Hippocrates was initiated in the study of medicine by his own father, Heraclides; but in the medical art he also had as a teacher the gymnasiarch Herodicus of Selymbria; besides, he studied eloquence under the sophist Gorgia and philosophy under the celebrated Democritus. He treasured up all the records of medical practice that were preserved in the temple of Cos; but according to some ancient authors he is said to have set fire afterward to this temple, and to have left his native country in order to flee from the resentment he had aroused. Probably it was the priests themselves who attributed the burning of the temple (which certainly took place at that time) to Hippocrates, out of jealousy for his growing fame; though it may also be possible that this great man, having first collected together all that was useful among the medical records that were to be found there, afterward courageously destroyed this centre of superstition, so that medicine, ceasing to be confused with imposture and being despoiled of the supernatural character attributed to it, which paralyzed its progress, should become a liberal and human art, based purely on the observation of clinical facts and the study of natural laws.
For a long time, Hippocrates travelled in various parts of Europe, Asia, and Africa, everywhere making valuable observations. He finally returned to his native country, where through the practice of medicine and by his immortal writings he acquired such esteem and veneration that his compatriots almost tributed him with divine honors after death.
Not all, however, of the works that make up the so-called collection of Hippocrates were really written by the father of medicine. Two of his sons—Thessalus and Draco—and his son-in-law Polybius also distinguished themselves by the practice of medicine and by their admirable writings, which together with those of other doctors of that period were erroneously included in the collection of Hippocrates’ works. At any rate, the collection of Hippocrates faithfully represents the state of medicine and surgery at the epoch in which he and his disciples flourished, that is, toward the end of the fifth and during the fourth century before the Christian era.[45]
Neither Hippocrates nor others before him had ever dissected corpses; it is, therefore, not to be wondered at that the anatomical notions contained in the Hippocratic works should be scarce and very often inexact. The physiological notions also are highly deficient and imperfect, which is, indeed, very natural, for an exact knowledge of the functions of the human body presupposes an exact knowledge of the relative organs.
The philosophical ideas of the time had considerable influence on the medical theories of Hippocrates and his successors. The universe was considered as constituted by four elements: earth, air, fire, water. To each of these elements a special quality was attributed, and, thus, one recognized four fundamental qualities, viz., cold, dryness, heat, and moisture. Man—the most perfect being—was regarded as a “microcosmos,” or small world in himself, that is, a sort of compendium of the whole universe, and his organism, in correlation to the four primordial elements of the universe, was believed to be constituted of four fundamental humors—the blood, the pituita or mucus, the yellow bile, and the black bile or atrabile.
Health, says Hippocrates,[46] depends on the just relation one to another of these principles, as to composition, force, and quantity, and on their perfect mixture; instead, when one of the four principles is wanting or in excess, or separates itself from the other components of the organism, one has a diseased condition. In fact, he adds, if some one humor flow from the body in a measure superior to its superabundance, such a loss will occasion illness. If, then, the humor separated from the others collect in the interior of the body, not only the part that remains deprived of its presence will suffer, but also that into which the flow takes place and where the engorgement is produced.
We have here briefly stated these generalities in order to make ourselves clearly understood in speaking hereafter on different subjects, whether with regard to Hippocrates or to other authors of the time.
In the works of Hippocrates there is not one chapter that treats separately of the affections of the teeth, just as there is no book in which he speaks separately of diseases of the vascular or nervous systems, and so on. There are, nevertheless, a great number of passages scattered throughout the Hippocratic collection from which we can deduce very clearly the great importance that the Father of Medicine ascribed to the teeth and to their maladies.
In the book De carnibus, the formation of the teeth is spoken of among other things. It might have been supposed that Hippocrates would have been ignorant of the fact that the formation of the teeth commences in the intra-uterine life. This, however, is not the case; in fact, he says: “The first teeth are formed by the nourishment of the fetus in the womb, and after birth by the mother’s milk. Those that come forth after these are shed are formed by food and drink. The shedding of the first teeth generally takes place at about seven years of age, those that come forth after this grow old with the man, unless some illness destroys them.”[47] And a little farther on one reads: “From seven to fourteen the larger teeth come forth and all the others that substitute those derived from the nourishment of the fetus in the womb. In the fourth septennial period of life there appear in most people two teeth that are called wisdom teeth.”[48]