The Methodism of Caelius Aurelianus 325
the Dogmatists’ views on the treatment of diseases to be pathetically and
dangerously erroneous; but it is the Empiricists’ claim to be basing them-
selves on experience which, so to speak, invites them to be singled out for
Caelius’ most vehement castigation.^96
However, Caelius’ acceptance of reason as a source of knowledge is not
restricted to therapeutics (where it may seem to amount to a sort of practical
reasoning based on experience, common sense and perhaps some specialised
knowledge about medicaments):
(iii)Ratiomay also be used as an instrument of theoretical knowledge about
internal states of the body. Once again, the chapter on haemorrhage
(sanguinis fluor) is important:
( 36 ) Interiorum uero eruptionum diuisuras urgente solutionis coenoteta[m] ipsam
magis cogimur iudicare, siquidem prior oculis occurrat solutio ac deinde diuisura
ratione atque intellectu mentis apprehendiuideatur. (Chron. 2. 12. 147 , quoted earlier
under nos. 4 and 11 )
Yet as for the wounds that occur as a result of haemorrhage in the inner parts,
since the generality of looseness prevails, we must judge it rather as just that,
since it presents itself first to the eyes as a looseness, and after that it seems to be
apprehended as a wound by reason and by an understanding of the mind.^97
This passage stands in a very complicated argument about the generality to
which haemorrhage is to be assigned, and the chapter is of great importance
for the Methodist doctrine of the generalities (for it suggests that there
are actually more than three generalities –ulcus,ruptio,emissioalso seem
to be among them – and that the question of generalities is different in
surgery from in dietetics and pharmacology).^98 The argument is further
complicated by a polemic against Thessalus and by a division of medicine
into treatment by surgery, on the one hand, and treatment by diet and drugs,
on the other. The question which Caelius addresses is whether haemorrhage
should be regarded as a wound (incisuraordiuisura) or as a loose state
(solutio), and Thessalus is presented by Caelius as arguing that, since a
bleeding at the surface of the body is clearly a wound, and since differences
in location do not affect the question of generality, internal bleeding must
also be regarded as a wound. To this Caelius replies, first, that haemorrhage
(^96) Cf.Acut. 3. 4. 45.
(^97) For another example of the use ofratioas an instrument of mental apprehension seeChron. 2. 1. 14 :‘It
is theoretically plausible that the other individual inner parts are also affected by paralysis, such as the
lungs... but the death of the patient prevents us from recognising this. These facts often escape our
notice, since there are no signs peculiar to them that indicate them’ (Est autem ratione credibile cetero-
rum quoque interiorum singula paralysi uitiari, ut pulmonem.. .
morte[m] patientis; quae saepe latent facta, cum non propria possint apprehensione signari).
(^98) This is confirmed by Galen,De optima secta 32 ( 1. 192 – 3 K.).