Greek Medicine

Jamie Mason
 Hippocrates
• Historians accept that Hippocrates was born around the year
460 BC and became a famous physician and teacher of
medicine. Other biographical information, however, is likely to
be untrue (see Legends).
• The Hippocratic Oath, a seminal document on the ethics of
medical practice, was attributed to Hippocrates in antiquity
although new information shows it may have been written
after his death.
• The Hippocratic school held that all illness was the result of an
imbalance in the body of the four humours, fluids which in
health were naturally equal in proportion .When the four
humours, blood, black bile, yellow bile and phlegm, were not in
balance.
 Hippocrates and the rise of
rational medicine
• Virtually nothing is known of the first physician named
Hippocrates, but there are considered to have been
several, all of them teachers at the famous medical
school on the Mediterranean island of Cos. It was in the
5th century B.C.E., however, that Hippocrates’ name and
image began to emerge as a leader in medical research
and thought.

• Hippocrates is generally credited with turning away from

divine notions of medicine and using observation of the
body as a basis for medical knowledge. Prayers and
sacrifices to the gods did not hold a central place in his
theories, but changes in diet, beneficial drugs, and
keeping the body "in balance" were the key.
 Timeline 1st part
• 700 B.C.E.

• Homer writes of Apollo, the bringer and reliever of plagues in The Iliad
600 B.C.E.

• The rise of Greek science and philosophy: Thales begins inquiries about
nature and physics

• 580 B.C.E.

• Pythagoras born at Samos; later founds a scientific and philosophical

cult

• 480 B.C.E.

• Empedocles born; noted philosopher and physician

• 460 B.C.E.

• The most noted "Hippocrates" born; the Hippocratic Corpus begins its
formation
 Timeline 2 nd part
• 146 B.C.E.

• Greece becomes a Roman protectorate

50-70 C.E.

• Dioscorides writes Peri ulhV iatrikhV, known in Latin as De materia

medica
129 C.E.

• Galen born; noted physician

150 C.E.

• Artemidorus writes Oneirocritica

76 C.E.

• As the Western Roman Empire falls, Western physicians begin to lose

contact with Greek scholars and texts in the East

• 632-1200 C.E.

• Islam grows, eventually taking over Egypt and much of the Hellenized
 Timeline 3 rd part
• 1450-1598 C.E.
• With the fall of Constantinople in 1453, many
Byzantine scholars emigrate to Italy, bringing
Greek texts and teaching the language; Greek
medical texts are printed with vigor and studied
dogmatically
1540-1800 C.E.
• Western scholars begin to question the data in Greek
medical texts, but take up their methods of
scientific enquiry and experimentation, developing
modern Western medicine

• 1800 C.E.
• Greek medical texts become the focus of modern
 Aristotle
• The ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle
was the most influential scholar of the
living world from antiquity. Though his
early natural philosophy work was
speculative, Aristotle's later biological
writings demonstrate great concern for
empiricism, biological causation, and the
diversity of life. Aristotle did not
experiment, however, holding that items
display their real natures in their own
environments, rather than controlled
artificial ones.