Hippocratic Corpus

In current society Hippocratic Corpus has come to represent beginnings of modern medicine. The Hippocratic corpus are a set of works authored by Hippocrates around the 5th century BCE. Hippocrates was a legend during and after his time, discussed by Aristotle and Plato. One of the works of Hippocratic Corpus specifically On the sacred Disease catalyzed the increase of rationality, the beginnings of the scientific method and a decreasing reliability on religion or supernatural in medicine.

Pre Hippocrates most of medicine done in Egypt for example was almost all based around religion, which involved praying to various deities to achieve an outcome . This was initiated by the establishment of ‘Asclepeion’ they were temples to the god of medicine

Ideas like scientific rationalism and objective observation were first being introduced in ancient medicine. Firstly, Hippocrates gives very detailed observations about the Sacred Disease or epilepsy in humans. He lists people suffering with epilepsy displaying: loss of speech, shivering, clenching of teeth, and foaming form the mouth. (citation). He called them the ‘fundamental characteristics’ or symptoms of seizures, moreover he asserts using symptoms to recognize disease was important and prognoses should only be made only if the examination matches the model of the disease. Secondly, Hippocrates attributes ‘sacred disease’/epilepsy to environmental factors affecting the body using observational evidence. As mentioned before diseases were seen as divine will therefore environmental factors causing diseases was a new idea. Hippocrates attributes epilepsy to changes in diet, changes in climate and wind patterns. He supposedly noticed a correlation with these factors, even though these are wrong this was the stepping stone in realizing environment playing a big role in disease management. Finally, coming up with a phlegm hypothesis after observing all factors. Any good medical theory provides a model for the disease which is formed by looking at symptoms. Hippocrates looked at the foam flowing from the mouth and comes to the conclusion that “phlegm flowing from the brain into the veins”

Medicine was not a legally recognized profession and anyone could claim to be a healer. Firstly, Hippocrates facilitates distinguishing the medical field from other types of healing (magic/religious). Hippocrates understands the need to differentiate from religious healers, “[people who called the disease] sacred were the people we now call quacks … invoking divine element … conceal their ignorance of its nature” early in the field it was hard to for medical inquiry to flourish as exploration on cadavers were not common and surrounded by superstition. Secondly, predictions are an important part of scientific models. Hippocrates asked what the source epilepsy was, he understood phlegm not flowing properly caused epilepsy but what was the source. He comes to the conclusion that the brain is most likely location of this problem, “[brain] is the source of pain, … pleasure, … the seat of madness and delirium … caused by phlegm attacks and [changes] in the air” (citation). Understanding the source being material and within the body bringing closer to modern science and forming hypothesis/predictions based on previous observations/hypothesis such as connecting disorientation and loss of consciousness with the brain which are both symptoms of epilepsy. Finally, any new scientific ideas needs to be published and judged by its peers, Hippocrates structures On the