Hippocratic Medicine:

Methods & Practice

WEEK 4: PART 2 (31 MIN)
MARINA SCHMIDT
What is good practice?

 IMPORTANT: Prognosis!
 Ability to predict the outcome; gain credit; improve reputation
 If things go sideways: good defense; relatives already prepared
 Doubtful cases: wow-factor; increase reputation
 Important to the understanding & treatment of patient; make sure it’s appropriate
 GOAL: control/ modify the disease; greater focus on the patient
“True doctors” & effective prognosis

 Intervene fast & effectively with positive results

 Texts teaching effective prognosis & memorable sentences for all ills (Dentition,
Coan Prognoses)
 Airs, Waters, Places: prognostic texts preparing a travelling physician
 Epidemics: useful case notes
Focusing on what matters

 Focus on observation of signs & symptoms

 Understanding their cause & likely outcomes
 Ability to distinguish between important/ unimportant symptoms; what internal
changes cause disease
 Know what’s wrong - to treat or not to treat – decide on methods (e.g. bleeding,
cauterizing, surgery)
 Safest treatment: dietetics
Food is medicine

 The Art: medicine as art as treatment using nutriment is difficult & testament to
physician’s skill
 Cosmology + medicine + dreams + exercise = health
 Texts explaining medicinal properties of food
 NEED to maintain balance between body’s elements and qualities
 NOTE: broad categories of medicinal properties, imprecise dosages, no uniform
measurements
 Ex. “A person who is currently healthy benefits from a change in
their regimen. First have the person vomit so that nourishment may
be received again, for the entire body is being disturbed by the
current nourishment.”
Text 36: p.308-310

Funerary monument dedicated to Phanostrate. Mainland Greece. c. 350 BCE. IG

II2.6873. Greek. (See fig. 56.)
 Phanos[trate]
of Melite
Phanostrate, obstetrician and physician (maia kai iatros), lies here,
Causing pain to no one and missed by everyone when she died.
Text 36: p.308-310

Funerary monument dedicated to Geminia. Northern Africa. 3rd century CE. CIL
VIII.806. Latin.
 Savior of everyone through medicine. Geminia . . .
Text 36: p.308-310

Honorary inscription for city physician Menophilus. Cadyanda. c. 100–200 CE. TAM II,
663. Greek.
 The council and the people of Cadyanda honored with a gold crown and
a bronze statue Menophilus, son of Dositheus, of Cadyanda, of the tribe
Apollonias, for his benefactions, a good and noble man distinguished
with all the virtue of his ancestors who lives wisely and faithfully and
who practices medicine nobly, successfully, and blamelessly with the
greatest experience. He was chief city official voluntarily and took on
many expenses with his own money.
Important takeaways

 Key figures
 Central notions
 How do doctors see themselves & their profession?
 What causes disease?