Heart, brain, blood, pneuma 135
and carrying around for those who contracted the disease due to their phys-
ical constitution, bleeding for those who contracted it by eating meat or
due to dipsomania.^37 Our source of information is the above-mentioned
Caelius Aurelianus (Chronic Affections 1. 4. 131 – 2 ), who remarks that these
measures are far from adequate. On the other hand, Caelius Aurelianus is a
sufficiently uncongenial informant for us to assume that Diocles provided
more than just some vague indications. But in this respect the sources leave
us in the dark.
The examples given show how each of the authors mentioned arrives at a
different explanation of epilepsy, based on ana prioriview on the physical
aspects of cognitive processes, and how in their opinion the empirically
perceptible symptoms of the disease can be fitted into this explanation.
There is no empirical verification of such presuppositions in the modern
sense of the word, apart from a rather haphazard use of empirical facts (yet
not discovered in any targeted way), employed in the author’s own defence
or in his criticism of rival views. Much has been written about the reasons
for this scientific attitude; in this respect it should be noted that systematic
attempts at falsifying theories by gathering counter-examples in empirical
reality were the exception rather than the rule in antiquity.^38 The pivotal
role of the heart, both with respect to its position and with respect to its
function, was a self-evident and undeniable fact; the same applies to the
vital role of the blood. For this reason the encephalocentric view on the
location of the mind needed quite some scientific and rhetorical force to
secure its position in the debate.
(^37) Fr. 99 vdE.
(^38) The first thinker to appear to be aware of such a principle is Aristotle (see, for instance,Gen. an.
760 b 27 ff.), yet he does not apply this in any way consistently either (see Lloyd ( 1979 ) 200 – 25 ).