The growth of medicine from the earliest times to about 1800Buck, Albert H. (Albert Henry)
History
The growth of medicine from the earliest times to about 1800
Buck, Albert H. (Albert Henry)
Medicine -- History
made to do what they failed to accomplish, but these efforts have only
succeeded in part. The French edition prepared by Émile Littré, the
distinguished member of the French Academy of Medicine, and published
in the years 1839–1861, was, until quite recently, universally
accepted as embodying the best results of modern research and criticism
with regard to this difficult question. But since 1861 other scholars
have been busily engaged in perfecting the text of the Hippocratic
writings, and their criticisms and suggestions have made it possible to
publish a German version of this great work which is of more practical
value to physicians than that of Littré, which forms a series of ten
large volumes and is no longer easy to obtain. On the other hand, the
German version by Robert Fuchs (Munich, 1895–1900), in three volumes
of moderate size, while in no respect inferior to the famous French
translation, is superior to it in several particulars: it is better
adapted to the needs of the ordinary practitioner of medicine, it
embodies the results of the excellent critical work done since 1861
(e.g., by Ermerins of Utrecht, Daremberg of France, and Ilberg and
Kühlewein of Germany), and it costs very much less than its French
predecessor and rival.
As regards the question of authenticity of the treatises contained in
the work known as “The Hippocratic Writings” the most important thing
to be determined is, not whether this or that book or chapter in the
collection was really written by Hippocrates, but whether the work in
its totality gives a correct and fairly complete picture of the best
medical thought and practice of the period during which Hippocrates
lived; and to this question a decided answer in the affirmative may be
given. As to the broad question of authenticity, Max Neuburger, the
distinguished Viennese author of the latest and most authoritative
history of medicine, thus expresses himself:--
Notwithstanding the extremely small quantity of evidence which
the so-called “Hippocratic Writings” themselves furnish as to
who were the writers of the individual treatises and as to what
Hippocrates himself actually did or thought; and although it
is true that portions of the collection often contradict one
another both in regard to questions of theory and also in regard
to methods of treatment, one fact stands out conspicuously,
viz., that the peculiar character of these writings both as a
collection and taken separately, not only gives them a unique
position in medical literature, but reveals plainly that
they owe their origin directly or indirectly to the powerful
influence of a single commanding personality.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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