Physiologia Medica

MEDICAL PROSCENIA

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For Beginners: "it is the science of healthy things and diseased things." original: "ἐστὶν ἐπιστήμη ὑγιεινῶν καὶ νοσωδῶν"

Herophilus of Chalcedon: "medicine is the science of healthy, diseased, and indifferent things."

Galen, in his book On the Medical Art, expanding on Herophilus, defines it as the "science of salubrious, insalubrious, and neutral things: of Bodies, causes, and signs." And in his commentary To Thrasybulus, chapter 5, he asserts it to be "the Art preservative of health, and curative of diseases." And in the commentary On the Constitution of the Art, it is the "perfecting and correcting Art, the servant of nature." And in the commentary On Sects, he brings forward the definition of the Empirics: it is "the knowledge of apparent commonalities, some of which agree in achieving the end of medicine": or (as Thessalus explained) "toward that which is both necessary for health." And he hints how one of the Dogmatists, in imitation of those above, could fashion it: namely, that it is a "system of many theorems shown toward health."

In Avicenna, in the first Fen of the first Canon, it is the "Science by which the dispositions of the human body are known, insofar as it is healthy or sick, so that present health may be preserved, or lost health recovered." And in his Canticles, it is "the preservation of health, and the cure of sickness, which happens from the accidents in the body."

Averroës in the first Colliget, chapter 1: "It is an operative art from true principles, in which is sought the preservation of the health of the human body, and the removal of sickness, as much as is possible for it, in every human body." The same in the explanation of the Canticles of Avicenna, and in the 6th Collect. chapter 1, repeats: "It is an operative art, whose act is from reason and experience,

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preserving health, and curing sickness."

Among the more recent writers, Fernelius, for example, defines it as "an Art prepared for protecting the health of the human body and driving out diseases."

Examination of the proposed definitions.

The proposed definitions must be examined so that what is true in them may be known. It should therefore be known that some of the proposed definitions of Medicine pertain to the Skill original: "Habitum" of Medicine, as it is in the intellect as a system of many true, consistent theorems pertaining to one and the same end; others pertain to the actions of Medicine. Those which pertain to the Skill are sought from causes and accidents: and from causes, partly jointly, partly separately.

Jointly indeed from causes, some define it more briefly (so that the law of definition, namely brevity, may be observed), others more diffusely (so that the law of definition, namely perspicuity, may be observed, lest the definition be just as obscure as the thing defined).

The definition of Herophilus seems to belong here, that brief one: that it is "the Science of salubrious, insalubrious, and neutral things," understanding all those things which Galen, with a few things added, comprehended in his own definition. Still shorter is that of the Ancients, who comprehended even the Neutral under salubrious and insalubrious things.

Likewise the definition of Galen, in On the Medical Art: "Medicine is a science." This is the Genus, in which it agrees with scientific skills, whose science is either looked at for itself (for the sake of understanding the truth) or for the sake of something else, for the sake of the effecting of good. The author of the Introductory for Methodists said he wanted the whole of Medicine to be absolutely "scientific" original: "ἐπιστημονικὴν", whereas Erasistratus asserted that it was partly "scientific" and partly "conjectural" stochastikēn. And so if Galen, out of hatred for the Methodists...