The Evolution of Modern Medicine [26]
are professors as ready to give suggestive interpretations to them, as in the days of Aristides. As usual, Aristotle seems to have said the last word on the subject: "Even scientific physicians tell us that one should pay diligent attention to dreams, and to hold this view is reasonable also for those who are not practitioners but speculative philosophers,"[20] but it is asking too much to think that the Deity would trouble to send dreams to very simple people and to animals, if they were designed in any way to reveal the future.
In its struggle with Christianity, Paganism made its last stand in the temples of Asklepios. The miraculous healing of the saints superseded the cures of the heathen god, and it was wise to adopt the useful practice of his temple.
[18] Mary Hamilton: Incubation, or the Cure of Disease in Pagan Temples and Christian Churches, London, 1906.
[19] Freud: The Interpretation of Dreams, translation of third edition by A. A. Brill, 1913.
[20] Aristotle: Parva Naturalia, De divinatione per somnium, Ch. I, Oxford ed., Vol. III, 463 a.
HIPPOCRATES AND THE HIPPOCRATIC WRITINGS
DESERVEDLY the foundation of Greek Medicine is associated with the name of Hippocrates, a native of the island of Cos; and yet he is a shadowy personality, about whom we have little accurate first-hand information. This is in strong contrast to some of his distinguished contemporaries and successors, for example, Plato and Aristotle, about whom we have such full and accurate knowledge. You will, perhaps, be surprised to hear that the only contemporary mention of Hippocrates is made by Plato. In the "Protagoras," the young Hippocrates, son of Apollodorus has come to Protagoras, "that mighty wise man," to learn the science and knowledge of human life. Socrates asked him: "If . . . you had thought of going to Hippocrates of Cos, the Asclepiad, and were about to give him your money, and some one had said to you, 'You are paying money to your namesake Hippocrates, O Hippocrates; tell me, what is he that you give him money?' how would you have answered?" "I should say," he replied, "that I gave money to him as a physician." "And what will he make of you?" "A physician," he said. And in the Phaedrus, in reply to a question of Socrates whether the nature of the soul could be known intelligently without knowing the nature of the whole, Phaedrus replies: "Hippocrates, the Asclepiad, says that the nature, even of the body, can only be understood as a whole." (Plato, I, 311; III, 270--Jowett, I, 131, 479.)
Several lives of Hippocrates have been written. The one most frequently quoted is that of Soranus of Ephesus (not the famous physician of the time of Trajan), and the statements which he gives are usually accepted, viz., that he was born in the island of Cos in the year 460 B.C.; that he belonged to an Asklepiad family of distinction, that he travelled extensively, visiting Thrace, Thessaly, and various other parts of Greece; that he returned to Cos, where he became the most renowned physician of his period, and died about 375 B.C. Aristotle mentions him but once, calling him "the great Hippocrates." Busts of him are common; one of the earliest of which, and I am told the best, dating from Roman days and now in the British Museum, is here represented.
Of the numerous writings attributed to Hippocrates it cannot easily be determined which are really the work of the Father of Medicine himself. They were collected at the time of the Alexandrian School, and it became customary to write commentaries upon them; much of the most important information we have about them, we derive from Galen. The earliest manuscript is the "Codex Laurentianus" of Florence, dating from the ninth century, a specimen page of which (thanks to Commendatore Biagi) is annexed. Those of you who are interested, and wish to have full references to the various works attributed to Hippocrates, will find them in "Die Handschriften der antiken Aerzte" of the Prussian Academy, edited by Diels (Berlin, 1905). The Prussian Academy has undertaken the
In its struggle with Christianity, Paganism made its last stand in the temples of Asklepios. The miraculous healing of the saints superseded the cures of the heathen god, and it was wise to adopt the useful practice of his temple.
[18] Mary Hamilton: Incubation, or the Cure of Disease in Pagan Temples and Christian Churches, London, 1906.
[19] Freud: The Interpretation of Dreams, translation of third edition by A. A. Brill, 1913.
[20] Aristotle: Parva Naturalia, De divinatione per somnium, Ch. I, Oxford ed., Vol. III, 463 a.
HIPPOCRATES AND THE HIPPOCRATIC WRITINGS
DESERVEDLY the foundation of Greek Medicine is associated with the name of Hippocrates, a native of the island of Cos; and yet he is a shadowy personality, about whom we have little accurate first-hand information. This is in strong contrast to some of his distinguished contemporaries and successors, for example, Plato and Aristotle, about whom we have such full and accurate knowledge. You will, perhaps, be surprised to hear that the only contemporary mention of Hippocrates is made by Plato. In the "Protagoras," the young Hippocrates, son of Apollodorus has come to Protagoras, "that mighty wise man," to learn the science and knowledge of human life. Socrates asked him: "If . . . you had thought of going to Hippocrates of Cos, the Asclepiad, and were about to give him your money, and some one had said to you, 'You are paying money to your namesake Hippocrates, O Hippocrates; tell me, what is he that you give him money?' how would you have answered?" "I should say," he replied, "that I gave money to him as a physician." "And what will he make of you?" "A physician," he said. And in the Phaedrus, in reply to a question of Socrates whether the nature of the soul could be known intelligently without knowing the nature of the whole, Phaedrus replies: "Hippocrates, the Asclepiad, says that the nature, even of the body, can only be understood as a whole." (Plato, I, 311; III, 270--Jowett, I, 131, 479.)
Several lives of Hippocrates have been written. The one most frequently quoted is that of Soranus of Ephesus (not the famous physician of the time of Trajan), and the statements which he gives are usually accepted, viz., that he was born in the island of Cos in the year 460 B.C.; that he belonged to an Asklepiad family of distinction, that he travelled extensively, visiting Thrace, Thessaly, and various other parts of Greece; that he returned to Cos, where he became the most renowned physician of his period, and died about 375 B.C. Aristotle mentions him but once, calling him "the great Hippocrates." Busts of him are common; one of the earliest of which, and I am told the best, dating from Roman days and now in the British Museum, is here represented.
Of the numerous writings attributed to Hippocrates it cannot easily be determined which are really the work of the Father of Medicine himself. They were collected at the time of the Alexandrian School, and it became customary to write commentaries upon them; much of the most important information we have about them, we derive from Galen. The earliest manuscript is the "Codex Laurentianus" of Florence, dating from the ninth century, a specimen page of which (thanks to Commendatore Biagi) is annexed. Those of you who are interested, and wish to have full references to the various works attributed to Hippocrates, will find them in "Die Handschriften der antiken Aerzte" of the Prussian Academy, edited by Diels (Berlin, 1905). The Prussian Academy has undertaken the