April 19, 2019
Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post.
After reading bits and pieces of Hippocrates’s writings, I am impressed by the amount of attention he pays to education. Though often called the “Father of Medicine,” Hippocrates also devoted a lot of time to understanding how people gain knowledge. In “The Book of Prognostics,” Hippocrates focuses on forming a patient prognosis, rather than a diagnosis or treatment of symptoms. Many diagnoses of his day included the idea that gods were involved in health. Instead, he sought to remove superstition from the field of medicine and turn it into a legitimate profession. In doing so, he not only revolutionized medicine, but the idea of how humans can learn from their environment. In other words, he revolutionized education itself.
In the “Book of Prognostics,” Hippocrates lists a number of maladies by symptom. Without naming any specific diseases, he dispels two important myths. First, he denies that any disease is sent by supernatural forces. Rather, he explains that diseases exist naturally and the physical human body participates in nature. This is part of his reason for avoiding common disease names, which often referenced deities or the supernatural. Second, he bases part of his evidence on other regions of the world. He writes, “One should likewise be well acquainted with the particular signs and the other symptoms, and not be ignorant how that, in every year, and at every season, bad symptoms prognosticate ill, and favorable symptoms good, since the aforesaid symptoms appear to have held true in Libya, in Delos, and in Scythia, from which it may be known that, in the same regions, there is no difficulty in attaining a knowledge of many more things than these; if having learned them, one knows also how to judge and reason correctly of them” (53). The corresponding footnote explains, “According to Galen, Hippocrates means here that good and bad symptoms tell the same in all places, in the hot regions of Libya, and the cold of Scythia, and the temperate of Delos” (53). He begins to widen the data set by including a more global view, which also gives him more information when offering a prognosis.
In “The Law,” Hippocrates expresses his disgust with the current state of medicine. While he claims that medicine is the most noble art, he laments the fact that it trails all of the other arts because it lacks accountability. Since no one had official training, anyone could call themselves a doctor and prescribe whatever they desired. He claims that “Such persons are like the figures which are introduced in tragedies, for as they have the shape, and dress, and personal appearance of an actor, but are not actors, so also physicians are many in title but very few in reality” (303). Hippocrates demands more accountability in his profession. He asks that more people treat it with academic rigor rather than mystical charms, powders, and gimmicks. He says that, much like medicine, instruction is also an art form. Hippocrates, as both student and teacher, then labels some advantages necessary for medical students. He writes that the student needs “a natural disposition; instruction; a favorable position for the study; early tuition; love of labor; leisure” (303). From these advantages, the student may develop the necessary skills of their chosen art. Furthermore, he believes that without leisure, or time spent in contemplation, the medical doctor cannot begin to piece together the the intricacies of the human body. Hippocrates demonstrates the fruit of contemplation and leisure throughout his books on medicine.
These lines sketch not only the study of medicine, but of the most fruitful education system as well. Any discipline requires love of labor, access to instruction, as well as contemplation. In “The Law,” Hippocrates continues, “First of all, a natural talent is required; for, when Nature opposes, everything else is in vain; but when Nature leads the way to what is most excellent, instruction in the art takes place, which the student must try to appropriate to himself by reflection, becoming an early pupil in a place well adapted for instruction. He must also bring to the task a love of labor and perseverance, so that the instruction taking root may bring forth proper and abundant fruits” (303). Hippocrates reminds us that any path towards excellence requires study and perseverance.
Hippocrates. Great Books of the Western World, Volume 9. Ed. Mortimer Adler. Trans. Francis Adams. Chicago: Encyclopaedia Britannica. 1990.
To leave a comment, click on the title of this post and scroll down.
