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<p style="color: #008080; font-size: 1.0em"><i><b>We still know very little about Hippocrates. And yet, like the physicians of Imperial Rome, the doctors of our days want to know all about the life of the "Father of Medicine." Where there are no historical sources available, imagination will step in, and the poet will replace the historian.</b></i><ref name=sigerist1934>Sigerist HE. (1934) On Hippocrates. Bulletin of the History of Medicine 2:190-214.</ref></p>
<p style="color: #151B54; font-size: 1.0em"><i><b>We still know very little about Hippocrates. And yet, like the physicians of Imperial Rome, the doctors of our days want to know all about the life of the "Father of Medicine." Where there are no historical sources available, imagination will step in, and the poet will replace the historian.</b></i><ref name=sigerist1934>Sigerist HE. (1934) On Hippocrates. Bulletin of the History of Medicine 2:190-214.</ref></p>
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Hippocrates. Engraving by Peter Paul Rubens, (S.L., 1638).

Of all the men in ancient Greece who shared the name, Hippocrates — a common Greek name like ‘Edward’ or ‘Lawrence’ in English — many with that name having distinguished themselves in Greek history in one way or other, only one Hippocrates, Hippocrates of Cos (c. 460 – 370 BCE), a physician-surgeon, reigned with respect and honor during Western history to the present day. The revolution in medicine that he began and inspired so changed the course of Western civilization that the health and welfare of all humanity has benefited.

Hippocrates of Cos revolutionized the practice of medicine by transforming it from its mythical, superstitious, magical and supernatural roots to roots based on observation and reason — the roots of scientific objectivity — roots that have nourished an ever-growing evolutionary tree of Western scientific medicine still flourishing. For that reason History has bestowed on Hippocrates of Cos the honorific cognomen, “The Father of Medicine”, medicine’s progenitor. We might call him more accurately "The Progenitor of Western Rational Medicine".

Because historians know only a little about the life of Hippocrates, and because of the great influence the works associated with his name have had on medicine for millennia, his fame as a physician has led to a plethora of writings about him that have the character of legend:

We still know very little about Hippocrates. And yet, like the physicians of Imperial Rome, the doctors of our days want to know all about the life of the "Father of Medicine." Where there are no historical sources available, imagination will step in, and the poet will replace the historian.[1]

The details — even basic facts — of Hippocrates' life remains contentious among modern classics scholars, to say the least. An almost complete lack of contemporary 5th and 4th century BCE historical evidence makes the questions about about the historical Hippocrates particularly knotty, and vexes the question of the relationship between the writings that have come down in Hippocrates' name, the Hippocratic corpus, and the historical Hippocrates.

The legends about Hippocrates, though completely imagined or evolved elaborations of reality, by their hero-generating nature, attest to the esteem bestowed on Hippocrates for nearly two and one-half millennia.[2]

Sources for the life of Hippocrates

Though Hippocrates looms large in the imagination and in historical tradition, unambiguous historical evidence for a satisfactorily full account of his life remains elusive. The evidence closest in time to Hippocrates' life comes to us from the extant writings of the philosopher Plato (429-347 BCE), a contemporary of Hippocrates. Plato has Socrates mentioning Hippocrates in the Protagoras and Phaedrus. These passages help us to locate Hippocrates in the context of Greek culture in the fifth century BCE. The latter reference (which has inspired a large body of scholarship) comments on Hippocrates' methodology. Together, the passages in Plato's works give us reliable evidence of the existence of Hippocrates as a physician, as a citizen of Cos, of the Asclepiad family, who had achieved fame beyond his homeland during his lifetime.[3] [4]

A passage in the Politics of Aristotle, a near contemporary of Hippocrates, also attests to Hippocrates' historical existence in a way that suggests his fame as a scientist physician.

Hippocrates' life and work are discussed in the writings of Aulus Cornelius Celsus (d. ca. 50 CE). An anonymous, mystifying papyrus tries to differentiate the real teachings of Hippocrates from those merely attributed to him.

Furthermore, it was recognized in antiquity that the Hippocratean corpus, the collection of writings attributed to Hippocrates, could not be the writings of one man. Later commentators, including the influential Galen, attempted to separate the genuine Hippocratean teachings from the spurious and included biographical detail when they did so.

One Life of Hippocrates, a short work attributed to Soranus of Ephesus (a second century CE physician), provides many details concerning Hippocrates' life. Jacques Jouanna refers to it as "the canonical source", as it appears introductory to the earliest compiled editions of the Hippocratic corpus.[5] Jouanna asserts that it "draws upon more ancient sources, the most outstanding of which is the director of the library of Alexandria during the Hellenistic era, Eratosthenes ofCyrene.

Given the lack of unambiguous contemporary evidence, a large number of modern scholars have concluded that the real, historical Hippocrates is unknowable. In recent years, the research of Jacques Jouanna has re-opened the debate on the life of Hippocrates, and on many points of Hippocratean scholarship.[5]

Hippocrates’ life on the island of Cos

Ionia (in Asia Minor) and the island of Cos, Hippocrates' birthplace.

Hippocrates entered the world into an aristocratic family on the Ionian island of Cos (or Kos), located in the Aegean Sea off the southwest coast of then called Ionia (Asia Minor, present day Turkey).[6]

Hippocrates' father, Heraclides, and his father's father, also called Hippocrates, practiced medicine employing ancient ideas of supernatural causation and treatment of disease according to the tradition linked to Asclepius, considered a deity.[7]  In fact, Heraclides traced his ancestry through the male line back to Asclepius in the era of the Trojan war, when Asclepius, a physician, had not yet received divine status. Heraclides descended through the male from Asclepius’s son, Podalirius, who fought in the Trojan war, moved to Asia Minor, and whose descendants eventually settled on Cos. The tradition of Asclepian medicine passed from son to son down the generations, eventually reaching Heraclides. The family from Podalirius onward called themselves Asclepiads, their family name.

