Hippocratic writings

The re-appearance of old friends is always a cause for rejoicing, and when Cbadwick and Mann's The medical works of Hippocrates (less Coan Prognosis) comes revised with Withington's version of Fractures, three excellent new translations by I. M. Lonie, and a masterly introduction by G. E. R. Lloyd, our pleasure is great indeed. The older versions need no praise, and Lonie's fluent and judicious rendering of The seed, The nature of the child, and The heart gives the English reader for the first time an insight into early Greek theories of generation and embryology and into the level of anatomical investigation possible by the mid-third century B.C. Dr. Lloyd's long introduction is an elegant, concise and stimulating account of 'Hippocratic' medicine, which shirks none of the difficulties over the authenticity, interpretation, and reliability of these complicated texts. Only in describing the afterlife of Hippocrates in the Middle Ages does he go seriously wrong (e.g. there is no mention of the early Latin versions studied by Kuhlewein and Beccaria, and the first vernacular translation of the Aphorisms was made in French c. 1362-1365), but these are minor blemishes, and do not detract from the excellence of the general survey of early Greek medicine. The title of the volume reflects the editor's wise conclusion that we cannot, as yet, decide which, if any, of the writings are by the great Hippocrates, and there is just a hint elsewhere that the traditional dichotomy between Coan (i.e. Hippocratic) and Cnidian medicine is too sharp. It is a pity that Dr. Lloyd did not go further in his selection of treatises and give us a "Cnidian" work such as Diseases or Affections in place of Regimen for health, or that the publishers did not take the risk of giving us two slimmer volumes-for the fat binding will not, I fear, stand up to the use it deserves. Then we could have had deontogical treatises (partly available in the Loeb series), and some of the other medical treatises such as Epidemics II, IV and VI, which have been neglected despite their early date (according to Diechgraber about 395 B.c.) because they were not by the hand of Hippocrates. Let us hope that the success of the volume will encourage Dr. Lloyd and his collaborators to continue and give us an English version of the whole Hippocratic Corpus.