![Hippocrates](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7c/Hippocrates.jpg)
The Hippocratic Corpus (
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
: ''Corpus Hippocraticum''), or Hippocratic Collection, is a collection of around 60 early Ancient Greek medical works strongly associated with the physician
Hippocrates
Hippocrates of Kos (; grc-gre, Ἱπποκράτης ὁ Κῷος, Hippokrátēs ho Kôios; ), also known as Hippocrates II, was a Greek physician of the classical period who is considered one of the most outstanding figures in the history o ...
and his teachings. The Hippocratic
Corpus
Corpus is Latin for "body". It may refer to:
Linguistics
* Text corpus, in linguistics, a large and structured set of texts
* Speech corpus, in linguistics, a large set of speech audio files
* Corpus linguistics, a branch of linguistics
Music
* ...
covers many diverse aspects of medicine, from Hippocrates' medical theories to what he devised to be ethical means of medical practice, to addressing various illnesses. Even though it is considered a singular corpus that represents Hippocratic medicine, they vary (sometimes significantly) in content, age, style, methods, and views practiced; therefore, authorship is largely unknown.
Hippocrates began Western society's development of medicine, through a delicate blending of the art of healing and scientific observations.
What Hippocrates was sharing from within his collection of works was not only how to identify symptoms of disease and proper diagnostic practices, but more essentially, he was alluding to his personable form of art, "The art of true living and the art of fine medicine combined."
The Hippocratic Corpus became the foundation upon which Western medical practice was built.
Hippocrates' contribution to medicine
Hippocrates
Hippocrates of Kos (; grc-gre, Ἱπποκράτης ὁ Κῷος, Hippokrátēs ho Kôios; ), also known as Hippocrates II, was a Greek physician of the classical period who is considered one of the most outstanding figures in the history o ...
was born on the island of
Cos, Greece.
Born into a family of priests, Hippocrates inherited the opportunity to practice medicine. But, he did not want to solely be an extension of his bloodline and continue the practice given to him under familial circumstances.
At the time, he was opposed to the existing measures that made the practice of medicine heavily influenced by supernatural forces. He did not share in the belief that diseases were sent from God.
For example, he was the first to describe epilepsy, not as a sacred disease sent from the divine, but rather a disease of the brain that was also hereditary. In addition to being opposed to his inheritance of opportunity, Hippocrates took that opposition and with it he decided to swing the doors of opportunity wide open and establish the School of Cos. Once he had established his school, he harnessed the ability to teach the art of medicine to those who were considered outsiders to the practice of medicine at the time.
Known as the father of medicine, Hippocrates was an admirable physician and teacher during his time. When considered among fellow ancient Greek philosophers and physicians, Hippocrates was considered the most influential in the evolution of medicine as a science. He focused on a natural approach to medicine, expressing that there had to be a comprehensive understanding of the patient's health, as well as harmony between nature and the individual.
Hippocrates' focal point for medicine stemmed from the practice of scientific discipline. To enforce scientific discipline, Hippocrates based his medical principles on natural sciences, diagnosing, treating, and preventing medical diseases.
In addition to a focus on natural approaches, he also began to look into anatomical and physiological relationships in the body.
He also heavily believed in the study of anatomy and the nervous system. By understanding the anatomy of the human body, Hippocrates was able to recognize symptoms holistically when diagnosing a patient. To align completely with his emphasis on the physical observation of the human body, Hippocrates eliminated any religious element from his account of medicine. In the Hippocratic text ''On Flesh, On Regimen, On Diseases I, On Winds,'' relevant works from the Hippocratic Corpus, he firmly established the limited focus he planned to employ with his medical concerns, that is, he had determined that he would only entertain natural phenomena that are relevant to the medical issue at hand.
Another contribution Hippocrates had to medicine was evidence-based knowledge. Hippocrates was the first to ever establish the belief that by simply observing a patient, a physician would recognize symptoms and determine the disease.
Hippocrates insisted that he must keep careful notes and follow the patient from the start of the disease to the end no matter what that might have looked like so he could compile different symptoms and treatments.
The ideal of evidence-based knowledge is still implemented in the medical field and has set the standards for physicians today. According to Hippocrates, medicine was dependent on detailed observation of symptoms and health, prognosis, treatment of the patient, and reason to establish diagnosis.
While the Hippocratic Corpus was not written by Hippocrates himself, the compiled work of medical professionals all follow the same guidelines imposed by Hippocratic medicine.
Hippocrates laid the foundation for modern medicine, as his protocols and guidelines for the classification of diseases are being utilized by physicians today. His principles for the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of diseases have been preserved in the Hippocratic Corpus, and are the standard for medical ethics today.
Authorship, name, origin
Of the texts in the corpus, none is proven to be by Hippocrates himself.
[.] The works of the corpus range from Hippocrates' time and school to many centuries later and rival points of view.
Franz Zacharias Ermerins identifies the hands of at least nineteen authors in the Hippocratic Corpus. However, the varied works of the corpus have gone under Hippocrates' name since antiquity.
The corpus may be the remains of a library of
Cos, or a collection compiled in the third century BC in
Alexandria
Alexandria ( or ; ar, ٱلْإِسْكَنْدَرِيَّةُ ; grc-gre, Αλεξάνδρεια, Alexándria) is the second largest city in Egypt, and the largest city on the Mediterranean coast. Founded in by Alexander the Great, Alexandri ...
. However, the corpus includes works beyond those of the
Coan school of
ancient Greek medicine; works from the
Cnidian school are included as well.
[.][.]
Only a fraction of the Hippocratic writings have survived. The lost medical literature is sometimes referred to in the surviving treatises, as at the beginning of ''Regimen''.
[.] Some Hippocratic works are known only in translation from their original Greek to other languages; given that the quality and accuracy of a translation without a surviving original cannot be known, it is difficult to identify the author with certainty. "Hippocratic" texts survive in
Arabic
Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...
,
Hebrew
Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...
,
Syriac Syriac may refer to:
*Syriac language, an ancient dialect of Middle Aramaic
*Sureth, one of the modern dialects of Syriac spoken in the Nineveh Plains region
* Syriac alphabet
** Syriac (Unicode block)
** Syriac Supplement
* Neo-Aramaic languages a ...
, and
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
.
Dates and groupings
The majority of the works in the Hippocratic Corpus date from the
Classical period, the last decades of the 5th century BC and the first half of the 4th century BC. Among the later works, ''The Law'', ''On the Heart'', ''On the Physician'', and ''On Sevens'' are all
Hellenistic
In Classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Mediterranean history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the emergence of the Roman Empire, as signified by the Battle of Actium in ...