At the time of Hippocrates’ birth, Cos paid tribute to Athens as a member of the Athenian federation created to defend against Persian aggression.

Hippocrates, though known also as 'Hippocrates of Cos, the Asclepiad', and though reared in the family tradition of Asclepian medicine, nevertheless rejected the supernatural ethos, sparking a revolution of principles and practice in medicine that present day non-supernatural Western scientific medicine acknowledges as its parentage and heritage.[8] Scholars have found no evidence of Hippocrates ever practicing as a physician priest of Asclepius.

Hippocrates’ education within the family probably included, in addition to medicine, philosophy and rhetoric and other subjects that gave him knowledge of the world of reality. He remained on Cos well into maturity, married and had two sons and a daughter. His new practice of medicine according to the tenets of observation and reason gained him fame in and beyond Cos. One plausible story has him rejecting an invitation to court of the current king of Persia. [9]

The emergence of Hippocratic medicine

The Greeks invented rational medicine.
James Longrigg[8]


The Hippocratic philosophy of medicine mirrored the emerging philosophy of the natural causes of things and events in the world that began with the Ionian philosopher, Thales of Miletus (c. 625-546), whose speculation about the natural world is an important turning point in Western scientific thought. Classicist and historian of medicine, James Longrigg puts it thusly:

Our earliest evidence of Greek medicine reveals, then, that, as in ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, the causation of disease and the operation of the remedies applied to the sick were so linked with superstitious beliefs in magic and supernatural causation that a rational understanding of disease, its effect upon the body, or of the operation of remedies applied to it was impossible. The sixty-odd works of the Hippocratic Corpus, however, provide a striking contrast and are virtually free from magic and supernatural intervention.[citation] Here, in this collection, for the first time in the history of medicine complete treatises have survived which display an entirely rational outlook towards disease, whose causes and symptoms are now accounted for in purely natural terms. The importance of this revolutionary innovation for the subsequent development of medicine can hardly be overstressed. This emancipation of (some) medicine from magic and superstition, was the outcome of precisely the same attitude of mind which the Milesian natural philosophers were the first to apply to the world about them. For it was their attempts to explain the world in terms of its visible constituents without recourse to supernatural intervention which ultimately paved the way for the transition to rational explanation in medicine, too.Cite error: Closing </ref> missing for <ref> tag

Hippocrates’ life overlapped that of the great Greek natural philosophers Empedocles (ca. 495-435 BCE), Socrates (469–399 BCE), Plato (429-347 BCE) and Aristotle (384-322 BCE). Thus he lived during the Golden Age of Greece (c. 500  – 300 BCE). Disease, so central in human lives, not surprisingly would come under scientific scrutiny in the environment of such thinkers. Historians know that Hippocrates observed keenly ("infinite in faculty"), reasoned rationally ("noble in reason"), and taught and practiced a holistic ideal of medicine ("what a piece of work is Man")[10] [11] that regarded health and disease as manifestations of body and mind as a whole. An excerpt from one of the Hippocratic Treatises, Places in Man, nicely illustrates the Hippocratic holistic view.[12]

In my view, there is no beginning in the body; but everything is alike beginning and end. For when a circle has been drawn, its beginning is not to be found. And the beginning of ailments comes from the entire body alike. . . . Each part of the body at once transmits illness one to the other, whenever it arises in one place or another; belly to head, head to flesh and to belly, and all other parts thus analogously, just as belly to head and head to flesh and to belly. For when the belly fails to make proper evacuation, and food goes into it, it floods the body with moisture from the ingested foodstuffs. . . . .This moisture, blocked from the belly, travels en masse to the head. When it reaches the head, not being contained by the vessels in the head, it flows at random, either around the head or into the brain through the fine bone. Some penetrates the bone and some the region of the brain through the fine bone. And if it returns to the belly, it causes illness in the belly; and if it happens to go anywhere else, it causes illness elsewhere; and in other cases similarly, just as in this case, one part causes illness in another. . .. The body is homogeneous (lit. the same as itself) and is composed of the same things, though not in uniform disposition, in its small parts and its large; in parts above and parts below. And if you like to take the smallest part of the body and injure it, the whole body will feel the injury, whatever sort it may be, for this reason, that the smallest part of the body has all the things that the biggest part has.[12]

Hippocrates founded a school of medicine known by his name, and advocated a basic approach to the diagnosis and treatment of disease that still has applications in modern medicine. [For example, see Pappas et al.[13], Chang et al.[14], and Ghaemi[15]]

Why do modern day researchers keep going back to Hippocrates?....although ancient, some notions expressed in the Hippocratic works are still applicable today. What is more important though, is a reason easily recognized to anyone familiar with Hippocratic descriptions of infection: the clarity of presentation of the clinical course and the astute inclusion of infection in a broader environmental and social context are still unparalleled by modern thinking.[13]

History gave his name to an oath of medical ethics called the Hippocratic Oath. "The code of conduct for doctors outlined in the Hippocratic Oath, a vow commonly taken by modern doctors", remains an ethical guideline in medicine.[16] One can begin to appreciate the influence of Hippocrates to the present day by his presence in the World Wide Web since the year 2000, where the scientific search engine, SCIRUS, reveals 74,523 entries, and Google search reveals ~172,000 entries for the twelve months preceding April 2008.

