Hippocrates was a Greek physician that left a legacy that existed during his lifetime in Classical Greece and continues today. His moral and ethical standards were the foundation of his teachings, along with his meticulous writings concerning the study of the human body. He firmly believed that poor health and disease were the result of a natural process that could be discovered and cured through careful clinical reasoning and observations. Hippocrates travelled throughout Greece teaching and describing disease symptoms, and taught doctors how to analyze and treat specific illnesses or diseases. Hippocrates’s accomplishments give him the respect from doctors and medical professionals around the world that continues even today.
Hippocrates was born on the Aegean island of Cos at around the fifth century B.C. He belonged to a wealthy family of physicians, who made sure he received a good education. While it is unknown where he was educated, it is known that Hippocrates studied physical education, reading, writing, spelling, music, singing, and poetry for nine years before he went to secondary school, where he spent two years of very thorough athletic training and mental discipline. It is likely that Hippocrates went to study medicine under his father in a form of apprenticeship. It is believed that this training involved travelling to the Greek mainland, and possibly Egypt and Libya. (Notablebiographies.comHe-Ho/Hippocrates).
Hippocrates, often called the “father of medicine” was one of the earliest contributors to modern science. He was called the father of medicine because through his medical school, he separated medical knowledge and practice from myth and superstition basing them instead of fact, observation, and clinical ...
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...onals around the world that continues even today. Hippocrates’s ideas from the fifth century gave humanity “the gift of knowledge”. Hippocrates planted the seed and subsequent generations of physicians and scientists have nurtured and perfected those basic ideas into the more advanced medical practices of today. Hippocrates’s knowledge remains alive today because of his writings that were discovered 200 years after his death.
Works Cited
http://www.ancienthistory.about.com/library/bl./bbl/_hippocratic_oath http://www. faqs.org/health/bios/73Hippocrates-of-Cos http://historylearningsite.com http://www.notablebiographies.com/He-Ho/Hippocrates.html http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/body/hippocratic-oath-today.html http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippocrates
Goldberg, Herbert S. Father of Medicine, Lincoln, NB 1963, 2006 Authors Choice Press, an imprint of iUniverse, Inc.
Hippocrates (c. 460-377 BC) was born on the Aegean island of Cos, Greece. He learned his medical practices from his father, Heracleides, and Ancient Greek physician Herodicos of Selymbria. Like many big Greek names of the time, Hippocrates was thought to have come from the Gods. He was considered a descendent of Asclepios, the God of Medicine. Two major creations of Hippocrates have upheld the biggest influence on medical history. The peak of his career was during the Peloponnesian War (431-404 B.C), where his healing tactics helped Athenian warriors (“Hippocrates”, 1998).
Twenty four centuries ago, Hippocrates created the profession of medicine, for the first time in human history separating and refining the art of healing from primitive superstitions and religious rituals. His famous Oath forged medicine into what the Greeks called a technik, a craft requiring the entire person of the craftsman, an art that, according to Socrates in his dialogue Gorgias, involved virtue in the soul and spirit as well as the hands and brain. Yet Hippocrates made medicine more than a craft; he infused it with an intrinsic moral quality, creating a “union of medical skill and the integrity of the person [physician]” (Cameron, 2001).
As a junior in high school, I am considering medicine as a possible career choice. Through my research in this field, I discovered the Hippocratic Oath. The Hippocratic Oath is the most famous of the Hippocratic documents; it has served as an ideal for the professional attitude and ethics of physicians to the present; the historical origin of the oath is so obscure that even the date of its composition is placed from the 6th to the 1st century B.C.
Kudlien, Fridolf (1970): "Medical Ethics and Popular Ethics in Greece and Rome", Clio Medica 5, 91-121.
Although he lived four centuries before the birth of Christ, a man named Hippocrates recorded the symptoms of diseases we still see to this day. Known as the “Father of Medicine” (Hippocrates), Hippocrates was an ancient physician who studied and recorded his observances of the body’s infections and physiology. He set forth the foundation for future physicians, and in doing so, is accredited for our knowledge of infectious diseases in earlier centuries. During this time however, many believed the earth and its inhabitants were composed of four general elements: air, water, fire, and dirt. They also believed that any one person who fell ill was being punished by the gods. As a foresighted thinker though, Hippocrates encouraged the idea that humans became ill due to natural causes. In that wisdom, he recorded all his observances of his patients and their illnesses, taking careful note of the bodily symptoms and their progression.
