Who was Hippocrates? Many people still wonder that today. Some is known about his life, but not much. In this essay, I will tell you want I’ve found out from much research. Hippocrates is thought to have lived from about 460 B. C. to 380 B. C. As I said before, people don’t know a lot about his life. Hippocrates was known as the Father of Medicine because he was one of the first doctors to use scientific cures. He has many writings, including the Hippocratic Oath, that are credited to his name, but it is questionable whether they are actually his or not.
Hippocrates was born in 460 B. C. during the Golden Age of Greece. He was born, lived, learned, and practiced medicine on the island of Cos, although he did travel throughout Greece practicing his medicine at one time of his life. His father’s name was Heraclides. Heraclides was Hippocrates’s first teacher. I couldn’t find his mother’s name, but I did find that she was a midwife. Hippocrates was named after his grandfather. Hippocrates was considered as the perfect physician by the Greeks.
He based his medicine on observation and reasoning. He said that explanations based on ideas such as possession by a god, spirit, or demon were explanations based on ignorance. Although Hippocrates was one of the first physicians to practice auscultation – listening to the sounds of the heart, he hadn’t the faintest idea that the pulse is related to the heart. This is due to the fact that dissection of the human bodies was forbidden in his time. Therefore, all physicians, including Hippocrates know little about the connection between certain organs.
Hippocrates was not only a doctor, but a teacher as well. He ran his own school and taught medicine for a fee. He forbade doctors to perform abortions, particularly in the Hippocratic Oath, which I will discuss later. Hippocrates had many beliefs, most of which were new and unheard of in those times. For instance, while others thought sickness was sent upon one by one by the unhappy gods, he believed sickness came from natural causes. He once said, “Only nature can give a disease and only nature can take it away.
” He also said, “Nature is the healer of disease. ” That, too, was a new idea. Hippocrates believed that there are four humors in the body – blood, black bile, yellow bile, and phlegm – and when those four got out of balance, one got sick. He believed that purging, or removing blood, could bring the humors back into balance, therefore curing a man. Hippocrates believed that outside forces brought the humors out of balance. These outside forces included excessive heat, cold, dampness, and dryness.
A few more of Hippocrates’s beliefs are that the brain is the most powerful and important organ in the body, and that doctors shouldn’t misuse their knowledge. Hippocrates is credited with writing the Hippocratic oath, although experts wonder if this is true. It does, however, express his ideas. It is basically a list of “rules” for doctors stating how they should use their skills and a promise that they will be “loyal to the profession of medicine”, and use their knowledge for treating the sick and nothing else.
The Hippocratic Oath was recently modified into the Declaration of Geneva. Other documents and oaths are also a part of this. Starting in 1949, nearly every medical school graduate takes this oath. As you can see, Hippocrates affected the western culture in many ways. He developed new, more scientific ways in medicine, such as auscultation and sickness from natural causes. He also wrote the Hippocratic Oath, part of which doctors still use today. Hippocrates truly was the Father of Scientific Medicine.