(PD) Image: Ed Snible
Ancient Greek World

Early Greek medicine operated as a supernatural, magical art. The god of healing, Asclepius (Aesculapius in Roman terminology), [17] whose priests and temples flourished in ancient Greece at least from the Homeric era, appeared in the dreams of the sick who came to the temple for 'sleep therapy'. Asclepius gave advice to the dreamer, which the priests interpreted. The priests prescribed baths, diets, exercises, changes in occupation or living locales, and other routines, and those prescriptions received credit when cures occurred. The cult of ‘therapeutic dreaming’ persisted in various places even into Christian times.[18]

Hippocratic medicine developed as the "naturalistic counterpart" of the Asclepian supernaturalistic tradition.[19] By the 6th century BCE (the 500s BCE) Greek philosophers emerged and began to theorize about the natural causes of the way the world worked. Empedocles (ca. 495-435 BCE), characterized as a physician and philosopher, postulated earth, air, fire and water as the primordial elements of which everything in the world consisted, in differing combinations and kinds of combinations, including the human body.[20] [21]

The development of Hippocratic medicine, its [Aesculapian medicine’s] naturalistic counterpart, is considered a turning point in the history of the healing arts although, as we have seen, at about the same time, naturalistic medical paradigms were developing in other ancient civilizations as well. The importance of Hippocratic medicine rests on the fact that it is the first comprehensive naturalistic medical system of the Western world and therefore the source from which scientific medicine would eventually originate.[19]

Indeed, the development of Hippocratic medicine may have influenced changes in the persisting Asclepian practice.[22]

For its objectives of seeking classification, causes and remedies of disease, medicine requires reason, but not only reason. Considering that knowledge emerges from information processed by reason, not only does the quality of reason count, but also does the quality of the information fed into reason count. Reason will yield a formally valid conclusion, but if fed flawed information, it will not yield a reliable conclusion. For the latter, reason requires information ultimately based on empirically sound observation. If based on wishful thinking, imagination, unquestioned assumptions, believed revelation by deities, guesswork and the like, reason yields at best dubious knowledge and at worst false knowledge. Hippocrates appears to have understood that, and as a physician considered to epitomize the art of medicine, as Socrates did, he inspired many likeminded and knowledge-seeking followers.

Likely inspired by Empedocles’ concept of four elements making up natural things, the concept of four humours (blood, yellow bile, black bile, phlegm) as constituent elements of the human body emerged as part of the Hippocratic tradition, the individual humours in various combinations determining state of health and personality:

  • excess blood makes a person ‘sanguine’, full of energy, optimistic, ruddy complected
  • excess yellow bile makes a person ‘bilious’, ‘choleric’, bad tempered, quick to anger, irritable
  • excess black bile makes a person ‘melancholic’, deeply and long-lastingly sad
  • excess phlegm makes a person ‘phlegmatic’, unemotional, temperamentally slow, calm

Historians have not identified an individual who originated the four humours theory, nor have they excluded the possibility that the theory emerged into a formal theory only gradually. [23]

The medical corollary of Empedocles' theory is the identification of the traditional humours with constituent elements: what made this possible was the presence, in the traditional view of humours, of positive characteristics. Because of these characteristics it was easy to conceive the humours as the ingredients of man, upon which his normal or healthy state, as well as his very existence, depended….It is not the recognition of this or that humour as existing which counts, but the theoretical use to which that humour is put. One would therefore also have to find evidence….that the humours were regarded as constituent parts of the human body. There seems no a priori reason why this should not have been the case, in any writer working after say 450. But in the absence of such evidence, the question of the precise originator of the four-humoral theory is formally insoluble….What is perhaps of more interest is the way in which the theory of four humours exemplifies the stimulating effects of Greek philosophy on Greek medical science. It may be described in this way: the philosopher provides the categories within which the medical scientist can order his experience. (Page 61) [23]

The Hippocratic physician: scientist or craftsman?

H.J.F. Horstmanshoff argues that the Hippocratic physicians qualify as craftsmen, and not as scientists:

Ancient physicians did not receive scholarly, scientific training. The intellectual attitudes and social status which we are inclined to attribute to them are anachronisms nourished by the Hippocratic tradition from Galen to Littre. Physicians who had scholarly ambitions steered toward philosophy and rhetoric rather than to empirical disciplines. As a consequence of the prevailing social and economic outlook, the image of the rhetor [teacher of rhetoric, or orator] and of the philosopher were considered to be far better than that of the engineer or of the artisan, or that of those devoted to applied knowledge in general. Ancient physicians were above all craftsmen. Nevertheless the more ambitious among them cloaked over the manual aspects of their art and explained away the remuneration for their services with the help of rhetoric [persuasive public speaking].[24]


....

Social and economic roles of the Hippocratic physicians

The Hippocratic Corpus records a wealth of information about classical Greek medicine, yet records little details about the lives of the Hippocratic physicians. In part to remedy that gap, or compensate in a way for it, classical scholar, Hui-hua Chang studied the Greek cities in the northern regions of the Aegean where the Hippocratic physicians spent time, as recorded in the Hippocratic treatise, Epidemics.[25]  The express purpose of the study, according to Professor Chang, “…is to determine how such places may help us define the social and economic roles of Greek physicians in the Classical period.”

