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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PRECEPTS

PRECEPTS
 [p. 315]

begins, not from a clear impression, but from a plausible fiction,
I. e., if the general statement from which we deduce conclusions be a plausible but untrue hypothesis. Conclusions drawn from such hypotheses lead to nowhere.
it often induces a grievous and troublesome condition. All who so act are lost in a blind alley. Now no harm would be done if bad practitioners received their due wages. But as it is their innocent patients suffer, for whom the violence of their disorder did not appear sufficient without the addition of their physician's inexperience. I must now pass on to another subject.


PART 2

II. But conclusions which are merely verbal cannot bear fruit, only those do which are based on demonstrated fact. For affirmation and talk are deceptive and treacherous. Wherefore one must hold fast to facts in generalisations also,
Or, possibly, " even from beginning to end."
and occupy oneself with facts persistently, if one is to acquire that ready and infallible habit which we call " the art of medicine." For so to do will bestow a very great advantage upon sick folk and medical practitioners. Do not hesitate to inquire of laymen, if thereby there seems likely to result any improvement in treatment. For so I think the whole art has been set forth, by observing some part of the final end in each of many particulars, and then combining all into a single whole. So one must pay attention to generalities in incidents, with help and quietness rather than with professions and the excuses that accompany ill-success.