Acron

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For the other meanings of acron, see Acron (disambiguation).

Acron, the son of Xenon, was born at Agrigentum; and opened, in company with Empedocles, a medical and philosophical school at Athens. During the plague, described by Thucydides, he recommended, says Plutarch (De Isid ii) the practice of fumigations to cure the infection supposed to be in the air. But when the chronicler of Chaeronaea adds, that that many benefited from it, he states what is distinctly denied by Thucydides, who testifies to the inefficacy of all the means to which the medical men had recourse. A similar practice was recommended, says Galen, (tom. xiii) by Hippocrates; and hence he has been thought to have got the idea from his predecessor, who wrote a work on medicine in the Doric dialect, one book of which was on the diet of healthy people—on the principle, probably, that prevention is better than cure.

Acron was also one of those who noticed the phenomena of winds, from finding, it may be presumed, that certain winds brought with them certain disorders. Pliny (H.N. xxix.1) considers him as the first of the Empirics, or Experimentalists. But this has been considered an error on the part of the Roman naturalist; for the sect alluded to did not arise till 200 years after the time of Acron. On his return to his native country, the physician asked the senate for a spot of ground where he might build a family tomb. The request was refused at the suggestion of Empedocles, who conceived that such a grant for such a purpose would interfere with the principle of equality he was anxious to establish at Agrigentum. As the epitaph, said to be written by Simonides, on Acron is probably the most complete jeu de mots on record, and therefore defies all translation, it will be given in its original form:

Ακρον ιητρον Ακρων' Ακραγαντινον πατρος ακρου Ακροτατης κορυφης τυμβος ακρος κατεχει.

[edit] References

1. Rose, Hugh James [1853] (1857). A New General Biographical Dictionary, London: B. Fellowes et al.