Greek Medicine By: Gwen Johnston
Introduction Like in most civilizations, ancient Greece was subject to illness. One out of three children would die of illness before they turned one year old. After that death toll, half of all the surviving children would die of illness before they turned ten. We all must remember that medicine was not an educated study in ancient Greece. It all depended on what that person believed.
Hippocrates Hippocrates is considered as the “father of western medicine�. He was a very important figure in the history of greek medicine. His story was that, unlike almost all other greeks, Hippocrates believed that illnesses came from a natural cause. All others believed that illness came as a punishment from the Gods. After studying the body, Hippocrates found that our bodies had four fluids. He called them the four bodily humors, or blood, black bile, yellow bile, and phlegm. Hippocrates used these humors to decide whether or not his patients were healthy. He believed that a healthy person had a balance of all the fluids, and that if a person fell ill, it could be because they had an imbalance in their humors. Hippocrates obviously had big impact on modern medicine as well as ancient greek medicine. He created the Hippocratic oath, which is the oath that all physicians swear. And that is the promise that all doctors make, to treat their patient to the best of their ability.