GREEK SCIENCE IN EARLY ATTIC PERIOD 



does refer to "nerves," to be sure, but apparently the 

 structures referred to are the tendons and ligaments, 

 rather than the nerves themselves. He was better 

 acquainted with the principal organs in the cavities of 

 the body, and knew, for example, that the heart is 

 divided into four cavities, two of which he supposed 

 to contain blood, and the other two air. 



His most revolutionary step was his divorcing of 

 the supernatural from the natural, and establishing 

 the fact that disease is due to natural causes and 

 should be treated accordingly. The effect of such an 

 attitude can hardly be over-estimated. The estab- 

 lishment of such a theory was naturally followed by a 

 close observation as to the course of diseases and the 

 effects of treatment. To facilitate this, he introduced 

 the custom of writing down his observations as he 

 made them the "clinical history" of the case. Such 

 clinical records are in use all over the world to-day, 

 and their importance is so obvious that it is almost 

 incomprehensible that they should have fallen into 

 disuse shortly after the time of Hippocrates, and not 

 brought into general use again until almost two thou- 

 sand years later. 



But scarcely less important than his recognition of 

 disease as a natural phenomenon was the importance 

 he attributed to prognosis. Prognosis, in the sense of 

 prophecy, was common before the time of Hippocrates. 

 But prognosis, as he practised it and as we under- 

 stand it to-day, is prophecy based on careful obser- 

 vation of the course of diseases something more than 

 superstitious conjecture. 



Although Hippocratic medicine rested on the belief 

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