Professor Chang's analysis reveals that one mischaracterizes the Hippocratic physicians as mere aimless itinerants, as sometimes implied by writers. Rather, more objectively, Chang characterizes them as physicians visiting targeted towns and villages for specific reasons of seeking employment and financial support as opportunity presented. They found greater job opportunities in the larger urban centers where division of labor accompanied by specialization of occupation had already evolved. Moreover, such centers housed wealthy individuals and families who could support the renown Hippocratic physicians of burgeoning repute.

The Athenian Empire at its height about a decade before Hippocrates' birth. Public domain. Courtesy of the University of Texas Libraries, The University of Texas at Austin, http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps, and the Perry-Castañeda Library Historical Atlas by William R. Shepherd, http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/historical/shepherd_1911/shepherd-c-013.jpg . Modified slightly from original, for ease of study.

Professor Chang provides detailed descriptions of the cities visited by the Hippocratic physicians, their location on trade routes, their chiefs sources of trade, their resources for their daily lives — revealing most of them as wealthy commercial centers or the major cities in the region. He describes:

  • Cyzicus on the southern coast of Propontis (now the Sea of Marmara) — visible upper right on the accompanying map south of Thrace and North of Asia Minor (Anatolia) — acquiring its wealth from its location on the trade route between the Black Sea to the northeast and the Aegean Sea to the west, its exports of wine, fish and marble, and it supply of wheat to the Aegean from Russia.
  • Perinthis on the northern coast of Propontis, also depicted on the map, a trade city with abundant territory to produce corn, cattle and timber.
  • Abdera and Ainos, on the Thracian coast near the island of Thrasos in the north Thracian Sea. Ainos acquired its wealth from its location at the mouth of the major river in the northern Aegean, supplying the Aegean with the products fertile Thracian fields in return for Greek merchandise. Abdera — home of the geometer and atomist, Democritus, whom legend has it Hippocrates visited because of accusations of mental dysfunction and declared Democritus the sanest man in town — became “the emporium of the silver trade”.
  • Thrasos, the island and its Thracian mainland colonies, wealthy from gold and silver mining and producing wine considered the finest in Greece. The Hippocratic physicians spent much time in Thrasos.
  • Olynthus, the largest city on the peninsula of Chalcidice, visible on the map in the southern part of Macedonia, destroyed after Hippocrates’ death because Phillip II considered it a threat to his rule of Macedonia. The Hippocratic physicians practiced their art there prior to its destruction, when its large population displayed their wealth and power.
  • Larissa, in Thessaly, south of Macedonia and left of center on the map, shows up in Epidemics with many descriptions of medical cases. It had much fertile land and control of the mountain passes to Macedonia.

Possibly the Hippocratic favored those cities both because their wealth and the undoubted wealth of patients in cities with dense populations of people living luxuriously. Large populations also usually meant labor division and thus opportunities for physicians to concentrate on practicing medicine. Professor Chang closes thus:

It was in such places as those described above, where wealth was concentrated and people with open minds resided, that they [the Hippocratic physicians] would find clients and patrons who were ready to accept untraditional [non-supernatural] ideas and who would support the art of the Hippocratic doctors.[25]

The Hippocratic treatises

This listing as in Jouanna's Appendix 3.[5]  Jouanna states: "The principal editions given here are based on the Greek-French edition of Émile Littré (10 vols., 1839-1861).[5]

  • Address from the Altar (=Epibomios)
  • Affections
  • Airs, Waters, Places
  • Anatomy
  • Ancient Medicine
  • Aphorisms
  • The Art
  • Breaths
  • Coan Prenotions
  • Crisis
  • Critical Days
  • Decorum
  • Decree of the Athenians
  • Dentition
  • Diseases I
  • Diseases II
  • Diseases III
  • Diseases IV
  • Diseases of Girls
  • Diseases of Women I-II/Sterile Women
  • Eight Months' Child (contains Seven Months' Child)
  • Epidemics I and III
  • Epidemikcs II, IV, and VI
  • Epidemics V and VII
  • Excision of the Foetus
  • Fistulas
  • Fleshes
  • Generation/Nature of the Child
  • Glands
  • Haemorrhoids''
  • The Heart
  • Humours

  • Internal Affections
  • In the Surgery
  • Law
  • Letters
  • Mochilicon (=Instuments of Reduction)
  • Nature of Bones
  • Nature of Man
  • Nature of Women
  • Nutriment
  • The Oath
  • On Fractures/On Joints
  • On Wounds in the Head
  • Physician
  • Places in Man
  • Precepts
  • Prognostic
  • Prorrhetic I
  • Prorrhetic II
  • Regimen
  • Regimen in Acute Diseases
  • Regimen in Acute Diseases (Appendix)
  • Remedies
  • The Sacred Disease (See: Epilepsy)
  • Sevens
  • Sight
  • Speech of the Envoy (=Presbeutikos)
  • Superfoetation
  • Testament of Hippocrates (=Qualem Oportet Esse Discipulum)
  • Ulcers
  • Use of Liquids
  • Other Apocryphal Treatises

....

