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(Ron)
#1
Introduction 25
(cf. fr. 56 ), his references to obscure causes (fr. 177 ), his interest in cogni-
tion, sense-perception and locomotion, and even in the field of dietetics his
endeavours to develop and systematise dietetics into a detailed regimen for
health and hygiene aimed at disease prevention – all this confirms the ‘the-
oretical’, ‘philosophical’ nature of Diocles’ medical outlook. It must have
been these characteristics which prompted later Greek medical writers to
reckon Diocles among the so-called Dogmatist or Rationalist physicians,
who preferred to base medicine on a proper, theoretical and philosophical
foundation, and who wanted to raise medicine from a craft to a systematic
and explanatory intellectual discipline that obeyed the strict rules of logical
coherence.
Nevertheless, as we have seen, there was also a tradition in antiquity that
represented Hippocrates as being hostile to philosophy, indeed as the one
who liberated medicine as an empirical, practical art aimed at treatment
of diseases from the bondage of theoretical philosophical speculation (cf.
fr. 2 ). And there is that side to Diocles as well; for, as we shall see in
chapters 2 and 3 , several fragments testify to Diocles’ awareness that the
use of theoretical concepts and explanatory principles constantly has to
be checked against the empirical evidence, and that their appropriateness
to individual circumstances has to be considered time and time again in
each individual case. Diocles’ reputation as the first to write a handbook
on anatomy, in which he provided detailed descriptions of all the parts of
the human body including the female reproductive organs, and his status
as one of the leading authorities in the area of gynaecology, as well as the
fame of some of his surgical instruments and bandages all suggest that we
are dealing not only with a writer, communicator and thinker, but also with
an experienced practitioner.
Yet whatever the title of ‘younger Hippocrates’ means, it certainly does
not imply, and perhaps was not meant to suggest, that Diocles faithfully
followed in the footsteps of the Father of medicine in all respects. For, as we
will see in chapter 2 , several fragments of his works bear out that, whatever
the authority of Hippocrates may have been in Diocles’ time, it did not
prevent Diocles from taking issue with some ideas and practices that are
similar to what is to be found in texts which we call Hippocratic. Diocles
can therefore be regarded as an independent key figure in the interaction
between medicine and natural philosophy (at least in its epistemological
results) in one of the founding periods of Greek science who long exercised a
powerful influence on later Greek medicine. Diocles provides an important
connection between Hippocratic medicine and Aristotelian science, and he
is a major contributor to the development of early Hellenistic medicine,
