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. l]

the cause ;
Iatrica, XI. (end).
Menecrates that the body is composed of blood, bile, breath and phlegm, and that health is a harmony of these.
Ibid., XIX.

The Hippocratic collection shows similar diversity of opinion. Diseases IV. 51, gives as the four humours bile, blood, phlegm and ὕδρωψ (not water, but a watery humour).
Littré VII. 584.
Affections I. ascribes all diseases to bile and phlegm.
Ibid., VI. 208.
Ancient Medicine recognizes an indefinite number of humours.

The great Hippocratic group imply the doctrine of humours in its phraseology and outlook on symptoms, but it is in the background, and nowhere are the humours described. It is clear, however, that bile and phlegm are the most prominent, and bilious and phlegmatic temperaments are often mentioned in Airs Waters Places and Epidemics I. and III. There are signs of subdivision in πικρόχολοι
Regimen in Acute Diseases, XXXIII. : οἱ πικ̣όχολοι τὰ ἄνω : Epidemics III. XIV. (end).
and λευκοφλεγματίαι.
Epidemics III. XIV.

Amid all these differences, which by their very variety indicate that they belonged to theory without seriously affecting practice, there is one common principle--that health is a harmonious mingling of the constituents of the body. What these constituents are is not agreed, nor is it clear what exactly is meant by "mingling."

The word ἄκρητος, which I have translated "unmixed" or "uncompounded," is said by Galen to mean "consisting of one humour only." It is more