On Ancient Medicine
The treatise On Ancient Medicine (Greek: Περὶ Ἀρχαίας Ἰατρικῆς; Latin: De vetere medicina) is perhaps the most intriguing and compelling work of the Hippocratic Corpus.
[1] On the basis of its diverse arguments regarding the nature of medical therapeutics, the Hippocratic Corpus could be divided into four divisions or groups.
Group I: The humoral theory of medicine proposed that our bodies were made up of diverse fluids, elements, or powers, that were considered to be the basic units or fundamental building blocks of all nature.
[2] It therefore, takes a more holistic view of the human organism which defines simple categorization of disease causality and treatment or cure.
Medicinal substances are chosen on the basis of their indwelling powers or virtues, a method of analysis also applied in the diagnosis of disease in relation to the human organism.
[6] According to a study by Hippocrates, olive oil was used to warm up, increase body temperature, and become more flexible, and athletes were given figs as well as other fruits containing high glucose concentrations to help them perform better.
For instance, Hippocrates identified the splitting of limb gangrene and treated the ailment by making incisions between the dead and the living tissue.
He thought that after treating the wounds with pure water or wine, they needed to be kept dry in order to heal correctly and rapidly.
[6] The earliest taxonomy of mental illnesses was proposed by Hippocrates, and it included mania, melancholy, phrenitis, insanity, disobedience, paranoia, panic, epilepsy, and hysteria.
The betterment of human conduct and the treatment of both mental and physical diseases depended heavily on music and theater.
According to Aristotle, religious music that uplifts the spirit has a similar impact on individuals who have undergone therapy and mental catharsis.
The school of Agrigentum and Empedocles placed great emphasis on cure by contraries and thus should be associated with Group III of the Hippocratic Corpus.
The school of Croton rejected the notion of cure by contraries while championing the medical philosophy that perceived the human organism consists of an infinite number of humors.
Alcmaeon argued that the maintenance of good health required a balance of the powers of moist and dry, cold and hot, bitter and sweet.
In the Agrigentum school of thought Empedocles hypothesized that the universe consisted of four elements: earth, water, air, and fire.
Whereas, Alcmaeon argued that there were indefinite number of diverse qualities that made up the human organism, Empedocles contended that there were four concrete or substantial elements.
Alcmaeon's argument that there are an infinite number of causes for disease that cannot be simply organized into categories is the basic operating assumption of empirical medicine.
[7] The author is responding to the supporters of the hypothesis theory by arguing that medicine has a systematic character to qualify it as a tekhne (art, craft or science).
This genuine tekhne depends on the knowledge of the physician attained through first-hand experience that enables him to both distinguish diverse treatments and to realize success in their skillful administration (1).
Hence, in chapter 2 the author argues that medicine's principle and method enables the physician to make discoveries over a long period of time.
Medicine, however, requires a greater discrimination between food types and classes of individuals so that correct nutritional needs may be identified and prescribed (5).
He argues that cooking is a process in which the original raw food losses some of its qualities and gains others by mixing and blending (13.3).
[9] In chapter 15 the author argues that whereas the proponents of humoral medicine see food purely as hot, cold, wet, or dry, human beings also possess a quality such as sweet or bitter.
[10] In chapter 20 the author dismisses the theories of human nature associated with Empedocles and the pre-Socratic inquiry as irrelevant to medical practices.
He also expands his theory of knowledge by advocating the use of analogies to attain an understanding of that which cannot be observed directly within the human organism.
[11] In chapters 9–12 the author argues that there is a corresponding relationship between the physician's experience and knowledge and his ability to practice the art of medicine.
The greater the general and specific knowledge attained by the physician, the more accurate his diagnostic and therapeutic skills to include preparation and administration of prescriptions or remedies.
Hippocrates argues that even if the ancient art of medicine "does not possess precision in everything; rather, since it has been able to come, by means of reasoning, from profound ignorance close to perfect accuracy, I think it much more appropriate to marvel at its discoveries as having been made admirably, correctly, and not by chance".
The idea that human beings rose through technology from savage behavior has parallels in Sophocles' fifth-century work, Antigone.
However, it is difficult to reconstruct the historical Hippocrates with our existing evidence amounting to a brief account in the Anonymous Londinensis papyrus, and a few references in Plato and Aristotle.
