Note 134 — Chapter XXXVIII · TIMÆUS AND KRITIAS.
Reading edition
He alludes especially to the Hippokratic treatise Περὶ Φύσιος ἀνθρώπου, see De Hipp. et Plat. Dogm. viii. pp. 674-710, ed. Kühn.
In the valuable Hippokratic composition — Περὶ Ἀρχαίης Ἰητρικῆς — (vol. i. pp. 570-636, ed. Littré) the author distinguished ἰητροί, properly so-called, from σοφισταί, who merely laid down general principles about medicine. He enters a protest against the employment, in reference to medicine, of those large and indefinite assumptions which characterised the works of Sophists or physical philosophers such as Empedokles (pp. 570-620, Littré). “Such compositions,” he says, “belong less to the medical art than to the art of literary composition” — ἐγὼ δὲ τουτέων μὲν ὅσα τινὶ εἴρηται σοφιστῇ ἢ ἰητρῷ, ἢ γέγραπται περὶ φύσιος, ἧσσον νομίζω τῇ ἰητρικῇ τέχνῃ προσήκειν ἢ τῇ γραφικῇ (p. 620). Such men cannot (he says) deal with a case of actual sickness: they ought to speak intelligible language — γνωστὰ λέγειν τοῖσι δημότῃσι (p. 572). Again, in the Treatise De Aere, Locis, et Aquis, Hippokrates defends himself against the charge of entering upon topics which are μετεωρολόγα (vol. ii. p. 14, Littré).
The Platonic Timæus would have been considered by Hippokrates as the work of a σοφιστής. It was composed not for professional readers alone, but for the public — ἐπίστασθαι ἐς ὅσον εἰκὸς ἰδιώτην — (Hippokrat. Περὶ Παθῶν, vol. vi. p. 208, Littré).
The Hippokratic treatises afford evidence of an established art, with traditions of tolerably long standing, a considerable medical literature, and even much oral debate on medical subjects — ἐναντίον ἀκροατέων (Hipp. Περὶ Νούσων, vol. vi. pp. 140-142-150, Littré). Ὃς ἂν περὶ ἰήσιος ἐθέλῃ ἐρωτᾷν τε ὀρθῶς, καὶ ἐρωτῶντι ἀποκρίνεσθαι, καὶ ἀντιλέγειν ὀρθῶς, ἐνθυμέεσθαι χρὴ τάδε (p. 140) … Ταῦτα ἐνθυμηθέντα διαφυλάσσειν δεῖ ἐν τοῖσι λόγοισιν· ὅ, τι ἂν δέ τις τούτων ἁμαρτάνῃ, ἢ λέγων ἢ ἐρωτῶν ἢ ἀποκρινόμενος, … ταύτῃ φυλάσσοντα χρὴ ἐπιτίθεσθαι ἐν τῇ ἀντιλογίῃ (p. 142).
The method, which Sokrates and Plato applied to ethical topics was thus applied by others to medicine and medical dogmas. How the dogmas of the Platonic Timæus would have fared, if scrutinised with oral interrogations in this spirit, by men even far inferior to Sokrates himself in acuteness — I will not say.