recently, universally accepted as embodying the best results of modern research and criticism with regard to this difficult question. But since 1861 other scholars have been busily engaged in perfecting the text of the Hippocratic writings, and their criticisms and suggestions have made it possible to publish a German version of this great work which is of more practical value to physicians than that of Littré, which forms a series of ten large volumes and is no longer easy to obtain. On the other hand, the German version by Robert Fuchs (Munich, 1895-1900), in three volumes of moderate size, while in no respect inferior to the famous French translation, is superior to it in several particulars: it is better adapted to the needs of the ordinary practitioner of medicine, it embodies the results of the excellent critical work done since 1861 (e.g., by Ermerins of Utrecht, Daremberg of France, and Ilberg and Kühlewein of Germany), and it costs very much less than its French predecessor and rival.
As regards the question of authenticity of the treatises contained in the work known as "The Hippocratic Writings" the most important thing to be determined is, not whether this or that book or chapter in the collection was really written by Hippocrates, but whether the work in its totality gives a correct and fairly complete picture of the best medical thought and practice of the period during which Hippocrates lived; and to this question a decided answer in the affirmative may be given. As to the broad question of authenticity, Max Neuburger, the distinguished Viennese author of the latest and most authoritative history of medicine, thus expresses himself:—
Notwithstanding the extremely small quantity of evidence which
the so-called "Hippocratic Writings" themselves furnish as to
who were the writers of the individual treatises and as to what
Hippocrates himself actually did or thought; and although it is
true that portions of the collection often contradict one another
both in regard to questions of theory and also in regard to methods
of treatment, one fact stands out conspicuously, viz., that the
peculiar character of these writings both as a collection and taken
separately, not only gives them a unique position in medical
