Aretaeus of Cappadocia
(2nd century AD)
Greek physician from Cappadocia who practiced in Rome and Alexandria, led a revival of
Hippocrates' teachings, and is thought to have ranked second only to the father of
medicine himself in the application of keen observation and ethics to the art. In
principle he adhered to the pneumatic school of medicine, which believed that health was
maintained by "vital air," or pneuma. Pneumatists felt that an
imbalance of the four humours - blood, phlegm, choler (yellow bile), and melancholy (black
bile) - disturbed the pneuma, a condition indicated by an abnormal pulse. In practice,
however, Aretaeus was an eclectic physician, since he utilized the methods of several
different schools.
After his death he was entirely forgotten until 1554, when two of his manuscripts, On
the Causes and Indications of Acute and Chronic Diseases (4 vol.) and On the
Treatment of Acute and Chronic Diseases (4 vol.), both written in the Ionic Greek
dialect, were discovered. These works not only include model descriptions of pleurisy,
diphtheria, tetanus, pneumonia, asthma, and epilepsy but also show that he was the first
to distinguish between spinal and cerebral paralyses. He gave diabetes its name (from the
Greek word for "siphon," indicative of the diabetic's intense thirst and
excessive emission of fluids) and rendered the earliest clear account of that disease now
known.
|
