Among the doctrines of Hippocrates, that of critical days, upon which he supposed the evacuation of the morbific matter when con cocted to take place, is the most remarkable. In his Prrenotiones ' he says, fever' come to their crisis on the Dame days, both those which turn ont fatally and those which turn out well. These days are the fourth, the seventh, the eleventh, fourteenth, seventeenth, and twentieth. The next stage is of thirty-four days, the next of forty, and the next of sixty. It appears very doubtful how far this theory was borne out by actual observation, but it is possible that it may have been more nearly true under the treatment of Hippocrates, which was not usually very active, than under the more energetic treatment of modern physicians. Of the indications to be drawn from examination of the pulse Hippocrates was not aware, and the word ephygmeu (alasysal) is usually employed by him to denote some violent pulsation only. It is however upon the accuracy with which he observed the leading features of disease, and his vivid descriptions of them, that the fame of Hippocrates is principally and justly founded. Nowhere is the peculiar power of the Greeks in expressing their conceptions more strikingly shown. Wo have extracted one or two of the most marked descriptions from his 'Prognostica.' "If the appearance of the patient be different from usual, there is danger. If the nose be sharp, the eyes hollow, the temples collapsed, the ears cold and contracted, and the lobes inverted, whilst the skin of the forehead is hard, dry, and stretched, and the colour of the face pale or black, or livid or leaden, unless these appearauces are produced by watching or diarrhoea, or under the influence of malaria, the patient is near death." This description has obtained the title of Facies Hippocratica. And other descriptions of premonitory symptoms of danger are no less graphic and precise. In the remainder of this treatise ho goes through the different evacuations from the bladder and the bowels, by vomiting and by expectoration, describing their characters and appearances, and the conclusions that may be drawn from them. His directions for the examination of a patient supposed to be labouring under empyema present an example of sound and cautious investigation. "If there is empyema on one side of the chest, we must turn the patient, and learn whether be has pain in one side, and if one side be hotter than the other ; while he is lying on the sound side, we must ask if he feels any weight hanging from above. For if this bo the case, tho empycma is on that side on which he feels the weight. We may recognise the presence of empyema by these general signs :—if the fever does not remit, but is moderate duriug the day and increased at night, and considerable perspirations occur, and there is great inclination to cough and but little expectoration ; while tho eyes become hollow, the cheeks are flushed, the finger-nails curved, and the fingers hot, especially the tips, and the feet swell, and pustules are formed over the body—thee° symptoms denote chronic empycina, and may be greatly relied on." Wo must not forget that Hippocrates asserts that auscultation may be employed to distinguish between the presence of pus and serous fluid in the cavity of the pleura. No attention seems to have been paid to this remark able statement until the time of Isiennco'n great discovery, by whom the passage is noticed and referred to. The statement of Hippocrates is in itself incorrect, but the fact of his having actually practised auscultation is no less interesting.
Hippocrates appears also to have introduced some valuable improve ments in the treatment of disease. During health he recommends that the diet should not be too exact, lest any unavoidable change should bring on disease. Of wiue he says it must not be taken pure during the summer, but in the winter ho allows a more liberal use of it. In his treatise ' On Diet' he claims to havo been the first to recognise the importance of diet in the treatment of disease, which had been neglected by all previous physicians; and in this statement he is in some measure borne out by the authority of Plato (' De Rep.,' iii. 14), who praises the ancient physicians for having neglected it; whereas the modern ones, by this system, convert life into a tedious death. However, he attributes the introduction of the new system to lIerodicus. In fevers and acute diseases he confined his patients to a liquid diet, but not so strictly as some other physiciaus, whom he charges with starving their patients to death. In his general treatment he employed purgatives, some of which were of the most violent character, as the black and white hellebore and elaterium, which generally produce excessive vomiting at the same time. Ile mixed up a little theory with his treatment ; for he would not allow pnrga tires to be employed unless the humours were duly concocted. To
relieve the head in certain diseases he was accustomed to make use of sternutatories. In acute affections, when the disease was violent, he employed bleeding, and recommended that blood should be taken from as near the affected part as possible. This was the origin of the doctrine which recommended bleeding in pleurisy from the arm on the side affected. He also made use of cupping-glasses, with and without scarificatiou. Certain diuretic and sudorific medicines also entered into his pharmacopoeia, and he was not ignorant of the virtues of the Poppy In the time of Hippocrates the distinction between medicine and surgery had not been made, as we find among the works usually attri buted to him, and contained in the list of Erotian, treatises on frac tures, on ulcers, and on wounds of the head. In the latter he was in the habit of employing the trephine, and gives directions use. However, in the oath of Hippocrates the pupil is made to swear that he will not attempt the operation of lithotomy, but give it up to those whose business it is to perform it. In the treatise On Injuries of the Head,' he remarks that convulsions usually take place on the side of the body opposite to the injury.
