Research program and teaching led by the master in Hippocrates' Epidemics 2, 4 and 6.

Abstract

This paper addresses the extent to which one may identify in the author of Epidemics 2, 4 and 6 the personality of a master who shared - and probably led--with several colleagues a research program focused on a few topics which were both used for teaching purposes. The first lines of Epidemics 2.3.1 (the so-called katastasis of Perinthus), are the starting-point of the analysis, where information is given about the arrival in Perinthus of a community of doctors, probably composed by masters and disciples. Further commenting on this difficult passage (where a new establishment ot the text is proposed) in connection with others shows the author either expressing his disagreement with colleagues, or making recommendations to pupils, by words which denote a particularly strong and distinguished personality whose purpose is not to give to the reader a complete description of diseases and symptoms for his observations were in fact determined by precise research considerations. Medical research is in fact, in this group of doctors and pupils arriving in Perinthus where the personality of the author prevails, closely related to the needs of teaching.