Galen's Commentaries on the Aphorisms of Hippocrates

For we had proposed to investigate this very thing from the beginning. There are, therefore, some who maintain that Hippocrates did this for the sake of exhorting men to practice the art diligently. Others, on the contrary, for the sake of discouraging them. Some, indeed, to this end: that he might test and distinguish those who would practice the art diligently from those who would do otherwise. Others, however, also maintain that in this he provided the reason why it was necessary to write commentaries. Some add "aphoristic" [commentaries]. Others even maintain that by this discourse he assigned the reasons why this art is conjectural. Yet others, from how many causes it happens that physicians are frustrated in their aim.

These last ones, therefore—to begin from the end—seem to me to say nothing consistent. For how would it be a wise discovery, or worthy of the thought of Hippocrates, to teach immediately at the beginning of the work either that medicine is a certain conjectural art, or that we are frustrated in its aim, whether this happens from ourselves or from the magnitude of the art? Moreover, those words—"It is necessary not only to exhibit oneself doing the opportune things, but also the patient, the attendants, and external circumstances"—demonstrate the opposite entirely. For it is more fitting for one who professes that all things contained in the book are true to write all these things, than for one who admits that for very many reasons the end is not obtained. For he would not have said, "It is necessary," but after those words—"Life is short, the art long, opportunity fleeting, experiment dangerous, judgment difficult"—he would have subjoined these other things: "And the physician himself also errs, as do the patients and their ministers."

Nor do those who say he wished to turn them away from the study of medicine—since he says life is short and the art long—seem to me to speak fittingly. For it would be the height of madness simultaneously to write commentaries and hand them down to posterity for the utility of life, and at the same time, from the beginning, not only to discourage the reading and learning of what you have written, but to alienate them from the entire art whose teaching you profess. Those who say he wished to rouse men to undertake the art with more intense study (for it cannot otherwise be learned thoroughly in a short time, since it is long)—these, even if they say something true, do not seem to me to show a proem sufficiently worthy of the man's thought or consistent with what is written in the book.

Just as those do not, whoever think this kind of discourse was employed by Hippocrates for the sake of testing those who approach the art. For it is true, as is also said by Plato, that the souls of those who are to perceive any art are tested especially in this way—if we show that its perception is great and difficult; yet this is by no means done through a book, but through mutual discourse. Nor does it seem to me consistent with the present commentary, if indeed a proem ought to cohere with those things that are to be written in the book: unless perhaps someone feels that the Aphorisms are to be read first of all the books, and therefore in the proem of the commentary, he made a general discourse concerning the whole art, wishing through this to show that not everyone can learn the medical art according to his own whim, since it is long, but only those for whom time is sufficient for learning, and whose nature is more suited to it.

But if this appears entirely probable—that this is a general preface to the whole art—then those are not to be blamed who say Hippocrates assigned the reason why it is necessary to write commentaries. He also did this in the book inscribed κατ' ἰατρεῖον (In the Surgery), making a general proem for all the lectures, as was shown by us in the exposition of that same book. Therefore, whoever wish either the mode of teaching, or the necessity of commentaries in general, to be assigned as the cause in the proem, their opinion seems to me to be preferred. For the aphoristic form of teaching, which circumscribes all the properties of a matter in the briefest possible words, is most useful to those who wish to teach a long art in a short time. And this entirely—namely, the writing of commentaries because life is short if compared to the magnitude of the art—possesses the greatest reason above all others.