The latest Budé dedicated to Hippocrates by his relentless editor, J., is not just a new critical edition of a famous text: it is a synthesis of virtually all the knowledge and debates accumulated around this most fascinating Hippocratic work in history. Epid. 1 and 3 are artificially disjointed – due to some librarian's error in the Hellenistic period – and form in reality two parts of one and the same work, written by the same (anonymous) author. Thus it is fair to refer to the work as a single piece. Historians of medicine know Epid. 1 and 3 stands among the most significant in the voluminous body of works attributed to the Coan physician: a collection of carefully assembled notes on patients’ cases and their outcomes, the work is clearly rooted in time and place (mainly ancient Thasos and Abdera) thanks to a method originally devised by ‘Hippocratic’ physicians. It combines the analysis of disease with a description of environmental factors; the famed katastasis (or ‘constitution’) provides a picture of ailments and their outcomes in a particular place, in a particular year and even season. As seasons, winds and other variable conditions change, so do the possibilities and extension of illnesses in a given place; the Hippocratic doctor is the watchful record-taker of all those factors and of the tension they generate as conflicting influences in human bodies. Often seen as a practical complement to the more theoretical Airs, waters and places (also masterfully edited by J. in the same series), Epid. 1 and 3 offer some of the most often quoted axioms of Hippocratic medicine, strikingly gathered into a paragraph at the end of the second constitution (Epid. 1.11.2 = pp. 17–18): the three-fold definition of prognosis as knowledge of the past, present and future; the aim of the physician to help or at least do no harm; and finally the ‘Hippocratic triangle’ consisting of the patient, the disease and the physician.

The volume offers a comprehensive introduction (called, as is customary in the series, ‘notice’), discussing the importance of the work, its unity and structure, its medical contents in the context of the rest of the Hippocratic Collection; in the final part of the introduction, J. explores at great length the textual transmission; due attention is given to even its most discreet aspects (from fragments on papyri to early modern editions and translations). The Greek text and facing translation are supported by a wealth of notes (footnotes and endnotes, as is again customary for Budés). The volume ends with a bibliography and indexes.

The editorial part is where J.’s major contribution comes through – the several pages-long conspectus siglorum reflects the remarkable erudition at stake in this edition. J. has anchored his work not only in his unparalleled knowledge of the Hippocratic textual tradition, but also in the latest scholarship relating to the indirect tradition (U. Vagelpohl's edition of Galen's commentary in Arabic) and in the latest archaeological discoveries at Thasos, where most patients of the author lived. The apparatus is seemingly exhaustive, drawing on Galen's readings, early editors of the text and of its commentaries as well as papyri, in addition to the manuscripts. As is now customary with J.’s editions, the apparatus contains as much information as is feasible to include – which may appear confusing to some, but is designed to offer a comprehensive picture of the textual tradition for every passage. It should be mentioned that J. has benefited from significant help (all duly acknowledged) with some of the core editorial work: Anastassiou wrote up the (enormous) Testimonia, and Guardasole's willingness to collate manuscripts wherever necessary was crucial in completing the project in such a reasonable time. J.’s edition is a refreshing take on E. Littré’s early masterpiece and brings into the picture early Greek manuscripts; those include the famed A and V (Parisin. Gr. 2253 and Vaticanus gr. 276, well-known to all Hippocratists), but also a manuscript of which the importance has long been overlooked, the Parisin. Gr. 2140 of the Bibliothèque Nationale ( = I in J.’s conspectus siglorum). J. ranks it among the prototypes, as the key ancestor of the entire printed tradition from the Aldine edition onwards. This shift in appreciating the textual evidence, combined with often illuminating decisions in analysing and presenting the text, means that this edition means substantial progress and a priceless new tool for historians of medicine.

The translation is precise and supported by considerable discussion in the notes. In fact, to call the c. 340 pages of commentary following the text ‘notes complémentaires’ is an understatement: here, too, J. clearly aimed at exhaustivity and discusses matters ranging from interpretative aspects of the text to medical-historical notions; he also expands on the data of the apparatus and their philological context.

Finally, J. offers some ‘compléments bibliographiques’ at the end of the volume; it is unfortunate that he did not turn this partial bibliography into a more directly useful and complete one, because the myriad studies he quotes in the hundreds of footnotes to the ‘Notice’ and the notes to the texts rather disappear in the c. 700 pages of the volume. Unless readers are ready to engage with the entire book, they may not find out about the most important scholarship published on Epid. 1 and 3. The seminal work by M.D. Grmek (Les maladies à l'aube de la civilisation occidentale [1983]), for example, although occasionally cited (e.g. p. cxxviii n. 165), does not make the final reading list. Given Grmek's importance in re-evaluating this text from a medical-historical perspective, and the long history of collaborative work between J. and Grmek (which culminated in the edition of Epid. 5 and 7 in the same collection in 2000), this feels slightly odd.

There are a few works that could have been added to this already incredibly rich study: J. mentions, quite rightly, Guillaume de Baillou (Ballonius) as the first to emulate Hippocrates in writing up ‘constitutions’ in late sixteenth-century Paris (pp. x–xi); yet, unless I am mistaken, he does not refer to the few studies available, for instance I. Lonie, ‘The Paris Hippocratics: Teaching and Research in Paris in the Second Half of the Sixteenth Century’, in A. Wear et al. (edd.), Medicine in the Renaissance (1985); J. Coste (ed.), Guillaume de Baillou, médecin et lettré de la Renaissance, Medicina & Storia 11, n.s. 21–2 (2011). Finally, J. Pigeaud, according to whom Epid. 1 and 3 reveal the ‘foundational medical writing’ of Hippocrates (‘l’écriture fondatrice de la médecine’), could have received a mention. But an exposé of the legacy of the work in medical history would not fit into such a book. Thus, those are minimal drawbacks: clearly, this volume will remain as a monument of philological erudition, a precious supplement to the existing editions of the Hippocratic corpus in the same series and a testimony to J.’s unrivalled achievements in Hippocratic studies.