Heart, brain, blood, pneuma 127
This passage is part of a rather complicated explanation of epilepsy (for
details on this see the next paragraph). The brain plays a pivotal role in
this explanation as it is the point from where bodily and psychic faculties
are co-ordinated, but also because it is particularly sensitive to harmful
influences from the environment, such as climate and season (‘so long as
it is healthy’). These influences can therefore be additional factors that
contribute to the course the disease takes. The author emphasises this
crucial role of the brain as part of his polemic against two rival factions
which consider the diaphragm or the heart to be the central organ that is the
source of consciousness. He dismisses the etymological argument of the first
faction (phrenes – phronesis ̄ ) as invalid, and accommodates the empirical
fact that both factions put forward – the heart’s leaping in case of sudden
gladness or sadness – into his own theory, which is also based on empirical
observations (namely the delicacy of the diaphragm and the veins going
to the heart). In a previous chapter he employed an empirical argument
to support his conviction that the disease is caused by an accumulation of
phlegm in or around the brain. He claimed that if one were to open the
skull of a goat that died as a result of an epileptic fit, one would find a large
amount of fluid (phlegm) around the brain.^16
It is striking that a distinction is made here between ‘consciousness’
(phronesis ̄ ) and ‘understanding’ (sunesis): the latter is apparently related to
the ‘discerning thinking’ (diagnosis ̄ ) which is mentioned later in the text,
and which requires a certain degree of purity and precision that is adversely
affected by contact with organs and tissues. In this contextphronesis ̄ clearly
means more than ‘thinking’ or ‘intelligence’, as the word is commonly
translated. It means ‘having one’s senses together’ and refers to a universal
force by which a living being can focus on its surroundings and can un-
dertake activities; it also implies perception and movement.^17 Phronesis ̄ can
be found throughout the body, whereas ‘understanding’ is restricted to the
brain. Another thing that is striking is that the author is of the opinion that
the brain is also the source of feeling – although he admits that the heart
and diaphragm take part in this as well.
A text in which mental phenomena are even more clearly classified as
a separate category is the Hippocratic writingOn Regimen.^18 The author,
a particularly ‘philosophically’ inspired mind, presentspsuche ̄(sometimes
(^1611). 3 – 5 ( 6. 382 L.). As to the question whether this indeed concerns an experiment in the modern
sense of the word, see Lloyd ( 1979 ) 23 – 4.
(^17) See H ̈uffmeier ( 1961 ) 58. See too H. W. Miller ( 1948 ) 168 – 83.
(^18) Edition with a translation and commentary by Joly and Byl ( 1984 ). There is a dispute about the date
of this work: most scholars date it to the beginning of the fourth centurybce, but some argue in
favour of a much later date (second half of the fourth centurybce).