Description - Greek Rational Medicine by James Longrigg
The Greeks were the first to evolve rational systems of medicine almost entirely free from magical and religious elements and based upon natural causes. The importance of this revolutionary innovation for the subsequent history of medicine cannot be overstressed. In this book James Longrigg describes the origin and development of this rational medicine in ancient Greece and examines its complex relationship with philosophy down to the third centruy BC. He assimilates the latest material discoveries and scholarship. The emancipation of medicine from supersition was the outcome of the same attitude of mind which actuated the Ionian Natural Philosophers. Just as these philosphers had sought to explain in purely natural terms phenomena such as earthquakes, thunder and lightening, whch had previously been regarded as manifestations of supernatural powers, the medical authors of the Hippocratic treatises examined in natural terms epilepsy, apoplexy, delusions and madness. Focusing on rational attitudes, procedures and modes of explanation, the new medicine eschewed theories of arbitrary, supernatural interference.
Greek rational medicine reached its climax in third century Alexandria. Medical researchers here achieved levels of accuracy and sophistication in anatomy which were unsurpassed within western culure until the sixteenth century. Greek Rational Medicine examines the important relationship between philosophy and medicine in ancient Greece and beyond and reveals its significance for contemporary western practice and theory.
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