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Hippocrates was born on the island of Kos, 460 years BC. C. His father was called Heraclides and he was a doctor. His mother, on his side, was called Praxitela, daughter of Tizane. Hippocrates had two sons, Thessalus and Draco, and at least one daughter. His son-in-law Polybius succeeded him.
Hippocrates learned medicine from his father and grandfather, as well as studying philosophy and other subjects with Democritus and Gorgias. He was a disciple of the Thracian doctor Herodicus of Selimbria. He practiced the art of medicine in Thrace, Thessaly Macedonia.
He is considered the father of Greek medicine and rational medicine. He established not only the foundations of the pathology, but also applied an appropriate therapy. With Hippocratic medicine, the patient appears as the protagonist in the drama of healing.
From the 5th century BC. C there is a gradual abandonment of divine tutelage and on the islands of Cos and Cnidos a rational medicine appears studying the pathology of the patient and his environment. The doctor-patient relationship comes to light and the first “iatreae” or medical specialties appear, ancestors of the professional consultation or office.
Aesculapius represents magical-religious medicine, which included incubation or the religious practice of sleeping in a sacred place, manticism or ways of predicting the future, incantations or a superstitious way of healing with prayers and empirical application of medicines and catharsis or ritual purification.
Hippocrates and Alcmaeon of Crotona opt for rational medicine and say that the doctor will need three types of knowledge:
Hippocrates conceived of illness as a natural process, due to natural causes: environment, climate, diet, lifestyle.
Instead of admonitions about magical rites, he insisted on the need to maintain professional conduct with a high ethical content, more dependent on detailed observation of the symptoms and the so-called physical signs of diseases.
In Epidemics he described the natural history of diseases with a rigorous scientific spirit. In Aires, Aguas y Lugares he produced the first treatise on public health and medical geography.
“The doctor limits himself to making all his knowledge available to the patient to defeat the disease, since it is not the same for everyone. The only interesting thing is that a man has lost his health and we must help him by all means to recover it” .
“Diseases are not engendered by the gods, because then the sickest would be the poorest, since they cannot make offerings to the gods and instead it is the rich who fall ill more frequently.”
To carry out his task, the doctor needs: observation, precision, reflection and a scientific spirit that allows him to generalize particular cases:
“The doctor checks the patient’s appearance with his eyes. The attitude of the patient is also interesting, whether he is sitting or in bed, conscious or not. He examines the natural excretions: urine, feces, sputum, sweat, tears, earwax, blood and suppuration. of wounds. With the ear he not only auscultates, but listens to the verbal story. With the touch he discovers the painful points, the temperature of the patient and the size and turgor of the tumors. With the nose he determines the multiple smells of each patient and “Taste the urine and determine if it is sweet or tasteless.”
Once the characteristics of each patient are known, the general propositions are reached, that is, the treatment. The school of Cos follows the theories of Empedocles represented in the four roots, but not considering them as simple elements, but as humors: blood, phlegm, yellow bile and black bile. For health to exist, a balance between the four humors is required. The necessary proportion of each humor to maintain physiological balance is different for each individual, since each one reacts according to his innate power, which ancient doctors called nature.
For the Hippocratics, the problem is not what disease the man has, but what state the man who has this disease is in.
Symptoms are no longer mysterious enemies, but rather the weapons that nature is equipped with to use them at precise moments in favor of the sick man.
Among the vegetable drugs, he used decoctions of melon or pumpkin mixed with honey as purgatives; When he wanted more drastic results he used coloquinth, black hellebore and castor oil; as narcotics, belladonna, mandrake, black henbane, opium; oak and pomegranate leaves as an astringent.
As an external remedy, he also recommended rubbing vinegar, olive oil and wine, also recommended to treat wounds.
The Hippocratic teaching clearly stated in the oath the code of morals of professional practice. The text of this oath, drawn up 500 years BC. C. by Hippocrates and his disciples, formulates the rules of morality adopted by the School of Cos.
“I swear by Apollo the doctor, by Aesculapius, Hygia and Panacea and I put all the gods and all the goddesses as witnesses, to fulfill the following oath according to my possibilities and reason:
I will esteem the one who taught me this art as my parents, I will live together with him and if necessary I will share my property with him; I will consider his children as my brothers and will teach them this art without remuneration or written promise, if they need to learn it.
I will communicate the principles, lessons and everything else of the teaching to my children, to those of the teacher who has instructed me, to the disciples regularly enrolled and sworn according to the regulations, but to no one else.
I will apply the regimens for the good of the sick according to my knowledge and understanding and never for the harm of anyone. I will not give anyone, out of complacency, a deadly remedy or advice that will lead to their loss. Nor will I give a woman a pessary that could harm the life of the fetus.
I will keep my life and my art pure. I will not extract manifest stone, I will leave this operation to those who know how to practice surgery. Whatever house I enter, I will do so for the good of the sick, avoiding all voluntary harm and corruption, abstaining from the pleasure of love with women and men, free and slave. Everything that I see or hear in the exercise of my profession and in the commerce of common life and that should not be disclosed will be kept secret.
If I fully fulfill this oath, may I happily enjoy my life and my art and enjoy perennial glory among men. If I break it, let the opposite happen to me.
