Searching for a dialogue. The need to share a common language in Greek medical writings

The paper aims to examine the linguistic relationship between patients and physicians in the context of the therapeutic relationship. It focuses on the Hippocratic treatises and offers a detailed commentary of a controversial passage of Ancient Medicine par. 2.3. The dialogical model of Ancient Medicine is found to be centred on the patient’s experience; this same idealized model of relation is documented in Plato’s Laws. In the second part of the article the author examines some linguistic peculiarities of medical discourse, such as the use of comparisons and metaphors, and a passage from Galen’s On the Affected Parts that reports the case of a young patient and the difficulties inher- ent in the dialogue between patient and physician.