A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology

(Φιλῖνος), a Greek physician, born in the island of Cos, the reputed founder of the sect of the Empirici (Cramer's Anecd. Graeca Paris. vol. i. p. 395), of whose characteristic doctrines a short account is given in the Dict. of Antiq. s. v. Empirici. He was a pupil of Herophilus, a contemporary of Baccheius [BACCHEIUS], and a predecessor of Serapion, and therefore probably lived in the third century B. C. (Pseudo-Galen, Introd. 100.4, vol. xiv. p. 683). He wrote a work on part of the Hippocratic collection directed against Baccheius (Erot. Lex. Hippocr. in v. Ἄμβην), and also one on botany (Athen. xv. pp. 681, 682), neither of which is now extant. It is perhaps this latter work that is quoted by Athenaeus (15.28. pp. 681, 682), Pliny (Plin. Nat. 20.91, and Index to books xx. and xxi.), and Andromachus (ap. Galen, De Compos Medicam. sec. Loc, 7.6, De Compos. Medicam. sec. Gen. 5.13, vol. xiii. pp. 11 :. 842). A parallel has been drawn between Philinus and the late Dr. Hahnemann in

a dissertation by F. F. Brisken, entitled Philinus et Hahnemannus, seu veteris Sectae Empiricae cum Hodierna Secta Homoeopathica Comparatio, Berol. 1834, 8vo.

[W.A.G]