El prestigio del médico hipocrático

Abstract

This paper focuses on a few passages of some of the oldest writings in the Hippocratic Corpus in order to emphasize the importance given by Greek physicians in the Greek polis of the 5th and 4th centuries B.C. to the prosecution of prestige. At that period medicine was struggling for a place among téchnai, which was not a simple task. Arts were rising and professionals formulated rules valid for practice and research in their fields of knowledge. The Hippocratic authors show how they had to fight at many fronts: magic, philosophy, ignorants physicians, pedantry, etc. For them the search of personal prestige was always linked with the defense of the value of the téchne itself; critics to fake physicians and to the bad manners of some practitioners were intended to make the difference and put the art of medicine at the same level as other téchnai.