Let us return to the text claimed by Veith as the inaugural moment of hysteria, "the thirty-fifth aphorism." It is a significant choice, since the Aphorisms is one of the most widely translated and best-known works of the Hippocratic corpus, believed for many centuries to have been written by Hippocrates himself as a distillation of the wisdom of a lifetime's clinical experience, and thus taken to be one of the most genuine works.[10] Immediately, however, we encounter a difficulty; there is no "thirty-fifth aphorism." A. Rousselle[11] has criticized Veith for reading back contemporary ideas into antiquity, but the problem is greater than this would suggest; Veith puts too great a trust in poor secondary sources. What she is referring to here is, in fact, Aphorisms 5.35 (L4.544), which does not use the term "hysteria" at all; instead, using the plural form hysterika , it begins Gynaiki hypo hysterikon enochloumenei , and it may be translated as: "In a woman suffering from hysterika , or having a difficult labor, a sneeze is a good thing."
What are these hysterika , and what is so good about a sneeze? Such questions plunge us directly into the heart of the hysteria debate. It is tempting to translate hysterika as "hysterics," but an apparently familiar word does not necessarily convey the meaning we would most naturally expect. Galen of Pergamum noted the difficulties of translating this aphorism (K 17b.824-825). Hysterika , he wrote in his commentary on the Aphorisms , could refer to all diseases of the womb[12] or to only a particular condition called hysterike pnix (best translated "suffocation of the womb"), described by a number of post-Hippocratic writers and which will be discussed at length below, or to problems with the afterbirth, also known as ta hystera . He favors setting the aphorism in the context of hysterike pnix , for the following reasons. First, hysterika cannot refer to the afterbirth, because hystera and hysterika are not the same word. Second, it cannot refer to all diseases of the womb, because Hippocrates says that it is helped by sneezing. Clearly, not all diseases of the womb are helped by sneezing and, since Hippocrates cannot be wrong, Galen concludes that the passage must refer to hysterike pnix .
Let us return to the text claimed by Veith as the inaugural moment of hysteria, "the thirty-fifth aphorism." It is a significant choice, since the Aphorisms is one of the most widely translated and best-known works of the Hippocratic corpus, believed for many centuries to have been written by Hippocrates himself as a distillation of the wisdom of a lifetime's clinical experience, and thus taken to be one of the most genuine works.[10] Immediately, however, we encounter a difficulty; there is no "thirty-fifth aphorism." A. Rousselle[11] has criticized Veith for reading back contemporary ideas into antiquity, but the problem is greater than this would suggest; Veith puts too great a trust in poor secondary sources. What she is referring to here is, in fact, Aphorisms 5.35 (L4.544), which does not use the term "hysteria" at all; instead, using the plural form hysterika , it begins Gynaiki hypo hysterikon enochloumenei , and it may be translated as: "In a woman suffering from hysterika , or having a difficult labor, a sneeze is a good thing."What are these hysterika , and what is so good about a sneeze? Such questions plunge us directly into the heart of the hysteria debate. It is tempting to translate hysterika as "hysterics," but an apparently familiar word does not necessarily convey the meaning we would most naturally expect. Galen of Pergamum noted the difficulties of translating this aphorism (K 17b.824-825). Hysterika , he wrote in his commentary on the Aphorisms , could refer to all diseases of the womb[12] or to only a particular condition called hysterike pnix (best translated "suffocation of the womb"), described by a number of post-Hippocratic writers and which will be discussed at length below, or to problems with the afterbirth, also known as ta hystera . He favors setting the aphorism in the context of hysterike pnix , for the following reasons. First, hysterika cannot refer to the afterbirth, because hystera and hysterika are not the same word. Second, it cannot refer to all diseases of the womb, because Hippocrates says that it is helped by sneezing. Clearly, not all diseases of the womb are helped by sneezing and, since Hippocrates cannot be wrong, Galen concludes that the passage must refer to hysterike pnix .
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