Hippocrates Collected Works I


Hippocrates Collected Works I



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. 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.
   

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

1. Greek Medicine and Hippocrates

WE have learned to associate, almost by instinct, the science of medicine with bacteria, with chemistry, with clinical thermometers, disinfectants, and all the apparatus of careful nursing. All such associations, if we wish even dimly to appreciate the work of Hippocrates and of his predecessors, we must endeavour to break ; we must unthink the greater part of those habits of thought which education has made second nature. The Greek knew that there were certain collections of morbid phenomena which he called diseases ; that these diseases normally ran a certain course ; that their origin was not unconnected with geographical and atmospheric environment ; that the patient, in order to recover his health, must modify his ordinary mode of living. Beyond this he knew, and could know, nothing, and was compelled to fill up the blanks in his knowledge by having recourse to conjecture and hypothesis. In doing so he was obeying a human instinct which assures us that progress requires the use of stop-gaps where complete and accurate knowledge is unattainable, and that a working hypothesis, although wrong, is better than no hypothesis at all. System, an organized scheme, is of greater value than chaos. Yet however healthy such an instinct may be, it has

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