—Aphorisms

The first aphorism

"....the First Aphorism is medicine’s whole law; the rest is commentary."
       —Sherwin B. Nuland, The Uncertain Art[26]


Of the more than 400 aphorisms attributed to Hippocrates, the first has received the most attention. In the Francis Adams translation,[27] it reads:

Life is short, and the Art long; the occasion fleeting; experience fallacious; and judgment difficult. The physician must not only be prepared to do what is right himself, but also to make the patient, the attendants, and the externals cooperate.[27]

Another 19th century translation:[28]

Life is short, and Art long; the crisis fleeting; experience perilous, and decision difficult. The physician must not only be prepared to do what is right himself, but also to make the patient, the attendants, and externals cooperate. [28]

The same aphorism as translated in the Hippocratic Writings edited by G. E. R. Lloyd reads:[29]

Life is short, science is long; opportunity is elusive, experiment is dangerous, judgement is difficult. It is not enough for the physician to do what is necessary, but the patient and the attendants must do their part as well, and circumstances must be favourable. [29]

In the Adams translation, the "Art", always with an capital 'A', refers to medicine — the art of medicine. In the Lloyd text, the 'Art of medicine' becomes 'science'. In either case, the first clause of the first aphorism seems to say that the lifespan of a physician does not suffice for learning the Art of medicine, all of its science. The implication would seem to exhort awareness to physicians that they cannot expect learn all of medicine in a lifetime, an exhortation to humility and avoidance of overconfidence. Can any physician even two and a half millenia later deny the aphorism, especially in respect of the enormous amount and intricate complexity of the knowledge base of medicine in the early 21st century. Perhaps the complete Art of medicine will always overwhelm any one physician's lifetime of learning and practice.

Sherwin Nuland puts it this way:

Although life expectancy is currently well more than twice what it was during the golden age of Greece, it will never be endowed with years enough for anyone to master the vast expanse of medical knowledge, or even that part of it sufficient for an individual doctor to care for all of his patients.[26]

The aphorism continues with the occasion fleeting, alternatively opportunity is elusive, generally interpreted as indicating the need for timely diagnosis to achieve the best results of treatment — a narrow window of opportunity.

[E]xperience fallacious, or experiment [in the sense of experience] is dangerous, seems to warn of misinterpreting the patient's symptoms and signs by relying on experience that might apply generally but not to the specific patient at hand owing to that patient's particular circumstances, internal or external, physiological or psychological. Sherwin Nuland applies that to the non-personal 'experience' that statistics offers, unless it takes into consideration individual variability and the factors that go into generating it.

21st century scholarly interest in and diversity of views of Hippocrates

Some Abstracts paragraphed for ease of reading

  • Grammaticos PC, Diamantis A. (2008) [From Emeritus professors, Thessaloniki, Macedonia, Greece]

“Hippocrates is considered to be the father of modern medicine because in his books, which are more than 70. He described in a scientific manner, many diseases and their treatment after detailed observation. He lived about 2400 years ago. He was born in the island of Kos and died at the outskirts of Larissa at the age of 104. Hippocrates taught and wrote under the shade of a big plane tree, its descendant now is believed to be 500 years old, the oldest tree in Europe-platanus orientalis Hippocraticus- with a diameter of 15 meters.”


“Hippocrates saved Athens from a plague epidemic and for that was highly honored by the Athenians. He considered Democritus-the father of the atomic theory- to be his teacher and after visiting him as a physician to look after his health, he accepted no money for this visit.”

“Some of his important aphorisms were: "As to diseases, make a habit of two things -to help or at least to do no harm". Also: "Those by nature over weight, die earlier than the slim.", also, "In the wounds there are miasmata causing disease if entered the body". He used as a pain relief, the abstract from a tree containing what he called "salycasia", like aspirin. He described for the first time epilepsy not as a sacred disease, as was considered at those times, but as a hereditary disease of the brain and added: "Do not cut the temporal place, because spasms shall occur on the opposite area". According to Hippocrates, people on those times had either one or two meals (lunch and dinner). He also suggested: "...little exercise...and walk...do not eat to saturation". Also he declared: "Physician must convert or insert wisdom to medicine and medicine to wisdom". If all scientists followed this aphorism we would have more happiness on earth.”[30]


  • Totelin LM (2007) [From: Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK.]
The author assert in the Introduction: "The compilers of the Hippocratic gynaecological treatises, active at the end of the fifth century bc or at the beginning of the fourth century bc [citation] considered that too little intercourse could only damage the health of women. In their opinion, women are never healthier than when they are pregnant.[citation]. When women do not have enough sex, they do not get the beneficial moisture that is sperm; their wombs risk drying up and start moving around their bodies, wreaking havoc.[citation]. Diseases caused by a displaced womb mostly affect women who do not have frequent sexual intercourse: virgins, young widows and old women.[citation] For the Hippocratics, the 'obvious' treatment for displacements of the womb and for many other gynaecological ailments is sexual intercourse.[citation]
—Totelin's Abstract reads:

The compilers of the Hippocratic gynaecological treatises often recommend sexual intercourse as part of treatments for women's diseases. In addition, they often prescribe the use of ingredients that are obvious phallic symbols. This paper argues that the use of sexual therapy in the Hippocratic gynaecological treatises was more extended than previously considered. The Hippocratic sexual therapies involve a series of vegetable ingredients that were sexually connoted in antiquity, but have since lost their sexual connotations. In order to understand the sexual signification of products such as myrtle and barley, one must turn to other ancient texts, and most particularly to Attic comedies. These comedies serve here as a semiotic guide in decoding the Hippocratic gynaecological recipes. However, the sexual connotations attached to animal and vegetable ingredients in these two genres have deeper cultural and religious roots; both genres exploited the cultural material at their disposal.[31]


  • Smith CM. (2005) [From School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, State University of New York at Buffalo, Buffalo, New York]
—Author asserts: "Many writers, if not the majority, believe incorrectly that the author of this aphorism was Hippocrates; many believe, also incorrectly, that it will be found in the Hippocratic Oath."  [For example see Introduction section of article by Pappas et al. [13], who assert "....(primum non nocere) Hippocrates’ advice, meaning "first do no harm"."].
—Smith's Abstract reads:

