Der Aphorismus als Wissenstechnik

Abstract

How can general conclusions be obtained from particular observations – and how can doctors deduce the necessary individual treatment of a patient from such generalizations, rules or laws? This is the central question of every scientific medicine. Today, statistical metaanalyses promise evidence-based medicine, in earlier times many trusted the genius of a philosophical physician, and in the early modern era, hundreds of observations bound together should show the right methodus medendi . However, there is one of the oldest literary genres hardly discussed in historiography or medical practice: The aphorism which has experienced a remarkable conjunction in the early 18th century in the form of tabular observations. This article shows how the knowledge of aphorism, condensed into short sentences, relates to other forms of medical reasoning and action. The aphoristic way of knowing cannot be understood as a peculiar element of Neohippocratism at that time, as the example of meteorological medicine demonstrates. Instead, the paper will argue that the aphorism represents an independent form of medical knowledge that condenses empirical experiences to knowing of action-related maxims and rules.