Hippocrates Vs Harvey Research Paper
Hippocrates vs. Harvey
In two thousand years, everything can change. Two thousand years ago, the Romans ruled the Western world with an iron fist. Now, Italy sits in the shadow of its more powerful neighbors, previous Roman colonies such as England and Germany. Two thousand years ago, Jesus was crucified at Golgotha. Two thousand years later, Christianity has an estimated 2.2 billion followers. Similarly, in the year 370 with the death of Hippocrates, people understood the body as a complex mixture of humors that combined with the elements of their world. Nearly two thousand years later, in the sixteenth century, William Harvey completely revolutionized the world’s understanding of the body. Although they both studied the nature of the body and its functions, Hippocrates and Harvey differed greatly in their opinions; Hippocrates believed in the external views of …show more content…
the body, and concentrated on humeral medicine, while Harvey looked inside the body to decipher its inner workings. Hippocrates was born in 460 BCE in Greece, in a land where mythology and mystery surrounded the medical tradition. Hippocrates began examining patients and dissecting animals, meticulously documenting his experiences. Over time, he managed to compile his beliefs into what became the staple for absolute medical truth for the next few thousand years. William Harvey was born in 1578 in England. Like Hippocrates’ world, Harvey’s medical colleagues followed a bizarre combination of Hippocrates’ teachings and fields like astrology, religion and herbal cures. However, the new trend of human dissection allowed Harvey, for one of the first times, to look into the human body’s inner workings. There, he found much physical evidence that contradicted Hippocrates’ age old traditions. For fear of rejection from his colleagues, Harvey kept his findings secret for years, but eventually complied and released his perfect notes and drawings in his book, “De Mortu Cortus,” or, “On the Motion of the Heart and Blood.” These writing would lead future philosophers to follow his discoveries of the body and set the road to modern medicine. Hippocrates’ “The Nature of Man” and Harvey’s “De Mortu Cortus” were extremely different, but they were especially different in the manner in which they studied the body.
Hippocrates’ views on the human body came from external views and observations of the sick. In the ancient world, excepting Alexandria, human dissection was considered amoral and taboo, and as such Hippocrates was unable to look inside the human body to examine the makeup of humans. So, he found two ways to study the body. Firstly, he dissected animals such as pigs and dogs (pigs were an especially good choice because of their anatomical similarity to humans) For example, in “The Nature of Man,” Hippocrates notes, “In those cases where there is a spontaneous discharge of bloody urine, it indicates rupture of a small vein in the kidneys.” We know that Hippocrates did not discover ruptured kidneys from fresh corpses, and so it indicates that such a discovery came from the dissection of an animal. Hippocrates’ knowledge of organs mostly came from his examinations of animals, for there was no other way for him to examine the body’s
insides.
Secondly, Hippocrates examined the external discharges of patients in order to discern what was happening on the inside, mostly using Humeral medicine. In “The Nature of Man,” Hippocrates explains humeral medicine in that, “The human body contains blood, phlegm, yellow bile and black bile. These are the things that make up its constitution and cause its pains and health…Pain occurs when one of the substances presents either a deficiency or an excess…” (Medicine and Western Civilization, p. 43) In other words, humeral medicine is the idea that there are four humors that make up the body, and every ailment is due to an imbalance of one of those humors. Hippocrates’ diagnoses were based off examining the excretions of his patients, and using those observations to guess what was happening on the inside. In “The Nature of Man,” Hippocrates recounts the case of Philiscus, who died after six days of feverish sweats. Hippocrates used visual cues and Philiscus’ excretions to diagnose the young man. For example, Hippocrates noted, “On the fifth [day]…trickling of blood from the nose, urine varied in character, having floating in it round bodies resembling semen.” (DELCAT The Nature of Man, p. 22) For this, Hippocrates decided on a prescription of suppository application, which seemed to ease his pain. Note that Hippocrates diagnosed the issue from examining Philiscus’ urine, an outside source, to diagnose the inside. Hippocrates also noted external cues in order to predict the trajectory of a disease, or to find patterns. Much of “The Nature of Man” is a list of “if/then” statements, meant to spell out what a physician should look for. For example, he notes, “In pleuritic affections, when the disease is not purged off in fourteen days, it usually terminates in empyena.” (DELCAT The Nature of Man, p. 18) In other words, Hippocrates noted that in almost every case of a pleuritic affection, it has the same outcome.
