In both Hippocrates' On Regimen I, and in Hans Dieter Betz's translation of the Greek Magical Papyri, the elements of fire and water play a significant role. Although the presence of these two elements in a medical text, and conversely in a magical text, may suggest that medicine and magic have a similar foundation, it is the differing ways in which these elements are used in their respective texts which illustrates how medicine and magic deviate from one another.
    These elements are initially employed by Hippocrates when he is describing the nature and composition of man. He asserts that man is "composed of two things, different in power but working together in their use, namely, fire and water" (Hippocrates, pp. 231).  He continues to explain the give-and-take relationship shared by fire and water, in which "Fire can move all things always, while water can nourish all things always; butNeither of them can gain complete mastery" (Hippocrates, pp.233). Here, Hippocrates is employing the elements as an explanation for the cosmos, and the organisms in it. He has pragmatically assigned roles to each of these elements to suit his purpose of making sense of, and creating order in the world, which up until his time had been viewed through the less practical, and possibly distorted lens of the supernatural and the divine. By concretely explaining that fire is the aspect of human nature that maintains motion and disturbs order, while conversely water nourishes and restores order, he is offering his reader a simple way to understand the rhythms of the human body, and at the same time, a means to control these rhythms.  Hippocrates' practical application of these two fundamental elements is indicative of the more pragmatic explanations found in medical texts.
     In contrast, the elements of fire and water play a very different role in the Greek Magic Papyri text. For example, they take on symbolic meaning in the spells which request a dream oracle: " mother of fire and waterreveal to me concerning the NN matter. If yes, show me a plant and water, but if not, fire and iron immediately, immediately; quickly, quickly" (PGM VII. 250-54, pp.123). Here, although the Greek Magic Papyri text addresses the same elements as those found in Hippocrates' work, it does so on a figurative rather than a concrete level. These elements are seen in dreams to indicate the will of the gods, whether it be for or against whatever matter is being reviewed. The fire represents the disapproval of the gods, a hindrance to obtaining one's ultimate goal, while water symbolizes the opposite. The use of fire and water in dreams to indicate the will of the gods, contrasts sharply with the roles which Hippocrates has assigned to them. Unlike in the Hippocratic texts, here fire and water serve to reinforce the belief system centered around the supernatural and the divine, rather than to offer a more practical explanation for the forces of life and the nature of man. In doing so, the Greek Magic Papyri texts subscribes to the belief that man can be enlightened only through revelation from the divinities. This belief firmly illustrates the deviations between the worlds of medicine and magic.
     The different uses and implications of the elements of fire and water in Hippocrates' On Regimen I, and Betz's translation of the Greek Magical Papyri text clearly illustrate the differences between the fields of medicine and magic. However, the mere fact that both these elements are present in two such fundamentally different texts, indicates a subtle, but important,  link between these two subjects.