Ancient Medicine (21-appendix)

In convalescence from illness, and also in protracted illnesses, many disturbances occur, some spontaneously and some from things casually

I hold that it is also necessary to know which diseased states arise from powers and which from structures. What I mean is roughly that a power is an intensity and strength of the humours, while structures are the conformations to be found in the human body, some of which are hollow, tapering[*] from wide to narrow; some are expanded, some hard and round, some broad and suspended, some stretched, some long, some close in texture, some loose in texture and fleshy, some spongy and porous. Now which structure is best adapted to draw and attract to itself fluid from the rest of the body, the hollow and expanded, the hard and round, or the hollow and tapering? I take it that the best adapted is the broad hollow that tapers. One should learn this thoroughly from unenclosed objects[*] that can be

There are many other structural forms, both internal and external, which differ widely from one another with regard to the experiences of a patient and of a healthy subject, such as whether the head be large or small, the neck thin or thick, long or short, the bowels long or round, the chest and

As I have said before, we must examine the powers of humours, and what the effect of each is upon man, and how they are related to one another. Let me give an example. If a humour that is sweet assumes another form, not by admixture, but by a self-caused change, what will it first become, bitter, or salt, or astringent, or acid? I think acid. Therefore where sweet humour is the least suitable of all, acid humour is the next least suitable to be administered.[*] If a man can in this way conduct with success inquiries outside the human body, he will always be able to select the very best treatment. And the best is always that which is farthest removed from the unsuitable.

οἰνος ἄκρητος πολλὸς ποθεὶς διατίθησί πως τὸν ἄνθρωπον· καὶ πάντες ἄν αἱ εἰδότες τοῦτο γνοίησαν, ὅτι αὕτη δύναμις οἲνου καὶ αὺτὸς αἴτιος.

So A; other MSS. have ἀσθενέα after ἄνθρωπον, ἰδόντες for οἱ εἰδότες, ἡ after αὕτη and ἐστιν after αὐτός.

This passage contradicts the general argument, which is that in medicine statements about foods must not be made ἁπλῶς. Cheese is not bad food; it is only bad in certain conditions, and in certain ways, and at certain times. In these circumstances cheese has a δύναμις which does not belong to cheese in itself, but is latent until certain conditions call it forth. The error, says the writer, is not made in the case of wine. Everybody knows that in itself wine is not bad; it is drinking to excess, or at wrong times, which is mischievous.

Now the reading of A (in fact any MS. reading) makes the writer say that wine itself is to blame (αὐτὸς αἴτιος)—an obvious contradiction of the general argument. My colleague the Rev. H. J. Chaytor most ingeniously suggests that αὐτός refers not to wine but to the man. He would therefore translate this δύναμις of wine and the man himself are to blame. But not only is it more natural for αὐτός to refer to wine, but the writer’s whole point is that in and by itself no food is αἴτιος. A food is a cause only in certain conditions, or, rather, certain conditions call forth certain δυνάμεις.

I think, therefore, that the right reading is ὅτι τοιαύτη δύναμις οἵνου καὶ οὐκ αὐτὸς αἵτιος. Such and such a δύναμις of wine (i. e. a δύναμις caused by excess of wine acting upon the human φύσιις) is to blame and not mere wine by itself. ὅτι τοιαύτη might easily turn into ὅτι αὕτη, and the omission of οὐ by scribes is not uncommon.

There is an attractive vigour about the reading ἰδόντες for οἱ εἰδότες, and it may be correct. Anybody can see at a glance that in the case of wine it is excess, etc., and not merely wine itself which is to blame.