, while ''Precepts'' and ''On Decorum'' are from the 1st and 2nd centuries AD.
[
Some of the earliest works of the corpus (mid-fifth century) are connected to the Cnidian school: ''On Diseases'' II–III and the early layer within ''On the Diseases of Women'' I–II and ''On Sterile Women''.][ (Appendix 3: The Treatises of the Hippocratic Collection).] ''Prorrhetics'' I is also mid-fifth century.[ In the second half of the fifth century, a single author likely produced the treatises ''On Airs, Waters, Places''; ''Prognostics''; ''Prorrhetics'' II; and ''On the Sacred Disease''.][ Other fifth-century works include ''On Fleshes'', ''Epidemics'' I and III (), ''On Ancient Medicine'', ''On Regimen in Acute Diseases'', and Polybus' ''On the Nature of Man''/''Regimen in Health'' (410–400 BC).][
At the end of the fifth or the beginning of the fourth century, one author likely wrote ''Epidemics'' II–IV–VI and ''On the Humors''. The coherent group of surgical treatises (''On Fractures'', ''On Joints'', ''On Injuries of the Head'', ''Surgery'', ''Mochlicon'') is of similar date.][
The gynecological treatises ''On the Nature of the Woman'', ''On the Diseases of Women'', ''Generation'', ''On the Nature of the Child'', and ''On Sterile Women'' constitute a closely related group. identified five layers of material in this group, from the mid-fifth century to the mid-fourth century.][
.] The oldest stratum is found in ''On the Nature of the Woman'' and ''On the Diseases of Women'' II.[ ''Generation'' and ''On the Nature of the Child'' constitute a single work by a late-fifth-century author, who may also be identified as the author of ''On Diseases'' IV and of sections of ''On the Diseases of Women'' I. The latest layer is ''On Sterile Women'', which was composed after the other gynecological treatises were in existence.][
A single fourth-century author probably wrote ''On Fistulae'' and ''On Hemorrhoids''.][
Author Susan Wise Bauer writes that, because it explains disease "without blaming or invoking the gods", the Corpus is "the first surviving book of science".
]
Content
The Hippocratic Corpus contains textbooks, lectures, research, notes and philosophical essays on various subjects in medicine, in no particular order.[.] These works were written for different audiences, both specialists and laymen, and were sometimes written from opposing view points; significant contradictions can be found between works in the Corpus.[.]
Case histories
One significant portion of the corpus is made up of case histories
''Case Histories'' (2004) is a detective novel by British author Kate Atkinson and is set in Cambridge, England. It introduces Jackson Brodie, a former police inspector and now private investigator. The plot revolves around three seemingly unc ...
. Books I and III of ''Epidemics'' contain forty-two case histories, of which 60% (25) ended in the patient's death.[.] Nearly all of the diseases described in the Corpus are endemic disease
In epidemiology, an infection is said to be endemic in a specific population or populated place when that infection is constantly maintained at a baseline level without extra infections being brought into the group as a result of travel or simi ...
s: colds, consumption, pneumonia, etc.
Theoretical and methodological reflections
In several texts of the corpus, the ancient physicians develop theories of illness, sometimes grappling with the methodological difficulties that lie in the way of effective and consistent diagnosis and treatment. As scholar Jacques Jouanna writes, "One of the great merits of the physicians of the Hippocratic Corpus is that they are not content to practice medicine and to commit their experience to writing, but that they have reflected on their own activity".
Reason and experience
While the approaches range from empiricism to a rationalism
In philosophy, rationalism is the epistemological view that "regards reason as the chief source and test of knowledge" or "any view appealing to reason as a source of knowledge or justification".Lacey, A.R. (1996), ''A Dictionary of Philosophy ...
reminiscent of the physical theories of the pre-Socratic philosophers
Pre-Socratic philosophy, also known as early Greek philosophy, is ancient Greek philosophy before Socrates. Pre-Socratic philosophers were mostly interested in cosmology, the beginning and the substance of the universe, but the inquiries of the ...
, these two tendencies can exist side-by-side: "The close association between knowledge and experience is characteristic of the Hippocratics," despite "the Plato
Plato ( ; grc-gre, Πλάτων ; 428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC) was a Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. He founded the Platonist school of thought and the Academy, the first institution ...
nic attempt to drive a wedge between the two".
The author of ''On Ancient Medicine
The treatise ''On Ancient Medicine'' ( el, Περὶ Ἀρχαίας Ἰατρικῆς; Latin: De vetere medicina) is perhaps the most intriguing and compelling work of the Hippocratic Corpus. The Corpus itself is a collection of about sixty wri ...
'' launches immediately into a critique of opponents who posit a single "cause in all cases" of disease, "having laid down as a hypothesis
A hypothesis (plural hypotheses) is a proposed explanation for a phenomenon. For a hypothesis to be a scientific hypothesis, the scientific method requires that one can test it. Scientists generally base scientific hypotheses on previous obse ...
for their account hot or cold or wet or dry or anything else they want". The method put forward in this treatise "could certainly be characterized as an empirical one", preferring the effects of diet as observed by the senses to cosmological speculations, and it was seized upon by Hellenistic Empiricist
In philosophy, empiricism is an epistemological theory that holds that knowledge or justification comes only or primarily from sensory experience. It is one of several views within epistemology, along with rationalism and skepticism. Empir ...
doctors for this reason. However, "unlike the Empiricists, the author does not claim that the doctor's knowledge is ''limited'' to what can be observed by the senses. On the contrary, he requires the doctor to have quite extensive knowledge of aspects of the human constitution that cannot be observed directly, such as the state of the patient's humors and internal organs".
Epistemology and the scientific status of medicine
The author of ''The Art'' is at pains to defend the status of medicine as an art (''techne
In philosophy, techne (; , ) is a term that refers to making or doing, which in turn is derived from the Proto-Indo-European root "Teks-" meaning "to weave," also "to fabricate". As an activity, ''technē'' is concrete, variable, and context-dep ...
''), against opponents who (perhaps following Protagoras' critique of expert knowledge) claim it produces no better results against disease than chance (an attack served by the fact that doctors refused to treat the serious and difficult cases they judged to be incurable by their art). The treatise may be considered "the first attempt at general epistemology
Epistemology (; ), or the theory of knowledge, is the branch of philosophy concerned with knowledge. Epistemology is considered a major subfield of philosophy, along with other major subfields such as ethics, logic, and metaphysics.
