Hippocrates: the Father of Modern Medicine
Hippocrates was a Greek physician who made such an impression on medical history that his name is still very much associated with medicine today. All newly qualified doctors take what is called the ‘Hippocratic Oath’. Hippocrates is considered as the father of modern medicine even though he did most of his work some 430 years before the birth of Christ. It is he who finally freed medicine from the shackles of magic, superstition and the supernatural. My goal in this paper is to explore the work done by Hippocrates which led him to being known as the father of modern medicine.
Hippocrates worked on the assumption that all diseases had a natural cause rather than a supernatural one. He believed that
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the work done by a doctor should be kept separate from the work done by a priest. Whereas priests believed that an illness such as epilepsy was caused by the gods, Hippocrates believed that, with all other illnesses, it had a natural cause. Hippocrates is credited with turning away from divine notions of medicine and using observation of the body as a basis for medical knowledge. Prayers and sacrifices to the gods did not hold a central place in his theories, but rather changes in diet, exercise and keeping the body in balance were the key. Hippocrates was born on the island of Kos around 460 B.C. His father was a physician priest. At the time Hippocrates began to practise medicine, ancient Greek schools of medicine on how to deal with disease, were split into the Knidian and Koan schools. Medicine at the time of Hippocrates knew almost nothing of human anatomy and physiology because of the Greek taboo forbidding the dissection of humans. The Knidian school focused on diagnosis and its approach to medicine had serious flaws. They considered the body to be merely a collection of isolated parts and saw diseases manifesting in a particular organ or body part as affecting that part only, which alone was treated. Their system of diagnosis was also faulty, relying exclusively on the subjective symptoms related by the patient while totally ignoring the objective signs of the disease. They consequently failed to distinguish when one disease caused many possible series of symptoms. Hippocrates (or the Koan school) radically disagreed with the Knidian school, countering that the human body functioned as one unified organism and must be treated, in health and disease, as one coherent integrated whole. Its focus was on patient care and prognosis, not diagnosis. It achieved greater success by applying general diagnoses and passive treatment and could effectively treat diseases. Early Greek medical beliefs placed emphasis in a bodily system built upon the four humours – blood, phlegm, yellow bile and black bile. Accordingly, health was a harmonious balance of the four humours while disease resulted from their disharmony and imbalance. The physician’s job was to restore health by correcting the imbalance and restoring harmony to the humours. It was also believed that the four humours were connected to the four seasons and the four elements as follows: blood/spring/air; yellow bile/summer/fire; black bile/autumn/earth and phlegm/winter/water. Some illnesses like colds and bronchial problems are more common in winter than summer. These illnesses are likely to produce lots of phlegm. In the theory of the four humours, this imbalance was seen as a cause of disease, not a symptom. Doctors had to treat the patient and restore the balance between humours. Hippocrates believed that the observation of a patient and documentation were a vital aspect of medical care.
Ancient Greek doctors did examine their patients, but Hippocrates wanted a more systematic period of observation and the recording of what was observed. Today, we would call this ‘clinical inspection and observation’. Hippocrates also encouraged physicians to note specific symptoms and what was observed on a day to day basis. By doing this, they could make a natural history of the illness and thereby forecast the development of an illness in the future. Hippocrates made careful regular note of many symptoms including complexion, pulse, fever, pains, movement and excretions. He extended clinical observations into family history and environment. It is this approach and such ideas that led to Hippocrates being called the ‘Father of modern medicine’. It is also due to the fact that in his books, which are more than 70, he described in a scientific manner, many diseases and their treatment after detailed observation. Hippocrates is credited for the first description of clubbing of the fingers or ‘Hippocratic fingers’, an important diagnostic sign in lung disease and lung cancer. Some of his important aphorisms …show more content…
include; “As to diseases, make a habit of two things – to help or at least, to do no harm” (Hippocrates). “Those by nature overweight die earlier than the slim” (Hippocrates). “In the wounds, there are miasmata causing disease if entered the body” (Hippocrates). “Physician must convert or insert wisdom into medicine and medicine into wisdom” (Hippocrates). For pain relief, Hippocrates used the abstract from a tree containing what he called ‘salycasia’, like aspirin.
He also described for the first time epilepsy, not as a sacred disease as was considered at those times, but as a hereditary disease of the brain. He also began to categorize illnesses as acute, chronic, endemic and epidemic.
Hippocratic medicine was humble, passive and generally kind to the patient. The therapeutic approach was based on ‘the healing power of nature’ and thereby simply easing this natural process. To this end, Hippocrates believed that ‘rest and immobilization’ were of capital importance. Treatment was gentle and emphasized keeping the patient clean and sterile e.g. only clean water or wine were ever used on wounds, although ‘dry’ treatment was preferable. He also prescribed generalized treatments like fasting and consumption of apple cider vinegar.
Hippocrates died at the outskirts of Larissa in 356 BC at the age of 104. He greatly contributed to modern medicine by declaring that medicine should stand on detailed observation, reason and experience in order to establish diagnosis, prognosis and treatment. After Hippocrates, medicine was no longer a mixture of superstition, magic, religious beliefs and empirical treatment exercised by priest-physicians, but became a real science with accumulating
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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
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...
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).
For countless years there has always been an urgent need for doctors. Different methods would be used to cure people from their sicknesses. However, life is given by God and it is he who can take it away. Doctors play the role of saving lives, but in the end, they are powerless because nature has to take its course leaving humanity at its limits. In Vincent Lams novel “Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures”, Lam challenges the myth that doctors are omnipotent by contending that “medicine is a science of uncertainty and an art of probability”. Using Fitzgerald as a focal point, Lam debunks the myth that doctors are omnipotent through situations of medical failure, having a loss of power and control and by inhabiting deadly diseases. By showings his mistakes, Lam proves that Fitz is not perfect and God like.
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).
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.
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.
In the Renaissance, some aspects of medicine and doctors were still in a Dark Age. Outbreaks of disease were common, doctors were poor, medicine was primitive and many times doctors would kill a patient with a severe treatment for a minor disease! But, there were other sections where medicine and the use of medications improved greatly. This paper is written to illustrate the "light and dark" sides of medicine in the Renaissance.
Tsiompanou, Eleni, and Marketos, Spyros G. “Hippocrates: timeless still”. J R Soc Med 106 (2013): 288–92.
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 Romans used both scientific and mythological methods in their medicine. By adopting the methods of Greek medicine; the Romans obtained a solid foundation. They copied Hippocrates, who separated the study of medicine from philosophy and had an overall approach to the health of humans. Hippocrates also observed the habits and environment of humans to accurately determine illnesses and discover treatments. The Romans adapted the Hippocratic method and combined it with mythical and religious views. The Romans used Greek methods, and also included prayers and offerings to the gods. Although all gods had healing powers, Aesculapius, the god of healing, was the most important.
Shryock, Richard H. "Eighteenth Century Medicine In America." Proceedings Of The American Antiquarian Society 59.2 (1949): 275-292. America: History and Life with Full Text. Web. 18 Nov. 2013.
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...
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 ...
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.