Hippocrates Collected Works I

Hippocrates Collected Works I

Digital Hippocrates Collection Table of Contents

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. POLU/S AND O)LI/GOS 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

This electronic edition is funded by the National Library of Medicine History of Medicine Division. This text has been proofread to a low degree of accuracy. It was converted to electronic form using Data Entry.

EPIDEMICS I AND III

EPIDEMICS III: THE CHARACTERS

Now the first character, as I said, is always the letter II with the intersecting line, meaning in all cases "probable." At the end we see written either Υ or Θ, meaning "recovery" and "death" respectively. Before them is the number of the days at the end of which the patient recovered or died. The characters in the middle are in all cases (except the delta with a mark below it) the letters indicating the elements of the word.
That is, each middle character except one is a letter of the alphabet, and that letter is significant, being the initial of a word, or of several alternative words.
I will now state the meaning of each. Remember that the last character was said to signify recovery or death, and the last but one the number of the days, and I will now give a list of the others written between the number and the beginning. A signifies "miscarriage," "destruction"; Γ "urine like semen"; the letter with the mark underneath,
The text is probably mutilated, but the general meaning is clear.
written thus Δ, means "evacuations by sweats," "diarrhoea" and "perspiration,"
Surely this is wrong. Littré's suggestion ("stools") may possibly be correct.
and in general any evacuation ; Ε "retention," "seat"; Ζ "object of search"; Θ "death," as I said before ; Ι "sweat"; Κ "crisis" or "condition of the bowels"; Μ "madness" or "womb"; Ν "youth" or "mortification"; Ξ "yellow bile," "something strange and rare," "irritation," "dryness"; Ο "pains" or "urine," though some say it means urine only when it has the Υ placed above, written as the word οὕτως2 is generally written ; Π means "abundance," "sputum," "wheat,"
This again can surely not be correct. Littré's emendation is unconvincing.
"fever,"

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