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HIPPOCRATES

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Originally appearing in Volume V13, Page 519 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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HIPPOCRATES , See also:

Greek philosopher and writer, termed the " See also:Father of See also:Medicine," was See also:born, according to See also:Soranus, in See also:Cos, in the first See also:year of the Both See also:Olympiad, i.e. in 46o B.C. He was a member of the See also:family of the Asclepiadae, and was believed to be either the nineteenth or seventeenth in See also:direct descent from See also:Aesculapius. It is also claimed for him that he was descended from See also:Hercules through his See also:mother, Phaenarete. He studied medicine under Heraclides, his father, and Herodicus of Selymbria; in See also:philosophy See also:Gorgias of See also:Leontini and See also:Democritus of See also:Abdera were his masters. His earlier studies were prosecuted in the famous Asclepion of Cos, and probably also at Cnidos. He travelled extensively, and taught and practised his profession at See also:Athens, probably also in See also:Thrace, See also:Thessaly, See also:Delos and his native See also:island. He died at See also:Larissa in Thessaly, his See also:age being variously stated as 85, 90, 104 and 109. The incidents of his See also:life are shrouded by uncertain traditions, which naturally sprang up in the See also:absence of any See also:authentic See also:record; the earliest See also:biography was by one of the Sorani, probably Soranus the younger of See also:Ephesus, in the 2nd See also:century; Suidas, the lexicographer, wrote of him in the r rth, and See also:Tzetzes in the 12th century. In all these See also:biographies there is See also:internal See also:evidence of confusion; many of the incidents related are elsewhere told of other persons, and certain of them are quite irreconcilable with his See also:character, so far as it can be judged of from his writings and from the opinions expressed of him by his contemporaries; we may safely reject, for instance, the legends that he set See also:fire to the library of the See also:Temple of See also:Health at Cnidos, in See also:order to destroy the evidence of See also:plagiarism, and that he refused to visit See also:Persia at the See also:request of See also:Artaxerxes Longimanus, during a pestilential epidemic, on the ground that he would in so doing be assisting an enemy. He is referred to by See also:Plato (Protag. p. 283; Phaedr. p. 211) as an eminent medical authority, and his See also:opinion is also quoted by See also:Aristotle.

The veneration in which he was held by the Athenians serves to dissipate the calumnies which have been thrown on his character by Andreas, and the whole See also:

tone of his writings bespeaks a See also:man of the highest integrity and purest morality. Born of a family of See also:priest-physicians, and inheriting all its traditions and prejudices, Hippocrates was the first to See also:cast superstition aside, and to See also:base the practice of medicine on the principles of inductive philosophy. It is impossible to trace directly the See also:influence exercised upon him by the See also:great men of his See also:time, but one cannot fail to connect his emancipation of medicine from superstition with the widespread See also:power exercised over Greek life and thought by the living See also:work of See also:Socrates, Plato, See also:Aeschylus, See also:Sophocles, See also:Euripides, See also:Herodotus and See also:Thucydides. It was a See also:period of great intellectual development, and it only needed a powerful mind such as his to bring to See also:bear upon medicine the same influences which were at work in other sciences. It must be remembered that his training was not altogether See also:bad, although superstition entered so largely into it. He had a great See also:master in Democritus, the originator of the See also:doctrine of atoms, and there is every See also:reason to believe that the various " asclepia " were very carefully conducted hospitals for the sick, possessing a curious See also:system of See also:case-books, in the See also:form of votive tablets, See also:left by the patients, on which were recorded the symptoms, treatment and result of each case. He had these records at his command; and he had the opportunity of observing the system of training and the treatment of injuries in the gymnasia. One of his great merits is that he was the first to dissociate medicine from priest-See also:craft, and to direct exclusive See also:attention to the natural See also:history of disease. How strongly his mind revolted against the use of charms, amulets, incantations and such devices appears from his writings; and he has expressly recorded, as underlying all his practice, the conviction that, however diseases may be regarded from the religious point of view, they must all be scientifically treated as subject to natural See also:laws (De aere, 29). Nor was he anxious to maintain. the connexion between philosophy and medicine which had for See also:long existed in a confused and confusing See also:fashion.' His knowledge of See also:anatomy, See also:physiology and See also:pathology was necessarily defective, the respect in which the dead See also:body was held by the Greeks precluding him from practising See also:dissection; thus we find him See also:writing of the tissues without distinguishing between the various textures of the body, confusing See also:arteries, See also:veins and nerves, and speaking vaguely of the muscles as " flesh." But when we come to study his observations on the natural history of disease as presented in the living subject, we recognize at once the presence of a great clinical physician. Hippocrates based his principles and practice on the theory of the existence of a spiritual restoring essence or principle, cbvais, the vis medicatrix naturae, in the management of which the See also:art of the physician consisted. This art could, he held, be only obtained by the application of experience, not only to disease at large, but to disease in the individual.

