ABSTRACT
In the last quarter of the fifth century BC, an anonymous author wrote a particularly polished medical treatise entitled, On Winds, which was later included into the large collection of some sixty texts known as the Hippocratic Corpus. This chapter discusses a few examples of catological jokes, focuses on Aristophanes, but starting with a much later text, that of Petronius. Indeed, in the Hippocratic Corpus, herbs such as juniper, anise, and sage were used in combination with sexual intercourse to treat ailments such as displacement of the womb. The chapter discusses the laughter in the Hippocratic Corpus and ask whether they can inform people about how the author would have expected his audience to appreciate his texts. Besides, the Hippocratic physicians considered laughter with some anguish: it could indicate a serious medical imbalance. The Hippocratic physician may have been full of hot air, but to him that hot air was no laughing matter.
