Nietzsche as physician: the influence of Hippocratic writings in the works of Friedrich Nietzsche

This article looks at an underexplored area of Western intellectual history, that is, the influence of the Hippocratic tradition of ancient medicine on one of the most influential philosophers of the nineteenth century—Fredrich Nietzsche. The few scholars who have written about this have focused on how the Hippocratic writings have influenced Nietzsche’s philosophy. We argue in this article that the influence has not been only philosophical, but also technical. In other words, the techniques of diagnosis and treatment deployed by the Hippocratic tradition profoundly influenced Nietzsche’s work. Nietzsche’s technique is Hippocratic in three fundamental ways: (1) in the manner in which an argument against superstition is made, (2) the common purpose behind the use of aphorisms and the privilege given to prognosis, and (3) the adoption of a climatological and dietetic model of disease.