Hippocrates, Vol. II (Loeb Classical Library)

bear fruit; with the limited knowledge of the Hippocratic age to cultivate general pathology and prognosis was the correct course. To a certain extent this view is correct; in the Hippocratic age little could be done for patients suffering from acute diseases except to keep them warm and comfortable, and to restrict their diet. Yet we must always remember that “general” pathology really does not exist, and that any prognosis based upon it must be very uncertain indeed. Hippocrates was great because he had the true scientific insight, not because of prognosis but in spite of it. The Cnidians, on the other hand, were truly scientific when they insisted on accurate and even meticulous classification. It is no discredit to them that they classified wrongly, and based on their faulty classification faulty methods of treatment. If diseases are to be classified according to symptoms, variations of symptoms must be held to imply variations of diseases. Modern pathology has proved this classification wrong, and the treatment of symptoms has accordingly fallen into discredit. But it is at least as wise to treat symptoms as it is to build up a fictitious general pathology, and to cultivate the barren prognosis that depends upon it. The Cnidians were comparatively unsuccessful because they had not learned to distinguish the essential from the unessential. Hippocrates was a genius who followed a will-o’-the-wisp; the Cnidians were plodders along the dreary stretch of road that lies before every advance in knowledge. Hippocrates did the wrong thing well; the Cnidians did the right thing badly.

There can be no doubt, although we have no