Abstract
The Hippocratic Corpus played a key role to the disengagement of illness from the divine element that was believed to be to cause of all illnesses and injuries. Especially for the illnesses of the psyche (some call it “self” or “soul”), the Hippocratic physicians managed to recognize their biological origin and to create a “primitive” nosological structure. The aim of this paper is to identify the etiological factors of the illnesses of the psyche, according to the Hippocratic authors and to correlate them to modern medical observations. The Hippocratic physicians enumerated certain etiological factors for the occurrence of the illnesses of the psyche: imbalance of the humours, injuries of the head, extreme emotions, along with environmental features that were supposed to favor the appearance of such illnesses, such as the climate, the quality of the water, the winds, etc. Keywords : Hippocratic medicine; History of medicine; history of psychiatry; psyche
Highlights
In the Homeric poems (8th century B.C.), the first written texts found in ancient Greek, everything is ruled by the will of Gods, including the human soul and body
The Hippocratic texts record the beginnings of a primitive classification of illnesses of the soul; the authors distinguish, for instance, “phrenitis” from “melancholy”, taking into account the different symptoms appearing in the patients [23]
In the Hippocratic texts, the body and the soul is a unified entity, which does not exist in the Homeric poems, for instance
Summary
In the Homeric poems (8th century B.C.), the first written texts found in ancient Greek, everything is ruled by the will of Gods, including the human soul and body. In the case of the “sacred disease” – epilepsy -, an excessive collection of phlegm in the area of the aorta is the cause of the illness, obstructing the movement of the “psychic pneuma” towards the heart, causing accumulation of pneuma that provokes spasms. The “psychic pneuma” was considered to be formed and stored in the brain, and distributed to the rest of the body through the nerves. This type of pneuma was thought to be a basic element of the psyche and a power interfering to the activities of the nervous system
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
