Page:The growth of medicine from the earliest times to about 1800.djvu/121

 CHAPTER VIII

BRIEF EXTRACTS FROM SOME OF THE HIPPOCRATIC WRITINGS

The statements which have thus far been made in these pages with regard to Hippocrates are only of a general character, and it may therefore be interesting for the reader to have placed before him a few selected extracts from the writings which have formed the basis of these statements. The English text here used is a translation of the German version of Robert Fuchs, to which reference has already been made. It would have been a pleasure to use for this purpose the admirable English translation of Frederick Adams, published in 1849 under the auspices of the Sydenham Society of Great Britain; but, unfortunately, this version contains only a part of the Hippocratic writings, and, besides, this writer did not at that time have the advantage of consulting the French and German versions which have been published since 1849.

It seems almost unnecessary to state here, by way of preface, that the small amount of space which may properly be devoted to these extracts renders it necessary to present many of them in a very fragmentary and disconnected form, merely enough text being furnished to give the reader some slight idea both of the manner in which Hippocrates and those associated with him handled certain medical topics, and also of the views which they entertained with regard to the same subjects.

BRIEF EXTRACTS FROM SOME OF THE HIPPOCRATIC WRITINGS

Aphorisms.—I.—1. Life is short, art is long, the right moment lasts but an instant, experience is often deceptive, a correct judgment is hard to reach.*