Epis ...
bequeathed to us by antiquity", although this may only be because we have lost fifth-century rhetorical works that took a similar approach.
For this writer, as for the author of ''On the Places in Man'', the art of medicine has been wholly discovered. While for the author of ''On the Places in Man'' "the principles discovered in it clearly have very little need of good luck", the author of ''The Art'' acknowledges the practical limitations that arise in the therapeutic application of these principles. Likewise for the author of ''On Regimen'', the "knowledge and discernment of the nature of man in general—knowledge of its primary constituents and discernment of the components by which it is controlled" may be completely worked out, and yet in practice it is difficult to determine and apply the correct and proportionate diet and exercise to the individual patient.
Humours
The Hippocratic Corpus explains diseases using the Four Humours in which are described a Phlegm, Yellow Bile, Blood and Black Bile. These medical writings associated each of the humours with a specific organ which goes as follows; blood with the heart, yellow bile with the liver, black bile with the spleen and phlegm with the brain. With each humour, there were specific properties that applied to changes in the fluids such as blood is hot and moist, phlegm is cold and moist, yellow bile is hot and dry and black bile is cold and dry. The authors of the Hippocratic Corpus described that these four humors play a very important role in our health as when there is a little or too much of one of the humours, a disease might occur.
Mental Illness
The most controversial elements of health and disease during the BC time was the issue of Mental illnesses as it was always related to a higher power punishment or demonic nature. The Hippocratic Corpus employed many new vocabulary words to describe mental ailments that coincided with intensity, duration or severity and used these terms to scale from mildest to the strongest form.
Natural vs. divine causality
Whatever their disagreements, the Hippocratic writers agree in rejecting divine and religious causes and remedies of disease in favor of natural mechanisms. Hippocratic medicine had been formulated to hold true to the belief that "medicine should be practiced as a scientific discipline based on the natural sciences, diagnosing and preventing disease as well as treating them." This not only influenced the relevance of heaven in medicine, and the church's influence on the practice of medicine, but also the relevance of astronomy and cosmology in medicine as a science. Greek tragedy encouraged the spread of false knowledge about the divine origin of human diseases. Greek gods were placed on a pedestal, and seen as healers as a result. To combat this view of diseases, Hippocratic physicians restricted their diagnoses to rational causes and rejected anthropomorphic intervention as the cause and solution of medical issues. In addition to Greek poetry and tragedy, magicians, charlatans, and purifiers can also be considered responsible for the widespread of 'sacred' explanations. Doing this allowed them to step in and provide inefficacious remedies that could convince the gods to intervene and fix these sacred issues experienced by individuals. Thus ''On the Sacred Disease
''On the Sacred Disease'' is a work of the Hippocratic Corpus, written about 400 B.C. Its authorship cannot be confirmed, so is regarded as dubious. The treatise is thought to contain one of the first recorded observations of epilepsy in humans. ...
'' considers that epilepsy
Epilepsy is a group of non-communicable neurological disorders characterized by recurrent epileptic seizures. Epileptic seizures can vary from brief and nearly undetectable periods to long periods of vigorous shaking due to abnormal electrica ...
(the so-called "sacred" disease) "has a natural cause, and its supposed divine origin is due to men's inexperience and to their wonder at its peculiar character." An exception to this rule is found in ''Dreams'' (''Regime'' IV), in which prayers to the gods are prescribed alongside more typically Hippocratic interventions. Though materialistic determinism goes back in Greek thought at least to Leucippus
Leucippus (; el, Λεύκιππος, ''Leúkippos''; fl. 5th century BCE) is a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher who has been credited as the first philosopher to develop a theory of atomism.
Leucippus' reputation, even in antiquity, was obscured ...
, "One of the greatest virtues of the physicians of the Hippocratic Collection is to have stated, in its most universal form, what was later to be called the principle of determinism. All that occurs has a cause. It is in the treatise of ''The Art'' that the most theoretical statement of this principle is to be found: 'Indeed, under a close examination spontaneity disappears; for everything that occurs will be found to do so through something 'dia ti'''" In a famous passage of ''On Ancient Medicine'', the author insists on the importance of knowledge of causal explanations: "It is not sufficient to learn simply that cheese is a bad food, as it gives a pain to one who eats a surfeit of it; we must know what the pain is, the reasons for it 'dia ti'' and which constituent of man is harmfully affected."
Natural approach to health and wellness
The writers of the treatises in the Hippocratic Corpus emphasized a natural approach to health and wellness. During the Asclepius paradigm, Hippocrates used a natural way to treat disease. These natural approaches emphasized the importance of the harmony between the human body and the environment in which we live in. Writings in the Hippocratic Corpus also emphasized the importance of realizing how the environment might cause diseases. Treating diseases with a natural approach is also a topic that can be found in the Hippocratic Corpus. Hippocratic tradition also found that it is important to understand the causes of physiological factors and how these physiological factors hold a therapeutic significance. To add to the natural approach of health and wellness, Hippocratic tradition also emphasized that the mind, body, and spirit were all independent of one another.
Health Promotion and the Olympic Games
Health promotion was another topic found in the treatises of the Hippocratic Corpus. To promote the well-being of students and their physical and mental health in schools, physical activity was conducted as a necessary activity that allowed the student's physical health to be the best it could be. An example of health promotion being used can be found during the Olympic games. One example of health promotion being used during the Olympic games was olive oil being used to warm up athletes' body temperatures so that they could perform to the best of their abilities. Ancient greeks believed that it was essential to have a harmony between the body and the mind. This led to the idea of a "Healthy mind in a Healthy Body" which is a common phrase that people might hear.
Food was another topic of health promotion in the Hippocratic Corpus. These writings discussed that in order for food to be beneficial to the health of one, the source should be adapted to human nature and food is defined as more forceful or less forceful properties. It was explained in the Hippocratic Corpus that to avoid a diet that was too forceful we must implement cooking and mixing as this was already a type of medicine that can help ease the cause of suffering, illness and death. It has been discovered that during the Olympic games, figs and other fruits were given to the athletes so that the high concentration of glucose in the food would give them the energy they needed to compete to the best of their ability.
Medical ethics and manners
The duties of the physician are an object of the Hippocratic writers' attention. The series of texts composing the Corpus educates readers on the practices of identifying symptoms in patients, diagnosis, prognosis, treatments, ethics, and bedside manner. In Ancient Greece, being a man of high morals went hand in hand with being a morally just physician. A famous maxim (''Epidemics'' I.11) advises: "As to diseases, make a habit of two things—to help, or at least to do no harm."
