Hippocrates: Liberating Medicine from Superstition

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Hippocrates: the Father of Modern Medicine
Hippocrates was born to a physician priest around 460 B.C (History Learning Site). Hippocrates was known as the Greek doctor of medicine. During his time, he made a strong mark in medical history. Although he did most of his work 430 years before the birth of Christ, he is still considered the father of modern medicine. In today’s world he is strongly recognized so much so that graduating medical students take what is called the ‘Hippocratic Oath” as they step into the world of practicing medicine. This could be because he is the one who freed medicine from the bondage of superstition, sorcery and the spirit world. 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.
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 …show more content…

With this they could now make a history of the illness and thereby forecast the development of an illness in the future. Hippocrates was keen to note the symptoms such as the colour, pulse, fever, pain, movement and excretions and made careful regular notes on this. He was also keen to know about the family of the patient and extended his questions and observations to family history. It is this approach and his innovative ideas of questioning that led him to being called the ‘Father of Modern Medicine”. Hippocrates wrote over more than 70 books. He used his keen, meticulous and detailed style of observation and with this he was able to use a scientific manner to describe many diseases and their treatment. 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 (Medicine through

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