"hydrotherapeutists" or "bath- physicians"; while there were a
host of physicians who administered a great variety of herbs and
drugs. There were also magicians who pretended to heal by
sorcery, and great numbers of bone-setters, oculists, and
dentists.

Many of the wealthy physicians had hospitals, or clinics, where
patients were operated upon and treated. They were not hospitals
in our modern understanding of the term, but were more like
dispensaries, where patients were treated temporarily, but were
not allowed to remain for any length of time. Certain communities
established and supported these dispensaries for the care of the
poor.

But anything approaching a rational system of medicine was not
established, until Hippocrates of Cos, the "father of medicine,"
came upon the scene. In an age that produced Phidias, Lysias,
Herodotus, Sophocles, and Pericles, it seems but natural that the
medical art should find an exponent who would rise above
superstitious dogmas and lay the foundation for a medical
science. His rejection of the supernatural alone stamps the
greatness of his genius. But, besides this, he introduced more
detailed observation of diseases, and demonstrated the importance
that attaches to prognosis.

Hippocrates was born at Cos, about 460 B.C., but spent most of
his life at Larissa, in Thessaly. He was educated as a physician
by his father, and travelled extensively as an itinerant
practitioner for several years. His travels in different climates
and among many different people undoubtedly tended to sharpen his
keen sense of observation. He was a practical physician as well
as a theorist, and, withal, a clear and concise writer. "Life is
short," he says, "opportunity fleeting, judgment difficult,
treatment easy, but treatment after thought is proper and
profitable."

His knowledge of anatomy was necessarily very imperfect, and was
gained largely from his predecessors, to whom he gave full
credit. Dissections of the human body were forbidden him, and he
was obliged to confine his experimental researches to operations
on the lower animals. His knowledge of the structure and
arrangement of the bones, however, was fairly accurate, but the
anatomy of the softer tissues, as he conceived it, was a queer
jumbling together of blood-vessels, muscles, and tendons. He does
refer to "nerves," to be sure, but apparently the structures
referred to are the tendons and ligaments, rather than the nerves
themselves. He was better acquainted with the principal organs in
the cavities of the body, and knew, for example, that the heart
is divided into four cavities, two of which he supposed to
contain blood, and the other two air.

His most revolutionary step was his divorcing of the supernatural
from the natural, and establishing the fact that disease is due
to natural causes and should be treated accordingly. The effect
of such an attitude can hardly be over-estimated. The
establishment of such a theory was naturally followed by a close
observation as to the course of diseases and the effects of
treatment. To facilitate this, he introduced the custom of
writing down his observations as he made them--the "clinical
history" of the case. Such clinical records are in use all over
the world to-day, and their importance is so obvious that it is
almost incomprehensible that they should have fallen into disuse
shortly after the time of Hippocrates, and not brought into
general use again until almost two thousand years later.

But scarcely less important than his recognition of disease as a
natural phenomenon was the importance he attributed to prognosis.
Prognosis, in the sense of prophecy, was common before the time
of Hippocrates. But prognosis, as he practised it and as we
understand it to-day, is prophecy based on careful observation of
the course of diseases--something more than superstitious
conjecture.

Although Hippocratic medicine rested on the belief in natural
causes, nevertheless, dogma and theory held an important place.
The humoral theory of disease was an all-important one, and so
fully was this theory accepted that it influenced the science of
medicine all through succeeding centuries. According to this
celebrated theory there are four humors in the body-- blood,
phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile. When these humors are mixed
in exact proportions they constitute health; but any deviations
from these proportions produce disease. In treating diseases the
aim of the physician was to discover which of these humors were
out of proportion and to restore them to their natural
equilibrium. It was in the methods employed in this restitution,
rather than a disagreement about the humors themselves, that
resulted in the various "schools" of medicine.

In many ways the surgery of Hippocrates showed a better
understanding of the structure of the organs than of their
functions. Some of the surgical procedures as described by him
are followed, with slight modifications, to-day. Many of his
methods were entirely lost sight of until modern times, and one,
the treatment of dislocation of the outer end of the collar-bone,
was not revived until some time in the eighteenth century.

Hippocrates, it seems, like modern physicians, sometimes suffered
from the ingratitude of his patients. "The physician visits a
patient suffering from fever or a wound, and prescribes for him,"
he says; "on the next day, if the patient feels worse the blame


<< previous page | next page >>

Jump to page: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48 | 49 | 50 | 51 | 52 | 53 | 54 | 55 | 56 | 57 | 58 | 59 | 60 | 61 | 62 | 63 | 64 | 65 | 66 | 67 | 68 | 69 | 70 | 71 | 72 | 73 | 74 | 75 | 76 | 77 | 78 | 79 | 80 | 81 | 82 | 83 | 84 | 85 | 86 | 87 | 88 | 89 |