ABSTRACT
The development of medicine in the ancient world has frequently been seen as the extension of the last category at the expense of the others, and there are good reasons, both ancient and modern, for adopting this interpretation. But this extension of the space occupied by non-theological explanation does not lead to a total exclusion of possibilities, even among rationalist physicians, and many of the prejudices and reactions of the pre-Hippocratic Greeks continued to exert an influence on medical thinking and practice for many centuries. To refuse to believe in a Nubian Hippocrates is seen as denying all value to Egyptian medicine; to raise the possibility of Babylonian influence on Greek medicine is considered tantamount to questioning the existence of the Greek miracle. The language of Democritus has been discerned in more than one Hippocratic treatise, and the pregnant brevity of the Aphorisms and the less familiar Dentition and Coan Prognoses has a parallel in the oracular sayings of Heraclitus.
