Cris et Bruits des Malades dans la Collection Hippocratique
Cries and Noises of the Sick in the Hippocratic Collection

Summary/Abstract: This paper deals with the Hippocratic descriptions of screams and other noises produced by the patient’s body. Eight treatises are examined: Epidemics, The Sacred Disease, Ancient Medicine, Prognosis, On Diseases II, Aphorisms, Places in Man and Superfetation. We are interested in the way the Hippocratic physician perceives the sounds produced by the patient and the relationship between the observation and the underlying medical theory. The contexts in which notes about patient’s noises appear are closely examined and compared to other contemporary descriptions of noises, like the famous hiccup of Aristophanes in Plato’s Symposium. Hippocratic doctor, it will be argued, is influenced in his observation by some non-medical ideas. We will also try to determine the prognostic value that some sounds, like the scream and the hiccup, have in the Hippocratic writings.

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