ABSTRACT
The pseudo-hippocratic letters relating to Hippocrates’ interview at Abdera with Democritus exercised considerable influence in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The first letter is addressed to Hippocrates by the Council and people of Abdera. It is an appeal for help and the admission of general distress. An important man is ill, and his illness imperils the entire city, which had placed in him its hope of ‘eternal glory’. The city fears that it will be abandoned, so much does its own existence depend on that of the superior man in whom they had hitherto recognized a superior wisdom. Now Democritus is sick, says the letter 'because of the excess of wisdom that possesses him'. Democritus is a work of nature; in the circumstances, the physician considers himself summoned by nature. Hippocrates will give a perfect demonstration of his method: he brushes aside the bystanders. Democritus has found tranquillity in retreat and in the investigation of physical causes.
