Hippocrates

Perhaps the one ancient Greek who contributed more to medicine, and mental health in particular, than any other was Hippocrates, who lived in the era of c. 460 B.C.E. to c. 370 B.C.E., and who has been called the “father of medicine” (Byers, 1998; Elliott, 1914; Hazel, 2002; Kelly, 2009; Keyser & Irby-Massey, 2008; Missios, 2007; Moulton, 1998; Nardo, 2006; Nutton, 2004). He is also credited with being the first physician to discount divine forces as causing illness (Elder, Evans & Nizette, 2005; Elliott, 1914; Hazel, 2002; Kelly, 2009; Millon, 2004; Nutton, 2004; Smith, 2006; Wootton, 2006). Hippocrates was said to have been inspired in his study of medicine by books kept at the temple of Imhotep in Memphis, Egypt (Pinch, 2002). The Hippocratic Oath, a seminal document on the ethics of medical practice, was attributed to Hippocrates (Elliott, 1914; Gregory, 1987; Jayne, 1962; Kelly, 2009; Keyser & Irby-Massey, 2008; Moulton, 1998; Nardo, 2006; Sacks, 2005; Thackery & Harris, 2003; Tischler, 2006). This is probably the most famous document of the Hippocratic Corpus, a series of around seventy treatises on medicine, attributed to Hippocrates, but probably written by his students (Albrecht, 2006; Bispham, Harrison & Sparkes, 2006; Elder, Evans & Nizette, 2005; Hazel, 2002; Kelly, 2009; Keyser & Irby-Massey, 2008; Missios, 2007; Moulton, 1998; Nardo, 2006; Nutton, 2004; Sacks, 2005; Smith, 2006; Wootton, 2006). While the Oath is rarely used in its original form today, it serves as a foundation for other, similar oaths and laws that define good medical practice and morals, although it is no longer a requirement (Greek Medicine, n.d.).

The Hippocratic Oath in the original Greek

Among the Hippocratic Corpus are descriptions of illnesses that correspond to the modern diagnoses of depression (melancholia) (Bucknill & Tuke, 1858; Smith, 2006; Taylor & Fink, 2006), postpartum psychosis (Williams, 2005), mania (Bucknill & Tuke, 1858; Maneros & Goodwin, 2005; Smith, 2006), phobia (Elder, Evans & Nizette, 2005; MacKay, 2009), paranoia (Freeman & Freeman, 2008; Smith, 2006), pseudocyesis or false pregnancy (Davidson, 2009; Thackery & Harris, 2003), epilepsy (Engel & Pedley, 2008; Keyser & Irby-Massey, 2008; Moulton, 1998; Smith, 2006; Stone, 2006; Tuke, 1892), which Hippocrates called The Sacred Disease, and transvestism, which he called the “Scythian disease” (Mendelson, 2003). He also described delirium due to high bodily temperature or fevers, a condition he called “phrenitis” (Krafft-Ebbing, 1903; Regis, 1894; Torrey & Miller, 2002) and hysteria, which could only be found in women as it was due to a “wandering womb” (Colp, 2000; Gregory, 1987; Merkel, 2003; Millon, 2004). A diagnosis of paranoia in these times could be grounds for declaring the patient incompetent and for having a guardian appointed (Stone, 2006). Hippocrates also appears to be one of the first writers to mention the harmful effect of the moon on mental stability (Porter, n.d.), a notion that led to the later label of lunacy, derived from the Latin word for moon, “luna”. This notion continued until the advent of modern psychiatry, and still exists at a popular level (Simpson & Roud, 2000). According to Evans & Farberow (2003), Hippocrates condemned suicide and averred that he would never assist a patient to end his own life.

