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The Cosmology of ‘Hippocrates’, De Hebdomadibus

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

M. L. West
M. L. West
Affiliation:
University College,Oxford
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Extract

Several of the treatises and lectures that make up the Hippocratic corpus begin with more or less extended statements about the physical composition and operation of the world at large, and approach the study of human physiology from this angle. We see this, for example, in De Natwra Hominis, De Flatibus, De Carnibus, De Victu; it was the approach of Alcmaeon of Croton, Diogenes of Apollonia, and according to Plato (Phaedr. 270 c) of Hippocrates himself.

The work known as De Hebdomadibus would appear to be a prime example of the type. The first twelve chapters are cosmological. They are dominated by two ideas: that everything in nature is arranged in groups of seven, and that the human body is constructed on the same pattern as the whole world. In the later part of the book (13–52) we pass to the subject of fevers, their causation and treatment. But as Roscher observed, the cosmology and the pathology do not belong together.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 21 , Issue 2 , December 1971 , pp. 365 - 388
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1971

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References

page 365 note 1 Littré, viii. 623, 629; Ilberg, in Gr. Studien H. Lipsius dargebracht, 1894, 33–9.Google Scholar

page 365 note 2 Recherches sur une traduction inédite du traité des Semaines, livre attribué ά Hippocrate dans l'antiquité, et dont le texte grec est perdu (Paris).

page 366 note 1 ‘Die Hebdomadenlehre der gr. Philosophen u. Ärzte', Abh. sächs. Gesellsch. xxiv (6), 1906Google Scholar; ‘Über Alter, Ursprung u. Bedeutung der hippokr. Schrift von der Siebenzahl’, ibid. xxviii (5), 1911; Memnon v (1912), Heft 3/4; Phil, lxx (1912), 529–38; ‘Die hippokr. Schrift von der Siebenzahl u. ihr Verhältnis zum Altpythagoreismus’, Verh. sächs. Gesellsch. Ixxi (5), 1919.Google Scholar

page 366 note 2 Die Hippokr. Schrift von der Siebenzahl (Studien z. Gesch. u. Kultur des Altertums vi- 3/4). 1913

page 366 note 3 The most important discussions from that period are those of Boll in N. Jb. xvi (1913), 137–45 (═ KL Sehr, zur Sternkunde des Altertums, 1950, 213 ff.), and his pupil Pfeiffer, E., Studien zum antiken Stemglauben (Stoicheia, ii), 1916, 30–8Google Scholar, 119 f. I will also mention here Mras's useful observations on the Latin text, Wien. St. xli (1919), 61–74 and 181—92. Other literature will be cited in due course.

page 366 note 4 NGG 1938, 121–61 ═ his Studien z. ant. Literatur u. ihrem Nachwirken, 1967, 165–96Google Scholar. Unfortunately he still quotes Harder's ‘Arabic version’, as a separate source from ps.-Galen. I regret that Wellmann, M.'s article in Quellen u. Studien z. Gesch. d. Naturwiss. u. Medizin, iv (1933), 6–10Google Scholar, is not to be found in Oxford.

page 375 note 1 The Chinese used the Bear's attitude as a guide to the seasons (Ginzel ap. Roscher [1911], p. 77; Holmberg, U., Der Baum des Lebens, p. 6Google Scholar), but the Greeks always use risings and settings. The moon and Bears perhaps occur in connection with a heptad of seasons in Heraclitus fr. 118 M. (B 126a), but the authenticity is very suspect and the meaning very obscure: