284 Late antiquity
be executed with due consideration of, or at least not without, certain
– ‘qualifications’, ‘distinctions’, or ‘specifications’.^14 Thus atDe
simpl. med. fac. 3. 13 ( 11. 573 K.) Galen says that he will endeavour to give an
account of drugs in a systematic order in accordance with the range of their
powers, and that he will adopt as an infallible criterion for determining
what these powers are ‘not plausible (theoretical) accounts but qualified
experience’ (( !
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#n C). This high degree of exactness and reliability of
qualified experience is also referred to atDe simpl. med. fac. 4. 23 ( 11. 703
K.).^15 Qualified experience is said to be an important instrument for testing
(
=
) the power of a drug;^16 it is sometimes presented as superior
8
)
# equivalent to the ‘trained perception’ referred to inDe comp. med. per gen. 3. 2
( 13. 570 K.), on which see Harig ( 1974 ) 82. For the use of the active perfect forms
in Galen
seeOn the Affected Parts (De locis affectis, De loc. aff.) 2. 8 ( 8. 108 K.):
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>(^14) See the instances listed in n. 9 above. The basic meaning of
=
is ‘to discriminate’, ‘to discern’,
‘to distinguish’; Galen frequently uses the noun
!in combination with the preposition"!,
thus approximating our notion of ‘criterion’, e.g. the
3 "3 (‘criterion based on
habits’) adopted by the Empiricists (cf.De meth. med 3. 7 , 10. 207 K.) or the
3 "3 $
$ S-#(‘criterion based on moderateness or excessiveness of the pain’)
adopted by Archigenes (De comp. med. sec. loc. 3. 1 ( 12. 620 K.)). On the antecedents of this use of
!see below; on the meaning see Manetti and Roselli ( 1994 ) 1601 , who translate the term as
‘una specificazione della verit`a’ (e.g. of a statement by Hippocrates); Beintker and Kahlenberg ( 1948 )
translate ‘begriffliche Unterscheidung’.
(^15) ‘Therefore, if it is possible on this basis to make inferences about the power of drugs, the best
addition to the theory, as has been said many times, is to discover them on the basis of qualified
experience. For you won’t go wrong in this, even though before detecting the power by experience,
taste provides most indications, with smell, as I have said, providing some additional evidence’
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(^16) De simpl. med. fac. 7. 10 ( 12. 38 K.): ‘This is why in our previous discussions, when we held that one
must test the power of each drug by means of qualified experience, we advised to select an affection
that is as simple as possible’ (
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< - ). See alsoDe simpl. med. fac. 6. 1 ( 11. 800 K.), which conveys a good
impression of what such a ‘qualified’ test consists of: ‘Surely when performing the test accurately
by means of qualified experience, which we have discussed many times before, we will discover the
medicinal power [sc. of wormwood] from its mixture itself. For if one crushes the foliage together
with the flowers (for the rest of the fruit is useless) and applies it to a clean wound, it turns out
to be pungent and irritating, but if you want to soak it in olive oil and pour it over the head or
down the stomach, it will be found to be intensely heating’ (( % " 1 15
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