and elliptical, with recourse to simile and metaphor. Where case notes are recorded, the
content overlaps with that of E 6.
Dentition (Littré 8). This work consists of a set of 32 aphorisms, relating to feverish illnesses
which typically beset infants at the time of teething. The expression is concise and the
content condensed.
Nutriment (Littré 9). This short collection of aphorisms deals with the importance of
nourishment to all parts of the body, though it is clearly perceived that individual needs
differ. The style is contorted, and there is much riddling antithesis in the manner of
H E.
Crises and Critical Days (Littré 9). These two works are “late” and derivative selections
of aphoristic material from a variety of Hippokratic sources.
Jones (1923, 1931); R. Joly, Hippocrate vv. 6.2, 13 (CUF 1972, 1978).
Elizabeth Craik
Hippokratic Corpus, Epide ̄miai (ca 430 – 350 BCE)
Seven anonymous books transmitted in Ionic Greek under the name of H as
part of the Corpus Hippocraticum. Their title is perhaps old (4th c. BCE?) but probably not
original; its meaning is uncertain: “arrival” or “sojourn” of persons (of itinerant physicians
and/or patients) or diseases (but not only of epidemics and endemics, since the books
describe others as well, e.g. injuries) or both.
The seven books form three groups: (1) Epide ̄miai 1 and 3 (ca 410 BCE; extant commentar-
ies by G) contain observations on weather conditions of particular years and on con-
comitant diseases; individual case descriptions; and aphorisms. They are, in parts, carefully
composed. (2) Epide ̄miai 2, 4, 6 (between 427/426 and 373/372 BCE) are, in content, similar
to 1 and 3 ( plus a description of an anatomical dissection, 2.4.1–2) but read more like
notebooks and are composed largely chaotically (commentaries are extant by Gale ̄n on 2,
by Gale ̄n, P, and I A on 6). (3) Epide ̄miai 5 and 7 (ca 375 – 350
BCE) consist mostly of individual case descriptions.
The “literary” or in parts subliterary form of the Epide ̄miai, characterized by inexplicit-
ness and unpolished (elliptic, “telegraphic”) diction, is remarkable. With hundreds of
records about individual patients or groups of patients and with sometimes obscure general-
izing texts (“aphorisms”), the Epide ̄miai were obviously written for informal use, perhaps as
notes which medical teachers would expand upon during lessons, or as internal materials for
a professional group. They seem to have served didactic as well as practical purposes and
represent an advanced stage of Greek medical development as compared to certain other
Hippokratic treatises. The patients, whose names, professions, and addresses are often
revealed, lived throughout the Aegean and belonged to both sexes, all age-groups ( perhaps
except very young infants) and social strata. Modern attempts to relate the Epide ̄miai to
specific “medical schools,” in particular a hypothetical “school of Ko ̄s,” have failed. The
technical vocabulary comprises many terms absent from earlier, more traditional texts. At
first sight, one might conclude that the Epide ̄miai were designed as a database of obser-
vational raw data; but a more thorough analysis makes it clear that observations have been
“filtered”: that they presuppose (i) elaborate methods of prognosis, (ii) nosological doctrine
(i.e. lore about particular diseases conceived of as entities), (iii) sophisticated theoretical
assumptions about the healthy body (e.g. its physiological “type”; its “humors”) and the
diseased organ(ism) (e.g. the processes of “ripening” and “krisis” during a malady), and
HIPPOKRATIC CORPUS, EPIDE ̄MIAI