To help, or to do no harm 117
‘to die with’ ( C
),^63 the patient – which reminds one of what
is sometimes said about incurable but non-fatal conditions (such as chronic
fatigue syndrome): ‘It is not that you dieof it, you diewithit.’ It is clear
that Hippocratic doctors regarded this as something highly undesirable:
disease is something to be resisted and to be fought against, not something
to resign onseself to.^64 But this has to be done in the awareness of the
limitations of the art.^65
Thirdly, as a passage inOn Internal Affectionsindicates, treatment does
not stop after recovery: ‘If the patient is not cared for after he has recovered,
and does not keep a watch over himself, in many the disease has returned
and killed them.’^66 The body needs to be looked after not only when it
is healthy or when it is sick, but also when it has turned from sickness to
health.
This comprehensive approach to therapeutics is continued and further de-
veloped by Diocles, whose dietetic fragments, in their meticulous attention
to even the slightest detail, display an impressive degree of sophistication –
some might say decadence.^67 Yet, as we have seen, in Diocles’ work dietetics
and therapeutics seem to constitute two distinct areas of the overarching
category ‘medicine’. This is further reflected in a fragment of Diocles’ con-
temporary Mnesitheus of Athens, who divided medicine into two branches,
the preservation of health and the dispelling of disease.^68 These classifica-
tions may be related to an increasing sense of unease in Greek society
(^63) Int. Aff. 5 ( 7. 180 L.); 46 ( 7. 280 L.).
(^64) Epidemics 1. 11 ( 2. 636 L.):H
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(^65) SeeOn the Art of Medicine 8 (cf. Arist.Rh. 1355 b 12 : ‘nor is it the purpose of medicine to make
a patient healthy, rather it is to promote this only in so far as is possible; for even those who are
incapable of recovery can nevertheless be treated’ ((. 1
[sc. ]3 H
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(^66) Int. Aff. 1 ( 7. 172 L.):B . % -#
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% ! B % C #C 7)!0
H 0 8 $ " .Cf.On Ancient Medicine 14 ( 1. 600 L.): ‘and it
is these things [i.e. food and drink] on which life completely depends, both for the healthy person
and for the one that recovers from illness and for the sick person’ (
1 -) + <
H
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);On Regimen 2. 76 ( 6. 620 L.): ‘and
if the patient recovers in a month, one should subsequently treat him with what is proper; but if
some (of the disease) remains, one should continue the treatment’ ( B . #
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(^67) See Diocles ‘Regimen in Health’ in fr. 182 , and the discussion by Edelstein ( 1967 a) 303 – 16.
(^68) Mnesitheus, fr. 11 Bertier: ‘Mnesitheus said that the doctor either preserves health for those who are
healthy or provides treatment of disease to those who are sick’ ( ]#
3 B H
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1 -). See
also the GalenicDefinitiones medicae 9 ( 19. 351 K.): ‘Medicine is the art that treats healthy people
by regimen and sick people by therapeutics’ (
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