As Hippocrates was the first author who applied philo sophical reasoning to medicine, the sect of the Dogmatists looked up to him as their head. But he did not cultivate theory to the exclusion of observation and experience : he was one of the most accurate observers that any age has produced, and his reasoning has much less mixture of error than might have been expected, from his deficient knowledge of anatomy, and the want of good logical me :hods at the time at which he wrote.
He gave a general theory of the formation and conserva :ion of the universe, in conformity to the doctrine of the four elements ; and he applied the same doctrine to ac count for the formation of the human body. In explaining the doctrines of health and disease, he acknowledged a ge neral active principle, which he called nature, to which he ascribed the attribute of justice. This agent he consider ed as the cause of nutrition in the animal economy, by at tracting what is good, retaining and preparing it, and re jecting what is superfluous and hurtful. The manner in which he accounts for the formation of the brain, the bones, the membranes, and all the various parts, has that air of absurdity which is universal in the physical philoso phy of the ancients. His anatomy and physiology are not very fully contained in the works which have reached our times, and are evidently imperfect and fanciful. He di vides the constituent parts of the animal economy into the solids, the fluids, and the spirits. The solids are the con taining parts, the fluids the parts contained, and the spirits those which give motion to the whole. On this division, followed up with various 'subdivisions, he establishes his doctrine of the causes of disease. He divides the hu mours, for example, into the blood, the phlegm, the yellow bile, and the black bile, and distinguishes these by the pos session or the want of heat or of moisture. The blood is warm and moist; the phlegm cold and moist; the yellow bile warni and dry, and the black bile cold and dry. The most valuable parts of the writings of Hippocrates are his his tories of diseases. In delineating these, we find him a faithful and laborious observer of facts; hence he was deeply skilled in the diagnosis and prognosis of diseases. By far the greater part of his descriptions are still recog nised as accurate by all who follow him in the path of careful observation. The article in which his observations are most deficient, is the pulse, which he so much over looked, that some have supposed him altogether unac quainted with the changes to which it is liable. It was chiefly from the.degree of heat, and the difficulty of respi ration, that he judged of the state of a fever.
In the treatment of diseases, he inculcated a profound respect for the progress of nature, whom he regarded as the arbiter and judge of diseases, and as having certain sa lutary objects in view in the greater part of those succes sive changes in the constitution which they implied. This doctrine is in fact the same which has been maintained by various later theorists, tinder a different set of terms, and with slight modifications, such as the archceua of Van Hel mont, and the via medicatrix natant of Dr Cullen. The opinions of Hippocrates on this general point made him unwilling to use any means for interrupting the course of nature, as exhibited in the phenomena of disease: hence his practice is culpably feeble ; and those whom an admi ration of his genius has led to follow him closely, have been too prone to satisfy themselves with the exercise of tracing the course of diseases, rather than to resist their progress. These have been most numerous in France, where the study of the Greek medicine is treated as a se parate branch of education. The Hippocratic method is denominated the method of expectation, and is extolled as rational and sure. But it deserves, in some measure, the
sarcasm of the Roman physician Asclepiades, who called it a mere meditation on death, a solicitude to observe how a disease would terminate, and what length of time it would require to destroy the patient. Hippocrates indeed recom mends some practical remedies for the purpose of aiding the good intentions of nature, and gently correcting some slight deviations incident to it. His precepts in this de partment are delivered with some formality, in conformity to the sty le of the early philosophy ; but they are not cha racterised by that emptiness and unmeaning mystery which often prevailed, and they exhibit a justness of remark which was entirely his own. His general principle was, to cure contraries by contraries, cold by heat, heat by cold, evacuation by repletion, and repletion by evacuation. In idiopathic fevers, 'he began with the regulation of diet, which consisted in prescribing abstinence, with a very spar ing allowance even of liquids, for three or four days, that no morbid matter might he added to the system, while na ture threw off that which was already present. This was succeeded by the exhibition of various liquids till the four teenth day, and it was not till a late period that any solid food was allowed. Medicinal preparations were also long deferred, and consisted of gentle laxatives and emetics, In inflammatory complaints his practice was more active ; he used fomentations, blood-letting, and purging. He also gave some weak wine and aromatics, iv hich are, it must be confess ed, less correct prescriptions in diseases requiring the strict est,anti•phlogistic treatment. In e mpycma (a collection of pus in the cavity of the thorax) he first drew out the patient's tongue, then poured a little irritating liquid, prepared from the•loot of arum, from hellebore or copper, into the tra chea, for the purpose of exciting a violent cough, and thus discharging the purulent matter. He was also in the prac tice of shaking violently the patient's body, with a view to detach the matter from the parts to which it adhered. In diseases of the head, he first applied fomentations, and then excited sneezing for bringing off the phlegm.
In pharmacy he made extensive improvements. His preparations are diversified in their composition and con sistence, so as to answer minutely the various purposes of external medicine. He paid great attention to the diversi ties of state, and the shades of morbid sensation in diseased parts, and nicely adapted to thein'the forms of his reme dies. In this respect he may often serve for a model to correct the gross ideas of those who exclusively venerate the agency of powerful simples. As a surgical author, Hippocrates had great merit ; though the vigour of his practice in this department sometimes exceeded the bounds of moderation. He placed great reliance on the revulsion produced by powerful discharges by means of blood-letting, and which was assisted by the use of cupping instruments ; and when this failed, he formed extensive and deep ulcers, by the actual cautery. A full account of the opinions, theoretical and practical, of this ancient au thor, would fill a large volume. In this country, an ac quaintance with them is, even among medical meii, rec koned an object of curiosity rather than an attainment ne cessary to the physician ; but the perusal of the works of Hippocrates himself has an excellent tendency to cherish in the mind of a professional man, that zeal for the objects of his art, and that keen and persevering attention to his duties, which renders his life most satisfactory to himself, and most useful to society. See Le Clerc's Histoire de la Medicine ; Fabricius ; also the Life of Hippocrates, by So •anus ; and the introduction to Pinel's Nosographie Pleiloso f2hique; (H. D)