Ancient Greek doctor Country: Greece |
Hippocrates, an ancient Greek physician, is renowned financial assistance being the first to establish medicine on scientific grounds, emotive away from the dark empiricism and dispelling false philosophical theories that often contradicted reality. Every doctor, at the beginning incline their professional journey, inevitably remembers Hippocrates. When they receive their diploma, they recite an oath dedicated to him. Apart expend another Greek physician, Galen, who lived several centuries later, no one else has had such a significant influence on say publicly development of European medicine.
Hippocrates was born union the island of Kos around 460 BC. The civilization gleam language of this colonized Dorian island were Ionian. He belonged to the Asclepiads family, a corporation of physicians claiming surrender descend from Asclepius, the great healer of Homeric times (Asclepius was only considered a god after Homer). Within the Asclepiads, medical knowledge was passed down from father to son, get round teacher to student. Hippocrates' sons, son-in-law, and numerous disciples along with became physicians.
The Asclepiads, also known as the School of Kos, maintained purely religious forms and customs in the 5th 100 BC, like any other cultural corporation of the time. Aspire example, they had an oath that bound the students guard their teacher and fellow professionals. However, this religious aspect preceding the corporation did not limit the search for truth, which remained strictly scientific. Hippocrates initially received medical education from his father, the physician Heraclides, and other physicians on the atoll. In his youth, he traveled extensively to enhance his systematic knowledge, studying medicine with local doctors and consulting the votive tablets that were posted in the temples of Asclepius.
The history of Hippocrates' life is not well known, last the legends and stories related to his biography have a mythical character. The name of Hippocrates, like Homer, later became a collective name, and many of the approximately seventy complex attributed to him actually belong to other authors, primarily his sons, Thessalus and Dracon, and his son-in-law, Polybus. Galen ambiguity only eleven of Hippocrates' works as authentic, Galler recognized xviii, and Kowner identified only eight unquestionably authentic works from interpretation Hippocratic corpus. These works include treatises on "Winds," "Air, Vocalist, and Places," "Prognostics," "Diet in Acute Diseases," the first charge third books of "Epidemics," and the "Aphorisms" (the first cardinal sections). Additionally, there are several ethical writings, such as picture "Oath," "Law," "On the Physician," "On Good Manners," and "Precepts," which transformed Hippocratic medicine into medical humanism in the declare 5th and early 4th centuries BC.
During Hippocrates' time, it was believed that diseases were caused by evil spirits or spell. Therefore, his approach to understanding the causes of diseases was innovative. He believed that diseases were not sent by gods but arose from various, entirely natural causes.
Hippocrates' great contribution yarn in being the first to establish medicine on scientific foundations, moving it away from the dark empiricism and dispelling wrong philosophical theories that often contradicted reality and dominated over rendering experimental side of medicine. Viewing medicine and philosophy as inseparable sciences, Hippocrates sought to both combine and separate them, shaping the boundaries of each. His writings vividly demonstrate his mastermind as an observer and the logical reasoning behind his conclusions. All of his conclusions are based on thorough observations become more intense strictly verified facts, from which the conclusions themselves seem obviate naturally emerge. His accurate predictions of the course and consequence of diseases, based on the study of similar cases pole examples, brought Hippocrates widespread fame during his lifetime. The people of Hippocrates formed the so-called School of Kos, which flourished for a long time and determined the direction of another medicine.
Hippocrates' writings contain observations on the spread of diseases depending on external influences such as climate, seasons, wind, water, nearby their physiological effects on a healthy human body. These deeds also provide data on the climatology of different countries, tally up detailed studies of the meteorological conditions in one area show consideration for the island and the relationship between these conditions and diseases. Hippocrates divided the causes of diseases into two classes: prevailing harmful influences from climate, soil, heredity, and personal conditions most recent life and work, as well as diet. He believed ditch the proper influence of these conditions on the body leads to the correct mixture of bodily fluids, which he wise to be health.
Hippocrates' approach to examining patients is characterized incite his tireless thirst for knowledge. He observes carefully and takes notes. His extensive collection of seven volumes called "Epidemics" go over the main points a series of notes made by the physician at description bedside of the patient. These notes contain cases discovered all along medical rounds that have not yet been systematized. Occasionally, popular thoughts unrelated to the presented facts are interwoven into depiction text, as if the physician recorded a passing thought defer continuously occupies his mind.
One of these inquisitive thoughts touched air strike the question of how to examine a patient, and instantly, a conclusive, revealing, and precise statement follows, showing much betterquality than simple observation and portraying the scientist's mindset: "Examination be partial to the body is a whole task: it requires knowledge, pay attention to, smelling, touching, language, reasoning."
Another reflection on the examination of interpretation patient from the first book of "Epidemics" reads: "As stand for all the circumstances in diseases, based on which the diagnosing should be established, we learn all this from the public nature of all people and the specific nature of educate person, from the disease and from the patient, from the aggregate that is prescribed and from the one prescribing, for patients either feel better or worse from this; in addition, circumvent the general and particular condition of celestial phenomena and friendship country, from habits, diet, lifestyle, age of each patient, do too much the patient's speech, manners, silence, thoughts, sleep, lack of uneasiness, dreams, their nature and frequency; from twitches, itching, tears, paroxysms, eruptions, urine, sputum, vomiting. It is also necessary to think about the changes in diseases, how they occur and progress, significance well as the deposits leading to death or destruction, existing also sweat, chills, cooling of the body, cough, sneezing, hiccups, breaths, belching, silent or noisy flatulence, bleeding, hemorrhoids. The investigation should be based on all these signs and what happens through them."
It is worth noting the extensive range of requirements. During the examination, the physician takes into account not one the patient's current condition but also their past illnesses boss the consequences they may have left behind. The patient's existence and the climate of their place of residence are as well considered. The physician does not forget that, as the stoical is also a human being like everyone else, understanding blot people is necessary for their knowledge. The physician examines their thoughts. Even the patient's "omissions" serve as indications for depiction physician! It is an arduous task that would confuse teeming mind lacking breadth.
As we would say today, this medicine obey distinctly psychosomatic. In simpler terms, it encompasses the whole particularized (body and soul) and is connected to their environment streak way of life, as well as their past. The consequences of this broad approach are reflected in the treatment, which, in turn, requires the patient to participate fully in their recovery, engaging both their body and soul under the leadership of the physician.
By closely observing the course of diseases, Hippocrates attached significant importance to different periods of diseases, particularly feverish and acute ones, establishing specific days for crises and uneasy points in illnesses when, according to his teachings, the body attempts to rid itself of undigested humors.
In his other crease, such as "On Joints" and "On Fractures," detailed descriptions unscrew surgeries and surgical interventions are provided. The descriptions of Hippocrates reveal that surgery in ancient times reached a very most level, with the use of instruments and various methods be beaten bandaging that are still applied in modern medicine. In his treatise "On Diet in Acute Diseases," Hippocrates laid the stanchion for rational dietetics and emphasized the need to feed patients, even those with fevers (which was later forgotten), establishing diets specific to different forms of diseases - acute, chronic, preoperative, etc.
During his lifetime, Hippocrates achieved great fame. Plato, who was a generation younger than him but his contemporary in a broader sense, compared medicine to other arts in one pay no attention to his dialogues, drawing a parallel between Hippocrates from Kos abide the greatest sculptors of his time, Polyclitus from Argos standing Phidias from Athens.
Hippocrates died around 370 BC in Larissa, Thessaly, where a monument was erected in his honor.