His works written in Greek were at an early period translated into Arabic. They were first printed in Latin in 1525, at Rome. A complete edition in Greek bears a date a year later.
Several editions in Latin and other languages have appeared from time to time. An English translation of 'The Genuine Works of Hippocrates,' was published by the Sydenham society in 1848, in 2 vols., by Dr. Adams. The advance which Hippocrates made in the practice of medicine was so great that no attempts were made for some centuries to improve upon his views and precepts. His sons, Thessalus and Draco, and his son-in-law, Polybius, are regarded as the founders of the medical sect which was called the Hippocratean or Dogmatic school, because it professed to set out with certain theoretical principles, which were derived from the generalization of facts and observations, and to make these principles the basis of practice. The next epoch in the history of medicine is the establishment of the school at Alexandria, which was effected by the munificence of the Ptolemies, about B. C. 300. Indeed the whole race of Ptolemies (from Ptolemy I. to Ptolemy VII. B. C. 323 to 117) seem to have been patrons of learning and learned men. (Less so Ptolemy VIII. to XIII., B. C. 117 to 43. Ptolemy II., Philadelphius, was born in Cos about 150 years after Hippocrates.) It was by the patronage of these kings of Egypt that learning flourished in Alexandria during their reign.
In some of them this seems to have been the only redeeming feature of their character. Otherwise vicious, cruel, bloodthirsty in an extreme degree, they uniformly encouraged learning and learned men. (It seems to have been a hereditary trait.) Amongst the most famous of the medical professors of the School of Alexandria are Erasistratus and Herophilus.
The former of these was a pupil of Chrysippus, and probably imbibed from his master his prejudice against bleeding and against the use of active remedies, preferring to trust mainly to diet and to the vis medicatrix naturae.
Herophilus, born in Chalcedon, in Bythinia, flourished in the latter part of the fourth and the beginning of the third century B. C., and settled in Alexandria, especially was distinguished by his devotion to the study of anatomy. He is said to have pursued this to such an extent as to have dissected criminals alive. Several names which he gave to different parts of the body are still in use, as the torcular Herophili, calamus scriptorius, and duodenum. He located the seat of the soul in the ventricles of the brain. Only a few fragments remain of what he wrote.
About this time the Empirics formed themselves into a distinct sect and became the declared opponents of the Dogmatists. The controversy really consisted in the question, “How far we are to suffer theory to influence over practice.” While the Dogmatists, or as they were sometimes styled, the Rationalists, asserted that before attempting to treat any disease we ought to make ourselves fully acquainted with the structure and functions of the body generally, with the operation of medicinal agents upon it, and with the changes which it undergoes when under the operation of any morbid cause, the Empirics, on the contrary, contended that this knowledge is impossible to be obtained and if possible is not necessary; that our sole guide must be experience and that if we step beyond this, either as learned from our own observations or that of others on whose testimony we can rely, we are always liable to fall into dangerous and often fatal errors. According to Celsus, the founder of the Empirics was Serapion, who was said to be a pupil of Herophilus. At this period, and for some centuries later, all physicians were included in one or the other of these rival sects, and from the evidence of history the two sects or schools were about equal. From Phiny, who wrote about the middle and sixth, seventh and eighth decades of the first century, we learn that medicine was introduced into Rome at a later period than the other arts and sciences.
The first person who seems to have made it a distinct profession, separate from priestcraft, was Archagathus, a Peloponnesian, who settled at Rome about B. C. 200. His treatment of his patients was so severe and unsuccessful that he was finally banished, and no other mention is made of a physician at Rome for about a century, when Asclepiades of Bythinia, acquired a great reputation. His popularity depended upon his allowing his patients a liberal use of wine, and of their favorite dishes, and in all respects consulting their inclinations and flattering their prejudices; and hence it is easy to understand the eminence at which he arrived, for we see even in our own time men building up great reputations by similar practices.
This man with a long name—Archagathus—was succeeded by his pupil, Themison of Laodicea, the founder of a sect called Methodics, who adopted a middle course between the Dogmatists and Empirics. During the greater part of the first two centuries of our era the Methodics were the preponderating medical sect, and they included in their ranks C. Aurelianus, some of whose writings have come down to us.
They soon broke into various sects of which the chief were the Pneumatics, represented by Aretaeus of Cappadocia, whose works are still extant; and the Eclectics, who claimed as do the Eclectics of to-day, to select the best from all the other systems and to reject the hurtful. The most remarkable writer of this age is Celsus (about A. D.), whose work (De Medicina) gives a sketch of the history of medicine up to that time and the state in which it then was. He is remarkable in being the first native Roman physician whose name has come down to us.
Dioscorides of Cilicia flourished about the end of the first century. He accompanied the Roman army in their campaign through many countries and gathered a great store of information and observations on plants. In his great work 'De Materia Medica,' he treats of all the then known medicinal substances and their properties, real or reputed, on the principles of the so-called humoral pathology. Two other works are ascribed to him but their genuineness is questionable. For fifteen centuries the authority of Dioscorides, in botany and materia medica, was undisputed, and still holds among the Turks and Moors.