Greek+Medicine

[|chest pain right side]"Origin of Medicine" By Quinn A.

 What is modern biology based on? The answer is the works of the Greeks. Some of the Greek scholars had the wits to study anatomy. They even created health guidelines and diets for each type of person and theories on bodily function.

In the Greek times, anatomy was just being discovered. Without the help of modern scientific equipment, the Greeks came up with a theory that all people had seven natural factors: the four elements, the four humors, the four temperaments, the four faculties, the vital principles, the organs, and the forces or administering virtues. It was believed that if any of the factors was imbalanced with the others, there would be malfunctions and disease in the body. The Four Elements were fire, water, earth, and air and was what made up the body. The Four Humors (or vital fluids) were the part of the body that were in the bloodstream and consisted of the elements. Blood is air and the hemoglobin rich Sanguine Humor, phlegm is water and the clear plasma Phlegmatic Humor, yellow bile is fire and the bilirubin, or yellowish breakdown residue of red blood cells in the liver, Choleric Humor, and black bile is earth and the brownish sediment Melancholic Humor. The Four Temperaments were the kinds of people. Each temperament had basic qualities of either cold, hot, dry, or wet and had guidelines for staying healthy as well as having what one kind of person looked like. Each temperament matches with a humor. The Sanguine Temperament had the basic qualities hot and wet, the Choleric Temperament was hot and dry, the Melancholic Temperament was cold and dry, and finally the Phlegmatic Temperament was cold and wet. This part was provided by Galen, a famous contributer to Greek medicine. According to Galen, all organisms have to do four basic things to live and survive. They must vitalize themselves with Life Energy in order to function, the must feed themselves and grow and regenerate their physical structure, they must have consciousness and cognition and perception and awareness to respond to their environment in an intelligent and timely manner in interest of self preservation, and they must be able to reproduce in order to further the continuity of Life and their species. The four faculties are as follows, the Vital Faculty is the heart and it vitalizes the organism, the Natural Faculty is the liver and it feeds the organism, the Psychic Faculty is the brain and provides intelligence and awareness and perception with stimulus and response, and the Generative Faculty is the gonad(s) which serve for reproduction and procreation. The Vital Principle consisted of the Vital Force, the Innate Heat, and Thymos. The Vital Force was the kinetic energy in an organism that powers body movement and function. The Innate Heat was the thermal energy which powers digestion, metabolism, and transformation. Lastly, Thymos, meaning “fierce, proud, bold” in Greek, was the immune force of the organism which is carried to every cell, organ, and tissue through the blood. The Organs, are just the vital organs and their function. The final factor is the administering virtues. Each virtue is matched with one of the four humors. The Sanguine humor has the Attractive Virtue which allows organs to nourish themselves. It also allows people to taste and use nutrients while the Choleric humor and its Digestive Virtue allows people to consume and digest and process anything eaten in the correct way. The Melancholic humor with its Retentive Virtue allows organs to carry substances long enough to nourish itself. On the other hand, the Phlegmatic humor has the Expulsive Virtue which allows the organs to expel the substances and wash away impurities (GreekMedicine).

 In Greece, the citizens believed that food and medicine are much different. Hippocrates, often dubbed the father of Western medicine, even said, “Let your food be your medicine, and your medicine be your food .” The Greeks were big on health and hygiene and therefore made a variety of health benefiting food such as teas and crops. One of the most popular teas was the Lemon Vebena (Aloysia citriodora), is was named due to its fresh, lemon-like scent and flavor. Its main function was to help with digestive problems, it also helped the skin by stimulating sweating. Other teas that originated from Greece include Shepherd’s Tea and Mountain tea. There were many other food s used to stay healthy. Root vegetables were used for tonics, starchy roots were used instead of grain: potatoes, sweet potatoes, and yams. Many fruits like melons and bananas were used for sedation and cooling, only dark red and blue berries like blackberries and raspberries were used for tonics. Citrus fruits were used for arthritis and rheumatism and mainly figs and prunes were used for therapeutic treatment. Sesame s eeds, peanuts, wheat, grains, buckwheat, barley, millet, rice, oats, walnuts and multiple other nuts were used for nutrition. The Greeks even used dairy products: cow’s milk, yogurt, cheeses. They also ate cinnamon, cardamom, allspice, cloves, ginger, and black peppers to help digest dairy. Red meat, beef, pork, and lamb were called the hardest to digest of the fleshy foods. Cloves, mustard, black peppers, garlic, onions, or horseradish were used to detoxify red meat during the cooking process. Easier to digest foods included eggs and poultry. Some odd food s were shrimp and oysters for aphrodisiacs, turtle soup and essence for tonics, and the super- food human placenta. Epicureanism was also highly recommended (Medicine Network).