The most famous work in the Hippocratic Corpus is the Hippocratic Oath, a landmark declaration of medical ethics. The Hippocratic Oath is both philosophical and practical; it not only deals with abstract principles but practical matters such as removing stones and aiding one's teacher financially. It is a complex and probably not the work of one man.[.] It remains in use, though rarely in its original form.
The preamble of ''On the Physician'' offers "a physical and moral portrait of the ideal physician", and the ''Precepts'' also concern the physician's conduct. Treatises such as ''On Joints'' and ''Epidemics'' VI are concerned with the provision of such "courtesies" as providing a patient with cushions during a procedure, and ''Decorum'' includes advice on good manners to be observed in the doctor's office or when visiting patients.
Urology
With many books incorporating different urology practices and observations and nearly 30 works in the Hippocratic book collection entitled ''Aphorism
An aphorism (from Greek ἀφορισμός: ''aphorismos'', denoting 'delimitation', 'distinction', and 'definition') is a concise, terse, laconic, or memorable expression of a general truth or principle. Aphorisms are often handed down by ...
'' seemingly solely dedicated to urology in general, urology was one subject that was thoroughly investigated. Seemingly, the main and most problematic topic covered in urology was that of bladder disease in patients, especially when urinary tract stones (that is, stones within either the kidneys or the bladder) were present. Urinary tract stones, in general, have been seen within records all throughout history, even as far back as the ancient days of Egypt. Theorizing how these urinary tract stones formed, how to detect them and other bladder issues, and the controversy on how to treat them were all major investigating points to the authors of the Hippocratic Corpus.
Stone formation theories
Throughout the books of the Hippocratic Corpus, there are varying hypotheses as to reasons why and exactly how urinary tract stones actually formed. It is noted that these hypotheses were all based on the use of uroscopy and observation of patients by doctors of the time.
*Within the work ''On the Nature of Man
''On the Nature of Man'' is a work in the Hippocratic Corpus. ''On the Nature of Man'' is attributed to Polybus (physician), Polybus, the son in law and disciple of Hippocrates, through a testimony from Aristotle's ''History of Animals''.However, a ...
'', suggest that the bladder stones first form within or attached to the aorta, much like any other tumor-like object would. In this place, the stone will essentially form pus. Afterward, this stone formation is transported by the blood vessels and forced into the bladder where urine will also be transported.
*In another work, ''On Airs, Waters, Places'', it is suggested that drinking water can attribute to urinary tract stones. If water consumed consists of a mixture of more than one water sources, the water is of impure quality. The different waters are in conflict with one another and therefore produce deposits of sediment. The accumulation of these deposits within the urinary tract due to drinking the waters can then result in urinary tract stones.
*Additionally in ''On Airs, Waters, Places'', another passage describes that formation of urinary tract stones will occur when urine cannot flow through the system easily and causes the sediment in the urine to collect in one area and meld, forming a stone. This can occur when inflammation occurs within the part of the bladder leading to the urethra. When the stone forms at this point, it can block flow and, therefore, cause pain. In this scenario, it was hypothesized that males are more likely to form stones than females due to the anatomy of the bladder.
Detecting bladder disease/stones
The main mechanism of detecting bladder disease's symptoms, including inflammation and urinary tract stone formations, is through the appearance of the urine itself and the changes that occur with the urine over time. In ''Aphorism'', it was simply stated that as the appearance of urine diverges more and more from the appearance of "healthy" urine, the more likely it is to be diseased and the worse the disease becomes.
In ''Aphorism'' works, it was noted that urine lacking color could indicate diseases of the brain – some today think that this author who made this statement was meaning to refer to chronic renal failure or even diabetes. It was also suggested that the appearance of blood within urine could indicate vessels of the kidney to have burst, potentially due to necrosis of blood arteries or vessels. Furthermore, doctors noted that if bubbles formed on top of urine, the kidneys were diseased and showed the potential of long-lasting disease.
Treatment of bladder disease/stones
When it comes to the treatment of urinary tract stones, many solutions were suggested, including drinking a lot of a water/wine mixture, taking strong medication, or trying different positions when trying to flush them out.
Extracting the urinary tract stones was another option; however, this method was not utilized very often due to its serious risks and possible complications of cutting into the bladder. Other than leakage of urine into the body cavity, another common complication was that of the cells of the testes dying due to the spermatic cord inadvertently being cut during the procedure.
In fact, due to these and other complications and the lack of antiseptics and pain medicines, the Hippocratic Oath opted for the avoidance of surgery – unless absolutely necessary – especially when concerning surgeries that dealt with the urinary tract and more so when stone removal was the intent. Although, the urinary tract stone removal was not a necessary surgery and it appeared to be avoided in most cases, some argue that the Hippocratic Oath only wards of these procedures if the doctor holding the knife is inexperienced in that area. This idea puts forth the development of medical specialties – that is, doctors focusing on one particular area of medicine versus studying the wide array of material that is medicine. The doctors whom have become experts in the urinary tract – whom we would call urologists today – are those that could perform the heightened risk procedure of stone removal. With this reliance on specialized doctors of the urinary tract, some believe that urology itself was the first definable expertise of medical history.
Wine
References to wine
Wine is an alcoholic drink typically made from fermented grapes. Yeast consumes the sugar in the grapes and converts it to ethanol and carbon dioxide, releasing heat in the process. Different varieties of grapes and strains of yeasts are m ...
can be found throughout Greek antiquity in both dramas and medical texts. The Hippocratic texts describe wine as a powerful substance, that when consumed in excess can cause physical disorders, today known as, intoxication. Although the negative effects of wine on the human body are documented within the Hippocratic Corpus, the author/authors maintain an objective attitude towards wine. During this time, those studying medicine were interested in the physical effects of wine, therefore no medical text condemned the use of wine in excess. According to the Hippocratic text, the consumption of wine significantly affects two regions of the body: the head and the lower body cavity. Excessive drinking can cause heaviness of the head and pain in the head, in addition to disturbances in thought. In the lower body cavity, excess wine ingestion can have a purging effect; it can be the source of stomach pain, diarrhea, and vomiting. This stomach pain was more common among athletes because of their intense diets composed mainly of meat and wine. An overall effect of wine that all Greek doctors of the time have observed and agree on is its warming property. Therefore, wine's properties are described as "hot and dry." As documented in the Hippocratic texts, extreme use of wine can result in death.
