Hippocrates Collected Works I

Hippocrates Collected Works I
By Hippocrates
Edited by: W. H. S. Jones (trans.)

Cambridge Harvard University Press 1868

Digital Hippocrates Collection Table of Contents


PREFACE

GENERAL INTRODUCTION
   1. Greek Medicine and Hippocrates
   2. The Hippocratic Collection
   3. Means of Dating Hippocratic Works
   4. Plato's References to Hippocrates
   5. THE COMMENTATORS AND OTHER ANCIENT AUTHORITIES.
   Galen
   6. LIFE OF HIPPOCRATES.
   7. THE ASCLEPIADAE.
   8. THE DOCTRINE OF HUMOURS.
   9. CHIEF DISEASES MENTIONED IN THE HIPPOCRATIC COLLECTION.
   10. πολύς AND ὀλίγος IN THE PLURAL.
   11. THE IONIC DIALECT OF THE HIPPOCRATIC COLLECTION.
   12. MANUSCRIPTS.

ANCIENT MEDICINE
   INTRODUCTION
   ANCIENT MEDICINE
   APPENDIX

AIRS WATERS PLACES
   INTRODUCTION
   MSS. AND EDITIONS.
   AIRS WATERS PLACES

EPIDEMICS I AND III
   INTRODUCTION
   EPIDEMICS I
   EPIDEMICS III: THE CHARACTERS
   EPIDEMICS III
   SIXTEEN CASES

THE OATH
   Introduction
   OATH

PRECEPTS
   INTRODUCTION
   PRECEPTS

NUTRIMENT
   INTRODUCTION
   NUTRIMENT

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GENERAL INTRODUCTION

8. THE DOCTRINE OF HUMOURS.
 [p. lii]

must have coloured the notion of πέψις as generally held. It is true that we read little about innate heat in the Hippocratic collection, but that is an accident, and it certainly was thought to have a powerful influence upon the bodily functions.
See Aphorisms, I. 14: τὰ αὐξανόυενα πλεῖς1τον ἔχει τὸ ἔμφυτον θερμόν: πλείστης οὖν δεῖται τροφῆς: εἰ δὲ μή, τὸ σῶμα ἀναλίσκεται κ.τ.λ.

A disease was supposed to result when the equilibrium of the humours, from some "exciting cause" or other (πρόφασις), was disturbed, and then nature, that is the constitution of the individual (φύς1ις), made every effort she could through coction to restore the necessary κρᾶσις.


Crisis

The battle between nature and the disease was decided on the day that coction actually took place or failed to take place. The result was recovery, partial or complete, aggravation of the disease, or death. The crisis (κρίσις) is "the determination of the disease as it were by a judicial verdict."
See Dr. E. T. Withington, Classical Review, May-June 1920, p. 65. There is a good definition of κρίσις in Affections VIII. (Littré VI. 216) : κρίνεσθαι δέ ἐς1τιν ἐν ταῖς νούσοις, ὅταν αὔξωνται αἱ νοῦς1οι ἢ ματαίνωνται ἢ μεταπίπτωσιν ἐς ἕτερον νόσημα ἢ τελεντῶσιν.

After a crisis there might, or might not, be a relapse (ὑποστροφή), which would be followed in due course by another crisis.

The crisis, if favourable, was accompanied by the expulsion of the residue remaining after coction and κρᾶσις of the humours had occurred. This expulsion