Eleatic offshoot had used epic hexameters to convey their speculations. From the time of the profound Heracleitus, Ionic prose, and probably the dialect of Miletus, came into use; and we find in the latter half of the fifth century, not only the Samian Melissus,' and the Clazomenian Anaxagoras, but the Thracian Democritus, the Cretan Apollonius, and the cosmopolitan Protagoras 2 writing in this accepted philosophic organ. It is remarkable, too, how the many actual quotations from these men show that terseness and vigour were perfectly attained in the language which strikes us as so diffuse and easy in Herodotus. Perhaps the most splendid specimen of this incisive and almost more than Thucydidean force and brevity is found in the genuine works of Hippocrates, who, though he may have taken that historian for his model, writes in pure Ionic, and approaches the style of Heracleitus far more than he does that of the Attic politician. The many treatises by later hands, which are transmitted to us under the name of Hippocrates, are composed in the same dialect, which had evidently become the established language of the school or medical guild of Kos. Such guilds are very tenacious of language, and Latin is not more universal in the medical prescriptions of the present day than Doric became at Athens in the next century, where Doric schools of medicine were highly esteemed. The scientific development of the Greek mind at this epoch does not belong to our subject, but I have called attention to the prevalence of Ionic prose among the most serious 1 Though it seems that the Elean Zeno, the comrade of Melissus in philosophy, agreed with him in adopting prose, instead of the epic verse of his master Parmenides, as his method of conveying his subtle dialectic, there is still no evidence that he wrote in Ionic prose. The citations from his book are in Attic, but may possibly have been all paraphrased by Aristotle, Simplicius, and Diogenes. The silence concerning his dialect is, however, good negative evidence that he wrote in old Attic. Blass (Att. Ber. i. 52) speaks of Gorgias as the first Attic orator, on somewhat similar evidence. But if the Sicilian rhetor, who only visited Athens in old age, was able to compose in Attic, Zeno, who came there in middle age, may have also done so, though he was not a professional orator. 2 Zeller, Phil. der Griechen, 1020, note. thinkers, as well as among the most frivolous anecdc tists, to show how easily we may make rash judgments about Greek dialects, and talk of the softness and weakness of the Ionic speech as an evidence of luxury and mental relaxation, whereas all the really earnest science of the day—I here waive the claims of the sophists-was expressed in this very dialect, and with a strength and compression which savours rather of harshness and obscurity than of simple and artless transparency. § 326. The life of HIPPOCRATES is shrouded in a strange mist, considering the extraordinary celebrity of the man. In the late biographies which remain to us the following facts seem worthy of record. A certain Soranus of Kos, otherwise unknown, is said to have made special researches among the records of the Asclepiad guild, in which Hippocrates was set down as the seventeenth in descent from the god Asclepios, and born on the 26th of the month Agrianus, in the year 460 B.C. The inhabitants were still offering him the honours of a hero. He seems to have travelled about a good deal, particularly in the countries around the northern Ægean, and to have died at an advanced age at Larissa in Thessaly, leaving two sons, Thessalus and Drakon. Many of his descendants and followers in the school of Kos were called after him-Suidas enumerates seven in all-so that this additional uncertainty of authorship attaches to his alleged writings. The many statues of him agreed in representing him with his head covered, a peculiarity which excited many baseless