Note 506 — ON THE PROGNOSTICS.

The subject of the critical days is not touched upon in the Coacæ Prænotiones, so that the contents of this section are either original or taken from some source with which we are totally unacquainted. Galen, indeed, does not hesitate to declare that Hippocrates himself was the first who treated of the critical days; but whether he had any competent authority for pronouncing this opinion cannot be satisfactorily determined. The critical days are incidentally treated of in the Epidemics and Aphorisms; but, as we have stated in our critique on the Hippocratic treatises in the Preliminary Discourse, the work “On Critical Days” is in all probability spurious. The system of the critical days taught by Hippocrates was adopted by almost all the ancient authorities, with the exception of Archigenes and his followers, who, however, were not numerous nor of any great name, with the exception of Celsus. See the Commentary on Paulus Ægineta, B. II., 7, Syd. Soc. edition.