Physicians tried to study the human body with pure objectivity to give the most accurate explanation for the effects of external substances that could be given for the time. During this period, physicians believed not all wines were equally potent in producing a range of perilous symptoms. According to the Hippocratic texts, physicians carefully categorized wine by properties such as color, taste, viscosity, smell, and age. According to Hippocrates, a more concentrated wine leads to a heavy head and difficulty thinking, and a soft wine inflames the spleen and liver and produces wind in the intestine. Other observations of the ingestion of wine included the varying levels of tolerance within the population being observed. This observation led to the belief that the size of one's body and one's environment had an influence on ability to handle wine. Because of this, different people would require different concentrations and dilutions of wine for medicinal use. After observation, men with larger bodies were able to consume more than men with smaller bodies and the same effects could be observed between them. Physician's also hypothesized that gender contributed to the effects of wine on the body. Women were noted to have a cold and wet nature which encouraged Hippocratic doctors to prescribe them undiluted wine. This differed from men, who typically were hotter by nature. It was not common practice between physicians of the time to recommend the consumption of wine for children. Physicians collectively believed that there was no purpose for children to drink wine. However, in rare circumstances, there are records of some doctors recommending wine for children, only if heavily diluted with water, to warm the child or to ease hunger pains. Mostly, doctors prohibited wine consumption for people under eighteen.
Greek physicians were very interested in observing and recording the effects of wine and intoxication, the excessive use of wine was well known to be harmful, however, it was also documented as a useful remedy. Several of the Hippocratic texts list the properties and use of foods consumed during 5th century BC. Wine was first defined as a food by all doctors. Directions for consumption varied based on gender, season, and other events in daily life. Men were encouraged to consume dark, undiluted wine before copulation, not to the point of intoxication, however enough to provide power and guarantee strength to the fetus. Because of wine's visual similarity to blood
Blood is a body fluid in the circulatory system of humans and other vertebrates that delivers necessary substances such as nutrients and oxygen to the cells, and transports metabolic waste products away from those same cells. Blood in the cir ...
, physicians had assumed a relationship between the two substances. For this reason, men with cardiac
The heart is a muscular organ in most animals. This organ pumps blood through the blood vessels of the circulatory system. The pumped blood carries oxygen and nutrients to the body, while carrying metabolic waste such as carbon dioxide to t ...
illness, lack of strength, or pale complexion were encouraged to consume dark, undiluted wine. Multiple texts within the Hippocratic Corpus advise the use of wine in accordance with the season
A season is a division of the year based on changes in weather, ecology, and the number of daylight hours in a given region. On Earth, seasons are the result of the axial parallelism of Earth's tilted orbit around the Sun. In temperate and ...
s. During the winter, wine must be undiluted, to counter the cold and wet, because wine's properties are dry and hot. During fall and spring, wine should be moderately diluted, and during the summer, wine should be diluted as much as possible with water, because of the hot temperatures. The practice of mixing wine and diluting wine is also seen in prescription form, however, the dosage and quantities are left to the doctor. The prescription of wine as a treatment was prohibited with diseases that affected the head, brain, and those accompanied by a fever. Wine could also be used as an external remedy by mixing it with other substances such as honey
Honey is a sweet and viscous substance made by several bees, the best-known of which are honey bees. Honey is made and stored to nourish bee colonies. Bees produce honey by gathering and then refining the sugary secretions of plants (primar ...
, milk
Milk is a white liquid food produced by the mammary glands of mammals. It is the primary source of nutrition for young mammals (including breastfed human infants) before they are able to digest solid food. Immune factors and immune-modula ...
, water
Water (chemical formula ) is an Inorganic compound, inorganic, transparent, tasteless, odorless, and Color of water, nearly colorless chemical substance, which is the main constituent of Earth's hydrosphere and the fluids of all known living ...
, or oil to make salves or soaks. Patients with pneumonia
Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung primarily affecting the small air sacs known as alveoli. Symptoms typically include some combination of productive or dry cough, chest pain, fever, and difficulty breathing. The severi ...
like illnesses would soak in a wine mixture and breath in the vapors with the intent to expel the pus from their lungs. Wine was frequently prescribed as a topical remedy for sores because of its drying effect.
Epidemics 1
''Epidemics 1'' begins by describing each season's characteristics. It states that autumn has strong south winds and many rainy days. Winter had south winds with the occasional north wind and droughts. Spring was southerly and cold with slight rain. Summer was cloudy and did not rain.
It then described disease
A disease is a particular abnormal condition that negatively affects the structure or function of all or part of an organism, and that is not immediately due to any external injury. Diseases are often known to be medical conditions that a ...
s associated with each season. For example, in spring many people began having mild fevers which, in some cases, caused hemorrhage
Bleeding, hemorrhage, haemorrhage or blood loss, is blood escaping from the circulatory system from damaged blood vessels. Bleeding can occur internally, or externally either through a natural opening such as the mouth, nose, ear, urethra, v ...
. The hemorrhage was rarely fatal. Swelling next to both ears was also common. Coughs and sore throats accompanied the other symptoms. Based on modern knowledge, this disease was mumps, which causes salivary gland
The salivary glands in mammals are exocrine glands that produce saliva through a system of ducts. Humans have three paired major salivary glands ( parotid, submandibular, and sublingual), as well as hundreds of minor salivary glands. Salivary ...
s under the ears to swell. It is remarkable that this ancient work describes symptoms so vividly that modern doctors can diagnose the cause a thousand years later. This section of the Hippocratic Corpus, described that when looking at human disease and the health of humans, you must look at the seasons, winds and orientation of places, the nature of the water, the nature of the soil and the lifestyle of the inhabitants of a particular city.
''Epidemics 1'' goes on to describe the climate on two occasions and the diseasees associated with them, called ''constitutions''. The symptoms described include more serious, sometimes lethal, fevers, eye infections, and dysentery.
On ''Diseases''
Jaundice is a disease that is mentioned numerous times throughout and is described as occurring in five ways. Jaundice is when the skin or eyes turn yellow. The Greek physicians thought of Jaundice to be a disease itself rather than what medical professionals know now to be a symptom of various other diseases. The Greeks also believed that there were five kinds of jaundice that can occur and report the differences between them.
