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Chapter 3 - On Breaths

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 April 2023

David H. Camden
Affiliation:
St Paul's School, New Hampshire
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Summary

After considering On Breaths’ “Gorgianic” style and the disputed attribution of this text to Hippocrates, this chapter argues that the author’s attribution of all diseases to pneuma is not as revolutionary as it initially appears. By relying on widely attested views about what pneuma tends to do within the body, this author is in fact remarkably conservative when constructing his own theories of pathogenesis. This chapter then turns to the more important question of why this author felt compelled to identify a single cause of all diseases. On the one hand, we can point to the same interest in remote and proximate causes that we see in On the Nature of the Human Being. At the same time, this author seems to be driven by a separate “cosmological impulse,” the belief that high-level commonalities, whatever their applicability, are inherently desirable and directly relevant to the medical art.

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The Cosmological Doctors of Classical Greece
First Principles in Early Greek Medicine
, pp. 83 - 122
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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  • On Breaths
  • David H. Camden, St Paul's School, New Hampshire
  • Book: The Cosmological Doctors of Classical Greece
  • Online publication: 27 April 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009203012.004
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  • On Breaths
  • David H. Camden, St Paul's School, New Hampshire
  • Book: The Cosmological Doctors of Classical Greece
  • Online publication: 27 April 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009203012.004
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • On Breaths
  • David H. Camden, St Paul's School, New Hampshire
  • Book: The Cosmological Doctors of Classical Greece
  • Online publication: 27 April 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009203012.004
Available formats
×