Useful known and unknown views of the father of modern medicine, Hippocrates and his teacher Democritus.

Abstract

Hippocrates is considered to be the father of modern medicine because in his books, which are more than 70. He described in a scientific manner, many diseases and their treatment after detailed observation. He lived about 2400 years ago. He was born in the island of Kos and died at the outskirts of Larissa at the age of 104. Hippocrates taught and wrote under the shade of a big plane tree, its descendant now is believed to be 500 years old, the oldest tree in Europe--platanus orientalis Hippocraticus--with a diameter of 15 meters. Hippocrates saved Athens from a plague epidemic and for that was highly honored by the Athenians. He considered Democritus--the father of the atomic theory--to be his teacher and after visiting him as a physician to look after his health, he accepted no money for this visit. Some of his important aphorisms were: "As to diseases, make a habit of two things -to help or at least to do no harm". Also: "Those by nature over weight, die earlier than the slim.", also, "In the wounds there are miasmata causing disease if entered the body". He used as a pain relief, the abstract from a tree containing what he called "salycasia", like aspirin. He described for the first time epilepsy not as a sacred disease, as was considered at those times, but as a hereditary disease of the brain and added: "Do not cut the temporal place, because spasms shall occur on the opposite area". According to Hippocrates, people on those times had either one or two meals (lunch and dinner). He also suggested: "...little exercise...and walk...do not eat to saturation". Also he declared: "Physician must convert or insert wisdom to medicine and medicine to wisdom". If all scientists followed this aphorism we would have more happiness on earth.

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Abstract
Hippocrates is considered to be the father of modern medicine be-
cause in his books, which are more than 70. He described in a sci-
entific manner, many diseases and their treatment after detailed
observation. He lived about 2400 years ago. He was born in the is-
land of Kos and died at the outskirts of Larissa at the age of 104.
Hippocrates taught and wrote under the shade of a big plane tree,
its descendant now is believed to be 500 years old, the oldest tree in
Europe –platanus orientalis Hippocraticus– with a diameter of 15
meters. Hippocrates saved Athens from a plague epidemic and for
that was highly honored by the Athenians. He considered Dem-
ocritus –the father of the atomic theory– to be his teacher and after
visiting him as a physician to look after his health, he accepted no
money for this visit. Some of his important aphorisms were: “As to
diseases, make a habit of two things –to help or at least to do no
harm”. Also: “Those by nature over weight, die earlier than the
slim”, also, “In the wounds there are miasmata causing disease if
entered the body”. He used as a pain relief, the abstract from a tree
containing what he called “salycasia”, like aspirin. He described for
the first time epilepsy not as a sacred disease, as was considered at
those times, but as a hereditary disease of the brain and added:
“Do not cut the temporal place, because spasms shall occur on the
opposite area”. According to Hippocrates, people on those times
had either one or two meals (lunch and dinner). He also suggested:
“…little exercise …and walk …do not eat to saturation”. Also he de-
clared: “Physician must convert or insert wisdom to medicine and
medicine to wisdom”. If all scientists followed this aphorism we
would have more happiness on earth.
Keywords: Father of modern medicine – Democritus – Surgery –
Athens plague – Philosophy
H
diagnosis, prognosis and treatment. After Hippocrates, med-
icine was no longer a mixture of superstition, magic, religion
views and empirical treatment, excersised by priests-physi-
cians, but became a real science with accumulating experi-
ence.
Hippocrates was born in Astypalaia the ancient capital of
the island of Kos in 460 BC [1]. Kos is the second largest is-
land in the Dodecanese, next in size to Rhodes. His father
was an Asklepiad physician [1]. His mother was a descendant
from the hero and semi-god Hercules, who returning from
his labors at Troy, sojourned in Kos and established a dynasty
ippocrates greatly contributed to modern medicine by
declaring that medicine should stand on detailed ob-
servation, reason and experience in order to establish
[1]. Hippocrates traveled to Samos, where he learned mathe-
matics from Pythagoras, to Ephesus and Militos, to Memphis
in Egypt, to Larissa, Thessaly and other Greek cities [1]. There
is no certainty that all books related to Hippocrates were writ-
ten by him.
Hippocrates is reputed to have practiced, taught medicine
and written his books, in the shade of a great plane tree the
descendant of which may still be seen in Kos today (platanos
orientalis Hippocrates). This tree is now aged around 500
years and is probably the most ancient tree in Europe. It has a
diameter of 15 meters and its branches are supported by mar-
ble pillars [1].
Pericles, the governor of Athens invited Hippocrates to
save the city, suffering from a major epidemic of plague. Hip-
pocrates went to Athens and noticed that the craftsmen were
less than others, contaminated by the disease. He then or-
dered that the corpses of the dead be burned and so the epi-
demic ablated. As a reward Hippocrates was credited with a
golden wrath, was made a citizen of Athens and the children
of Kos were given the privilege to be educated in Athens.
Athenians also initiated Hippocrates into the Euleusinian Mys-
teries, an honor never offered before to a non-Athenian, since
the time of Hercules [2].
Hippocrates denied an offer to become the personal
physician of the king of Persia because he didn’t want to co-
operate with a king who declared himself an enemy of Greece
[1]. Hippocrates died on the road outside Larissa, Thessaly, on
356 BC, at the age of 104 [1]. He was found dead with his
cloth covering his face. The museum of Kos has a fine statue
of Hippocrates.
Democritus was a contemporary of Hippocrates and one
of his teachers. Democritus lived in Avdira, in Thrace. Dem-
ocritus was a scientific pillar of modern physics because he be-
lieved that there exists a multiple universe and that the uni-
verse is immortal and unfading. The universe as a whole and
everything exciting in it i.e. ÙÔ fiÓ in Greek, consists of atoms
which could not split any further. Atoms can not be sensed by
us but are considered to exist by reason. Larger and heavier
parts or atoms are pushed inside and the lighter at the outside
portion of any existing part of the universe. Similar atoms ad-
just to each other and are gravitated by other similar atoms.
Today we know that the heavier particles, neutrons and pro-
tons are inside and the electrons at the periphery of the mol-
Editorial
Useful known and unknown views of the father of modern
medicine, Hippocrates and his teacher Democritus
Philip C. Grammaticos1, Aristidis Diamantis2
1. Professor emeritus, Hermou 51 Str. P.C.546 23, Thessaloniki, Macedonia, Greece
2. Commander, MD, PhD, HN, Naval Hospital, Athens, Greece
Hell J Nucl Med 2008; 11(1): 2- 4