Perhaps Hippocrates’ most notable contribution, and a theory that held sway in Europe until the advent of “modern science” in the 17^th century, is that of humorism (Albrecht, 2006; Bispham, Harrison & Sparkes, 2006; Bucknill & Tuke, 1858; Bugh, 2007; Bujalkova, Straka & Jureckova, 2001; Colp, 2000: Cook, 2006; Elder, Evans & Nizette, 2005: Elliott, 1914; Gregory, 1987; Hinshaw, 2007; Horowitz, 2005; Jacoby, 1918; Kelly, 2009; Kent, 2003; Keyser & Irby-Massey, 2008; Krafft-Ebbing, 1903; Levinson & Gaccione, 1997; Merenda, 1987; Millon, 2004; Moulton, 1998; Noll, 2007; Nutton, 2004; Porter, 2002; Rezneck, 1991; Sacks, 2005; Smith, 2006; Stone, 1997; Szasz, 2005; Thackery & Harris, 2003; White, 2006; Wootton, 2006).

Hippocrates

References:

Albrecht, G.L. (Ed.) (2006). Encyclopedia of disability. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications Inc.

Bispham, E., Harrison, T., & Sparkes, B.A. (Eds.) (2006). The Edinburgh companion to ancient Greece and Rome. Edinburgh, Scotland: Edinburgh University Press Ltd.

Bucknill, J.C., & Tuke, D.H. (1858). A manual of psychological medicine. Philadelphia, PA: Blanchard & Lea.

Bugh, G.R. (Ed.) (2007). The Cambridge companion to the Hellenistic world. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.

Bujalkova, M., Straka, S., & Jureckova, A. (2001). Hippocrates’ humoral pathology in nowaday’s reflections. Bratislava Medical Journal 102, 10, 489-492.

Byers, P.K. (Ed.) (1998). Encyclopedia of world biography. (2^nd edition). Detroit, MI: Gale Research.

Colp, R. (2000). History of psychiatry. In Sadock, B.J & Sadock, V.A. (eds.), Comprehensive textbook of psychiatry. (7^th edition). Baltimore, MD.: Lippincott, Williams & Wilkins. 

Cook, J.W. (2006). Encyclopedia of Renaissance literature. New York, NY: Facts on File Inc.

Davidson, T. (2009). Pseudocyesis. Retrieved from http://www.minddisorders.com/Ob-Ps/Pseudocyesis.html

Elder, R., Evans, K., & Nizette, D. (2005). Psychiatric and mental health nursing. Marrickville, Australia: Elsevier Australia.

Elliott, J.S. (1914). Outlines of Greek and Roman medicine. New York, NY: William Wood & Company.

Engel, J., & Pedley, T.A. (2008). Epilepsy: a comprehensive textbook. Philadelphia, PA: Lippincott, Williams & Wilkins.

Evans, G., & Farberow, N.L. (2003). The encyclopedia of suicide. New York, NY: Facts on File Inc.

Freeman, D., & Freeman, J. (2008). Paranoia: the twenty-first century fear. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.

Greek Medicine (n.d). The Hippocratic oath. Retrieved from http://www.nlm.nih.gov/hmd/greek/greek_oath.html

Gregory, R.L. (Ed.) (1987). The Oxford companion to the mind. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.

Hazel, J. (2002). Who’s who in the Greek world. London, England: Routledge.

Hinshaw, S.P. (2007). The mark of shame: stigma of mental illness and an agenda for change. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.

Horowitz, M.C. (Ed.) (2005). New dictionary of the history of ideas. Farmington Mills, MI: Thomson Gale.

Jacoby, G.W. (1918). The unsound mind and the law: a presentation of forensic psychiatry. New York, NY: Funk & Wagnalls.

Jayne, W.A. (1962). The healing gods of ancient civilizations. New Hyde Park, NY: University Books Inc.

Kelly, K. (2009). The history of medicine: early civilizations prehistoric times to 500 C.E. New York, NY: Facts on File Inc.

Kent, D. (2003). Snake pits, talking cures and magic bullets – a history of mental illness. Brookfield, CT: Twenty-First Century Books.

Keyser, P.T., & Irby-Massey, G.L. (2008). The encyclopedia of ancient natural scientists: the Greek tradition and its many heirs. New York, NY: Routledge.

