THE HIPPOCRATICS
writer passes on to question the usefulness of other philosophic theories for the medical practitioner: "Certain physicians and philosophers assert that one cannot know medicine without knowing what man is, how he originally came into existence and of what substances he was compounded in the beginning.… Now the contention of these men really looks to philosophy, as do Empedocles and others who have written concerning nature (περὶ Φύσεως). As for me, I consider that what a philosopher or physician has said or written of Nature has less relevancy to medicine than to painting; and I am of opinion that, so far as concerns knowledge of Nature, one can know nothing definite about it except from medicine; but this may be thoroughly learned, when men go about it rightly. Hitherto, it seems to me, we are far from it: far, that is to say, from having a scientific knowledge of what man is (that is to say, what his constitution is) and to what cause he owes his origin and the rest, in any exact sense. Now so much at least it is indispensable that the physician should know concerning Nature and should greatly concern himself to know, if he is to do any part of his duty; to wit, what a man is (i.e. what his
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