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Methodic school
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The Methodic school of medicine (Methodics, Methodists, or Methodici, ) was an ancient school of medicine in ancient Greece and Rome. Their history begins with Themison of Laodicea, a pupil of Asclepiades in the 1st century BC. He differed from his master, condemned his errors and introducing a new precision into his system. He chose a middle way between the tenets of the Dogmatic school and Empiric school, the traces of which he believed he found in the theory of his master.
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Encyclopedia
The Methodic school of medicine (Methodics, Methodists, or Methodici, ) was an ancient school of medicine in ancient Greece and Rome. Their history begins with Themison of Laodicea, a pupil of Asclepiades in the 1st century BC. He differed from his master, condemned his errors and introducing a new precision into his system. He chose a middle way between the tenets of the Dogmatic school and Empiric school, the traces of which he believed he found in the theory of his master. The system was matured by Soranus of Ephesus who practiced in Rome in the 2nd century with great success. Among the other physicians who belonged to this sect there were: Caelius Aurelianus, Muscio, and Thessalus of Tralles. The doctrines of this school are described by Aulus Cornelius Celsus in the introduction to his De Medicina. Galen also described their beliefs, but was strongly opposed to them, and may not have described them accurately.
Doctrines
The Methodic school emphasized the treatment of diseases rather than the history of the individual patient. The core theory was disruption of the normal circulation of 'atoms' through the body's 'pores' caused disease. They asserted that the knowledge of the cause of the disease bears no relation to the method of cure, and that it is sufficient to observe some general symptoms of illnesses; and that there are three kinds of diseases, one bound, another loose (fluens, a disorder attended with some discharge), and the third a mixture of these. Sometimes the excretions of sick people are too small or too large, or a particular excretion might be deficient or excessive. These kinds of illnesses are sometimes severe, sometimes chronic, sometimes increasing, sometimes stable, and sometimes abating. As soon as it is known to which of these diseases an illness belongs, if the body is bound, then it must be opened; if it is loose, then it must be restrained; if it is complicated, then the most urgent malady must be fought first. One type of treatment is required in acute, another in inveterate illnesses; another when diseases are increasing, another when stable, and another when decreasing. The observation of these things constitute the art of medicine, called method . The Methodic school refused to be classed with the Dogmatic school because the Methodics refused to speculate about obscure matters, and they refused to be classed with the Empiric school because the Methodics held that the observation of experiments was only a small part of the art.
As the seeking after the causes of diseases seemed to Themison to rest on too uncertain a foundation, he thus wished to establish his system upon the analogies and indications common to many diseases , no matter that these analogies were as obscure as the causes of the Dogmatic school. Themison wrote several works which are now lost.
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