp. 81-89 B.
[136] Plat. Tim. p. 82. δῆλόν που καὶ παντί.
[137] Compare what Plato says in Republic, ii. p. 379 C, about the prodigious preponderance of κακὰ over ἀγαθὰ in the life of man.