Hippocrates and the Sacred Disease
                       By: Christina L. Kay                                                   

The fifth century B.C. has come to be known as the Golden Age of Greece. Many of the philosophers of this era began to direct their attentions and studies away from the normal studies of the Gods and cosmos and focus their studies on the individual. Hippocrates is no exception (Finger, p. 3).

 Hippocrates was born into a family tradition of studying medicine. His father was also a man of medicine as was the first teacher of medicine to Hippocrates. After the death of his father, Hippocrates traveled to Athens to continue his quest for knowledge and insight into the human being, diseases that affect the human being and treatments of those diseases (Finger, p. 27).
 
Prior to the Golden Age of Greece and the medical discoveries of Hippocrates, those people residing in Greece and Egypt believed that the heart was the “seat of the soul and the command center for the body. Religion was the driving force in many aspects of their lives…The early Greeks believed that humans were created by the gods, controlled by the gods, and subject to the caprices of the gods. Angry gods could even cause diseases, including the deadly plagues that could sweep across the land and annihilate large groups of terrified people” (Finger, p. 21).  This is in direct conflict with the works of Hippocrates. Unlike their Hellenistic predecessors, Hippocrates and his followers attributed the controlling center of the body to, not the heart, but the brain.  This new found theory of the brain as the center of the human body represents a major shift in thinking from the earlier biblical views of the Greeks (Finger p, 29). Hippocrates’ views of the brain are demonstrated by the following passage:

“Men ought to know that from nothing else but the brain come joys, delights, laughter and sports, sorrows, griefs, despondency, and lamentations. And by this, in an especial manner, we acquire wisdom and knowledge, and see and hear and know what are foul and what are fair, what are bad and what are good, what are sweet, and what are unsavory…And by the same organ we become mad and delirious, and fears and terrors assail us…All these things we endure from the brain… In these ways I am of the opinion that the brain exercises the greatest power in the man” (Finger, p. 29).

Hippocrates
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Hippocratic writing on the brain as the controlling center of the human body can best be demonstrated by the Hippocratic work On the Sacred Disease which focuses on the treatment of epilepsy.  Epilepsy during the Golden Age was known as the “sacred disease”. It was so called the “sacred disease” because people believed that the visions one witnessed during an epileptic episode were sent by the gods and the seizures associated with the disease were demonic attacks.  The Hippocratic work On the Sacred Disease describes the so called “sacred disease” differently:

“I do not believe that the ‘sacred disease’ is any more divine or sacred than any other disease but, on the contrary, has more specific characteristics and a definite cause… It is my opinion that those who first called this disease ‘sacred’ were the sort of people we now call witch-doctors, faith-healers, quacks and charlatans. These are exactly the people who pretend to be very pious and to be particularly wise. By invoking a divine element they were able to screen their own failure to give suitable treatment and so called this a ‘sacred’ malady to conceal their ignorance of its nature” (Chadwick & Mann, p. 179-180).

This shows Hippocrates’ obvious disdain or disbelief for the Hellenistic Biblical view of medicine. The work goes further to describe the brain as the controlling force behind the ‘sacred disease’:

“…the brain is the seat of this disease, as it is of every other very violent disease…The brain, as in the case of all other animals, is double; a thin membrane runs down the middle and divides it. There are a large number of tenuous veins which extend to this structure from all parts of the body; there are also two large vessels, one coming from the liver and one from the spleen…It is through these blood vessels that we respire…Now this disease attacks the phlegmatic…Sometimes phlegm, which should have been purged out during life in the womb, remains during the early life and is only got rid of in the later years…Those who have been purged of the phlegm in this way are not troubled by this disease, but those who have neither been purged in this way by ulceration and discharges of mucus and saliva, nor have been purged in the womb, it is most dangerous to be attacked with” (Chadwick & Mann, p. 184).

                                 Statue of the Father of Medicine                             
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Hippocrates says that in order for a person to have an epileptic episode the normal routes of phlegm become blocked thus the phlegm enters into the blood vessels which are attached to the brain (Chadwick & Mann, p. 185).

“This causes aphonia, choking, foaming at the mouth, clenching of the teeth and convulsive movements of the hands; the eyes are fixed, the patient becomes unconscious and, in some cases, passes a stool” (Chadwick & Mann, p. 185).

The Hippocratic work On the Sacred Disease shows how the brain can be viewed as the driving force of disease in the body rather than sent from the gods and, further, the work promotes Hippocrates to an ancient pioneer of medicine.

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Sources Used in Conducting This Research:

Secondary Source:
Finger, Stanley. Minds behind the Brain. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.
          Finger is a historian of science. His book was critical in my research as it offered much information on the life and works of Hippocrates.
Primary Sources:
Hippocrates. On the Sacred Disease.  Chadwick, John and Mann, W.N. The Medical Works of Hippocrates: A new translation from the original Greek made especially for English readers. London: Blackwell Scientific Publications Oxford, 1959.
          This is Hippocrates original text from On The Sacred Disease. It was translated my Chadwick and Mann and allowed me to incorporate Hippocrates' own views on the brain into my work.

 Image Information:

Hippocrates
http://www.rmutphysics.com/charud/specialnews/2/scientist/scientist3/hippocrates-1.jpg

Statue of the Father of Medicine
www.dkimages.com/.../previews/919/50541430.JPG