Diocles of Carystus

Diocles of Carystus
1 Notes
Diocles of Carystus (/da.kliz/; Greek:

; Latin: Diocles Carystius; also known by
the Latin name Diocles Medicus, i.e. Diocles the
physician"; c. 375 BC c. 295 BC) was a very celebrated Greek physician, born in Carystus, a city on
Euboea, Greece. Diocles lived not long after the time of
Hippocrates, to whom Pliny says he was next in age and
fame.[1] Not much is known of his life, other that he lived
and worked in Athens, where he wrote what may be the
rst medical treatise in Attic (not in Ionic as was customary in Greek medical writings). His most important work
was in practical medicine, especially diet and nutrition,
but he also wrote the rst systematic textbook on animal
anatomy. According to a number of sources, he was the
rst to use the word anatomy to describe the study.[2]
He belonged to the medical sect of the Dogmatici, and
wrote several medical works, of which only the titles and
some fragments remain, preserved by Galen, Caelius Aurelianus, Oribasius, Athenaeus (in the Deipnosophistae),
and other ancient writers.[3]
[1] Pliny, Natural History xxvi. 6

[2] Isaac Asimov, Asimovs Biographical Encyclopedia of Science and Technology 2nd Revised Edition
[3] Galen, De alimentis facultatibus, i. 1
[4] Paul of Aegina, Medical Compendium in Seven Books, i
[5] Marcus Bach. (1968). The Chiropractic Story. DeVors&Co., inc., Los Angeles, California. USA
[6] Celsus, Book VII. 5. 2B3B
2 References
Smith, William (editor). Dictionary of Greek and
Roman Biography and Mythology, Diocles Carystius, Boston, (1867).
There is a letter in his name addressed to king Antigonus,

entitled A Letter on Preserving Health (Greek:
), which is inserted by Paul of Aegina
at the end of the rst book of his own medical compendium, and which, if genuine, was probably addressed
to Antigonus II Gonatas, king of Macedon, who died in
239 BC, at the age of eighty, after a reign of forty-four
years.[4] It resembles in its subject matter several other
similar letters ascribed to Hippocrates, and treats of the
diet tted for the dierent seasons of the year.
van der Eijk, Philip J. (2000). Diocles of Carystus

: a collection of the fragments with translation and
commentary. Leiden: Brill. ISBN 90-04-10265-5.
Magill, Frank Northen; Aves, Alison (1998).
Dictionary of World Biography. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 9781579580407. Retrieved 1 September
2013.
It used to be said that Diocles was the rst to explain the

dierence between the veins and arteries; but this does
not seem to be correct, nor is any great discovery connected with his name. His fragments have been recently
collected and translated in English by Philip van der Eijk,
with a commentary in a separate volume.
3 Further reading
Jaeger, Werner (1948). Aristotle: Fundamentals of
the History of His Development (2nd ed.). Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Diocles insisted that health requires an understanding of

the nature of the universe and its relationship to man.
Diocles emphasized that nerves are the channels of sensations and that interference with them is directly involved
in the pathology of disease.[5]
Jaeger, Werner (1938). Diokles von Karystos (in

German). Berlin: W. de Gruyter & Co.
Jaeger, Werner (1945). Paideia: The Ideals of Greek
Culture: The Conict of Cultural Ideals in the Age of
Plato. Gilbert Highet, trans. (2nd ed.). New York:
Oxford University Press.
Diocles was the inventor of a surgical instrument for the

extraction of weapons or missiles such as barbed arrowheads that were embedded into the body, called Dioclean
cyathiscus (Spoon of Dioclese) (Greek:
).[6]
Phillips, E. D. (1973). Greek medicine. London:

Thames & Hudson. ISBN 0-500-40021-0.
Sigerist, Henry (1961). A History of Medicine:
Early Greek, Hindu, and Persian Medicine 2. New
York: Oxford University Press.
1
3 FURTHER READING
von Staden, Heinrich (1992). Jaegers 'Skandalon
der historischen Vernunft': Diocles, Aristotle, and
Theophrastus. In Calder III, William M. Werner
Jaeger reconsidered. Atlanta: Scholars Press.
Diocles of Carystus Facts, information, pictures.
HighBeam Research. Retrieved 26 June 2015.
Diocles of Carystus. HighBeam Research. Retrieved 26 June 2015.
Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses
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Diocles of Carystus

Diocles of Carystus (/da.kliz/; Greek:

[1] Pliny, Natural History xxvi. 6

There is a letter in his name addressed to king Antigonus,

van der Eijk, Philip J. (2000). Diocles of Carystus

It used to be said that Diocles was the rst to explain the

Diocles insisted that health requires an understanding of

Jaeger, Werner (1938). Diokles von Karystos (in

Diocles was the inventor of a surgical instrument for the

Phillips, E. D. (1973). Greek medicine. London:

Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses

Diocles of Carystus Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diocles_of_Carystus?oldid=712974919 Contributors: Delirium, Charles

Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0

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