Harvey’s examinations of the body did not come at all from the examination of humors. Instead, Harvey was able to procure bodies for dissection, a new allowance in renaissance Europe. The emphasis brought on by the renaissance that one should seek the truth for one’s self, not accept thousand year old words as truth, spurred a sudden interest in the workings of the human body. Harvey received bodies, mostly those of hanged criminals, and performed dissections, meticulously noting everything he saw. However, he quickly started to disagree with Hippocrates’ teachings, for what he saw did not match Hippocrates’ predictions. Although Harvey based most of his attacks on Galen, Hippocrates’ successor as the dominant medical personality, they were still against Hippocrates’ style of teachings, for they were both based on the humors and external observation. In his book, “De Motu Cordis,” Harvey acknowledged the traditional view that, “…the pulse has the same function as respiration,” and that the heart’s function was to produce blood. (Medicine and Western Civilization, p. 70) However, after dissecting the human body, he realized using both his observations and mathematical formula that if that were so, then the heart would have to produce gallons of blood per day, which is impossible. Also, Galen cited that, “The blood is supposed to ooze through tiny pores in the septum of the heart…while the air is drawn from the lungs…many little openings exist in the septum in the heart.” (Medicine and Western Civilization, p. 71) However, Harvey’s dissections of human hearts showed no such openings. Indeed, he proved how dense the heart is, and even noted that there must be a link to the lungs and the heart. In other words, Harvey used internal dissection to disprove the theories made by the external humorists such as Hippocrates.
Harvey also followed a much better experimental line than Hippocrates did. Hippocrates, because of his learning by observation, made many tenuous decisions about the inside of the body based off of what he observed on the outside, such as the tiny pores in the heart continuously oozing blood. Harvey tested everything again and again, in a way not unlike the scientific method, with multiple tests and checks. When explaining his process of studying animals, Harvey wrote, “…using greater care every day, with very frequent experimentation…and comparing many observations, I…gained accurate information…of the motions and functions of the heart and arteries.” In other words, Harvey, unlike Hippocrates, only accepted something as a truth when he had properly proved it and understood it, unlike Hippocrates, who connected external signs like black urine with incorrect internal abnormalities.
Despite Harvey’s dissections disproving Hippocrates’ incorrect theories, contemporaries must note the difference of the times. Harvey had the luxury of living in a time that condoned human dissection, a luxury Hippocrates did not enjoy. He had to make do with dogs, pigs and glimpses of gladiators. And although Hippocrates was wrong in the function of the heart, he was right about many other things. For example, Hippocrates noted that certain humors were more prevalent in certain conditions or weathers. For example, he notes, “…the quantity of phlegm in the body increases in the winter because it is that bodily substance most in keeping with the winter…” (Medicine and Western Civilization, p. 44) So, without dissecting a body, Hippocrates was able to notice a pattern in diseases and environments – that phlegmy diseases, such as pneumonia and colds, come more often in the winter.
Hippocrates and Harvey were also similar in how they saw the body. Although they differed in their views in humeral medicine, they were both revolutionary. Hippocrates’ predecessors believed in magic and mythology, and Hippocrates started to really rely on the physical evidence he saw. Harvey, like Hippocrates, relied on physical evidence, although he discounted humeral medicine and favored a more mechanical view of the human body. However, Hippocrates was immediately believed, while Harvey waited, in fear of nobody believing him, writing, “…by such a host of learned and distinguished men, I was greatly afraid lest I might be charged with presumption did I lay my work before the public…” (Medicine and Western Civilization p. 69) However, Harvey need not have feared; his writings were the precursor to everything we have now, from understanding the cardiovascular system to Grey’s Anatomy.
Although they lived two millennia apart, Hippocrates and Harvey greatly contributed to the same world, though through different eyes. Hippocrates believe that humeral medicine and external observation showed the true workings of the inner body, while Harvey probed around cadavers in order to find the true mechanical functions of the body. What they do have in common, however, is that in their times they were revolutionary, and started a massive medical movement that would live on for thousands of years after their deaths.
