Modern Commentaries on Hippocrates1

MODERN COMMENTARIES ON HIPPOCRATES1 By JONATHAN WRIGHT, M.D. PLEASANTVILLE, N. Y. PART I ERHAPS it is not the only way, but disturb us if Plato is thought by the young one of the ways of judging of the lady at the library to have written some excellence of a work of science or thing on astronomy or if the man who literature is to take note of the preaches in our church thinks Aristotle discussion the author has elicited in wasless a monk. We ourselves may be unable talentedP readers and the stimulation of to get up any enthusiasm for either. But the faculties thereby evidenced. In the when we learn that all these men have by conceit and braggadocio of Falstaff, aside their words tapped the ocean of thought in from his being the butt of jokes, we every era of civilization since they lived perceive he is conscious of the quality of and at their magic touch abundant streams his mind when he says he is not only witty of mental activity have gone forth to enrich himself, but is the cause of wit in others. the world, when we once realize what an There is no standard of truth whereby ever living power they still exercise over the the accuracy of theory and practice of one best minds which humanity produces, then age can be judged by another, though there what Dotty says about Ibsen or what Bill are underlying general principles which per Broker thinks of Kipling, that the Reverend sist as much perhaps by their vagueness Mr. Stiggins is mistaken about Aristotle, and lack of limitation and inclusiveness as or that we ourselves fall asleep or our by their validity, but, for the most part, minds wander when we read the “Phae- time withers most specific facts as they drus” of Plato or the “Poetics” of Aris were apprehended two thousand or more totle, is of no consequence. It is a subjec years ago. When, however, a discourse, an tivity which has nothing in the least to do oration, a poem, a philosophical treatise, or with the quality of the writer’s works; a narrative continues for generation after that we must judge of from what we come generation, century after century, for ages, to know of the phenomena which the to excite the comment of readers, as do, history of thought furnishes us. for instance, those of Homer, Herodotus, The acknowledgment of this as a reality Hippocrates, Horace, Virgil, we are safe in is common enough, so common as to have recognizing in that objective evidence the become perfunctory and of course occa proof of an inherent excellence which per sionally a little ostentatious, but it is seldom haps our own faculties do not reveal to us. the subject of analysis. Why is it, then, Subjective testimony is of little interest that these master artists continue to be to us. We care not if the intellectual crea the wellsprings of thought and the or igin, ture at our side adores Ibsen—we might usually unrecognized, of inspiration? Cer hate him; or if the man in the street reads tainly not because of the facts they display. Kipling to-day—to-morrow he may likely These are denied or discredited in a short never give him a thought. It need not time; but through every vicissitude of 1 The translations of Francis Adams’ Hippocrates, “Genuine Works,” v. I. New York: William Wood & Co., and E. Littré’s Hippocrates, “Œuvres complètes.” Paris: J.-B. Bailliere, 1839-1845. These volumes h ave been chiefly used and compared with Littré’s Greek text. theory and every turn in the current of treatises, he brings the remote causes of thought, often very shallow, the influence disease and general philosophical conclu remains profound. Their language is an sions more into prominence. On the other unknown tongue to many, at least in so far hand, in taking up “The Prognostics” we as the finer shades of meaning or of sym observe that it is entirely founded on obser metry of form in their more recondite sense vation. If Hippocrates gathered this ex are concerned. The charm of rhythm or perience from the records of clinical obser the subtlety that goes with rhetorical vation made by himself and by other priests effect is often lost to us. Thus we might in the temples of /Esculapius, we find that proceed in an attempt to understand why the methods of observation, which served such men have dominated the thoughts of as the basis of a priestly and magical inter posterity, but our endeavors at analysis are pretation, served also for the beginnings of defeated and we are driven to extend the rational medicine. How it came about that many definitions of genius to a pragmatical historians have ascribed to Hippocrates conclusion that success in its age-long the fame of being the first to question demonstration is the weightiest factor in nature would furnish an interesting and our understanding of genius. In this con instructive example of how Baconians have nection, however, that is inclusive of that perverted the plain indications of history. boast of the old debauchee whom Shake Evidence has shown Babylonian priests speare’s art has created for us—they are taking meticulous care for unnumbered the cause of wit in others. centuries in recording facts and their se No remark, preliminary to the study of quences, phenomena they observed in the the writings of Hippocrates, is more help heavens and in the entrails of animals and ful than the observation of Littré, who the mundane events, important to man, in substance pointed out that while to-day which followed the observations. They we study disease as an entity and follow observed and questioned nature, but they the forces of each one from their origin to did not reason right. their post-mortem manifestations, Hippoc When Ermerins, whom Adams quotes, rates studied man and the reactions he made the remarks which follow he only exhibits to his manifold environment. It is partly disclosed the reform wrought in the phenomenon presented by man and the ranks of the Asclepiadae, before the what it indicates as to the probable result epoch and during the time of Hippocrates, as regards man which he conceived as the who was their spokesman: chief object of medical study. It requires The readers must particularly keep before no very deep reflection to realize that there their eyes this origin and the antiquity of is a material discrimination to be made those writings if they would pass a correct judg psychologically between the concept of ment on the merits of the Asclepiadae towards disease and the conception of a diseased the art of medicine. Whatever in their works we have the pleasure of possessing, all attest man. For the former we seek the literature the infancy of the art; many things are imper of medicine which has appeared in the fect, and not unfrequently do we see them, while last hundred years, for the latter the litera in the pursuit of truth, groping, as it were, and ture which, originating with Hippocrates, proceeding with uncertain steps, like men fills the thousands of years which have wandering about in darkpess; but yet the elapsed since he in his time wrote “On method which they applied, and to which they would seem to have betaken themselves of their Ancient Medicine.” In this essay and in own accord, was so excellent that nothing could the one following, “On Airs, Waters, and surpass it. It was the same method which Places,” more than in some of his other Hippocrates himself always adopted, and which, in fine, Lord Bacon, many ages afterward, stated, this method, which has achieved commended as the only instrument by which such an apparent ascendancy in our day, truth in medicine can be found out. is to proceed from the study of the particu As a matter of fact they inherited their lar to the general, to collate facts by obser method from the rules of the practice of vation and experiment and from them to magic, the observation of the stars, the deduce the conclusions which are to be flight of birds and the entrails of animals. applied to the conduct of life and the further They turned from these observations to investigations of the laws of nature. observations on the phenomena of disease. In the quotation from the thesis of Dr. They recorded one just as they recorded Ermerins which Adams has made, it will the other, on the walls of temples and on be noted that Dr. Ermerins commends their tablets. What the Asclepiadse really Hippocrates for being a Baconian. Noth did was to turn away not from habits of ing, perhaps, is more diametrically opposed the observation of nature, which we cherish, to the doctrines of Bacon than those of but from irrational methods of thought. Plato,2 yet in one of his dialogues we find They reformed the rules of logic, but they him claiming Hippocrates’ support. Socrates did not introduce the inductive method; in the “Phaedrus” asks if the nature of it was already hoary with age. the soul can be intelligently studied with Although Hippocrates criticised the out knowing the nature of the whole and methods of the Nature philosophers he the answer is: “Hippocrates, the Asclepiad, resorted almost as freely as they to theory says that this is the only method of pro building. Dr. Ermerins himself basks in cedure by which the nature even of the body the comfort furnished by theories of vital can be understood.” Hippocrates was the force rampant in his day.

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