Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Hippocrates

  • Aristotle and the four humors

    Aristotle is one of the greatest philosophers of all time. He has influenced human thought for almost 2500 years and many of his works are as relevant today as they were in the days of ancient Greece. Students of his philosophical works are likely to be familiar with his Nicomachean Ethics, Politics, Rhetoric, and Poetics,…

  • Aretaeus of Cappadocia, second only to Hippocrates

    Aretaeus was born in Cappadocia during the Roman hegemony over Greek Asia Minor. Few details are known about his life, but it is believed he studied in Alexandria and practiced medicine in Rome around the second century AD. After his death he was forgotten until rediscovered during the Renaissance, when a Latin translation of his…

  • History of nephrology vignettes

      Hippocrates: “Those whose urine is merely blood-stained have suffered in the veins. When urine is thick, and there are passed with it small pieces of flesh like hair, you must know that these symptoms result from the kidneys and arthritic complaints.” Bubbles appearing on the surface of the urine indicate disease of the kidneys…

  • Hearkening back to Hippocrates: rediscovering “food as medicine” in the age of quinoa and kale

    Shehryar R. Sheikh Cleveland, Ohio, United States   Portrait of Hippocrates from the Magni Hippocratis Coi opera omnia. Credited to Lugduni Batavorum, 1665. Wellcome Library (London). In my opinion, nobody would have even sought for medicine, if the same diets (διαιτήµατα) had suited both the sick and those in health.”1 – Hippocrates, from the treatise…

  • Empathy for medical students

    David Jeffrey Edinburgh, United Kingdom   Medical students check blood glucose on a patient. On a windy corner of Drummond Street, not far from Rutherford’s pub in Edinburgh, there is a small bronze plaque with these words: “And when I remembered all that I hoped and feared as I pickled about Rutherford’s in the rain…

  • Warning: laughter can be hazardous to your illness

    Bharata Wingham Buckingham, Virginia, United States     Photography by Chris Keiss A cheerful heart does good like a medicine: but a broken spirit makes one sick. —Proverbs 17:22   Laugh for the health of it! When is the last time you had a good laugh? This was a question I used to ask myself…

  • A reflection on the authority gained through tradition: how implementing the Hippocratic Oath in medical school commencement helped legitimize the modern American medical profession

    Chloé M. DeLisle Colombia   The taking of the Hippocratic Oath is an oral tradition that encourages the participants to feel a continued commitment to a professional set of values and ethics.1 By invoking the gods it also creates a divine link, reinforcing the physicians’ responsibility to uphold a sacred tradition and binding them to…

  • Another look at Hippocrates

    Aroop Mangalik New Mexico, Albuquerque, USA   From my early years in medical school, I recall the reverence with which my teachers talked about Hippocrates. The great Indian physicians, Charaka and Shushruta, who worked and wrote several hundred years before Hippocrates, were mentioned only in passing. The Hippocratic Ethics, the Hippocratic Oath, and the clinical…

  • Is there a united Hippocratic school?

    Adil Menon Chicago, Illinois, United States Jean-Baptiste-Raphael-Urbain Massard – Hippocrates refusing the gifts of Artaxerxes Public domain courtesy of/via Wikimedia Commons. Hippocrates once asserted that while “many admire, few know,” a truth that would come to cast a long shadow over his own legacy. Eager to connect themselves to a famous name, if not to the…