and some absurd conjectures. Ab-` stracting carefully from the numerous Hippocrates mentioned in contemporary Attic literature, there are two undoubted references to the great physician of Kos in Plato,' and one in Aristophanes, which establish the epoch assigned to him in the biographies. He is said to have been instructed by Herodicus of Selymbria, and Gorgias of Leontini, a legend arising merely from the confusing of this Herodicus with another physician who happened to be the brother of Gorgias. There is no vestige of either Herodicus' practice or Gorgias' rhetoric in the extant treatises; but Hippocrates assuredly, like Pericles, 2 Thesmoph. 274. 2 1 Protagoras, 311, A; Phædrus, 270, C. trained himself for a large knowledge of his special pursuit by a familiarity with the metaphysic of the day. His alleged study of the great plague at Athens is not corroborated by a comparison with Thucydides' account. The works pronounced genuine by Littré in the large collection of Hippocratic writings which still survive are these: the treatises on Ancient Medicine, on Prognosis (which includes our diagnosis in the largest sense), the Aphorisms, the tract on Climate (air, water, and situation), the Epidemics (i. and iii.), the Treatment of Acute Diseases, the tracts on joints, fractures, and surgical instruments applied to them, on head wounds, and the Oath and Law of the guild. It need hardly be added that several of these are disputed by more sceptical critics; but some of them, for example, the tracts on Climate and the Epidemics, are certainly genuine, and show that Hippocrates was not only a great physician and philosopher, but a literary genius of the highest order. It is, of course, quite mistaken to say that he originated Greek medicine; a large body of recorded facts, and of contesting theories, were before him; a great deal of practical knowledge had been accumulated, and had guided the treatment. of 'disease among his predecessors. In the Asclepeia or temple hospitals established at Athens, Epidauros, Knidos, Kos, Cyrene, and elsewhere, a great many cases were recorded in an empirical way. On the other hand, the physical philosophers, such as Empedocles, Democritus, and Anaxagoras, were constantly putting forth theories on the nature of man and the composition of the body. What was perhaps more important than either was the close study of physical conditions by the trainers in the palæstras. These men made hygiene and diet a matter of first-rate importance, and both they and the philosophers banished superstition from the study of health, and introduced that purely human and rational method of discussion which is so prominent in Hippocrates, and which gives his reasoning so strong a likeness to that of his contemporary Thucydides. From all these sources we can see materials 1 Here is a specimen : 1 (De aëre, aquis, locis. cap. 29.) Οἱ μὲν οὖν ἐπιχώριοι τὴν αἰτίην προστ τιθέασι θεῷ, καὶ σέβονται τούτους τοὺς ἀνθρώπους καὶ προσκυνέουσι, δεδοικότες drawn together to form a large and comprehensive system of medicine. Discarding all assumptions of abstract elements, or of various phenomena being deduced from one substance, Hippocrates seems to have insisted upon taking man as he appears in experience, and from an accurate induction of particular cases to establish the laws of health and disease. The gymnasts had taught him to lay stress on hygiene, and he insists that an accurate analysis of health is vital for teaching us the true symptoms of disease. But while thus starting from particulars, and building his inferences on them, he learned from the philosophers that large view which, as it were, neglects local symptoms, and seeks to classify each case under general conditions of disease, bringing out the common features in each, and comparing them with the general conditions of normal health. Hence he paid special attention to climate and situation, and his