Abstract
The aim of this essay is to identify three different pre-Platonic forms of holism: the 'therapeutic', the 'environmental', and the 'cosmic.' With the help of passages from the Hippocratic On the Nature of Man, On Regimen, and On Sevens, on the one hand, and from Plato, the earliest independent authority on the holistic nature of Hippocratic medicine, on the other, I make the case that all three forms of holism play significant roles in dietetic medicine, that they are complementary, and that aspects of them can even be combined into a single account.