The so-called Hippocratic injunction to do no harm has been an axiom central to clinical pharmacology and to the education of medical and graduate students. With the recent reexamination of the nature and magnitude of adverse reactions to drugs, the purposes of this research and review were to discover the origin of this unique Latin expression. It has been reported that the author was neither Hippocrates nor Galen. Searches of writings back to the Middle Ages have uncovered the appearance of the axiom as expressed in English, coupled with its unique Latin, in 1860, with attribution to the English physician, Thomas Sydenham. Commonly used in the late 1800s into the early decades of the 1900s, it was nearly exclusively transmitted orally; it rarely appeared in print in the early 20th century. Its applicability and limitations as a guide to the ethical practice of medicine and pharmacological research are discussed. Despite insufficiencies, it remains a potent reminder that every medical and pharmacological decision carries the potential for harm.[32]


  • Ventegodt S, Clausen B, Omar HA, Merrick J. (2006) [From: the Nordic School of Holistic Health and Quality of Life Research Center in Copenhagen, Denmark; Nordic School of Holistic Medicine; the Kentucky Clinic University of Kentucky in Lexington.; Center for Multidisciplinary Research in Aging, Zusman Child Development Center, Division of Pediatrics and Community Health at the Ben Gurion University, Beer-Sheva, Israel]
—Excerpts from the article:

Studies from different western countries indicate an incidence of about 15% of girls being assaulted sexually in childhood[8,9,10] and many of these girls are likely to demonstrate severe pelvic problems in their youth. Sexual and gynecological problems resistant to standard therapy are typically problems with acceptance of own sex and sexuality, which do not have to originate from abuse. As originally suggested by Masters and Johnson, they can be a result of not having received the loving acceptance and touch needed in childhood[2,11].....The Hippocratic (Hippocrates, 460–377 BCE) physician was aware of these diseases and his treatment included different physical procedures focused on the female pelvis, like smoking the vagina and massaging the pelvis[12]. The reason why these treatments were later condemned are debated; some authors find it a form of sexual abuse of the woman by the medical profession with an insufficient ethic[13].....When it comes to the practice of pelvic massage, we might be at the essence of medical ethics and the ability to perform this procedure place.[33]


