As The Greek empire declined, Rome inherited its medical traditions and knowledge. During the 1st and 2nd centuries A. D health standards dropped considerably and outbreaks occurred of life threatening diseases. Galen of Pergamon, a follower of Hippocrates, gathered much of the medical knowledge of the time and added to it his studies of anatomy and physiology (mostly of animals). In Spite of his errors in describing certain anatomical and physiology phenomena, his writing created the foundation for medicine over 1500 years later in Europe.
Though Galen created a historical event, he indeed followed and admired one of the greatest doctors of ancient Greece ‘Hippocrates’. A physician and a surgeon he became a leader of a medical school on the ‘Aegean island of Cos’ his works are contained in the ‘Hippocrates corpus’, over 70 volumes of case histories and thoughts on the practice of medicine, role of environmental health and sacred diseases. Although other non-Hippocrates doctors made diagnosis, the Cos physicians would try and predict the outcome of their patients.
Hippocrates adopted a view that Breath is the most necessary component of our bodies and if it flowed freely produces heath if impeded produces disease. Hippocrates says that diseases are caused by the differences in the elemental components of the human organism. Before Hippocrates and Galen Medical practice in Greece centered around religion (Cult), the cult of Askelepios, the Greek god of medicine and the son of Apollo. Mythology tells us that Askelepios was saving so many lives that Pluto, the god of the underworld, asked Zeus to slay him which Zeus did with a thunderbolt.
Whether Askelepios was a real man or not ,many temples around Greece have been placed up in his honor. Patients go to theses temples where they spend the night and patients have said that Askelepios has appeared in their dreams. In an age where disease was looked upon as a punishment from the gods, sacrifice was a way of pleasing the gods to prevent them from punishing. This was not the only medicine practice in Greece, there where also men who where more truly doctors they practice the unknown medicine and where still well regarded.
Hippocrates What drugs will not cure, the knife will; what the knife will not cure, the cautery will; what the cautery will not cure must be considered incurable. (Hippocrates, Hippocratic writings). The central historical figure in Greek medicine is Hippocrates “FATHER OF MEDICINE”. He provided an example of the ideal physician after which others centuries after him patterned their existence. He was associated with the Asclepium of Cos, an island off the coast of Asia Minor, near Rhodes and with a group of medical treaties know collectively as the Hippocratic Corpus.
