Outlines of Greek and Roman Medicine | Page 8

parts of Italy. Although Pythagoras was a philosopher, he belongs to the Mystic Period, while Hippocrates is the great central figure of the Philosophic Period. Before studying the work of Hippocrates, it is necessary to consider the distinguishing features of the various schools of Greek philosophy. Renouard shows that the principles of the various schools of medical belief depended upon the three great Greek schools of Cosmogony.
Pythagoras believed in a Supreme Ruler of the Universe, and that spirits animated all life, and existed even in minerals; he also believed in preconceived purpose. With these views were associated the Dogmatic School of Medicine, and the name of Hippocrates, and this belief corresponds to modern vitalism.
Leucippus and Democritus, rejecting theology, considered vital action secondary to the operation of the laws of matter, and believed that atoms moved through pores in the body in such a way as to determine a state of health or disease. With this philosophy was associated the Medical School of Methodism, a system said to have been founded by Asclepiades of Prusa (who lived in Rome in the first century before Christ), and by his pupil Themison (B.C. 50). The third school of medical thought, that of Empiricism, taught that experience was the only teacher, and that it was idle to speculate upon remote causes. The Empirics based these views upon the teaching of philosophers known as Sceptics or Zetetics, followers of Parmenides and Pyrrho, who taught that it was useless to fatigue the mind in endeavouring to comprehend what is beyond its range. They were the precursors of modern agnosticism.
The Eclectics, in a later age, formed another medical sect, and had no definite system except that they made a selection of the views and methods of Dogmatists, Methodists and Empirics.
The Greek philosophers as a class believed in a primary form of matter out of which elements were formed, and the view held in regard to the elements is expressed in Ovid's "Metamorphoses."[4]
"Nor those which elements we call abide, Nor to this figure nor to that are ty'd: For this eternal world is said of old But four prolific principles to hold, Four different bodies; two to heaven ascend, And other two down to the centre tend. Fire first, with wings expanded, mounts on high, Pure, void of weight, and dwells in upper sky; Then air, because unclogged, in empty space Flies after fire, and claims the second place; But weighty water, as her nature guides, Lies on the lap of earth; and Mother Earth subsides. All things are mixed of these, which all contain, And into these are all resolved again."
Fire was considered to be matter in a very refined form, and to closely resemble life or even soul.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Wheelwright's translation of "Pindar."
[2] Arctinus, "Ethiopis." Translated in Puschmann's "Hist. Med. Education."
[3] Caton, Brit. Med. Journ., 1906, i, p. 571.
[4] Dryden's translation, book xv.
CHAPTER III.
HIPPOCRATES.
His life and works--His influence on Medicine.
Hippocrates, the Father of Medicine, was born at Cos during the golden age of Greece, 460 years before Christ. He belonged to the family of the Asclepiad?, and, according to tradition, could trace his ancestors on the male side to ?sculapius, and on the female side to Hercules. He is said to have received his medical education from his father and from Herodicus, and to have been taught philosophy by Gorgias, the Sophist, and by Democritus, whom he afterwards cured of mental derangement.
There was a very famous medical school at Cos, and the temple there held the notes of the accumulated experience of his predecessors, but Hippocrates visited also, for the purpose of study, various towns of Greece, and particularly Athens. He was a keen observer, and took careful notes of his observations. His reputation was such that his works are quoted by Plato and by Aristotle, and there are references to him by Arabic writers. His descendants published their own writings under his name, and there were also many forgeries, so that it is impossible to know exactly how many of the works attributed to him are authentic; but by a consensus of opinion the following books are considered genuine: "Prognostics," seven of the books of "Aphorisms," "On Airs, Waters and Places," "On Regimen in Acute Diseases," the first and third books of "Epidemics," "On the Articulations," "On Fractures," the treatise on "Instruments of Reduction," and "The Oath"; and the books considered almost certainly genuine are those dealing with "Ancient Medicine," "Surgery," "The Law," "Fistul?," "Ulcers," "H?morrhoids," and "On the Sacred Disease" (Epilepsy). The famous Hippocratic Collection in the great libraries of Alexandria and Pergamos also comprised the writings of Pythagoras, Plato and Aristotle.
The genius of Hippocrates is unsurpassed in the history of medicine. He was the first to trace disease to a natural and intelligible cause, and to recognize Nature as all-sufficient for healing, and physicians