Galen vs Hippocrates

[Mr Humphreys]

Who made the biggest contribution to medicine?

[Kiri]

Both Galen and Hippocrates made major contributions to medicine. Galen worked upon many of Hippocrates ideas; for example the theory of the four humours. Galen followed the belief that to maintain health one must keep ones humours in balance. The theory of the humours, developed by Hippocrates was a major one. It formed the basis of treatments and understanding of illness for many years.

Galen also followed Hippocrates teaching to observe pateients and record symptoms and treatments.Hipporctaes idea of recording such details enabled more accurate diagnosis and therefore treatments to occur faster. Galen extented Hippocrates many records by writing over a hundred of his own medical books. This method observation was a helping fatcor in Galens work on developing his theory of medicine and how the body works.

One major factor that Galen developed, that Hippocrates had no dealing with, was that of dissection. Due to religous believes human dissection could not occur but Galens work as a doctor to Gladiators meant he had a knowlegde of anantomy. Galen would dissect all animals but in aprticualr apes. In doing so he was able to make important discoveries to aid his knowlegde. However due to the differing natures of animals some of his findings were inaccurate. Never the less this research allowed doctors to see the working body and the effects of treatments. This work was vital in describing the way the body is worked and in teaching new doctors.

Hippocrates devloped the major idea that illness was not caused by Gods and spirits. This idea was followed by Galen. Whilst they did not dimiss Gods they just reasons that there were logical causes for disease (e.g. The theory of the four humours.)Hippocrates theories led the pathway to developing logical reasons.

Both Hippocrates and Galen preeched the benefiets of a blanaced lifestyle (Hippocrates is more famous for it.) However this idea had been around for a long time and was evident in Egyptian times.

I feel that both men made a major contribution to medical advancement. Galen developed upon and contiuned with many of Hippocrates ideas. For example the recording and observation of patients. And the theroies of the four humours. Galen made one poignt advancement of his own. His work on dissection led to a whole theroies about how the body works being developed. For example, Galen was able to rpove the brain controlled the body. But it is unlikely that this sort of work could ahve happened without Hippocrates teachings concerning logical reasons for illness and not Gods and Spirits. I therefore think that Hippocrates was perhaps the beginning in Galens advancements and the pairs works are very much equal concerning their contribution to the advancement of medicine.

[Yulia123]

Both of the ancient physicians, Galen and Hippoctrates, have done many contributions to progress of the medicine and many of their discoveries are still valid in the modern medicine.

Hippocrates, also known as the "Father of the Medicine", was a Greek physician and first to dismiss the notion that the diseases were caused and cured by gods and was the first to use reasoning and observation as a process of treatment. He didn't beleive that supersticion, charms and gods could cure it, but thought that every disease had natural causes and therefore should be treated physically. Hippocrates thought that doctor ought to observe their patients' symptoms and then make a careful judmentes.

He also noted that environment has impact over our health in both ways, negative and positive. He also through his observations noted that when person becomes ill, usually some kind of liquid is excreted and based on how environment afftects us and his observations he developed the theory of four humours. The theory of four humours states that the person is healthy and feeling well while all four humours( black bile, yellow bile, blood and phlegm) are in balance.If the balance is lost, however, there becomes too much of specific humour, which is excreted from the body, in order to restore the balance.

Hippocrates was also the first person to classify diseases as chronic, epidemic, acute and endemic, which terms are yet used in modern medicine.Another very important contribution of Hippocrate's to medicine is Hippoctatic Corpus, which was probably written by him and his students, followers.Hippocratic Corpus contained reserach, observation, lectures and many other writing which related to medicine of that society, which is very important for a further progress of medicine.

Galen, however, continued this theory and put it into practice during his career. Galen used to treat disease according to the theory of opposites and recomended specific diets in order to restore the balance. Galen also did very important work on dissection.He proved that it was the brain that controlled the body and not the heart by cutting an alive pig in public. He cut parts of spinal cord, showing how each nerve was linked to the brain, so after cutting one specific nerve, a pig wouldn't be able to make noise, move, etc...

Regarding to anatomy, he also tried to show how different parts of the body fit together and as he refered to the "great creator", so God, many monotheist religions, such as Islamic and Christian, have accepted his ideas. Galen also wrote 500 books during his lifetime which expressed his finding, ideas and view on medicine of that period and consequently was also very useful for future studies of medicine.

Conclusively, I think that the work of both physicians was vital for our modern understanding of medicine. However, I personally think that Hippocrates work on "Four Humours" served as a base for Galen's work. Galen's treatments methods had much in common with Hippocrates, who came earlier, even though Galen's methods were more extended, therefore he wasn't copying Hippocrates.As mentioned earlier, Hippocrates was the first physician to use reasoning and observations to treat and recognise diseases and completely dismissed the idea that God was who caused and cured illness. However, Galen yet referred to God, which made his ideas more acceptable, however didn't beleive that diseases could be trated or caused by supernatural means. So my conclusion is that Hippocrates work was vital for Galen's work and therefore I consider his work as a start of a long journey of progress in medicine.

