Hippocratic Writings Book

Life is short, and Art long; the crisis fleeting; experience perilous, and decision difficult. The physician must not only be prepared to do what is right himself, but also to make the patient, the attendants, and externals cooperate.
It's healthy, I think, to take a moment once in a while and reflect how different our lives would be without modern medicine. Allow me to start.

At this very moment, two pieces of glass sit suspended on frames before my eyes, bringing the world into focus. When I was very young, I had trouble with my feet, and so had to wear special corrective shoes; and when I grew older, I developed problems in my knees, requiring physical therapy. All my life, I haven't had to worry about severe diseases, because I've been inoculated; the worst sickness I've ever had was the flu. All of my adult teeth now sit snugly in my mouth, despite some drilling and filling, thanks to my diligent dentist. Yes, life would be far less pleasant without the timely intervention of modern medicine. I would see poorly, be bow-legged and flat-footed, and half of my teeth would be rotting out of my mouth. Who knows? Maybe I wouldn't even have survived past infancy?

During my reading of this book, this thought kept popping into my mind: "Thank God I didn't live back then!" Yes, it would've been nice to hobnob with Sophocles and Plato, to see the wonderful works of architecture and art; but life is hard to appreciate without one's health. I love and cherish Hippocrates for originating a practice that has saved so many lives; but I'd rather see my doctor than one of Hippocrates's pupils.

Well, on to the book. The Hippocratic Writings is a disjointed and various body of texts, probably written by many different people. It treats of surgery, hemorrhoids, ulcers, fractures, epidemics, and much else. Many parts of the book are fascinating windows into the ancient world; but many parts are little more than tedious instruction manuals. Unless you are a historian or a curious doctor, I think the best way to read this would be to skim until you found something that caught your eye. I tried to read it straight through, but some parts were so dry and technical as to be nearly incomprehensible. (By the way, I read the edition in the old Great Books of the Western World series; the Penguin edition might be better edited.)

The modern reader will notice much that is distressingly wrong. For one, the Hippocratics believed in the four humors of the body'black bile, yellow bile, phlegm, and blood'which we now know to be hopelessly false. There is also much concern with the weather, the stars, and various other things that seem totally irrelevant. For example, there is one passage about how, if a fever lasts an even number of days, it won't come back; but if it lasts an odd number of days, it's sure to return.

Nevertheless, I think that the reflections contained in this book are, in the main, impressively modern. For one, the Hippocratics were scrupulously empirical; they amassed tons of observations, and emphasized experience. There are even a few passages which seems to suggest that they were doing dissections: "If you will cut open the head, you will find the brain humid, full of sweat, and having a bad smell. And in this way truly you may see that it is not a god that injures the body, but disease."

Sometimes, the writing style will seem strangely contemporary'even journalistic. I particularly liked the case studies. I want to quote one of these case studies at length, because they're fun to read:
Case I. Philiscus, who lived by the Wall, took to bed on the first day of acute fever; he sweated; towards night was uneasy. On the second day all the symptoms were exacerbated; late in the evening had a proper stool from a small clyster [enema]; the night quiet. … On the fifth, about mid-day, had a slight trickling of pure blood from the nose; urine varied in character, having floating in it round bodies, resembling semen, and scattered, but which did not fall to the bottom; a suppository having been applied, some scanty flatulent matters were passed; night uncomfortable, little sleep, talking incoherently; extremities altogether cold, and could not be warmed; urine black; slept a little towards day; loss of speech, cold sweats; extremities livid; about the middle of the sixth day he died.
(Interestingly enough, there is a lot of careful examination of urine and feces. Also, most of these case studies end in death'not very reassuring.)

Another impressive quality of the Hippocratics were their professionalism. This is most famously exampled by their oath; and, every now and then, there is a little pieces of advice for physicians wishing to improve their bedside manner (such as talking to distract a patient while performing a painful procedure). The text itself is a wonderful example of the seriousness with which they approached medicine; it is perhaps one of the first and most influential examples of the textbook.

Perhaps the most impressive section is "On the Sacred Disease." There, the writer rejects all divine explanations of diseases, and shows that the people who attempt to cure these diseases with 'purifications' are quacks: "Those who first referred this malady to the gods appear to me to have been just such persons as the conjurors, purificators, mountebanks, and charlatans now are, who give themselves out for being excessively religious, and as knowing more than other people." Then the author goes on to show that, if inspected, these supposedly 'divine' diseases leave characteristic marks on the patients' bodies, which points to a natural cause. It's wonderfully modern in feel, even if the 'natural' explanations proposed are all incorrect.

Those Ancient Greeks really were impressive. I'd be interested if any historians attempted to explain why, of all places and times, such a free and curious society originated. Well, whatever the case, at least we can be grateful for them'and also, in this case, grateful we aren't them.