318 Late antiquity
The addition ‘without any reason and because of some affection in the body’ is
made because other people fear drinking out of a suspicion that it may be mixed
with poison, or they are deliberately careful because, if they drink at the wrong
time, they may be in danger; and people who are afraid for these reasons cannot
immediately be called hydrophobes.
In both cases the definition is stated in such a form as to distinguish the
disease from other phenomena that present themselves in a similar way but
are due to a different cause.^76
Not only do these passages appear difficult to accommodate within
the supposedly categorical rejection by the Methodists of definitions;
they also seem to go against the more specific ban on the inclusion
of thecausein the definition, which Caelius expresses in the following
passage:
( 23 ) Nos autem superfluum fuisse causas passionis dicere iudicamus, cum sit nec-
essarium id, quod ex causis conficitur, edocere. multo autem ac magis superfluum
dicimus etiamcausas antecedentes diffinitionibus adiungi, quippe cum nec sola cho-
lerica passio ex indigestione fiat neque sola indigestio hanc faciat passionem, sed
etiam aliae speciales atque contraria
monstratur, dehinc quod rheumatismus siue humoris fluor non solum uentris
atque intestinorum sit, sed etiam stomachi. Quapropter, ut Soranus ait, cholerica
passio est solutio stomachi ac uentris et intestinorum cum celerrimo periculo. sed
antecedentes causas eius passionis dicimus.. .quorum sane intellectus aptus rationi
est ob causarum scientiam, inutilis uero ac
(Acut. 3. 19. 190 , partly quoted under no. 13 above)
We, however, judge that it was superfluous to state the causes of the disease, when
it is necessary to set forth what is brought about by (these) causes. Even much more
superfluous we hold to be the inclusion of antecedent causes in the definitions,
for neither is cholera the only disease caused by indigestion nor is indigestion the
only thing to bring about this disease, but there are other special (causes) of diverse
kinds, none of which become clear from this definition. Moreover, it is superfluous
because the rheumatism or a flux of humour is not only of the belly and the
intestines but also of the oesophagus. For this reason, as Soranus says, the choleric
disease is a loose state of the oesophagus and the belly and the intestines with acute
danger. The antecedent causes, however, we state to be the following... Yet while
the understanding of these is certainly appropriate to the theoretical knowledge of
the causes, it is useless and not necessary for the treatment or for the nature of the
disease.
(^76) For similar explanations of the components of the definition by reference to distinction from other
similar phenomena seeAcut. 3. 1. 5 (quoted above under no. 17 ), where, again, the cause of the
disease (in this case, synanche) is referred to in the definition; see also Soranus,Gyn. 1. 12 ; 1. 19 ;