Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume VIII.djvu/758

 740 HIPPOCRATES HIPPOLYTUS HIPPOCRATES, a Greek physician, called the "father of medicine," born in the island of Cos about 460 B. C., died in Larissa, Thessaly, be- tween 375 and 351. He studied medicine with his father Heraclides, who belonged to the order of Asclepiadse, or descendants of ^Escu- lapius, and afterward went to Athens to place himself under the instruction of Herodicus. He was a pupil of the philosopher Gorgias of Leontini, and perhaps also of Democritus of Abdera. Having practised his profession in Cos, he travelled through Thessaly, Macedonia, and Scythia, and finally returned to Thessaly, where he passed the close of his life. The es- teem in which he was held by his contempo- raries renders very improbable the story that, having charge of a library at Cos or Cnidus, he made too free a use of the writings of others, and burned the collection to conceal his pla- giarisms. Hippocrates raised medicine from a system of superstitious rites practised wholly by the priests to the dignity of a learned pro- fession. He referred diseases to two leading causes, climate and diet, and regulated the lat- ter to suit the changes of the former as well as the state of the patient. He taught that there were four humors in the human body, blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile, an undue preponderance of any of which was a proximate cause of sickness. With such an imperfect knowledge of anatomy as might have been looked for in an age when superstition forbade the dissection of dead bodies, he nevertheless had some acquaintance with the structure of the cranium and viscera ; but he was ignorant of the true relation between the arteries and the veins, and of the distinction bet ween nerves, tendons, and ligaments, speaks of the muscles simply as flesh, and held some singular views on generation. He drew his principles from careful observation, and was little given to theorizing. He relied perhaps too much on the healing power of nature, and the remedies by which he assisted her were mostly of a simple character. He practised bleeding, cup- ping, cauterization, and auscultation, and used several mineral and vegetable remedies, inclu- ding purgatives. He was particularly skilful in his diagnoses, and was the first to divide the course of a disease into three periods, for the last of which, called the crisis, he assigned cer- tain days known as the critical days. Of the 72 books which bear the name of Hippocra- tes, only the " Aphorisms," " Prognostics," " Epidemics," the treatise on "Air, Water, and Locality," the treatise on "Diet," and a few others, can be attributed with much proba- bility to the subject of this notice. Many were doubtless written by other physicians of the same name, of whom there were no fewer than seven among the Asclepiadae. Hippocra- tes wrote in the Ionic dialect, in a concise and sometimes obscure style. The best editions of his works are those of Foesius (fol., Frankfort, 1595) ; Van der Linden (2 vols. 8vo, Amsterdam, 1665); Mack (2 vols. fol., Vienna, 1743-'9); Littre (8 vols. 8vo, Paris, 1839-'53), with a French translation ; Upman (3 vols. 8vo, Ber- lin, 1847); Ermerius (Utrecht, 1862-'4); and Reinhold (Athens, 1864-'5). There are Eng- lish translations of the aphorisms and the trea- tises on " Air, Water, and Situation, upon Epi- demical Diseases and upon Prognostics," &c., by Francis Clifton, M. D. (8vo, London, 1734), and of the " Genuine Works " of Hippocrates by Adams (2 vols. 8vo, London, 1849). HIPPOCRENE (Gr. "nnrog, horse, and npf}vy, fountain), called by Persius Fons Cdballinus (the fountain of the horse), a fountain on Mount Helicon in Bceotia, owing its name to a myth according to which it was produced by Pega- sus striking the ground with his hoofs. (See HELICON.) HIPPODROME (Gr. ITTTTO^ horse, and dpfy/of, a course), the course where the horse and chariot races of the ancient Greeks took place. The hippodrome was differently constructed ac- cording to the nature of the ground. In level countries artificial mounds were raised on both sides of it ; in hilly districts a declivity was invariably chosen to form one side. The arti- ficial mounds, or mound and declivity as the case might be, were connected at the inner end by a semicircular barrier. At the other or outer extremity was the portico, where each chariot had its stall, and whence it issued as soon as the cord which crossed the entrance was removed. A bronze eagle and dolphin were used as a signal at the time of starting; the eagle was raised in the air, while the dol- phin was lowered. Along the sides of the hippodrome seats were erected for the specta- tors, special seats being reserved for the judges. The most celebrated of Hellenic hippodromes was that of Olympia. HIPPOLITUS, son of Theseus. See PILEDRA. HIPPOLYTFS, Saint, an ecclesiastical writer of the 3d century. Although his writings had been always numbered among those of the ante-Nicene fathers, his personal history had been surrounded with uncertainty until the middle of the present century. Two events, occurring at a distance of 300 years from each other, have served to clear away doubts and contradictions regarding his identity. In 1551, near the basilica of San Lorenzo in Rome, there was discovered an antique statue (now in the Vatican museum) belonging to the 6th century, which represented a bishop seated. The statue bears the inscription Hippolytus Eptecopm Portuensis, the very title given to him by Pru- dentius, who lived in the 5th century. On the back of the chair are the paschal canon or cycle introduced by Hippolytus in the Roman church, and a list of his works, among which are mentioned treatises " against heresies." In 1842 M. Mynoide Minas, commissioned by the French government, had brought back from the monastery of Mount Athos a mutilated Greek manuscript on cotton paper containing a "Refutation of all Heresies" (Kara iraou* Alpeceuv "EAey^of), which was published at Ox-