I Ancient Medicine

I. ANCIENT MEDICINE The first records of a rational or scientific medical system are Greek.

Greek Medicine.

Greek medicine was exhibited in its pure form from about 500 B.C. till the rise of the Roman empire. Its chief development was on the Mediterranean littoral of Asia Minor. Other important centres were Athens and the Greek colonies in Sicily and Italy. This Greek system of medicine had various roots.

(1 ) The submerged civilization of the conquered Minoan folk. It is probable that the cult of the serpent constantly associated with Aesculapius was of Minoan origin. It is also probable that certain ideas of the Greeks on sanitation were derived from the Minoans.

(2) From Mesopotamia the Greeks drew some of their more superstitious beliefs, as well as some, at least, of their scientific method. The Mesopotamian peoples had for ages laid up a great treasury of observation, notably of astronomical data often applied to astrological ends, and of anatomy derived from the entrails of animals used in divination. Working on these records, the Greeks erected a scientific method which appears as a prominent feature in their intellectual life. Moreover, there was in Mesopotamia a standardization of medical procedure which the Greeks were quick to adopt. From Mesopotamia, too, came the demoniac theories important in later Greek medicine, as in the New Testament.

(3) From Egypt came many drugs used by the Greek phy sicians. The basis of Greek medical ethics can be traced to Egypt. Some practical devices of Greek medicine, such as the forms of certain surgical instruments, Were Egyptian. The Egyptians deified an historic physician Imhotep exactly as the Greeks deified the historic Asklepios, i.e., Aesculapius.

(4) Persian and Indian sources contributed something to Greek medicine. As to the amount and the character of these contribu tions, we are not yet in a position to speak with definiteness.

The Hippocratic Collection.

The Greeks of western Asia Minor, thus drawing material from many sources, developed near the end of the 7th century B.C., a philosophical system out of which the whole of their science was a natural growth. Factors in this development were the medical schools of Cos, where Hippocrates was born, and of the opposite peninsula, Cnidus. These were in

active operation by the 6th century B.C. By the middle of the 5th century they were important elements in Greek life. Much of the Hippocratic Collection, which contains the earliest as well as the best Greek medical writings that have survived, was put to gether in the 4th century B.C., though its final recension is much later.

To the question: "Which of these works is by Hippocrates?" no definite answer can be given. There is no work which we can state with confidence to be by the Father of Medicine. The books of the Collection, of which there are about i oo, are by a number of authors of different schools, holding various and often contradictory views, living in widely separate parts of the Greek world and writing at dates separated, in extreme cases, by per haps five or six centuries. Of the finest books of this collection we can only say that they contain nothing inconsistent with a Hippocratic origin, that their ethical standard accords with the Hippocratic ideal, and that they are the work of physicians of great intellectual power and experience. If we ask what is known about Hippocrates himself, and seek information rather than entertainment, our answer will be almost as meagre. (See HIPPO CRATES.) The Hippocratic Oath.—No part of the Hippocratic Collec tion is more impressive than the famous passage known as the Hippocratic Oath. The recension that has come down to us is much later than Hippocrates, though passages in it may be even earlier. There is perhaps some suggestion of the oath in Egyptian papyri of the second millennium B.c. The late date of the oath by no means removes its interest as an ethical monument. No pasage better reflects the spirit of the Hippocratic physicians: I will look upon him who shall have taught me this Art even as one of my parents. I will share my substance with him, and I will supply his necessities, if he be in need. I will regard his offspring even as my own brethren, and I will teach them this Art, if they would learn it, without fee or covenant. I will impart this Art by precept, by lecture and by every mode of teaching, not only to my own sons but to the sons of him who has taught me, and to disciples bound by covenant and oath, according to the Law of Medicine.