The relationship of blood, intelligence, and delirium : perspectives in the Hippocratic treatises

Abstract

In this paper, I will examine how the authors of the Hippocratic Corpus (c.5th – 3rd C. BCE) understood the relationship between the blood and mental faculties of a living person. My aim is to clarify the nature of the relationship between blood and thought in the Corpus, a collection of Greek medical treatises composed by different authors, each with their own ideas about human physiology and pathology. The first part of this paper establishes contextual background for the mind-body debate in ancient Greek thought, and outlines some of the ideas that were prevalent around the time when many of the Hippocratic treatises were composed. [excerpt]