The first kind can quickly turn fatal. The skin appears to be green. The analogy made in the text is that the skin is greener than a green lizard. The patient will have fevers, shiver, and the skin becomes very sensitive. In the mornings, sharp pains occur in the abdominal region. If the patient survives more than two weeks, they have a chance of recovery. The treatments suggest drinking a mixture of milk and other nuts and plants in the morning and at night. The second form develops only during the summer because it was believed the heat of the sun causes bile, a dark green fluid produced by the liver, to rest underneath the skin. This causes a yellowish color to the skin, and pale eyes and urine. The scalp also develops a crusty substance. The treatment calls for several baths a day on top of the mixture mentioned in the first remedy. Surviving past two weeks with this form of jaundice was rare. In two other forms of this disease, occurring during the winter, set in due to drunkenness, chills, and the excess production of phlegm. The last form is the least fatal and most common. It is associated with eating and drinking too much. The symptoms include yellow eyes and skin, fever, headache, and weakness. The treatment however, it very different from the rest. The physician will draw blood from the elbows, and advise to take hot baths, drink cucumber juice, and induce vomiting to clear the bowels. If the treatment is followed, a full recovery is possible. The several forms of jaundice that the Greek physicians proclaimed might be because jaundice occurs due to varying sicknesses like hepatitis, gallstones and tumors. The diverse set of symptoms were probably the effects of the sicknesses rather than the jaundice itself.
Empyemas
An empyema
An empyema () is a collection or gathering of pus within a naturally existing anatomical cavity. For example, pleural empyema is empyema of the pleural cavity. It must be differentiated from an abscess, which is a collection of pus in a newly fo ...
is a Greek word derived from the word which means "pus-producing". According to the Hippocratic Corpus, they can occur in the thorax, the uterus, the bladder, the ear, and other parts of the body. However, the writings indicate that the thorax was the most common and provided more description. Physicians at the time thought that the cause of an empyema was by orally ingesting some form of foreign body where it will enter the lungs. This could be done by inhaling or drinking the foreign body. The physicians also thought that empyemas could occur after parapneumonic infections or pleurisy because the chest has not recovered from those illnesses. Parapneumonic infections can be tied to modern pneumonia which can still be fatal.
There are many symptoms associated with an empyema ranging from mild to severe. The most common ones are fever, thoracic pain, sweating, heaviness in the chest, and a cough. Treating an empyema was primarily done using herbal remedies or non-invasive treatments. Mostly mixtures of plants and organic matter were drunk or bathed in. There are a few extreme cases in which invasive procedures were performed and mentioned in detail. One of these treatments included the patient behind held down in a chair while the physician cut between the ribs with a scalpel and inserted a drainage tube which would remove all of the pus. The research and descriptions that the Greek physicians performed were so accurate that they were the foundation of what we know about empyemas today.
Dermatology
The Hippocratic Corpus provides valuable guidance for dermatology and the diagnosis of skin diseases or infections. Hippocrates described multiple dermatologic diseases, specifically in neonatal and pediatrics. These diseases included intertrigo, lichenoid eruption
A lichenoid eruption is a skin disease characterized by damage and infiltration between the epidermis and dermis.
Examples include lichen planus, lichen sclerosus and lichen nitidus. It can also be associated with abrasion or drug use. It has b ...
s, vitiligo
Vitiligo is a disorder that causes the skin to lose its color. Specific causes are unknown but studies suggest a link to immune system changes.
Signs and symptoms
The only sign of vitiligo is the presence of pale patchy areas of depigmen ...
, furuncle
A boil, also called a furuncle, is a deep folliculitis, which is an infection of the hair follicle. It is most commonly caused by infection by the bacterium ''Staphylococcus aureus'', resulting in a painful swollen area on the skin caused by an ...
, leprosy
Leprosy, also known as Hansen's disease (HD), is a long-term infection by the bacteria ''Mycobacterium leprae'' or ''Mycobacterium lepromatosis''. Infection can lead to damage of the nerves, respiratory tract, skin, and eyes. This nerve damag ...
, papulosquamous disease, skin reactions to specific medications, skin reactions to mosquito bites, warts, scabies, and impetigo
Impetigo is a bacterial infection that involves the superficial skin. The most common presentation is yellowish crusts on the face, arms, or legs. Less commonly there may be large blisters which affect the groin or armpits. The lesions may be pa ...
. Along with the variety of skin diseases described in the Hippocratic Corpus is the suggest treatment. These treatments stem from the belief that dermatologic diseases were a result of imbalance in body humors.
For relief from various dermatologic conditions, the Hippocratic text recommends spring water or seawater baths and topical application of a fatty substance as a form of treatment. For intertrigo, or infant chafing, myrrh oil and litharge were powerful astringent compounds that were recommended as a form of treatment. For lichenoid skin conditions, vinegar, steam baths, pumice stones, and manna (sugar substance derived from mica thuris plant) were recommended to treat this skin disease. The Hippocratic text also offers sulfur as a treatment for lichenoid, which has a strong antibacterial effect that is still prescribed in dermatologic medications today. For leprosy and vitiligo, lime water and concentrated vinegar are recommended by the Hippocratic Corpus to treat these conditions.
Many of these forms of treatment proposed in the Hippocratic Corpus are utilized today for dermatologic infections. Modern medicine makes use of sulfur as an antibacterial compound, spring water has shown effective benefits when treating skin diseases, and oil-based products such as myrrh oil and litharge are used as ointments to treat intertrigo, eczemas, and skin lesions. When reflecting on the treatments of skin diseases and infections in the Hippocratic Corpus, it is evident that some of the approaches when applied to modern dermatology are still valid.
Conception
The Hippocratic Corpus contains many contributions from across the medical field including notes on conception. Some of these contributions were put into two sections of the corpus called ''Diseases of Women I'' and ''Diseases of Women II.'' The sections go into detail on concepts such as abortion
Abortion is the termination of a pregnancy by removal or expulsion of an embryo or fetus. An abortion that occurs without intervention is known as a miscarriage or "spontaneous abortion"; these occur in approximately 30% to 40% of pre ...
, obstetrical
Obstetrics is the field of study concentrated on pregnancy, childbirth and the postpartum period. As a medical specialty, obstetrics is combined with gynecology under the discipline known as obstetrics and gynecology (OB/GYN), which is a surg ...
notes, and early forms of gynecology.
Lack of fertility
The ''Diseases of Women'' details that an infertile woman with a low menstruation rate may have a bent cervix that essentially blocks the pathway. It offers a few treatments in the way of treating a bent cervix depending on how the generating seed is washed down and the length of time it takes for that to happen. Options are offered for treating the uterus
The uterus (from Latin ''uterus'', plural ''uteri'') or womb () is the organ in the reproductive system of most female mammals, including humans that accommodates the embryonic and fetal development of one or more embryos until birth. The ...
, head, and body depending on the observation of the seed.
