The roots of Western medicine, P2

Shidonna Raven
Apr 9
2 min read

Photo Source: Unsplash,

Early Greece

Diet, baths, and exercises played their part in the treatment, and it would appear that these temples were the prototype of modern health resorts. Situated in a peaceful spot, with gardens and fountains, each had its theatre for amusements and its stadium for athletic contests. The cult of incubation continued far into the Christian era. In Greece, some of the Aegean islands, Sardinia, and Sicily, sick persons are still taken to spend a night in certain churches in the hope of a cure.

It was, however, the work of the early philosophers, rather than that of the priests of Asclepius, that impelled Greeks to refuse to be guided solely by supernatural influence and moved them to seek out for themselves the causes and reasons for the strange ways of nature. The 6th-century philosopher Pythagoras, whose chief discovery was the importance of numbers, also investigated the physics of sound, and his views influenced the medical thought of his time. In the 5th century bce Empedocles set forth the view that the universe is composed of four elements—fire, air, earth, and water—and this conception led to the doctrine of the four bodily humors: blood; phlegm; choler, or yellow bile; and melancholy, or black bile. The maintenance of health was held to depend upon the harmony of the four humors.