In two thousand years, everything can change. Two thousand years ago, the Romans ruled the Western world with an iron fist. Now, Italy sits in the shadow of its more powerful neighbors, previous Roman colonies such as England and Germany. Two thousand years ago, Jesus was crucified at Golgotha. Two thousand years later, Christianity has an estimated 2.2 billion followers. Similarly, in the year 370 with the death of Hippocrates, people understood the body as a complex mixture of humors that combined with the elements of their world. Nearly two thousand years later, in the sixteenth century, William Harvey completely revolutionized the world’s understanding of the body. Although they both studied the nature of the body and its functions, Hippocrates and Harvey differed greatly in their opinions; Hippocrates believed in the external views of …show more content…
the body, and concentrated on humeral medicine, while Harvey looked inside the body to decipher its inner workings. Hippocrates was born in 460 BCE in Greece, in a land where mythology and mystery surrounded the medical tradition. Hippocrates began examining patients and dissecting animals, meticulously documenting his experiences. Over time, he managed to compile his beliefs into what became the staple for absolute medical truth for the next few thousand years. William Harvey was born in 1578 in England. Like Hippocrates’ world, Harvey’s medical colleagues followed a bizarre combination of Hippocrates’ teachings and fields like astrology, religion and herbal cures. However, the new trend of human dissection allowed Harvey, for one of the first times, to look into the human body’s inner workings. There, he found much physical evidence that contradicted Hippocrates’ age old traditions. For fear of rejection from his colleagues, Harvey kept his findings secret for years, but eventually complied and released his perfect notes and drawings in his book, “De Mortu Cortus,” or, “On the Motion of the Heart and Blood.” These writing would lead future philosophers to follow his discoveries of the body and set the road to modern medicine. Hippocrates’ “The Nature of Man” and Harvey’s “De Mortu Cortus” were extremely different, but they were especially different in the manner in which they studied the body.
Hippocrates’ views on the human body came from external views and observations of the sick. In the ancient world, excepting Alexandria, human dissection was considered amoral and taboo, and as such Hippocrates was unable to look inside the human body to examine the makeup of humans. So, he found two ways to study the body. Firstly, he dissected animals such as pigs and dogs (pigs were an especially good choice because of their anatomical similarity to humans) For example, in “The Nature of Man,” Hippocrates notes, “In those cases where there is a spontaneous discharge of bloody urine, it indicates rupture of a small vein in the kidneys.” We know that Hippocrates did not discover ruptured kidneys from fresh corpses, and so it indicates that such a discovery came from the dissection of an animal. Hippocrates’ knowledge of organs mostly came from his examinations of animals, for there was no other way for him to examine the body’s
insides.
Secondly, Hippocrates examined the external discharges of patients in order to discern what was happening on the inside, mostly using Humeral medicine. In “The Nature of Man,” Hippocrates explains humeral medicine in that, “The human body contains blood, phlegm, yellow bile and black bile. These are the things that make up its constitution and cause its pains and health…Pain occurs when one of the substances presents either a deficiency or an excess…” (Medicine and Western Civilization, p. 43) In other words, humeral medicine is the idea that there are four humors that make up the body, and every ailment is due to an imbalance of one of those humors. Hippocrates’ diagnoses were based off examining the excretions of his patients, and using those observations to guess what was happening on the inside. In “The Nature of Man,” Hippocrates recounts the case of Philiscus, who died after six days of feverish sweats. Hippocrates used visual cues and Philiscus’ excretions to diagnose the young man. For example, Hippocrates noted, “On the fifth [day]…trickling of blood from the nose, urine varied in character, having floating in it round bodies resembling semen.” (DELCAT The Nature of Man, p. 22) For this, Hippocrates decided on a prescription of suppository application, which seemed to ease his pain. Note that Hippocrates diagnosed the issue from examining Philiscus’ urine, an outside source, to diagnose the inside. Hippocrates also noted external cues in order to predict the trajectory of a disease, or to find patterns. Much of “The Nature of Man” is a list of “if/then” statements, meant to spell out what a physician should look for. For example, he notes, “In pleuritic affections, when the disease is not purged off in fourteen days, it usually terminates in empyena.” (DELCAT The Nature of Man, p. 18) In other words, Hippocrates noted that in almost every case of a pleuritic affection, it has the same outcome.
