Aphorismi 5.28-63 and the gynaecological texts of the Corpus Hippocraticum

This contribution examines the gynaecological sections in the fifth book of the Aphorismi, juxtaposing individual gnômai to similar information about women's diseases related elsewhere in the Corpus Hippocraticum. Although no startling contradictions exist between Aphorismi 5.28-63 and what is said in the major gynaecological treatises, the verbal similarities are not so striking as those between some Aphorismi and gnomic sections of Epidemiae. Further, it is not the major gynaecologies, but the treatise De sterilibus that displays an interest in birth prognoses similar to views offered at Aphorismi 41, 42, 44, 46, 48, 59. Finally, Galen's remarks in his commentary to the Aphorismi and elsewhere, coupled with what Soranus says in his Gynaecia about Hippocratic gynaecology, likewise underscore the fact that both authors quote from and paraphrase Aphorismi more readily than the major Hippocratic gynaecologies, such as De morbis mulierum.