We find that consultations were not unknown in the time of Hippo crates, for in the latter part of the Prmcepts ' he says that a physi cian ought not to be ashamed to call in the assistance of another, if he finds himself at a loss in the treatment of his patient. The oath which he administered to his pupils shows the high sense he had of the duties and responsibilities of a physician. The pupil is made to swear " that he will reverence his teacher as a father, and his des cendants as brethren ; that he will use his art to the benefit of his patients, and never to their injury or death, even if requested by them ; that he will never attempt to procure abortion, that be will be chaste, and never divulge any professional secrets." Similar sentiments are expressed in tho treatise On the Physician,' but it is doubtful whether this is a genuine prodnction of Hippocrates. As we have remarked above, Hippocrates wrote in the Ionic dialect, though the island iu which he was born was originally colonised by the Doriaus. His style is remarkably concise, so as to render his meaning at times somewhat obscure; and it would appear that he occasionally makes his statements too general, in order to avoid loading his writings with exceptions. The high estimation in which his works have been held is proved as well by the general reputation of his name, as more especially by the numerous commentaries upon them which have been published in all ages. It will be sufficient to mention the names of Asclepiades, of Rufus Epheslanus, of Celsue, and of Galen, who have all commented upon his writings. Galen declares that we ought to reverence them as the voice of the Deity, and that if he has ever written too concisely or somewhat obscurely, he has never written anything which is not to the purpose. his knowledge of anatomy and physiology, and of tho processes which go on in the body during health and disease, was extremely deficient, but in the accuracy with which he observed the symptoms of disease, and in the fidelity of his descriptions he has rarely, if ever, been surpassed. It is upon these grounds that he has justly obtained the title of The Father of Medicine,' and will at all times continue to command the respect of his medical descendants.
Hippocrates is said to have died at a very advanced age at Larissa io Thessaly. The essays of which he is the reputed author are seventy-two in number, but the best commentators on them do not allow more than fifteen or twenty to be genuine. The most esteemed of them are the essays on Air, Water, and Locality; the first and third books of that on Epidemics, the Aphorisms, the Essay on Progaostic.s, that on Wounds of the Head, and that on the Diet in Acute Diseases. The best editions of his works are thoso of FOniuS, Frankf., folio, 1595, which was reprinted several times ; of Linden, 2 vols. 8vo, Amsterdam, 1665; of Mack, 2 vols. folio, Vienna, 1743-49; and of Littre, Paris, 1839, &c. They have been most voluminously com mented on. From a list which Fcesius gives of all the works published upon them previous to 1595, it appears that 137 authors had written upon the 'Aphorisms' alone, and the commentaries and criticisms upon tho rest of his essays would be sufficient by themselves to form an extensive library. Many of the treatises have been edited separately. There is a complete German translation of Hippocrates by J. F. 0, Grimm, Altenb., 1781-1792, 4 vols. 8vo.
(Sprengel, Histoire de in Medicine; Haller, Bibl. Medic. Pract. ; Littrea ed. of Hippocrates.)