Did Hippocrates know spina bifida?

Abstract

The historical medical reviews concerning the clinical detection, etiopathogenesis, and symptoms of spina bifida rather hastily cite a passage of the Hippocratic treatise On Glands that seems to describe this condition in detail [1]. The work, that some consider pseudo-Hippocratic, dates back to the Hellenistic age; others place it between the end of the fifth and the beginning of the fourth century BCE. It proposes a description of the main glands of the body from an anatomical, physiological, and pathological point of view.