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A Vatle

Publications and source records attributed to A Vatle.

6 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1996

[Asklepius. The compassionate god].

The ancient Greeks had many gods of healing, but none other achieved the popular esteem and adoration as Asklepios, son of Apollo, pupil of the centaur Cheiron. People made pilgrimages to the temples of Asklepios. The great Galenos himself reports that Asklepios appeared to him in a dream, bidding him to become a physician. For more than 800 years Asklepios was looked upon as the ideal physician, and after his death became the compassionate god, the friend of suffering humanity. The temple medicine of Asklepios was totally different from the rational practice of hippocratic physicians. A good doctor, however, needs not only a cool brain, but also a warm heart. In order to practice our craft to the benefit of our fellow human beings we need inspiration from other sources. But, like Sir William Osler (1749-1919) we should not try to mix the oil of religion with the waters of science. The last words of Socrates were "Crito, we owe a cock to Asklepios". Perhaps sacrificing a cock to Asklepios would be a good idea before our next patient enters the surgery?

Greece, Ancient↗
PubMed1993

[Hybris and crisis. The 19th century and transition to modern medicine].

Medicine declared itself to be a scientific discipline in the 19th century, and radically cut off its former links with the Hippocratic-Galenic tradition after the French Revolution in 1789. Owing to the great progress made in physics and chemistry, these disciplines came to be regarded as the only ones capable of solving medical problems. This is a reductionist view, in contrast to the vitalist view, which still believed in the existence of the Hippocratic physis or life force. Reductionist medicine led to great advances, though in the 19th century much of the wisdom of earlier times tended to be forgotten, to the detriment of medicine as a whole. It was believed that medicine and science could solve all the world's problems, a belief that, in modern times, has been abandoned as invalid. We now need a new medical anthropology, or rather medicine that is anthropological in its thinking.

Anthropology↗
PubMed1993

[Life is short, art is long... Ancient medicine and philosophy].

For more than 2000 years, nothing has had so great an influence on western medicine as the Hippocratic writings of Aristotle and Galen. However, the legacy from these writings tends to be ambiguous, and two-fold. Some of them are clearly empirical, and make no attempt to philosophize about ultimate or proximate causes of disease. These are generally regarded as "genuinely Hippocratic". Other writings are dogmatic (rationalistic), and try to explain health and disease on the basis of pre-conceived ideas of the four humours of the human body. This distinction between empiricists and dogmaticians can be traced through Alexandria and Rome to modern times. The doctrine of the four humours does not seem to have had a beneficial effect on medical practice in Ancient Greece and Rome.

Ceramics↗
PubMed1991

[Medical assimilation processes in the middle ages. From Gundishapur to Toledo].

The medicine of Ancient Greece has had an important impact on world medicine right up to modern times. One of the most interesting lines of development can be followed from about 1000 years after the death of Hippocrates (377 BC). At that time, Greek medicine and philosophy encountered the rising Islamic culture of the Arab world. It went through phases of reception and assimilation in the Middle East where, in addition to Baghdad, the city of Gundishapur is emphasized as an important centre of translation. Some hundred years later Latin Europe benefited from these Arab translations of medical and philosophical texts from Ancient Greece. After the Spanish city of Toledo had been reconquered from the Arabs, European scholars gathered there to translate the Greco-Arab manuscripts into Latin, the language of the learned in medieval Europe. The author tries to describe this course of events.

Asia↗