Case History as Minority Report in the Hippocratic Epidemics 1.

Abstract

Instead of being self-evident depictions of sickness, ancient medical texts were narratives created from certain points of view and for intended purposes. As a guide for the physician travelling to an unfamiliar community of people, the treatise Airs, Waters, Places anticipated "communal" conditions resulting from seasonal changes, while admitting the possibility of "personal" sickness due to individual lifestyles. Even with its geographical situatedness, Epidemics 1 continued to prioritise population narratives, subsuming sickness within the experiences of the anonymous majority whenever possible. In both its constitutions and case histories, however, patients whose conditions deviated from majority expectations were identified for forensic purposes, so that case histories functioned as minority reports rather than exemplars of how sickness behaved. Such reports guarded against surprising deviations from the rules of prognosis, which could present a threat to the physician's credibility and livelihood as a consequence.