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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ANCIENT MEDICINE

INTRODUCTION

AMONG ancient writers Erotian is the only one who expressly ascribes this little treatise to Hippocrates himself. Modern critics generally regard it as old, but as not by Hippocrates, the chief exception being Littré. Adams is uncertain, but is inclined to think that Hippocrates was not the author.

Thus the external evidence in support of the view that Hippocrates was the author of this treatise is very slight indeed. The internal evidence is considerably stronger.

(1) The writer, like Hippocrates,
By "Hippocrates" is meant the writer of Prognostic, of Regimen in Acute Diseases, and of Epidemics, I., III.
holds that health is caused by a "coction" of the "humours."

(2) He recognises the importance of "critical" days in an illness.

(3) He holds that medical science is founded on observation and reasoning, not on speculation.

(4) He attaches great importance to the use of "slops" of various degrees of consistency.

All these doctrines are in conformity with the views expounded in the works assigned to Hippocrates. On the other hand, no stress is laid upon prognosis, which Hippocrates considered of primary importance. Again, it would be impossible to show from the works of Hippocrates that the father of