After the emergence of natural philosophy, there has been some progress in the discussion of human beings. Anaximander guessed that human beings evolved from fish in the sea, and Pythagoras school forbade people to eat beans and other foods from its mysterious worship. In empedocles, the knowledge about human beings was further theorized. Starting from his four theories, empedocles first put forward a theory similar to "species evolution and survival of the fittest". He said that from the mixture of four elements, various creatures appeared. They exist in different ways and roam the earth. These creatures are just individual limbs, such as head, neck, legs, hands and so on. Later, due to the large-scale struggle of love and hate, these limbs chased and combined with each other, and animals and people appeared. Needless to say, they are all kinds of shapes, some have two faces, some have a head without a neck, some have countless hands and feet, and there are monsters with cow heads, half men, half cows, half men and half women. Finally, many creatures are extinct because they can't reproduce, and only a few existing species are preserved, and human beings are just one of them.
Medicine and physiology are said to be particularly developed in Italy. According to Herodotus, doctors in Crowe and the polis were particularly famous. A doctor named Dai Mokai Daisy once worked as a Chinese medicine doctor in Egina and Athens, earning a high income. Later, he went to Samos and became the personal doctor of the tyrant Polly carters. Samos was captured by Persia and sent to the Persian court as a prisoner. He won the favor of King Darius because he cured his ankle. But he knew that Persia was by no means a place to stay for a long time, so after curing Queen Ahsosa's mastitis, he took the opportunity to return to Italy. When the Persian envoys took important people to see Crowe, Crowe, who was with them, refused their request and left Dai Mokai Daisy behind. According to another record, Alkmeion of Pythagoras School was not only a famous doctor, but also dissected the human body and found the optic nerve regardless of the religious customs at that time. Empedocles put out the plague in Salinas by dredging the river. It is said that once he cured a woman who was considered dead 1 month, so he was regarded as a god by sicilian.
Anaxagoras has some research on zoology. He pays attention to explaining some variations of animals from a physiological point of view. It is said that once someone brought a sheep with only one horn. The prophet Nanbang claimed that this incident indicates that there will be a struggle between two factions within the city-state, and the result of the struggle is that one faction wins and will monopolize power. Anaxagoras was very dissatisfied and thought that this was purely a natural phenomenon, because the other corner was blocked and failed to grow smoothly. He ordered the sheep to be slaughtered and opened its head to show everyone why. His behavior obviously angered the conservatives in Athens, so he was accused of blasphemy and had to flee Athens.
In the classical Greek polis, citizens were regarded as the lifeblood of the polis, and their health was highly valued. Some city-states employ doctors at the expense of city-states, and Dai Mokai and Daisy mentioned above are just one of them. However, all states may be willing to hire famous doctors, and more doctors may set up their own clinics or travel around the world.
On the other hand, due to the limitation of scientific and cultural knowledge, people's understanding of diseases is still very insufficient, and there is nothing they can do about many diseases, especially plagues. In 430 BC, the plague in Athens, people died, and doctors could do nothing. At this time, superstition and religion will rise, and people will inevitably ask God for advice. Throughout the classical era, asking God for advice was the last resort for people to treat stubborn diseases. At the end of 5th century BC, the worship of asker and Pioz rose all over Greece, and the Athenians held a ceremony in earnest to invite medical gods from other places. But the most popular incense is the sacred place of Pioz in Askero in the Peloponnesus. It is said that when a person sleeps in the temple, the doctor will cure him in his dream, and the individual will get the prescription to take medicine according to the rules, which is actually effective.
Hippocrates engaged in medical research and practice under this background. Hippocrates (about 460~ 377 BC) was a famous doctor in ancient Greece, the founder of European medicine, and was called "the father of medicine". We know little about the life of the most famous doctor in ancient Greece. He was born in Kos Island in 460 BC. He has been practicing medicine with his father since childhood. He practiced medicine in Greece, Asia Minor, the Black Sea coast and North Africa, and also engaged in medical education in the medical school in his hometown of Kos Island. He enjoyed a high reputation before his death. Plato mentioned him twice in the book, calling him "the doctor of Coase Island". Later Aristotle also called him a great doctor. He lived to be in his eighties and finally died in Thessaly.
Unlike most doctors at that time, Hippocrates attached great importance to theoretical summary and wrote many books. The books circulating in his name today may not have been written by him, but some of them must have been written by him. These works involve all aspects of ancient medicine, which generally reflect the medical level at that time and his own medical thoughts.
