Hippocrates in a World of Pagans and Christians - Softcover

Temkin, Owsei

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0801851297 ISBN 13: 9780801851292

Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995

Synopsis

In Hippocrates in a World of Pagans and Christians, Temkin shows how the perennial appeal of Hippocratic practice helped establish the relationship between scientific medicine and monotheistic religion. After the first century, Hippocratic medicine competed with powerful beliefs in religious healers from Asclepius to Jesus. Yet the ascendance of Christianity, Temkin explains, did not diminish the stature of Hippocratic science. Hippocrates, after all, saw nature as a divine and orderly power that caused growth and supplied "health." Hippocratic doctors could easily exchange the cult of Asclepius for the worship of Christ. But they could not sacrifice their belief in nature as the basis of health, disease, and therapy without renouncing their science. In compromise, the Church accepted Hippocratic medicine with the proviso that the Christian physician shun all pagan or heretical interpretations of naturalism―he must not, for example, believenature to be divine, the soul a mere function of the brain, or himself the true savior of the sick.

About this title

About the Author:

Owsei Temkin, who holds his medical degree from the University of Leipzig, is William H. Welch Professor Emeritus of the History of Medicine and former director of the Johns Hopkins Institute of the History of Medicine. Widely recognized as one of the leading authorities in his field, Dr. Temkin is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and recipient of the Prize for Distinguished Scholarship in the Humanities from the American Council of Learned Societies. Among his previous books is The Falling Sickness: A History of Epilepsy from the Greeks to the Beginning of Modern Neurology and The Double Face of Janus and Other Essays in the History of Medicine, the latter available from Johns Hopkins.

Review:

"The fascinating story of how Hippocrates and the Oath (which is unlikely to have been written by the great Coan doctor himself) became Christianized is the theme of this wise and humane book... Historians, theologians, and doctors alike will benefit from this clear, learned, and courteous exposition of an enthralling theme."

(Times Literary Supplement)

"The reader can only salute [Temkin] as one of the greatest humanist physicians of our time."

(New England Journal of Medicine)

About this edition

• Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
• Publication date: 1995
• ISBN 10: 0801851297
• ISBN 13: 9780801851292
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 336