Written by Konstantinos Konstantinidis Amphiktyon
Medicine did not spring up like a mushroom in the time of Hippocrates but from time immemorial it was developing little by little by the medical experts and researchers and there were Medical Schools even before Hippocrates. The first sciences that were developed in ancient times were: a/ Medicine for the fear of death and b/ Astronomy due to admiration for the divine and for reasons of navigation at night with the help of the stars. The professor of Medicine Georg. Prinaris in his Speech on the founding of the University of Athens during the reign of Otto in 1851 writes: “According to the most learned Sprengel (Christian Konrad Sprengel 1750 – 1816) neither in Egypt, nor in India, nor in Persia, nor among the Romans, nor in Palestine, but only under the beautiful sky of Greece must we seek the first traces of the logical and scientific study of all human knowledge. Its unique topographical position, surrounded by a sea of many bays and containing many cheerful islands, and its pleasant and sweet climate, strengthened the development of the spirit, the imagination, and the aesthetics of the good. Education, trade, and the society with neighboring nations, and the type of government of the Greeks contributed not a little to the perfection of the various sciences, and especially of medicine.” And the professor and dean of the Medical School continues: “The communication of the philosopher doctors with the Asclepians, the recording of diseases and their treatment on the temple tablets, and the rivalry of the various medical schools, gradually prepared the medical reform, so that the Asclepian priests were forced to break the veil of mystery, to abandon the charms and the tricks, and especially those of Kos and Cnidus. The descendants of Nevros, led by the generation of Hippocrates, were distinguished by this kind of reform. These, devoted to experience and observation, purifying science from all prejudice and deception, and also to nature, faithfully observing both phenomena and the results of diseases, gave the greatest impetus, so that Hippocrates II, who belonged to this family, was able to elevate medicine, which up to his time had consisted of simple empirical knowledge, to science and logical experience. Twenty-three of whom seven were Asclepian physicians of Cos are mentioned with the name Hippocrates:
1st Hippocrates the Gnostic, grandfather of the Great Hippocrates
2nd Hippocrates the Great of Heraclid
3rd Hippocrates of Thessaly, according to of whom they think the rhetorician Antiphon wrote
4th Hippocrates the Dragon
5th and 6th Hippocrates sons of Thymbraios of Cos
7th Hippocrates Praxianactus, a Cosian physician
But the most famous and important of all is the 2nd Heraclidus the Great, of whom his contemporaries make no mention except Plato, who mentions him twice in the Protagoras dialogue According to Professor Prinaris, great uncertainty and doubt prevails about the era in which Hippocrates lived and about the authenticity of his published works, writings and dissertations. Many doctors after Hippocrates wrote books on Medicine and due to the prestige of Hippocrates they said that they belong to Hippocrates even though the theory and the vocabulary of these books are different. Lygia, who lived in Alexandria, writes: “the book on gaseous places and waters presents us with a pleasant and clear author, while the Prognostics and the Aphorisms love brevity and often ambiguity, and the author of the Epidemics books is a remarkable observer, but he leaves his patients to die without medicine….” For these and other reasons, some books by Hippocrates are considered fake, written by others using his name for reasons of impression? And when foreign philosophers come and praise Greece, the Greeks, from some complexes, accuse our ancestors Professor Prinaris expresses doubt and raises the following questions: 1/ If the Great Hippocrates ever existed and at what time and where and what about his biography 2/ If he wrote the books that survive under his name or only some or none of them 3/ Is he Great because he was the first to collect the scattered pamphlets of empiricist medical knowledge and reduce them to a dogmatic science, or because he included in his writings general theory and dogmas which we must consider as laws of nature to this day? The writer is not even a doctor, but only a soldier with common sense and therefore I am not able to judge or criticize him for what he writes about Hippocrates.
But when a person has for centuries enjoyed enormous general acceptance by science for his colossal work, no one can diminish him and characterize him as a “dogmatist”, without showing some empathy or expediency so as not to be considered a “nationalist”, especially before the Bavarian King Otto. Much more to question his existence, because he himself refers to him as the 2nd Great Hippocrates of Heraclius. The “flaw” of servility towards Europeans and foreigners is as old as the Persian Wars. And it is passed down from generation to generation to our politicians and the so-called “intellectual” world. “So the arrows are their own” Those that killed Socrates, Karaiskakis, Kapodistrias and several wise men of antiquity because they spread “new demons” in the world (16/10/25) (Sources: “ON HIPPOCRATES” Speech delivered on May 20, 1851, ANNIVERSARY OF THE FOUNDATION OF OTHONOS UNIVERSITY, UNDER GEORGIO PRINARIS Professor of General Nosology and Hygiene and currently, Dean of the Medical School)
*Amphiktyon Major General Konstantinos Konstantinidis Author, Member of the Society of Hellenes Literary http://www.amphiktyon.blogspot.com (My main blog AMPHIKTYON ARTICLES & BOOKS-POEMS(old) AMPHIKTYON.BLOGSPOT.COM (In English) ANCIENT OLYMPICS-ATHLETICS (The Olympic Games) amphiktyon-poetry.blogspot.com (My poetry collection) AMPHIKTYONBOOKS (Books, Studies and timeless texts) https://amphiktyon.org (My personal website) Anyone who wishes to delete it should request “delete”