Introduction

Diseases HI was known to Erotian, Galen and Caelius Aurelianus,¹ although, as I argue elsewhere, probably under the title Diseases II.²

In its present state, the treatise consists of three parts: a two-line tag, attaching it to a preceding work on fevers; a nosological work (1–16); a collection of cooling agents (17).

The first sentence of Diseases HI is identical to the last sentence of the Hippocratic Sevens, a work preserved, for the most part, only in Latin translation:

De febribus quidem omnibus <dixi>; de ceteris autem iam dicam.³

However, for a number of reasons it seems impossible that the two treatises share a common origin⁴; rather, we must suppose that two independent works were joined at a later date and fitted with a suitable connecting link.