The image of Empedocles in the Hippocratic treatises and the interpretation of some biographical evidences

Abstract

Empedocles is spoken of as a physician by various ancient authors. However, none of the medical works attributed to him has survived. These may have been the treatise of Empedocles mentioned by Pliny the Elder on the deliverance of Athens from the plague and the medical treatise in six hundred verses. Nevertheless, we have at our disposal a number of fragments of his poem, in which the structure of various parts of the body is described, an attempt is made to explain the functioning of the processes of perception, some physiological processes and the structure of living organisms are described. Empedocles is also mentioned in some treatises of the Hippocratic corpus, but rather as a fake doctor in comparison with the real, i. e. Hippocratic doctors. This study aims to resolve the conflict that exists between the fragments of Empedocles’ poem, in which he speaks in the first person and promises to teach various “magical” techniques, the testimonies of Heraclides and Timaeus based on these statements, and the reaction to Empedocles by representatives of the Hippocratic school. For this we will have to turn both to doxographic evidence and to some treatises of the Hippocratic corpus — “Ancient Medicine”, “The Sacred Disease” and “Decorum”. The article examines what medicine was in antiquity, what was the reason for the institutionalization of the medical profession, and whether a clear disciplinary boundary could be drawn between medicine and natural philosophy at the time. These questions are included in the general discussion of the relation between religious and scientific views in the philosophy of Empedocles, as well as in the mentioned treatises of the Hippocratic corpus. In addition, the article attempts to interpret the story of the miraculous resurrection of the breathless by referring to contemporary research in the field of resuscitation.