title: [Medicine and symmetry. On the use of a mathematical concept in the early writings of the Corpus Hippocraticum].
abstract: The conception of symmetry in medical texts of the 5th century has never been connected with the development of the mathematical theory of proportions. However, we can find in Alcmaion and the hippocratic writings de vetere medicina, de natura hominis and de victu the differentiation between an arithmetical determinable measure and a qualitative determinable measure which is defined by a common lógos for incommensurable sizes. In de vetere medicina and de victu we see a conception of proportion and symmetry/commensurability, which requires the discovery of incommensurability. This discovery can be connected with the greek mathematician Hippocrates of Chios and his theorems of doubling the cube. We can detect an answer to this revolutionary development in mathematics in the methodological ideas of medical writers, who wanted to turn away medicine from the anti-descriptive and anti-empirical attitude in mathematics and philosophy.
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Triebel-Schubert
mesh_terms: D000076145:Greece, Ancient; D049690:History, Ancient; D008374:Manuscripts, Medical as Topic / Q000266:history*; D008433:Mathematics / Q000266:history*; D010686:Philosophy, Medical / Q000266:history*
vernacular_title: Medizin und Symmetrie. Zur Verwendung eines mathematischen Begriffes in den frühen Schriften des Corpus Hippocraticum.