medicine

Prognosis (Foretelling the Course of Disease)

πρόγνωσις

The physician's prized art of foretelling how a disease will end by reading the body's signs — and winning trust by knowing what comes next.

For Hippocratic medicine, prognosis — knowing in advance how an illness would unfold — was the healer's central art. By reading the patient's face, breathing, sleep, excretions, and crises, a skilled physician could foretell recovery or death and guide care accordingly. The treatise 'Prognostic' (late 5th c. BCE) made this systematic, opening with the famous 'facies Hippocratica,' the death-mask look of a dying face. In an age with few effective cures, accurate prediction was what set the skilled physician apart and earned a community's confidence.

Where this idea shows up

40 Greek sources

Where to read it

Prognosticon370 BCE
Hippocrates· Kos
De natura pueri370 BCE
Hippocrates· Kos
De aere, aquis, locis370 BCE
Hippocrates· Kos
Epidemiarum370 BCE
Hippocrates· Kos
De muliebribus370 BCE
Hippocrates· Kos
De affectionibus interioribus370 BCE
Hippocrates· Kos
De crisibus370 BCE
Hippocrates· Kos
De affectionibus370 BCE
Hippocrates· Kos
De diebus criticis370 BCE
Hippocrates· Kos
De locis in homine370 BCE
Hippocrates· Kos
De morbis i-iii370 BCE
Hippocrates· Kos
Coa praesagia370 BCE
Hippocrates· Kos
Prorrheticon I370 BCE
Hippocrates· Kos
De carnibus370 BCE
Hippocrates· Kos
De humoribus370 BCE
Hippocrates· Kos
Aphorismi370 BCE
Hippocrates· Kos
De natura muliebri370 BCE
Hippocrates· Kos
De glandulis370 BCE
Hippocrates· Kos
De exsectione foetus370 BCE
Hippocrates· Kos
De superfoetatione370 BCE
Hippocrates· Kos
De natura hominis370 BCE
Hippocrates· Kos
De diaeta370 BCE
Hippocrates· Kos
De octimestri partu370 BCE
Hippocrates· Kos
De visu370 BCE
Hippocrates· Kos
De salubri diaeta370 BCE
Hippocrates· Kos
De capitis vulneribus370 BCE
Hippocrates· Kos
De articulis370 BCE
Hippocrates· Kos
De fracturis370 BCE
Hippocrates· Kos
De morbo sacro370 BCE
Hippocrates· Kos
De diaeta in morbis acutis370 BCE
Hippocrates· Kos
Vectiarius370 BCE
Hippocrates· Kos
De diaeta acutorum (spurium)370 BCE
Pseudo-Hippocrates
Epistulae, Decretum, Orationes370 BCE
Pseudo-Hippocrates
De signis tempestatum287 BCE
Theophrastus· Athens
De Signis Tempestatum287 BCE
Theophrastus· Athens
Allegoriae (= Quaestiones Homericae)75 CE
Heraclitus the Allegorist (Homericus)
In Hippocratis De victu acutorum175 CE
Galen· Rome
In Hippocratis De natura hominis175 CE
Galen· Rome
De sanitate tuenda175 CE
Galen· Rome
Adversus Mathematicos190 CE
Sextus Empiricus· Alexandria