The most important contribution of the Greeks to medicine was the introduction of a scientific approach to health, illness, and treatment. Some Greeks, instead of blaming the gods or other supernatural forces for disease, looked to the natural world for explanations of wellness and illness. Greek medical theories influenced Roman thinkers, and Greek and Roman medical theories and practices set the course of Western medicine long after the fall of the Roman Empire.
Doctors in Ancient Greece. The medical practices of the ancient Greeks were very different from modern practices. For instance, anyone could be a physician, or medical doctor, since there were no medical schools or certification procedures. People generally treated themselves, their family members, and their slaves. They used traditional or folk remedies for everyday illnesses and injuries, such as colds and sprains. For more serious problems, they called in a physician. A physician’s training consisted of anything from simply watching another healer at work to studying scientific and philosophical texts about drugs, surgery, and medical theory. Some physicians traveled from place to place, selling their skills along the way. Although some Greek city-states* hired official public physicians, ancient records do not indicate the duties these doctors performed.
* city-state independent state consisting of a city and its surrounding territory
Greeks made important contributions to medicine with their scientific approach to illness. They sought explanations from the natural world rather than the supernatural one, a practice that set the stage for later Western medicine. In this relief sculpture, a physician is shown treating a patient.
Greek medicine never consisted of a single theory, approach, or set of treatments. A variety of medical theories always existed, each with its own group of followers. Gradually, however, leading physicians and medical writers came to share certain basic concepts. These concepts formed the basis of the medical knowledge that the Greeks transmitted to the Romans.
Temple Medicine. Early Greek ideas about medicine were linked to religious beliefs. Like the Egyptians, the Mesopotamians, and other ancient peoples of the Mediterranean and western Asia, the early Greeks believed that events in the human world were caused by supernatural forces. The gods caused people to become injured and sick, and the deities also cured disease, healed wounds, and restored good health. The treatment of illness involved religious practices such as prayers, sacrifices*, and rituals*. This type of medicine, linked to religious and magical beliefs, is called temple medicine. It remained a powerful force throughout the ancient period, even after the rise of scientific medical theories.
Temple medicine enabled people to ask for help from a variety of gods and goddesses. By the 400s B.C., one of the most popular of the healing gods was Asclepius, believed to be the son of the god Apollo. Shrines and temples devoted to him were scattered throughout the Greek world. One of the largest of these temples was in the Greek city of Epidaurus. People seeking help from Asclepius spent the night sleeping in his shrine. They believed that the god would appear to them while they dreamed and tell them how they could be cured. The Greeks used this process, called incubation, to seek advice from many of their gods. In the case of Asclepius, many patients were satisfied with the advice they received. At many shrines, they presented tablets thanking the god for curing them of such conditions as lameness, blindness, baldness, and snakebite.
Shrines and temples to healing gods continued to flourish, even after scientific medical thinking had become well established. Archaeologists have found many stone and clay models of body parts at the sites of Greek and Roman temples. The models were left as tokens of gratitude to the gods who, patients believed, had cured their ailments.
Scientific Medicine, a new approach to medicine arose in the 400s B.C. Philosophers* and scientists from the Greek city of Miletus had begun to explain the world in terms other than those of religion, mythology, magic, or superstition. They believed that supernatural forces did not necessarily explain how the natural world works. This belief inspired a later generation of thinkers and physicians to take a similar approach to understanding the human body. Instead of simply asking the gods for a cure, these physicians tried to understand how a healthy body works, so that they could restore a sick body to a state of health.
This scientific approach to medicine is called Hippocratic medicine, named after Hippocrates, a physician who was active around 425 B.C. Ancient writers believed that Hippocrates was the source of a collection of medical texts—numbering about 60—which scholars call the Hippocratic corpus*. Evidence suggests that he may not have actually written any of them and that they were likely the work of his followers.
* sacrifice sacred offering made to a god or goddess, usually of an animal such as a sheep or goat
* ritual regularly followed routine, especially religious
* philosopher scholar or thinker concerned with the study of ideas, including science
* corpus the complete works of an author
However, the works provide a record of ideas that he introduced into Greek medicine. At the center is the belief that health, illness, and medicine can be understood in natural physical terms, like any other branch of science. The texts in the Hippocratic corpus cover a wide range of subjects, including diet, anatomy*, surgery, and the medical uses of drugs and herbs. Some works discuss the proper relationships between doctor and patient and the role of the physician in society.
The concept of balance was central to Hippocratic medicine. Hippocratic physicians believed that good health resulted from a balance within the body of different qualities, such as wet and dry or hot and cold. The Hippocratic physicians also believed that disease resulted from an imbalance among the humors, or fluids, of the body. Although they originally disagreed about how many humors existed, the Hippocratic physicians eventually settled on four—blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile. This theory was similar to the one proposed by earlier philosophers, which suggested that the world consisted of four elements—air, water, fire, and earth. Blood became associated with the element of air and the season of spring, phlegm with water and winter, yellow bile with fire and summer, and black bile with earth and autumn. After examining a patient’s symptoms, a physician prescribed medications, changes in diet, exercise, or other treatments to bring the humors back into balance.
In the centuries after Hippocrates, physicians continued to spread Hippocratic ideas, and they also extended medical knowledge into new areas. Many physicians and scientists wrote texts on medications, poisons, and medicinal plants. In the 200s and 100s B.C., the city of Alexandria in Egypt, a center for many kinds of learning, produced much new medical activity. Herophilus and Erasistratus, two Greek physicians of the 200s B.C., pioneered the study of anatomy. Most people of the time, including most physicians, believed that dissecting* human corpses dishonored the dead and was against their religion. Herophilus and Erasistratus moved beyond this belief. They were the first to carry out systematic dissections of human corpses, discovering the existence of the nervous system.
Five hundred years after Hippocrates, another Greek physician became the supreme medical authority of his time. Galen of Pergamum studied in various Greek and Asian cities, later becoming the physician to the imperial* family in Rome, where he spent the latter part of his life. He wrote many books on medical subjects, combining Hippocratic ideas with the philosophies of Plato and Aristotle and the insights he had gained from his years of treating patients and studying anatomy. To the Hippocratic theory of the four humors, Galen introduced Plato’s idea that each person has three souls—a rational soul in the brain for reason and motion, a choleric soul in the heart for energy, and a vegetative soul in the liver for nutrition. Like the Hippocratic physicians, Galen believed that good health was a result of a balance among forces in the body, and that a physician’s job was to restore and help the patient maintain that balance. After A.D. 200, people throughout the Roman Empire turned to Galen’s writings as their primary source of medical theory and information. (See also Medicine, Roman.)
* anatomy structure of a living organism and its parts
* dissect to cut apart an animal or plant for the purpose of examining its structure
* imperial pertaining to an emperor or empire
THE HIPPOCRATIC OATH
Although new medical ideas and practices have replaced those of Hippocrates and his followers, the name of Hippocrates lives on in the Hippocratic Oath, a code of conduct for physicians. According to ancient writers, Hippocrates created this oath as a statement of ideals to guide physicians in their dealings with patients. Many versions of the oath exist. Its main requirements, however, are that doctors act only for the good of their patients and keep confidential what they learn about their patients. Many medical schools still use a version of the Hippocratic Oath in their graduation ceremonies for new doctors.