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The Collected Works of Hippocrates and Galen: the Greatest Physicians of the Graeco-Roman World

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The Collected Works of Hippocrates and Galen: the Greatest Physicians of the Graeco-Roman World University of Kentucky UKnowledge Microbiology, Immunology, and Molecular Microbiology, Immunology, and Molecular Genetics Faculty Publications Genetics Winter 2008 The olC lected Works of Hippocrates and Galen: The Greatest Physicians of the Graeco-Roman World Charles T. Ambrose University of Kentucky, [email protected] Right click to open a feedback form in a new tab to let us know how this document benefits oy u. Follow this and additional works at: https://uknowledge.uky.edu/microbio_facpub Part of the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine Commons, and the Medical Humanities Commons Repository Citation Ambrose, Charles T., "The oC llected Works of Hippocrates and Galen: The Greatest Physicians of the Graeco-Roman World" (2008). Microbiology, Immunology, and Molecular Genetics Faculty Publications. 53. https://uknowledge.uky.edu/microbio_facpub/53 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Microbiology, Immunology, and Molecular Genetics at UKnowledge. It has been accepted for inclusion in Microbiology, Immunology, and Molecular Genetics Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of UKnowledge. For more information, please contact [email protected]. The Collected Works of Hippocrates and Galen: The Greatest Physicians of the Graeco-Roman World Notes/Citation Information Published in Transylvania Treasures, v. 1, no. 1, p. 2-3. © 2008 Transylvania University The opc yright holder has granted the permission for posting the article here. This article is available at UKnowledge: https://uknowledge.uky.edu/microbio_facpub/53 ITT Winte r 2 008 2/5 / 08 11: 49 AM Page 2 --E by Chtzrles T. Ambrose Europe, two in Canada, loosely might be termed a and six in the US.* medical school. In a library on Cos, medical scrolls The nine large folio were collected, including volumes in the Transylvania some presumably written collection were printed by Hippocrates. He is in Paris in 1679. They believed to have lived for a include over 7,800 pages short time in Athens and and summarize most of later to have practiced in Western rational medicine. Thcssaly (central Greece), Parallel columns of the where legend says that he The Hipporratic Oath w ith same text appear here in died in the town of Larissa. the Latin /txt ontht ltji and two ancient languages: the Greek ft.<I on the rig_ht. Around 300 BC, some 80 Thefirs t !titer of theJ irst fewer than the 48 known word in tarh language is • Greek, because both years after Hippocrates' dra'um in an elaborately copies of the Gutenberg death, a collection of dtcoral~d hox, know n as a Bible. Thirteen sets are in ancient authors wrote hiJtorinttd lt lltr. in Greek, and medical scrolls at Cos was taken to the new city of Latin, because most Alexandria by Ptolemy I, M edieval and one of the successors to Renaissance physicians Alexander the Great and could read Latin but the new king of Egypt. + not Greek. During the two-decade The Hippocratic Oath is long struggle over undoubtedly Hippocrates' Alexander's empire after his most familiar work, death in 323 BC, Ptolemy I V S IV R AN 0 V M· although it's uncertain had kept his wife and son safe from danger on the '· StttattiUitlll teMnltJ11 ft!Jt.tlu .ftr..JIIIUI. .:. Putrpt#tht whether he actually wrote ,lfrJim[.tJUJ•tifm"h' J•lfNUMI•Iv.m,&M,...fmft#l it. Nonetheless, he is Isle of Cos. Thus he was u.ur<.it<>lii.IIIJI.lul#J. <f-•L'f,n>tlll.r.rwf'ufittluruw. r.r..­ rightfully called the father familiar with the medical w,.,.•1la•umU.JN• t AIPTICiiiiiUJI'IJ.'f'JililtlfJI "". htlflll'lt'~ fj~tlA9.W'tiN('1/11Jtlll•• lf JttrYJt~llrlll. I l.llft.,U•tfl•t>~~nk. (__. ofWestern medicine school and its scrolls there. ll:lltnt;;,J~ ,. A:_n~ #plli!JdiiM ~IIWINIU&:ht1S1 1 1.t.