Hippocrates
(c.460-377)
Also called
the "Father of Medicine", Hippocrates was born on the island of Kos. Not much
of him is known, except that he was exiled from his home, an outstanding physician
and that he died in Larissa, where there is a monument of him.
An anectdote tells us he was so sharp that once he met a girl in the street,
and greeted her saying "good morning, maiden" but when he met her in the afternoon,
he said "good evening, woman".
Hippocrates was almost free of superstition, and believed disease came from
nature as opposed to from the gods. He even stated that epilepsy was caused
from a blockage in the brain.He was the first physician to actually examine
his patients.
A revolutionary aspect that was invented by Hippocrates was the concepts of
clenliness. When the plague broke out he recommended that people burn their
clothes and boil the water before they drank it. It was to take over 2000
years before this was rediscovered.
He wrote about diagnostical methods, diets, the importance of hygene, how
to prevent diseases, surgery, women's diseases, the construction of towns
and houses in order for people's environment to be healthy, massage et.c.
Hippocrates believed the health is good when the four humours, blood, yellow
bile, black bile and phlegnm, are in balance. When we vomit, cough or sweat
for example, the body is trying to get rid of excessive amounts of one or
more of these humours.
The Hippocratic Oath, which he might not have actually written himself, is