Harvey’s examinations of the body did not come at all from the examination of humors. Instead, Harvey was able to procure bodies for dissection, a new allowance in renaissance Europe. The emphasis brought on by the renaissance that one should seek the truth for one’s self, not accept thousand year old words as truth, spurred a sudden interest in the workings of the human body. Harvey received bodies, mostly those of hanged criminals, and performed dissections, meticulously noting everything he saw. However, he quickly started to disagree with Hippocrates’ teachings, for what he saw did not match Hippocrates’ predictions. Although Harvey based most of his attacks on Galen, Hippocrates’ successor as the dominant medical personality, they were still against Hippocrates’ style of teachings, for they were both based on the humors and external observation. In his book, “De Motu Cordis,” Harvey acknowledged the traditional view that, “…the pulse has the same function as respiration,” and that the heart’s function was to produce blood. (Medicine and Western Civilization, p. 70) However, after dissecting the human body, he realized using both his observations and mathematical formula that if that were so, then the heart would have to produce gallons of blood per day, which is impossible. Also, Galen cited that, “The blood is supposed to ooze through tiny pores in the septum of the heart…while the air is drawn from the lungs…many little openings exist in the septum in the heart.” (Medicine and Western Civilization, p. 71) However, Harvey’s dissections of human hearts showed no such openings. Indeed, he proved how dense the heart is, and even noted that there must be a link to the lungs and the heart. In other words, Harvey used internal dissection to disprove the theories made by the external humorists such as Hippocrates.
Harvey also followed a much better experimental line than Hippocrates did. Hippocrates, because of his learning by observation, made many tenuous decisions about the inside of the body based off of what he observed on the outside, such as the tiny pores in the heart continuously oozing blood. Harvey tested everything again and again, in a way not unlike the scientific method, with multiple tests and checks. When explaining his process of studying animals, Harvey wrote, “…using greater care every day, with very frequent experimentation…and comparing many observations, I…gained accurate information…of the motions and functions of the heart and arteries.” In other words, Harvey, unlike Hippocrates, only accepted something as a truth when he had properly proved it and understood it, unlike Hippocrates, who connected external signs like black urine with incorrect internal abnormalities.
Despite Harvey’s dissections disproving Hippocrates’ incorrect theories, contemporaries must note the difference of the times. Harvey had the luxury of living in a time that condoned human dissection, a luxury Hippocrates did not enjoy. He had to make do with dogs, pigs and glimpses of gladiators. And although Hippocrates was wrong in the function of the heart, he was right about many other things. For example, Hippocrates noted that certain humors were more prevalent in certain conditions or weathers. For example, he notes, “…the quantity of phlegm in the body increases in the winter because it is that bodily substance most in keeping with the winter…” (Medicine and Western Civilization, p. 44) So, without dissecting a body, Hippocrates was able to notice a pattern in diseases and environments – that phlegmy diseases, such as pneumonia and colds, come more often in the winter.
Hippocrates and Harvey were also similar in how they saw the body. Although they differed in their views in humeral medicine, they were both revolutionary. Hippocrates’ predecessors believed in magic and mythology, and Hippocrates started to really rely on the physical evidence he saw. Harvey, like Hippocrates, relied on physical evidence, although he discounted humeral medicine and favored a more mechanical view of the human body. However, Hippocrates was immediately believed, while Harvey waited, in fear of nobody believing him, writing, “…by such a host of learned and distinguished men, I was greatly afraid lest I might be charged with presumption did I lay my work before the public…” (Medicine and Western Civilization p. 69) However, Harvey need not have feared; his writings were the precursor to everything we have now, from understanding the cardiovascular system to Grey’s Anatomy.
Although they lived two millennia apart, Hippocrates and Harvey greatly contributed to the same world, though through different eyes. Hippocrates believe that humeral medicine and external observation showed the true workings of the inner body, while Harvey probed around cadavers in order to find the true mechanical functions of the body. What they do have in common, however, is that in their times they were revolutionary, and started a massive medical movement that would live on for thousands of years after their deaths.