Menodoto di Nicomedia: Contributo a una storia galeniana della medicina empirica

Lorenzo Perilli

Jun 2011 · Beiträge zur Altertumskunde Ibhuku elingu-206 · Walter de Gruyter

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Menodotus of Nicomedia (II AD) has usually been considered as one of the most important among the physicians of the so-called Greek Empirical school, as well as, according to an-cient testimonies, a leading figure of Skepticism and, at least until mid-20th century, a fore-runner of modern experimental science. This book offers the first scientific monograph en-tirely devoted to an empirical doctor, together with a collection of fragments in the form of a "running commentary". In the resulting frame, a more reliable historical position is re-covered for Menodotus (and, through him, for the last development of Greek empirical medicine), and the usual picture is substantially altered. Main lines of the work are the problem of sources, which can be identified almost exclusively with the famous doctor Galen, and of their trustworthiness; the misunderstood role of Menodotus as a source of Galen for his picture of Empiricism; the mutual relationship between the concepts of reason and experience, and the problematical acceptance of the former into the empirical doctrine; the relationship of Menodotus to his forerunners, not only inside the school but also in the post-Aristotelian history of medicine and philosophy, starting from Diocles of Carystus and up to Heraclides of Tarentum and to the Epicureanism of Philodemus. The Introduction tries a.o. to understand the role of Greek Empiricism in the history of science. The book also contains a detailed bibliography and five Indexes, as well as an Epilegomenon, in which the authenticity of some works of Galen concerning Empiricism is discussed.