Hippocrates: a brief biography and his discoveries

Everyone is well aware of the oath that young doctors give, entering the path of their noble ministry. It is related to the name of a person who went down in history as a "father of medicine". And although the era of his life is separated from us by many centuries, that foundation of knowledge and those ethical foundations of the profession of the doctor, which became his heritage, forever entered his name in the history of civilization. The name of this man was Hippocrates. A brief biography and the history of his life will be the topic of our conversation.

A life story written five centuries later

For a long time, researchers around the world have tried to restore the life of the founder of modern medicine. Information about him is very limited, and therefore only approximate is the data that contains the biography of Hippocrates. The main dates of his life and death are known only with a certain degree of accuracy. It is believed that he was born in 460 BC on the Greek island of Kos, and died in 377 BC, having lived eighty-three years.

This information is derived from the works of the famous Roman historian Soran of Ephesus. They compiled the first and very brief biography of Hippocrates. Without questioning the general validity of the information given to him, one must still bear in mind that he lived five centuries after the events described, and this could have led to some inaccuracies.

Childhood and adolescence of the hereditary doctor

From the same source it becomes known that his father was called Heraclides, and he also practiced medicine. The mother's name is indicated as Fenaret, but other sources claim that her name was Praxithea. Establish the truth in this matter is not possible, especially since Hippocrates himself does not speak of his parents anywhere in his writings. A brief biography, which has already been mentioned, also tells about his two sons - Fesalle and Drakont, who followed in the footsteps of his father and became doctors. The biographer writes that their respect for their father was so great that each of them subsequently named his son in his name.

Mastering the basics of science

Soran of Ephesus reports that Hippocrates received the original medical education in his homeland, in the temple dedicated to Asclepius, the god of medicine. Such temples were in most of the major cities of the Greek world and were called Asclepius. His first mentors were his father and grandfather, both hereditary doctors who enjoyed national glory. With the aim of broader scientific improvement and obtaining the knowledge necessary for a deep and complete understanding of life processes, Hippocrates was trained by two outstanding philosophers of his time, Democritus and Gorgias.

To replenish his knowledge, he goes on a journey around the country. In Greece, those years practiced a lot of good doctors, and each of those with whom fate reduced, something young and possessed by the thirst for knowledge Hippocrates tried to learn something. A brief history of his life, set forth in the work of Soran of Ephesus, depicts the future great doctor absorbed in studies and carefully studying the anatomical tables on the walls of the numerous temples of Aesculapius.

Mention of him in the writings of great contemporaries

Researchers also mention the mention of Hippocrates of one of his famous compatriots - a philosopher and thinker of the end of the 5th century BC Plato. In his treatise, entitled Protagoras, he writes about him as his great contemporary, a practitioner and leading the training of young doctors. Since the time of the writing of the treatise is quite accurately known, this is an indirect confirmation of the information about the period of Hippocrates' life, indicated by Soran of Ephesus. In his writings, he is also spoken of by his other famous compatriot, Aristotle. Suffice it to recall his famous treatise "Politics".

Traveling in the Greek world

Although the place of his birth, as already mentioned, is Kos Island, it is known from the works of Hippocrates himself that he practiced mainly in other parts of the Greek world. One of the ancient sources informs us that he had to leave his homeland because of some strange and dark history. It is about arson, which allegedly was accused of Hippocrates. To affirm the reliability of this fact or to refute it is impossible because of the absence of any additional data, except this, in general, a dubious statement.

But one way or another he leaves Kos and travels, staying long on another Greek island - Phasos, and in the seaside town near him - Abdere. Often referred to as the place of his stay and the island of Kizik, located in the Sea of Marmara. This information leads in his treatise "Epidemic" himself Hippocrates. A brief biography of him, on which many historians of the subsequent centuries worked, was largely created on the basis of information from his own works. Its brevity is due to the limited materials available to researchers.

Collection of scientific works - the heritage of the scientist

It should be noted and another mention of Hippocrates, known to us from another work of Plato, which he named "Feder." In it he writes that a great healer believed that a good theory in medicine is more important than empirical observations based on sensory perception. However, this point of view is in contradiction with certain theses from the works of Hippocrates himself.

The information on the "father of medicine", preserved in the writings of Plato and Aristotle, is of value already because all the subsequent authors wrote not about Hippocrates itself, but about his scientific heritage that gained fame during their lifetime. It was unusually large. He laid out the fruits of his research in individual works, which, along with the works of other authors, compiled the so-called Hippocrates collection. Investigating them, scientists come to the conclusion that many of them are parts of the once-single great work.

