[The history of the study of On ancient medicine]

The treatise On Ancient Medicine is nowadays one of the most admired, and most studied, of those making up the Corpus Hippocraticum. But this favored position is not a ancient phenomenon, but a modern phenomenon. The treatise contributed to the establishment of the Empiric school of medicine. Empiricists seem to have written commentaries of Hippocratic works. But the attention paid to this work in antiquity was short-lived. In the second century A.D., Galen knew the work, but he did not devote a commentary to it. He almost totally ignored it and his powerful influence made the treatise drop out of sight from later antiquity to early modern times. On Ancient Medicine was not regarded as one of the major works of the Corpus Hippocraticum until in 1939, Emile Littre was a strong advocate of the view that the work was a genuine work of Hippocrates, and placed it first in his ten-volume edition of 1839-1861. Later, some scholars advocated Littre' view, but much more scholars rose against his position. Most of studies of the work motivated by the desire to answer the Hippocratic question reached conclusions that was vague. After all to conclude that Hippocrates was the author of this work would be rash.