References and notes cited in text

Links in blue font.
  1. Sigerist HE. (1934) On Hippocrates. Bulletin of the History of Medicine 2:190-214.
  2. Longrigg J. (1998) Greek Medicine From the Heroic to the Hellenistic Age: A Source Book. Routledge, New York. ISBN 0415920876. Table Of Contents
    • ”Three legends, in particular, seem to have been invented to illustrate particular virtues attributed to Hippocrates; his eradication of the Athenian plague was created to illustrate his brilliance as a doctor [see X.lO]; his refusal to work for Artaxerxes, king ofthe Persians, to show his patriotism as a Greek [IV.3], and his cure of King Perdiccas's love-sickness to show his diagnostic skill [IV.4l.” [Citations (e.g., IV.3) found in Longriggs’ source book.]
  3. The Project Gutenberg Etext of Protagoras, by Plato.
    • Note: Socrates, in speaking to a man by chance named Hippocrates wonders why the man exhibits excitement over the impending visit of a famous Sophist, Protagoras. In the dialogue process he reveals the existence of the physician, Hippocrates of Cos, the Asclepiad, implying that the latter’s fame as a physician and teacher had reached Athens during his lifetime:
    “Tell me, Hippocrates, I said, as you are going to Protagoras, and will be paying your money to him, what is he to whom you are going? and what will he make of you? If, for example, you had thought of going to Hippocrates of Cos, the Asclepiad, and were about to give him your money, and someone had said to you: You are paying money to your namesake Hippocrates, O Hippocrates; tell me, what is he that you give him money? how would you have answered?”
    “I should say, he replied, that I gave money to him as a physician.”
    “And what will he make of you?”
    “A physician, he said.”
  4. The Project Gutenberg Etext of Phaedrus, by Plato.
    Note: Socrates, in dialogue with Phaedrus, confirms the existence of Hippocrates the Asclepiad, indicating Hippocrates’ holistic approach to medicine, and implying that Hippocrates’ thought relating to medicine influenced philosophical thinking about such things as the nature of the soul:
    SOCRATES: And do you think that you can know the nature of the soul intelligently without knowing the nature of the whole?
    PHAEDRUS: Hippocrates the Asclepiad says that the nature even of the body can only be understood as a whole.
    SOCRATES: Yes, friend, and he was right:--still, we ought not to be content with the name of Hippocrates, but to examine and see whether his argument agrees with his conception of nature.
    PHAEDRUS: I agree.
  5. 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 Jouanna J. (1999) Hippocrates. Translated by M.B. DeBevoise. The Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 0-8018-5907-7
  6. Regarding Ionia:
    • Note: Because of its large population of Greeks who called themselves Ionians, the western area along the coast of Asia Minor and the adjacent islands in the Aegean Sea the ancient geographers gave it the label Ionia. The Ionian Greeks traced their ancestor to Ion, an illegitimate son of Apollo, who achieved noble status, according to a play by the ancient Greek playwright, Euripedes. The Ionians had emigrated from the Greek mainland and colonized the area shortly after the Trojan War, thought to have occurred in the 1200s or late 1100s BCE. A dozen main cities comprised a cooperative Ionic League. In the 600s and 500s BCE, the Ionians made major contributions to Greek culture, especially in art, literature and philosophy.
  7. Osler W. (1913) The Evolution of Modern Medicine: A Series Of Lectures Delivered At Yale University On The Silliman Foundation In April, 1913. Project Gutenberg's The Evolution of Modern Medicine, by William Osler. Produced by Charles Keller and David Widger.
    • Osler writes: "No god made with hands, to use the scriptural phrase, had a more successful "run" than Asklepios—for more than a thousand years the consoler and healer of the sons of men. Shorn of his divine attributes he remains our patron saint, our emblematic God of Healing, whose figure with the serpents appears in our seals and charters. He was originally a Thessalian chieftain, whose sons, Machaon and Podalirius, became famous physicians and fought in the Trojan War. Nestor, you may remember, carried off the former, declaring, in the oft-quoted phrase, that a doctor was better worth saving than many warriors unskilled in the treatment of wounds. Later genealogies trace his origin to Apollo,(10 = W. H. Roscher: Lexikon der griechischen und romischen Mythologie, Leipzig, 1886, I, p. 624.)] as whose son he is usually regarded. "In the wake of northern tribes this god Aesculapius—a more majestic figure than the blameless leech of Homer's song—came by land to Epidaurus and was carried by sea to the east-ward island of Cos.... Aesculapius grew in importance with the growth of Greece, but may not have attained his greatest power until Greece and Rome were one."(11 = Louis Dyer: Studies of the Gods in Greece, 1891, p. 221.)]"
  8. 8.0 8.1 Longrigg J. (1993) Greek Rational Medicine: Philosophy and Medicine from Alcmaeon to the Alexandrians. Routledge. New York. Full-Text Online with Subscription.
  9. The Persian Letters. Page 18. In. Hippocrates: Pseudoepigraphic Writings. Translated with an Introduction by Wesley D. Smith. E.J. Brill Leiden, New York, Kobenhavn, Koln. 1990.
  10. Regarding parenthetical quotes:
    • Note: From Shakespeare's "Hamlet", Act I. Scene II.
  11. Ventegodt,S.; Kandel,I.; Merrick,J. (2007) A short history of clinical holistic medicine. ScientificWorldJournal 7:1622-1630.PMID 17982604
    • Abstract: Clinical holistic medicine has its roots in the medicine and tradition of Hippocrates. Modern epidemiological research in quality of life, the emerging science of complementary and alternative medicine, the tradition of psychodynamic therapy, and the tradition of bodywork are merging into a new scientific way of treating patients. This approach seems able to help every second patient with physical, mental, existential or sexual health problem in 20 sessions over one year. The paper discusses the development of holistic medicine into scientific holistic medicine with discussion of future research efforts,
  12. 12.0 12.1 Craik EM. (editor and translator) (1998) Hippocrates: Places in Man.Oxford: Clarendon Press.
  13. 13.0 13.1 13.2 Pappas,G.; Kiriaze,I.J.; Falagas,M.E. (2008) Insights into infectious disease in the era of Hippocrates. Int.J.Infect.Dis. PMID 18178502
    • Abstract: Hippocrates is traditionally considered the father of modern medicine, still influencing, 25 centuries after his time, various aspects of medical practice and ethics. His collected works include various references to infectious diseases that range from general observations on the nature of infection, hygiene, epidemiology, and the immune response, to detailed descriptions of syndromes such as tuberculous spondylitis, malaria, and tetanus. We sought to evaluate the extent to which this historical information has influenced the modern relevant literature. Associating disease to the disequilibrium of body fluids may seem an ancient and outdated notion nowadays, but many of the clinical descriptions presented in the Corpus Hippocraticum (Hippocratic Collection) are still the archetypes of the natural history of certain infectious diseases and their collective interplay with the environment, climate, and society. For this reason, modern clinicians and researchers continue to be attracted to these 'lessons' from the past - lessons that remain extremely valuable.
  14. Chang A, Lad EM, Lad SP. (2007) Hippocrates' influence on the origins of neurosurgery. Neurosurg.Focus. 23:E9 PMID 17961056
