Two basic errors have confounded the writing of
histories of medicine: the popularist accounts that labor under hearsay
scholarship where the writers have no grasp of the original language of the
texts they quote, nor the cultural aspects of this intellectual discourse, nor
an adequate understanding of bio-archeology and environmental history.  This approach tends to take one poorly
researched account and repeat it so often that it nearly achieves authenticity.

A second category of histories of medicine that
gets in the way of genuine scholarship are those that extract pieces of ancient
text from the socio-linguistic context in which it was originally produced to
promote a teleological raison d’etre for a rationalism that is often
quite misplaced. 

Professor
van der Eijk, in a footnote on p. 9 of Medicine
and Philosophy in Classical Antiquity, notes that the notion of ‘rational
medicine’ has, until about thirty years ago, taken pridefully the Greeks and
Romans as models of the founders of this rational, positivist medicine.  The fashion for shaping history according to
the preoccupations of one’s own day has given way to another fashion:
historical texts are  situated in the
social and cultural traditions of their time, but assessed as meaningful only
relative to the ideas from which they arose. This relativism Philip van der
Eijk cautions against, for he says Greek and Roman medicine has a distinctive
quality and enduring peculiar to it. 

The idea of rationalism, anyway, though it
seems self-explanatory, cloaks a range of meanings that are not immediately
obvious. Rationality can mean not irrational, nor supernatural, without appeal
to gods or divine or supernatural powers. 
This particular meaning of rationalism is not true for Greek medicine,
at least in the way we understand it. Throughout this book it becomes clear
that Greek and Roman medical thinkers dipped in and out of belief in gods,
divine or supernatural powers. They were, afterall, people of their time. A
rationality that doesn’t suggest an appeal to divinity does lend itself to a
description of Greek and Roman medical thinkers.  Prof van der Eijk writes

a different use of the word ‘rational’ is in
the sense in which ancient medical writers themselves used it, where ‘rational’
stands for ‘rationalist’, ‘theoretical’ (logikos,
rationalis) as opposed to empirical/practical, thus denoting the
speculative, theorectical nature of Greek medical thought and its close
relation with natural philosophy, epistemology, etc. On this view, one can
safely say — and comparisons with other ancient medical traditions have
confirmed — that Greek medicine, with its emphasis on explanation, its search
for causes, its desire for logical systematization, its endeavour to provide an
epistemic function for prognosis and treatment, and especially its
argumentative nature and urge to give accounts (logos, ratio) of its ideas and practices in debate, does show a
distinctive character.

The scholarly study of the
history of medicine has benefited from some of the major developments in the
study of philosophy. The contextualization and historicization of philosophical
inquiry allows us a better view of contemporary definitions of philosophy, thus
permitting our better sight of what the ancients actually meant, versus our
preconception of it. This in turn permits a closer scrutiny of the ancient
texts themselves.

In this closely researched and often difficult
collection of new and previously published essays Philip van der Eijk takes us
into the language, the philosophy and history of the ancients practitioners and
thinkers in medicine and philosophy. Philosophy and medicine are, as he says,
intrinsically entwined for whatever is said about the body and its conditions
true for the formation of philosophic thought. The one configures the
development of concepts and methodologies of the other.Galen (or
Claudius Galen of Pergamum, c. 130–200 CE) said that the best doctor is also a
philosopher. Given this is true, how can we continue to hold the studies of
medicine and philosophy apart? The title of this volume, after all, still
refers to ‘medicine’ and ‘philosophy’ as though they are distinct disciplines.
Philip van der Eijk notes, in this regard, that such folly is conceals ‘the
very substantial overlap that existed between the various areas of activity.’
Empedocles, Democritus, Parmenides, Pythagoras, Philolaus, Plato, Aristotle,
Theophrastus, Strato, and later thinkers as Sextus Empiricus, Alexander of
Aphrodisias, Nemesius of Emesa and John Philoponus (all usually identified as
philosophers) took an active interest in those subjects we commonly consider
the domain of medicine: anatomy, physiology, psychiatric illnesses,
reproduction and embryology, youth and old age, respiration, pulses, fevers,
the causes of diseases, and the effects of food, drink and drugs on  the human body.  In fact it was under the umbrella of philosophy that a
theoretical study of medicine first took hold. It was Hippocrates that first
suggested the separation of the art of healing from the theoretical study of
nature that the study of medicine, as such, was instituted. It is necessary to
note that in recent years this separation is again coming under increased
scrutiny as it is realized that the "what" of medical practice we do
is defined reflexively by the theories and beliefs we have concerning it as
much as our involvement in it. This is changing medical education, in the first
instance, and gradually, in the second instance, the practice of medicine
itself.

This is an essential book for the student of ancient philosophy and science, but
it isn’t a book to lazily take to bed. It requires concentrated effort on the
part of the reader. Despite, or maybe because of this, Medicine and Philosophy in Classical Antiquity will be an important
addition to the serious scholar’s library and not easily parted with.  Recommended.

© 2005 Elizabeth McCardell

Elizabeth
McCardell, PhD, Independent scholar, Australia.

Categories: General, Philosophical