Hippocrates, The Father Of Medicine :: essays research papers

Hippocrates, the Father of MedicineHippocrates, greatest physician of antiquity, is regarded as the fatherof medicine. Born on the island of Kos, Greece in the year 460 b.c., says theearliest biography written by Soranus of Ephesus in the a third century a.d.Although a native of Kos he was force to leave the island as the result of afire for which he was blamed. He traveled to many other islands to practicemedicine. Most of the cases in the two books of Epidemics considered to begenuine are located at Thasos, a small island in the North Aegean Sea, and atAbdera, a town on the adjacent mainland that there are also references toCyzicus, on the south coast of the Sea of Marmara, and to Larisa and Meliboea inThessaly. He died, according to tradition, in Larissa, Greece little else isknown about him. His institute is associated wioth the Hippocratic Oath, though heprobably is not the author of the document. In fact, of the approximately 70works ascribed to him in the Hippocratic Colle ction, Hippocrates may actually require written about six of them. The Hippocratic Collection probably is theremnant of the medical library of the famous Kos school of medicine. Histeachings, sense of detachment, and ability to gift direct, clinicalobservations probably influenced the other authors of these works and had muchto do with freeing ancient medicine from superstition.Among the more significant works of the Hippocratic Collection is Airs,Waters, and Places, which, sort of of ascribing diseases to divine origin,disusses their environmental causes. It proposes that considerations such as atowns weather drinking water, and site along the paths of favorable winds canhelp a physician crack the general health of citizens. Three other works-Prognostic, Coan Prognosis, and Aphorisms -advanced the then- revbolutionary subject that, by observing enough cases, a physician can predict the course of adisease.The idea of preventative medicine, first concieved in Regimen andRegimen in Acute Diseases, sterss not only diet but also the patients general