Following the Egyptians were the Greeks, who began their study of anatomy around fifth century B.C. (400 B.C.) with the works of Alcmaeon and Empedocles, two Greek scientists. It was during this time that the anatomy of animals was studied and medical schools were built in cities such as Crotona, Italy and Cyrene, Africa. Alcmaeon of Croton was most likely the first person to dissect the human body for research purposes, while Empedocles was the person to first propose the idea that an ethereal substance called pneuma flowed through the blood vessels. Hippocrates was another famous person from Greece. Regarded as the Father of Medicine and one of the founders of anatomy, he was also a physician who studied anatomy and hypothesized about physiology. Hippocrates made anatomical inferences without dissection and instead through observations. He proposed the idea that diseases were not caused by supernatural forces or were punishments from the gods. The well-known Aristotle also contributed to the history of anatomy as he was the first to distinguish the difference between nerves and tendons and between arteries and blood vessels using knowledge gained from animal dissections. Herophilus, another anatomist, is known as one of the earliest “Fa...
Hippocrates believed that macrocosms, often designated the universe and environment, could influence and effect microcosms, like that of the human body. The Hippocratics reasoned this was because all things in the macrocosms and microcosms derived from the same materials. Empedocles, a Greek philosopher, communicated the first four-element theory of matter which delineated the four essential building block to be air, water, fire, earth. All of these elements corresponded with the four humors that, in conjunction with the theories of the contraries (hot, cold, wet, dry), formed Hippocrates’s practice and concept of humoralism (Lecture 3, [FIND DATE]). Hippocrates asserted that each human being contained unique combinations of the four distinctive humors, being yellow bile, black bile, phlegm, and blood, which shaped individuals’ temperaments. Patients fell ill when the balance between these humors was compelled to shift out of equilibrium. Thus, Hippocrates, and his students like Galen, understood that physicians had to have a full understanding of the patient and must subsequently tailor their treatments to achieve the highest form of care (Airs, Waters, Places, 90-91). Consequently, physicians practiced healing with a counterbalance therapy which returned the individual
Hippocrates succeeded Alcmaeon and rejected the superstitious ideas of priests being the only healers. He founded a medical school and taught his students that since disease came from something natural, it must be treated by natural means. He believed that the body was able to heal itself by the power of healing of nature...
of medicine. Born on the island of Kos, Greece in the year 460 b.c., says the
In modern medicine when an ailment arises it can be quickly diagnosed, attributed to a precise bacteria, virus, or body system, and treated with medication, surgery or therapy. During the time before rational medical thought, this streamlined system of treatment was unheard of, and all complaints were attributed to the will of the multitude of commonly worshiped Greek gods (Greek Medicine 1). It was during the period of Greek rationalism that a perceptible change in thought was manifested in the attitudes towards treating disease. Ancient Greece is often associated with its many brilliant philosophers, and these great thinkers were some of the first innovators to make major developments in astrology, physics, math and even medicine. Among these academics was Hippocrates, one of the first e...
Wrong theories of the anatomy have been assumed to be correct for thousands of years. Theories of using a scientific base were not used by the Europeans until the Renaissance period (“Medicine”). These theories, made by a Greek Physician named Galen, were supported by the Catholic Church. The Middle Ages were a difficult time to achieve medical advances because Galen’s theories were not to be questioned or tested(“The Impact of the Renaissance on Medicine”).Even after these theories appeared to be inaccurate, the support from such a high authority made it extremely difficult to change the medical practices and training(“Rennaissance medicine”).
Hippocrates is a Greek physician who was born in Cos, Greece 460 BC and is known as “The Father of Medicine.” Hippocrates lived to the time of 357 BC in Larissa, Thessaly. He does not have any record on whether or not he had a spouse or children. He has served as a physician for quite the while, almost all his life (excluding childhood). Hippocrates is a very wise man when it came to him and his work; much dedication was given from him in order to achieve maximum health within a sick patient.
The most important and influential discovery was the practice of surgery. With this invention, human life became more sophisticated, humans lived longer, and we obtained a knowledge of ourselves sufficient enough to break the boundaries built by ignorance. Lacking prescription drugs, accurate tools, computer technology, and any background experience to build from, our ancestors struggled to learn how to repair the human body. They did an suprisingly competent job of treating the sick and injured. Some of the medical technology developed in ancient times surpassed anything available in the modern world until the 18th century or 19th century. In eras wherein religious views took precedence over medicine and logic, surgical advancement was difficult. The knowledge we have now was obtained from these people's exploits.
Freeman, David H. "The Triumph of New-Age Medicine." The Atlantic. 2011. Web. 27 Feb. 2012. .
As the centuries unrolled and new civilizations appeared, cultural, artistic, and medical developments shifted toward the new centers of power. A reversal of the traditional search for botanical drugs occurred in Greece in the fourth century BC, when Hippocrates (estimated dates, 460-377 BC), the "Father of Medicine," became interested in inorganic salts as medications.