    • Abstract: Hippocrates is widely considered the father of medicine. His contributions revolutionized the practice of medicine and laid the foundation for modern-day neurosurgery. He inspired several generations to follow his vision, by pioneering the rigorous clinical evaluation of cranial and spinal disorders and combining this approach with a humanistic and ethical perspective focused on the individuality of the patient. His legacy has forever shaped the field of medicine and his cumulative works on head injuries and spinal deformities led to the basic understanding of many of the fundamental neurosurgical principles in use today.
  15. Ghaemi SN. (2008) Toward a Hippocratic Psychopharmacology. Canadian Journal of Psychiatry 53:189-196. PMID 18441665
    • Abstract: OBJECTIVE: To provide a conceptual basis for psychopharmacology. METHOD: This review compares contemporary psychopharmacology practice with the Hippocratic tradition of medicine by examining the original Hippocratic corpus and modern interpretations (by William Osler and Oliver Wendell Holmes). RESULTS: The Hippocratic philosophy is that only some, not all, diseases should be treated and, even then, treatments should enhance the natural healing process, not serve as artificial cures. Hippocratic ethics follow from this philosophy of disease and treatment. Two rules for Hippocratic medicine are derived from the teachings of Osler (treat diseases, not symptoms) and Holmes (medications are guilty until proven innocent). The concept of a diagnostic hierarchy is also stated explicitly: Not all diseases are created equal. This idea helps to avoid mistaking symptoms for diseases and to avoid excessive diagnosis of comorbidities. Current psychopharmacology is aggressive and non-Hippocratic: symptom-based, rather than disease oriented; underemphasizing drug risks; and prone to turning symptoms into diagnoses. These views are applied to bipolar disorder. CONCLUSIONS: Contemporary psychopharmacology is non-Hippocratic. A proposal for moving in the direction of a Hippocratic psychopharmacology is provided.
  16. "Hippocrates of Cos" in Scientists: Their Lives and Works, Vols 1–7. Online Edition. U*X*L, 2004. Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Thomson Gale. 2007. Document Number:K2641500095.
  17. Greek Medicine. History of Medicine Division, National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health
    • Note: From the website” “Asclepius did not begin as a god, however. It is now thought that he was an actual historical figure, renowned for his healing abilities. When he and his sons, Machaon and Podalirios, are mentioned in The Iliad in approximately the 8th century B.C.E., they are not gods. As his "clan" of followers grew, he was elevated to divine status, and temples were built to him throughout the Mediterranean world well into late antiquity .”
  18. Osler W. (1913) The Evolution of Modern Medicine: A Series Of Lectures Delivered At Yale University On The Silliman Foundation In April, 1913. Project Gutenberg's The Evolution of Modern Medicine, by William Osler. Produced by Charles Keller and David Widger.
    • Osler writes: "One practice of the temple was of special interest, viz., the incubation sleep, in which dreams were suggested to the patients. In the religion of Babylonia, an important part was played by the mystery of sleep, and the interpretation of dreams; and no doubt from the East the Greeks took over the practice of divination in sleep, for in the AEsculapian cult also, the incubation sleep played a most important role. That it continued in later times is well indicated in the orations of Aristides, the arch-neurasthenic of ancient history, who was a great dreamer of dreams…. There are still in parts of Greece and in Asia Minor shrines at which incubation is practiced regularly, and if one may judge from the reports, with as great success as in Epidaurus. At one place in Britain, Christchurch in Monmouthshire, incubation was carried on till the early part of the nineteenth century. Now the profession has come back to the study of dreams,(19 [=Freud: The Interpretation of Dreams, translation of third edition by A. A. Brill, 1913.]) and there are professors as ready to give suggestive interpretations to them, as in the days of Aristides."
  19. 19.0 19.1 Prioreschi P. (1996) The History of Medicine. Volume II: Greek Medicine. 2nd ed. Horatius Press, Omaha. ISBN 1888456027
  20. Scoon R. (1928) Greek Philosophy before Plato. Princeton University Press. Princeton, NJ.
  21. Parry, Richard, "Empedocles", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2005 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2005/entries/empedocles/>.
  22. Pettis JB. (2006) Earth, Dream, and Healing: The Integration of Materia and Psyche in the Ancient World. Journal of Religion and Health, Vol. 45, No. 1
    • Excerpt: "Hippocrates’s concerns himself specifically with the study and treatment of the human body, thus separating medicine from philosophical speculation about the natural world such as atomic theory in the thought of Epicurus (371–270 BCE). Apparently, Hippocrates had direct association with the Asclepius temple at Cos, and according to A. J. Brock, he revitalized the Asclepius temple system of his time ([cites] Brock 1916, x)."
  23. 23.0 23.1 Lonie IM. (1981) The Hippocratic Treatises; "On Generation"; "On the Nature of the Child"; "Diseases IV": A Commentary. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin & New York. ISBN 3110079038
  24. Horstmanshoff HJF.
  25. 25.0 25.1 Chang H-h. (2005) [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17144070 The Cities of the Hippocratic Doctors. Stud Anc Med. 31:157-171. PMID 17144070. And : In, Hippocrates in Context: Papers read at the XIth International Hippcrates Colloquium, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, 27-31 August 2002. Ed., Philip J. Van Der Eijk. Leiden: Brill. Series: Studies in Ancient Medicine. Vol. 31 ISBN9004144307
  26. 26.0 26.1 Nuland SB. 2008. The Uncertain Art: Thoughts On A Life In Medicine New York: Random House. ISBN 978-1-4000-6478-6.
  27. 27.0 27.1 Adams F. (1886) The Genuine Works of Hippocrates, Translated from the Greek with a Preliminary Discourse and Annotations by Francis Adams, LL.D., Surgeon. In Two Volumes. New York: William Wood and Company. 56 & 58 LaFayette Place. [Click ‘Gallery’ tab to view title page.]
  28. 28.0 28.1 Hippocrates. The Genuine Works of Hippocrates Edited by: Charles Darwin Adams (trans.). New York: Dover 1868.
  29. 29.0 29.1 Lloyd GER. (1983). Hippocratic Writings. Edited with an introduction by G. E. R. Lloyd. Translated by J. Chadwick and W. N. Mann, I. M. Lonie, E. T. Withington. Penguin Books. ISBN I3: 978-0-14-04445I-3. Table of Contents; Most Pages of Introduction
  30. Grammaticos PC, Diamantis A. (2008) Useful known and unknown views of the father of modern medicine, Hippocrates and his teacher Democritus. Hell J Nucl Med. 11(1):2-4. PMID 18392218
  31. Totelin LM. (2007) Sex and vegetables in the Hippocratic gynaecological treatises. Stud.Hist Philos.Biol.Biomed.Sci. 38:531-540. PMID 17893063
  32. Smith CM. (2005) Origin and uses of primum non nocere--above all, do no harm! J.Clin.Pharmacol. 45:371 PMID 15778417
  33. Ventegodt S, Clausen B, Omar HA, and Merrick J. (2006) [http://dx.doi.org/ 10.1100/tsw.2006.337 Clinical holistic medicine: holistic sexology and acupressure through the vagina (Hippocratic pelvic massage). ‘’TSW Holistic Health & Medicine’ 1:114–127.
    • Note: This article includes a general discussion of the concept and practice of holistic medicine.