&9at: t.f. based on his other llfl l1t1¥ J .APJII/1,. jlr11l•• 11. Sur.nrtltll fiuuu pt~•·o~. Both Ptolemy and his J~ . r l.f.:tiJJtlviJI/J f..rlt.JJ. • presumed writings. successor son, Ptolemy Il, ippocrates sought to realize Alexander's (c.460-c.3 77 dream of making Alexandria BC) was the intellectual center of the born on the Mediterranean world. To Isle of Cos, that end they established a just off the "museum" and a library. The western coast ofTurkey. former (the Home of the There he raised his family Muses) was a modern-day of two sons and a daughter think tank where Euclid and taught medicine to and other scholars studied young students in what and taught. The museum also included teachers of tieing medicine around 164 medicine who performed AD in Rome, which had Charles T. Ambrose is human dissections. The become the intellecntal a prifmor in the library housed a medical center of the Western department ofmirro­ section that began with the \vorld. He became physician ffbodcuts dtpi<ting biology, immunology, HippocrattS scrolls carried from Cos. to six Roman emperors, {Sc BC) and Galt11 and molewlar genetics These were designated the including Marcus Aurelius. {2c AD) 011 tiJt title at the University if page of one of Kentucky College if Hippocratic collection Galen also performed the bOoks art only an artiJt j imprwions. IJ~ haw nothing of thtir M edicine. His library if (Corpus Hippocraticum). anatomical experiments in /iluntsses drawn, painted, or larved medical texts from the 16th and the tradition of the early during their lifttimts. Modern scholars now 1 7th centuries bas formed tbe School of Alexandria and ba.<i.cfor numerous publications believe that only a few discovered in pigs and apes *The six copies of this 1679 edi­ and presentations on medical (if any) of the scrolls were basic functions of the nerv­ tion in the U.S. are held by the bistory. Ambrose is a graduate written by Hippocrates and National Library of Medicine in ifjohns H opkim Medical ous system. that most were penned by Washington, D.C., the College of School and was a research Physicians in Philadelphia, the physicians before and after Galen's prolific pen was a immunologist at flarv ard University of Pennsylvania, Medical School and in Paris his lifetime. Be that as it remarkable aspect of his the New York Academy of before coming to Kentucky. may, the collection was pre­ career. He composed over Medicine, Harvard Countway served and translated into 400 treatises on various Library in Boston, and the Special Collections of Syriac, Arabic, and later medical matters, dictating Transylvania University. Latin. Up through the late to a rotating pool of 12 Renaissance, the Corpus Greek slaves. Only about was regarded by European 118 of his works have + and Middle Eastern med­ survived-a mere 2.5 ical students as one of the million words. five standard sources of Galen championed the written medical knowledge. medical teachings of The other such medical Hippocrates, which stress texts included the works of the whole patient rather Galen, Avicenna and Rhazcs than specific diseases. (both Persian physicians), He included numerous and Dioscorides works from the Corpus (a Greek botanist). in his own writings, adding wordy commentaries. This is why medicine of the 2nd cenntry AD could fill the 7,800 pages of Each oft he 11ine wlrmw ofth e Collected \~forks of Hippocrates and Galen, 1679, mtasurts 15 ilt(hes "by 10 inches a11d rontains arou11d 800 double­ this treasure-the premier columned pagu. There is 110 record of when thiJ stt was purchasedfor tht medical work in the Special Tramyl.,ania Muliral Department. Fe.u .arly 19th-rmlury Transy studc11ts could r<ad Latin, much less Gruk, so this <uork was likely cxom i11cd by ouly a Collections ofTransylvania f= famlty members. The author of this essay was prohahly the first pmou iu Library. lf uearly 200 yean to scauthe pages of wtry "olume. the medical school of Alexandria. He began prac- VoL. I, No. 1, WINTER 2008 .
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