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[5] I am surprised that, in alleging the man's death to have been due to the physician,1 he should assign responsibility for it to us, upon whose advice it was that he received medical attention; for had we failed to place him under a physician, the defendant would assuredly have maintained that his death was due to neglect. But even if his death was due to the physician, which it was not, the physician is not his murderer, because the law absolves him from blame. On the other hand, as it was only owing to the blows given by the defendant that we placed the dead man under medical care at all, can the murderer be anyone save him who forced us to call in the physician?

1 If the οὐχ of the manuscripts is retained, we have a flat contradiction of Antiph. 4.2.4, where the defense does in fact accuse the prosecution of having caused the man's death. Further, the argument of the present paragraph becomes exceedingly elliptical. It will presumably run thus: “The defendant accuses the physician; but he ought logically to accuse us instead. He would undoubtedly have accused us of having been responsible for the man's death through neglect, had we not sought medical aid at all; so he should similarly accuse us of murder, if we sent the patient to a bad physician instead of a good one.” If the οὐχ is deleted, we get consistency with Antiph. 4.2.4, and the argument is as in the text. οὐχ was probably inserted by a reader who thought that the first sentence of 5 was self-contradictory. Note that this first sentence (ὑπὸ δὲ . . . διαφθαρῆναι) does not imply merely that the defense have contradicted themselves by accusing first the physician and then the prosecution; this is clear from the καὶ γὰρ ἂν κτλ. which follows, giving the true reason for the speaker's surprise.

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