Krafft-Ebbing, R. von (1903). Textbook of insanity: Based on clinical observations. Philadelphia, PA: F.A. Davis Company.

Levinson, D., & Gaccione, L. (1997). Health and illness: a cross-cultural encyclopedia. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-Clio Inc.

Mackay, C. (2009). The hammer of witches: a complete translation of the Malleus Maleficarum. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.

Maneros, A. & Goodwin, F.K. (2005). Bipolar disorders beyond major depression and euphoric mania. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Retrieved from http://assets.cambridge.org/97805218/.../9780521835176_excerpt.pdf

Mendelson, G. (2003). Homosexuality and psychiatric nosology. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry 37: 678-683.

Merenda, P.F. (1987). Toward a four-factor theory of temperament and/or personality. Journal of Personality Assessment 51(3), 367-374.

Merkel, L (2003). The history of psychiatry. Retrieved from http://www.healthsystem.virginia.edu/internet/psych-training/seminars/History-of-psychiatry-8-04.pdf

Millon, T. (2004). Masters of the mind: exploring the story of mental illness from ancient times to the new millennium. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons Inc.

Missios, S. (2007). Hippocrates, Galen, and the uses of trepanation in the ancient classical world. Neurosurgery Focus 23, 1, 1-9.

Moulton, C. (Ed.) (1998). Ancient Greece and Rome: an encyclopedia for students. New York, NY: Charles Scribner’s Sons.

Nardo, D. (2006). The Greenhaven encyclopedia of ancient Greece. Farmington Mills, MI: Gale, Cengage Learning.

Noll, R. (2007). The encyclopedia of schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders. (3^rd edition). New York, NY: Facts on File Inc.

Nutton, V. (2004). Ancient medicine. New York, NY: Routledge.

Pinch, G. (2002). Handbook of Egyptian mythology. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-Clio.

Porter, R. (n.d.). World of the body – moon. Retrieved from http://www.answers.com/topic/moon

Porter, R. (2002). Madness: a brief history. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.

Regis, E. (1894). A practical manual of mental medicine. (2^nd edition). Utica, NY: American Journal of Insanity.

Rezneck, L. (1991). The philosophical defence of psychiatry. London, England: Routledge.

Sacks, D. (2005). Encyclopedia of the ancient Greek world. New York, NY: Facts on File Inc.

Simpson, J., & Roud, S. (2000). A dictionary of English folklore. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.

Smith, M.A. (2006). Developing a recovery ethos for psychiatric services in New Zealand. Unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Waikato, New Zealand.

Stone, M.H. (1997). Healing the mind: A history of psychiatry from antiquity to the present. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company Inc.

Stone, M.H. (2006). History of schizophrenia and its antecedents. In Lieberman, J.A., Stroup, T.S., & Perkins, D.O. The American Psychiatric Publishing textbook of schizophrenia. Washington D.C.: American Psychiatric Publishing Inc.

Szasz, T. (2005). What counts as disease?: the gold standard of disease versus the Fiat standard of diagnosis. The Independent Review 10, 3, 325-336.

Taylor, M.A., & Fink, M. (2006). Melancholia: the diagnosis, pathophysiology, and treatment of depressive illness. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.

Thackery, E. & Harris, M. (Eds.) (2003). The Gale encyclopedia of mental disorders. Farmington Hills, MI: Gale Group, Inc.

Tischler, N.M. (Ed.) (2006). All things in the Bible. Westport, CT : Greenwood Publishing Group Inc.

Torrey, E.F., & Miller, J. (2002). The invisible plague: the rise of mental Illness from 1750 to the present. Piscataway, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

Tuke, D.H. (1892). A dictionary of psychological medicine. Philadelphia, PA: P. Blakiston Son & Co.

White, K. (2006). The Sage dictionary of health and society. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications Ltd.

Williams, M. (2005). Postpartum depression. Retrieved from http://www.epigee.org/pregnancy/ppd.html

Wootton, D. (2006). Bad medicine: doctors doing harm since Hippocrates. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.