engleski

De victu I. 1-2, Analysis

What understanding of medicine are we dealing with in De victu I 1-2? It can be defined by position that the condition of understanding medicine is a certain previous understanding of the nature of man that that medicine should start from this knowledge. The knowledge about human being is actually a knowledge about what human being is composed of and this knowledge is not necessarily acquired by investigation, by some more or less immediate insight into the composition of human body, but should be deduced from a more general theory about what the world is composed of. According to this understanding medicine should start from a certain anthropology, but not an anthropology whatsoever, but from an anthropology which is a part of a wider theory, from cosmology. Medicine is thus not a self-sufficient science or art, but a part of a wider, more encompassing explanation of the world as a whole. This is a sort of a “philosophical” medicine. This medicine is based on some suppositions which serve as explanatory principles. If medicine is based on cosmological principles, then the same principles unify the explanations on all levels. Man and world are composed of the same elements, the invisible compounds of human body are subject to the same processes and laws.

Hippocrates, De victu, medicine

nije evidentirano