Physiologia Medica

MEDICAL PROSCENIA

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Separately, other definitions are sought not from all causes, but from some: for example, from the Efficient cause. Such is Plato’s definition: that it is the art providing for what is conducive to the body: that is, applying healthful instruments to the body, in the first book of the Republic. From the End: such is Galen's in On the Constitution of the Art, that it is the "restoring and correcting art, the servant of nature." Likewise for the Empirics, Methodists, and even the Dogmatists, it is a systema system original: "οὐσημὰ" is likely an OCR error for "σύστημα" of theorems tending toward one end, namely health. Finally, for Averroës, it is an operative art, whose act is from reason and experience, preserving health and curing sickness. Finally, for Fernelius: it is the art of preserving health and putting disease to flight.

A definition was sought from Accidents by the Platonist Eryximachus, who, in order to serve the established praise of Love and contribute his own portion, asserted that his art consisted of the power and science of Love: and thus he defined it as the "Science of those things which pertain to the amorous affections of the body." This is insofar as love of the good is health, and hatred of the evil is sickness, as the Forms of the medical body: the love of similar causes preserves these affections, and the love of dissimilar causes drives them away. Thus love of honorable things is preserved, and of shameful things extirpated. These things pertain to the End. This is surely an accidental definition, since it is taken from an accident of medical things, to which it happens that the body is said either to love or to hate. Likewise, in the Hippocratic commentary On Places, the definition is that Medicine is "to know the similar and the dissimilar" original: "τὰ ἄδια καὶ μὴ ἄδια γνῶναι" is likely "τὰ ὅμοια καὶ τὰ ἀνόμοια", that is, dissimilar things, pertaining to the preservation of similar things or the flight of dissimilar things. In the same place, it is to know

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"the characters" original: "τὰ ἤθεα" (the habits of the body, that is, the healthful or unhealthful affections, a metaphor taken from the good and bad habits of the soul) and "the timing" original: "τὶς καιρὸς" (occasions for acting and administering those things which are opportune, since time is brief original: "ὀλιγόναυρ" is likely "ὀλιγοχρόνιος").

Finally, the Actions of Medicine, from which the remaining definitions are sought, regard the causes.

The definition of Timaeus regards the subject Matter: that Medicine is, regarding the parts of the human body, which Hippocrates calls the "Containing" parts (later writers called them the "Solid" parts, which are animated and are as it were the training grounds of the soul's faculties), to preserve and repair their harmony: namely regarding their temperament, composition, and proper unity. Regarding those parts which he calls "Contained" (which Plato embraced under the names of "currents" original: "ῥωμάτων" and "breaths" original: "πνωμάτων", so that "currents" might contribute to the nutrition of the Solids so they may exist: and "breaths" to the duty of the same so they may act and operate), Medicine is to provide pure Blood, that is, the mass of humors: and to exhibit an agile Spirit obedient to the nods of the soul.

Plato's definition regards the instrumental Efficient cause: that Medicine is to prescribe to the body the rational proportion of food, drink, and medicaments.

Finally, others consider the End in a concrete and discrete way. In a concrete way, Homer says: it is for the Physician to "remove weapons" (here you should understand the genus from the species: to take away those things which are harmful to the body, whether they inhere or surround it) and to "soothe the pains of wounds" (from the species the genus: to preserve and supply those things which are pleasing and friendly to the body). Likewise, in the Hippocratic book On the Art, it is for Medicine to "provide those things which can be provided by the art, both by freeing the sick from diseases and by...