GREEK BIOLOGY AND MEDICINE 



ing whether the patient should have been pre- 

 viously purged. Attention is to be paid to the 

 stages of the disease and the condition of the 

 patient, and regard should be had to his usual 

 habit of taking food, whether once a day or 

 twice (sic). The physician must be cautious 

 in changing the diet or increasing it when the 

 disease takes a favorable turn. Greek physi- 

 cians had constantly to treat pleurisies and 

 pneumonias and enteric fevers; and one may 

 question whether modern medical writing has 

 anything wiser to say as to diet in such cases 

 than this Hippocratic tract. 



It is not my purpose to recount the details 

 of Hippocratic practice, but rather to illustrate 

 its principles, its penetrating observation, its 

 fine and broad intelligence, its humane wisdom. 

 Never was a practice so wise within the limita- 

 tions of the practitioner's knowledge: that in- 

 deed was very limited as to anatomy and 

 physiology, — while the resources of the 

 human constitution were better understood, as 

 were the effects of climate and food. 



Hippocratic medicine recognized that dis- 

 eases resulted from natural causes, and should 

 be treated accordingly. This was a prodigious 

 stride toward the light. It is always the task 



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