Hippocrates — the Father of Medicine

One of the most honoured names in medicine is the name of the Hippocrates. He is often called the Father of Medicine. He was born in 460 or 459 B. C. (before Christ) on a small island of Cos near Greece. He studied and lived for a long period in Athens.

His contemporaries considered him the wisest and the greatest physician. Hippoerates was the head of the most flourishing medical school of nis age. He had many pupils and spread his teaching throughout the Greek world and even beyond.

Hippocrates was the author of hundred or more books in which he described his ideas, methods, and medical procedures.

The Hippocratic doctrines regard closely observations of the patients. The physician should study all that can see, feel and hear in the patient He must closely examine the body of the patient, study his respiration and learn his evacuations (sweat, urine and others)-.

Hippocrates paid much attention to making an accurate prognosis of diseases. His work of "On Prognostics" teaches that only a physician who makes an accurate prognosis can acquire the confidence of the patient.

Hippocrates noted the effect of food, occupation and especially climate in causing diseases and he advised the physician to observe the water supply, the nature of the soil, the prevaling winds and the habits of the people in an unfamiliar town.

Hippocrates taught that healing comes through the power of natural forces of the human organism. He proposed for the treatment to aid nature in its healing power. According to Hippocrates the body has the means of cure within itself.

Hippocrates advises for the treatment to use proper diet, gymnastics, exercise, message and sea bathing.

He recommends to take less food at the height of disease and to use a liquid diet in feverish.

From the beverages he recommends a honey-vinegar, a paste of barley or flour and a wine in small doses. Among purgatives were used milk (especially asses milk), decoction of melon, cabbage and other plants, often mixed with honey.

As narcotics were taken belladonna, opium, mandragora, etc. Remedies for external use were practiced: vinegar, olive oil, and wine. They were applied in compresses, irrigations and in treatment of wounds.

And the final aim of Hippocratic therapy is to begin treatment at the right moment, to assist the human organism to increase its energy and to combat the disease. In this period he recommends to use proper diet, hygienic measures and the prescriptions, individualized for each case.