Medical traditions

Use in the book

Galen describes rivalry between Cos and Cnidus after the Rhodian branch had disappeared, then adds Philistion, Empedocles, Pausanias, and their associates as Italian competitors. He calls the competition the good strife praised by Hesiod, making rivalry productive rather than destructive. This is important evidence for a medical reception of Empedocles and his named companion, but it does not by itself prove a formally constituted Empedoclean school with fixed curriculum or continuous organization. The Life’s report that Empedocles was a physician, and its medical case narratives, are compatible with Galen’s placement, though each has its own source character. The term “Italian” in this taxonomy should likewise not be forced into a modern national distinction that excludes a Sicilian figure. Galen’s intellectual geography groups traditions for his own history of medical achievement.

Places to read

1. A 3 (testimony)Galen, On the Method of Healing. Places Empedocles and Pausanias within a competitive account of medical traditions.
2. A 1 §§ 56–58 (biography)2Diogenes Laertius VIII 58, reporting Satyrus, Lives. Calls Empedocles a physician as well as an orator.
3. A 1 §§ 59–60 (biography)Diogenes Laertius VIII 60, reporting Heraclides, On Diseases. Presents medical instruction directed to Pausanias.

Translation in this edition

The edition calls this a recognized medical school with pupils. Galen’s excerpt explicitly gives physicians and associates, a valuable but narrower claim. Its “good strife” is Hesiodic characterization, not a statement identifying medical rivalry with Empedocles’ cosmic Strife.