Hippocrates, Vol. II (Loeb Classical Library)

INTRODUCTORY ESSAYS

that prognosis was considered of value for its own sake. We must never forget that the Greek physician was a scientist as well as a practitioner. Like the rest of his race, he had a boundless curiosity and a great eagerness to know "some new thing."

A Greek was always argumentative—even when ill—and a Greek doctor was bound to persuade his patient to undergo the proper treatment. His persuasive powers were particularly necessary when surgery was required, as anaesthetics and anodynes (pain-relievers) were not available, and the art of nursing was in its infancy. We are therefore not surprised that a doctor wished to impress his patients by stating, without being told, what had occurred before he was called in. In days when quackery abounded, and when practitioners often wandered from place to place instead of establishing a reputation in one district, such a way of inspiring confidence was doubly needed.

In ancient times, the very human desire to know the future was stronger than it is now. Science has to a great extent cleared away the uncertainty that must always, at least partially, obscure the consequences of our acts and experiences, and has above all diminished the risks that attend them. But a Greek must have been tormented by doubts to an extent that can scarcely be appreciated by a modern. To lessen them, he had recourse to oracles, divination, and augury, and physicians too were expected to relieve fears, or at least to turn them into unpleasant certainties or probabilities. ¹ See, for example, Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound, 698-699: "It is sweet for those who are ill to know clearly beforehand what pain remains." (original: "τοῖς νοσοῦσί τοι γλυκύ / τὸ λοιπὸν ἄλγος προὐξεπίστασθαι τορῶς.")