There is no book devoted solely to pharmacology in the Hippocratic Corpus,
and few of the treatises provide directions for treatment. The books dealing
with general medicine that do discuss treatment rely generally on diet
as a therapy; in those that do specify other treatment, these seem to develop
out of, and to be used in conjunction with, dietary measures.
In fact, the author of Ancient Medicine attributes the discovery of medicine to experiments in treating natural products to make them more suitable for human consumption, by "steeping, winnowing, grinding and sifting, kneading, baking ... combining the weaker components so as to adapt all to the constitution and power of man." (III, tr. W.H.S.Jones) Regimen in Acute Diseases gives detailed instructions for various forms and uses of gruel (which, despite its innocuous sound, also has its dangers -- the doctor warns that untimely use of gruel without first purging the patient, or use of unstrained gruel, can be fatal) (XVI, XVII)
Hippocratic treatment was based upon the principle that all foods have
properties that react on the body. Some cool, others heat, some are soothing,
and some offer dramatic evidence for their "effectiveness" (purges, emetics).
For example, Diseases III, 17 gives numerous recipes for ardent
fever, first advising: "...they have many effects, some are diuretic, others
laxative, others both, and others neither, merely cooling as if some one
were to pour cold water over a vessel of boiling water, or were to move
the vessel itself into the cold air. Give different ones to different patients,
for the sweet ones do not benefit everyone, nor do the astringent ones,
nor are all patients able to drink the same things." (tr. Paul Potter)
In most cases, drugs, when they appear, are mingled with dietary suggestions,
and it seem that the Hippocratic doctor saw little distinction, since all
have properties and effects on the body. Thus
Internal Affections
1 suggests, "...give him for breakfast fine cereals and main dishes of
the heartiest kinds, have him drink the same wine. Also, give him roots
effective against tears: grate centaury over wine; grate dragon arum [shavings]
over wine, too, and give it. For the cough, grate dragon arum into honey,
and give this to the patient to take." (tr. Paul Potter) In Epidemics
VII.80 a fever is said to have come down from "the drink made from coarse
barley meal, sometimes from apple and pomegranate juice and juice from
toasted lentils, cold." (tr. Wesley Smith) In the recipe given in Internal
Affections 6, only silphium juice (because of its rarity) would probably
not qualify as an everyday nutrient: "...early in the morning let the patient
drink in the fasting state silphium juice, to the amount of a vetch, in
melicrat or in wine and honey, eat garlic and radishes, and on top of that
take dry white or dark wine unmixed with water; let him again take these
things with his meal and after it." (tr. Paul Potter)
On the other hand, a few books are more therapeutically oriented. For
example, Diseases III prescribes a number of non-foods as expectorants,
including, "...equal amounts of white hellebore, thapsia, and fresh squirting-cucumber
juice....Alternatively... give a cheramys each of cuckoo-pint, dauke and
stinging nettle, good pinches of mustard and rue, and silphium joice in
the amount of a bean; mix these in sweetened vineagar and water, sieve,
and give warm to the fasting patient." (tr. Paul Potter)
A number of other members of the nightshade family, which we would classify
clearly as drugs, were used as well, about half the time for their narcotic
effect. Opium makes 21 appearances in the gynaecological treatises, mostly
in drinks to be used for the Wandering Womb or other uterine troubles.
Another characteristic of the gynaeocological treatises is their use
of "excrement therapy." Heinrich von Staden has drawn attention to the
fact that ninety-nine percent of all references of the use of such materials
occur in the gynaecological works. He suggests that this constitutes an
element of Hippocratic continuity with ritual: "Here the Hippocratic healer
of the womb partially resembles those very 'purifiers' and magicians' whom
the celebrated author of On Sacred Disease excoriates." (von Staden,
20).
In conclusion, we can say, with the author of Affections 45,
that Hippocratic therapy was, with some notable exceptions, based on effects
that were empirically determined and in harmony with rationalized beliefs
about the workings of the body and the causes of illness: "About medications
that are drunk or applied to wounds it is worth learning from everyone;
for people do not discover these by reasoning but by chance, and experts
not more than laymen. But whatever is discovered in medicine by reasoning,
whether about foods or about medications, you must learn from those that
have discernment in the art, if you wish to learn anything." (tr. Paul
Potter)
**********
Riddle, John, "Folk Tradition and Folk Medicine: Recognition of Drugs
in Classical Antiquity," in John Scarborough, ed. Folklore and Folk
Medicines, Madison, Wisconsin, 1987
Riddle, John, Contraception and Abortion from the Ancient World to
the Renaissance. Cambridge, MA 1992
Lewis, Walter, Medical Botany: Plants affecting man's health.
New York, 1977.
Moisan, Monica, "Les plantes narcotiques dan le Corpus Hippocraticum,"
in P.Potter, G.Maloney, J.Desautels, La maladie et les maladies dans
la Corpus Hippocraticum, Quebec, 1990, 381-91.
von Staden, Heinrich, "Women and Dirt," Helios 19 (1992) 7-30.