Hippocrates, Vol. II (Loeb Classical Library)

INTRODUCTORY ESSAYS

The usefulness of prognosis in treatment is easier to understand, and our only surprise is that Hippocrates seems not to make full use of the opportunities it afforded. Meeting dangers by anticipation is not a prominent feature of his medical regimen.

The most remarkable characteristic of the Hippocratic doctrine of prognosis is the stress laid upon the symptoms common to all acute morbid conditions. This effort to distinguish “disease” from “diseases” may be due in part to the Greek instinct to put the general before the particular—an instinct seen in its extreme form in the Platonic theory of Ideas. But it is not entirely to be accounted for in this way. Hippocrates was comparatively free from the prejudices of his race, and if he thought any view valuable in medical practice, it was probably valuable in reality and not a mere fad. It is therefore our duty to inquire whether there was any reason why the study of morbid phenomena in general was of interest in the age in which he lived. ¹ Contrast, however, what I say on p. xv. I believe the reason lies in the predominance in ancient Greece of two classes of illness.

The most important diseases of the Hippocratic age were the chest complaints—pneumonia and pleurisy (pulmonary tuberculosis was also very common)—and the various forms, sub-continuous and remittent, of malaria. Other acute diseases were comparatively rare, as we can see from the list given in the fifth chapter of Prognostic, and, moreover, in a malarious country most diseases are modified or “colored” by malarial symptoms. It was therefore natural that Hippocrates should subconsciously regard acute diseases as falling into...