United States or Sudan ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Intolerable as literature, his works are a valuable treasure house of medical knowledge and experience, custom, tradition, and history. As in the case of the Hippocratic corpus, so in the case of the Galenic corpus we are dealing to some extent with material from various sources.
Thus the chemists, without any rational theory, or regard to nature, and what she indicated or did; without duly considering how the morbid matter, which caused the disease, was to be concocted and fitted to be carried off by some critical evacuation; or how to assist nature to bring that crisis on, according to the Hippocratic method; without considering the benefit of the rational, cooling, antiphlogistic practice of the Arabians they introduced their sudorific regimen instead; and this regimen was soon after brought into use in England, and most other countries, where it continued to be the practice for many years afterwards, as may be seen by the authors of those times, until the judicious and honest Dr.
A younger contemporary of his at Rome, Baglivi, was unceasing in his call to the profession to return to Hippocratic methods, to stop reading philosophical theories and to give up what he calls the "fatal itch" to make systems.
In the case of Galen, however, we have a good standard of genuineness, for he has left us a list of his books which can be checked off against those which we actually possess. The general standpoint of the Galenic is not unlike that of the Hippocratic writings, but the noble vision of the lofty-minded, pure-souled physician has utterly passed away.
In the Hippocratic writings is summed up the experience of Greece to the Golden Age of Pericles. Out of philosophy, out of abstract speculation, had come a way of looking at nature for which the physicians were mainly responsible, and which has changed forever men's views on disease.
In publishing his case I am not violating that Hippocratic vow which protects the relations of patient and adviser; for, as I dropped my friend's wasted hand and stepped to the threshold, he repeated a request he had often made to me, saying: "It is almost like Dives asking for a messenger to his brethren; but tell them, tell all young men, what it is, 'that they come not into this torment."
Everywhere throughout the Hippocratic writings we find this attitude towards life, which has never been better expressed than in the fine phrase, "Where there is love of humanity there will be love of the profession." This is well brought out in the qualifications laid down by Hippocrates for the study of medicine.
The spirit of their practice cannot be better illustrated than by the words of the so-called 'Hippocratic oath'. That document, though of late date in its present form, throws a flood of light on the ethics of Greek medicine.
Besides diet the Hippocratic physician had at his disposal a considerable variety of other remedies. Baths, inunctions, clysters, warm and cold suffusions, massage and gymnastic, as well as gentler exercise are among them.
He has the grace to acknowledge constantly and repeatedly his indebtedness to the Hippocratic writings. Such was the man whose remains, along with the Hippocratic collection, formed the main medical legacy of Greece to the Western world.
Word Of The Day