[Oliver]

Not much is known about the life of Hyppocrates. He was bom on the island of Cos into a family of doctors. He was a teacher at the medical school on the island and gave lectures throughout ancient Greece and the Mideast in his travels. he was well known and respected during his lifetime, he died as a fairly old man in Larissa (377 B.C.). He contirbuted many factors to ancient medicine such as, thorough observations of diseases and their effects, and knowlege of how health is often influenced by someones diet, the environment, and thier personal hygene. Hyppocrates also came crated a theory to explain illness, he called it the thoery of the four humours. This theory elplained that all illness are related to the huours being out of balance and the cure would be to re-balance the humours. the four humours were phlegm, blood, yellow bile and black bile. Hyppocrates also conected the four humours to the seasons in the year. Phlegm would be related to winter, blood would be related to spring, yellow bile wolud be related to summer and black bile would be related to autumn.

Galen was born in Pergamos in Asia (131 C.E.) After being trained in medicine in Smyrna and Alexandria, galen became famous as a surgeon of the gladiators in Pergamos. Eventually he was summoned to Rome to become Emperor Marcus Aurelius personal physician. He spent the rest of his life, writing a plethre of medical works. he died in 201 C.E. His main contribution to medicine was discovering that the body was controlled not by the heart but by the brain which is attached to the spinal chord. He did this by famously disecting a live pig, he cut into its neck to find the nerves and by cutting each of the nerves he found that he could munipulate the pigs breathing, movement and voice. 'now... i will cut another nerve which controls the pigs voice. It will not squeal. Galen cut the nerve. The room was silent'. Also through dissections, he discovered the skeletal structure. Allthough because he wasnt allowed to dissect humans, he dissected apes. by doing this he made some minor mistakes, for example he was lead to believe that the jawbone was attached in the middle.

Both Galen and Hippocrates made great contributions to ancient medicine but Galen made the greatsest contribution to ancient medicine, although Hippocrates created a theory to explain illness that was used for hundreds of years after he died it was found to be incorrect in later years, whereas Galens dissections were correct and even though the skeletal structure was incorrect it was a base for ideas that came later.

[Ahad]

Both Galen and Hipprocates made large contributions to medicine. Hipprocates was an ancient greek physician, and is widely regarded as the father of medicine - his theories have survived for milleniums. He was the first person to discourage the blaming of all illness and disease on the supernatural, but believed that they all had natural causes and cures. He also developed the theory of the body containing four humours (Phlegm, Blood, Yellow Bile and Black Bile). A large collection of his theories are recorded in The Hippocratic Corpus (whether this was written by Hippocrates himself is unknown, but may have been written by followers of his). Galen was also a highly regarded physician, born around 500 years after Hippocrates. He built on Hippocrates discoveries and made a large number of medical discoveries and theories himself, one being him finding out that the brain controls the body, which he showed to the public using a pig. Many of his ideas have survived to present day.

Firstly, Hippocrates made many contributions to medicine. As mentioned before, one of his main contributions to medicine was that he gave the causes of disease natural causes, not supernatural ones. He explained this by develpoing the theory of the four humours and how they caused disease when one of them became unbalanced. An example of this is when someone is ill and they phlegm a lot, according to the Theory of the Humours, this is body trying to get rid of excess phlegm. This theory was not true, but it did give illness and disease a natural cause, which had never happened before. Furthermore, he believed in natural treatments to treat illnesses, rather than magical or superstitous ones. For example, he would ask someone to make a change to their diet, or excersise more, instead of relying on quick remedies. If these didn't work, he would prescribe something to get rid of excess humours, such as, bleeding the patient. Also, another contribution to medicine that Hipprocates made was that he showed how important observing the patient carefully was. This meant that they were watched carefully and their symptons were written down. From this a doctor could diagnose a patient, and say what was wrong with them if he had come across it before and knew a cure, or if he didn't know a cure, he could give them a prognosis and say what was likely to happen to them and how their illness was likely to carry on. In addition, he created the Hippocratic Oath to give people faith in doctors, this is still used by all doctors today.

Secondly, Galen also made a many contributions to medicine. First of all, he believed greatly in Hippocrates's idea of the importance of observing patients was, and how it helped in treating present and future patients. Also, he built on another Hippocratic idea, The Theory of the Humours, by treating unbalanced humours with opposites, such as, when someone has too much phlegm, use something dry to treat them. However, he did have many of his own ideas and theories. His most famous theory was that he discovered that the brain controlled the body, NOT the heart, as was previously believed. This won him fame in Rome, as he portrayed this with a public experiment containing the severing of a pig. But some of his ideas on the body were found to be wrong, these were because he could not dissect human bodies as they were hard to come by, and were against the Roman relegious beliefs. So he had to make do with animal corpses. Furthermore, Galen, like Hippocrates, also wrote many books on his findings and theories of the body; these were used as the basis for medical teaching and learning for up to thousands of years after his death.

In conclusion,

[UNFINSIHED]

[Mr Humphreys]

So it's a real chicken or the egg scenario - all of these essays are top quality and well argued - who can be the first to find a quote from Galen which tells us what he thought of Hippocrates and whether he acknowledged any debt towards him?