4. His interview with Democritus, who was supposed by his fellow-townsmen to be mad, but who was pronounced by Hippocrates to be the wisest man in the country; 5. His burning the books in the library at Cos, in order to conceal the use he had made of them in his own writings (an accusation which cannot fail to bring to the reader's recollection the confessed destruction of John Hunter's papers by Sir Everard Home).
The collection of works that bears the name of Hippocrates consists of upwards of sixty different treatises, some very short, others of considerable length. The most cursory inspection of these works is sufficient to convince a critical reader, that they were written by different individuals and also at different times; and the endeavour to classify these writings, and to assign each, as far as possible, to its proper author, has exercised the acuteness and ingenuity of medical critics for more than two thousand years. It cannot be said that the results have been altogether satisfactory; for though many points have been settled almost beyond dispute, yet there are many others on which great difference of opinion still exists. The various classifications that have been proposed cannot be mentioned here, nor can the whole of the treatises be enumerated: it will be sufficient to give a general idea of the conclusions that have been most commonly adopted, and at the same time to notice some of the most important of the writings.—I. It is now generally believed that two of these treatises, viz. "Prorrhetica I." and "Coacæ Prænotiones," are anterior to the time of Hippocrates; that they are principally composed of the medical observations made by the priest-physicians at Cos, and preserved in the Asclepion, or temple of Æsculapius, in that island; and that they were employed by Hippocrates in the composition of his "Prognosticon." II. On the other hand there can be no doubt but that a considerable number of the treatises were composed after the time of Hippocrates; some of which are evidently mere forgeries, while others appear to have been written in good faith, and without any intention of being given to the world under a borrowed name. The works in these two classes form nearly one half of the whole collection. III. The rest of the books, about thirty-nine in number, were probably written either by Hippocrates himself, or by his immediate followers. The following are almost universally attributed to Hippocrates—"Prænotiones," or ("Prognostica,") "Aphorismi," "Epidemiorum I., III.," "De Diætâ Acutorum," "De Aëre, Aquis, et Locis," and "De Capitis Vulneribus." And many critics consider the following to be almost equally genuine—"De Priscâ Medicinâ," "De Articulis," "De Fracturis," "Mochlicus," "Jusjurandum," "Lex," "De Ulceribus," "De Fistulis," "De Hæmorrhöidibus," "De Officinâ Medici," and "De Morbo Sacro."
As it is not yet positively settled which of the writings in the Hippocratic collection are to be accepted as genuine, and which are to be considered as spurious, it is of course more than commonly difficult to venture to state in detail what were the opinions of Hippocrates on any branch of medical science. The following remarks are abridged from the present writer's review of M. Littré's work, mentioned above, and will probably be sufficiently explicit for all ordinary purposes; professional readers will naturally seek further information in some of the works mentioned at the end of this article:—His ideas on anatomy and physiology were vague and imperfect, and probably not much in advance of the opinions of his contemporaries. One of the principal recognized causes of disease was the influence of season, climate, water, situation, &c.; and the modifications of the atmosphere dependent on different seasons and climates, is a subject which was successfully treated by him, and which is still far from being exhausted by all the researches of modern science. He considered that, while heat and cold, moisture and dryness, succeeded one another throughout the year, the human body underwent certain analogous changes which influenced the diseases of the period, and on this basis was founded the doctrine of pathological constitutions corresponding to particular conditions of the atmosphere; so that, whenever the year or the season exhibited a special character in which such or such a temperature prevailed, those persons who were exposed to its influence were afflicted by a series of disorders all bearing the same stamp. (The same idea which runs through Sydenham's Observationes Medicæ.) From this theory naturally follows the belief in the influence which different climates exercise on the human frame; for in fact a climate may be considered as nothing more than a permanent season, whose effects upon different portions of mankind may be expected to be more powerful, inasmuch as the cause is ever at work. Accordingly, Hippocrates carries this doctrine as far as possible, in attributing to climate both the conformation of the body and the disposition of the mind to a greater degree than most other writers.
Another principal cause of disease he considered to be a vicious system of diet, which, whether excessive or defective, was equally injurious; and in the same way he believed, that, when bodily exercise was either too much indulged in or entirely neglected, the health was equally likely to suffer, though by different forms of disease. With respect to the "humoral pathology" that is found in his writings, it will be sufficient to state that the four fluids or humours of the body—blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile—were supposed to be the primary seat of disease; that health was the result of the due combination (or crasis) of these, and that when this crasis was disturbed, disease was the consequence; that, in the course of a disorder that was proceeding favourably, these humours underwent a certain change in quality (or coction), which was the sign of returning health, as preparing the way for the expulsion of the morbid matter (or crisis); and that these crises had a tendency to occur at certain stated periods, which were hence called critical days.
His medical practice appears to have been for the most part excessively cautious, if not feeble; and, indeed, he was in after times accused of letting his patients die, by doing nothing to save them. His treatment consisted chiefly in watching the operations of nature, and promoting the critical evacuations mentioned above; and if the oft quoted dictum, "Nature is the physician of diseases," is not to be found in one of his genuine works (see Epid. vi.), it may at least have been the result of his practice on the minds of his followers. It should, however, be added, that occasionally, both in medical and surgical cases, his mode of practice showed no such symptoms of timidity, and that some of his operations may even be considered unnecessarily bold.
His style of writing is concise and obscure, and occasionally the same grammatical irregularities occur that are found in his contemporary Thucydides; but these characteristics of his style are not equally apparent in all his (acknowledged) works. He used the Ionic dialect, which is probably the reason why Aretæus in after times did the same. He was evidently a person of great experience, and one who knew how to turn it to good account. It is equally evident that he was a profound thinker, as appears from the number of sententious apophthegms which are met with in his works, some of which (as for example, "Vita brevis, Ars longa") have acquired a sort of proverbial notoriety.
The Hippocratic collection began very early to exercise the critical talents of literary and philosophical physicians. The earliest commentator whose name has been preserved, is Herophilus; the oldest commentary still extant is that of Apollonius Citiensis; and by far the most voluminous commentaries are those of Galen, which are of very great use both in settling the text, and in explaining the meaning of numerous difficult passages. Many of the treatises were translated into Arabic, but in the middle ages they were not so popular in Europe as other works of more practical utility. The number of editions of the whole or certain parts of the collection is very great, and a list of them may be found in Choulant's Handbuch der Bücherkunde für die Æltere Medicin, and in Kühn's or Littré's edition of Hippocrates. The most important editions of the whole collection are the following—that of Foësius, Francof. 1595, fol., Gr. and Lat.; that of Chartier, Paris, 1679, fol., Gr. and Lat., with Galen's works; and that of Kühn, Lips. 8vo, 3 vols. 1826, Gr. and Lat. An excellent edition was commenced in 1839 by E. Littré, in Paris, with a French translation—eight volumes have appeared, but the work is still unfinished. Another excellent edition has been commenced by F. Z. Ermerins, of which only the first volume has yet appeared, Gr. and Lat. 4to, Traj. ad Rhen. 1859. There is an English translation of a portion of the works, by the late Dr. Francis Adams, London, 8vo, published by the Sydenham Society, 1849, 2 vols.; and a French translation also of part of the treatises, by Ch. Daremberg, Paris, 1855; both works extremely good, especially the latter. (Further information respecting Hippocrates will be found in the histories of Medicine by Le Clerc, Sprengel, and others; in Haller's Bibliothecæ; in the first volume of Littré's work; and in numerous other books.
