_ 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.
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