Menses
Menses is another way of wording menstruation or blood flow discharge from the uterus. There are multiple sections within the works dedicated to different types of menses along with their understood meanings of the time. There is a large portion dedicated to what a doctor should expect of standard menses along with some slight variations.
Within the ''Diseases of Women I,'' the average amount of menses for healthy women should be somewhere around a half pint for around two-three days.
The flow itself is considered to require the viewers judgment but does go on to say that it should flow like a blood from a sacrificial lamb, indicating the timeframe of the work, and that the blood should coagulate
Coagulation, also known as clotting, is the process by which blood changes from a liquid to a gel, forming a blood clot. It potentially results in hemostasis, the cessation of blood loss from a damaged vessel, followed by repair. The mechanism o ...
readily. The health of an individual or even their likelihood of pregnancy was remarked upon by evaluating the length of the menstruation. A menstruation period longer than four days was thought to be an indicator of more delicate embryos. Less than three days is said to indicate robust and healthy individuals but would lead to likely infertility.
Complications of childbirth
The lochia
In the field of obstetrics, lochia is the vaginal discharge after giving birth, containing blood, mucus, and uterine tissue. Lochia discharge typically continues for four to eight weeks after childbirth, a time known as the postpartum period or pue ...
and its presence is noted along with other possible complications after childbirth. Uterus sensitivity, lower back pain, aches across the body, swelling, and chills are all noted to be expected. Fever is the outlier that have different treatments based on the treaty.
Bathing with oils along with lily oil rubbed on the woman's head is recommended. Oil should also be applied to her uterus. Vapor baths in general are the main focus for treatment after childbirth.
The change with a fever is to avoid bathing. Vapor treatment with an application using a hot towel is recommended on her lower stomach and back. A diet of boiled meal with rue or barley gruel is recommended seemingly for with or without a fever.
A paragraph is dedicated to the experience in childbirth of the woman in question affecting the post childbirth reactions. Women are noted to not have an understanding of what sickness they may have or the pride of the woman causing her to not discuss their symptoms. The paragraph pleads for doctors themselves to be well-versed in the possible post-birth diseases that women may have and know how to spot it themselves.
Style
The writing style of the Corpus has been remarked upon for centuries, being described by some as, "clear, precise, and simple".[.] It is often praised for its objectivity and conciseness, yet some have criticized it as being "grave and austere". Francis Adams, a translator of the Corpus, goes further and calls it sometimes "obscure". Of course, not all of the Corpus is of this "laconic" style, though most of it is. It was Hippocratic practice to write in this style.[.]
The whole corpus is written in Ionic Greek, though the island of Cos was in a region that spoke Doric Greek.
''The Art'' and ''On Breaths'' show the influence of Sophist
A sophist ( el, σοφιστής, sophistes) was a teacher in ancient Greece in the fifth and fourth centuries BC. Sophists specialized in one or more subject areas, such as philosophy, rhetoric, music, athletics, and mathematics. They taught ' ...
ic rhetoric; they "are characterized by long introductions and conclusions, antitheses
Antithesis (Greek for "setting opposite", from "against" and "placing") is used in writing or speech either as a proposition that contrasts with or reverses some previously mentioned proposition, or when two opposites are introduced together f ...
, anaphoras, and sound effects typical of Gorgianic style". Other works also have rhetorical elements. In general, it can be said that "the Hippocratic physician was also an orator", with his role including public speeches and "verbal wrestling matches".
Printed editions
The entire Hippocratic Corpus was first printed as a unit in 1525. This edition was in Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
and was edited by Marcus Fabius Calvus in Rome
, established_title = Founded
, established_date = 753 BC
, founder = King Romulus (legendary)
, image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg
, map_caption ...
. The first complete Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
edition followed the next year from the Aldine Press
The Aldine Press was the printing office started by Aldus Manutius in 1494 in Venice, from which were issued the celebrated Aldine editions of the classics (Latin and Greek masterpieces, plus a few more modern works). The first book that was da ...
in Venice
Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 bridges. The isla ...
. A significant edition was that of Émile Littré
Émile Maximilien Paul Littré (; 1 February 18012 June 1881) was a French lexicographer, freemason and philosopher, best known for his '' Dictionnaire de la langue française'', commonly called .
Biography
Littré was born in Paris. His fathe ...
who spent twenty-two years (1839–1861) working diligently on a complete Greek edition and French translation of the Hippocratic Corpus. This was scholarly, yet sometimes inaccurate and awkward.[.] Another edition of note was that of Franz Zacharias Ermerins, published in Utrecht between 1859 and 1864.[ Kühlewein's ]Teubner
The Bibliotheca Teubneriana, or ''Bibliotheca Scriptorum Graecorum et Romanorum Teubneriana'', also known as Teubner editions of Greek and Latin texts, comprise one of the most thorough modern collection published of ancient (and some medieval) ...
edition (1894–1902) "mark da distinct advance".[
Beginning in 1967, an important modern edition by and others began to appear (with Greek text, French translation, and commentary) in the ]Collection Budé
The ''Collection Budé'', or the ''Collection des Universités de France'', is an editorial collection comprising the Greek and Latin classics up to the middle of the 6th century (before Emperor Justinian). It is published by Les Belles Lettres, ...
. Other important bilingual annotated editions (with translation in German or French) continue to appear in the ''Corpus medicorum graecorum'' published by the Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften
The Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities (german: Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften), abbreviated BBAW, is the official academic society for the natural sciences and humanities for the States of Germany, German ...
.
English translations
The first English translation from the Hippocratic Corpus, Peter Lowe's ''Chirurgerie'' ("Surgery"), was published in 1597, but a complete English translation of a dozen and a half "genuine" works was not offered in English until Francis Adams' publication of 1849. Other works of the corpus remained untranslated into English until the resumed publication of the Loeb Classical Library edition beginning in 1988. The first four Loeb volumes were published in 1923–1931, and six further volumes between 1988 and 2012.
List of works of the ''Corpus''
(Ordering from Adams 1891, pp. 40–105; LCL = vols. of the Loeb Classical Library edition)
;Possibly genuine works of Hippocrates
#''On Ancient Medicine
The treatise ''On Ancient Medicine'' ( el, Περὶ Ἀρχαίας Ἰατρικῆς; Latin: De vetere medicina) is perhaps the most intriguing and compelling work of the Hippocratic Corpus. The Corpus itself is a collection of about sixty wri ...
