Hippocrates The First Ever Epidemiologist - 1854 Words

Hippocrates, the first ever epidemiologist, was born into a family of doctors on the island of Cos. He was a Greek physician who has been known as the â€Å"Father of Medicine†, for his intelligence and contributions to medicine, which included detailed observations of different diseases and its effects. He had the understanding that the environment in which one is surrounded by can be both positively and negatively affecting to one’s health. Hippocrates discovered the theory of the four humors; blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile. According to him, each humor corresponded with its own season, element, organ, and so on. The deficiency or imbalance of any one of these humors was thought to be the cause of disease and illness. He strongly†¦show more content†¦Galen began his medical school training at the young age of 16, at the medical school of Pergamum. He became a surgeon to the gladiators, where he gained fame and that led him to become the greatest physician of ancient Rome. He further advanced the medicinal foundation that Hippocrates had laid out. He had a yearning to gain knowledge about the human anatomy and how the organs function, and throughout his journey, he became a well-known anatomist. Galen has been considered to be the discoverer of pulse diagnoses, which is still heavily relied on. He founded the system of Galenic degrees, which assisted health care providers to evaluate the effects of medicines. His most famous formula was Theriac, which was a concoction conceived of sixty four different ingredients that he believed was a cure-all for many diseases. Galen performed experiments on living apes in order to further gain knowledge about anatomy and physiology. In doing so, he became one of the first physiologists to research kidney functions and the spinal cord. Galen’s most significant contribution was that of the pneuma, the necessary circulation of air within the body for normal systemic functioning of th e body’s organs. Galen strongly believed in the idea that form follows function, and that in order to understand any organ’s function, its form must be studied first. Anton van Leeuwenhoek was the first person to