Analogical method, experiment and didacticism in the Hippocratic treatises Generation/Nature of the Child/Diseases 4.

This essay suggests three different levels at which the text may be analysed. In it, the notion of analogy is used in a strictly technical sense, to refer to the means of parallelism between a known phenomenon and another that must be explained, with the consequent possibility of inferring the latter from the former. The first level of analysis consists in the examination of some important comparisons, which the author treats as verification of the applicability of the analogical method. The second level rests in considering the great attention that is paid to empirical observation from a medical point of view, which produces attempts at experimental research. Finally, there is a didactic aim, since the author presents his observations for those who wish to know the subject and accept the evidence, availing himself of a sound organizational structure (continually referring to what he has already said or what he will later explain) and numerous rhetorical devices.

[Expository models relative to prognosis in the Corpus Hippocraticum. (Prorrhetic 2, Diseases 1-3, Internal disease, Prognosis)]. / Modelli espositivi relativi alla prognosi nel Corpus Hippocraticum (Prorrhetico 2, Malattie 1-3, Affezioni, Affezioni Interne, Prognosi di Cos).

In the Corpus Hippocraticum, prognosis and therapy are developed through observation of signs, as prescribed by Prognostic and Prorrhetic 2; the signs considered most significant are non-verbal signs, i.e. clues, because they cannot be voluntarily altered and the sign provides a hypothetical indication (semiotic abduction). In the examined texts the attention is devoted to the use of these signs with prognostic and therapeutic indication value and we can observe that the inferential scheme tends to aphoristic forms because the doctors need quick reference books, such as Coan Prognoses.