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Hellenic Journal of Nuclear Medicine ñ January - April 2008
ecule [3]. Sometime before his death, Democritus chose to live
outside the city of Avdira studying birds and other animals
and often laughing with his own thoughts. His co-citizens
thought he was crazy and invited Hippocrates to examine
him. Hippocrates came from Kos and after meeting with
Democritus he said to the citizens of Avdira, that Democritus
was his teacher and he was healthy and sound more than
many other people in Avdira. Hippocrates refused to be paid
for examining his teacher [2].
The views of Hippocrates about treatment relied on the
power of Nature and were directed to the patient as a unique
physical, mental and spiritual entity [1]. In agreement with
Plato and Aristotle, Hippocrates believed that the soul of every
man is a kind of energy coming out from his body.
In his book: “The Aphorisms”, the first aphorism reads:
“Life is sort and the art long, the occasion fleeting, experience
fallacious and judgment difficult. The physician must not only
be prepared to do what is right… but also to make the patient,
the attendants and externals, cooperate”. A fragment of the
Hippocratic Oath on a papyrus dating from the third century
is kept in the Wellcome Library, London [4].
In a dialogue between Socrates and Crito about the Oath of
Hippocrates, Socratessays [5]: “In the marketplace, physicians
charge a large fee. They claim good will and unselfishness, but
at the table I have never met a more misanthropic crowd.”
“Doesn’t the Oath impose an impossible code of behavior on
the weak of spirit?” Crito: “That is not so. Homer and the
tragedians tell us that those who struggle are admired, even if
they fail. The Hippocratic art can never become obsolete so
long as its followers strive to be virtuous as well as skillful.”
Hippocrates also pledged never to participate in euthana-
sia and abortion. In his treatise: “On the Epidemics”, book
1(5) he stated the axiom “… as to disease, make a habit of two
things –to do good, or at least to do no harm” [6].
Many diseases were described by Hippocrates exactly as
they would have been described by a contemporary physi-
cian. In acute hepatitis Hippocrates in his book “About Dis-
eases” described: “Acute jaundice rapidly spreading…urine
has a red sentiment….high fever, uneasiness and cnidoses.
The patient dies within 4 to 10 days.” [7]. He also described
askitis: “Liquid collection… around the abdomen becomes...”
[8]. He also described acute cholangeitis: “Hard and painful
hypochondria, jaundice…bile in the urine…fever…bile in the
blood.” [9].
In “The Aphorisms” part II, Hippocrates wrote: “those by
nature over weight, die earlier than the slim.” [10].
Hippocrates was asked to find out why Scythian had male
impotence. He noticed that the wealthier Skythians who were
able to buy horses, had impotence because they passed a
great part of their lives riding on horses, thus harming their
genitalia. On the contrary the poor were unable to buy and
ride horses and they were sexually competent [2].
For surgery and for treating wounds, Hippocrates in his
book: “About the Physician” advised: “clean clothes or otho-
nia-a word still used in Greece to day-…and old wine as anti-
septic…” We know that old wine is richer than recently pre-
pared wine, in alcohol. Also Hippocrates in his books: “Of
Surgery in the Clinic” and “About the Clinician” wrote: “…the
nails of the surgeon should be cut in a certain manner, there
should be proper light coming from the proper direction
…skilled assistants are necessary…and they should be
silent…” [11].
Hippocrates knew that “in the wounds there are miasma-
ta causing disease if entered the body…” Miasmata or miasma
in single tense, is a word still used in Greece and meaning
“something dirty” [12]. Twenty three ages later, Pasteur will
describe with his microscope the microbes, a word meaning in
Greek: “small living”.
Hippocrates described plectrodactelia (fingers like plictron
or “Ï‹ÎÙÚÔ” in Greek) in cradiopathies and in lung cancer
[13]. For the treatment of anaemia he suggested solutions of
iron dissolved in wine [13].
For pain confront he suggested extract of “salycasia” a
tree between acacia and leuki. This is the so called today salix
tree or aspen or willow. Only on 1829 Leroux isolated salycin.
On 1899 Felix Hoffman produced synthetic acetylsalycilic
acid -aspirin from the word aspen [13].
In psychiatry, Hippocrates anticipated Freud by diagnos-
ing that the cause of melancholy of the son of King Perdica II
of Macedonia was that Perdica was secretly in love with his fa-
ther’s mistress [2].
Hippocrates in his book: “On the Sacred Disease” de-
scribed for the first time epilepsy not as a sacred disease as
was considered at those times, but as a hereditary disease of
the brain and added: “do not cut this (temporal) place, be-
cause spasms (on the opposite area) do attach the man who is
cut” [6, 11].
Editorial
3
Statue found in the Odeon of Cos, probably representing Hippocrates (4th
century B.C.)