He strongly deprecated See also:

blind See also:empiricism; the See also:aphorism " it 7reipa a4aAep,, 1) Kpiacs xaXeirii" (whether it be his or not), tersely illustrates his position. Holding firmly to the principle, vovawv See also:Oates iri'rpoi, he did not allow himself to remain inactive in the presence of disease; he was not a merely " expectant " physician; as See also:Sydenham puts it, his practice was " the support of enfeebled and the See also:coercion of outrageous nature." He largely employed powerful medicines and See also:blood-letting both See also:ordinary and by See also:cupping. He advises, however, great caution in their application. He placed great dependence on See also:diet and regimen, and here, See also:quaint as many of his directions may now See also:sound, not only in themselves, but in the reasons given, there is much which is still adhered to at the See also:present See also:day. His See also:treatise Ilepi aepwv, aaTwv, Kai T6Irwv (Airs, See also:Waters, and Places) contains the first enunciation of the principles of public health. Although the See also:treatises Ilepi Kpiaiµwv cannot be accepted as authentic, we find in the jl po^yvwar uc6v evidence of the acuteness of observation in the manner in which the occurrence of See also:critical days in disease is enunciated. His method of See also:reporting cases is most interesting and instructive; in them we can read how thoroughly he had separated himself from the priest-physician. Laennec, to whom we are indebted for the practice of See also:auscultation, freely admits that the See also:idea was suggested to him by study of Hippocrates, who, treating of the presence of morbid fluids in the See also:thorax, gives very particular directions, by ' " Hippocrates Cous, See also:primus quidem ex See also:omnibus memoria dignus, ab studio sapientiae disciplinam hanc separavit, vir et arte et facundia in=i,gnis " (See also:Celsus, De medicina).means of succussion, for arriving at an opinion regarding their nature. Laennec says, " Hippocrate avait tente 1'auscultation immediate." Although the treatise Ilepi vouacov is doubtfully from the See also:pen of Hippocrates, it contains strong evidence of having been the work of his See also:grandson, representing the views of the Father of Medicine. Although not accurate in the conclusions reached at the time, the value of the method of diagnosis is shown by the retention in See also:modern medicine of the name and the practice of " Hippocratic succussion." The power of graphic description of phenomena in the Hippocratic writings is illustrated by the retention of the See also:term " facies Hippocratica," applied to the See also:appearance of a moribund See also:person, pictured in the Prognostics. In See also:surgery his writings are important and interesting, but they do not bear the same character of caution as the treatises on medicine; for instance, in the See also:essay On Injuries of the See also:Head, he See also:advocates the operation " of trephining " more strongly and in wider classes of cases than would be warranted by the experience of later times. The Hippocratic Collection consists of eighty-seven treatises, of which a See also:part only can be accepted as genuine.

The collection has been submitted to the closest See also:

criticism in See also:ancient and modern times by a large number of commentators (for full See also:list of the See also:early commentators, see See also:Adams's Genuine See also:Works of Hippocrates, Sydenham Society, i. 27, 28). The treatises have been classified according to (I) the direct evidence of ancient writers, (2) peculiarities of See also:style and method, and (3) the presence of anachronisms and of opinions opposed to the See also:general Hippocratic teaching—greatest See also:weight being attached to the opinions of Erotian and See also:Galen. The general estimate of commentators is thus stated by Adams: " The See also:peculiar style and method of Hippocrates are held to be conciseness of expression, great condensation of See also:matter, and disposition to regard all professional subjects in a See also:practical point of view, to eschew subtle hypotheses and modes of treatment based on vague abstractions." The treatises have been grouped in the four following sections: (I) genuine; (2) those consisting of notes taken by students and collected after the See also:death of Hippocrates; (3) essays by disciples; (4) those utterly See also:spurious. See also:Littre accepts the following thirteen as absolutely genuine: (I) On Ancient Medicine (IIEpi apxatr/s inrpucfjs); (2) The Prognostics (IIpoyvwaruibv); (3) The Aphorisms ('A$opw ot) ; (4) The Epidemics, i. and iii. ('E7riOnaiLv a Kai y'); (5) On Regimen in Acute Diseases (Ilepi &See also:cairns btiwv); (6) On Airs, Waters, and Places (IIEpi aepwv, bblirwv, Kai TOT-ow); (7) On the Articulations (IIEpi 1[pepwv) ; (8) On Fractures (Ilepi aepwv) ; (9) The See also:Instruments of Reduction (Moxaucbs); (Io) The Physician's See also:Establishment, or Surgery (liar' i>)Tpeiov) ; (II) On Injuries of the Head (IIEpi TWV fv KEOaXj TpwpATOM) ; (I2) The See also:Oath ("Opeos); (13) The See also:Law (Nbpos). Of these Adams accepts as certainly genuine the 2nd, 6th, 5th, 3rd (7 books), 4th, 7th, 8th, 9th and 12th, and as " See also:pretty confidently acknowledged as genuine, although the evidence in their favour is not so strong," the 1st, loth and 13th, and, in addition, (14) On Ulcers (IIEpi iXKwv); (15) On Fistulae (Ilepi uupiyywv) ; (16) On Hemorrhoids (Ilepi aipo/thot&wv) ; (17) On the Sacred Disease (IIEpi iepijs vcuQov). According to the sceptical and somewhat subjective criticism of Ermerins, the whole collection is to be regarded as spurious except Epidemics, books i. and iii. (with a few interpolations), On Airs, Waters, and Places, On Injuries of the Head (" insigne fragmentum libri Hippocratei "), the former portion of the treatise On Regimen in Acute Diseases, and the " obviously Hippocratic " fragments of the Coan Prognostics. Perhaps also the Oath may be accepted as genuine; its See also:comparative antiquity is not denied. The Aphorisms are certainly later and inferior. In the other non-Hippocratic writings Ermerins thinks he can distinguish the hands of no fewer than nineteen different authors, most of them See also:anonymous, and some of them very See also:late.

The earliest Greek edition of the Hippocratic writings is that which was published by Aldus and Asulanus at See also:

Venice in 1526 (See also:folio) ; it was speedily followed by that of Frobenius, which is much more accurate and See also:complete (fol., See also:Basel, 1538). Of the numerous subsequent See also:editions, probably the best was that of Foesius (See also:Frankfort, 1595, 1621, See also:Geneva, 1657), until the publication of the great works of Littre, U uvres completes d'Hippocrate, traduction nouvelle avec le texte grec en regard, collationnee sur See also:les manuscrits et toutes tes, editions, accompagnee d'une introduction, de commentaires medicaux, de variantes, et de notes philologiques (10 vols., See also:Paris, 1839-1861), and of F. Z. Ermerins, Hippocratis et aliorum medicorum veterum reliquiae (3 vols., See also:Utrecht, 1859-1864). See also Adams (as cited above), and See also:Reinhold's Hippocrates (2 vols., Athens, 1864-1867). Daremberg's edition of the Euvres choisies (2nd ed., Paris, 1855) includes the Oath, the Law, the Prorrhetics, See also:book i., the Prognostics, On Airs, Waters, and Places, Epidemics, books i. and iii., Regimen, and Aphorisms. Of the See also:separate works attributed to Hippocrates the editions and See also:translations are almost innumerable; of the Prognostics, for example, seventy editions are known, while of the Aphorisms there are said to exist as many as three See also:hundred. For some See also:notice of the Arabic, See also:Syriac and See also:Hebrew translations of works professedly by Hippocrates (Ibukrat or Bukrat), the number of which greatly exceeds that of the extant Greek originals, reference may be made to See also:Flugel's contribution to the See also:article " Hippokrates " in the Encyklopddie of See also:Ersch and See also:Gruber. They have been partially catalogued by See also:Fabricius in his Bibliotheca Graeca. (J. B.

End of Article: HIPPOCRATES

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