Greek Medicine 93 



them. This is well brought out by some of the more famous of 

 the phrases of this remarkable collection. Thus a well-known 

 passage from the Airs, Waters, and Places tells us that the 

 Scythians attribute a certain physical disability to a god, ' but 

 it appears to me ', says the author, ' that these affections are just 

 as much divine as are all others and that no disease is either 

 more divine or more human than another, but that all are 

 equally divine, for each of them has its own nature, and none of 

 them arise without a natural cause.' But, on the other hand, 

 the author of the great work on Prognostics advises us that when 

 the physician is called in he must seek to ascertain the nature 

 of the affections that he is treating, and especially ' if there be 

 anything divine in the disease, and to learn a foreknowledge of 

 this also.' l We may note too that this sentence almost imme- 

 diately precedes what is perhaps the most famous of all the 

 Hippocratic sentences, the description of what has since been 

 termed the Hippocratic fades. This wonderful description of 

 the signs of death may be given as an illustration of the habitual 

 attitude of the Hippocratic school towards prognosis and of 

 the very careful way in which they noted details : 



6 He [the physician] should observe thus in acute diseases : 

 first, the countenance of the patient, if it be like to those who are 

 in health, and especially if it be like itself, for this would be the best', 

 but the more unlike to this, the worse it is ; such would be 

 these : sharp nose, hollow eyes, collapsed temples ; ears cold, 

 contracted, and their lobes turned out ; skin about the forehead 

 rough, distended, and parched ; the colour of the whole face 

 greenish or dusky. If the countenance be so at the beginning 

 of the disease, and if this cannot be accounted for from the 

 other symptoms, inquiry must be made whether he has passed 

 a sleepless night ; whether his bowels have been very loose ; 

 or whether he is suffering from hunger ; and if any of these be 

 admitted the danger may be reckoned as less ; and it may be 

 judged in the course of a day and night if the appearance of the 



1 Kiihlewein, i. 79, regards this as an interpolated passage, 



