Leonid Zhmud The Origin of the History of Science in Classical Antiquity

VM is throughout by W. Jones.
45
Jouanna.
L’ancienne médicine, 38f. Second in frequency of using eûrískein is the
treatise
De arte, 1, 9, 12 (14 times in various forms).
46
kalõ~ … zht2sante~ (14), kalõ~ zhteoménhn (12), tà eûrhména … kalõ~
Éconta (2), !~ kalõ~ … ëxeúrhtai (12).

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Chapter 2: Science as técnh: theory and history
56
of the appropriate food, which, like the discovery of medicine, came after a
long search.
The author’s theory of the origin of culture could not have been chronologi-
cally the earliest,
47
and such topics as qhriødh~ bío~, @nágkh, creía, and eÛ-
resi~ were quite current in the fifth-century literature.
48
Still, the views of the
Hippocratic on the history and methodology of medicine seem to have had no
direct precursors. His treatment of medicine as dietetics, though one-sided, is
solidly grounded in theory and practice.
49
This approach in no way prevents
him from considering medicine a sphere of
cognitive activity, which draws it
closer to other sciences.
Method. The author assumes his method to be the only conceivable way of
inquiry into the nature of man and of preventing and curing diseases. All other
ways, including the speculations of natural philosophers, are rejected. Medi-
cine starts by applying to the nature of the sick the method that has already been
used in the search for food appropriate for the healthy (7). It consists in system-
atic observations on what food suits the nature of the sick best and even em-
ploys experiments with different kinds of food (3.5). From this point of view, an
ôdó~, being one of the main characteristics of medicine as técnh, appears to be
an improved method of research and discovery used outside medicine as well,
not just an artifice, like the unverifiable method of natural philosophers. The
author is far from a down-to-earth craftsman oriented exclusively toward ex-
perience – his empiricism can rather be termed
methodical. With an awareness
of the complex and versatile nature of reality, which does not fit into the sche-
mata of natural philosophers, this empiricism is not averse, however, to using
speculative ideas, provided they can be applied to practice.
50
Thus, the notion
47
For a discussion on the historical aspects of this theory, see Miller, H.W.
On Ancient
Medicine and the origin of medicine, TAPA 80 (1949) 187–202; Herter, H. Die kul-
turhistorische Theorie der hippokratischen Schrift von der Alten Medizin,
Maia
(1963) 464–483; Jouanna.
L’ancienne médicine, 34f.; Nickel, D. Bemerkungen zur
Methodologie in der hippokratischen Schrift
De prisca medicina, Hippokratische
Medizin und antike Philosophie, ed. by R. Wittern, P. Pellegrin, Zurich 1996,
53–61.
48
Aeschylus (
Prom. 443f., 452, TrGF III F 181a), Euripides (Suppl. 201f.), Critias
(88 B 25), and Isocrates (
Bus. 25, Nic. 5, Antid. 254) represented primitive life as
‘beastly’; Archelaus believed that the invention of técnai separated men from beasts
(60 A4). Aristophanes (
Pl. 534), and Euripides (fr.715 Nauck) considered need to be
the teacher of wisdom (see Meyer, G.
Laudes inopiae, Göttingen 1915, 21ff.). On
the role of discoveries in medicine, see
De arte 1, 9, 12; De victu III, 69.
49
These views were shared by the authors of the treatises
On Diet, On Diet in Acute
Diseases, On Nutriment. In On Diseases and On Internal Affections, diet is sug-
gested as the main therapeutic means.
50
The author objects not to philosophy as such, but only to those of its metaphysical
postulates that cannot be applied to medicine (Ducatillon,