Hippocrates

Hippocrates: The true father of medicine who spent his life proving that disease and healing were not acts of the Gods but physical phenomena coming from natural causes that could be cured by observation, deduction and treatment. Born on the island of Kos where the ruins of his healing center, the Aesclepion still attracts thousands of visitors, his teachings are the foundation of which modern medicine is built upon. The Hippocratic School also believed that the body was a balance of the basic natural elements, fire, water, air and earth and any illness is an imbalance, very similar to the beliefs of eastern medicine. The main thing Hippocrates did was take healing out of the realm of superstition and the hands of the priests and shamans and put it into the hands of the people. They also realized the importance of diet to health and the body's ability to restore itself. Aesclepios: Son of Apollo, first Doctor and father of Medicine. Asclepios was so talented that he could raise people from the dead. When Zeus heard that he had done this for money he killed both Aesclepios and his patient with a thunderbolt but afterwards felt badly about it and brought him back to life. The snake is the sign of Aesclepios because every year it sheds its skin symbolizing restoration. His sons, Podaleirius and Machaon were the doctors who healed the wounds of the Greek soldiers at Troy. The most famous temple to Aesclepios was in Epidavros but there were others all over Greece since any healing was attributed to the God. Hippocratic Oath - Classical Version One of the oldest documents in history whose principles are still held sacred by doctors today, some of them anyway. There is controversy over whether the oath is out of step with the modern world and some believe it should be re-written or gotten rid of. Others believe it is the spirit of taking the oath that is important. And then there are those who are against it because it is pagan. These are questions for doctors to argue about. For the rest of us the oath is a snapshot of the ancient beginnings of modern medicine. I swear by Apollo Physician and Asclepius and Hygieia and Panaceia and all the gods and goddesses, making them my witnesses, that I will fulfill according to my ability and judgment this oath and this covenant: To hold him who has taught me this art as equal to my parents and to live my life in partnership with him, and if he is in need of money to give him a share of mine, and to regard his offspring as equal to my brothers in male lineage and to teach them this art - if they desire to learn it - without fee and covenant; to give a share of precepts and oral instruction and all the other learning to my sons and to the sons of him who has instructed me and to pupils who have signed the covenant and have taken an oath according to the medical law, but no one else. I will apply dietetic measures for the benefit of the sick according to my ability and judgment; I will keep them from harm and injustice. I will neither give a deadly drug to anybody who asked for it, nor will I make a suggestion to this effect. Similarly I will not give to a woman an abortive remedy. In purity and holiness I will guard my life and my art. I will not use the knife, not even on sufferers from stone, but will withdraw in favor of such men as are engaged in this work. Whatever houses I may visit, I will come for the benefit of the sick, remaining free of all intentional injustice, of all mischief and in particular of sexual relations with both female and male persons, be they free or slaves. What I may see or hear in the course of the treatment or even outside of the treatment in regard to the life of men, which on no account one must spread abroad, I will keep to myself, holding such things shameful to be spoken about. If I fulfill this oath and do not violate it, may it be granted to me to enjoy life and art, being honored with fame among all men for all time to come; if I transgress it and swear falsely, may the opposite of all this be my lot. From The Hippocratic Oath: Text, Translation, and Interpretation, by Ludwig Edelstein. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1943.

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