most interesting tract is that on the effects of air, water, and situation, in which he compares Asiatic and European races, and suggests to Plato and Aristotle the celebrated political division of mankind so often quoted from the Politics. The minute noting of cases in his Epidemics shows περί γε ἑωυτῶν ἕκαστοι. Ἐμοὶ δὲ καὶ αὐτῷ δοκεῖ ταῦτα τὰ πάθεα θεῖα εἶναι καὶ τἆλλα πάντα, καὶ οὐδὲν ἕτερον ἑτέρου θειότερον, οὐδὲ ἀνθρωπινώτερον, ἀλλὰ πάντα ὁμοῖα καὶ πάντα θεῖα· ἕκαστον δὲ ἔχει φύσιν τῶν τοιούτων καὶ οὐδὲν ἄνευ φύσιος γίγνεται. Καὶ τοῦτο τὸ πάθος ὥς μοι δοκέει γίγνεσθαι φράσω. Ὑπὸ τῆς ἱππασίης αὐτοὺς κέδματα λαμβάνει, ἅτε ἀεὶ κρεμαμένων ἀπὸ τῶν ἵππων τοῖς ποσί· ἔπειτα ἀποχωλοῦνται καὶ ἑλκοῦνται τὰ ἰσχία οἳ ἂν σφόδρα νοσήσωσι. Τοῦτο δὲ πάσχουσι Σκυθέων οἱ πλούσιοι, οὐχ οἱ κάκιστοι, ἀλλ ̓ οἱ εὐγενέστατοι καὶ ἰσχὺν πλείστην κεκτημένοι, διὰ τὴν ἱππασίην· οἱ δὲ πένητες ἧσσον, οὐ γὰρ ἱππάζονται. Καίτοι ἔχρην, ἐπεὶ θειότερον τοῦτο τὸ νόσευμα τῶν λοιπῶν ἐστι, οὐ τοῖς γενναιοτάτοις τῶν Σκυθέων καὶ τοῖς πλουσιωτάτοις προσπίπτειν μούνοις, ἀλλὰ τοῖς ἅπασι ὁμοίως καὶ μᾶλλον τοῖσι ὀλίγα κεκτημένοισι· εἰ δὴ τιμώμενοι χαίρουσι οἱ θεοὶ καὶ θαυμαζόμενοι ὑπ ̓ ἀνθρώπων καὶ ἀντὶ τούτων χάριτας ἀποδιδοῦσι. Εἰκὸς γὰρ τοὺς μὲν πλουσίους θύειν πολλὰ τοῖς θεοῖς, καὶ ἀνατιθέναι ἀναθήματα, ὄντων χρημάτων, καὶ τιμᾶν· τοὺς δὲ πένητας ἧσσον, διὰ τὸ μὴ ἔχειν, ἔπειτα καὶ ἐπιμεμφομένους, ὅτι οὐ διδόασι χρήματα αὐτοῖσι· ὥστε τῶν τοιούτων ἁμαρτιῶν τὰς ζημίας τοὺς ὀλίγα κεκτημένους φέρειν μᾶλλον ἢ τοὺς πλουσίους. ̓Αλλὰ γάρ, ὥσπερ καὶ πρότερον ἔλεξα, θεῖα μὲν καὶ ταῦτά ἐστι ὁμοίως τοῖς ἄλλοις· γίγνεται δὲ κατὰ φύσιν ἕκαστα· καὶ ἡ τοιαύτη νοῦσος ἀπὸ τοιαύτης προφάσιος τοῖς Σκύθαις γίγνεται οἵην εἴρηκα. Ἔχει δὲ καὶ κατὰ τοὺς λοιποὺς ἀνθρώπους ὁμοίως. VOL. II. 3 the other side of his mind; and there are points of diagnosis. ('prognosis,' as he called it) on which modern physicians have nothing to add to his observation. Turning from details to the general features of the man, so far as we can discern them in the acknowledged treatises, we are struck with the honest, earnest, scientific spirit of all his researches. He is in direct antagonism with the spirit of charlatanism, and of seeking after sudden effects and surprises, which must have been a very general feature among medical men when they had but lately separated themselves from priests and soothsayers-in fact, from the 'medicine men' who impose upon early and superstitious societies. The celebrated opening sentence of the Aphorisms is a memorable manifesto against this spirit,' and in a hundred places he warns against ostentation, recommends simplicity and patience, and confesses with true and deep modesty his errors and his failures. Here, again, we are reminded of Thucydides' description of his own work, no ἀγώνισμα ἐς τὸ παραχρῆμα, but a κτῆμα ἐς ἀεί. In fact, as Littré has observed, the polemic of Hippocrates against the charlatans is as serious and sustained as that of Socrates against the sophists. § 327. The style of Hippocrates is nervous, exceedingly compressed, and, at times, obscure from its brevity; but, on the other hand, profoundly suggestive, picturesque, and full of power and pathos. He uses poetical words and images freely, but always to increase the fulness of his meaning, never for mere ornament. He is far terser in thought than Thucydides, though he resembles him in shortness of expression; indeed, as I have before said, he more resembles Heracleitus than any other Greek prose writer. The questions about his dialect are quite similar to those which beset the text of Herodotus. Though dwelling in the Doric settlement of Kos, he used the Ionic dialect. It appears, however, not only from our texts, but from the remarks of ancient critics, that his language was closer to old Attic than that of Herodotus, and we do not know whether it · ὁ βίος βραχύς, ἡ δὲ τέχνη μακρή, ὁ δὲ καιρὸς ὀξύς, ἡ δὲ πεῖρα σφαλερή, ἡ δὲ κρίσις χαλεπή. |