This chapter will analyze the Hippocratic medicine using especially the study of the Hippocratic Corpus. In the texts of the Hippocratic Corpus, medicine becomes pragmatic and secular, with theories to explain natural causes of diseases and discussions about medical practices and professional ethic. The chapter will discuss fundamental theoretical and ethical changes in medicine after Hippocrates. It is important to keep in mind that the Hippocratic Corpus is not the text of a single author, but rather a compilation of writings by many authors with similar characteristics with Hippocrates of Cos. Possibly, many treaties were lost in the fire that destroyed the Great Library of Alexandria, but a librarian saved and compiled approximately 60 of the medical writings, publishing them as the Hippocratic Corpus. Identify which texts were actually written by Hippocrates is still an ongoing work for historians, but the influence of the physician of Cos is clearly observed in the text of the Corpus. Before Hippocrates, as observed in the last chapter of the book, medicine and religion were closely related. The population believed that diseases had a supernatural cause or were divine punishments, so treatments consisted in going to temples and praying to the gods for help. However, the Hippocratic medicine distanced itself from religion, and Hippocratic writings argues that all diseases have natural causes. In fact, there is no mention of supernatural or magical properties in the treatments used by the Corpus writers. This secular approach can be seen in the text of Airs Waters Places, Chapter XXII: I too think that these diseases are divine, and so are all others, no one being more divine or more human than any other; all are ali... ... middle of paper ... ...in Medical History”. Am J Med Sci 246, no. 2 (2013): 154-57. Langholf, Volker. Medical Theories in Hippocrates: Early Texts and the Epidemics. New York: de Gruyter, 1990. Longrigg, James. Greek Medicine: From the Heroic to the Hellenistic Age: a Source Book. London: Routledge Chapman & Hall, 1998. Rebollo, Regina A. “O legado hipocrático e sua fortuna no período greco-romano: de Cós a Galeno”. Scientiae Studia 4, no. 1 (2006): 45-82. Tsiompanou, Eleni, and Marketos, Spyros G. “Hippocrates: timeless still”. J R Soc Med 106 (2013): 288–92. Scarborough, John, Van Der Eijk, Philip J., Hanson, Ann, and Siraisi, Nancy. Studies in Ancient Medicine: Hippocrates on Ancient Medicine. Translated by Mark J. Schiefsky. Boston: Brill, 2005. Steluac, Robert M. and Stalkas, Asgtasios. “Galen and the humour theory of temperament”. Person Individ Diff 12, no. 2 (1991): 255–63.
To conclude, medicine of this time was so sad that death was inevitable. They couldn’t blame the doctors or even themselves for the cause of all these diseases because they didn’t really know what to do. Doctors were experimenting and taking lives but not learning from their ineffective practices like bleeding or leeching. Religion was probably the best possible choice for that time.
Gracia, Diego (1978): "The structure of medical knowledge in Aristotle's philosophy", Sudhoff Archiv 62 (No.1), 1-36.
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.
He believed that experience and mind with speech are the criteria of the knowledge. And according to Hippocrates, the diseases are not due to the "wrath of God", but to natural causes which bring disturbances in the function of the organism. He was set against any idea of sacerdotalism, the belief that priests can act as mediators between God and human beings, and also opposed the spirit of trade-unionism in medicine. He was concerned with the physician's duties, not the "rights". This brought on the greatest legacy of Hippocrates: the Hippocratic Oath.
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
The Hippocratic diagnostic system was based on logical reasoning rather than supernatural explanations; observations rather than religious beliefs; and focused on the natural approach of disease treatment rather than supernatural or magical healing. Hippocrates and later physicians based their diagnosis of a disease and illness primarily on scientific observations. As mentioned earlier, a stable bodily fluid equilibrium manifested good health. On the contrary, a disruption in that equilibrium implied disease. Since the four humors were associated with nature’s four elements and qualities, observations were focused on how the body reacted due to a break of equilibrium. Sarton contributes that if a patient showed symptoms of extreme body heat and dryness based on these observations Hippocratic physicians would make the diagnosis that the illness was caused due to an excess of yellow bile, of which is associated with the hot and dry elements; this illness was known to be a fever. Hippocrates theory of the four humors provided a specific constitution of health that physicians were able to follow and make logical observations for an appropriate diagnosis and
Siraisi, Nancy G. Medieval and early Renaissance medicine: an introduction to knowledge and practice. University of Chicago Press, 2009.
Hippocrates used his knowledge of natural healing to help many people recover from what ails them in an attempt to; also, learn more of people’s sicknesses. Hippocrates once thoroughly examined the king of Macedonia, who was very sick at the time, and aided him in “recovering from tuberculosis”- which he did recover from (World Biography, 4).
The Hippocratic Oath is a moral code for ethical conduct and practice in medicine. It was established accordingly to the ideals of Hippocrates, who belonged to the medical brotherhood of Asclepiads; he was considered the Father of Medicine because he separated the art and science of medicine from philosophy and religion. The oath was written between 470-380 BCE. One version of the Hippocratic Oath states, “I swear by Apollo Physician and Asclepius and Hygieia and Panaceia and all the gods and goddesses, making them my witnesses,
One of the contributions is that people in modern days are able to understand more about the history of medicine. The Jewson’s paper clearly listed out the changes and transformation of the medical cosmologies. It indicates the evolution in the medical field throughout the centuries and also those who have contributed in the medical field such as the Hippocrates, who had contributed in the Bedside Medicine (Bynum, 2008). This helps us to be able to understand the development of the medicine and link the cosmologies in olden days to the modern era in medicine. The way Jewson describes instead of just being an idea or notion, the sick-man is also a symbol that shows the relationship between the medical investigators and the way they treat their patients (Prior, 2009). The Jewson’s thesis presents the connection between the transformation in the olden days and the development of the medicine which are available in the current years. It could help researchers to trace back whether a particular treatment is created in which era and whether the treatment is reliable or not. The development of methodologies in the history of science and sociology of knowledge are equally sounded in Jewson’s presentation on the medical knowledge, practices and politics (Pickstone, 2009). Therefore, I believe that Jewson’s paper is an important source for people who would want to know about the history
During Hippocrates time, it was believed that many diseases were caused by supernatural powers. Priests believed that an illness such as epilepsy, for example, was caused by Gods. It is Hippocrates who deliberated
Hippocratic medicine is one of Greece’s most ancient and lasting contributions to science and medicine, unlike today physicians depend more on equipment’s when diagnosing patients. Physicians in the Hippocratic era had nothing to depend on but where forced to create a journal system which explained the steps to curing based upon their common scientific theories of their time. Hippocrates is seen as the father of medicine even in our modern era, even though he lived before the birth of Christ. He worked on the assumption that all diseases and illnesses had a natural cause as well as a natural cure rather than supernatural one. It was Hippocrates who finally freed medicine from the shackles of magic, superstition, and the supernatural. (Greek Medicine: Hippocrates 2014)
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.
As previously mentioned, Hippocrates II (460 – 370 B.C.) was known as the father of medicine and although human dissection was forbidden because of religious beliefs, he dissected animals and studied the anatomy of bones. Hippocrates had some accuracy in osteology; however, he was not as accurate in his theories regarding the arteries, which he thought were filled with air because they appear empty in dead animals. In addition, he established the Doctrine of Humors which stated that the body is composed of four major fluids. Future researchers would follow the Doctrine of Humors until it was later proved false.
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.