[p. lxii]
used of excreta, etc., should be translated "copious"
or "abundant" unless the context makes the other
meaning absolutely necessary.
The case is somewhat similar with the word σμικρά.
Used adverbially this word means "slightly," "a
little," more often than it does "in small quantities."
σμικρὰ κατενόει is almost certainly "lucid intervals,"
and σμικρὰ ἐκοιμήθη is "snatches of sleep," but I do
not feel sure that σμικρὰ παρέκρουσε means more
than "slight delirium," nor σμικρὰ ἐπύρεξε (Epid.
III. XIII.) more than "slightly feverish."
11. THE IONIC DIALECT OF THE HIPPOCRATIC
COLLECTION.
The later MSS. of the Corpus exhibit a mass of
pseudo-ionic forms which are not to be found, or are
only rarely found, in the earlier MSS. The uncontracted
forms, too, are more common in the later
authorities. If we follow closely the earlier MSS.
we have a text which is very like Attic, with a mild
sprinkling of Ionic forms. These facts seem to show
that, when Ionic became the medium of scientific
prose, it lost touch gradually with the spoken speech
and assimilated itself to the predominant Attic,
and later on possibly to the κοινή. It retained
just enough Ionic to keep up the tradition and to
conform to convention. The later scribes, under the
mistaken impression that the texts before them had
been atticized, restored what they considered to be
the ancient forms, often with disastrous results.
Many of their ionisms are sheer monstrosities.
In 1894 A. W. Smyth discussed the dialect of the
Corpus in his work The Sounds and Inflections of the
