Hélio Angotti Neto

Original title: A Medicina Antiga e a percepção do corpo em Hipócrates (c. 460-370 a. C.)

Published in Rhythms, expressions and representations of the body

Keywords: Galen, Hippocrates, History of Medicine, Human Body, Nature of Man.

Hippocratic medicine addresses the human body and its phenomena based on principles like the complexity and the balance of its components among themselves and its relations towards the nature. By means of logical formulations based on the composition of the human body by humors (blood, phlegm, yellow bile and dark bile) and, consequently, principles (heat, cold, dry and humid), the Hippocratic author seeks an explanation of phenomena such as epidemic diseases and nutritional disorders. Although the text is anachronistic, according to the current scientific perspective, there are epistemological principles obtained through contemplative science and empiricism that still have some value in relation to medical epistemology concerning human body comprehension.