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He declared that all feelings have a seat in the brain, not in
the diaphragm, as Homer had said before him [2]. From this
belief of Homer’s, the nerve of the diaphragm is still called
“frenic nerve”, frenes, meaning the soul.
For brain concussions he suggested operation by an iron
drill, to take place early, within the first 3 days, in order to
avoid infection [6, 11].
In his book: “On the Articulations” Hippocrates described
“the tubercular spine” which is to day called: “Potteian illness”
[11].
In his book: “On Haemorrhoids” he treated them by styp-
tic suppositories, by operation or by cauterization. He used
the first proctoscope or hedroscope which he called
“katopter” meaning: to investigate downwards [11].
According to Hippocrates, people had either one or two
meals (lunch and dinner) every day. He suggested that these
habits should be strictly followed…in order to give time to di-
gest… [14]. Today we take several meals every day which ac-
cording to what was mentioned before, “does not give prop-
er time to digest”. Hippocrates also suggested : “…little exer-
cise…and walk…do not eat to saturation” [6].
In order to increase the natural internal temperature of
our body and to better adjust ourselves to cold weather, Hip-
pocrates advised healthy men: “to cool their body during the
winter by taking cold baths or by any other means… of long
duration…” [15]. This is what the winter swimmers do today.
All the above indicate that Hippocrates observed and
learned from Nature itself. As his teacher Dimocretus had
said: “We must rather think a lot than learn a lot”. Galen, af-
ter about 500 years said, that Hippocrates considered Nature
as: “the teacher of all teachers” [2].
In his book “Mochlikon-Instruments of Reduction” Hip-
pocrates uses the word “apoptosis” to indicate tissue death,
detachment and fall from the body [17]. Recently in 1972,
Kerr JFP et al re-used the same word “apoptosis” [18].
In “Decorum” (5) Hippocrates declares that: “when the
physician is also a philosopher he is equal to God. Between
the two there is no big difference. “Physician must convert or
insert wisdom to medicine and medicine to wisdom” [6, 15].
If it was for the reviewers of this paper to choose the best
of Hippocrates aphorisms (doctrines), we would choose the
last one mentioned above, because if all scientists behaved in
wisdom, we might have more happiness in our world.
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Editorial