Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 11.djvu/893

Rh ; Suidas, the lexicographer, wrote of him in the, and Tzetzes in the. In all these biographies there is internal evidence of confusion; many of the incidents related are elsewhere told of other persons, and certain of them are quite irreconcilable with his character, so far as it can be judged of from his writings and from the opinions expressed of him by his contemporaries ; we may safely reject, for instance, the legends that he set fire to the library of the temple of health at Cnidos, in order to destroy the evidence of plagiarism, and that he refused to visit Persia at the request of Artaxerxes Longimanus, during a pestilential epidemic, on the ground that he would in so doing be assisting an enemy. He is referred to by Plato (Protag., p. 283 ; Phcedr., p. 211) as an eminent medical authority, and his opinion is also quoted by Aristotle. The veneration in which he was held by the Athenians serves to dissipate the calumnies which, have been thrown on his character by Andreas, and the whole tone of his writings bespeaks a man of the highest integrity and purest morality.

1em {{11fine|The nqipocratic Collection consists of eighty-seven treatises, of which a part only can be accepted as genuine. The collection has been submitted to the closest criticism in ancient and modern times by a large number of commentators. (For full list of the early com mentators, see Adams s Genuine Works of Hipocrates, Sydenham Society, vol. i. pp. 27, 28.) The treatises have been classified ac- cordingto (1) the direct eviderrce of ancient writers, (2) peculiarities of style and method, and (3) the presence of anachronisms and of opinions opposed to the general Hippocratic teaching, greatest weight being attached to the opinions of Erotian and Galen. The general estimate of commentators is thus stated by Adams : &quot;The peculiar style and method of Hippocrates are held to be conciseness of expression, great condensation of matter, and dis position to regard all professional subjects in a practical point of view, to eschew subtle hypotheses and modes of treatment based on vague abstractions.&quot; The treatises have been grouped in the four following sections : (1) gerruine ; (2) those consisting of notes taken by stirdents and collected after the death of Hip pocrates ; (3) essays by disciples; (4) those utterly spurious. Littre accepts the following thirteen as absolutely genuine: (1) On Ancient Medicine (Tlepl apxa- nis njrpiKTjs); (2) The Prognostics (TlpoyvoiffTiKov) ; (3) The Aphorisms ( A^opio-yuoi) ; (4) The Epi demics, i. and iii. (Eirititifj.iiai a KO. y ) ; (5) On Regimen in Acute Diseases (Tlfpl Sicurrjs oeW) ; (6) On Airs, Waters, and Places (Tlfpl aepuv, vSarcav, Kal Toircav) ; (7) On the Articulations (Tlfpl &pQpwv) ; (8) On Fractures (Tlfpl ayjjLiav} ; (9) The Instruments of Reduction (MoxAK&amp;lt;k) ; (10) The Physician s Establishment, or Surgery (Kar jij-rpeiW) ; (11) On Injuries of the Head (Tlfpl riai&amp;gt; tv Kf&amp;lt;paff rpta/^oLTuv) ; (12) The Oath (&quot;Opicos) ; (13) The Laiv (No/xos). Of these Adams accepts as certainly genuine the 2d, 6th, 5th, 3d (7 books), 4th, 7th, 8th, 9th, and 12th, and as &quot;pretty confidently acknowledged as genuine, although the evidence in their favour is not so strong,&quot; the 1st, 10th, and 13th, and, in addition, (14) On Ulcers (Tlfpl I Ktav) ; (15) On Fistula} (Tlfpl ffvpiyycav) ; (16) On Hemorrhoids (Tlfpl al/uLoppoiSuv) ; (17) On the Sacred Disease (Tlepl IfpTJ* vovarov). According to the sceptical arrd somewhat subjective criticism of Ermerins, the whole collection is to be regarded as spurious except Epidemics, books i. and iii. (with a few interpolations), On Airs, Waters, and Places, On Injuries of the Head (&quot;insignefragmenturn libri Hippocratei&quot;), the former portion of the treatise On Rcyimen in Acute Diseases, and the &quot;obviously Hippocratic&quot; fragments of the Coan Prog nostics. Perhaps also the Oath may be accepted as genuine ; its comparative antiquity is not denied. The Aphorisms are certainly later and inferior. In the other non-Hippocratic writings Er- merins thinks he can distinguish the hands of no fewer than nineteen different authors, most of them anonymous, and some of thenr very late.|undefined}} 