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Of that speculation we learn much from the fragments of contemporary medical writers and philosophers, from the medical works of the Alexandrian period, and to some extent from the Hippocratic writings themselves. But the wiser and more sober among the writers of the Hippocratic corpus were bent on something other than the causes of things.
In this Society we have had the Hippocratic and the Themisonic side fairly represented. The treatise of one of your early Presidents on the Mercurial Treatment is familiar to my older listeners. Others who have held the same office have been noted for the boldness of their practice, and even for partiality to the use of complex medication.
For the earliest biological achievements of Greek peoples we have to rely largely on information gleaned from artistic remains. The pharmacopœia also of some of the earliest works of the Hippocratic collection betrays considerable knowledge of both native and foreign plants.
If that is the case we have a great many clinical cases which might be underlined with his central thought. PRESIDENT HALL: It is almost too good to be true if Dr. Southard has really made connections between delusions of personality and the great topic of character. It illustrates the old Hippocratic saw, "God-like is the man who is also a philosopher."
'We must attend to the appearances of the eyes in sleep as presented from below; for if a portion of the white be seen between the closing eyelids, and if this be not connected with diarrhœa or severe purging, it is a very bad and mortal symptom. In this, the last Aphorism which we shall quote, we see the Hippocratic physician actually making his observations.
It is of his account of the nervous system that we have perhaps the best record, and it is evident that he has advanced far beyond the Hippocratic position. In the braincase he saw the membranes that cover the brain and distinguished between the cerebrum and cerebellum.
"Another Hippocratic doctrine, the influence of which is not even yet exhausted, is that of the healing power of Nature. Not that Hippocrates taught, as he was afterwards reproached with teaching, that Nature is sufficient for the cure of diseases; for he held strongly the efficacy of art.
He was enjoined to observe the most scrupulous cleanliness, and was advised to cultivate an elegance removed from all signs of luxury, even down to the detail that he might use perfumes, but not in an immoderate degree." But the high-water mark of professional morality is reached in the famous Hippocratic oath, which Gomperz calls "a monument of the highest rank in the history of civilization."
The pulse is not spoken of in any of the works now attributed to Hippocrates himself, though it is mentioned in other works of the collection." "In the treatment of disease, the Hippocratic school attached great importance to diet, the variations necessary in different diseases being minutely defined. In chronic cases diet, exercises and natural methods were chiefly relied upon."
The efforts of cuneiform scholars have not, however, been equally successful for medicine, and on the whole the general tendency of modern research is to give less weight to Mesopotamian and more to Egyptian sources than had previously been admitted; thus very recently an Egyptian medical papyrus of about 1700 B. C. has been described which bears a distinct resemblance to some of the Hippocratic treatises.
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