GALEN ON THE THERAPEUTICS FOR GLAUCON

Edition by Chartier, Volume 10. [345.]

Edition by Basel, Volume 4. (197.)

...explained in brief. For I would be ridiculous if I were to teach you your own lessons, as if you had not learned them long ago from Plato Galen frequently acknowledges Plato as a master of logic and the "method of division" (diairesis), which Galen applied to medicine.. I did not make this reminder to teach you anything about the method of division itself. Rather, I believe it will be useful for the entire argument that follows. When you asked to learn the cause of the errors you see most doctors making, there was no other way to demonstrate it.

Indeed, the primary and greatest cause of errors found in other medical sects sects: competing schools of medical thought, such as the Empiricists, Dogmatists, and Methodists, as well as the mistakes most doctors make today with their patients, is a faulty approach to division. Some practitioners stop at the first and highest categories genera: the most general classes of things, such as "fever" or "inflammation". They are satisfied with the indications indications: the clinical signs that suggest a specific course of treatment derived from those broad groups. Others proceed with dividing the categories to a certain extent, but they do not reach the final goal of the division. Many others use divisions that are simply incorrect.

Only the person who brings everything—both the states according to nature and those contrary to nature original: "κατὰ φύσιν" (kata physin) and "παρὰ φύσιν" (para physin). Galen defines health as being in accordance with nature and disease as being contrary to it.—into this systematic method will succeed. By taking a complete indication from every part of the division, that person would be as free from error in healing as human power allows. Such a person would recognize...

The following section is the Latin translation of the Greek text above, provided in the 1821 edition for scholars of the time.

...explained in brief. For I would be ridiculous if I taught you your own things, as if you had not already learned them from Plato. I mentioned this matter not to teach you the method of dividing, but because we hoped it would be useful for all that will be said later. Also, we could not better show you the reasons why most doctors happen to err everywhere when you demanded them. For whatever is committed as a fault, whether in other sects or by many doctors in the treatment of diseases, has as its first and greatest cause a faulty division. Some stop immediately at the first and highest general classes, content only with the indications taken from them. Some proceeded by dividing to a certain point, but did not reach the goal of the division. Many, however, divided incorrectly. But whoever recalls all things, both according to and contrary to nature, to this path and method, and takes complete indications from all those things found through division, he alone, as far as human strength allows...