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

op. cit., 96f.). On the pol-
emics against philosophers, see also
De nat. hom. 1; Hippocrate. La Nature de
l’homme, ed. by J. Jouanna, Berlin 1975, 38f.

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2. The theory of the origin of medicine
57
of dunámei~, which is very important in the treatise and on which health and
illness depend, most probably goes back to Alcmaeon (24 B 4). Alcmaeon’s
fundamental statement that “of things invisible … only gods have clear knowl-
edge, but men can only judge on evidence” (B 1) also resonates with the ideas
of the Hippocratic, who consciously refused to introduce tà @fanéa te kaì tà
@poreómena into medicine, his aim being eıdénai tò safé~ (1).
Methodical empiricism, while appreciating the art and experience of the
physician, does not oppose them to knowledge (1), but, on the contrary, points
out the rational aspect of medicine, constantly emphasizing the role of dis-
course (diánoia, 5, logismoí, 12, 14), method (ôdó~, 2, 4, 8, 15), research, and
discovery. The author’s defense of medical dietetics has nothing routine about
it, for the simple reason that this dietetics itself was, at the time, relatively new.
It emerged in the early fifth century, created by the joint efforts of physicians,
natural philosophers, and trainers.
51
Maintaining the chief components of the
medical method to be exactness and clarity,
52
the author again avoids, here as
elsewhere, the extreme opinions of the physicians who tried to find the exact
correlation between food, drink, and physical exercise by means of ‘mathemat-
ical’ methods.
53
In searching for the exact measure, the Hippocratic sees its
criteria not in weights and numbers, but in the bodily feeling of the patient him-
self. The task of the physician, according to him, lies in discerning accurately
enough to allow only a minor error in either direction (9). Unlike Empedocles,
who calculated the proportions in which the four basic elements constitute the
human body (31 A 78, B 69, 96–98), he does not cherish vain hopes of achiev-
ing mathematical accuracy in medicine.
54
Discovery of medicine and its history. Fully aware of the hypothetical char-
acter of his reconstruction of primitive life (3), the author introduces every new
thesis with expressions like ‘I presume’ (Égwge @xiõ), ‘it seems to me’ (Égwge
dokéw), ‘probably, it looks like’ (eıkó~, twice). His ideas, however, though
formulated with circumspection, are always novel and never trivial. In his re-
construction, the Hippocratic, like Thucydides, reasons by analogy, observing
that “even at the present day such as do not use medical science, foreigners and
some Greeks, live as do those in health” (5).
55
51
See Zhmud.
Wissenschaft, 275f.
52
@kríbeia (9, twice, 12, thrice, 20), e.g. “Many departments of medicine have
reached such a pitch of exactness …” (12); cf. Kurz, D. AKRIBEIA. Das Ideal der
Exaktheit bei den Griechen bis Aristoteles, Göppingen 1970, 80ff. tò safé~ (1, 20),
e.g. “I hold that clear knowledge about natural science can be acquired from medi-
cine and from no other source.” (20).
53
See
De victu I, 2, 8; Delatte, A. Les harmonies dans l’embryologie hippocratique,
Mélanges P. Thomas, Bruges 1930, 160–171.
54
As Jouanna (
L’ancienne médicine, 84) pertinently observes, the author of VM was a
contemporary thinker who had the courage to resist the extreme tendencies of con-
temporary thought.
55
Ibid., 44f.

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Chapter 2: Science as técnh: theory and history
58
The author has no doubt that medicine was found by humans (cf.
De arte I,
12), who were compelled by need and necessity to undertake the research. He
thinks, moreover, that it is the inventors of medicine themselves (oî prõtoi eû-
rónte~) who attributed it to the deity (i.e., Apollo or Asclepius), who was still
believed to be its founder. Therefore, the development of the tradition of
pro¯toi
heuretai that we traced earlier is logically completed. The first real discoveries
crown with glory their inventors; these are followed by the divine
pro¯toi heure-
tai, to whom human inventions are attributed; later on, historical personages
start to figure in the tradition more and more often until, finally, the conclusion
is drawn that the inventions of the divine discoverers were, in fact, attributed to
them by humans. In this sense, Greek thought of the late fifth century, repre-
sented, of course, not solely by the author of
VM, enters a new stage – that of
transition from heurematography to the theory and history of culture and, later,
of science. More accurately, this stage is not that of transition, but rather of the
divergence of two traditions: heurematography did not disappear, but was re-
duced to compiling catalogues of inventions without any attempt at their analy-
sis. Its better features were inherited by other genres.
The progress of knowledge. For the author of VM, the history of medicine is
a history of research and discoveries that multiply our knowledge of human na-
ture and of the causes of man’s diseases. His outlook is characterized by an op-
timistic awareness of the progress of knowledge, which started in the distant
past, is moving forward now, and will go on in the future. A progressivism of
this kind is a rare case. In the classical period, the notion of progress was, as a
rule, retrospective, i.e., founded in the first place on the achievements in knowl-
edge and technology related to the
past and not to the future. Even if the pro-
gress was made in the recent past and thereby bordered on the present, future
perspectives were hardly ever considered.
56
But even in cases when an attempt
was made to link the past and present with the future, the latter had nothing in
common with the fundamentally open and infinite future of the progressivist
conceptions of the 19
th
century.
In the beginning of the treatise, the Hippocratic turns directly from the past
to the future:
Medicine … has discovered both a principle and a method, through which the dis-
coveries made during a long period are many and excellent, while full discovery
will be made (kaì tà loipà eûreq2setai) if the inquirer be competent, conducts
his researches with knowledge of the discoveries already made, and makes them
his starting-point (2).
A little later he returns to this subject, this time linking the past with the present
and grounding his conclusions on facts:
Nevertheless the discovery (
sc
. of medicine) was a great one, implying much in-
vestigation and art. At any rate even at the present day those who study gym-
56
Edelstein,
op. cit., 98, 145f., 164f. (not clear enough); Thraede. Fortschritt, 162;
Meier. ‘Fortschritt’, 354. On this, see below, 78f.

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2. The theory of the origin of medicine
59
nastics and athletic exercises are constantly making some fresh discovery by in-
vestigating on the same method (Éti goñn kaì nñn aıeí ti prosexeurískousi
katà t3n aÿt3n ôdòn zhtéonte~).
Thus, the correct scientific method found by past generations is not only a guar-
antee of the present and future progress of medicine, but also of the unity and
self-identity of this science for all ages. To put it in modern language, science is
method.
The astonishing modernity of this conclusion, to which many contemporary
philosophers of science would subscribe without reservation, should not, how-
ever, conceal the feature that distinguishes it from the more sober present-day
view on the possibility of gaining the final knowledge of things. Unlike modern
science, which proceeds from the conviction that knowledge is inexhaustible,
the Hippocratic believed that in the future, provided the right direction is taken,
medicine can be explored in full. Did he mean the long-distant future, as Herter
suggested,
57
or the immediate future? Though the text itself does not answer
this question directly, the second option is supported by the excessive optimism
of other Hippocratics, who firmly believed that the whole of medicine was
al-
ready discovered. That is, indeed, what the author of On Places in Man ex-
pressly affirms: ıhtrik3 d2 moi dokéei @neur4stai Ôlh … bébhke gàr ıh-
trik3 pãsa (46). The treatise On Art leaves a similar impression: the verb
eûrískein is used here in aorist and imperfect only,
58
and the verb zhte$n does
not occur at all, as if nothing were left to find! In the introduction, however (1),
the author does note the possibility of discovering “what was unknown before”,
but only in order to “bring to completion what was already accomplished in