Fruits of the scientific thought of the ancient world

This collection also contains the works of ancient scientists, whose names in the majority do not reach our days. There is reason to consider this abundance of medical works and as the remains of a library that once belonged to Hippocrates and partially lost. This is confirmed by the fact that these works are very different in the subject matter of the studies cited in them and, most importantly, in the level of scientific thought. Individual skeptics are inclined to even question the existence of works whose authorship belongs personally to Hippocrates.

The greatest humanist of the past

Among the scientific discoveries belonging to Hippocrates, it is necessary to single out the doctrine of the human temperament, the theory of the stages of the disease course, developments related to the method of examining patients, as well as its contribution to surgery and dietology. Only after many centuries people were able to fully appreciate how much the scientist's thought was ahead of the era in which he lived.

In addition to outstanding medical discoveries, the name of Hippocrates is forever associated with the notion of a high ethical and moral appearance of the doctor. This is formulated in the famous oath of Hippocrates, with which self-service begins for the people of every doctor. Throughout the centuries, its text has undergone several editorial changes, but the fundamental principles, in which high humanism and humanity are laid, remained unchanged. The utterance of this oath at the receipt of the diploma became a tradition in many countries of the world.

Biography filled with fiction

Hippocrates is one of those whose life has become a legend. The reason for this is the time that won the fame of the scientist, and the era in which he lived. In ancient Greece it was a tradition to attribute the most prominent of its fellow citizens to the gods - the inhabitants of Olympus. This honor was also awarded to Hippocrates. A brief biography, which was made by his followers and admirers, indicated that he belonged to the most ancient genus of Asklepiad, a dynasty of doctors originating from the god of medicine Asclepius. It is understandable that such kinship fully determined his purpose in this life and gave more authority to the doctrine he developed.

Written by Soran of Ephesus, the biography of Hippocrates, the summary of which became the property of many generations of his admirers, abounds with episodes whose authenticity from a historical point of view is not entirely convincing. Among them there are moments similar in their plot and many details to the biography of another famous physician - the Persian Avicenna.

Legends that have become part of the biography

One such story tells how Hippocrates, after a series of events, stopped the plague that raged in Athens. The other is about the healing of the Macedonian king, from whom he diagnosed aggravation - a condition in which a patient, by virtue of his suspicion, exaggerates a morbid state. Both these episodes are also present in the medieval treatise on Avicenna. We must admit that Hippocrates himself, a brief biography and his discoveries for various reasons have become the objects of numerous speculations.

Causes the historians to doubt and information about his refusal to become the personal doctor of the king of the powerful Achaemenid empire, created in the VI-IV centuries BC in the territory of Asia. There is also a well-known legend about how the inhabitants of Abder invited Hippocrates to test the insane, in their opinion, thinker Democritus, constantly bursting into laughter for no apparent reason. Having conducted one of the first in the history of psychiatric examinations, the doctor established his complete sanity. The laughter of the philosopher was caused by human affairs, insignificant, in his opinion, against the background of world harmony. A list of such episodes could be continued for a very long time.

Having lived to a very old age, Hippocrates devoted his whole life to science. As a practicing physician, he was widely known in Thessaly, Thrace, Macedonia. About his death with full certainty is only known that he died in the city of Larissa, one of the centers of Thessaly. The exact date of death is not established, and the data given in the biography mentioned above, compiled five hundred years later by the Roman historian, raise doubts. It is generally believed that his life span was about 83 to 104 years.

Ancient heritage in the life of modern man

Despite the centuries-old period that separates us from the era in which the genius Greek lived and worked, interest in his personality and scientific discoveries is not weakening. Biography Hippocrates, the main dates and events of his life are included in the curricula of many universities. It is difficult to overestimate the contribution he made to world science. At the turn of the 5th and 4th centuries BC, they laid the foundations that determined the main directions for the development of future medicine.

Nowadays many works devoted to this interesting topic come out of print. Among them are his works translated by V. I. Rudnev, and "Aphorisms", issued in 1994, and a short biography of Hippocrates published abroad in English. All new products simply can not be listed.

It is gratifying that interest in his heritage is observed not only among people who are related to medicine by their kind of activity and for whom the name Hippocrates is sacred. A brief biography, a photo of his sculptural image and even many of the scientific works of an ancient scientist are known today to the widest public.