The Classical Doctrine of Indian Medicine: Its Origins and its Greek Parallels c15.15

c15.15

It is certain that the chapters on prognostics in the Hippocratic Collection show certain gifts of clinicians which are entirely different from those seen in the Accadian manual. The impression that one is in the presence of the results of a personal medical experience and not that of a repertory of traditional data, is confirmed by the eventual reference to the cases of patients who are designated by name and are, in consequence, personally examined or whose observation has, at least, been personally known (Prorrhétique, I, 27, 32, 34, 72, 99, 104, 119). In any case, the personal twist thus given to the teaching of prognostics, does not efface the analogy of the general structure of certain Greek manuals with the Accadian text. This is how, as has been remarked by Mr. Labat (p. xxxviii), the Prénotions de Cos catalogue organwise the symptoms, having the value of prognostics, in a manner sufficiently similar to the second part of the Accadian manual.