56 Hippocratic Corpus and Diocles of Carystus
the statement sounds too strange to be accepted as a self-evident idea not
needing explanation.
Finally, as was already noted by Nestle,^31 the restricted interpretation of
‘the divine’ as the climatic factors is absent (and out of the question) in the
parallel discussion of the divine character of diseases in chapter 22 ofAirs,
Waters, Places. Although the writer ofAirs, Waters, Places, in accordance
with the overall purpose of his treatise, generally assigns to climatic factors
a fundamental role in his explanation of health and disease, he does not
say anything about their allegedly divine character and surprisingly does
not, in his discussion of the divinity of diseases in chapter 22 , explain
this with an appeal to climatic factors. In the case discussed there (the
frequent occurrence of impotence among the Scythians) theprophasiesof
the disease are purely ‘human’ factors,^32 and no influence of climatic factors
(! G % * ) *
-) 1 -
0 H. % -
*
) )0 I . A
C
-
0 -) % !
9
), the distribution of (or!# , which is thevaria lectio) and$suggests that
in the author’s opinion the first thing for the physician to do is to identify the nature of the patho-
logical situation (which consists in diagnosis and, as the text says, in determining the extent to
which the disease exceeds the strength of the patient’s body) and at the same time to see whether
‘something divine’ is present in the disease in question. As the structure of the sentence (the use
of the participle!and of the infinitive
) indicates, it cannot be maintained (as
Kudlien believes) that a distinction is made here between diseases which result in death and diseases
of divine, i.e. (in Kudlien’s view) climatic, origin; as the context shows, the physician should check
first whether the disease is capable of being cured lest, if not, he will be blamed for the patient’s
death ("
J A#), thusC
-
clearly refers to
-) )(the word$
being now used because the -
of the has been recognised), and-)can only refer
to
-) ). Another objection to Kudlien’s view is that the wording A
C
-
apparently implies that a certain disease may (but need not) contain a divine
element, whereas if meteorological or environmental medicine were referred to here, it would only
be possible to say that a disease has a climatic cause or that it has not. Nor is Kudlien’s reference
to ch. 25 convincing evidence for his view, for there the author is not concerned with causes of
diseases, but with symptoms. Besides, we may wonder whether his claim that in different areas the
significance of the symptoms remains the same is compatible with the principles of environmental
medicine as stated inAirs, Waters, Places. I see no other possibility than to interpret the passage as
a recognition (which may be quite perfunctory or just in order to be on the safe side) that in some
cases a disease may be sent by a god and that, consequently, in these cases human treatment is useless
(so that the physician cannot be blamed for therapeutic failure) and, perhaps (though this is not
explicitly stated), that it can only be cured by divine agency; nor do I see why this interpretation
would be inconceivable (for a similar case cf.On the Nature of the Woman 1 , where the possibility
that a divine element is present in diseases is recognised, without this possibility being specified or
explained or taken into account in the course of the treatise).(^31) Nestle ( 1938 ) 4 – 5.
(^32) The explanation of the Scythians’ impotence is that owing to their habit of horse-riding they are
afflicted with varicosity of the veins followed by lameness. Then they try to cure themselves by means
of cutting the vein which runs behind each ear. It is this treatment which causes their impotence.
Later on in the chapter (sections 11 – 12 Diller, 2. 80 L.) it is only the practice of horse-riding (with the
consequent swelling of the joints) which is mentioned as theprophasisof the disease, to which are
added their wearing trousers, as well as cold and fatigue (herepsuchosis mentioned, but it obviously
refers to getting cold when riding on horseback for a long time).