'' or ''Tradition in Medicine'' (LCL 1)
#''Prognostics'' (LCL 2)
#''Aphorisms'' (LCL 4)
#''Epidemics'' I and III (LCL 1)
#''On Regimen in Acute Diseases'' (LCL 2, 6)
#''On Airs, Waters, and Places'' (LCL 1)
#''On the Sacred Disease
''On the Sacred Disease'' is a work of the Hippocratic Corpus, written about 400 B.C. Its authorship cannot be confirmed, so is regarded as dubious. The treatise is thought to contain one of the first recorded observations of epilepsy in humans. ...
'' (LCL 2)
#''On the Articulations'' or ''On Joints'' (LCL 3)
#''On Fractures'' (LCL 3)
#''On the Instruments of Reduction'' or ''Mochlicon'' (LCL 3)
#''On Injuries of the Head'' (LCL 3)
#''The Hippocratic Oath'' (LCL 1)
#''The Law'' or ''The Canon'' (LCL 2)
#''The Physician's Establishment'' or ''Surgery'' (LCL 3)
;Works of Polybus
#''On the Nature of Man
''On the Nature of Man'' is a work in the Hippocratic Corpus. ''On the Nature of Man'' is attributed to Polybus (physician), Polybus, the son in law and disciple of Hippocrates, through a testimony from Aristotle's ''History of Animals''.However, a ...
'' (LCL 4)
#''Regimen in Health'' (LCL 4)
;Works predating Hippocrates
#''Prorrhetics'' I (LCL 8)
#''The Coan Praenotions''[''The Coan Prenotions'', once thought by Littré and others to be the ancient source of ''Prognostics'', is now universally agreed to be a compilation derivative of ''Prognostics'' and other Hippocratic works.] (LCL 9)
;Works of the age or spirit of Hippocrates
#''Prorrhetics'' II (LCL 8)
#''On Ulcers'' (LCL 8)
#''On Fistulae'' (LCL 8)
#''On Hemorrhoids'' (LCL 8)
#''On Airs'' or ''Breaths'' or ''Of the Pneuma'' (LCL 2)
#''On the Places in Man'' (LCL 8)
#''The Art'' or ''The Science of Medicine'' (LCL 2)
#''On Regimen'' (LCL 4)
#''On Dreams'' (LCL 4)
#''On Affections'' (LCL 5)
#''On Internal Affections'' (LCL 6)
#''On Diseases'' (LCL 5, 6, 10)
#''On the Seventh Month's Foetus'' (LCL 9)
#''On the Eighth Month's Foetus'' (LCL 9)
#''Epidemics'' II, IV–VII (LCL 7)
#''On the Humors'' (LCL 4)
#''On the Use of Liquids'' (LCL 8)
;Gynecological works
#''On Semen'' or ''Generation'' or ''On Intercourse'' (LCL 10)
#''On the Nature of the Child'' or ''Pregnancy'' (LCL 10)
#''On the Diseases of Women'' (LCL 11)
#''On Sterile Women'' or ''Barrenness'' (LCL 10)
#''On the Diseases of Young Women'' or ''Girls'' (LCL 9)
#''On Superfoetation'' (LCL 9)
#''On the Nature of the Woman'' (LCL 10)
;Post-Hippocratic works (age of Aristotle
Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of ph ...
and Praxagoras
Praxagoras ( grc, Πραξαγόρας ὁ Κῷος) was a figure of medicine in ancient Greece. He was born on the Greek island of Kos in about 340 BC. Both his father, Nicarchus, and his grandfather were physicians. Very little is known of ...
)
#''On the Heart'' (LCL 9)
#''On Aliment'' or ''Nutriment'' (LCL 1)
#''On Fleshes'' (LCL 8)
#''On the Weeks'' or ''On Hebdomads'' or ''On Sevens'' (survives completely only in Latin translations: tex
Roscher 1913
#''On the Glands'' (LCL 8)
#''On the Veins'' (an excerpt from ''On the Nature of the Bones'', LCL 9)
;Late and dubious works
#''On the Physician'' (LCL 2, 8)
#''On Decorum'' or ''On Honorable Conduct'' (LCL 2)
#''Precepts'' (LCL 1)
#''On Anatomy'' or ''On Dissection'' (LCL 9)
#''On Dentition'' (LCL 2)
#''On the Excision of the Foetus'' (LCL 9)
#''On Vision'' (LCL 9)
#''On the Nature of the Bones'' (LCL 9)
#''On the Crises'' (LCL 9)
#''On Critical Days'' (LCL 9)
#''On Purgative Medicines'' or ''Remedies'' (not in Littré or LCL editions: tex
Schöne 1920–1924
#''Letters'' and ''Speeches'' (''Hippocrates: Pseudepigraphic Writings'', Leiden: Brill, 1990)
See also
* ''Huangdi Neijing
''Huangdi Neijing'' (), literally the ''Inner Canon of the Yellow Emperor'' or ''Esoteric Scripture of the Yellow Emperor'', is an ancient Chinese medical text or group of texts that has been treated as a fundamental doctrinal source for Chines ...
'', a work of comparable importance in Chinese medicine
Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is an alternative medical practice drawn from traditional medicine in China. It has been described as "fraught with pseudoscience", with the majority of its treatments having no logical mechanism of action ...
, published during the same time period
Notes
References
*
*
*
*
*Hanson, Ann Ellis (1975). "Hippocrates: "Diseases of Women 1"". ''Signs''. 1 (2): 567–584. ISSN
An International Standard Serial Number (ISSN) is an eight-digit serial number used to uniquely identify a serial publication, such as a magazine. The ISSN is especially helpful in distinguishing between serials with the same title. ISSNs ...
0097–9740.
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
External links
English translations and Greek/English bilingual editions
* Loeb edition (1923–1931)
vol. 1
vol. 2
vol. 3
vol. 4
Hippocrates
Greek texts and English translations from the Perseus Project
The Perseus Project is a digital library project of Tufts University, which assembles digital collections of humanities resources. Version 4.0 is also known as the "Perseus Hopper", and it is hosted by the Department of Classical Studies. The proj ...
* English translations by Francis Adams
HTML anthology
1891 edition via Harvard
earlier editions
Other Greek texts
(1927–2003)
* Littré edition (1839–1861) vi
(Greek text and French translation): vols
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
* Kühlewein edition (1894–1902): Hathi Trus
c. 1
c. 2
archive.or
vol. 1
vol. 2
Bibliography
Gerhard Fichtner, Hippocratic bibliography (2011)
(Berlin Academy)
with digitized editions, manuscripts and translations
{{Authority control
Ancient Greek medical works
Texts in Ionic Greek