Hippocrates

Hippocrates

  Hippocrates (460-377 B.C.), the most famous of the Greek physicians of his time, is regarded as the father of medicine because of the sound principles of medical practice that his school established. His name is memorialized in the Hippocratic Oath, which many graduating medical students repeat as a promise of professional stewardship and duty to humankind.

        Hippocrates probably had only limited exposure to human dissections, but he was disciplined in the popular humoral theory of body organization. Four humors were recognized, and each was associated with a particular body organ: blood with the liver; choler, or yellow bile, with the gallbladder; phlegm with the lungs; and melancholy, or black bile, with the spleen. A healthy persona was thought to have a balance of the four humors. The concept of humors has long since been discarded, but it dominated medical thought for over 2,000 years.
     
        Perhaps the greatest contribution of Hippocrates was that he attributed diseases to natural causes rather than to the displeasure of the gods. His application of logic and reasons to medicine was the beginning of observational medicine.

      The four humors are a part of our language and a medical practice even today. Melancholy is a term used to describe depression or despondency in a person, whereas melanous refers to a black or sallow complexion. The prefic melano- means black.

      Cholera is an infectious intestinal disease that causes diarrhea and vomiting. Phlegm within the upper respiratory system is symptomatic of several pulmonary disorders. Sanguine, a term originally referred to blood, is used to describe a passionate temperament. This term, however, has evolved to refer simple to the cheerfulness and optimism that accompanied a sanguine personality, and no longer refers directly to the humoral theory.

cholera: Gk. chole, bile
phlegm: Gk. phlegm, inflammation
melancholy: Gk. melan, black; chole, bile 
sanguine: L. sanguis, bloody