What are the contributions of Hippocrates to medicine?

Answer 1

Hippocrates provided the field of psychology with the theory of the Four Humors, the first ever personality theory. According to Hippocrates, the individual was made up of four humors, of which any one humor was perpetually dominant. This dominant humor affected the individual's personality and made him/her one specific 'type' of individual (thus being called a type theory of personality). The four humors are as follows:

SANGUINE (Blood) - A warm, outgoing personality. Rarely loses temper and is compassionate and loving by nature.

PHLEGMATIC (Phlegm) - A lazy, laid-back personality. Is rarely bothered by carrying out jobs or work, and does not express many emotions. Never is emotionally intense.

CHOLERIC (Yellow Bile) - An angry, aggressive personality. Is often loyal, but at the same time, has a very short fuse and is impulsive by nature.

MELANCHOLIC (Black Bile) - A sad, despondent personality. Tends to display more reactions of negativity towards stimuli, and is often selfish and self-absorbed.

The problem with Hippocrates' theory is that all individuals show the various traits mentioned above at some point or another in their lives. Hence, it is much more difficult to put individuals into separate, discrete categories as he believed.

Answer 2

Hippocrates and his followers were first to describe many diseases and medical conditions. He is given credit for the first description of clubbing of the fingers, an important diagnostic sign in chronic suppurative lung disease, lung cancer and cyanotic Heart disease. For this reason, clubbed fingers are sometimes referred to as "Hippocratic fingers". Hippocrates was also the first physician to describe Hippocratic face in Prognosis. Shakespeare famously alludes to this description when writing of Falstaff's death in Act II, Scene iii. of Henry V.

Hippocrates began to categorize illnesses as acute, chronic, endemic and epidemic, and use terms such as, "exacerbation, relapse, resolution, crisis, paroxysm, peak, and convalescence." Another of Hippocrates' major contributions may be found in his descriptions of the symptomatology, physical findings, surgical treatment and prognosis of thoracic empyema, i.e. suppuration of the lining of the chest cavity. His teachings remain relevant to present-day students of pulmonary medicine and surgery.

Hippocrates was the first documented chest surgeon and his findings are still valid.

Answer 3

Hippocrates is considered the father of medicine because, through his school, he separated medical knowledge and practice from myth and superstition basing them instead on fact, observation, and clinical experience. Our knowledge of Hippocrates' methods and teachings comes from theCorpus Hippocraticum, the Hippocratic Collection. This is a series of about 60 books that seem to have been collected in the great Library of Alexandria after about 200 b.c. While Hippocrates may have written only a few and possibly none of these books, they are considered to be an expression of his medical teachings and philosophy, which became an important basis of Western medicine. The Hippocratic approach to medicine, expressed in the books, emphasized that disease arose from natural causes, not from whims of the gods. Hippocrates insisted on careful observation of medical conditions; the books contain dozens of detailed clinical descriptions of diseases. He recommended as little interference as possible with the body's own ability to heal. Treatment focused on diet, rest, and cleanliness. He advanced the doctrine of the four humors, whereby disease was supposed to result from an imbalance among the body's four important fluids. Hippocrates also emphasized a high ethical standard for physicians. The Hippocratic Oath is a statement of medical ethics. Developed over 2,000 years ago, it probably reflects the views of Hippocrates while not actually having been written by him. The oath pledges a physician to serve only the benefit of the patient, and to keep confidential anything he or she sees or hears in the course of treatment. Many medical students today still take a form of the Hippocratic Oath when they receive their medical degree.

from www.bookrags.com

Answer 4

Hippocrates (460-377 BCE) was the "Father of Medicine" and taught that all disease came from a natural source, and not just the gods. Today, doctors take the Hippocratic Oath, named after him.

Answer 5

His heritage is namely the categorization of personalities (sangvinic, melancholic, phlegmatic and choleric). This is based on fluids in human body. According to this typhology were distinguished the affinities to differrent disseases appropriate to different people.