![]() His work was later adopted by Muslim physicians, leading to the development of Unani medicine (Greek medicine as retained in the Islamic tradition).ĭioscorides had compiled herb knowledge for 600 plants. ![]() He traveled far, collected much information, and gained considerable medical experience as he went. Dioscorides was a surgeon accompanying the armies of Nero. Known as Materia Medica, a fifth century reproduction still exists, complete with botanical illustrations that were apparently added to the original text (carefully preserved in Vienna). The first document of herbal medicine to attain the status of a medical classic in the European tradition was by Dioscorides (40-90 A.D.). However, this text has not come down through history, and is only noted in later commentaries. ![]() He described about 450 different medicinal plants. The great philosopher Aristotle (384-322 B.C.) was the son of a medical man and a medical man himself, but his main influence on the development of European medicine was through his student, Theophrastus (380-287 B.C.), called the "father of botany." He was the first known author in Europe (and the rest of the world) of a classification system for plants with accompanying comments about their medicinal properties. Only if diet failed were drugs used, and surgery was a last resort. More violent means of elimination, such as purging, vomiting, and bloodletting, were seldom used by the Hippocratics. The main ally of the physician in assisting nature in this process was diet. Sometimes the disease petered out slowly in lysis, instead of crisis. This coction-which simply means "cooking"-usually ended with a crisis on a "critical day," when the disease matter, the end product of coction, was eliminated. The disordered humors were in a state of apepsis, and nature itself tried to re-establish balance through a process of pepsis or coction through the so-called innate heat. Health was a state of harmonic mixture of the humors, and disease was a state of faulty mixture. ![]() Treatment was based on the fundamental assumption that nature, physis, had a strong healing force and tendency of its own, and that the main role of the physician was to assist nature in this healing process, rather than to direct it arbitrarily. It was the treatment of an individual, not a disease, and the treatment of the whole body, not any part of it. The treatment of the Hippocratic physician reflected his fundamental approach. To students of Asian medicine, this is a near perfect echo of teachings from India and China about the source of disease and the resolution of disease via invigorating this digestive fire and promoting the healthy function of the digestive system. Reference is then made to the conditions of apepsis and pepsis, referring, basically, to inability to properly digest ( apepsis) or ability to properly digest ( pepsis), which is likened to cooking of the food in the stomach, relying on an innate heat. Naturopathic physicians today will recognize the opening description as the one adopted in the definition of their profession. These are the same foundations that herbalists such as Künzle put forth as the basis for healing (see Chapter 4).Ī summation of the Hippocratic approach was presented by Erwin Ackerknecht, in his 1968 book (revised from the 1955 edition) A Short History of Medicine, as relayed below. The primary focus of the Hippocratic School of Medicine was diet and nutrition and a reliance on calm, moderate living. ![]() He had little interest in the use of herbs. Many authorities recognize Hippocrates (460-375 B.C.) as the "father of medicine" for the European tradition. Among the earliest such documents are those describing the religious beliefs of the people and those describing the medical practices. At some point in an advancing culture, written documents become the repository for knowledge that had been passed on from one generation to the next. There is little doubt that humans used herbs for healing well before anything could be written about them. In all cultures, the origins of herbal medicine are lost in the mists of time. Tracing the history of European herbology Major European Herbs - Chapter 2: Tracing the history of European herbology ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |