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HIPPOCRATES
Hippocrates,
called the great or father of medicine, was born on Kos in 460 BC in
April or on 27th Agriamiou (an ancient name for the month
of January or November). His father was the doctor Iracleides whose
origins were from Asclepion and he was the 18th grandchild
of Asclepion. He was educated in medicine, philosophy and rhetoric.
His teacher in medicine was his father Irachiolis, in philosophy it
was Dimocnitos and in rhetoric Georgia of Leontinous. He practiced medicine
at the two ancient schools of Knidou and of Kos. A saying
concerning the therapies of Hippocrates is still famous today: “Diseases
which are not cured by medicine, are cured by the knife. The ones, which
are not cured by the knife, are cured by cauterization. The ones which
can not be cured by cauterization must be considered uncurable.” Hippocrates
is the first to have put form and order to medical science and introduced
the method therapy of diseases. Before
Hippocrates, medicine was related to superstition and the priests with
the help of the Gods practiced it in Asclepia. Hippocrates was the promoter
of modern medicine because he believed that the diseases were caused
by nature. Hippocrates and his followers wrote a lot of works. Fifty-eight
have been found and all of them are called ‘Hippocrates’ Corpum’. The books
of this collection, according to doctor and professor Ap. Kousi are
divided into these categories:
All of
Hippocrates’ works were written in the Ionian dialect, although his
origins were Dorian because he was born in Kos, which was a Dorian colony
of Excapoli. There were only two famous doctors of Ancient Greece: the
first was Hippocrates and the second was Galinos from Pergano (128-200AD).
Galinos was the promoter of scientific pharmacology and of pharmaceuticals. |
Hippocrates flourished during the Peloponnesian War (431-404BC). Hippocrates
was called upon to cure a lot of important people of that time including
the King of Macedonia and others. He did not however agree to cure Peones
and Illivous from plague, as he also did not help The King Artexevxe
because they were enemies of his country, Greece. Hippocrates saved
Athens from a big plague. During the gold century of Perricles, a big
plague invaded Athens when a lot of the citizens died. The greatest
doctors of Greece came to Athens but they could not save the town. Then
Pericles called on Hippocrates for help. He made people built and set
light to big fires around the town in order to destroy the bacteria.
In this way Athens was saved. He found this solution while he was walking
in town; he saw that most of the people were infected by the plague,
except for the blacksmiths who were next to the fire all day. For the
help he gave them, the Athenians included him in the ‘Elefsinia Mistiria’
(one of the biggest feasts, and he was only the second person, after
Hercules, to receive this honor). They made him a citizen of Athens
and gave him and his descendents food of the pretario – all of these
were great honors, which not everybody could have. He traveled through
Thasos, Thrakis, and Skithia and reached Egypt, but he settled in Larissa
in Thessaly as he had dreamt about where he would die. It is not know
when he died, maybe in 357 BC. His grave was found in Larissa. An inscription
testifies to the great honor he was given: “Hippocrates of Thessales
who was born on Kos, is here as a descendant of the immortal Apollo.
He received many awards for battling against many diseases; he was very
famous, not for his fortune but for his art.” Twenty-four centuries
ago the fellow doctors of Hippocrates knew most of the actual diseases
and gave them names, which are used in all languages nowadays. This
fact created a big sensation as names like Pathology, diagnostic and
nosiology and the operational methods of Hippocrates still apply today.