 The Greeks, even without scanners and x-rays and all of modern technology, created ways to diagnose a disease and ways to treat it. The concepts are based on the Seven Natural Factors: the Four Elements, the Four Humors, and so on. There’s another group which are the Six Hygienic Factors. The first factor is Ambient Air which is one’s environment or the influence on health from seasons, geography, climate, and etcetera. Food and Drink is how, how much, where, when, and what one eats. Exercise and Rest was the design ofa safe and effective daily routine. Sleep and Wakefulness was the right amount of sleep that’s in sync with nature’s cycles. Retention and Evacuation of Wastes was having healthy bowel and urinary habits. Perturbations of the Mind and Emotions were the mental and emotional states of health along with having constructive sexual relations. Pathology and philosophy both helped physicians in diagnosing. There were also seven traditional methods of diagnosis. Visual was for behavior, spirit, looks, body language, and etc., tactile was for heat, softness, dryness, and fullness, and auditory was for breathing, gastrointestinal, and heartbeat sounds. Percussion was the kind of heartbeat hollow, resonant, or dull. Olfaction was  the odor of the body and breath. Taste was sometimes used to test for diabetes by tasting urine. Lastly, the body’s excreta helped show any digestive problems (GreekMedicine).

 As for the “founders” of medicine, there was Hippocrates and Aristotle. The first man, Hippocrates, was born on the island of Cos and Aristotle in Stageira, Macedonia. When Hippocrates began to practice medicine at the Cnidian school of medicine, he noticed multiple flaws. The school taught that diseases targeted one piece of the body and that the body is made up of sections. In addition, the school diagnosed patients solely with symptoms given by the patient while ignoring the rest. Hippocrates didn’t agree at all, he knew that the body was one organism and that diseases aren’t always able to be seen. He made a theory about the body’s works, and created the Four Humors. He was one of the first people to look at biology in a rational scientific manner. On the other hand, Aristotle used epistemology. He contributed the Four Basic Qualities (hot, cold, wet, dry), the Golden mean, and syllogism. He also taught metaphysics, which is that change is natural and necessary. There were four kinds of factors of change: material causes, what an object is made of, formal causes, an objects design, efficient causes, the objects maker, and final causes, which is an object’s fate. Galen of Pergamos provided more info to Hippocrates’s and Aristotle ’s findings with knowledge of Alexandrians. Also, people outside and inside of Greece helped share their findings. Alexander the Great created the Empirical school in Alexandria which attracted Roman and Greek physicians and scholars. Some of the Greek physicians and scholars included Hippocrates’s followers which allowed knowledge to spread (Hippocrates)([|Aristotle]).

 Greeks still didn’t fully comprehend anatomy and biology. Therefore they mixed religion with their knowledge. They believed in Gods and Goddesses and that they helped perform the miracles such as healing. Places such as Asclepeions were places for healing and worshiping the god Asclepius. There was also medical astrology which in a nutshell was a health guiding horoscope. This was important because in order to get a specific diagnosis and treatment, you’d need to know your nature and temperament. The Greeks had a large variety of treatments which included aromatherapy, cupping, herbs, diets, and even counseling (GreekMedicine).

 Greek medicine provided the foundation for today’s medical works and studies. Thanks to them, we have a better understanding of biology and health. If any of the famous physicians had chosen a different career, then people could still be practicing witchcraft.

Works Cited: "Aristotle." Encyclopedia of World Biography. Detroit: Gale, 1998. Gale Student Resources In Context. Web. 3 Dec. 2010.

Contrast. "Aristotle's Biology (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)." Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Web. 07 Dec. 2010. .

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">"Greek Medicine | Hippocrates | Rationality & Medicine." National Library of Medicine - National Institutes of Health. Web. 07 Dec. 2010. <http://www.nlm.nih.gov/hmd/greek/greek_rationality.html>.

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Greek Medicine: Welcome to Greek Medicine. Web. 10 Dec. 2010. <http://www.greekmedicine.net/>.

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">"Hippocrates of Cos." Scientists: Their Lives and Works. Gale, 2006. Gale Student Resources In Context. Web. 1 Dec. 2010.

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Osterweil, Neil. "Ancient Greek Medicine - Information on MedicineNet.com." Medicine Network. Web. 07 Dec. 2010. <http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=50322>.