There’s been a lot in the news lately about the medical profession — most of it not particularly good. We keep hearing about all the “burn-outs” due to an overworked profession and then of course there’s the occasional medical “scandal” at some hospital, the VA, or somewhere else.
Anyhow, I was thinking about doctors — when I was growing up there was no doctor in Maysville until I was maybe about in high school — then there was one doctor. I’m sure there isn’t one there today. I’ve been to lots of doctors in various countries and from my perspective, across the board they’re much better right here in the good old USA.
We didn’t have one in Maysville, but years ago, there were the witch doctors — many years ago, most people thought illness was a result of evil spirits and preferred to take their medical complaints to the local healer.
Then about 2,500 years ago Hippocrates came along and hung out his shingle on the Greek island of Cos — and he had his work cut out for him. But he persevered and even established a medical school where he taught his new fangled ideas to the future doctors of Greece. He’s now known as “the Father of Medicine,” and even today, all medical school graduates in the U.S. take the oath he wrote.
His biggest contribution was that he treated patients based on scientific evidence. Well, at least mostly scientific anyway.
He was one of the first doctors to believe that disease wasn’t a punishment from the gods. He thought disease was the result of lack of balance in the body. He also believed in the importance of moderation in all things — working, eating drinking, exercising, sleeping, etc. to prevent disease.
And… the use of fasts and diets to cleanse the body, the importance of fresh air and a good diet, and the danger of being too overweight.
Some of his innovations included:
Putting his ear to his patients’ chest to check their lungs.
Aligning fractures
Popping dislocations back in place
Draining pus from infections.
All this sounds pretty obvious to us but it was incredibly groundbreaking at the time.
For all he got right, we can forgive him for a few mistakes. His biggest was his belief in the theory that every living thing contains certain mixtures of four elements, called “humours:” — black bile, phlegm, yellow bile, and blood. These four humours had to be in balance or illness would result.
His Hippocratic Oath is still taken by doctors today — the oath lists the responsibilities of the physician to the patient — to work for the good of the patient, to do him or her no harm, to prescribe no deadly drugs, and to keep confidential any medical information regarding the patient — and the rights of the patient under the physician’s care. It warns doctors against overcharging (???) overdressing and wearing perfume. It encourages a pleasing bedside manner, but not too pleasing, because it forbids the doctor to have sex with patients.
Even though Hippocrates gets all the credit, what’s considered his discoveries and beliefs is probably the collective results of the work of many students at his medical school. And even though he was wrong about a few things, he probably earned the title “Father of Medicine.”
Many of his quotes make a lot of sense today…..
“Prayer indeed is good, but while calling on the gods, a man should himself lend a hand.”
“Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.”
“To do nothing is also a good remedy.”
So Hippocrates had lots of good advice, but my grandmother had pretty good advice too — she always said you should never go to a doctor whose office plants have died.
— 30 —