Hippocrates Hippocrates did not believe in the fallacy of "God-given disease", and thought that all diseases, including epilepsy, were caused by some internal and external reasons, but he and his contemporaries did not know much about epilepsy at that time. As far as the internal reasons are concerned, he put forward the theory of four fluids, which holds that the human body is composed of four kinds of body fluids: blood, mucus, jaundice and jaundice. The mixing ratio of these four body fluids is different, resulting in different temperament of people. Which one is dominant will be reflected in which temperament. For example, blood is red and mucus is mucus. Once the body fluid is out of balance, the body will get sick. As far as external reasons are concerned, the influence of natural environment on people is very important, so when a doctor goes to a region, he should know the geographical location, soil, water quality, climate, eating habits and lifestyle of the region. In the process of treatment, doctors should not only fully study the condition, but also consider the patient's physique and family situation, and strive to coordinate in many ways to achieve the goal of getting rid of the disease, otherwise it is likely to get twice the result with half the effort.
Hippocrates also studied many specific diseases. He has a very accurate understanding of urinary calculi, fractures, craniocerebral injury, joint reduction and human structure.
The greatest achievement of Hippocrates lies in liberating medicine from primitive witchcraft and treating diseases and treatments with a rational attitude, which laid a scientific foundation for medicine. In surgery, Hippocrates also made great contributions. At that time, religious customs prohibited human anatomy. Hippocrates and others broke through the ban and secretly dissected the human body, gaining a lot of knowledge about the human body structure and laying a solid foundation for surgery.
Hippocrates firmly believed that all kinds of human diseases were caused by physiological disorders and external influences, and created the theory of body fluid. He attaches great importance to the influence of natural environment and external conditions on human health, and emphasizes that doctors should pay attention to the influence of various factors on human health, which is very close to the viewpoint of modern ecology. In terms of etiology and treatment, he also has many original opinions, such as emphasizing the laws of nature, not taking medicine easily, and believing in the healing power of nature.
Hippocrates' greatest influence on later generations should be the moral code he established for the profession of doctors, which is also commonly known as the Hippocratic oath. Its contents are roughly as follows: respect teachers' parents and seriously impart medical knowledge to their children; Try to take medical measures that are beneficial to patients and do not bring pain and harm to patients; Don't give poison to anyone; Entering other people's homes is just to see a doctor, not to do whatever you want, not to take bribes, not to seduce the opposite sex; About other people's private life, whether it is related to medical treatment or not, never disclose it. These contents contain the main professional norms of doctors, so they have been circulated in the west for more than two thousand years. 1948, the General Assembly of the World Medical Association adopted the Geneva Declaration based on the Hippocratic oath. The following year, the Congress of the World Medical Association declared it as international medical ethics. Therefore, the Hippocratic oath has become a precious legacy of all mankind.
Shiloh Filos and Ullas Torato were the two most famous doctors in Alexandria at that time. Shiloh Filos wrote "On Anatomy", "On Eyes" and other works, but they have all been lost, leaving only some fragments of Galen's works. His anatomical works first introduced the general guide to anatomy, and then described the nervous, vascular, digestive, reproductive, skeletal and other systems of the human body in detail. He devoted a special chapter to the structure and function of the liver. Because of his rich knowledge of anatomy, he has a better understanding of many problems than Hippocrates. For example, on the brain, he not only refuted Aristotle's mistake that the heart is the source of wisdom, but also distinguished the brain from the cerebellum and realized the connection between the brain and the spine and nerves. He studied all kinds of cases carefully, and some of the diseases used today were still named by him, while others were first discovered by him.
Rasis Tora Tobi Hiro Feros is younger, and he is also a famous anatomist. He correctly described the function of epiglottic cartilage to prevent food from entering respiratory tract, and gained a better understanding of the structure of brain and heart. He investigated the distribution of arteries and veins in the whole human body and observed the microvessels that can be reached by the naked eye. He believes that after the human body inhales air, the air enters the heart from the lungs, becomes a vibrant gas field in the heart, and then is transported to the whole body with the artery. Part of it is transformed into a soul gas field for thinking in the brain, and then the soul gas field is distributed throughout the body. Here, Rasis tortora actually had a preliminary concept of blood circulation, and realized that the heart is similar to a hydraulic pump, and there is some invisible connection between arteries and veins. Have a preliminary concept of blood circulation. This is a major breakthrough in the history of western medicine.
The tradition of attaching importance to human body structure and anatomy, which arose in the Hellenistic era, made western medicine break the mysterious concept of human body earlier and establish medicine on the basis of strict physiological anatomy, which is conducive to the further development of medicine. Therefore, the development of medicine in the Hellenistic era is an important milestone in the history of western medical development.
Medicine in the Greek era. The doctor on the left is seeing the patient, and the patient on the right is waiting.