[1] Diog.  Laert.  IX. 12, 116.

    [2] Fabricius Testimonia, p. 2.

    [3] Pseudo-Galen Isag. 4; Fabricius Testimonia, p. 2.

    [4] Bekker Math. VIII. 481.

The Sceptical School was long closely connected with the Empirical School of medicine, and the later Pyrrhoneans, when they were physicians, as was often the case, belonged for the most part to this school.  Menedotus of Nicomedia is the first Sceptic, however, who is formally spoken of as an Empirical physician,[1] and his contemporary Theodas of Laodicea was also an Empirical physician.  The date of Menedotus and Theodas is difficult to fix, but Brochard and Hass agree that it was about 150 A.D.[2] After the time of these two physicians, who were also each in turn at the head of the Sceptical School,[3] there seems to have been a definite alliance between Pyrrhonism and Empiricism in medicine, and we have every reason to believe that this alliance existed until the time of Sextus.

    [1] Diog.  IX. 12, 115.

    [2] Brochard Op. cit.  Livre IV. p. 311.

    [3] Diog.  IX. 12, 116.

The difficulty in regard to the name arises from Sextus’ own testimony.  In the first book of the Hypotyposes he takes strong ground against the identity of Pyrrhonism and Empiricism in medicine.  Although he introduces his objections with the admission that “some say that they are the same,” in recognition of the close union that had existed between them, he goes on to say that “Empiricism is neither Scepticism itself, nor would it suit the Sceptic to take that sect upon himself",[1] for the reason that Empiricism maintains dogmatically the impossibility of knowledge, but he would prefer to belong to the Methodical School, which was the only medical school worthy of the Sceptic.  “For this alone of all the medical sects, does not proceed rashly it seems to me, in regard to unknown things, and does not presume to say whether they are comprehensible or not, but it is guided by phenomena.[2] It will thus be seen that the Methodical School of medicine has a certain relationship to Scepticism which is closer than that of the other medical sects."[3]

    [1] Hyp.  I. 236.

    [2] Hyp.  I. 237.

    [3] Hyp.  I. 241.

We know from the testimony of Sextus himself that he was a physician.  In one case he uses the first person for himself as a physician,[1] and in another he speaks of Asclepius as “the founder of our science,"[2] and all his illustrations show a breadth and variety of medical knowledge that only a physician could possess.  He published a medical work which he refers to once as [Greek:  iatrika hupomnemata],[3] and again as [Greek:  empeirika hupomnemata][4] These passages probably refer to the same work,[5] which, unfortunately for the solution of the difficult question that we have in hand, is lost, and nothing is known of its contents.